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 The Common School Question. 
 A Discussion Pet¥;een Rev. '.\?m. 
 Glee son end Frank M. Pixley. 
 
 I
 
 UNIVERSITY OFCALIFORi-IEA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 ROBERT ERNEST COWAN
 
 THE COMMON SCHOOL QUESTION. 
 
 A DISCUSSION 
 
 REV. WM. GLEESOxN 
 
 (OF EAST OAKLAND) 
 
 FRANK iM. PIXLEY 
 
 EDITOR OF THE ARGONAUT. 
 
 SAN FKANCISCO : 
 
 P. J. Thomas, Prikter, 505 Clay Street, 
 1883.
 
 6C3 
 CO 
 
 3- 
 
 63^\ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The publication of this pamphlet would seem to be neces- 
 sitated by the importance of the mattei* involved, and be- 
 cause it is possible, and even more than likely, that many 
 persons who take a deep interest in the subject of education 
 may not have read all the material which is now offered 
 ihem for the first time. 
 
 «J^ A brief historv of the causes which led the Eev. Father 
 "^ Gleeson into the contest with the infidel editor of the Argon- 
 
 r^ uut may be summarized as follows: 
 
 f^ Mr. Pixley, in his open letter, challenged Father Gleeson 
 
 _i t'j a discussion of the subject of the necessity of combining 
 
 columns of the Argonaut as a tilting-ground for the tourna- 
 
 ^ X'eligious with secular education, and offered the use of the 
 
 raent. Father Gleeson accepted the challenge, and merely 
 ^ bargained for the privilege of a rejoinder, — the closing of the 
 5 defense, as it might be called, — after Mr. Pixley had replied 
 £2 to his arguments. 
 
 a= Instead, however, of attempting to answer the masterly, 
 ^ cogent and superb reasoning and pleadings of his reverend 
 " antagonist, Mr. Pixley, in the character of an Ingersollian 
 Don Quixote, evaded every issue which he should have met, 
 and ran full tilt against the windmills, which his own per- 
 verse imagination had construed into giants, by launching 
 into a tirade of abuse against the Catholic Church, of the 
 doctrines and eternal loveliness of which he is as ignorant 
 as is a Comanche Indian of the science of Trigonometry. 
 
 Mr. Pixley having refused to publish Father Glees 3n's re- 
 joinder in the forthcoming issue of his journal, it appeared, 
 through the courtesy of Col. J . P. Jackson, in the columns 
 of the Evening Post. 
 
 In order to further show Mr. Pixley' s inconsistency, we 
 append to this correspondence the full text of an editorial 
 published in the Argonaut, June — , 1881. 
 
 293494
 
 AN OPEN LETTER. 
 
 San Francisco, February lOtli, 1883. 
 Reverend Father Gleeson, St. Anthony's Church, Oakland — 
 J)ear Sir: The Argonaut would not willingly misrepresent the 
 Attitude taken by the Roman Catholic Church in California in 
 xefereace to our public schools. It can understand that there 
 may be reasons deemed satisfactory to the Church why in Rome, 
 or in Catholic countries, it should be desirable to have Catholic 
 43ltildren attend parochial schools only. The reasons why they 
 should not attend our non-secular and free public schools, in 
 which Catholic gentlemen and ladies are employed as teachers, 
 jnanaged by an elective Board of School Directoi's, of whom a 
 part, and not unfrequently a majority, are Romanists, and under 
 superintendents, as in San Francisco and Oakland, who are 
 quite friendly to the voting population connected with your 
 ■church organization, is not so apparent. I will not repeat the 
 arguments which I have so often made use of in the Argon- 
 aid. You are familiar with them. My object in writing you 
 this open note is to obtain from you that part of your sermon 
 delivered at Oakland, on the fourth of February, at the dedica- 
 iion of Saint Patrick's Church, which touched upon our public 
 -school system. This sermon of yours, or so much of it as treats 
 upon this question, I will accept as the orthodox views of the 
 Roman Catholic Church for this State, as it was delivered in the 
 presence of his grace Archbishop Alemany, and has, therefore, 
 the sanction of his approval, which is the highest ecclesiastical 
 authority upon this side of our continent. I ask you to send 
 jne this portion of your sermon that I may print it in the Argon- 
 aut. In the report of your sermon you are accredited with hav- 
 ing quoted from the Council of Baltimore, which declared that 
 the faith and morals of Catholic children were jeopardized by 
 attending public schools. You are also accredited with a quota- 
 tion from the late Pope Pius IX., on the pernicious influence of 
 the public school; also a quotation from Bishoj) England, show- 
 ing that, out of live millions of Catholic children in America, 
 three millions seven hundred and fifty thousand are lost to the 
 faith by reason of public schools. You are accredited with say- 
 ing that there is no virtue in public schools. After having asked 
 the question, you are said to have answered it in this wise: 
 " There is none, for no religion or morals are taught there." I 
 shall be glad to print in full the text, by you quoted, from the 
 Baltimore Council, the Pope, and Bishop England, and your 
 comments thereon, as having the sanction of Archbishop Ale- 
 many. I very fraukl}'' declare to you the purpose for which I 
 desire this portion of your sermon. It is, that I may make its
 
 aclinisHioiis tlio text for future writiiif,'H ftiul fir^^'uincnts, in wliich, 
 of course, I slmll uiulertuke to prove thnttlio (Jlnircli is wrong in 
 being the enoin}' of the present non-Hecturinu Kchool system. I 
 have been constantly assailed by most excellent people — good 
 Romanists — who declare that I misrepresent the Church; that 
 the Church is not the enemy but the frifMul of our school system. 
 With yoiar admission, I shall be spared going over this ground. 
 When once it is admitted that the Roman Church in America in 
 the uncompromising enemy of the public schools, that there i» 
 room for but one of them upon this continent, that only one can 
 survive, and that the suppression and annihilation f)f the Ameri- 
 can free school system /.s llw, political ohjrd and spii-ilnnl policy of 
 the Roman Church, then the Argonaut may be permitted to take 
 its side of the controversy without its premises being challenged. 
 Classic story is full of fabled incidents where one of the con- 
 tending parties is wrapped in clouds, or made invisible by some 
 friendly divinity. That always seemed to me to be but doubtful 
 valor that fought behind an impenetrable disguise, or from 
 ■within an invulnerable armor. I have no respect for the valor 
 of any part of Achilles biit his heel; so in contending with your 
 most venerable Church, I shall be glad if I can find by your 
 admissions some common siarfing-point for the discus.iion of this 
 school quetfiion. Your Pope, your cardinals and councils, your 
 archbishops and bishops, your common preachers, and many of 
 your journalists, openly admit your undisguised hostility to our 
 free schools. You declare them godless, ruinous to the morals 
 of your j'outh, destructive to the virtue of our children, leading 
 to immorality, vicious practices and crime. You declare the 
 superiority of your parochial schools, and claim that the result 
 of a church education by priests and nuns is better than one 
 from non-sectarian schools. 1 am willing to disciiss this ques- 
 tion; I think it a practical one, and would do it courteously. 
 But first give me the text of your sermon delivered at the dedica- 
 tion of Saint Patrick's, so that I may i^rint it and adhere to it, 
 and that ^-our apologists and defenders may not be able to dodge 
 it. To be frank with you, Father Gleeson, I find the dialecti- 
 cians of your Church just the least bit slippery; like one grasp- 
 ing an eel from the fisherman's basket, a stout grasp upon the 
 fattest one sometimes leaves only a glutinous and slimy sensation 
 to the hand. I should like to nail one of the most wrigglesome 
 of all disputed facts to the counter, and hence, most respectfully, 
 and for no other purpose than fair and courteous argument, do I 
 ask you to send to the Argonaut, for publication, what you did 
 Bay in reference to the free public school system of America. 
 I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant. 
 
 The Editor of the Argonaut. 
 P. S. — If you do not reply to this I shall assume that your 
 sermon is correctly reported by the Oakland daily Evening Trib- 
 une of February 5th, and shall feel at liberty to comment upon, 
 the utterances thei-em attributed to vou.
 
 FATHER GLEESON'S REPLY. 
 
 Editor Argonaut : I accept with pleasure the oft'er you made 
 me in your issue of the seventeenth, inviting me to a friendly 
 discussion of the Common School question. I have already 
 assigned to you, in my private note, why I could not have 
 attended to this matter at an earlier moment. I quite agree witb 
 you that this is a practical subject; it is even, in my opinion, a 
 most important subject, for on the kind of training that the 
 youth of the country recei^-e depends, in a great measure, if not 
 entirely, the future character of this republic. In view of this 
 serious consideration, it is easy to see the tone and temper in 
 which a subject of this nature should be approached. There 
 should be an entire absence of passion and prejudice from our 
 reasoning, while a courteous, good-natured, thoughtful spirit 
 should prevail through all our arguments. In a word, we should 
 divest ourselves, as far as possible, of all preconceived notions 
 of the merits or demerits of the system — not allowing party 
 prejudice, sectarian bias, or religious antipathy to influence our 
 minds. Briefly, we should approach the subject in a generous, 
 whole-souled, liberal frame of mind. If we do this— and there 
 is no good reason why we should not, for both of us are now 
 only seeking a common good — something may be done toward 
 helping others to a right understanding of this much-vexed 
 question. And, indeed, sir, from the courteous, gentlemanly 
 tone ot your open letter to me, I have every confidence that on 
 your part the discussion will not be marred by any undue expres- 
 sion of feeling; while, as far as I am concerned, if i can answer 
 for myself, I am sure the readers of the Argonaut Avill not have 
 anything to complain of in this respect. 
 
 The great difficulty that we Catholics have hitherto labored 
 under has been the unwillingness of our opponents to listen to 
 us on this subject. We have never been able to obtain an im- 
 partial hearing before the bar of public opinion. Our adversar- 
 ies made up their minds that we were wiong — that we had no 
 case; and so, whenever we tried to get a hearing, the peo^Dle 
 stopped their ears and turned away in displeasure from our 
 pleadings. In fact, strange as it may appear, we have been 
 treated in this matter of the education of our children somewhat 
 in the same fashion as the early Christians were by the pagan 
 Roman authorities. Whenever the first followers of the Re- 
 deemer tried to get a hearing, and endeavored to explain them- 
 selves, they were rebuked by those in authority, and told tliat 
 their position was untenable. In like manner our case has been 
 prejudged. Men would not look into it calmly and thoughtfully.
 
 [8] 
 
 They had an abidinpf confidonro in their own jud^Mnent that we 
 were wron*,', that we had no ur^'unient to ])ut fortlr to Hustain our 
 ])()sition, and that we Hhouhl not be heard. In a word, hk I have 
 s!iid, nieii shut their ears ajjiiinst uh, repentinf,' thereby in a wider 
 form the acts of tlje anj,'ry Jewish multitude in the case of 
 Stephen: "And they ciyinj,' out with a hjud voiee, stopped 
 their ears, and with one accord ran violently on him." 
 
 I hail it, then, with pleii.sure, as a sif,'n of better tinies and an 
 altered state of feeling, when a ('jithfdic clerj,'ynian is invited to 
 jdead his ease in the columns of nu intluential Prostestant 
 journal; for, had you not invited me, I would never have thought 
 of addressing you on this subject. 
 
 In saying, as I have above, that we would not be permitted a 
 hearing before the bar of public opinion on this all-important 
 subject, I do not hereby mean to affirm or to insinuate that the 
 Piotestant people of this country have been knowingly and will- 
 fully doing us a wrong. We are ready to believe that the 
 country has been laboring under a serious misajipreheusion in 
 our regard, and that, if we have not been heard, it was owing to 
 the fact that our opponents were satisfied that our position was 
 untenable and our claims inadmissible. But, sir, history fur- 
 nishes numerous examples of the best-meaning men having been 
 grossly deceived under similar circumstances. Indeed, it is a 
 noteworthy fact, and one I am sure you will readily acknowl- 
 edge, that some of the best and purest of mortals and the 
 greatest and most powerful of nations have not unfrequently 
 labored under delusions of this character, and been uncon- 
 sciously' guilty of the grossest injustice towards others. As far 
 as individuals are concerned, the case of the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles, before his conversion, when hastening to Damascus, 
 breathing out, as the divine volume t^ssures us. threatenings and 
 slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, may be adduced as 
 an instance. \Mio Mill be ready to say that this fiery zealot, 
 this man of blood and slaughter, was not honest in his convic- 
 tions — that he was not impressed with the justice of his cause? 
 Must we not suppose that he thought that the course he was 
 pursuing was most pleasing to God? Nor was it until the scales 
 fell from his eyes that he saw the full measure of the wrong 
 he was doing to the meek followers of the Redeemer. 
 
 The course adopted by tlie younger Pliny, when governor of 
 Pontus and Bythinia, as related by himself in his letter to the 
 Koman Emperor Trajan, is another illustration of this. So con- 
 vinced was he that the Christians under his jurisdiction merited 
 punishment that he says: " Williout r.yamihiiuj whether what 
 thev avowed was criminal, I had not the smallest doubt that at 
 least their obstinacy and headstrongness men'/ed puni.'ihme)it." 
 Then we know how the prejudices and passions of the most 
 popular writers and historians of that period prevented them 
 from seeing the errors under which they were laboring and the 
 wronjj thev were inflicting on others. Who, for instance, is not
 
 [9] 
 
 familiar with the sentiment of Tacitus in his estimation of the 
 Christians in his clay? Does he not say that they were branded 
 with deserved infamy ? " With this view he (Neroj inflicted the 
 most exquisite tortures on those who, under the vulgar appella- 
 tion of Christians, were alreadij hranded with deserved infamy." 
 And in another place the same eminent -v^riter says: '"The 
 guilt of the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary pun- 
 ishment." In like manner, the histoi'ian Suetonius calls the 
 Christians of that time " a sect of men who embraced a criminal 
 supfri^tUion." 
 
 And as it has been with individuals, so has it also been with 
 States and Empires in this respect. The pagan Roman Empire 
 for three hundred years thought that it was right in attempting 
 to stamp out of existence the noblest form of religious belief 
 that had ever been professed by man on earth. It regarded the 
 followers of the Redeemer as the most senseless of mortals. It 
 could not, or would not, understand why a mere handful of men, 
 on the ground of what they denominated conscientious convic- 
 tions, should separate themselves from the citizens in general, 
 and stubbornly refuse a willing and hearty compliance with all 
 that was ordained by the laws. Was not Ctesar the Pontifex Maxi- 
 mus, and did it not devolve upon him to prescribe for the com- 
 munity the duties to be fuUfilied? What was there in the burn- 
 ing of a spoonful of incense before the shrine of an idol ? Were 
 not the tutelary deities — the Lares and the Penates — the real 
 benefactors of the country? Did not the empire grow up, ex- 
 pand, and become great under their protecting care ? And why 
 under such circumstances should a mere vulgar sect, a '''genus 
 hominun saperstdiovis novo etc malfjlco," as Suetonius calls them, 
 dare to stand aloof and refuse to juin with their fellow men, the 
 community in general, inprocessionsin honor of these beneficent 
 gods ? Did not the refusal on their part prove them to be dan- 
 gei'ous citizens, unloyal subjects, dark conspirators, imbued with 
 the most nefai'ious and reprehensible principles? This was the 
 reasoning-— this the attitude of the ablest and most enlightened 
 men of that pagan period; and, as j'ou know, it required no less 
 than three hundred years to disabuse them of these erroneous 
 ideas and the great insufierable wrong they were perpetrating 
 against a large number of virtuous citizens 
 
 Nor has it been merely in pagan times that such things have 
 happened. I regret to be obliged to confess that like instances 
 of delusions are to be met with in the history of Christendom. 
 Take, for instance, the case of Great Britain and Ireland. Is 
 it not to be held, would it not be unfair to atHrm that the gov- 
 erning powers of England, during what is called the penal 
 times, were unconscious of the wrong they were* perpetrating 
 against millions of the people in the enactment and enforce- 
 ment of those terrible laws of which eveiy Englishman is to-day 
 heartily ashamed — laws of which that eminent and fair-minded 
 man, Johnson, affirmed that as a " sanguinary code it outstripped
 
 [ 10 J 
 
 in atrocity the Ten Persecutions inflicted on tlio curly ChnHtians 
 by pagan Rome " — lawH wliicb tliat j^reat statesman Edmund 
 Burke doHcribod as " a machine of wise and elaborate contriv- 
 ance, as well litted for the oi)pre9sion, impoverishment, and deg- 
 radation of the people, and the debasement in them of }iumaa 
 nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted irjgenuity of 
 man"? 
 
 I think, then, that on this point I may fairly assume that we 
 are fully in accord^namely, that men and states may be, and 
 have been, unconsciously guilty of serious wrong toward others; 
 and that the only security against anything of this nature occur- 
 ring or being continued, when a large and influential body of the 
 community proclaim that they are being injured and their rights 
 tramjiled under foot, is by giving them a hearing, and listening 
 calmly, attentively, and dispassionately to all they have to say in 
 support of their assertions. Any other course would be like 
 that of the judge who had formed his opinion before taking his 
 seat on the bench. It would be to forestall justice, to close the 
 lips of counsel, to put prejudice in the place cf reason, and to 
 deprive the individual of that principle of natural justice which 
 requires that a man be heard l)efore being condemned. 
 
 1 have deemed it necessary to make the foregoing explanations 
 in order to prepare the minds of your readers for what I am 
 about to say, and to enable them to properl}' appreciate the 
 anomalous i:)osition we occupy to the common schools of this 
 country, which, as Ave claim, and I think I will be able to make 
 it apparent, are an infringement of our rights, natural and con- 
 stitutional, and an intolerable grievance to which we are neces- 
 sitated to submit. But; as in all similar instances where wrong 
 was unconsciously done, time has rectified the same, so, also, in 
 this case I have an abiding faith that this couutry will yet see 
 the injustice it is inflicting on us in the matter of the forced edu- 
 cation of our children, and will, when it comes to recognize this, 
 admit us to a full participation of our natural and inherent rights. 
 
 I shall now^ proceed to the consideration of the matter under 
 discussion and I hope to be able to convince the readers of the 
 Argonaut that much misapprehension exists in the mind of the 
 Protestant community regarding the relations of the Catholics 
 of the country toward this system of national education: ihat 
 our attitude in its regard is not an unnatural and unreasonable 
 one; that it is a violation of our most sacred rights and privi- 
 leges; that in it we have a real and substantial grievance; and, 
 in fine, that it is in its nature and workings contrary to that 
 spirit of freedom and liberty guaranteed to us all by the Con- 
 stitution of the country. But, first, it may be proper to state 
 the position o| the Catholic Church in regard to the sy-tem of 
 public school education as established by law in this country. 
 
