for Catholics.

We can say that, so far as our Catholic children are concerned, the
workings of our Public School system have proved, and do prove, highly
detrimental to their faith and morals. So strongly has the conviction of
this been impressed upon the minds both of the pastors and parents, that
most strenuous efforts, and even enormous sacrifices have been made, and
continue to be made, in order to establish and support Catholic
parochial schools. In many cities of the Union there is, at the present
moment, in daily attendance at these schools, an average number of
between eighteen and twenty thousand children. The annual expense for
the maintenance of these schools does not fall short of one hundred
thousand dollars; while the amount expended for the purchase of lots,
and the erection of proper school buildings, etc., considerably exceeds
a million.

The Catholics of New York subscribed, in 1868, $132,000 for the support
of their own school, and, besides, they had contributed a million and a
quarter of dollars for the sites and the buildings of Catholic schools.

Nothing but the deepest sense of the many dangers to which the religious
and moral principles of the children are exposed, could prompt Catholic
parents to make such pecuniary sacrifices, or assume such onerous
burdens; for it has to be borne in mind that, while they are thus
obliged, through conscientious motives, to support their own schools,
they have, at the same time, to bear their share of the taxation imposed
for the support of the Public Schools.

All this is true; yet I can scarcely refrain from expressing my surprise
at the extremely abnormal lethargy manifested by so many Catholics, both
in high and low places, regarding a duty, the chief one incumbent upon
them as members of the family, as citizens, as Christians and as
Catholics.

Now the cause for the indifference existing among our people on the
question of Catholic education, may be attributed to a false process of
reasoning. They argue: it will cost money. True; but it is not by
_State_ aid, or _City_ aid, that the work of Catholic daily instruction
and education in parochial schools is to be carried on. These schools
are to be supported, as our _churches_ are, by the alms of the
faithful.

The Catholics of other countries have their duties to perform,
different, in part, from ours, but demanding great self-sacrifice. We,
too, except we be "bastards, and not sons," must make our gr