There are some who assert that "there is no sectarian teaching in the
Public Schools, and consequently a Catholic may send his children to
them without exposing them to any danger." Now even supposing there
really were no sectarian teaching in the common schools, even then a
Catholic parent cannot send his children to such a school without
exposing them to the greatest danger. Those who approve of the Public
Schools because nothing sectarian is taught there, act like a certain
husbandman who wished to transplant a fine young tree to a certain part
of his garden. On examining the new place, however, he found that the
ground was filled with poisonous ingredients, which would greatly
endanger the life of the tree. He therefore transplanted the tree to a
sandy hill, where there were, indeed, no poisonous ingredients, but
where there was also no nourishment for the tree. Now will any one
assert that the young tree was not in danger of perishing in this new
place? And will any one assert that the faith and soul of a child are
not in danger of being ruined in those godless common schools? Even if
Protestantism is not taught there, infidelity is taught and practised
there, and infidelity is even worse than Protestantism.

But is it really true that Protestantism is not taught in many of our
Public Schools? This is unfortunately far from being the case. Napoleon
I. introduced the Public School system into France, in order, as he
honestly declared, "to possess the means of controlling political and
moral opinions." Puritans and Freemasons, in this country, have clearly
the same end in view in upholding the present system of Public Schools.

In the early days of New England, and even of several of the other
American States, the Puritans always used the Public Schools as a
powerful means of spreading their peculiar doctrines. When they were
stripped of this power by the liberal founders of American
independence, they still struggled for many years to accomplish, by
indirect means, the injustice which they dared not _maintain_ openly. We
all remember how the poor Catholic boys and girls of the Public Schools
were harassed by colporteurs and proselytizers, who carried baskets
filled, not with bread for the poor hungry children, no, but with oily
tracts, cunningly devised to weaken, or even destroy, the religious
faith of those poor little ones. In some schools even, Catholic children
were urged and enticed to go to the sectarian Su