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people at large are Christians; but they are divided among themselves. Yes, they are divided. Not to speak of other differences, there is a radical and vital one between Protestantism of all forms and Catholicism. I am not arguing. I am relating facts. Wellmeaning and well-deserving men have proposed as a remedy in this instance, that there be taught in connection with the schools a common Christianity. This will not do. Catholics in fidelity to their principles cannot accept a common Christianity. What comes to them not bearing on its face the stamp of Catholicity, is Protestant in form and in implication, even if it be Catholic in substance. This being the settled fact, American Catholics will not, of course, inflict Catholicism upon non-Catholic or Protestant children, and with similar fair-mindedness American Protestants will not inflict Protestantism upon Catholic children. Some compromise becomes necessary. Is it not ten thousand times better that we make the compromise rather than allow secularism to triumph and own the country?

I turn to all Americans

secularists as well as Christian believers - and I address them in the name of American citizenship. We are a practical people, and when we find facts before us, whether we like or dislike them, we deal with them with an eye to the general good. Dissatisfaction does exist with the state school because of its exclusion of religion. The dissatisfaction will exist so long as no change is made. It is founded on conscience.

Is not the fact of this dissatisfaction sufficient that Americans set to work earnestly and with a good will to remove its cause? The welfare of the country demands peace and harmony among citizens. Let us put an end to the constant murmurings and bitter recriminations with which our school war fills the air. Since we are proud of our state school and prize its advantages, let us make an effort that all the children of the people enjoy those advantages. If there be a public institution, as the state school, supported by all the people, avowedly for the benefit of all the people, let it be such that all may use it. Be there no taxation without representation in the enjoyment of the benefits thereof. Let us most studiously avoid raising barriers to the use of those benefits, and in a most especial manner, such barriers that the opposition to them comes in the name of conscience.

I invoke the spirit of American liberty and American institutions. Our views, perhaps, differ diametrically from those of others of our fellow-citizens; we may deem their views utterly wrong. Still, is not the duty of Americans that of peace and concession, so that others be as undisturbed in their conscience as we are in ours? Does it matter that we happen to be in the majority?

Brute numerical force may be legal; it is not justice, it is not the spirit of America. Minorities have rights, and as speedily as it is possible with the public weal should the majority recognize them. It is no honor to America that ten millions or more be compelled by law to pay taxes for the support of schools to which their conscience forbids access, and to be furthermore, in order to be conscientious, compelled by their zeal for the instruction of their children, to build school-houses of their own, and pay their own teachers. It is no honor for the remaining fifty millions to profit for themselves of the taxes paid by the ten millions. The cry that the state schools are open to them, if they silence their consciences, is not a defense that will hold before the bar of justice. The aspect of the case is the more serious when we consider that those ten millions are largely among the poorer classes of the population, and that they are sincerely and loyally desirous to obtain the benefits of the state school, if only the obstacles be removed.

It is no honor to the American republic that she be more than any other nation foremost in efforts to divorce religion from the schools. No country goes in this direction so far as ours. We have entered upon a terrible experiment; the very life of our civilization and of our country is at stake. I know not how to account for this condition of things, passing strange in America. Neither the genius of our country nor its history gives countenance to it. The American people are naturally reverent and religious. Their laws and public observances breathe forth the perfume of religion. The American school, as it first reared its log walls amid the villages of New England, was religious through and through. The present favor to a non-religious school is, I verily believe, the thoughtlessness of a moment, and it will not last.

I solve the difficulty by submitting it to the calm judgment of the country. No question is insoluble to Americans which truth and justice press home to them. Other countries, whose civilization we do not despise, have found a solution. I instance but England and Prussia. We are not inferior to them in practical legislation and the spirit of peaceful compromise. Suggestions of mine must be necessarily crude in form, and local and temporary in application. I will, however, speak them. I would permeate the regular state school with the religion of the majority of the children of the land, be it as Protestant as Protestantism can be, and I would, as they do in England, pay for the secular instruction given in denominational schools according to results; that is, each pupil passing the examination before state officials, and in full accordance with the state program, would secure to his school the cost of the tuition of a pupil in the state school. This is not pay

ing for the religious instruction given to the pupil, but for the secular instruction demanded by the state, and given to the pupil as thoroughly as he could have received it in the state school.

Another plan: I would do as Protestants and Catholics in Poughkeepsie and other places in our own country have agreed to do to the greatest satisfaction of all citizens and the great advancement of educational interests. In Poughkeepsie the city school board rents the buildings formerly used as parish schools, and from the hour of 9 A.M. to that of 3 P.M. the school is in every particular a state school teachers engaged and paid by the board, teachers and pupils examined, state books used, the door always open to superintendent and members of the board. There is simply the tacit understanding that so long as the teachers in those schools, Catholic in faith, pass their examinations and do their work as cleverly and as loyally as other teachers under the control of the board, teachers of another faith shall not be put in their places. Nor are they allowed to teach positive religion during school hours. This is done outside the hours for which the buildings are leased to the board. The state, it is plain, pays not one cent for the religious instruction of the pupils. In the other schools Protestant devotional exercises take place in fullest freedom before the usual school hour.