 The Catholic Church has ever held and taught that to be a 
 defective, dangerous system of education, both for the individual 
 and the state, from which the moral, religious elements is wholly
 
 [31] 
 
 eliminated. She holds that as man is a complex being, com- 
 posed of body and soul, and having eternal as well as temporal in- 
 terests he should be so trained from his earliest infancy that while 
 being fitted for the attainment of the one he may not be made to 
 lose sight of the other. In short, she gives to education its full, 
 complete and entire signification — that is, a perfect discii^line and 
 training of all the mental and moral faculties. And that this can 
 not be attained except by a constant and careful inculcation of the 
 necessary principles, reason and experience sufficiently demon- 
 strate. This is exactly the position of the Catholic Church — • 
 this the light in which she regards education. And wherever 
 a contrary system has prevailed, she has uniformly raised her 
 voice against it in her loudest and most emphatic tones, knowing 
 full well from experience the evils that necessarily result to the 
 the individual, to the family, to society and government, from a 
 development of the mental to the exclusion of the moral facul- 
 ties. It is not, then, against the present system of education as 
 an American system that we object, but against ever-y system 
 that would leave the youthful mind a blank in the matter of 
 religions knowledge, and our entire solicitude in this regard ia 
 founded on that expression of our Divine Master, "What doth 
 it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his 
 own soul ? " 
 
 We also maintain, and with the best of reasons, as I shall 
 show further on, that, without the moral element in the educa- 
 tion of the young, you can not have even a satisfactory guarantee 
 for the stability of the nation; but for the present I shall confine 
 myself to the religious view of the question as regards man's 
 spiritual nature. We maintain, then, that religious instruction, 
 coupled with secular principles of learning, constitute the very 
 soul and essence of education, and that, without such an union, 
 education would be as if " the play of ' Hamlet' were given 
 with the part of the Prince of Denmark left oiit." To this you 
 may possibly answer by saying that religious instruction is in- 
 deed necessary in forming the Christian man, and that the only 
 difficulty is as to where it should be imparted. The church and 
 not the school, you may contend, is the proper place for the 
 inculcation of moral principles. Are you serious in this ? Do 
 you believe that a child that is exposed during six days of the 
 week to the adverse influence of a purely secular trainin g, who 
 for six days in the week is not permitted to hear the name of 
 God or a syllable about morality, will grow up a strong and 
 robust member of an}' Christian denomination ? To assert that 
 would be to trifle with our reason and insult our judgment. It 
 would be to affirm what actual experience flatly contradicts by 
 the most undeniable statistics, as I shall presently show. 
 
 But the State, you will say, is the judge in this matter; it has 
 a right, and it is its dut}', to see that the children of the country 
 are properly educated according to their station in life, for upon 
 the enlightenment and education of the people depend the great-
 
 ne.ss iiud cxiMtciicc of tlio nation. Are not the publrc hcIiooIh of 
 the country tho very palhidiuni of our liberties? Wlio does not 
 know tbdt i)ublic seliool education is uecosHary for our repubb- 
 cau form of Government — that it is the ver}- bfe and soul of the 
 nation ? Is it not an admitted axiom that our (iovernment, 
 more than an}' other, depends upon the intelli;,''ence of the peo- 
 ple? Did not the framers of our Constitution firmly believe 
 that a rei)ublicau form of Government could not endure without 
 the enlifjhtenmeut of the people? The State, therefore, must 
 exert itself to promote and encoura^^e pojiular educiiiion among 
 the masses, and surely there is no more elifectual way of accomp- 
 lishing this than by the present system of public instruction, 
 where all are at liberty to drink with freedom and without cost 
 at the fountain of learning. 
 
 This is the popular phraseology, the transparent sophistry, 
 the vapid declamation, that has been repeated iisquf. ad iiausfam 
 for the last couple of generations and upward in this country. 
 It is in reality the popular cry by which the ear of the multitude 
 is gained, or rather it is the hobby-horse on which ambitious 
 aspirants for office and enterprising editors have been riding the 
 people to power and to wealth for the last half a century or more. 
 For only let a candidate for honors shout lustily in the ears of 
 his auditors a few such meaningless platitudes as thjse I have 
 mentioned, coupling them, of coarse, with the veracious asser- 
 tion that the Catholic (Jhurch is the deadly and uncompromising 
 enemy of our popular institutions, and he will infallibly succeed 
 in obtaining the suffrages of his dupes. The people never stop 
 nor care to inquire whether or not the Catholic Church is really 
 hostile to the enlightenment of the masses. They take it as 
 granted that such i?; the case because they hear it from their 
 popular leaders -men of enlightenment and intelligence in 
 whom they have every confidence. But how great would not be 
 their surprise if assured that the Catholic Church is as eager, and 
 more so, than the government of the country, for the spread of 
 education and the enlightenment of the people — the only differ- 
 ence between the Church and the State on this matter being that 
 the former demands more than the latter in the traiuing of youth. 
 
 ■\Ve Catholics, then, freely admit that it is the right and duty 
 of the State to see that the children of the country are educated 
 in the necessary branches of learning, but at the same time we 
 emphatically deny that it is the right or mission of the State to 
 assume to 'itself' the office of teacher. It has no right to turn 
 pedagogue, and, armed by the power of the law, to invade the 
 sacred precincts of the family circle, and, dragging thence the 
 little ones from the parental hearths, to say to their natural guar- 
 dians: " I will take charge of these children and instruct them 
 in the manner I please ." To do so is to be guilty of the greatest 
 moral injustice— it is to play the tyrant in the most tyrannical 
 fashion; for, bear in mind, sir, the State has no children, never 
 had anv. and never will have any. The children of the country
 
 [13 I 
 
 are belonoing to the people of the nation, and not to the gov- 
 erning members of the community — that is, not to the bare ma- 
 jority of the populace. 
 
 And now, for a moment, let lis here inquire what is the State, 
 and why does it assume this sovereign avithority in the matter of 
 the education of the youth. The State, as» I ajiprehend it, is 
 merely the executive of the people. It originated in every in- 
 stance in that natural desire of man for the attainment of certain 
 goods, such as peace, protection, etc., which could not be so 
 readily obtained by individuals or limited corj^orations. In fact, 
 the State is nothiug but the people united to accomplish what as 
 individuals or companies they would be unable to do. Its duty, 
 then, is simply to administer justice, to protect rights, to guard 
 interests, and, in a word, to hold the balance evenl}'- between all 
 parties. This is the Chiistian idea of the State. The old pagan 
 idea was different. Cresar was then the State; the people be- 
 longed to him, they were his creatures, their lives were in his 
 hands, and he did with them pretty much as he pleased — in fact, 
 as you know, they were " butchered to make a Eoman holiday." 
 The same undue assumption of authority was affected in later 
 times by some Christian monarchs. It was embodied in that 
 arrogant expression of a certain King of France, who, on an 
 occasion, said to one of his subjects: " L'etat c'ent moi ! " — I am 
 the State ! The autocrat of Eussia is the State in his do- 
 minions, but, thank God, this is not the condition of affairs 
 here. With us the State is the guardian of the rights and 
 liberties of the people, and not their tyrannical master. Hence, 
 whenever the State proposes to do anything which would be an 
 infringement of the natural, inherent rights of the subject, such 
 as the forcing of conscience or the standing between the parent and 
 the child, the State in that case is plainly outstripping the limits 
 of its authority and rendering itself guilty of an atrocious 
 crime. It is assuming to itself duties which the Almighty im- 
 poses on others; it is bringing back again into the world and 
 giving effect to the old feudal system, which made the subjects 
 the slaves and dependents of the masters. In short, it is utter- 
 ing the language of the tyrant: ''Sic rolo, aic juheo." Be- 
 tween that and the establishment of a national form of faith, to 
 which we would be all bound to conform, there is in reality only 
 one step; for if the State claims the children of the country, 
 there is no good reason why it should not claim the parents also. 
 In principle and at bottom, then, this school system is tyran- 
 nical, oppressive, and unjust. No pagan Roman Emperor, no 
 ■Russian autocrat, no oriental despot, ever acted with more ab- 
 solute authority and disregard for the feelings and wishes of the 
 subject than the State is acting in this particular in our regard. 
 
 The system is also irreligious and sectarian. Persons get 
 angry and annoyed with us when we tell them it is pagan and 
 infidel; but if you eliminate all that is Christian, what, I would 
 ask, can the residue be but pagan and infidel? Doiabtless
 
 [ 1^ ] 
 
 I will bo told tliiit tlioro is a clifference between secularism and 
 l)agauism. This is merely to tlii'ow dust in our eyes. Every 
 tree is judged by its fruit, and if the fruit in this case be infidel, 
 or, what is the same, an abandonment of the practice of all 
 Christian duties, the inference is plain that the s^'stem is infidel. 
 You can't have an eflect without a cause, and if the efTect in tlie 
 case of the j)ublic school teaching is infidelity, the logical conse- 
 quence is that the cause is and must be infidel. But where is 
 the evidence, you will say, to show that the result of the com- 
 mon school teaching is this? On this point, I think, in all fair- 
 ness, that the testimony of six millions of people — that is, the 
 declaration of the entire Catholic population of this countiy — 
 ought to be considered tolerably satisfactory. As far as our own 
 children are concerned, and 1 jiresume that we may fairly infer 
 that it is the same with all others, this is what we have to deplore. 
 For those brought up in the public schools, in ninety cases out 
 of a hundred, cease to be practical members of our church, drift 
 i-apidly away into indiffereutism, and, if thej- hold anything at 
 all, end by becoming disciples of such men as Buckner, Spencer, 
 or Augustus Comte. But if you will not accept Catholic testimony 
 on this point, if you will rule it out of court as being ex parte 
 evidence. I am sure you will at least accejit Protestant testi- 
 mony. And I won't go beyond your own city for admissions that 
 infidelity and atheism are rami)ant in the community, and that 
 the only remedy is the inculcation of moral principles. In 
 1877, the Rev. Doctor Jewell, deploring the social condition of 
 aflairs in San Francisco, was reported in the Call to have said: 
 " The evils which have been experienced in San Francisco, which 
 break out on occasions of agitation, are caused by local faults, 
 atheism, cjodlest^ness of the commtDiily, and disrespect fur authority." 
 On the same day the Rev. Mr. Peck, of St. Luke's Episcopal 
 Church, said: "The popular atheism of the day, proclaimed 
 with so much boldness and applause in the public assemblies, is 
 bearing its bitter fruits. There is only one remedy for all this: 
 Remember the Lord thy God." Again, Doctor Patterson, of the 
 First Presbyterian Church, declared, according to the report of 
 his sermon of the same date, that "the fault of the wild, com- 
 munistic infidel feeling which is spreading through the com- 
 munity, is the want of proper education." And how terrible, and 
 savage, and lawless this spirit of atheism and infidelity which is 
 lurking in the community is, you may judge from the words of 
 that very able and distinguished divine. Doctor Stebbins: " And 
 beneath the fair amenities of law, manners, opinion and faith, 
 there lurks a spirit wild and savage and brutal as the Turk before 
 he left his native place in the northern mountains and encamped 
 beside the cities of the south. There are thousands in this city, 
 not yet a great city in modern times, who are Thugs in every 
 fibre of their frame as truly as the robber that threw his javelin 
 or strangled the unwary traveler on the banks of the Ganges." 
 I will quote only one more — namely. Doctor Piatt, of Grace
 
 ['15 ] 
 
 Church. On the 21st of October, 1877, Doctor Piatt said in his 
 sermon: "As Protestants we should Christianize our education; 
 because, first, if our secular schools were instituted exclusively 
 to build up Protestantism they were a great blunder, for they are 
 breaking it doivn." Mark that! "Secular schools," continued 
 the Doctor, "in the interest of Protestantism are a fatal blun- 
 der Secularism saves nothing — not eve^^i itself As to 
 
 Protestantism, it is only a question of time when our jyresent sys- 
 tem will render it a dead factor. The issue is by these schools 
 narrowing the contest down to Romanism on the one hand and 
 infidelity on the other As American citizens we should Christ- 
 ianize our education when religion fails all fails." And 
 
 further on in the same discourse he said: " The danger to civil 
 liberty is not from ecclesiasticism, but from those degraded dis- 
 ciples of secularism. — those Bible-hating, Sabbath-breaking, God- 
 deriding cormorants of office, who make a trade of politics and 
 live upon what the}'^ can plunder of the public taxes." 
 
 It is not merely the leading liberal ministers of the day who 
 are opening their eyes to this terrible evil, but the leading jour- 
 nalists and the leading statesman of the time are also sharing 
 their ideas. Not to go beyond San Francisco, one of the fore- 
 most editors, Mr. Loring Pickering, commenting on one of Doc- 
 tor Piatt's discourses on education, said: " With many of the 
 sentiments he uttered the Gall is in full sympathy. The neces- 
 sity of combining moral education with intellectual education is 
 so apparent that discussion on this point would be superfluous." 
 In other words, Mr. Pickering acknowledges this principle that 
 we Catholics are contending for. Again, in the Call of the 5th 
 of August, 1877, I read these words: " The ddl's usual Sunday 
 letter from Boston stated that a large number of public men had 
 come to the conclusion that the public school system of that city 
 was a. failure." To this I will add the testimon}^ of Mr. Richard 
 Grant White, as given in an article in the North American Review 
 ■ for December, 1880, and entitled " The Public School Failure:" 
 
 " There is probably not oneof those various social contrivances, 
 political engines, or modes of common action called institutions, 
 which are regarded as characteristic of the United States, if not 
 peculiar to them, in which the people of this country have placed 
 more confidence or felt greater pride than its public school 
 system. There is not one of them so umoorthy of either confi- 
 dence or pride; not one which has failed so completely to accom- 
 l^lish the end for which it was established." And in another 
 place he says: " Crime and vice have increased almost pari 
 jmssu with the development of the public school system, which, 
 instead of lifting the masses, has given us in their jilace a non- 
 descript and hybrid class." 
 
 So you can see that we Catholics are not the only persons who 
 think that the j^resent system of education is an imperfect one, and 
 ought to be ameliorated. You may, however, say that after all 
 this is only very partial evidence, and hardly satisfactory. Very
 
 [ Ifi J 
 
 well, tlioii; I'll give yoii more and jnoie Ktill, until I think you 
 will u('kn()\vl(Mlgc tbat it is tin; opinion of Konio of tlio niOKt 
 thoughtful nu'n in tho IMotcKtiint Cliuich thiit there is little or 
 no hoj)e for the countiy witliout combining religious with seeular 
 education. In 1870 or 1871-1 think it was the latter date — 
 there as.seiubled at Oberlin, Ohio, thirty j)residents of American 
 colleges to attend the annual meeting of the Central College As- 
 sociation. All these gentlemen were Protestants, and men of 
 fine culture and ability. Professor Finney, a gentleman well 
 and favorably known in the Eastern States, addressed the meet- 
 ing, and laid it down as an incontrovertible truth that religion 
 must be taught in connection with education. At the clo.se of 
 the meeting the following resolutions were adopted: 
 
 First. — " That we note with i)leasure the evidences of increas- 
 ing interest in the literary, scientilic, and especially the religious 
 education of the youth of our land, believing, as we do, that 
 education not based vpon C/u-iftian truth is of (lUfstionalile value." 
 
 Second. — " That we commend these interests to the sympa- 
 thies, prayers, and liberality of Christian people and congre- 
 gations, that our schools may be increasingly useful as fountains, 
 not only of sound instruction, l)ul also of earned, elevated j)iety." 
 
 Again, as far back as 1848, when infiedelity was not as ram- 
 pant as it is to-day, the General Presbyterian Assembly of 
 America resolved upon recommending to their congregations the 
 necessity of erecting primary and other schools, where the teach- 
 ing and duties of religion should be carried on in connection 
 with the usual branches of secular learning. To the foregoing 
 I will add onh' another testimony. It is that which was de- 
 livered at the Convention of the Southern Bajitists, held in 
 Marion, Alabama, on the 12th of April, lb81, when it was 
 affirmed " that the tendency of the common school system was 
 to foster injidelity," anti that " the only hope is Christian educa- 
 tion in our oavu schools." 
 
 I could give you almost numberless other instances of like 
 disapproval on the jmrt of Protestant gentlemen of education 
 divorced from religion; but, sir, I think you will acknowledge 
 from the instances I have adduced that Catholics are not the 
 only persons in the community who object to purely secular 
 education aj^ait from religious instruction. I sincerely hope 
 that the day maj- not be far distant when Catholic and Protes- 
 tant clergymen will stand on the same platform and fight in the 
 the same lines when battling for the accomplishment of this so 
 much needed educational reform. And unless some such action 
 as this is taken, and taken very soon, too, I most confidently pre- 
 dict that in a couple of generations the grass will be growing 
 before most of the church doors of America, and Bob Inger- 
 soll's prophesy will be fulfilled — viz., that the public schools 
 will be the future cathedrals of our nation. 
 
 I have said above that the system of education as established 
 by law in tlfls country' is not only irreligious, but sectarian, and
 
 [17] 
 
 even the very worst of sectarianism at that. This may, and 
 doubtless will, sound startling in your ears; for your uniform 
 boast ever has been that the foremost schools of this country 
 have been founded upon and are sustained by the very contrary 
 principle. Let us see for a moment how far this may be true. 
 What is sectarianism ? As I apprehend it, it is an adherence to 
 a particular religious denomination. This, I believe, is the 
 definition generall}^ given of it by lexicographers. Hence, any 
 individual, any government or authority that in the case of con- 
 flicting religious claims would lean more to one party than an- 
 other, that would favor one sect more than another, may 
 be most truly said to be sectarian. And now, sir, this is 
 precisely what the government of this country is doing in 
 the case of the public school system of education. Instead of 
 holding the balance evenly between all parties, it is, though it- 
 self Christian, leaning to the side of infidelity; it is supporting 
 the infidel sect, for by excluding God and religion from the 
 schools, it is throwing all its weight on the side of those who 
 deny the existence of a personal God. You may tell me that 
 infidelity is not a sect; indeed, sir, it is just as much a sect as 
 the thousand and one that under ooe denomination or another 
 exist among Protestants. There never was a man that hadn't 
 some belief. " M}' religion," said a certain individual, "is to 
 have no religion " There is no such a thing as pure negation, 
 absolute unbelief. Even those who are styled the most ad- 
 vanced thinkers of our times have their peculiar tenets and 
 forms of belief. You know, sir, for you are reputed to be a well- 
 read man, what such men as Augustus Comte, Herbert Spencer, 
 and Mr. Mill hold and teach. I don't put in this category Hux- 
 ley, Tyndall and Wallace, for they have not yet got quite as far 
 as their confreres. Well, is it not true that though Comte fiatlj' 
 denies the existence of any personal God as the creator and jjre- 
 server of the universe, he yet belives in the "correlation of 
 forces " ? Has he not written a catechism of Positive Religion, 
 and even a Positivist Calendar ? Does not Mr. Mill, though re- 
 jecting Comte's God, or collective humanity, maintain that the 
 proper symbol of the "grand etre " is woman, or the nexe 
 aimante ? Does not Mr. Spencer offer up his orisons at the altar 
 of the great unknown, while good-natured Mr. Huxley would 
 be satisfied with adoration of the silent kind ? Ah, sir, it has 
 been well said that " God gave us religion, but the devil gave 
 us theology." So you see that infidelity has its doctrines and 
 its dogmas, and is accoi'dingly as much a sect as anj^ other that 
 exists among Christians. And now, is it fair, is it just, for the 
 State to lend its aid and support to this individual sect in pre- 
 ference to all others ? Therefore, I say that the public school 
 system of this country is sectarian in its character and working. 
 And now, looking at this matter in a general senae, is it not 
 a very anomalous position for a Christian State to assume when 
 it undertakes to educate the children of the country in any but a
 
 [18] 
 
 CliriMtian manner? It can not be Haid that the State is not 
 Christian, for it is. Of its ChriHtian cliaractcr it can never di- 
 vest itself. It is Christian in its constitution, Christian in its 
 laws, Christian in its traditions, Christian in its civilization. 
 And yet this Christian State refuses to teacli the diildren of the 
 country in a Christian manner. It proposes- to teach virtue with- 
 out relip[ion, morality without dogma. This, sir, is essaying the 
 impossible, it is attempting what can not be done. As well 
 might one attempt to erect an edifice without a foundation, or 
 to hope for an eft'ect without a cause. "NVe don't expect a crop 
 without a sowing; neither should we exi)ect virtue without the 
 inculcation of moral princi])les. 
 
