WHAT CATHOLICS INTEND TO GET.
THE centennial of the opening of the first free Catholic school in New York City was celebrated a few days since in St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, where from 1800 to 1817 St. Peter’s Free School had open doors for all the Catholic children in New York. The second school was opened by the trustees of St. Peter’s Catholic Cathedral in Mott Street. This is interesting to Roman Catholics; but the address delivered by Father Lavelle, rector of the cathedral, makes it important to others:— “Now, every one of experience in the religious education of the young is opposed to such an arrangement, as entirely inadequate. My own experience is that it is a most difficult matter to teach religion to Catholic children brought up in the public schools. There is a vague idea abroad that we are disloyal to our country, looking for what we consider our rights. It is the birthright of every American citizen to demand his rights. And if we can not get them we must organize, and not submit to any refusal. If we insist long enough we will get it. This would not be a free country otherwise. We should have our share of the public-school money, and we will get it in time.” Afterward he drew an analogy between the abolition of slavery and the getting of this right. He advocated continuous agitation of the subject, and affirmed that the Catholics would succeed in maintaining their right to found their own schools and get from the city the share of the support that was due them. They have the right to found their own schools and maintain them. When they get the right to divide up the public-school money, and other sects maintain the same right, the public-school system will be doomed, everywhere and under all circumstances. Protestants of every school, Hebrews, opponents of religion, and those indifferent to it, should unite to maintain the public-school system as one of the chief supports of the separation of Church and State. If some of the rich do not wish their children to mingle with the common herd, let them pay the bills for private education. If the Catholics do not wish their children to go to a school that does not teach Roman Catholicism specifically, let them pay the bills and keep their children away; and so with every sect. Let all religious people teach their children at home, and in their respective sanctuaries and church schools, what the public schools do not teach them. All that the Catholics say about the evil effects of divorce of secular teaching from religious is true, but their prescription will not suit a republic.—New York Christian Advocate.