Why Teachers in Our Public Schools Should Not Be
Selected from the Ranks of Catholicism.
The Catholic world does not hesitate in declaring that our public
schools in this country are "Sinks of Iniquity," "Schools of Vice,"
and "Nurseries of Hell;" then why should the followers of Catholicism
be permitted to teach in our public schools?
This is a question that ought to vitally interest every Protestant
father and mother in this land, and the time is not far distant until
they will become interested, for just as sure as God reigns, the time
is not far in the future when Catholicism will endeavor to close up
the public schools of this land and establish her nurseries of
darkness and superstition in their stead.
If the public schools of this country are not good enough for the
children of Catholic parents, it seems to me that the Protestant
parents of this country should see to it that their children are _too
good_ to be taught by Catholic teachers.
Why is it that the Pope does not promulgate one of his "holy bulls"
and excommunicate those of his believers who take the money so freely
for their services from the public schools of this country?
Oh, no; the Pope and the priestcraft are perfectly willing, so long
as Protestants have the power to maintain those schools, that their
"jesuitical dupes" shall receive the money that is set aside for
these schools. My blood fairly boils with unbounded indignation when
I think of the hard, harsh, and ungodly slurs that Catholicism is
ever ready to throw at our public school system, and then see blind
Protestants help to place a Catholic teacher in one of our schools.
We propose to give facts and figures in this chapter that we hope
will open the eyes of drowsy, unconcerned Protestants, and help them
and their children to apply the brakes to their downward course, and
spike the guns of the Vatican with American manhood.
We hope by the time you are through with this chapter you will be
ready to make inquiries as to who is to teach your children in the
public schools. Let me ask you, Mr. Protestant, if you ever heard of
a Protestant teaching in a Catholic school? Oh, no! But then you will
fold your hands and be content to allow your children to be taught by
a man or woman who secretly despises the public school system. Shame!
Ten thousand times we exclaim you should be ashamed for not asserting
your American and God-given privileges of Protestantism gained for
you through the blood of your forefathers!
A general system of education, such as affords all alike an
opportunity to cultivate and expand the intellect, the poor as well
as the rich, is, beyond all question, one of the greatest blessings
that any nation can enjoy. Such a system had its birth in America
while it was yet comparatively free from the blighting influence of a
religio-political corporation whose whole history is one
uninterrupted and relentless war upon every system of education
which broadens the intellect and causes people to think. In America
was born the public free school system, and from the date of its
birth, in 1695, to the present, it has been the means of giving to
this nation its most renowned statesmen, jurists, patriots,
agriculturists, teachers and divines. It is one of the principal
agents by which the United States of America has been enabled to
advance to the first rank in all things that make a nation great.
But against this most sacred product of American liberty Rome lifts
her unholy hands. Against our schools she hurls her worst anathemas.