 Even in a purely temporal sense, apart entirely from man's spirit, 
 nal interests, be assured of it that this system is a dangerous one- 
 and will inevitably sooner or later make itself unfavoral)ly felt. 
 It will undermine the very foundations of the government of the 
 country. There is abundant evidence in the history of the p.ast 
 to show that governments that rested on mere material civiliza- 
 tion had not the proper foundation. "What nations in their day 
 were greater than ancient Egypt, Greece or Kome ? "Where was 
 civilization carried to a higher point of perfection than at Thebes, 
 Heliopolis, Athens, and Kome? And does not the traveler to- 
 day, when visiting the scenes of these ancient seats of art, see 
 around him on all sides nothing but ruins of former greatness ? 
 "Why did they fall ? The plain answer is, their civilization was 
 material, and, being only material, it went down before the 
 rude blows of time. And so shall it be with every nation 
 that builds on the same insecure foundation. A thorough 
 Christian education is the only security for the stability of 
 the nation. This is the basis on which all the peace, happi- 
 ness and prosperity of the individual, the family and the 
 country must rest. The evil education of a child is one of 
 the greatest afflictions that could be visited on a parent. The 
 story told of Diouysius the Tyrant will serve as an illustration of 
 this. The philosopher Dion, it appears, had given that monarch 
 mortal offense by some observation or other, and the king was 
 determined to be revenged on him. He could have slain the 
 philosopher, but he did worse. He took his son and entrusted 
 him to an infidel teacher; and when the youth had learned his 
 lesson, and had becomo proficient in impiety, he sent him liack 
 to his father, that he might be a source of sorrow and grief to 
 the old man all the days of his life. The moral is this, that bad 
 children are the greatest affliction a parent or a nation can sutler. 
 
 Don't say that this reasoning is beside the question; don't say 
 that to exclude religion from the schools is not to exclude it from 
 the country; for, as " the child is the father of the man," if you 
 exclude it from the former, you will inevitably exclude it from 
 the latter. 'If you exclude it from the schools, you exclude it 
 from society, from the laws and from the country. Are you 
 prepared to'do this? You will not surely say so; for the most
 
 [19] 
 
 'Sminent and enlightened statesmen would be against you. Let 
 me give you a few instances. Guizot, than wliom few could be 
 regarded as better authority on such matters, when Minister of 
 Public Instruction in France, under Louis Philippe, makes this 
 remarkable admission: " In order to make popular instruction 
 truly good and socially useful, it must be fundamentalhj reHgious." 
 Mark that. " I do not simply mean," continues the same emi- 
 nent authority, " that religious instruction should hold its place 
 in popular education, and that the practice of religion should 
 enter into it; for a nation is not religiously educated by such 
 petty mechanical devices. It is necessary that national educa- 
 tion [now, sir, note this] should be given aiad received in the 
 midst of a religious atmosi^here, and that religious impressions 
 and religious observances should penetrate into all its parts." 
 
 Now, could any priest, bishop, or Pope speak stronger than 
 that in favor of religious combined with secular instruction ? 
 And that eminent Protestant Minister of Public Instruction was 
 43nly echoing what another equally eminent and enlightened 
 minister of instruction had affirmed before him. I refer to Por- 
 tallis, who acted in the same capacity under the first Napoleon. 
 ■" There is no instruction [says this gentleman] without educa- 
 tion, and no proper education without morality and dogma. We 
 oniisl take religion as the basis of educaiion; and if we compare 
 what the instruction of the present day is with what it ought to 
 Tbe, we can not help deploring the lot which awaits and threatens 
 the present and future generations." Need I quote any more? 
 Put perhaps it may be useful to add hereto the words of the 
 rather of our Country. In his farewell address the first Presi- 
 dent of the United States, the immortal Washington, addressed 
 the following never-to-be forgotten words to the people of this 
 country: " Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to 
 political prosjDerity, religion and morality are indisjDensable sup- 
 ports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism 
 who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happi- 
 ness — these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens." 
 And again he says: " Beware of the man who attempts to incul- 
 cate morality withoat religion." And jet, in the face of that, we 
 have men calling themselves patriots, true American citizens, 
 ]overs of their country's independence, laboring with all their 
 might and main to support a system of secular education, which 
 in its character and tendencies is most admirably fitted for pull- 
 ing down these props of human happiness. 
 
 1 think I have now sufficiently shown that we Catholics have 
 abundant reason for objecting to the present school system. 
 Do not reply to this by saying, as you did in your open letter of 
 invitation to me, that we seek the suppression and annihilation 
 of the present school system. We do nothing of the kind, and 
 when you wrote those \vords I am sure you did noti understand 
 our position, for I feel satisfied that you are too upright and 
 lionoi-able a man to knowingly and willfully do us a wrong. All
 
 [20 J 
 
 wo wjiiit, nil we ask, is that wc be not fenced into accepting' a 
 8yfcit(!m wliieh we know, and which we have the most abundant 
 evidence at hand to prove, is undermining and destroying the 
 the faith of millions of our children. A few years ago, a 
 Methodist minister openly boasted that in twelve years we had 
 lost, through the agency of the public school, as njany as one 
 million nine hundred thousand childrt'U ! And a certain Doctor 
 Clark, of Albany, asserted that mullllinlrs Imd yielded to the in- 
 fluence of these inslitutions. In fact, there are statistics to 
 show that Ave have lost in this way the enormous number of 
 eighteen millions of souls. To be consistent and logical, the 
 advocates of the system should freely and without hesitation ac- 
 knowledge that the tendencies and workings of the institution 
 are unquestionably destructive of Catholicism. Ihen we could 
 readily understand our opponents, and our position would be 
 properly defined. But to tell us, in the face of the facts that 
 are before us, that the public school system is not injurious to 
 our interests, and ought to be approved by our Church, is to in- 
 sult our reason and to treat us as fools. 
 
 Are we reasonable, then, in asking and expecting a change? 
 Put yourself in our place, and see how you would feel and act. 
 If, instead of being in the majority, you Protestants were here 
 in the minority, and we inaugurated a system of education which, 
 from experience, was shown to be destructive of the faith of 
 3'our children, how, I ask, would you regard such a system? 
 \\ ould you consider it just, fair or honorable? ^Vould you ap- 
 prove it and appreciate it ? "Would you not rather condemn it, 
 stigmatize it, and denounce it as tyrannical and oppressive in the 
 highest degree. And now may 1 not here aptly adduce the old 
 and vulgar truism, "what is sauce for the goose ought to be 
 sauce for the gander.'' If every one would act on the princi- 
 ple, "do unto otheis as ycu would be done by,'" there would be 
 less oppression, less bigotry, less intolerance in the world. It is 
 a great pity that men don't try to understand each other better, 
 "We Catholics are not the persons that tome would make us, and 
 that many eminent Protestant writers represent us. I have often 
 been astonished while perusing the writings of such men, to see 
 the amount of misapprehension and misconception of our po- 
 sition and doctrines that exists even among the most intelligent and 
 enlightened of the Protestant community. I have encountered 
 these things in the works of such writers as Scott, Macaulay, 
 Disraeli, Carlyle, and others. In fact, such is the cloud of preju- 
 dice that haiigsbefore the eyes and envelops the mind of our non- 
 Catholic brethren in our regard, that they see us and our doctrines 
 in a wholly distorted light. They take us and cur belief for some- 
 thing that we are not and that it is not. Take, for instance, at 
 randcm, any dozen educated Protestant gentkmen of San Fran- 
 cisco, and ask them what the following simple doctrinal ques- 
 tions mean, and, in all probability, they will give you such an- 
 swers as these: AVhat is papal infallibility? "What ai-e indul-
 
 [21 ] 
 
 gences? The first means that the Pope can't sin or can't lie; 
 and the second, of course,, implies a license to sin, or, at least, a 
 pardon of sin. Now, you know that that is not cori-ect — that it is 
 not what Catholics hold on these points. It is indeed a pity that 
 men don't try to understand one another a little better, and to 
 rid themselves of that odious mental delusion called prejudice. 
 But what is strange, too, in this respect, is that the very men 
 who think, and say, and write these hard, bitter, unkind and cut- 
 ting things of us are oftentimes, in their social capacity, among 
 the kindest, gentlest, and most indulgent of persons — men who 
 ■would not for the world do anyone knowingly and willfully a 
 ■wrong. How are we to account for this state of affairs ? Surely 
 the world ought to have outgrown this mental weakness. But 
 yet there is the humiliating fact that it has not; and in view 
 thereof, we can readily understand how the first Christians got 
 the credit of being the worshipers of the ass's heads, of devour- 
 ing infants, and yielding themselves to the most lascivious inter- 
 <;ourse in their religious assemblies. Ah! life is too short to be 
 quarreling about creeds. We should all tr}' to be liberal- 
 minded, whole-souled and unprejudiced toward others. I have 
 lived among Turks Jews, Mohammedans and Idolators, and I 
 rrankly declare that their forms of faith have never embittered 
 my mind; for as long as a man does not interfere with my re- 
 ligious Convictions, he may, if he please, believe that the moon 
 is made of green cheese. 
 
 We Catholics are not the persons that some would make us. 
 Our holy religion forbids us to bear animosity or hatred to any 
 one. We always try to have kindly and generous ieelings for 
 all, and if we declaim against the present system of education 
 which is forced on us, it is because our faith is being injux-ed. 
 As far as the Protestant community is concerned, we have no ob- 
 jection in life that it should retain the common school system if it 
 think well of it. Our object is not to pull down, nor destroy, 
 nor annihilate, as we get credit for trying to do. The antagonism, 
 then, between its and this system is not of that nature of w^hich 
 you spoke when 3'ou said, in your open letter of invitation to me, 
 that there is room in America for only one or other of these sys- 
 tems — namely, Catholicism or the public school system. This is 
 a mistake, a great mistake; there is quite room enough for both 
 without any clashing of interiest within the limits of the Re- 
 public. Only let us withdraw; do not compel us to send our 
 children there any longer, and you may be assured of it that 
 you will never hear a word from anj' among us against the sys- 
 tem. We will let time prove to you what its character is, and 
 we are ready to abide bj' its decision. You may say: We don't 
 force you; you are free to send j'-our children or not, just as you 
 please. Are you really serious? You don't, indeed, force us to 
 this at the jjoint of the bayonet or the mouth of the cannon, but 
 you do force us in a hardly less effectual manner, by taking ad- 
 ■vantage of our poverty and refusing to give us any other system
 
 [22 J 
 
 of instruction, so that we have to choose between leaving our 
 children utterly ifi^norant or accepting what yon offer iis. In fact, 
 3'ou act toward us as a Turkish oilicial acted toward a community 
 of Israelites on a certain occasion, For a reason best known to 
 himself, but certainly not from any liberal motive, he made the 
 children of Abraham i)urchase a certain quantity of pork. lu 
 vain they protested that they had no use for it, that it was not 
 suitable to them, and that their religion forbade them to use it; 
 but purchase it they had to. Now, sir, the ])ublic schools of this 
 country are the chunks of swines' flesh that the authorities 
 throw us Catholics. Vainly do we protest that we do not want 
 this nauseous stuiT, that it does not agree with us, and that it makes 
 us sick at heart. But the only reply we get is that curt and 
 surly one: " Take it or go without; that's all you'll get." It is 
 certainly hard to see how this is consistent with the spirit of lib- 
 erty and freedom that is .supposed to exist in this country. 
 
 The present system of common school education, then, as es- 
 tablished in this land, is plainly contrary to the spirit of the 
 constitution of our nation; for does not that document say that 
 " no human authority can control or interfere with the rights of 
 conscience"? And if it be not an interference with the rights 
 of conscience to compel six or more millions of people to pay 
 for and maintain a system of education which they loudly pro- 
 claim and prove to be hostile and dangerous to the faith and 
 morals of their children, I don't know what interference with 
 conscience can mean. 
 
 But you may say to me: If the system be what you say, how 
 can you conscientiously avail j'ourselves of it at all ? — are you 
 not in doing so traitors to your own consciences '? Not exacth". 
 There are many things that circumstances will justify, which, 
 without them, would be condemnatory. A man, for instance, is 
 justified in risking his life to save another, whereas to expose 
 himself to such peril without any such cause would be exceed- 
 ingly criminal. If we send our little ones to the public schools, 
 this only proves in what estimation we hold education when we 
 are ready even to expose their eternal salvation for its attain- 
 ment. Would, indeed, that all liberal and enlightened Protes- 
 tants would take the same calm and impartial view of this mat- 
 ter that Judge Taft, of Ohio, did some years ago, when, treating 
 on the aftair, he said: "These Catholics (paying their propor- 
 tion of the taxes) are constrained every year, on conscientious 
 grounds, to yield to others their right to one-third of the school 
 money, a sura averaging at the present time about two hundred 
 thousand dollars every year. That is to say, these people are 
 pimiftJied every year for believing as they do, to the extent of 
 two hundred thousand dollars; and to that extent those of us 
 who send our children to these excellent common schools become 
 beneficiaries of the Catholic money. "What a shame for Protes- 
 tants to have their children educated by money robbed from. 
 Catholics ! '
 
 [23] 
 
 Judge Taft was speaking only of his own State when he sdicl 
 that the Catholics were punished to the extent of two hun- 
 dred thousand dollars a year. How, heavy then, is not the pun- 
 ishment with which the Catholics of the whole country are visited 
 annually ! Just for a moment look at the workings of this 
 system in my individual case. There is in this parish of Brook- 
 lyn only a very small Catholic population; wejiumber hardly one 
 in five of the Protestants of all denominations. All told, we 
 are not more than about eight hundred persons, young and old; 
 and I need hardly tell you that we are not among the richest of 
 the community. Well, sir, how do we stand in respect to the 
 public schools? This is our position: believing as we do, that 
 we could not conscientiously avail oui'selves of the system of 
 which I speak, we vigorously went to work and erected educa- 
 tional establishments for our boys and girls, at the cost of tifteen 
 thousand dollars, which, for us, was a considerable amount, but 
 trifling in comparison to the drain upon us to sujDport these 
 schools. We have, under instruction, over two hundred child- 
 dren, and thereby save the State about four thousand dollars an- 
 nually, for if these children were not with us they would have 
 to be educated by the State. Now, sir, do we get any credit for 
 this ? Far from it. We have to pay our taxes as usual for the 
 support of these schools that we don't use. Not only that, but 
 we are taxed for our own schools, that are saving so mvich to 
 the State. Now, I put it to you as an honest, honorable man, 
 is that a fair and equitable system? 
 
 Well, but 3'ou may say: What can we do to accommodate 
 you ? You surely don't expect us to go and build separate estab- 
 lishments for 3^ou Catholics. You don't expect us to pull down 
 these institutions which we have raised at such cost, and in which 
 we have such faith. Most assuredly this is not our demand nor de- 
 sire; we are not so unreasonable. We are ready to meet you 
 more than half way in the settlement of this important matter. 
 We will go this far; we will put up the schools we need, and 
 will furnish them in a manner to suit you at our own expense. 
 The teachers we require we will take from those you have already 
 appointed, in every instance where they are of our own faith; 
 and if we can not find the necessary number in this way, we will 
 present to your boards candidates for the position of teacher, so 
 that you may have an assurance that the instructors in our 
 schools have the necessary qualifications. Furthermore, we will 
 willingly allow your inspectors to examine our pupils to see that 
 they are prcficieut in their studies. In a word, we will give you 
 all that you are getting now, and a great deal more — that is, 
 moral training, together with secular instruction. And for all 
 this we only ask what you are paying under the present system. 
 Again, I ask, what is there unfair in that ? Does not that system 
 prevail in England, Ireland and Scotland? Does it not jjrevail 
 in Upper and Lower Canada ? Does it not even prevail in a 
 part of this country — namely, in Richmond County, Georgia?
 
 [24] 
 
 Aiul if it has been found to work admirably in tliose ])lace8, 
 Avliy not here? 
 
 A great deal more might be said on thiH very imp rtant sub- 
 joct; it is by no means exhausted; but, for tlie present. I feel I 
 Nvoiihl be trespassing too mucli on your spuco were I to continue 
 any longer. 
 
 In conclusion, I hope that you will weigh carefully and atten- 
 tively the arguments that I have advanced, and that you will not 
 allow either passion or prejudic-e to interfere with you in the 
 repl}' that you are exi^ectod to give. 
 
 Bear in mind that my position is this: First, that the govern- 
 ment of the country has no right to step in between the parent 
 and child, and to assume, in regard to the latter, the obligations 
 which the Almighty imposed on the former. Secondly, that we 
 Catholics are losing immensely by this system, and, conse- 
 quently, that it is entirely unfair to force us to accept it, in- 
 asmuch as it is striking at the root of our church. And, thirdly, 
 do not forget that m}' position maintains that without the incul- 
 cation of religion in the schools you can not have a people thor- 
 oughly Christian. 
 
 W. GLEESOX, 
 Kector of St. Anthony's Church, Brooklyn. 
 
 [From the Argonaut, March 10, 1883.] 
 
 "Semper eadem" is the proud and not unfounded boast of 
 the Church of Rome. It has never given its assent to any de- 
 feat that it has met from any other hand than that of science. 
 To some of the unquestioned demonstrations of science it has 
 yielded- -yielded to the inevitable; and never then except when 
 to surrender a part enabled the Church to save the remainder. 
 There are many reasons why Father Gleeson and the Argonaut 
 should not engage in an unprofitable discussion over our com- 
 mon schools: First, because it is unprofitable. Father Gleeson 
 will never be convinced that the Roman Catholic Church is not 
 of infinitely more importance to the world and hiimanity, to 
 America and its institutions, to California and its citizens, to the 
 moral and spiritual well-being of our boys and girls, and to their 
 temporal interests in this world, and their eternal welfare in the 
 world to come, than the free common schools, or any schjols, or 
 any education other than religious. The Argonaut does not be- 
 lieve that the Roman Catholic Church has accomplished as much 
 good as evil m its past history. The world would have been 
 much better off if it had never existed, and humanity would 
 have been spared all sorts of misfortunes, persecutions and 
 tvrannies. The human race would have escaped the hon-ors of 
 many wars, the stripes of many rods, and the heat of many
 
 [25] 
 
 fagots; it would have heard less clanking of chains binding men 
 in dungetms, less groans of bursting hearts, less outcry from 
 torture of inquisitorial rack, boot or thumb-screw. Science 
 would have been more advanced, and there would be less of in- 
 tolerance, bigotry and ignorance in the world to-day, if the 
 Apostolic Roman Church had never been organized. In com- 
 j)arison with this ancient and illustrious Church, with its con- 
 spicuous achievements of more than ten centuries of recognized 
 ■existence, its pompaous ceremonials,, and its arrogant preten- 
 sions of divine origin, we contrast our American system of free 
 schools and of liberal education, where no creed finds place and 
 210 priest finds opportunity, as much the grander and more 
 beneficent institution of the two. If either is from Grod and 
 planted by a divine intelligence, it is the school. If there is in 
 all this world an enduring rock, it is the corer-stone of the free 
 school-house. If there is a hell, and hell has gates, and if these 
 bronze barriers of the damned ever come forth for conflict, the 
 only thing in this world that they will not preval against is the 
 non-sectarian school-house, where are laid, broad and deep, the 
 foundations of a learning so liberal that it may dare to doubt, 
 inquire, investigate, and act. 
 
