ter you will be
ready to make inquiries as to who is to teach your children in the
public schools. Let me ask you, Mr. Protestant, if you ever heard of
a Protestant teaching in a Catholic school? Oh, no! But then you will
fold your hands and be content to allow your children to be taught by
a man or woman who secretly despises the public school system. Shame!
Ten thousand times we exclaim you should be ashamed for not asserting
your American and God-given privileges of Protestantism gained for
you through the blood of your forefathers!

A general system of education, such as affords all alike an
opportunity to cultivate and expand the intellect, the poor as well
as the rich, is, beyond all question, one of the greatest blessings
that any nation can enjoy. Such a system had its birth in America
while it was yet comparatively free from the blighting influence of a
religio-political corporation whose whole history is one
uninterrupted and relentless war upon every system of education
which broadens the intellect and causes people to think. In America
was born the public free school system, and from the date of its
birth, in 1695, to the present, it has been the means of giving to
this nation its most renowned statesmen, jurists, patriots,
agriculturists, teachers and divines. It is one of the principal
agents by which the United States of America has been enabled to
advance to the first rank in all things that make a nation great.

But against this most sacred product of American liberty Rome lifts
her unholy hands. Against our schools she hurls her worst anathemas.
But it is our purpose in this chapter to let the Roman Catholic
Church speak for itself. Its language is plain and needs no
interpretation. Listen to Rome's damnable utterances:

"These public schools are devouring fires and pits of
destruction. They ought to go back to the devil, from whence
they came."--_The Freeman's Journal._

"If your son or daughter is attending a state school you may
be sure that you are violating your duty as Catholic parents
and conducting to the everlasting anguish and despair of your
child. Take it away. Let it rather never know how to write
its name than to become the bound and chained slave of
satan."--_The Shepherd of the Valley._

"The common schools of this country are sinks of moral
pollution and nurseries of hell."--_Chicago Tablet._

"The public or common school system i