But it is our purpose in this chapter to let the Roman Catholic
Church speak for itself. Its language is plain and needs no
interpretation. Listen to Rome's damnable utterances:
"These public schools are devouring fires and pits of
destruction. They ought to go back to the devil, from whence
they came."--_The Freeman's Journal._
"If your son or daughter is attending a state school you may
be sure that you are violating your duty as Catholic parents
and conducting to the everlasting anguish and despair of your
child. Take it away. Let it rather never know how to write
its name than to become the bound and chained slave of
satan."--_The Shepherd of the Valley._
"The common schools of this country are sinks of moral
pollution and nurseries of hell."--_Chicago Tablet._
"The public or common school system is a swindle on the
people, an outrage on justice, a foul disgrace in matters of
morals, and should be abolished forthwith."--_New York
Tablet._
"The hideous fetish, called the public school, is only an
ugly idol after all."--_Colorado Catholic._
"It will be a glorious day for Roman Catholics in this
country when, under the laws of justice and morality, our
school system shall be shivered to pieces."--_Catholic
Telegraph._
"We hold education to be a function of the church and not of
the state, and in our case we do not and will not accept the
state as an educator."--_New York Tablet._
They love darkness rather than light because their deeds are
evil. Listen to the snarls of Rome's "dupes:"
"Unless you suppress the public school system as at present
conducted, it will prove the damnation of this
country."--_Father Walker._
"I frankly confess that the Catholics stand before the
country as the enemies of the public schools."--_Father
Phelan._
"The duty of all loyal, God-fearing Christian men (Roman
Catholics) then, I repeat it, is to make common cause against
this common foe."--_Father Gleason._
"The public schools have produced nothing but a godless
generation of thieves and blackguards."--_Priest Schauer._
"I would as soon administer the sacrament to a dog as to
Catholics who send their children to public
schools."--_Priest Walker._
"The public school system must be destroyed. It must be done
by stopping Bible reading, Psalm singing and eliminating
objectionable books."--_Priest Phelan._
"To rescue these little ones out of the grasp of that monster
(the public school), of that popular idol, is our
work."--_Bishop John Hennessy._
"We can have the United States in ten years. And I want to
give you three points for your consideration: The Negroes,
the Indians and the public schools."--_Bishop Ireland._
"Emphatically a social plague."--_Archbishop Perche._
"A ripe knowledge of the cathechism, minus Massachusetts
education, is preferable to her education, minus the
catechism."--_Cardinal Antonelli._
"The common school system of the United States is the worst
in the world."--_Cardinal Manning._
"The catechism alone is essential for the education of the
people."--_Cardinal Antonelli._
"We must take part in the elections. Move in solid mass in
every state pledged to sustain the integrity of the public
schools."--_Cardinal McCloskey._
"The Roman Church alone is endowed with power to educate the
young."--_Cardinal McCloskey._
"Education outside of the control of the Roman Catholic
Church is a damnable heresy."--_Pius IX._
"Public schools open to all children for the education of the
young should be under the control of the Romish Church, and
should not be subject to civil power, nor made to conform to
the opinions of the ages."--_Pope Pius IX._
"When I see them drag from me the children, the poor little
children, and give them an infidel education, it breaks my
heart."--_Pope Pius IX._
"It is desirable, therefore, venerable brethren, that in
concert with your colleagues in the Episcopate, your efforts
and your zeal guard Catholic children from frequenting
schools in which their religious instruction is neglected and
open danger incurred of spiritual loss. Therefore we
vehemently desire, as has already been intimated to you by
the propaganda, that in approaching Episcopal meetings you
carefully discuss the measure that may best help to attain
this end. We wish you also to use earnest efforts that the
civil magistrates, who know full well that nothing is more
advantageous to the commonwealth than religion should
provide, by the enactment of wise laws, that the office of
teachings, which is carried on at the expense of the public,
including consequently the contributions of Catholics, should
contain nothing that stands in the way of their conscience or
runs foul of their religion."--_Pope Leo XIII._
We could go on and quote diabolical denunciations of our public
schools from hundreds and thousands of Catholic officials, as the
followers of Rome make no "bones" of declaring their animosity
towards the public schools of this country, and they are only waiting
for the time to arrive when they will be able to wipe from the face
of the earth every vestige of our public schools, and place in their
stead their parochial schools, which are nothing more nor less than
"mills of ignorance" and "institutions of superstition."
An institution of learning is something that is not desired by
Catholicism, for whenever you educate you destroy the doctrines of
Romanism, as the hosts of Catholicism cannot stand the searchlight of
wisdom, for whenever you educate the followers of Catholicism they
become disgusted with their dogmas of damnation.
Our public schools are the bulwarks of this government, and all that
we are to-day, and all that we may expect to be in the future, has
come and must come by and through the public schools, which are the
dearest institutions that adorn this country.
There must be no sectarianism, whether political or religious, in our
public schools, but there must be truth and duty there. The
unchanging and undying maxim of moral rectitude should be taught to
every child. It is not enough that a boy or girl should be educated
mentally. The safety of our nation, as well as his own usefulness and
happiness, demand that they should be trained to habits of
truthfulness and develop a fine standard of honor. They should be
inspired to form exalted ideals of manhood and womanhood, charity,
rectitude and godliness, and made strong in the resolution to defend
the truth, which is never found in parochial schools, as the Catholic
doctrine always tends to humiliate her followers.