 The Argonaut has no sort of confidence that it can bring 
 Father Gleeson around to think in his way, and the Argonaut is 
 quite sure it will never be convinced that the Roman Church 
 is of divine authority; that its head is the vicegerent of God; 
 that he carries the keys; that he is, by virtue of his spiritual 
 office, the superior of all in civil authorit}'; that he is infallible 
 or impeccable; that he has any authority in America, or an}' 
 right to exercise any authority or influence in the making or 
 execution of our laws; that he or his subordinates in spiritual 
 employment have any right to interfere in our schools, or that 
 any of the doctrines or dogmas of the Church of Rome have any 
 right to be taught therein. This controvery is the more unprofit- 
 able because it has been fought over and over again in this 
 country, in nearly, all of the States, and the church has always 
 been defeated. The real point at issue is to secure such a dis- 
 tribution of school moneys as will secure Catholic schools, with 
 Catholic teachers, where Catholic pupils can be taught the 
 Catholic religion, or, as Father Gleeson expresses it, 
 
 " We will go this far: we will put up the schools we need and will hu'uish 
 them; the teachers we require wd will take from those you have already ap- 
 pointed. * * " We will allow your directors to examine our pupils to see 
 that they are proficient in their studies. In a word, we will give you all that 
 you are g>:>ttiuj^ now and a gr^-at deal more — that is, moral training, together 
 with secular instruction. And for all this we only ask what you are paying 
 tinder the present system." 
 
 Native of New York, we know more abaut this controversy 
 there than elsewhere. From the first planting of the germ of 
 the free-school system in New York, and before the century
 
 r '-^(5 J 
 
 be{,'aii, the rolij^'ious cou'^rci^iduniH dcniaiiilod a division of the 
 public nioiioy in aid of tlioir Chiin;h scliools. In Ntnv York, the 
 Baptists, and not the Catholics, were the first to make this claim. 
 About the year 1825, the Catholics had become a political power 
 in New York, when the authority of that Church asserted its 
 claim to a division of school money. In 1840, this controversy 
 culminated in a splendid debate before the Common Council 
 of the City of New York, in which Bishop Hu^dies, Theodore 
 Sedgwick, Hiram Ketchum, Doctor Bond, the Reverend John 
 Knox, Nathan Bangs, and the Reverend (Jardiner Spring took 
 part. It was carried into politics, and involved Governor 
 Seward and the Honorable John C. Spencer, Secretary of State 
 for the United States, in its discussion. It tigured in the State 
 Legislature, and became the subject of animated public discus- 
 sion. Petitions, memorials, remonstrances, and protests were 
 thick as leaves. Catholics and Protestants help public meet- 
 ings — the one to express disapprobation, and the other to uphold 
 the public-school system. The question was carried to the 
 Legislature, and in the City of New York the Catholics ran a 
 legislative ticket. In Carroll Hall, Bishop Hughes made a re- 
 markable speech in answer to Hiram Ketchum, which occupied 
 three evenings in delivery. This subject was then ably, elo- 
 quently and exhaustively considered. It was settled — and, for 
 the United States of America, definitely settled — till the time 
 shall come, if ever, when the Roman Catholic Church in America 
 has the power and the opportunity to unsettle all that American 
 republicans hold sacred and inviolate. 
 
 The Argonaut concedes that, while it is the privilege of the 
 Church to teach religion and morality, dogmas and doctrines, it 
 is the duty of the State to instruct in those branches of educa- 
 tion which lit boys and girls to become bread-getters in the 
 struggle of life, and properly to discharge the res})onsible duties 
 of citizenship. • The school does not interfere with the church 
 nor come between the parent and the priest. The school de- 
 mands but six hours out of twenty four, live daj's out of seven, 
 it has but ten months out of twelve, and it averages less than 
 seven years out of the allotted seventy. It gives the parent and 
 spiritual guide all the rest of the time from the cradle to the 
 grave. We do not admit that, by the exclusion of sectarian 
 teaching from the schools, they necessarily become godless. 
 "Experience," says Father Gleeson, "has demonstrated the 
 evils resulting from a development of the mental to the exclu- 
 sion of the moral faculties." The statement is at best a plati- 
 tude, and demands proof. It is not applicable to our educa- 
 tional system, because it does develop the moral faculties; and, 
 if this assertion means that the kind" of education provided by 
 the Catholic Church, and in Catholic countries, by Catholic mas- 
 ters, priests, or nuns, is better in results than a non-sectarian
 
 [27 ] 
 
 education under the American system, we deny it. We declare 
 that the world is better, and its morals purer; that it enjoys 
 more freedom of conscience and greater liberty of intellectual 
 devoloj^ment; that it has attained a higher scientific position; 
 that it has more bread to eat and clothes to wear; that less men 
 are persecuted for conscience sake, less are killed in battle or 
 have become the slaves of social and political conditions; that 
 there is less governmental tj-ranny, less of religious intolerance, 
 less of ignorance and bigotry, and less of crime and poverty, 
 since the civilized nations have begun to emancipate themselves 
 from the teachings of the Eoman Catholic Church. Nor do 
 we admit that the young men aud women who graduate at our 
 public schools are either godless or immoral. We claim that, in 
 these respects, and in the possession of all the qualities which 
 go to the make-up of intelligent and honorable men, and culti- 
 vated and virtuous women, they are equal, if not superior, to the 
 men and women who, in childhood, have been educated in 
 sectarian schools, or who, in youth, have been molded by the 
 hand of priest or nun. We see no philosophy in turning boys 
 over to the mauijDulation of childless priests, or putting girls 
 under the control of women to whom the womanly instinct 
 of love and maternity is forbidden as a sin. We declare 
 that in America there are no Catholic schools at all comparable 
 with our free-school system; that Jesuit priest and Christian 
 brother, hooded nun and lay sister, are not, in general culture, 
 in practical sense, in honorable deportment, in virtuous lives, in 
 moral excellence, in imitative example, or healthful influence, in 
 any respect superior to the gentlemen and ladies who teach in 
 our public schools. AVith indignant contempt we deny the vile 
 slander so often and so covertly insinuated from Eoman pulpit 
 and Catholic journal, that the young women of our public 
 schools, our female seminaries, and our institutions of Protes- 
 tant or liberal learning, are not equal in virtue and dignity of 
 womanly pride, to the graduates of parochial or convent schools. 
 It is not from the dormitory or play-ground of monastery or 
 nunnery that the most honorable of men or the most exemplary 
 of women are produced. It is from the tree, common and non- 
 sectarian schools of America that the best American citizens, 
 both men and women, come. We state this proposition from 
 our reading of history, our observation in foreign travel, and the 
 familiar statistics of our criminal and eleemosynary institutions. 
 That the Bible, which is claimed to be the fountain-head and 
 source of all moral instruction, is not to-day read in our schools, 
 is chargeable to the efforts of the Eoman clergy who caused it to 
 be excluded. No one opposed its use more earnestly than 
 Bishop Hughes of New York. We need not discuss the ques- 
 tion why it was excluded. We further deny that our school 
 system does not teach morality. Our children are taught the 
 underlying principles of justice and charity, and that it is wrong 
 to lie, or steal, or bear false testimony. It teaches the laws of
 
 [28] 
 
 chastity, temperance, and moderation in sensual induljjence, 
 tlu'Ou;>'li the laws of health, nature and physiology. It teaches 
 honor to men and virtue to women. It instructs in the hi;,'he8t 
 code of morals when it teaclies the ri;2;hts of personal liljerty, 
 the freedom of conscience, tlie protection of property, the in- 
 violability of domicile, obedience to the law, respect for courts 
 and maj^istrates, and the duties of citizenship. The criminal 
 and civil codes are lessons in morals. The discipline of the 
 school room is a moral lesson which teaches obligation to uj)hold 
 and maintain order in society, and that it is the duty of all to 
 obey the law. This is the only kind of education that the State 
 is interested in, and the only kind it feels authorized to provide. 
 AVe believe that to grant the demand of the Church for partici- 
 pation in our system of education, would be to broaden the 
 foundation of an ecclesiastical establishment which is now en- 
 gaged in educating men and women to iinrepublican principles, 
 to beliefs which do not recognize the law, the magistrates, and 
 the courts of the country as its highest authority; and which 
 would, in time, bring about a connection between Cliurch and 
 State which would have for its ultimate object the subversion 
 of the State and the supremac}' of the Church, and would at- 
 tempt to bring the Government in subordination to tbe ecclesias- 
 tical power of the Church of Rome. "We believe that a division 
 of our school moneys, and their appropriation to parochial or 
 other ecclesiastical, denominational, or sectarian schools, would 
 destro}' the unity, efficiency and usefulness of our present most 
 admirable system, and set up a class of schools which would 
 tend to encourage race and class distinctions, and raise a crop of 
 petty and contentious theological institutions, with narrow-mind- 
 ed bigots and pedants for teachers. If Bible-reading is so indis- 
 pensable to moral teaching, and morality is impossible without 
 religious convictions, it may be well to remind our opponent in 
 this discussion that the Bible was excluded from the schools at 
 the instance of his Church, and that its presence could not be 
 endured, even' if read without note or comment. Bible-reading, 
 except under interpretation of priest or canonical teacher, is 
 not, we believe, generally encouraged; nor as a rule is the 
 sacred volume regarded as safe in the hands of youth. In fact, 
 the Church of Kome objects to the use in our public schools of 
 very many of the historical narratives of the last ten centuries, 
 because on every page of impartial history is recorded — some- 
 times in blood — the crimes which it has perpetrated to secure 
 for itself political and dynastic power. Its history is a history 
 of aggressions, violence, criminal deplomacy, and unscrupulous 
 use and abuse of power, in assertion of the political supremacy 
 of its spiritual head. The papal power has arrogated to itself 
 not only the right to govern men's conscience and to demand 
 unqualitied submission to its opinions, but to exact from all 
 countries and all men an obedience to the Pope in all matters 
 of civil and governmental power. These claims the American
 
 [29] 
 
 people reject as arrogant aud presumptuous. They resent their 
 assertion, and, so long as the Roman Church puts them forth, 
 our Government and its people must be the enemy of the Church. 
 These questions of civil power and of the exercise of civil 
 authority are so interwoven and entangled with religious and 
 spiritual cpiestions, that it is impossible to teach the one with- 
 out the other. It would be impossible for the clerical mind ta 
 keep them apart. When spiritual and civil problems get mixed 
 — Rome being the teacher — the spiritual comes to the top. 
 Whenever the American school-house shall be turned over to the 
 Roman Catholic teacher, under the direction of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, American youth will be taught the civil su- 
 premacy of a spiritual ]^:ower as the first and fundamental axiom 
 of governmenf. 
 
 Holding these views, the Reverend Father Gleeson will hardly 
 expect the Argonaut to sympathize with him, because the Church 
 of Rome has in America, and within half a century, lost eigh- 
 teen millions of its precious souls who have wandered from" the 
 faith, and now are sailing down the great, broad educational 
 current, which, taking its source in the American school-house, 
 finds its way to the great ocean of liberal thought, whose restless- 
 weaves are ever beating and surging against the iron-bound 
 shores of religious intolerance, bigotry, and ignorance. In the 
 face of this admission, it is not necessary to question the truth 
 of the Bishop of Rochester's assertion that Protestantism is in 
 its decadence, or of Doctor Ferdinand Ewer, that it is a failure;, 
 for, if in half a century the free school house, the free press, and 
 laws which, favoring no religion, protect all, can in our country 
 extort the admission of the loss of eighteen millions and the 
 preservation of only six millions, we can fold our hands, and 
 bide our time when this splendid ecclesiastical fabric shall, in 
 spite of Macaulay's prophecy or priestly interpretation of apos- 
 tolic utterance, disappear from the face of the earth. "We can 
 afiord, when an occasional Tom Noddy of an English lord or a 
 society woman of San Francisco takes the sacrament, to patient- 
 ly enclure the clerical rooster as he crows over an accession to 
 Rome, and we may console our unregenerate souls when Ave con- 
 template the emancipation of so many men and women irom 
 their loyalty to a power which, in self- preservation and self-de- 
 fense, finds it necessary to attempt to destroy the free schools of 
 America. The cause of this defection and loss of eighteen mil- 
 lions is not that the schools have omitted to teach religion. The 
 cause is a secondary one. This flight of millions from the 
 Church of Rome in America — the same causes are operating 
 over all the European world — is because our boys and girls have 
 been taught to read and think for themselves, and have^ been 
 permitted to act in obedience to their own convictions, and by 
 the law protected therein. Our schools have so emancipated
 
 [30] 
 
 them that when the}' become men and women they have the 
 moral courage to think for themselves, defy the thunders of the 
 Church, des]nte its threats of eternal torture, and laugh at the 
 spiritual pretentious of what they could not fail to observe was 
 an organized industry for earning money and securing power. 
 The Church of Home waited ten centuries to have it demonstrated 
 — in America — that it could not survive a ])eaceful and fair con- 
 test with a free school-house, from which the i)riest and his re- 
 ligious teachings should be excluded. We thank you, Father 
 Gleeson, for your frank admission that you "are losing im- 
 mensely by the school system;" and we, in turn, will be frank as 
 you: The Argonaut, "without hesitation, acknowledges that 
 " the tendencies and workings of the common-school system are 
 "unquestionably destructive of Catholicism." We confess this 
 in the very language you provide us, and we admit that it is this 
 idea that which makes us overlook its man}- imperfections, and 
 which prompts us to declare that it is the one institution which 
 Americans most cherish, and in defense of which they would 
 most freely imperil their lives. They hold it as most sacred, 
 and look to it as the most impregnable of their defenses, in pre- 
 servation of the free institutions, laws, and liberties of the re- 
 publican government under which they live. The Church of 
 Rome as at present constituted (and it will not change — it is 
 sempsr eadem) can not live in the presence of liberal thought. 
 It can not survive within the shadow of free schools, a free press, 
 and a government which will give it no favors not conceded to 
 Turk, infidel, Mohammedan, or Jew.
 
 Father Gleeson's Rejoinder. 
 
 The Editor's Inconsistency on the Subject Shown up. 
 
 Beooklyn, March 15th. 
 
 Editor Post: I would feel very grateful to you to allow this 
 and the accompanying letter to appear in the Saturday edition of 
 your paper. The letter was intended for the Argonaitt, but Mr. 
 Pisley could not make it convenient to give it insertion in this 
 ■week's issue of his journal, and, as I do not care to throw the 
 matter back, I have recourse to this method of disposing of it. 
 In an interview I had with Mr. Pixley yesterday, in his office, he 
 declared that he did not invite me to the discussion of the 
 school question at all, but only to one phase of it — namely, its 
 morality. In answer to that, I refer the gentleman to the words 
 of his challenge, as made to me in his open letter of February 
 17th, in which the following sentence is to be found: 
 
 " I shall be glad if I can find by your admissions some com- 
 mon starting point/or the discussion of the school question." 
 
 Since my last interview with Mr. Pixley, I have come to under- 
 stand his real position. Hitherto, I was alwa3's under the im- 
 ypression that I had to deal with a Christian man. but Mr. Pixley 
 <>'^has frankly aoowoi'od to me that he is not a Christian, but an 
 infidel. He does not, he saj^s, believe in the existence of God 
 or of the soul. This, of course, fully explains why the gentle- 
 man does not want any religions instruction in connection with 
 the education of the j'outh of this country. And the simple 
 reason is because it would be most damaging to his principles. 
 Por there is no greater barrier against infidelity than proper re- 
 ligious training. In reality, then, though perhaps the gentle- 
 man does not see it, he is an intolerant sectary, for he wants all 
 sects to yield up their rights to him, so that his infidel prin- 
 ples may be advanced. Of course, no one has any right to 
 blame Mr. Pixley for being an infidel, if he thinks it best to be 
 such; but what seems to me strange is that he hasn't the 
 courage and manhood and independence to come out boldly be- 
 fore the community and openly declare his infidel principles. 
 I have very little respect for a man who shoots from behind a 
 hedge. I always admire a frank and independent opponent, 
 while on the other hand, I do not think much of the man Avho, 
 ■with the mask of Protestantism, is infidel at heart, and, though 
 writing ostensibly as a Christian, is yet all the while seeking to 
 indoctrinate others with his infidel notions.
 
 [ :^^ J 
 
 Mr. Pixley said to me in his open letter tbat he had " no re- 
 spect for the valor of any i)art of Acliilles but his heel." I am 
 perfectly in accord with him in that. I always like a man to 
 show himself, and to stand by his colors. He also said to me 
 that he found the dialecticians of my Church "just the least 
 hit slippery. ' The public can now judge who is the slipperier 
 character, Mr. Pixley or myself. 
 
 In short, the <>;entleman wants us all, Catholics and Protes- 
 tants, to sail with him in the same infidel boat, thinking,', no 
 doubt, that we would be safer there than el.sewhere. But what- 
 ever others may think on the matter, I must frankly acknowl- 
 edge that I consider Mr. Frank Pixley's infidel craft a very un- 
 seaworthy vessel, and one of which I would not like to intrust 
 himself. 
 
 I am, sir, yours truly, 
 
 W. Gleeson. 
 
 Editor Aegonaut: It is always understood, when a gentleman 
 challenges another to a discussion on any subject, social, moral, 
 political or otherwise, as the case may be, that he is prepared to en- 
 ter on the same. This is why I was much surprised on reading 
 your reply to my letter, which appeared in your issue of the 3d, 
 to see in the very second paragraph the following sentence: 
 " There are many reasons why Father Gleeson and the Aryonaut 
 should not engage in an unprofitable discussion over our com- 
 mon schools." And the reason you assign for this is " because 
 it is unprofitable." To some minds this would not seem a 
 reason at all, for a reason is a proof; and to say that a thing is 
 so, because it is so, is no proof. Further on in your editorial you 
 say that "this controversy is the more unprofitable because it 
 has been fought over and over again in this country and in nearly 
 all the States, and the Church has always been defeated," while 
 again in another jDart of your reply, referring to what took place 
 in New ^ork about forty years ago, in connection with the 
 school question, you say "it (the school question) was (then) 
 settled, and for the United States of America definitely settled." 
 
 Now, sir, it does seem strange to me — and I have no doubt it 
 will seem strange to a good many of yoMV readers, too — that a 
 gentleman who believes as you do, that a discussion of this 
 nature is unprofitable, the matter, as you affirm, having been 
 definitely settled as far back as forty years ago, should have in- 
 vited me, in an open letter, to discuss it. When you pub- 
 lished your card of invitation to me, why did you not then think 
 as you now do ? I never sought to engage in this discussion at 
 all; I never desired to obtrude myself on the attention of your 
 readers, and never would; but you challenged me, and I accepted 
 your challenge. For, bear in mind, sir, that it was not I but 
 you, yourself, Avho proposed, in your issue of the 10th ult., the 
 discussion of this matter. In your open letter, addressed to me.
 
 [33] 
 
 of that date, you professed yourself most auxious to debate this 
 question in a calm, thoughtful and gentlemanly way. For, as 
 you said, " You would not willingly misrepresent the attitude 
 taken by the Roman Catholic Church in California in reference 
 to our public schools." And therefore you added, " I am willing 
 to discuss this question; I think it a practical one, and would do 
 it courteously." You even said, in a communication that passed 
 between us on the matter, " I am anxious to discuss this ques- 
 tion." And now in the face of these protestations, after drag- 
 ging my name before the public, you say it is an unprofitable 
 question to discuss, and that the matter has been definitely set- 
 tled more than a generation ago ! How am I to interpret this 
 seeming contradiction; how am I to explain your sudden change 
 of sentiment ? Two weeks ago you were willing and anxious to 
 disGuss the matter, because you considered it " practical," and 
 now you are unwilling, because you consider it "unprofitable." 
 Is it the same gentleman that is editing the ArgonatU to-day who 
 was conducting it a fortnight ago? Indeed, sir, this seems to 
 me little better than trifling with a very serious subject. I think 
 I had a right to expect different from this. I met you in the 
 very best of faith. I believed you were sincere when you pro- 
 posed the discussion of this matter, and I never for a moment 
 questioned the integrity of your declaration, for I did not sup- 
 pose it possible that a gentleman occupying such a prominent 
 position as you do would propose for public discussion a serious 
 matter of this nature, and immediatly after declare it to be un- 
 profitable. Had I, under the plea of debating the common 
 school question indulged in censurable and ofi^ensive strictures 
 on the character aud workings of the Protestant religion, what 
 would your readers think of me ? Aud does your position war- 
 rant you in doing and sa3'ing what, under like circumstances, 
 would be entirel}' unallowable for me? In short, sii', I cannot 
 help saying that this proceeding of yours looks very like beating 
 a hasty retreat or hoisting the white flag the very moment the 
 first broadside has been cast into the enemy's intrenchments. 
 
