A MERITED REBUKE TO BIGOTRY.
By Editor
THERE was another illustration recently of the constant driving of Catholics upon the public school system. This time it was in Philadelphia, and the trouble grew out of the teaching of history. There are beyond question facts in history which are not calculated to inspire children or anybody with regard or respect for the Roman Catholic church. There are also facts in history, we frankly admit, that discolor the record of other churches. But the difference is that the present members of these other churches do not hold themselves responsible for what they had no hand in doing, nor feel any necessity either to conceal or uphold a bad record of the past. But with those who in large numbers still maintain that the Bible itself is a dangerous book to be put into the hands of either children or parents, without a priest at hand to point out what portions are suitable to be read, and to explain these, the teaching of history is a very different and delicate affair. In the Hunter Grammar School of Philadelphia it was Miss Anna Scull's duty to teach the pupils history. In telling of Luther and the Reformation she forgot to ask if there were any Catholic children in the class, in order to let such go home so as to hear nothing unpleasant. She read from Chambers' Encyclopedia respecting indulgences, pointed a distinction between the confession of Protestants to God and of Catholics to man, and pronounced the anathema of excommunication to be un-Christlike. It happened that there were Catholic scholars who went home to tell what the teacher had said; whereupon complaint was made against her of “vilifying and abusing” the Catholic religion. The matter was publicly and fully inquired into. The Examining Committee not only entirely exonerated the teacher, but they rendered good service to the cause of right education and sound principles everywhere by putting this forcible and clear statement in their report:— “The public schools are common property, supported by taxation imposed on Protestant, Catholic and Jew alike, and the religious instruction, comment and criticism should not trespass beyond what is common ground. But should this tenderness for the supposed religious conviction of pupils justify a teacher in ignoring the indisputable facts of history? Clearly not. It is the teacher's province to give instruction concerning those matters as they occurred. If the Puritans burned old women for witches, and the early Protestants persecuted for opinion's sake, if the Pope sold indulgences, authorized massacres, and, by his mandate, lit up all Europe with the funeral pyres of fellow-Christians, and the teacher finds it so recorded in history, she falls short in her duty if she fails to impart such information as it comes up in course. No one, Catholic or Protestant, has a right to object to this. It is not theology; it is not religion; it is not church history merely; it is a part of the history of humanity, in the shame of which we all must share. Bigotry, natural cruelty, political ambition, mistaken zeal, and more than all, ignorance, were responsible for these crimes. In having them well known and laid to heart is the best and surest guaranty against their repetition. Our common schools would be sadly defective if they contained nothing in their course of study concerning the Reformation, the Inquisition, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the fires of Smithfield. Respect for the religious scruples of pupils does not demand the passing over of facts like these because they chance to reveal a blot upon the past history of a particular church or sect.”—Examiner and Chronicle.