The time has come when the pupils of our public schools must be
taught the love of country, and Catholicism does not teach this, but
the reverse. The children of this nation must learn to love their
native land. To whom shall we look for the inculcation of those
patriotic sentiments which should inspire the heart of every American
citizen? Not to Catholicism, by any means, but to the three hundred
thousand teachers of our public schools.
Over every school house in hamlet and city, in country and town, in
the North and in the South, in the East and in the West, the American
flag should kiss the morning breeze. Place it where twenty millions
of children will see it every day, and learn to love it as the emblem
of all that is great and good. It will represent to us and to all the
world, in a new and peculiar manner, the great fundamental truth that
the bulwark of our liberties is in the education of our people.
The war of the revolution was fought to establish our nationality.
Incalculable blood and treasure have been spent to establish and keep
our national life intact, and the national policy with relation to
our public schools is part and parcel of that all-absorbing
determination to secure the perpetuity of the state. Men make better
citizens for being educated. The higher the popular intellect is
raised the more intelligent and independent will be its vote. The
stronger the source of government, the stronger the government. If
the "bayonets that think" are the most potent, the "ballots that
think" are the most beneficent.
Every victory which our nation has won has been a victory of the
public schools and a death knock to Catholicism. They have been the
nursery not only of our statesmen, but of our patriots and soldiers.
They are an American institution and are destined to live as long as
the republic survives. There is no other American institution that
American people would sooner fight for and die for than that which
secures an educated and intelligent nationality. Let us maintain
inviolate our public schools to the end that our nation may ever be
the home of liberty, "the land of benedictions."
In the unbounded universe of God's domain there are manifold
diversities, and yet there is an essential unity that binds the world
together; there is a common point where all matter unites.
As there is great freedom and diversity permitted in the unity of
nature, so, in our country of religious and political freedom, we
must grant the greatest latitude possible to the individual
conscience in personal, religious and civil rights consistent with
good government. But that there must be a code of morality common to
all as the basis of our civilized jurisprudence, in which the rights
of all center or unite and are equally protected, every reasonable
mind must admit. But where do we get our ideas of what is morally
right, and what is morally wrong, as the basis of our common law and
jurisprudence? What book or books contain the best code of morals? We
answer, the Bible. For the excellency of the morality of the Bible
has been admitted by the most distinguished men who have opposed its
supernatural revelation, among whom are Gibbon, Byron, Carlyle, Lord
Bollingbroke, Napoleon Bonaparte, Goethe and Renan. Thomas Jefferson,
speaking of Christ as a teacher, said: "He set forth the sublime
ideas of the Supreme Being, aphorisms and precepts of the purest
morality."
Catholicism says: "No Bible shall be taught in the public schools,"
but demands that she be allowed to proclaim her dogmas.
Benjamin Franklin, five weeks before his death, said of Christ: "I
think His system of morals, and His religion, as He left them, are
the best the world ever saw or is likely to see." The services of the
Bible in behalf of human rights and freedom, and in reforming and
purifying jurisprudence and politics, have been recognized by many of
the most distinguished historians, jurists and statesmen.
As the makers of our laws and the founders of our government have
accepted the moral code of the Bible as the basis of our
jurisprudence, and have forbidden the union of church and state, and
have left every citizen free to "worship God according to the
dictates of his own conscience," so long as he does not interfere
with the rights of others or violate the moral code common to all
citizens, for the law cannot allow a person to murder or steal, or
burn human sacrifices, or be a polygamist, or commit any other public
crime, even if the dictates of his conscience should lead him into
such a form of religion, because the moral code of the Bible is the
basis of our jurisprudence, and it forbids such things.
