Year: 1876

destroy them. Americans read our Decla-
ration and learn our sentiments:


l. The Catholic Bishops and Clergy have
no intention whatever to interfere with your
as you wish; we will never say a word
against it, and we will leave to yourself the
care of your own children. -


2. You wish your schools to be free from
all religious influence; in other words, you
wish them not to be sectional or sectarian in
any sense. The Episeopate of the Catholic
Church says in this regard Do with your
children as you please.


8. We Catholics, on the other hand, are
under the conviction that children are sent
to school not only to be formed into citizens,
but also, and especially, to be educated into
good men and good Christians, and our
Church belives, in all earnest, with Guizot,
the celebrated Protestant statesman of
France, that education can by no means be
separated from religious influence. There
fore, while leaving your schools and their
management peacefully in your own hands,
we claim the right of having schools Of our
own, from which religion shall not be ex-
cluded, but be allowed to exercise its salu-
tary influence on our youth.


4. We claim the right on the plea that we
are q religious body in this free country,
whose Constitution most solemnly guaran-
lCCs tuC llCc c4cIClsc VI UcllCl W us Cltl-
zens, and the fullest personal freedom in
regard to the dictates of conscience. Now,
there is not a more essential or more
precious liberty than that of parents to edu-
cate their children in the manner which
they think will make them happy for time
and for eternity. Therefore, the Catholic
people, with logical sequence, claim the
protection of the government, so as not to
be molested in their schools.


5. We say protection. No doubt Justice
and equality would entitle the Catholic peo-
pie OF this country to exemption from tax
alton for the support of other schools, or to
a share of the public school fund in proper
tion to the number of pupils in their schools.
But even this claim we are disposed to waive
| in your favor.


6. You can have no reason to fear the
effect of our system on the Commonwealth,
because experience has proved that the stu
dents of our colleges, academies, and schools
are as good and as useful citizens as those
who come out of your Institutions. And if
in every other branch of human action you
admit the principle of competition, ard be.
lieve in its beneficial influence, why should
you exclude it from education, and deprive
yourselves of the benefit which emulation
would produce?


z. We fear that, notwithstanding this sim
| C6It, DItclbt anu sOltIun utCldIdLlOu, butIc
will yet be found fanatical men and politi-
cal speakers who will endeayor to excite
their hearers by asserting the imaginary
opposition of the Catholic clergy to the
Public Schools of the country. 1t is one of
the misfortunes of this world thati it can not
get rid of men who, like Don Quixote, are
perpetually fighting against windmills un-
der the plea of imminent dangers to their
fellow-men. Such men do not wish to know
the truth, and, though we repeat it thou
sand times that we do not oppose their
schools any more than we adore images, or
trust more in the Blessed Virgin than in the
merits of Christ, they will athousand times
renew the charge and swear that we do.
We do not expect to silence such men; but
we appeal to all fair-minded citizens not to
be LED astray by the bigoted or ignorant
ranting OF men who would blind them for
their own political ends.


We ask no favor or privilege. All we ask
is to be let alone in following the dictates
of our conscience, and you can not refuse
this without undermining the Constitution,
and preparing the way for the loss of the
same freedom for yourselves. a--s.-zls.s.-.


Americans, we are w11i1ng 10 raii With
you under the flag and Constitution and
maintain them with our blood, as we have
done heretofore. But we can not help fear
ing tnaI Dotn are IN peru Wnue large mum
Der of our fellow citizens, in and out OF Office,
allow themselves to be influenced by fanas
tical or self-interested politicians, or by
infdel and revolutionary foreigners who
come to us with the proud pretension oi
teaching us what republican government
is, about which they know nothing them
selves. All we ask is that you will not &c
to such men to learn what we aim at, what
are our sentiments. Give us fair hearing
and receive this declaration as the sincere
expression of our true principles, which We
make before God and men, actuated by ne
other motive than one desire for the welfare
and progress and perpetuity of our country
such as the fathers OF '76 made it, and in
tended that it should remain.


Your sincere friend and lover of tn,
American Republic,


JOHN B. PURCELL,


Archbishop of Cincinnati.