 I must, however, acknowledge that this rapid change of senti- 
 ment is not foreign to your character when dealing with the 
 public school question, for, while you are loud in your praises 
 of this system, declaring it to be the one institution which 
 Americans most cherish, and for which they would most freely 
 imperil their lives, a few years ago you held the very contrary 
 opinion, going so far as to declare that the school system of 
 this country was a sham and a fraud. If you look into your 
 issue of the 21th of August, 1878, you will find that you then 
 used this very remarkable language : 
 
 " The whole system of comuion school education, as now con- 
 ducted, is a sliain and a fraud." 
 
 Mark that, sir; the whole system is a sham and a fraud. How 
 has the system been so materially altered since 1878, that, while 
 it was then a sham and a fraud, it is now the ne ijIus ullra of
 
 [ -^i ] 
 
 jierfoction ? Ih it Mr. Frank Pixley Avho .s2)f!ikH now, niid wlio 
 Hpoke tlieii ? " The voice, indooti, is tlie voioo of Jaculj, but the 
 hniitLs are the hands of Ksau. ' All, sir, well may I say, " Con- 
 sistency, thou art a jewel," but thou dost not abide in the 
 ArrjoiHtul office. 
 
 i^oubtless you never thoufj-ht, when yon came out in your late 
 rojt'. as champion of the present public school system, that the 
 public remembered that you had written the above. But some 
 men have lon^'er memories than you would ^'ive them credit for. 
 Indeed, there is such a thing as a man dipfginj,' his own grave, 
 and you know wbat the psalmist has said: " He had opened 
 a pit and dug it, and he is fallen into (he ]iole he made." [Some- 
 times men lay traps and snares for others, but somehow or other, 
 instead of catching their victims, they unwittingly' manage to get 
 very uni^ieasantly entangled themselves. But, sir, yo\i said 
 more in condemnation of the school system than what I have 
 quoted. On the IHth of July of the same year, writing about 
 the training ship Jamestown, you said: 
 
 " We regard the whole sham as a piece of wicked profligacy 
 out of which able politicians may steal from the tax-payers a 
 luxurious living for a few wretched favorites. Our conivton school 
 sy.ifem is of I he same clolJi." 
 
 That is, as I understand your meaning, a sLam and a piece of 
 wicked profligacy. Then you continue thus: " "We spend in 
 San Francisco one million dollars aimually to over-educate and 
 mis-educate our children. The average graduate of our high 
 schools, both boys and girls, is, by the system, rendered unfit 
 for the station in life to which he or she is born." And this is 
 the magnificent system for which you now tell us the American 
 jDeople are ready to die — a system which, according to you, unfits 
 persons for the stations in life for which they were born. There 
 is a very apt expression which I think may be well applied here: 
 " Ex ore tuo te judlco" — out of thy own mouth I convict thee. 
 It is a very dangerous thing, sir, for a public man to have two 
 strings to his bow — to play fast and loose, saying one thing now 
 and <"he contrary to-morrow. Such a man can never have any 
 weight or authority even with the least scrupulous, for no matter 
 what men's character and principles may be no one ever likes to 
 indorse contradiction. 
 
 Again, in another part of your editorial of the date I refer to 
 you "also said: " The joresent educational system /.s distructive of 
 all respect for jyhysictl labor. If the statistics of our San Fran- 
 cisco schools could be ascertained, we are confident that the 
 children ivho hare graduated in crime out-num'ber those icho hare 
 accepted a life of physical labor. We are producing a class of use- 
 less boys and unprofitable girls." • 
 
 Did I, sir, or any other Catholic priest on this coast, ever 
 speak as hard or disparagingly of the public school system as 
 that? If we did, what a howl of virtuous indignation you 
 would raise against us. and what a handle you would make of
 
 [35] 
 
 our words ! The old saying is, indeed, quite true, that men can 
 see a mote in others' eyes, but not a beam in their own. "Medice 
 ^ura (eipsum " — johj-sician, cure thyself, Befoi'e you ever again 
 undertake to laud the public school system of this country-, you 
 will have to explain these words, and you will have to do so in a 
 somewhat different manner from the way in which, you met my 
 arguments by merely saying, " We declare * * , we declare 
 
 * * , we assert * * ," as if your declaration and asser- 
 tion amounted to a satisfactory proof. 
 
 Let me continue; for extracts of this kind, of which I have 
 now given a sample, will I think, sir, prove interesting to many 
 of your readers: "If it were not for our immigrati)ig class, 
 industrial vocations would come to a deadlock." Again I ask, is 
 that the system for which Americans should imperil their lives 
 and be read}' to die r 
 
 " The time will come when in America, and in California, the 
 fact will assert itself, that our present school system is destructive 
 of the class of working people. Nor do we believe that the kind 
 and degree Oi education given at our high grade free schools is 
 <3alculated to preserve either the virtue or the honesty of our 7'ising 
 ■generation." Good, sir; admirable! No man could utter truer 
 words. Now, at least, we are in accord. Neither the kind nor 
 the degree of education given in the common schools is calcu- 
 lated to preserve either the virtue or the honesty of the rising 
 generation. These golden words should be treasured up and 
 handed down to posterity with the most jealous care, so that all 
 men may know that in the year of. our Lord, 1878, the editor of 
 the Argonaut pronounced ex cathedra that the common school 
 system of America is not calculated to preserve the virtue or 
 honesty of the rising generation. I think some of the friends 
 of the school system will now be inclined to cry out, in the 
 words of the poet, " Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis." 
 
 Argonaut, July 20,1878: "Our boys are milksop-educated, 
 nerveless, cowardly hangers-on upon their mothers' apron- 
 strings. * * * Who expect to live upon their fathers' earn- 
 ings. Oar girls are a worthless set, becoming pach jeav more 
 worthless, and it is not their fault. We are educating them to 
 become the wives of rich men, playthings and ornaments of 
 luxurious homes; and if they fail and we fail, then God help 
 them . Society is strewn with the wrecks, and the tempest has 
 just begun." So it has, sir; and a terrible tempest it will be 
 when it rises to its full height, and sweeps this continent from 
 shore to shore, as it inevitably will, unless measures are taken, 
 and that very soon, to avert the awful calamity. " In another 
 generation or two, the American born will be a pitiable, helpless 
 thing." 
 
 Well, indeed, sir, may your readers rub their eyes and inquire, 
 is this man really quoting from Mr. Pixley ? Surely the editor 
 of the Argonaut did not say these things. If any one doubts 
 jmy veracity, I refer him to the files of yoar paper, which are on 
 hand in San Francisco.
 
 [ 3fi ] 
 
 In your issue of the 24th of Aupfust, 1H78, I fiiid an exreecl- 
 iugly just statement. "The position taken by tlie ArehbiHhop- 
 in reference to the attendance of Catholic chihlren (jf our un- 
 sectarian schools seems to us to he entirely aj)}>ro]»riHte." In^ 
 deed, sir, it is most appropriate. "If a reli{,aous education i» 
 of higher importance than a secular one, if tlie salvati(jn of the 
 soul is to be imperiled by a neglect of Christian teaching, then, 
 clearly, it is the duty of the Catholic pastor to warn those under 
 his religious care, not to imperil the future of their children by 
 exiDosiug them to the influence of a system of education con- 
 spicuous for the absence of religious and moral training. To 
 punish the contumacious parent by withholding from him the 
 Church sacraments, as a penalty for disregard of the counsels of 
 the Church, seems also to be hi(jldy lof/ical and propn-." 
 
 Bravo, sir; bravo! Your never in your whole life reasonetl 
 more logically than when you wrote these words. 
 
 Again, under the same date as I have given last, I also find 
 the following judicious and thoughtful sentiments: "The free 
 common schools that we would have, should graduate all their 
 pupils at fourteen years of age. Teachers should be women. 
 The boy or girl who, by his own or her own exertion, could pre- 
 pare for a higher education, we would aid through the State 
 University. We wottld thus in San Francisco make a practical 
 saving to the taxpayers of nearly a million of dollars, and, what 
 is better, we would then turn thousands of half-educated and 
 overstufl'ed dunces into honest workingmen and women. Our 
 whole common free school sy&tem haa departed jrovi il.s oinffinal 
 scope and purpose, or, rather, it has been diverted by dema- 
 gogues, jobbers and place hunters from its oi;iginal design." 
 
 1 think your readers have now suflicient to convince them that 
 the estimation in A\hich you held the public schools in 1878, 
 differs somewhat from that in which you now hold them. 
 
 It won't do, in explanation of this, to have recourse to the 
 Grecian method of solving the difliculty, by appealing from 
 Philip drunk to Philij) sober, for you are notably an abstemious- 
 and temperate gentleman. I leave the explanation, then, en- 
 tirely to yourself, and I shall be very happy to learn the extra- 
 ordinary change that has taken place within the last few years in 
 the common scliool svstem, so that what four years ago was a 
 sham and a fraud, is now about the most perfect of institutions,, 
 and the only thing that can successfully defy the power of helL 
 " The only thing in this world that they (the gates of hell) will 
 not prevail against is the non-sectarian school-house." 
 
 Another, whose assurance I would much prefer to accept, ha& 
 said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church, 
 But of course, this is merely a matter of taste, and those who 
 feel so disposed are perfectly at liberty to place the most un- 
 bounded confidence in the prophetic utterances of the editor of 
 the Arcjorioxd. But, for my part, I would jnefer to believe that 
 it is a little more difficult for the powers of hell to prevail
 
 [37 I 
 
 against the Church of God than against the common school sj'S- 
 tem of this countiy; for I find in the divine writings an assur- 
 ance for the one but not for the other. I must, however, admit, 
 sir, that, in one sense, I think you ai*e correct in saying that the 
 powers of hell won't prevail against the common school system 
 of this country. For persons don't genei'ally seek to destroj' 
 what is most useful to them; every man cherishes what is ser- 
 viceable to his own cause, and, in this respect, I believe that 
 fBven Beelzebub himself is not an exception. He certainly would 
 he a very great fool if he were, and he is not generally accredited 
 ■with being indifferent to the advancement of his own interests. 
 This is why I think you are correct in saying that the powers of 
 hell won't prevail against this system. 
 
 Your editorial is supposed to be an answer to my letter, but 
 how far it can be satisfactorily regarded as such — that is, how 
 far it has met the points at issue — I am quite willing to leave to 
 your readers to say. I think it will be seen that you have not 
 rebutted one single statement in my whole communication. In- 
 stead of grappling with the arguments, you have entertained 
 your readers with entirely irrelevant matters; you have filled 
 your columns with strictures and censures of my Church. What 
 bearing, for instance, has the following sentence on the subject 
 under discussion: "If there is a hell, and hell has gates, and 
 if these bronze barriers of the damned ever come forth for con- 
 jflict," etc. What, I ask, has this to do with the merits of the 
 school question ? Just as little as the man in the moon has to 
 do with our terrestrial affairs. I didn't undertake to discuss 
 whether there is or is not a hell. That is a matter we will find 
 out hereafter ,and perhaps too soon for some of us. Such writ- 
 ing is wholly irrelevant; it is foreign to the subject and has 
 nothing to do with the matter under debate. No doubt some 
 ma}^ consider it a very tine specimen of English, while others, 
 on the contrary, might be inclined to i-egard it merely as high- 
 ialutin or tall talk. What a Ruskin or a Carlyle would think of 
 it I don't know, but I do know that it has no immediate bearing 
 on the subject proposed for discussion. 
 
 You begin your answer to me by sa3ing- " The Arrjonaid does 
 not believe that the Roman Catholic Church has accomi^lished 
 as much good as evil in its past history." Again I ask is that 
 the matter we proposed to discuss? Did we undertake to del)ate 
 the amount of good or evil wrought by the Catholic Church ? I 
 once heard of a young man who was asked if he could sing, 
 ^' No," said he, "' but my brother is the devil at the French flute! " 
 To talk about the amount of good or evil done by the Catholic 
 Church while the question under consideration is the school 
 question of this country, is about as unreasonable an answer. 
 There are some persons who, when you ask them anything they 
 are sure to answer you by asking a question in return. This is 
 peculiarly an idiosyncrasy of a certain class, but I did not know 
 that it was much adopted by those who regard themselves as of 
 the true American stock. 
 
 293494
 
 [ -J^ ] 
 
 Jumping from one thiiiji,' to nnothcr, and answering one thing' 
 by introducing nnothcr, is id ways th(; trick of the controversial 
 juggler — it is the artifice of a Proteus. 
 
 " Millo adde catenas effigiet tanien ha'C sceleratus vincula, 
 Proteus." 
 
 In every legislative Assembly there is an official entitled the 
 Speaker, whose business it is, when a member happens to forget 
 himself and to stray away from the main question under debate, 
 to call him to order and request him to talk to the point at issue 
 or to resume his seat. Tlie same rule should be applied to all 
 discussions Avherever conducted. A man should either speak to 
 the point or acknowledge the force of his adversaiy's arguments. 
 Side issues should never be introduced; doubtless they are very 
 convenient at times, for they serve to cover a man's retreat, if 
 his opponent is silly enough to follow him, and thus allow him 
 to draw off attention from the main question; but such shifts 
 always evince either a lack of argument, an illogical mind, or a 
 weak cause. 
 
 Again, you say, " The world would have been better off if it 
 [the Catholic Church] had never existed." That, sir, is merely an 
 opinion, and one which maybe veiy fairly contested, taking even 
 for our guide Protestant testimony. For such eminent Protes- 
 tant writers as Guizot and Hallam have not been slow to recog- 
 nize the services rendered to the world by Catholicism, the for- 
 mer having gone so far as to say that if the Church had not 
 existed the whole world would have been delivered over to mere 
 brute force. But, anyhow, I never said the world would not be 
 better off in such a case. I have my own opinion on that point 
 just as you have yours. "What I objt ct to is that it has nothing to 
 do with the question at issue. Why go outside the field of 
 debate in this fashion? Why not rather answer my arguments;, 
 or, at least, make some pretense of doing so ? 1 stated, and I 
 gave j)roof for my statement, that the system of education that 
 does not embrace the religious element is defective. Did you 
 take me up on that? Did 3'ou refute my arguments ? What 
 did you say? Not a syllable. I also stated, and I backed up 
 my statement with ample proof, that the education which is 
 devoid of religion is dangerous to the nation. Did you rebut 
 that ? Did you disprove it ? What did you say to it ? Not a 
 syllable. Then I proved that the State had no right to stand 
 between the parent and the child, and how did you answer me? 
 Certainly in a ver}- extraordinary manner, by asserting that the 
 State does not stand betweeii the parent and the priest — as if I 
 asserted that it did. And now it might be proper to inquire why 
 you did not take up and refute at least some of my arguments. 
 For in every debate, at least the principal arguments of an 
 opponent are made the main object of discussion, and whenever 
 they are thrown in the back-ground and wholly ignored, the 
 plain and undeniable inference is that they are irrefragable. I, 
 therefore, conclude that you found yourself unable, under the
 
 [39] 
 
 circumstances, to answer the arguments embodied in my letter. 
 Either that or you must hold in the most sovereign contempt the 
 intelligence of your readers if you imagined that tbey would 
 regard as a satisfactory^ refutation of my position such ^•ague, 
 inapplicable sentences as that " the world would have been 
 better off had the Catholic Church never existed; that the human 
 race would have escaped the horrors of war; * * * * 
 that science would have been more advanced," etc. I assure 
 you, sir, I had a much higher opinion of your tact and ability as 
 a reasoner, and I feel wholly disappointed to find that, instead 
 of meeting me squarel}'^, you should have thus run into entirely 
 irrelevant matters. Had I to deal with a young inexperienced 
 youth, I might have been prepared for something of this kind; 
 but having to do with a veteran editor, a man of large experience 
 and much legal acumen, I must frankly avow, you have taken me 
 entirely by surprise. If you had gone into a philosophical view 
 of the supremacy of the State, and its absolute rights over its 
 subjects, I could have appreciated your argument; but when you 
 talk merel}' about chains dungeons and thumbscrews, and such 
 like, I have only to suppose that either you have not seriously 
 applied your mind to the question at all, or that you are not the 
 able man I took 3'ou to be. 
 
 And now, sir, I think I ma,y very aptly introduce here a para- 
 graph from Chax-les Reade's little work, "The Coming Man:" 
 '' Pacts should always be faced. The champion of truth neither 
 shirks nor succumbs. Either he lets hostile facts convert him, 
 or he meets them with more facts and weightier. The same with 
 arguments; to mis-state, or even understate, an oj^poneut's ca.se, 
 is the practice of the many respectable rogues controversy breeds; 
 but it is more cunning than wise; for these are the known arts of 
 falsehood, and truth gains nothing by. them. Truth can state 
 the other side fairly, yet still prevail; since, to put it in Shakes- 
 peare's words: 
 
 " ' Good reasons must, perforce, give place to better.' " 
 
 Again, you say " that the Argonaut is quite sux-e it will never 
 be convinced that the Roman Church is of divine authority; 
 that its head is the vicegerent of G-od; that he carries the 
 keys; that he is by virtue of his spiritual office the superior 
 to all in civil authority; that he is infallible and impeccable," etc. 
 Now, once more, I ask, did I ever seek to convince you of any 
 of these things? Did I ever try to persuade you that the Pope 
 is impeccable? If I did, I would be guilty of a very naughty 
 offense, and one for which my Archbishop Avould very readil3' 
 call me to an account. For, by i^ropounding so utterly un- 
 reasonable a heresy, and trying to imbue therewith so respectable 
 a gentleman as the editor of the Argonaut, I would be laying my- 
 self open to the charge of having fallen from the faith. >io, no, 
 sir, I never, for a moment, thought of making you believe that 
 the Tope is impeccable, for this is a matter tliat neither I nor 
 any other member of the Catholic Church ever held or imagined.
 