Therefore, we demand that the "book of books" be kept where the
rising generation shall come under its moral teaching without party
or sectarian comment, so that all may understand the fundamental
principles upon which the science of our common law rests, and thus
one of the objects of the order is "to maintain the public school
system of the United States and to prevent sectarian interference
therewith, and upholding the reading of the Holy Bible therein."
The argument that the reading of the Bible in the public school
should be abolished because it is objectionable to the conscience of
some comes only from the Church of Rome, and applies with equal force
against the moral code of jurisprudence, because it is objectionable
to the conscience of the anarchist, and the conscience of the
anarchist is just as sacred and entitled to as much respect, under
the law, in this free country of ours as the conscience of any one
else.
We have just as much right to take the moral code out of our common
jurisprudence as to take the Bible out of our public schools, because
the moral code of the Bible is the moral code of our common law.
We desire the Bible to be kept in the school as the standard of moral
truth, as the dictionary is kept there as the standard of words and
their definitions. As the unabridged dictionary contains all the
words of the English language, so the Bible contains all the truths
of Christianity. Every book has a part of the words of the
dictionary, so every Christian creed has a part of the truths of the
Bible. As there never was a book written that contained all of the
words of the dictionary, so there never was a creed written that
contained all the truths of the Bible. Therefore, as the dictionary
and not the books is the standard for words and their meaning, so the
Bible, and not the creeds, is the standard of moral truth. A man can
take the words in the dictionary and write a bad book, but that is
not the fault of the dictionary, but of the man. A person may take
passages of Scripture and misapplied truths and write a bad creed,
but that is not the fault of the Bible, but of the creed-maker. But
every man who takes the Bible as a whole has a complete standard of
moral truths.
It is claimed that the Bible should not be read in the school because
there are passages that are not proper to be read before children, or
a promiscuous audience, but this is only claimed by Catholicism. Yes,
and there are words in the dictionary that it would be just as
improper to use and define before children or a promiscuous audience
as any passage in the Bible. Therefore, it would be just as
reasonable to exclude the dictionary as the Bible from the school
room on this hypocritical argument in favor of false modesty.
The man's conscience that will object to the reading of the Bible in
the public school will ultimately object to the moral code of our
jurisprudence, and such a conscience is dangerous to our form of
government, inimical to the best interests of society and good
government, as has been clearly demonstrated in the past. The Mormons
claimed the right under our constitution to live in polygamy, as that
was their religion and the way they served God according to the
"dictates of their own conscience." But the supreme court decided
they could not worship God according to the dictates of their
conscience if their worship was a violation of the moral code common
to all. Thus all must submit to the moral code irrespective of their
individual conscience. So the Bible should be read in the public
schools, irrespective of the conscience of any, until the majority of
the government of the people, for the people and by the people shall
say: "Away with your Bible, away with your Sabbath, away with your
Christian jurisprudence, and give us infidel, revolutionary France,
or lawless anarchy, or the inquisition of the dark ages!"
Our public school is the mill that is to grind out this standard of
morality, knowledge and patriotism common to all. Hence we must have
the Bible in it as the standard of morality, and primary principles
of literature, science and art, the standard of knowledge, and the
American flag and its essential principles as the standard of
patriotism. Our American school system is like a great paper mill,
into which are cast rags of all kinds and colors, but which lose
their special identity and come out white paper, having a common
identity. So we want the children of the state, of whatever
nationality, color or religion, to pass through this great moral,
intellectual and patriotic mill, or transforming process, and thus
lose their foreign peculiarities and come out not as Germans, Irish,
English, Huns or Poles, but as Americans, having the common identity
of morality, knowledge and patriotism that is essential to true
American citizenship and good government stamped upon their minds,
and when they pass through this mill of purification they then begin
to lose confidence in the heathenish doctrines of Catholicism.
In a government where the people are the rulers, intelligence and
education are necessary to maintain the nation's stability. Under
this belief, the public school system of the United States was
founded.
