attendance. Such, in its substantial features, is the plan at no distant day to be proposed as a compromise between the contending parties.

"The advantages of this scheme are manifest. It will involve the state in no additional expenditure. It will indeed save something, for the association will provide the rooms and the text books. Secular instruction will be furnished at the expense of the State. It will be furnished under the direction of the State. At the same time an opportunity will be afforded to the Church to instruct its own children in religious truth. Thus religious and secular instruction will go hand in hand. Protestantism and Romanism will live in peace. The lion and the lamb will lie down together, and a little child shall lead them.

"These advantages are so manifest that it is no wonder that the coöperation of some of the more unprejudiced Protestants is confidently counted on.

"But there are also some other advantages in this plan which are not so manifest to the public. These advantages have been carefully considered in the secret councils of the holy Fathers. They must pardon us if, despite their modesty, we reveal these advantages also.

"The Roman Catholic church is served by a self-denying band of unmarried brothers and sisters.' Who more appropriate to undertake the education of the children of the Church? It is intended to assign these brothers and sisters' to the work of popular education. They are men and women of unquestionable culture. They will easily pass the examination of the Boards of Education. In many, if not most of the local Boards of New York city, the majority is already Roman Catholic. These Boards will not be hard on the servants of their own Divine Mistress-their Mother Church. If now and then a candidate fails to pass examination, the Church, which is preeminent in the virtue of meekness, will know how gracefully to yield. Another 'sister' will be easily provided. These 'brothers and sisters' have already with commendable zeal consecrated their all to the Church. Their salaries will not be their own. Unmarried, they have neither wives nor children to support. They live in the 'homes' which the Church provides for them. The money which the State pays to them they will hand over to the Church. This money the Church purposes to employ religiously in the work of education. The salaries paid to Protestant teachers will barely support them. There will be no surplus among the Protestants to expend in school-rooms and school-appa

ratus. The Roman Catholic school-house will rival, in its adaptation to the ends of the Church, the Roman Catholic cathedral. That great class who are only Protestants because they are not Roman Catholics, will be gathered into these schools. In a few years the State will be supporting with its funds the Roman Catholic Church, to educate in its creed the children of the Republic.

"This is the plan; these are advantages, as they are seen by Roman Catholic eyes. Can it be possible that Protestants will decline the feast thus skillfully prepared for them? Could anything do more to prove the singular perversity of the Protestant community than the refusal to give its educational interests into the hands of that power, whose educational efforts have been so brilliantly successful in France, in Italy, in Spain, and in the South American Republics? [See Ch. XXV.]

"We beg our Roman Catholic brethren to unfold this plan, which they have done themselves the injustice to discuss only in secret. The American people need only to understand it thoroughly to appreciate it. We beg leave to assure the holy Fathers of our cordial coöperation in making their benign purpose fully understood."

39

CHAPTER XXV.

RELATION OF THE SYSTEM TO GENERAL INTELLIGENCE AND
PROSPERITY.

The general intelligence and prosperity of a people are closely connected with the diffusion of knowledge among them by means of schools and books and newspapers.

That the system of public schools which prevails in our Northern States is of Protestant origin is thus conceded by "The Catholic World" in its number for April, 1870:

".... It is to the credit of the American people that they have,at least the Calvinistic portion of them,-from the earliest colonial times, taken a deep interest in the education of the young. The American Congregationalists and Presbyterians, who were the only original settlers of the eastern and middle colonies, have from the first taken the lead in education, and founded, sustained, and conducted most of our institutions of learning. . . . Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that our present system of common schools at the public expense owes its origin to Congregationalists and the influence they have exerted.... The system originated in New England, strictly speaking, in Massachusetts. . . .”