 [ '1<^ ] 
 
 You say tlmt bcin^if a native of New York yon. know more 
 about the wovkin;^s of the system there than elsewhere, ami theu 
 ,yuu go on to ^ive an account <;f the system in its orip^in. It is a 
 2)ity you did not give your readers all the facts, l)ut, as you have 
 not done so, with your ])ermission I will sujjply what lias been 
 omitted. For, indeed, I consider it very important that your 
 readers should be informed on this head. For, if I mistake not, 
 there is a very great misapprehension existing in the rninds of 
 many regarding the origin of the common school system of thi« 
 country, the people generally believing that it is now what it was 
 at tirst. This, however, is a grievous mistake. The system is 
 just about as ditVerent now from what it was when first started as 
 any two systems could possibly l)e. For, at first, it was a fair, 
 honoi'able and praiseworthy enterj^rise, undertaken in behalf of 
 the needy, and having for its object the enlightenment of the 
 indigent poor without any attempt at interference, eitlier directly 
 or indirectly, with their religious convictions. In fact, at tirst, 
 and for a considerable time, the moneys appropriated to this use 
 were disbursed on the denominational ])lan, to the variou.t reli- 
 gious societies for the purpose of education. The real origin of 
 the common school system of the country, then, is this: About 
 the beginning of the present century a few noble hearted, phil- 
 anthrophic gentlemen of New Y^ork having at their bead one 
 whose name will ever stand prominent in the annals of this 
 country — De "Witt Clinton — formed themselves into a society, the 
 object of which was to look after and educate the poor little 
 waifs of the city who were neglected by all. In ihe first charter 
 of the society the object was stated in these words — viz: "The 
 education of the children of persons in indigent circumstances, 
 and who do not belong to or are not provided for by any reli- 
 gious society." And then, in the subsequent paragraphs of the 
 act of incorporation, are set forth as follows the means by which 
 the society hoped to reform their charge: " And. whereas, the 
 said persons have presented a petition to the Legislature setting 
 forth the benefits which would result to society from the educa- 
 tion of such childi'en bi/ imphniliug i)i their mindH (he principles of 
 religion and moralU}/, and by assisting their parents to provide 
 suitable situations for them, where habits of industry and virtue 
 may be acqiured, and that it would enable them more efiectually 
 to accomplish the benevolent objects of their institution if their 
 association were incorporated." 
 
 So you see, sir, that the public school system in its origin em- 
 braced the very principle which we are now contending for to- 
 day. How is it that you forgot to mention this very important 
 circumstance when you undertook to inform your readers of the 
 origin of the s^-stem? In its inception, theu, the public school 
 system was a private scheme, and one which commended itself 
 to every benevolent Christian mind. It was incorporated in 
 1805, under the title of "A society instituted in the city of New 
 York for the establishment of a free school, for the education of
 
 r4i] 
 
 poor children who do not belong to, or are not provided for by 
 any relioious society." Three years later the name of the society 
 was changed to that of the " Free School Society of New York," 
 its powers being also extended. It was not, however, until 182G 
 that it received its present title, or " the public school system," 
 and it was at that date that the State took it under its control, 
 assumed its management and began to act in its regard as the 
 Pontifex Maxim us 
 
 The system, then, has departed from its original programme, 
 for at first it was private, denominational and religious, having 
 for its object, by the coupling of religious with secular instnic- 
 tion, the amelioration of the poor, indigent, abandoned children 
 of New York. Why now, sir, I would ask has the system been 
 altered? Why has it been found necessary to discard the prin- 
 ciples of religion and morality ? From all that is generall}' said 
 and written about it the community was led to believe that 
 it was never different from what it is at present, whereas the 
 contrary is the fact. And so infatuated and intolerant did 
 men become in its regard that up to almost the present it was 
 dangerous for a man to oj^en his mouth against it, a Catholic 
 clergyman having been tarred and feathered in Maine some 
 years ago for hav ng dared to express an adverse opinion on its 
 merits. In fact, the thing became associated in the minds of 
 piany with a kind of supernatural creation, and was regarded 
 with as much awe and veneration as if it had been an incarna- 
 tion of Vishnu or Buddha. But it is now refreshing to think 
 that it is being regarded as something less sacred than it formerly 
 -was in the eyes of its worshipers, and though for a period it 
 donned the trappings of an imaginary deity, the ugly idol is at 
 last beginning to appear in all its naked and hideous deformity. 
 
 Then you go on to say " we do not admit that religious teach- 
 ing is indispensable. * * * -^yg Jq ^^q^ admit that 
 b}' the exclusion of sectarian teaching," etc. Of course I know 
 that vou don't admit these things, and what was the need of 
 telling me that? Does the fact of your not admitting the mat- 
 ter settle the question? If you think so, you must have a very 
 exalted opinion of yourself. Indeed, sir, I would seriously 
 recommend to your attention that axiom in logic, " Quod gratis 
 asseritur gratis negatur." You know, of course, what that 
 means. It is not, then, what you admit or don't admit that is 
 the question, but what there is reason to show sliould be 
 admitted. If your ipse dixit were to be taken in this matter for 
 proof of whatever you are pleased to affirm or deny, there would 
 be no use in arguing the question at all. I wonder what a judge 
 on the bench would think of a lawyer who would take a case so 
 ai'bitrarily into his hands as to say to every argument of the 
 opposing counsel, " We don't admit that — we don't admit 
 that." Were such a reason admissible, it would be exceedingly 
 easy to settle every question. 
 
 Then again, you go on to say: " We declai-e that the world 
 is better. * * * "\ye declare that in America
 
 [42 J 
 
 there are no Catholic schools at all comparable," etc. Now, sir, 
 ■without at all meaninff tho slightest discourtesy, allow me to say 
 that I don't care one fi}^ for your declarations. One single, solid 
 reason would weigh more with me than all the declarations and 
 asseverations you could make in the course of a year, and 1 be- 
 lieve that, in this, your readers generally share with me the 
 same sentiments. 
 
 But for the interest of the reader it may be well to hear your 
 entire declaration. Well, here it is: "We declare that the 
 world is better off * * * that it has more liread to eat and 
 clothes to wear * * * since the civilized nations have begun 
 to emancipate themselves from the teachings of the Roman 
 Catholic Church." Well, sir, bread and clothes are certainly 
 very good things, but I think tbere is something better. I be- 
 lieve it is said in a certain book, " not in bread alone doth man 
 live." I believe it is also said in the same volume, " seek first 
 the Kingdom of God," and again, " what doth it profit a man to 
 gain the whole world and suiier the loss of his own soul." I 
 wonder what good wall bi'ead and clothes be to a man who fails 
 to find his way to where all virtuous people expect to go. A 
 man won't always want bread and clothes, but he will some- 
 thing else. 
 
 Again, "We declare that in America there are no Catholic 
 schools at all comparable with the public schools.' That is a 
 mere assertion. Is it possible that you have your reader-s in sucK 
 a state of absolute subjection that your mere declaration is suffi- 
 cient to guarantee the certainty of all your statements ? To 
 many men a little jDroof would be exceedingly gratif^'ing, par- 
 ticularly in a case like this, when we find many Protestant 
 parents preferring to send their children to Catholic convents or 
 Catholic colleges, rather than to Protestant educational estab- 
 lishments. Does it not strike you, sir, as rather singular that 
 they should do this if they thought with you, that the free 
 schools are the best in the country ? 
 
 " It is not from the dormitory or playground of monastery or 
 nunnery that the most honorable of men and the most exemplaiy 
 of W'Omen are produced." That again is merely an assertion, 
 and to be accepted by all, would require a little more than your 
 asseveration. No doubt your position is one which carries con- 
 siderable weight with it; you are generally regarded, I believe, 
 as an authorit}' by those for whom you write, but, somehow or 
 other in this enlightened age, men don't like to be led by the 
 nose. They like to have some reason given tliem, however 
 small, for what they are expected to believe. " It is from the 
 free, common and non-sectarian schools of America that the 
 best American citizens, both men and women, come. We state 
 this proposition from reading of history, our observation in for- 
 eign travel, and the familiar statistics of the criminal and 
 eleemosynary institutions." It would take an exceedingly pene- 
 trating eye to discover an infinitesimal particle of proof in this.
 
 [43] 
 
 Like all other assertions, it is mere assertion and nothing more, 
 and consequently cannot weigh -with any logical or inquiring 
 mind. It is, indeed, to be regretted that you did not unbend a 
 little and give a few instances from your " historical reading," 
 or some cases in point from your '* foreign travel." 'Ihe latter, 
 especially, would be exceedingly interesting to the writer, as he 
 has happened to have traveled a little in his day, and perhaps 
 even more than the editor of the Argonaut, yet somehow or 
 other he has never encountered or been able to discover in all he 
 has seen and traveled over, though he has been in the four 
 quarters of the globe, any evidence or proof tending to convince 
 him that it is from the common schools of this country that the 
 best men and womcii come. Some men, indeed, see double, 
 while others imagine the}' see things which they do not. As an 
 instance, I once heard of a gentleman, who, happening for the 
 first time to pay a visit to Kome, and seeing on one of the 
 Church doors a notice stating the amount required for the use of 
 chairs during divine service, took it for a tarifi:" for the re- 
 mission of sins, and, of course, on retui-ning to his own country, 
 indignantly declaimed against the horrors of so debasing a 
 system. 
 
 There is only one more paragraph in your editorial to which I 
 wish to refer. It is your admission that the public school system 
 is destructive of the faith of our children. You even rejoice at 
 this, for, after quoting my words to this effect, you say " we 
 confess this in the very language you provide us, and we admit 
 that it is this idea which makes us overlook its many imperfec- 
 tions, and prompts us to declare that it is the one institution 
 which Americans most cherish, and in defense of which, they 
 would most freely imperil their lives." I would be unwilling to 
 think that there are many Protestant gentlemen in San Fran- 
 cisco who share with you so intolei-ant and bigoted an assertion. 
 For what can be more intolerant, bigoted, sectarian and narrow- 
 minded, than to cherish, love and be ready to die for an insti- 
 tution, because, that in its working and tendencies it is destruct- 
 ive of the faith of others. This surely is not the sentiment of 
 the American people as a people; it is rather the sentiment of a 
 little clique of sectarian know-nothing bigots. Hence, we 
 Catholics should never cease in pressing home this all-important 
 question until the nation comes to understand our position and 
 the hardships that we are laboring under, and as sure as we are 
 faithful to our principles, so sure will we ultimately succeed; for 
 sooner or later, reason will prevail, and right will triumph. 
 Others, too, will be with us in this matter, for their interests as 
 well as ours our at stake, and numerous Protestants are now be- 
 ginning to see that something must be done to stem the torrent 
 of infidelity that is at present rolling over the country. 
 
 In fine, sir, your entire article is of that character which fully 
 justifies your assertion that it would be wholly unprofitable to 
 discuss this matter with you in your columns. It would, indeed.
 
 [ '1^ J 
 
 be unprofitable to attempt to discuss any subject when the 
 l)oiut8 at issue ai'C slun-ed over and entirely irrelevant matters 
 drii/^fi^od in. I cannot, however, conclude this letter without ex- 
 j)re.ssin{,' my rej,'ret that, after haviiij,' accepted your invitation to 
 discuss the affair, in a calm, temperate and ctnirtoous manner, 
 you should have made it the occasion of a severe and bitter at- 
 tack on my Church. I met you, as I have already said, in the 
 best of faith; I believed you were anxious to discuss the (ques- 
 tion, because you said so, and I never injagined for a moment, 
 when you offered me that invitation you considered the 
 matter an unproHtable subject for discussion and a settled 
 question. 
 
 Should you then iu future, from any motive or other, deem it 
 your duty to address an open letter to me, inviting me to a dis- 
 cussion on any subject, I will be neces.sitated to respectfully de- 
 cline the same. 
 
 I am, sir, yours truly, 
 
 "SV. Gleesok. 
 
 [ From the Argonaut, April 7.] 
 
 When we asked Father Gleeson to furnish for publicatian his 
 sermon upon our public s;hools, he sent us a fifty-pa.ije manu- 
 script argument iu favor of a subdivision of our school moneys 
 to the parochial schools of his Church. His leading argumeut 
 was: "The free-school system is destroying our Church, and 
 " we have already lost iu America eighteen millions of Komau 
 " Catholic souls." Our reply was: "We are glad of it. The 
 " Roiuau Church is the enemy of republican government; the 
 " papal power is inimical to liberty and dangerous to our institu- 
 " tions; and, if the American school system can beat Rome, its 
 " Jesuits, and its conspiring priests, we hail it as an iustitutiou 
 " to preserve with our lives." Father Gleeson's rejoinder, pub- 
 lished iu the Pod, charges us with inconsistency iu this, that we 
 have condemned the scht)ol system, heretofore, for extravagance iu 
 teaching the higher branches of learning, and for untitting the 
 children of the laboring poor to fill contentedly the positions of 
 their parents. We admit it, and say now the system is full of 
 faults. We find many things to criticise, to condemn; but if it 
 is accomplishing so grand a work as the destruction of the 
 political power and iufiuence of the Romish Church iu Amei'ica, 
 and is undermining the authority of the Papal Church— a Church 
 which we regard as a most dangerous institution, and one which 
 threatens the prosperity of the government and the liberty of 
 its people — then we liail it as the last and grandest establish- 
 ment of our American commonwealth. We are not standing in 
 any awe of this power, nor do we recognize any possibility of 
 danger from papal intrigue, except as it can obtain control of 
 the education of our youth. We recognize the past splendid
 
 [45] 
 
 triumphs of this Church, as all having occurred iu ages of ig- 
 norance which it has itself begotten, and in countries which it has- 
 first ruined, and among people it has tirst degraded and debased. 
 Its magnificent cathedrals were never reared where education 
 was free and common to all. Its impressive ceremonials never 
 challenged the admiration or chained the attejition of an intelli- 
 gent free people. This Church of the apostles, whose popes de- 
 mand the allegiance of kings, and which has falsely arrogated 
 to itself the claim of encouraging art and learning, has ever 
 been, from the time when it robbed the splendid marbles from 
 the pagan Coliseum to build the temples of its faith in Iiome, most 
 brutally intolerant of the faith of every one who did not worship 
 at its altars or yield unquestioned allegiance to its arrogant as- 
 sumption of civil powers. It is this effort at the grasping of 
 political power in America which we resist. It is this shameful 
 assumption of the right to interfere in the political affairs of our 
 Government which we resent. The claim of the Eoman Pope 
 to the implicit obedience of American citizens in civil aft'airs, 
 and that claim based upon his absurd and sacrilegious assump- 
 tion that he is the vicegerent of God, rightfully angers every 
 honest mind, and is revolting to every intelligent jDerson. The 
 doctrine of papal infallibility Cannes with it consequences de- 
 structive of individual independence. The man who is bigoted 
 and ignorant enough to think that by offending the Pope he 
 offends God will obey the Pope, and give him his political alle- 
 giance, in opposition to any law, or code, or executive which 
 does not acknowledge this foreign ecclesiastic as the supreme 
 civil ruler. It is the doctrine of this Church of Rome that its 
 spiritual head is clothed with all political power, and that his 
 civil authority should be recognized throughout the world. This 
 doctrine makes the Vatican the highest apjiellate tribunal, to 
 which must be carried from courts, and jiarliaments, and kings 
 the disputes which agitate them. The State has no right which 
 it does not hold in subordination to the papal power. Pius IX. 
 declared that " every human being should be subject to the 
 Roman Pontiff." Spiritual dominion forbids liberty of con- 
 science, and, as in the city of Rome till civil authority was justly 
 wrenched from the papal hand by the Italian king, no Protest- 
 ant could worship. Only ignorant people can ever be brought 
 to submit themselves to the intolerance and cruelty of ecclesias- 
 tical power. Ecclesiastical power can only maintain itself upon 
 the ignorance, sui^erstition, and bigotry of the community in 
 which it exists. The Church of Rome, always ambitious of 
 power, seeks to aggrandize itself in America. The only way it 
 can do so is by destroying free schools, and thus paving the way 
 through ignorance to an assertion of its most absurd and ridicu- 
 lous pretension of being the only and true Church, and that its 
 bishop, or Pope, is the vicegerent of God, and entitled to the 
 civil allegiance of all the world. To attain this power the 
 Church cf Rome has lighted the fagot, sharpened the steel, and
 
 [ 40 J 
 
 opened the bloody j,'ravo in every afje. It lias ])f!r.so(;uted in 
 every laud — Bohemia, Moravia, Saxony, France, Spain, the 
 Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Sardinia, Tuscany, Baden, 
 Portu<j;al, and Ireland. In Canada and the Carolinas, in South 
 America and Mexico, wherever the si^ni of the cross has ]>een 
 rained, wherever the invadinjj^ priest has ^'one, there has followed 
 abject subjugation, attended by all sorts of cruel persecutions 
 and horrible crimes. The histoi'v of the progress and dominion 
 of the Church of Rome has been a history of unparalleled 
 atrocities. This history will be repeated in tliis land whenever 
 this Church can attain political ascendancy. It is the crouching, 
 sleepless cougar, which never closes its eyes never relaxes its 
 2)urj)ose, and is never diverted from its prey. It never tolerates 
 infidelity. It preserves its faith b}' the extirpation of those who 
 do not subscribe to its dogmas. It is just as dangerous to-day 
 as it was in the time of the Borgia or Hildebrand It is just as 
 aggressive in America as it ever was in Spain. It is just as in- 
 tolerant in San Francisco, under the purriug of the velvet- 
 mouthed and good Father Gleeson, as it was in Antwerp, under 
 the rule of the bloody Alva. The bronze chimes of Saint Pat- 
 rick's Church are not more innocently musical than the bell that 
 clanged forth the tocsin at the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. 
 The tires of the Inquisition still smoulder, and the breath of the 
 priest, and monk, and Jesuit, and Pope, would again fan them 
 into devouring flames should the opportunity ever again occur. 
 This secret power is plotting in America against the liberties of 
 its people; first, spiritual ascendency, then political authority; 
 first destroy the American school-house, and on its ruins build 
 this ecclesiastical structure that acknowledges allegiance to 
 Rome. The road to Rome is through the ballot box. The road 
 to the ballot-box is over the ruins of the school-house. The 
 first movement is a division of the school moneys, until there is 
 a majority of the Pope's voters; when that majority is acquired, 
 then all the school moneys; then priests tor teachers; then ban- 
 ishment from the school-house of any other than sectarian or 
 religious education. It was Pope Gregory, in 1831, who be- 
 lieved that the " Holy Empire " would be established in America. 
 It was Pope Gregor}' XVII. who said: "Out of the Roman 
 States there is no country where I am Pope except in America." 
 It was Pius IX. who denounced liberty of conscience and wor- 
 ship, and who declaimed that the underlying principles of our 
 Government are pernicious to the Papal Church. It is the pres- 
 ent Pope, Leo XIII., who denounced our public schools as im- 
 moral and godless. It was Doctor Orestes Brownson, an Ameri- 
 can Catholic, who declared that the Pope of Rome, as the visible 
 head of the Church, was entitled to supreme civil authority' iu 
 America.
 
 [47 ] 
 
 We do not need to be told by Father Gleeson why the Church 
 desires to have school moneys appropriated to parochial schools, 
 or why he would provide the present public schools with Catholic 
 teachers. We have a higher and better authority. To prove 
 our two positions — viz., that the Roman Church claims for the 
 Papal power the exercise of civil authority in America, and that, 
 to gain that end, it would subjugate our common schools, we re- 
 print from "The Encyclical " those articles which have special 
 bearing upon civil government: 
 
 XIX. — The Romish Church has the right to exercise its au- 
 thority, without having any limit set to it by the civil power. 
 
 XXIV. — The Romish Church has a right to avail itself of force, 
 and to use the temporal power for that purpose. 
 
 XXVI. — The Romish Church has an innate and legitimate right 
 to acquire, hold, and use property, without limit. 
 
 XXVII. — The Pope and the priests ought to have dominion 
 over the temporal affairs. 
 
 XXX. — The Romish Church and her ecclesiastics have a right 
 to immunity from civil law. 
 
 XXXI. — The Romish 'Clergy should be tried for civil and 
 criminal offences only in ecclesiastical courts. 
 
 XXXIX. — The people are not the sources of all civil power. 
 
 XLII. — In case of conflict between the ecclesiastical and civil 
 powers, the ecclesiastical powers ought to prevail 
 
 XLV. — The Romish Church has the right to interfere in the 
 discipline of the public schools, and in the arrangemant of the 
 studies of. the public schools, and in the choice of the teachers 
 for these schools. 
 
 XLVir. — Public schools, open to all children, for the educa- 
 tion of the young, should be under the control of the Romish 
 Church, should not be subject to the civil power, nor be made 
 to conform to the opinions of the age. 
 