Do not tell me of difficulties of detail in the working-out of either of my schemes. There are difficulties; but will not the result be fullest compensation for the struggle to overcome them? Other schemes, more perfect in conception and easier of application, will perhaps be presented in time; meanwhile, let us do as best we know.

Allow me one word as a Catholic. I have sought to place on the precise line where it belongs, the objection of Catholics to the state school. Is it fair, is it honest, to raise the cry that Catholics are opposed to education, to free schools, to the American school system? I do lose my patience when adversaries seek to place us in this false position, so contrary to all our convictions and resolves. In presence of this vast and distinguished assembly, to have addressed which is an honor I shall never forget, I protest with all the energy of my soul against the charge that the schools of the nation have their enemies among Catholics. Not one stone of the wondrous edifice which Americans have built up in their devotion to education, will Catholics remove or permit to be removed. They would fain add to the splendor and majesty by putting side by side religion and the school, neither interfering with the work of the other, each one borrowing from the other aid and dignity. Do the schools of America fear contact with religion? The Catho

lics demand the Christian state school. In so doing they prove themselves the truest friends of the school and the state.

2. The Educational Propositions of 1892

One of the most comprehensive statements of the position of the Roman Catholic Church on the subject of education makes no explicit reference to a division of funds, but deals almost entirely with the duty of the Church and its members toward the schools. It consists of fourteen propositions presented by Cardinal Satolli to the Archbishops, assembled for their annual meeting in New York, November 16, 1892. Cardinal Satolli, representing the Holy See at the Columbian Exposition of 1893, had been commissioned by Pope Leo XIII to speak, in his name, on the question of Catholic education, the recent discussions of which had aroused much sharp controversy, within and without the Church. The several propositions were as follows: 1

FOR THE SETTLING OF THE SCHOOL QUESTION AND THE GIVING OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

[From Report, United States Commissioner of Education, 18941895, Vol. II, pp. 1667-1671.]

The Most Rev. Francis Satolli, Archbishop of Lepanto, Delegate of the Apostolic See to the United States of America to the Archbishops Assembled in New York:

I. All care must be taken to erect Catholic schools, to enlarge and improve those already established, and to make them equal to the public schools in teaching and in discipline. (Conc. Plen. Balt. III, No. 197, p. 101.)

II. When there is no Catholic school at all, or when the one that is available is little fitted for giving the children an education in keeping with their condition, then the public schools may be

1 Consult Burns, J. A., Growth and Development of the Catholic School System in the United States (New York, 1912), for a judicious discussion of the school controversy, and an account of the origin and influence of the propositions of Cardinal Satolli. This work likewise contains an illuminating presentation of the importance of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, 1884, to which reference is made in the text of the propositions.

attended with a safe conscience, the danger of perversion being rendered remote by opportune remedial and precautionary measures, a matter that is to be left to the conscience and judgment of the ordinaries. (Ibid., No. 198, p. 103.)

III. We enact and command that no one shall be allowed to teach in a parochial school who has not proven his fitness for the position by previous examination. No priest shall have the right to employ any teacher, male or female, in his school without a certificate of ability or diploma from the diocesan board of examiners. (Ibid., No. 203, p. 108.)

IV. Normal schools, as they are called, are to be established where they are wanting and are evidently necessary. (Ibid., No. 205, p. 110.)

V. We strictly forbid anyone, whether bishop or priest,—and this is the express prohibition of the Sovereign Pontiff through the Sacred Congregation, either by act or by threat, to exclude from the sacraments as unworthy, parents (who choose to send their children to the public schools). As regards the children themselves, this enactment applies with still greater force. (Ibid., No. 198, p. 104; Conf., Tit. VI, Cap. I, II; Tit. VII.)

VI. To the Catholic Church belongs the duty and the divine right of teaching all nations to believe the truth of the Gospel, and to observe whatsoever Christ commanded (Matth., xxviii, 19); in her likewise is vested the divine right of instructing the young in so far as theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven (Mark, x, 14) (Conf. Conc. Balt., Pl. III., No. 194); that is to say, she holds for herself the right of teaching the truths of faith and the law of morals in order to bring up youth in the habits of a Christian life. Hence, absolutely and universally speaking, there is no repugnance in their learning the first elements and the higher branches of the arts and the natural sciences in public schools controlled by the state, whose office it is to provide, maintain, and protect everything by which its citizens are formed to moral goodness, while they live peaceably together, with a sufficiency of temporal goods, under laws promulgated by civil authority.

For the rest, the provisions of the council of Baltimore are yet in force, and, in a general way, will remain so; to wit: "Not only out of our paternal love do we exhort Catholic parents, but we command them, by all the authority we possess, to procure a truly Christian and Catholic education for the beloved offspring given them of God, born again in baptism unto Christ and destined for Heaven, to shield and secure them throughout childhood and youth from the dangers of a merely worldly education, and therefore to send them to parochial or other truly Catholic schools." United