SECTARIAN SCHOOLS ADVOCATED.
THE University Club, of Los Angeles, recently gave a dinner at Del Monte, at which was present President Wheeler, of the University of California, President Jordan, of Stanford, Rabbi Hecht, and Bishop Montgomery, of the Roman Catholic Church. The most extended address of the evening was by Bishop Montgomery, in which he suggested the "possibility of modifying the American school system, and in modifying it, to make it better," and strongly advocated a division of public-school funds. In his reported words (Los Angeles Herald): "A course of study is prescribed by the State, and payment is made to any school that will give that grade of teaching. For the rest, let religion be taught in each particular school according to the religious tenets of the persons sending children there. Then there would be Methodist schools, and Presbyterian, and Jewish, and Catholic schools, and schools where no religion at all would be taught, to accommodate the children of unbelievers. I say that this is the only true and genuine non-sectarian system of education possible, and that it is the only one that can work fairly to all the people." But it could not, in the nature of the case, work fairly to all people, especially as between the larger and smaller sects. And worse than all, it would bring every church into politics, scrambling for funds. Such a thing may come, for the Catholic Church is working for it persistently; but woe worth the day when it does. The principal opposers were Rabbi Hecht and a Unitarian minister. EARLY on the morning of January 2, the passenger steamer Walla Walla, plying between San Francisco and Puget Sound ports, was rammed by the French bark Max. The Max cut a large hole in the side of the Walla Walla, and the latter went down in about 25 minutes. The bow of the Max was so badly damaged that she was in great danger of sinking, and the attention of her crew was given entirely to keeping her afloat. The Walla Walla's life-boats and life-rafts were launched as quickly as possible; but a number of the passengers and crew went down with her, and failed to reach the boats and rafts. Many of those who found places on the rafts or in the boats were washed overboard and drowned, were lost in the capsizing of the boats, or succumbed to the terrible strain and exposure before they were picked up by other vessels. Some were killed or injured in their berths when the prow of the Max crashed into the steamer. Thirty-seven of the crew and passengers were drowned or killed in the collision.