 XLVIII. — While teaching piously the knowledge of natural 
 things, the public schools must not be separated from the faith 
 and power of the Romish Church. 
 
 LIII. — The civil power has no right to assist persons to regain 
 their freedom who have once adopted a religious life — that is, 
 become priests, monks, or nuns. 
 
 LIV. — The civil power is inferior and subordinate to the ec- 
 clesiastical power, and, in litigated questions of jurisdiction, 
 should yield to it. 
 
 LV. — Church and State should be united. 
 
 LXXVIII. — The Roman Catholic religion should be the re- 
 ligion of the State. 
 
 This discussion properly ends here. We give this— the highest 
 authority of the Church o"^f Rome— in proof of the opening as- 
 sertion of the Argonaut's first article, that this church, with all 
 its arrogant and impudent claims, is " siimper endem." It would 
 assume to itself the exercise of civil power in America, to the 
 destruction of iis constitutional authority, the overthrow of its
 
 [48] 
 
 form of government, and the defeat of the accej)tecl declaration 
 of our organic liiw, that all civil authority comes from the j)enj>le. 
 It would unite Church and State. It would, having gained the 
 authority at the ballot-box, enforce it with the hword. The 
 priest would be above the njagistrate, tlie Church aljove the 
 courts, the Pope above the President, and every idle, snuff-takiug 
 monk, and every bigoted and ignorant foreign priest, above the 
 law. The Church would coine between the iiurent and child in 
 school discipline. The school-books would be ecclesiastical 
 primers — as formerly in France — filled with puerile stories of 
 blessed saints and holy martyrs, intermixed with Avf^Mariax and 
 Pater Noslers, and other superstitious and priestly nonsense. 
 Freedom of conscience would be crushed out of existence; free- 
 dom of worship would be no longer tolerated: and this land of 
 ours would be brought to the condition of Europe in the mediaeval 
 age, when it was ruled by an ignorant priesthood, in subservience 
 to a tyrannical ecclesiasticism that kept the world in darkness 
 for ages. Destroy the schools, good Father Gleeson, and place 
 them under the domination of your priests, and niight we not 
 expect the condition of Sardinia under the teaching of your 
 Eoniish clergy, where 512,384 out of a population of 547,112 can 
 neither read nor write ? Or might we not look for the condition 
 of solidly pa^ml Spain ? — once a nation of universities and 
 splendid learning; once a nation grand in the enjoyment and 
 encouragement of art; a nation of conquerors, adventurers, dis- 
 coverers, and one which did not begin to decline till it made the 
 interest of the Church paramount to all other rights, and made 
 the cross the emblem of cruelty and oppression to all to whom 
 it was carried. Out of sixteen millions of people in Spain, less 
 than three millions can read and write. "Would not our country 
 soon resemble Italy, less than twenty years ago, where the Church 
 held swa}' — as it had for centuries of time — and where out of 
 twenty-two millions of people more than seventeen millions 
 could neither read nor write ? In the Basilicata, in Calabria, and 
 in Sicily, nine-tenths of the inhabitants can neither read nor 
 write. In Rome, the capital of the Papal Church, where this 
 vicegerent of God sits enthroned amid his palaces and his churches, 
 and w^here, up to within a recent period, he exercised sovereign 
 power and full civil authority, the densest ignorance and the 
 grossest immorality prevailed.* We may not consent, honored 
 and reverend sir, to allow our free schools to come under the con- 
 trol of your Church, until we are convinced that in those countries 
 •where your Church holds sway you can show better results than in 
 ours, where, thanks to God aLd to our system of education, your 
 Church does not hold sway. Let us contrast the mass of the 
 American people, for intelligence, education, and all the qualities 
 which go to the formation of national character, with Ireland, 
 
 * A seuteuce is here emitted, beiug too grossly vulgar and offeusive to evea 
 common decencj'.
 
 [49] 
 
 where your Church is influential; with Mexico, where it is in 
 authority; with the province of Lower Canada, where it directs 
 the educational system; with any locality or community on the 
 face of God's earth. We challenge you, Father Gleeson, to 
 name the one spot on all this earth, from Rome outward, where 
 the Holy Roman Apostolic Church has produced equal educa- 
 tional results with our free, godless, American system. For 
 evidence that the Papal Church is exclusive, and that whereso- 
 ever it has power it uses it to suppress the liberty of the press, 
 the freedom of speech, the liberty of conscience and the freedom 
 of worship, we are not compelled to grope through the musty 
 archives of the past, ransack history, or depend upon hostile 
 testimony of acknowledged enemies of the Church. It is found 
 in encyclicals from the Vatican, and in the official utterances of 
 the latest Popes. The recorded utterances of Pius IX. and Leo 
 XIII., are full of hostile denunciations against all these things, 
 and especially against unsectarian education. In 1851 the Papal 
 authorities of Tuscany banished Count Quiciandini for having a 
 Bible in his possession. In 1852 the papal powers of Portugal 
 decreed imprisonment and fines against all who opposed the 
 Church. In 1860 Manuel Matamoras, of Spain, was sent to the 
 galleys for eleven years, for daring to preach Protestantism. In 
 Belgium, France, Austria, Italy, German}', Mexico, and the 
 States of Central America, within the last ten years, the civil 
 authorities have been brought into unpleasant collision with the 
 j)apal power, not in reference to spiritual matters or dogmas, 
 ^ut because of the interference of papal priests with the admin- 
 istration of civil aflairs, and because in all these countries the 
 Church has been restrained in its endeavor to monopolize the 
 education of youth The incident which occurred some 3'ears 
 ago in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, is not forgotten, where 
 Father Scully lashed a boy to blood-letting, for attending a 
 public school, and not his parochial school, in disobedience of 
 his command; nor the case of Father Dufresne, at Holyoke, 
 Massachusetts, who was punished by the law for attempting to 
 ruin the business of a jjarishioner for a similar oft'ense. There 
 is no State in this country where the influence of the entire 
 Church and its clergy is not brought to bear against our free- 
 school system. The Holy Sacrament has been withheld in Oak- 
 land from Catholic parents so offending. A leading jjapal 
 journal, the Catholic Wor/d, has denied the compcteuc}- of the 
 State to educate, or to say what shall or shall not be taught in 
 the public schools. It repudiates the doctrine that education is 
 the function of the State. The doctrine is maintained by all 
 good Romanists, and by all Romish priests, good or bad, that 
 the education of all children in all countries and at all times 
 belongs to the Romish Church. AVe should be ghvd if tlie scope 
 of this article enabled us to print the absurd nonsense found in 
 church school-books — the perversion of history, the suppression 
 of facts concerning the Church, and the suggestion of falsehoods
 
 L '50 J 
 
 concerning evcrvtliing tliat is not of the ('lunch. We should be 
 glad if we had space to compare llonianisni with ProteKtantism 
 in its results in other lands. There is a multitude of questions 
 which we should be glad to submit to our reverend disputant. 
 How do the three hundred and eightj'-six thousand and twenty- 
 BBven foreign-born in this State, most of whom have been bora 
 and educated in the Koman Church, com|)are in point of educa- 
 tion and morals with the same number of non-Cath(jlics who 
 have been educated in our free American schools? Of the three 
 hundred and forty-six foreign-born committed in the past year 
 to our Industrial School, and of the additional iiumber born of 
 foreign parents, how many are Romanists? Of the five hundred 
 and forty -three admitted to our Alms-house, and of the addi- 
 tional number born of foreign parents, how many are Roman- 
 ists ? "We puss the unfortunate insane at Stockton and Napa, 
 and seek to make no argument on the fact that the foreign -born 
 outnumber the native-born. There are sixty-nine girls in the 
 Magdalen Asylum, maintained at the city's expense; what part 
 of them are of Roman Church and parochial school education ? 
 The statistics of our jails and places of criminal detention we 
 commend to the careful analysis of good Father Gleeson. Let 
 him review the statistics of crime, poverty, intemperance, and 
 the misfortunes arising from intemperance, and from the sale of 
 intoxicating liquors, by the nominal members of his Church, 
 that we may see what figure they cut in comparing the results 
 which come from Protestantism, infidelity, and non-sectarian 
 education with those which come from parochial schools and the 
 relififion of Rome. 
 
 Our discussion having taken this broad range, we shall admit 
 that we are wrong in saying that it was unprofitable, and Father 
 Gleeson was right in his endeavor to give it so broad a sweejD. 
 No danger can arise to our institutions from the opposition of 
 the Church of Rome, so long as it is open. No evil can come 
 to our free system of education from the Papal Church or papal 
 priest, so long as the contest is maintained in daylight, and by 
 alignments so frank as those of Father Gleeson. "SVe look ujdou 
 the school-house, not as built upon a rock, but as the rock itself, 
 and we have no fear concerning it if we can keep the plotters of 
 this Romish Church from using the secret drill and dynamite. 
 Neither the gates of hell nor St. Peter can prevail against it, so 
 long as tree discussion in a free press is permitted to free men. 
 It was the Catholic Vicar of Croydon who said we must root out 
 printing, or printing will root us out. We hope Father Gleeson 
 will see how impertinent to this discussion was his very question- 
 able allusion to our infidelity, and ap]:)reciate that it is of little 
 consequence to the writer or anybody else what he may presume 
 to think are our opinions upon religious questions. We shall be 
 pleased at some future time to discuss with the most excellent
 
 r 51] 
 
 and pious cleroymen of the Church of Rome the moral character 
 of those who have worn its scarlet, filled its papal chair, and 
 who, as primates, legates, cardinals, bishops, and priests, have 
 been clothed with its power, and compare their inner lives and 
 their conduct with those of the most notorious infidels of the 
 world. If opposition to the assumption of aivil authority by 
 the Church of Rome, and its interference in the administration 
 of the Government of the United States of America, or the 
 claim of it, or any other ecclesiastical institution, to meddle 
 with the American free-school system, or the refusal to admit 
 that it has, or ought to have, any other or higher recognition by 
 our Grovernment than has the Buddhist, or that the Po]>e has any 
 other or higher claim to be considered the vicegerent of God 
 than has the white bull of India — if all this be infidelity, we 
 confess it; not to you, good Father Gleeson, in whom we i-ecog- 
 nize no authority to give remission of our sins, but to the Ar- 
 gonaut readers, to whom, for the pi'esent, we submit this, we 
 hope, not uninteresting or unprofitable discussion. 
 
 [Frovi the Argonaut, April 14.] 
 
 Father Gleeson complains that having invited him to discuss 
 the question of our common schools, we have attacked his church. 
 Exactly, that is just what Ave have done; that was our object in 
 opening up the controversy. Fnther Gleeson claims a division 
 of school moneys — public money, our mone}', everybody's money 
 — for the purpose of paying Romanists to teach the Romish or 
 papal religion in our schools. We kick, because we do not 
 want the Pope's religion or the Pope's politics to be taught in 
 our schools. "NVe think the Church of Rome is a conspiracy 
 against the republican government in this country. We think 
 the Pope's politics are subversive of our institutions. We think 
 the church is a dangerous institution, and its teachings inimical 
 and destructive to liberty, freedom of conscience, and everything 
 that intelligent, and honorable, and free men ought to hold 
 sacred. To allow the doctrines — we mean the spiritual dogmas 
 — of the Romish Church to be taught in our schools and followed 
 to their legitimate conclusions by as honored and subtle a teacher 
 as our able disputant would be, if he were detailed from the 
 pulpit to become a school-master, would educate the rising youth 
 of America in doctrines utterly at variance with the theory of 
 our government, and destructive of its fundamental principles. 
 When father Gleeson complains that we had no right to attack 
 his church, we answer that that is the very point of this contro- 
 versy. If the Church of Rome is what Father Gleeson thinks 
 it — and conscientiously believes it to be— then it ought to be 
 taught everywhere. If the Protestant religion is the hateful 
 and wicked abomination which Father Gleesju — conscientiously
 
 Lo2 J 
 
 — tbinks it to be, it ougbt to be ta\igbt uowLmo, jiiul eudined 
 llo^Ybere. If iiifidele — tbat is, evcrybcfly ^\ho is not a Eoinauist 
 — are the abominable creatures ■wliicb every ignorant and bigoted 
 slave of liome thinks them to lie, then they oiiglit not to be 
 tolerated. Ihat is the Gleeson side of tliis discussion. Eut if 
 Eomc is the utterly abominable and ^vickfd institution that we— 
 conscientiously — believe it to be, then we would keep its doc- 
 trines from being taught in our public schools. "NVe would not 
 take Catholic money to teach Protetsantism. "We would not 
 take Catholic nor Protestant money to teach infidelity. We 
 would have our children taught reading, writing, sjjelling, arith- 
 metic, geography, history, and natural sciences. We would Lave 
 them taught all those things that would make them self reliant 
 in their opinions. We would not have history distorted, nor 
 scientific tacts withheld, in aid of the Church of Eome. We 
 would have our American boys and girls understand that the 
 Pope of Eome has just as much right to interfere in American 
 politics — and no greater— as any other Italian ecclesiastic; that 
 he is just as infallible iru matters of civil government, and no 
 more so, than any other person who has the same amount of 
 political experience, education, common sense, and moral char- 
 acter. We would have them know that he is just as much the 
 vicar of Jesus Christ, just as much the vicegerent of God, and 
 has just as much to do with the keys of heaven, and the plan of 
 salvation, and authority to remit sins and dispense indulgences, 
 as any other priest or bishoj), and no more; that he has no sort 
 of authority, human or divine, for the exercise of any civil au- 
 thority, or any interference with the institutions, laws, courts, 
 lands, or educational institutions in America, and that all pre- 
 text of such authority by himself is an insolent assertion of ec- 
 clesiastical impudence not to be endured or tolerated b}- the Ameii- 
 can people; that the upholding of such an idea^ or the promul- 
 gation of it, or the giving to it any sort of countenance by any 
 sort of indirection, by any cardinal, archbishop, bishop iii porti- 
 hvi<, priest in robes, jDriest in nvbibvi^, or lawman, journalist 
 school-master, cr anybody else, under any circumstances what- 
 ever, in any place in America, is treason to our Government 
 So believing, we say to Father Gleeson and his Church: keep 
 your hands out of our school funds, and keej) your ecclesi 
 astical politics away frcm the education of cur boys and girls.
 
 FATHER GLEESON'S FINAL REJOINDER. 
 
 PixLEY's Disingenuous Methods of Controversy Shown up. 
 
 Th? Syllabus Mistaken f jr an Encyclical and Argued by the Rules of Contraries. 
 
 Editor Post: Wheu I replied to the editor of the Argonaut, 
 some weeks ago, through your columns, I did not then think I 
 would be called on to take any further notice of anything Mr. 
 Pixley might afterwards deem proper to say in regard to the 
 common school question. Indeed, I even said I would not. In 
 liis last issue, however, that geratleman has made so many and 
 such serious charges against the Catholic Church that I feel an 
 answer is called for. I do not charge Mr. Pixley with knowingly 
 and willfully misrepresenting the Catholic Church. This I at- 
 tribute entirely to a mental Aveakness over which he seems to 
 "have no control, and consequently I regard him as more to be 
 •commiserated than censured. In most respects, indeed, ]\Ir, 
 Pixley's mind seems perfectly rational, but, in the matter of the 
 ■Church of Rome, and her religious teachings and societies, he is 
 manifestly beside himself, and is laborini? under a deplorable 
 hallucination. In fact, the Roman Pontifl', the Catholic clergy, 
 aid the Jesuit Society in particular, are his "bHenoir." In 
 these he sees nothing but darkness, treachery and malevolence. 
 Doubtless they disturb his tranquility by day and his repose by 
 night, and mayhap seriously interfere with his editorial labors. 
 
 That a man like Mr. Pixley should be the victim of such an 
 liallucinatiou; that he should be sound on all other points but 
 •one, is nothing to be wondered at, for history furiiishes us 
 numerous instances of this kind. Many of us have heard of the 
 ^French philosopher who imagined he had a gigot, or leg of mut- 
 ton, attached to his nose! In vain did his friends assure him 
 that there was no such appendage there; that it was alia delusion 
 oti his part; that he had nothing of the kind such as he imagined, 
 and that, in this respect, he was like the rest of mortals. To all 
 these assertions, however, he would gravely reply: " But you 
 are mistaken; I know I have a gigot; I can see it, and feel it, 
 and smell it." In like manner, with as little profit, do we tell 
 the genial editor of the Argonaul that we don't want to destroy 
 the public schools of this country, that we have no objection to 
 .those using them who think well of them, aud that all we want
 
 [51] 
 
 is to do more for our cliiklren than is being clone for them at 
 present. To nil this lie answers, like tlie philosopher with the 
 muJ,tou stuck to his no.se: " 1 know you are deceivers, 1 know 
 you lire not telling the truth, iintl 1 know tliiit your only aim und 
 object is to destroy our educntion and our country; " and ho this 
 perversion ot our position is really the editor of the Argonuul'a 
 cjiyot. 
 
 Ag-ain, where is the person who has not heard of the unfortunate 
 victim of hallucination who inuigined he had a cobbler in his 
 stomach ? No amount of reasoning on the part of his friends 
 could possibly persuade him to the contrary, for to all their 
 assertions lie would answer that he felt him and heard him; and 
 it was only b}' an artifice that he was relieved of his affliction. 
 Knowing iiow futile it would be to reason with so demented an 
 individual, his well-wishers wisely resolved to humor him in his 
 madness, and to this end ostensibly agreed with him, that veri- 
 tably a cobbler he had, and that the only question to be con- 
 sidered was how^ the intruder could be eti'ectually dislodged. 
 Accordingly, a consultation was had with a learned disciple of 
 Esculapius, and it was resolved that a process of ejectment, in 
 the shape of an emetic, should be immediately served on the man 
 of leather, and the cause of the trouble removed. To this the 
 unfortunate sufferer gladly assented, and, when the prescription 
 had accomplished its work, a sou of Crispin, who had been I'etained 
 for the occasion, presently made his appearance, and the poor 
 sufferer's mental equilibrium was immediately restored. The 
 cobbler was expelled. I don't know Avhether a like remedy could 
 be applied with equal success in the case of the editor of the 
 Argonaut, for it is a question whether his hallucination is of the 
 sort that makes him imagine that he carries within him the whole 
 lioman Church and the Jesuit Order to boot, or whether he is 
 only haunted by phantasies of the wickedness and machinations 
 of the Church and her agents. Anyhow, to attempt to reason 
 with him on the subject of the common schools of this country 
 would be as bootless a task as to reason with the philosopher or 
 the victim of the cobbler, of whom I have just spoken. Apart, 
 too, from all mental aberration, the inconsistency of Mr. Pixley's 
 character would render discussion with him an impracticability, 
 for what he says to day he will deny to-morrow aud unsay the 
 day after. For instance, when he invited me to discussion he 
 said, as the reader may remember, that the school question was a 
 profitable subject for discussion; then he denied this, aud said it 
 was unprotitable; and now, in his last weeks issue, he retvunsto 
 the old idea and acknowledges that the discussion would be 
 profitable. How is a man of this kind to be regarded ? By 
 what standard are we to judge his character ? It surely is not 
 creditable to a man to play the " Jump Jim Crow " in this style 
 in his paper. People like consistency, and nothing makes a 
 man more ridiculous than a constant change of sentiment. 
 Hence, that very judicious and elegant writer, Addison, has very
 
 [55] 
 
 aptly remarked that nothing that is not a real crime makes a man 
 so little in the eyes of the world as a constant change of 
 opinion. 
 