Following are expressions of prominent Americans on the general
subject of popular education:
President Hays: "I am firmly convinced that the subject of popular
education deserves the earnest attention of the people of the whole
country, with a view to wise and comprehensive action by the
government of the United States. The means at the command of the
local and state authorities are in many cases wholly inadequate to
deal with the question. The magnitude of the evil to be eradicated is
not, I apprehend, generally and fully understood."
President Garfield: "Next in importance to freedom and justice is
popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be
permanently maintained. Its interests are intrusted to the state and
to the voluntary action of the people. Whatever help the nation can
justly afford should be generously given to aid the states in
supporting common schools, but it would be unjust to our people and
dangerous to our institutions to apply any portion of the revenue of
the nation of the states to the support of sectarian schools. The
separation of the church and the state in everything relating to
taxation should be absolute."
Dr. Strong: "Free schools are one of the cornerstones of our
government."
Washington's Farewell Address: "Promote them as an object of primary
importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In
proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public
opinion, it is essential that public opinions should be enlightened."
Calhoun: "In proportion as a people are ignorant, stupid, debased,
corrupt, exposed to violence within and danger without, the power
necessary for a government to possess in order to preserve society
against anarchy and destruction becomes greater and greater, and
individual liberty, less and less, until the lowest condition is
reached, when absolute and despotic power becomes necessary on the
part of the government and individual liberty extinct."
The church of Rome wants to rule by tyranny so that she can force her
"dupes" to do her bidding.
No subject could be of more interest to American citizens to-day than
that of foreign immigration to America. Every section of the country
has felt, to some degree, the demoralizing effect of the free
admission of aliens, unsuited morally and mentally for participating
in a government of the people.
The consensus of opinion among all classes of good citizens is that
some restrictive measures should be adopted, and this can be effected
only by popular agitation and demand.
Read what some prominent men of the country have said on the subject:
Hon. Wm. E. Chandler: "We should prepare ourselves with wisdom and
vigor to enforce completely such laws of exclusion as we have
adopted. We should throw our strongest force into a stricter
administration of those laws so that no man and no family shall pass
through the Ellis Island doors, or into any seaport, or across the
Canadian or Mexican borders, who is a pauper or likely to become
such. One method of stricter administration should be the requirement
that all immigrants before leaving their own countries shall obtain
consular certificates abroad, showing their right to enter the United
States."
Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge: "You ask me for a few words on the subject of
immigration. My opinion has been stated at length, both in speeches
in Congress and in review articles, but I am very glad to restate it
in the briefest possible form. I think that immigration to this
country is increasing too fast on one hand and deteriorating on the
other. We are ready to welcome every honest immigrant who comes to
make a home and become an American citizen, but I believe that the
present immigration ought to be sifted and restricted much more than
it is, both as a protection to the quality of our citizenship and to
the rates of wages to our workingmen."
Hon. Robert P. Porter, Superintendent of Census: "The unrestricted
admission of the diseased, half-fed swarms of helpless humanity from
the purlieus of Southern European cities is the dangerous phase of
immigration. If continued, it will prove a curse and blight to
American citizenship and American institutions. There was a time in
our history when the better class of foreign immigrants and our own
population was able to swallow up the less desirable class, but it
takes no great discernment now to see the congested spots here and
there on our body politic. In this lies the danger. Such a change in
the character of immigration as herein shown cannot have taken place
without materially affecting the entire immigration problem, and the
sooner our statesmen get to the bottom of the present condition of
affairs, the better for the republic."
Rev. Josiah Strong, D.D.: "It is immigration which has fed fat the
liquor power, and there is a liquor vote. Immigration furnishes most
of the victims of Mormonism, and there is a Mormon vote. Immigration
is the strength of the Catholic Church, and there is a Catholic vote.
Immigration is the mother and nurse of American anarchy, and there is
to be an anarchist vote. Immigration tends strongly to the cities and
gives to them their political complexion, and there is no more
serious menace to our civilization than our rabble-ruled cities."