Americans commonly regard the general diffusion of education and knowledge among the people as a positive blessing of our land; but let us hear "The Catholic World" for April, 1871:

"Education is the American hobby-regarded, as uneducated or poorly educated people usually regard it, as a sort of panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to. We ourselves, as Catholics, are as decidedly as

any other class of American citizens in favor of universal education, as thorough and extensive as possible-if its quality suits us. We do not, indeed, prize so highly as some of our countrymen appear to do the simple ability to read, write, and cipher.... Some men are born to be leaders, and the rest are born to be led. . . . The best ordered and administered state is that in which the few are well educated and lead, and the many are trained to obedience, are willing to be directed, content to follow, and do not aspire to be leaders. . . . In extending education and endeavoring to train all to be leaders, we have only extended presumption, pretension, conceit, indocility, and brought incapacity to the surface.... We believe the peasantry in old Catholic countries, two centuries ago, were better educated, although for the most part unable to read or write, than are the great body of the American people to day. They had faith, they had morality, they had a sense of religion, they were instructed in the great principles and essential truths of the Gospel, were trained to be wise unto salvation, and they had the virtues without which wise, stable, and efficient government is impracticable. We hear it said, or rather read in the journals, that the superiority the Prussian troops have shown to the French is due to their superior education. We do not believe a word of it. We have seen no evidence that the French common soldiers are not as well educated and as intelligent as the Prussian.' The superiority is due to the fact that

1 This will seem to Protestants the embodiment of two proverbs, neither of which is in very good repute: 1. "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." 2. "Ignorance is the mother of devotion."

2 No fact is better established than that the Prussian system of public education is the most efficient to be found on the continent of Europe. Attendance at school from the age of 6 to 14 is enforced by law. The present system of public schools in France for primary education is especially due to the Protestant Guizot, who was minister of public instruction at the time, and was instituted by law June 28, 1833. Since that time the gross ignorance which formerly prevailed among the community has to a great extent disappeared, for in 1863 there were 116 pupils for every 1000 inhabitants; but in Prussia about that time (1864) nearly 154 in every 1000 were in the primary schools. The French minister of war reported in 1866 that 30 per cent. of the conscripts were unable to read. Of the Prussian recruits in 1864-5, there were 75 per cent. " satisfactorily instructed," which can not mean less than able to read and write. It is further stated, that the French Catholics" rarely visit school after 11 or 12 years of age, Protestants commonly remaining until about 16." France is distinctively and overwhelmingly Catholic, while Prussia is well known to be Protestant.

the Prussian officers were better educated in their profession, were less overweening in their confidence of victory, and maintained better and severer discipline in their armies, than the French officers. The Northern armies in our recent civil war had no advantage in the superior education of the rank and file over the Southern armies, where both were equally well officered and commanded.'. ... Good officers, with an able general at their head, can make an efficient army out of almost any materials..... For the great mass of the people, the education needed is not secular education, which simply sharpens the intellect, and generates pride and presumption, but moral and religious education, which trains up children in the way they should go, which teaches them to be honest and loyal, modest and unpretending, docile and respectful to their superiors, open and ingenuous, obedient and submissive to rightful authority, parental or conjugal, civil or ecclesiastical; to know and keep the commandments of God and the precepts of the church; and to place the salvation of the soul before a'l else in life. This sort of education can be given only by the church or under her direction and control: and as there is for us Catholics only one church, there is and can be no proper education for us not given by or under the direction and and control of the Catholic church. . .

Orestes A. Brownson, LL.D., has been a leading champion of the Roman Catholic church since he joined it in 1844. "Brownson's Quarterly Review" ably defended the Roman Catholic doctrine for about 20 years from 1844 onward, was indorsed by all the bishops, and was regularly republished in London. In the number for January, 1862, it spoke thus on the quality of the Roman Catholic schools and colleges:

...

. . . They practically fail to recognize human progress. . . . As far as we are able to trace the effect of the most approved Catholic

1 Candid and judicious persons, who are acquainted with the facts, will certainly deny the truth of this assertion, and regard it as utterly rash and reckless.

2 Undoubtedly; but would it not be more difficult to make an efficient army out of ignorant and prejudiced Hindoos and Hottentots than out of intelligent Europeans or Americans? And, other things being equal, is not a well-officered and ably-commanded army of intelligent Europeans or Americans more efficient and formidable than a like army of ignorant Hindoos or Hottentots or Indians? If so, then intelligence is worth something, and the proverb is true that "knowledge is power."