f our free schools. If
Republicans acting on the defensive discuss the subject, and
express the opinion that the Democratic party can't safely be
trusted, they are denounced in unmeasured terms. General Carey
calls them "political knaves" and "fools" and "bigots." But it is
very significant that no Democratic speaker denounces those who
began the agitation. All their epithets are leveled at the men who
are on the right side of the question. Agitation on the wrong
side--agitation against the schools may go on. It meets no
condemnation from leading Democratic candidates and speakers. The
reason is plain. Those who mean to destroy the school system
constitute a formidable part of the Democratic party, without whose
support that party, as the legislature was told last Spring, can
not carry the county, the city, nor the State.

The sectarian agitation against the public schools was begun many
years ago. During the last few years, it has steadily and rapidly
increased, and has been encouraged by various indications of
possible success. It extends to all of the States where schools at
the common expense have been long established. Its triumphs are
mainly in the large towns and cities. It has already divided the
schools, and in a considerable degree impaired and limited their
usefulness. The glory of the American system of education has been
that it was so cheap that the humblest citizen could afford to give
his children its advantages, and so good that the man of wealth
could nowhere provide for his children anything better. This gave
the system its most conspicuous merit. It made it a Republican
system. The young of all conditions of life are brought together
and educated on terms of perfect equality. The tendency of this is
to assimilate and to fuse together the various elements of our
population, to promote unity, harmony, and general good will in our
American society. But the enemies of the American system have begun
the work of destroying it. They have forced away from the public
schools, in many towns and cities, one-third or one-fourth of their
pupils and sent them to schools which it is safe to say are no whit
superior to those they have left. These youth are thus deprived of
the associations and the education in practical Republicanism and
A