Samuel Gompers, President American Federation of Labor: "It almost
grieves me even to recommend the slightest restriction to the full
and free immigration of anyone who desires to escape from the
iniquitous conditions from which he may suffer, but the progress of
our civilization is hanging in the balance, and intelligent and brave
men should not be afraid to express themselves to secure us against
results which may be appalling. Unrestricted immigration injures the
people of our country and does no good to the people of other
countries. It injures all."
A.S. Draper: "I would hang the flag in every school room, and I would
spend an occasional hour in singing our best patriotic songs, in
declaiming the masterpieces of our national oratory, and rehearsing
the proud story of our national life."
Francis Marion: "Men will always fight for their government according
to their sense of its value. To value it right, they must understand
it. This they cannot do without education."
Winship: "The public school is the one force, is the only force, that
can unify all classes and conditions of society. Here we have the
children of the nation in their entirety, and we can, if we will,
teach them in the schools so much of the grandeur of our possession,
of the heroic in our history, of the brilliant in our prosperity, of
the fascinating in our traditions, that the fathers of the future
will be willing to vote for and die, if necessary, for the American
idea; that the mothers of the future will teach their sons to develop
our resources by industry, to honor the active duties of private and
public system, because it lies at the foundation of our national
existence."
Where does the vicious element which is found in this country come
from, and to what church does it belong? Ah, 98 per cent of those
whom we call anarchists can trace their origin from foreign
countries, and they are always identified with the Roman Catholic
Church.
Wherever you find a national disturbance, and wherever you find the
spirit of anarchy in this country, you will find a spot where Roman
Catholicism exists, as her teachings are anarchistic, as she teaches
her followers a doctrine that is as sure to lead to anarchy as water
is to flow down hill.
Catholicism teaches her children that our public schools are "plague
spots" and "nurseries of hell," and impresses upon their minds that
education, in a broad sense, is not essential, and also teaches them
that they must look to the priestcraft for their education, and at
the same time the priestcraft is instructed by the Pope of Rome that
a broad-gauge education is not permissible to be given to the
followers of Catholicism, and the Pope of Rome teaches her bishopric
and her priestcraft that they must fight the public school system,
and in its stead erect the parochial schools of Rome, which are
nothing more nor less than schools of dogmas, and these dogmas are
incubators of anarchy, for without education and without love of
country, anarchy is as certain to follow as the day is certain to
follow night, but still Protestantism stands idly by and allows
Catholicism to villify her institutions, and at the same time permits
Catholicism to place her followers in a position to draw salaries
from the institutions which they despise and hate with the venom of
hell.
It is my object and my aim to arouse Protestantism to a sense of
their duty, and if I can do this I will feel that I have accomplished
a task that will eventually call forth the plaudits of the American
people, for as sure as God reigns, just that sure our public schools
will be crushed out of existence by Catholicism unless Protestant
America raises her voice and her strong arm in defense of our public
school system, and against the encroachment of the damnable and
diabolical doctrines of Catholicism.
Our greatest American statesmen, our greatest American patriots, our
greatest American thinkers, our wisest and most loyal citizens, and
our grandest old mothers are Protestants, and born of Protestant
stock; then why should we hesitate to denounce this anarchistic demon
of Rome, when we know what she thinks of our American institutions,
and when we are absolutely certain that if it was within her power
she would crash into dust everything that is near and dear to
Protestantism?
Arouse, ye Protestant hosts, and buckle on the armor of your
forefathers and march out in a solid body of Protestant warriors and
fight to the death the encroachment of Romish rule and force her back
into the trenches of her degradation, and compel her to remain within
the border of the countries which she has desolated by her hellish
dogmas, and purge the shores of the "home of the brave and the land
of the free" of this scarlet-robed hag, who would paralyze our
American institutions which are near and dear to every pure American,
both man and woman, who dwells beneath the folds of the American
flag.
[Illustration: "HEATHENISH PRACTICES."
"A dupe kissing the supposed bone of "Saint Ann"
to cure Rheumatism."]