CATHOLIC EDUCATION

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1889

CATHOLIC EDUCATION.

THE school law of Haverhill, Mass., declares that the English language must be the vehicle of instruction in all schools, public or private, and that instruction in United States History shall form a part of the regular course of study. But Father Boucher, a Roman Catholic priest, teaches in open violation of the law, and has thus come in conflict with the school committee. He has about two hundred and fifty pupils under his charge, and two thirds of his instruction is in French, his assistants knowing nothing of American methods of teaching. In the place of United States History, a French history of Canada is taught. As Father Boucher declines to change his course, another conflict is before a portion of the people of the Old Bay State.

Loyal Roman Catholics are not American citizens. They own a higher allegiance to their church than to any civil power. But there would be nothing wrong in this if the Catholic church was only a church, and confined her labors to a religious sphere; but the Church of Rome is an intriguing political organization, which claims power over all nations. And every devotee of Rome will work to the end of bringing this nation under her power. The subversion of education is one of Rome's means of doing this. There are loyal citizens in the Church of Rome, but they are only half Catholics. A true Catholic cannot be a loyal citizen of any Sovereign State, for he owes his first and highest allegiance to the Pope of Rome.

After all, those Americans who indorse the Blair Educational Amendment Bill, ought not to find fault with Rome's theories and demands concerning education and its support. Rome's position is the logical sequence of that bill, which demands that the principles of the Christian religion shall be taught in our schools; Catholics ask no more than this. Let our schools remain totally unsectarian and purely secular, and distinctively American. Leave religious education to the home and the church, where it belongs.