 It was precisely some such character as the editor of the 
 Argonaut that the old Roman poet Horace had in his eye when 
 he penned his humorous lines on Tigellius: 
 
 " Nil feqnale homini fuit illi. Sa?pe veliit qui 
 Currebat fugiens hostem; pers;pi)e velut qui 
 Junouis sacia ferret; habebat sajpe chiceutos 
 iSfepe decern servos; modo reges atque tetrai'chas, 
 Omnia roagua loqiieus; modo, "Sitmilii mensa tripes 
 Concha salis pnri et toga, qii<e defenders frigus, 
 Quamvis crassa, qneat." Decies centeua dedisses 
 Hiiic i^arco, paucis conteuto, quiuqiu; diebns 
 Nil erat in locnlis. Noctcs vigilabat ad ipsum 
 Mane; diem totum stertebat. Nil fuit uuquam 
 Sic impar sibi." 
 
 " There was nothing uniform in the fellow's character. Fre- 
 quently he would run as if flying from an enemy, while again he 
 would stalk solemnly on as if he were bearing in procession the 
 sacrifices of Juno. Oftentimes he had two hundred slaves, and 
 just as often onl}' ten. Now he would talk of kings and potentates 
 and everything grand, and the next moment his conversation 
 would be about a three-legged table, a salt-cellar and a coarse 
 garment to defend him from the cold. If you gave him ten 
 hundred thousand sesterces, though contented with so little, in 
 five da3^s he would have nothing left. He sat up all night and 
 snored all da}'. In a word, never was anything so inconsistent 
 with itself." 
 
 This is Mr. Pixley, as Horace drew him. Now let us see him 
 as Dryden painted him. In my opinion the latter's description 
 is more perfect. It is more to life: 
 
 " In the first rank of these did Zimri stand; 
 
 A man so various that he seemed to be 
 
 Not one, but all mankind's e])itome. 
 
 Stiff in opinions, always in the icronij! 
 
 Was everything by starts, and nothing long; 
 
 Biit, in the course of one revolving moon. 
 
 Was Chemist, Fiddler, Statesman and Buffoon; 
 
 Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking. 
 
 Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. 
 
 Blest madman, who could every hour employ 
 
 With something new to wish or to enjoy." 
 
 Mr. Pixley seems to have felt a good deal my allusion to his 
 religious convictions. He certainly is not pleased with beiug 
 denominated an infidel. Now, while I would be sorry to offer 
 any, even the slightest, offense to the editor of the Anjoiuiul, I 
 must acknowledge I cannot see how any allusions to him as an 
 unbeliever could be reasonably regarded as offensive. Surely a 
 man ought not to be ashamed of his principles, or abashed at 
 his origin. It is a great weakness to blush at one's ancestry. If 
 Mr. Pixley does not believe in the existence of an Omnipotent
 
 [ ;1G ] 
 
 C'reutor, and IioUIk that his forefather was tlio jnlhrcoiJ luiui, or 
 that he is descended from tlie ralnrrhinf. ajji-s, or from a /y.o/o- 
 plnsin, or ainouad — a wore of chjhs between a jflly fisli and a lump 
 of mud — I don't precisely see why he shcmlcl be ashanifd to avow 
 that, or, as an inlidel, to take ofVense at beim,' called by hiw 
 pro[)er name. Certainly, I feel no umbraf,'e at any one calling 
 me a Catholic priest. On the contrary, I am proud of it. If, 
 however, Mr. Pixley woukl be better ])leased to Ije called a 
 Protestant than an intidel, thoug'h he denies God and heaven and 
 hell, I will call him the former, though I must acknowledge that 
 up to the present I was of opinion it would be a i)crversion of 
 the term to apply it to men of Mr. Pixley's views; but anything, 
 of course, to i^iease. 
 
 I noAv come to the objectionable points in the Arg(nutut\s last 
 article. Of course, for all who are aware of the hallucination 
 under which the editor is laboring, in the matter of the Catholic 
 Church, no explanation, such as I am now going to (jtfer, would 
 be at all needed; but the difficulty is, that many, ])eing ignorant 
 of this, and knowing the Arfjonaxf to be sane on all ordinary 
 matters, never for a moment suspect that his mind is upset on 
 this particular point, and hence the damage that his writings are 
 calculated to do. And as to any one saying that his sanity is 
 evident from the fact of his writings being witty and racy, I have 
 only to reply that the most unfortunate and atiiicted of Bedlam- 
 ites are oftentimes capable of saying the wittiest and most humoi*- 
 ous things. Only lately I heard of an observation made by a 
 lunatic to one who was commissioned to look after his interests. 
 Eying attentively his mentor, who was not over-remarkable for 
 any extraordinary intelligence or brilliancy of genius, he quietly 
 remarked: " But couldn't our master have found any one but a 
 fool to take care of a fool?" It won't mend matters, then, or 
 establish Mr. Pixley's sanity, to aver that he is a man of wit and 
 l^arts, for Avitticism and humor may euumate even from a dis- 
 turbed brain. But the proofs of his aberration will be better 
 appreciated by the reader as I quote from his writing. In the 
 article I have referred to above, he says that the Roman Catholic 
 Church is the enemj' of Republican Cxoverument, and hostile to 
 the liberties of the people. To show the insanity of this, I will 
 merely propose this conundrum to Mr. Pixley — namely, how it 
 is, if his allegation be true that the oldest Republics in the world 
 are Catholic, and have been preserved -by Catholicism. This 
 looks like a paradox, but as the editor of the Argonaul is a man 
 of paradoxes he may, perchance, be able to explain this. The 
 Republics of Andorra and San Mai'ino were hundreds of years in 
 existence before the existence of this country as a Republican 
 Nation was heard of. The former was founded over a thousand 
 years ago by a Catholic bishop, and the latter by a Catholic 
 monk. Of San Marino an able Protestant writer wrote some 
 years ago in the New York Tribune as follows: 
 
 "Truth compels us to add that the oldest Republic now exist- 
 ing is that of San Marino, not only Catholic but wholly sur-
 
 [57 J 
 
 rounded by the especial dominion of the Popes, who might have 
 crushed it like au e.og-.shell at any time these last thousand years, 
 but they didn't. The only Republic Ave ever traveled in besides 
 our own is Switzerland; half of its cantons or States entirely 
 Catholic, yet never that we have heard of unfaithful to the cause 
 of freedom. They were nearly all Roman Catholics from the 
 southern cantons of Switzerland, whom Austria so ruthlessly 
 expelled from Lombardy after the suppression of the last revolt 
 in Milan, accounting them natural-born republicans and i-evo- 
 iutionists; and we suppose Austria is not a know-nothing on 
 this point. We never heard the Catholics of Hungary accused 
 of backwardness in the late glorious struggle of their country 
 for freedom, though its leaders were Protestants, fighting 
 against a leading Catholic power avowedly in favor of religious 
 as well as civil libert3^ And chivalric, unhappj' Poland, almost 
 wholly Catholic, has made as gallant a struggle for freedom as 
 any other nation, while of the three despotisms that crushed her 
 "but one was Catholic." 
 
 I wonder what will Mr. Pixley say to that. I leave it to him, 
 then, to explain this puzzle, how, if the Catholic Church is, as 
 he says, the deadly and sworn enemy of republican government, 
 she has yet established and pi'eserved the same ? I know there 
 are some things that go by contraries, and cannot be explained 
 by any law. The ducks of Boetia are an example of this, for it 
 is said that they fatten upon what is destruction to their species 
 in every other part of the globe. It is, I suj^pose, on the same 
 principle that the doctrines of the Catholic Church are hostile 
 to republicanism in one place, and favorable to it in another. 
 
 To all sane men, of course, I need not say that there is not one 
 single doctrine of Catholicism that is in any way hostile to the 
 spirit of republican liberty. On the contrary, the very consti- 
 tution of the Church itself is more democratic and republican 
 than regal or monarchical. For just as any man in this country 
 may aspire to the highest position in the land, so in the Catholic 
 Church the road is open to all from the lowest to the highest 
 jjosition if a man only have virtue and brains. How often has 
 not this been illustrated in the history of the past, for in how 
 many instances haue not men been raised from the huml»lest 
 walks of life, grade by grade, until they were even called upon 
 to fill the position of Sovereign Pontiff. 
 
 A^ain, when or where has an occasion called for the loyalty 
 and support of the people of this country, in defense of rebub- 
 lican principles, in which the Catholics have not taken a promi- 
 nent part, and shown themselves to advantage. Ha^e not the 
 names of Catholics been prominent in all the great battles that 
 were fought for the attainment of National Independence ? and 
 was it not at the conclusion of tlie war of Indeiiendence that 
 the following words, forming a portion ot a congratulatory ad- 
 dress, pi-esented to the immortal Washington, and signed on be- 
 half of the Catholics of the country by Bishop Carroll of Balti-
 
 [58] 
 
 more, were adilressecl to the first President of the United States: 
 " Tnis prospect of national prosjjerity is peculiarly pleasing' to 
 us on another account, because whilst our country preserves her 
 freedom and independence, we shall liave a well-founded title to 
 claim from her justice, equal ri^'hts of citizenship, an tlv price of 
 oar hlood spiU iiu({f;r i/ot(r eijrs, and of our common exertions for 
 her defense under your auspicious conduct; rifjhts rendered 
 more dear to us by the remembrance of former hardships." To 
 this, the Father of his Country answered in a manner worthy of 
 his exalted character: "I hope ever to see America amonf^ the 
 foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality; but I pre- 
 sume that your fellow citizens will not forget the, patriotic part 
 which you took in the accomplisJimcnt of their revolution, and the es- 
 tablishment of their government, or the important assUftayice they re- 
 ceived from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith ix pro- 
 fessed." 
 
 It is a little too late in the day, then, to be told that the Catholic 
 Church is hostile to the principles and aims of republican gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Again, the editor of the Argonaut in his late remarkable utter- 
 ances has recklessly asserted that the Sovereign Pontiff claims 
 to be the source and fountain of all political power. Here is the 
 insane sentence: "It is the doctrine of the Church of Rome 
 that its spiritual head is clothed with all political power, and 
 that his civil authority should be recognized throughout the 
 world." A more untruthful assertion than this I think I have 
 never read. By this I do not mean to say that Mr. Pixley is 
 moi'ally guilty of makiug this atrocious statement, for moral 
 guilt supposes the active use of reason — a faculty which Mr. 
 Pixley certainly does not possess where there is question of the 
 Church of Rome. But lest any one might suppose that I am 
 not conversant with the true doctrine of the Church in this par- 
 ticular, I will here quote from a rescript sent from Rome to the 
 Bishops of Ireland in 1791: "We must carefully distinguish 
 between the real rights of the Apostolic See and what have been, 
 with an inimical intention in modern times, imputed to it. The 
 Roman See has never taught that faith was not to be kept with 
 ' heretics,' or that an oath of allegiance made to kings in a state 
 of separation from a Catholic community could be broken, or 
 that it wati allowable for a Pope to interfere with their temporal rights 
 and possessio)is." 
 
 I must now call the attention of the reader to the most 
 serious charges in the article I refer to. With an apparent can- 
 dor and frankness which would mislead any one not acquainted 
 with Mr. Pixley's character and tactics, that gentleman laid be- 
 fore his readers in his last issue a certain number of propo- 
 sitions which he had the temerity to declare were taken from a 
 Roman encyclical. Perhaps not one in ten of his readers ever 
 imagined that the pro^iositions were other than as he stated 
 them. For when a man of position and character comes before
 
 [59] 
 
 the community and affirms unreservedly that in such and such a 
 document such and such proi:)ositions are to he found, giving at 
 the same time the woi-ding and number of the propositions, the 
 plain, irresistible conclusion is that the propositions assigned 
 are to be found in the wording and order set forth. No man, 
 taking for granted the honesty of the writer, could come to any 
 other possible conclusion than that. What,* then, will be the 
 surprise of the readers of the Post when I assure them that not 
 one of the projiositions given by Mr. Pixley has ever ap])eared 
 in any encyclical issued by any of the Koman Pontitis. He has 
 concocted them in this style: In the syllabus, which he has mis- 
 taken for an encyclical, there are eighty condemned propo- 
 sitions, the contradictories of which, by perversion, may be 
 made to imply something like what Mr. Pixley attributes to 
 them. But that the reader may see how completely the Argonaut 
 has misrepresented the Catholic Church in this particular, I will 
 here place in juxtaposition the propositions as given by the 
 Argonaut, and as they stand in the syllabus. Thus, the 3*Jth 
 proposition, as quoted by Mr. Pixley, runs thus: " The people 
 are not the source of all civil power." This, he tells his readers, 
 is found in the encyclical, which, as I have said, he mistakes for 
 syllabus. But now, what is the fact? The actual proposition 
 is this: " The State, as being the origin and source of all riglits, 
 is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits." 
 This is the proposition that was condemned, and it must be 
 quite plain to the reader that its contradictory is nothing of the 
 kind that Mr. Pixley would make it. There is a vast, a world- 
 wide difference between saying the right of the State is circum- 
 scribed by certain limits, and that the people are not the source 
 of all civil power. Both do not express the same thing. They 
 are different expressions, and none but a dolt or a lunatic could 
 possibly imagine they did. 
 
 It is too bad, indeed, that any man in the community should 
 thus attempt to impose on the credulity of his fellow-men; it 
 speaks very badly, both for the honesty of the writer and the in- 
 telligence of the readers, who are supposed to be ready to accept 
 such untruths. I ask, then, and I think I may ask with the 
 greatest propriety, why the editor of the Argonaut has thus at- 
 tempted to bamboozle his patrons in this fashion ? Has he no 
 sense of honor or veracity left ? It was once humorously said by 
 an eccentric member of the British Parliament, that a certain in- 
 dividual never opened his mouth but he put his foot in it. The 
 same, I think, may be said with the greatest truth of the 
 editoi- of the Argonaut. Whenever he speaks of the Catholic 
 Church, he is ever sure to put his foot in it, and oftentimes very 
 deep in the mud too. 
 
 Again, Mr. Pixley gives the twenty-seventh proposition of the 
 syllabus 'as this: " The Pope and the priests ought to have do- 
 minion over the temporal affairs." O, shameful perversion of 
 truth! Old Harry himself couldn't possibly improve on that.
 
 [60] 
 
 Is there no such command as " thou shalt not bear falwe witness 
 af^ainst thy neif^hbor?" But why speak of conimandH to a man 
 who denies the existence of the Clud of the commands? "The 
 Pope and the priests ouglit to have dominion over the temporal 
 affairs! " A more cunning,' and assiduous attempt at making the 
 reader believe that the Church's ambition is to claim a supre- 
 macy over the State in temporal matters, I think 1 have never 
 been able to discover. But what is the real i)roposition as g^iven 
 in the syllabus? " The sacred ministers of the Church and the 
 Roman Pontiff are to be absolutely excluded from every char<,'e 
 and dominion over temporal affairs." And is this, the reader 
 may ask in astonishment, the pro})Osition — the justly condemned 
 proposition — from which Mr. Pixley has manufactured his own ? 
 I answer emphatically — yes! and I challenge and dare that gen- 
 tleman to deny it. It won't pay, then, even Mr. Pixley to mis- 
 represent matters in this fashion, for, though his readers may be 
 unfriendly to the Catholic Church, they still do not like to be 
 cajoled and duped by a man who is merely after their dimes. 
 In short, all sucb attempt, or what I might call litei-ary jugglery, 
 is certain, sooner or later, to recoil on the individual him.self, 
 and to bring him into the most serious disrepute, even with his 
 quondam admirers; for so surely- as a " murder will out," so 
 surely will falsehood and misrepresentation. One's own chickens 
 are ever sure to come back to roo.st in their own nest. 
 
 I will quote only a couple more of Mr. Pixley's encyclical 
 propositions, for this letter is already too long. 
 
 ' ' The Romish Church has the right to exercise its authority 
 without having any limit set to it by the civil power." 
 
 The erroneous proposition in the syllabus is this: "The 
 Church is not a true and perfect society, * * * and it ap- 
 pertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the 
 Church," etc. 
 
 Then the twenty-sixth proposition, as stated by the Argonaut, 
 is: " The Romish Church has an innate and legitimate right to 
 acquire, hold and use in-operty wiOiout limit." In the syllabus, 
 the error runs thus: " The Church has no innate and legitimate 
 right of acquiring and possessing property."' 
 
 With these instances I think I have shown sufficiently clear 
 that Mr. Pixley's mind is not all right when treating of matters 
 appertaining to the Church of Rome. For if it were, no matter 
 how desirous he may be, the very fear of being detected would 
 prevent him from making such flagrantly erroneous statements. 
 He is, then, the more to be commiserated than censured, for 
 what a man cannot help doing he cannot be blanked for doing. 
 His hostility to the Church is simply a malady; it is a weakness, 
 an infirmity over which he has no control, but, unlike others of 
 his class, he has not even method in his madness, but cuts and 
 slashes on all sides — everlastingly running amuck. 
 
 There are only a couple of other matters in this long article 
 that I can spare time to allude to. Amongst other things, he
 
 [61] 
 
 says that only ignorant persons can be brought to submit to the 
 Church of Kome. So, then, the greatest philosopher that this 
 country has yet produced, the late Orestes A. Brownson, was an 
 ignorant man; and so, according to the same rule, the world- 
 famed Newman is an ignorant man, and Manning and Mivart 
 and a host of others, hardly less celebrated in the world of 
 letters, are all — all ignorant men. It is really a pity that some 
 one does not advise Mr. Pixley not to be cutting such a ridicu- 
 lous figure by making such absuixlly ridiculous statements, for 
 ttiey are only calculated to excite the mirth and laughter of 
 friends and foes at his expense. 
 
 ■ Nothing I have ever heard has reminded me so strongly of 
 this as the folly of the frog in the fable. That eccentric and 
 witty court jester iEso^D tells us that an ox, feeding one day in 
 a marshy place, happened accidentally to set his foot on a nest 
 of young frogs, crushing nearly all the brood to death. One, 
 however, more fortunate than the others, happened luckily to 
 escape, and running to its mother, recounted in accents of trejii- 
 dation how a beast of enormous proportions had well nigh anni- 
 hilated the whole family. ' How big was the beast?"' inquired 
 the jjarent frog: " was it as big as this? " and she pufifed herself 
 out to an enormous extent. " Oh," said the youngster, "a great 
 deal bigger than that." •' Well, was it so big ? ' and she swelled 
 herself yet more. "Indeed, mother, it was, and if you burst 
 yourself you would never reach its size." Chagrined at sucK 
 disparagement, the old frog made a last and desperate etibrt, 
 and surely enough burst herself in twain. Mr. Pixley's ignor- 
 ance of the calibre of the men who join our church is just as 
 pronounced as the ignorance of that frog in'the case of the ox. 
 
 I would recommend, then — not for Mr. Pixley's serious con- 
 sideration, for there is no use in recommending anything for the 
 consideration of a man who is laboring under an hallucination, 
 but for the consideration of those who may be liable to be misled 
 by what that gentleman writes — the following thoughtful jjassage 
 from one of Macaulay's able writings: " "We often hoar it said 
 that the world is becoming more and more enlightened, and 
 that this enlightenment must be favorable to Protestantism and 
 unfavorable to Catholicism. "We wish we could think so. But 
 ■we see great reason to doubt whether this is a well-founded e.x- 
 pectation. We see that during the last 250 years the human mind 
 has been in the highest degree active, that it has made great ad- 
 vances in every branch of natural philosophy, that it has pro- 
 duced innumerable inventions tending to promote the con- 
 veniences of life. * * Yet we see that during these 250 years 
 Protestantism has made no conquests worth speaking of. Nay, 
 we believe that as far as there has been change, that change has, 
 on the whole been in favor of the Church of Kome. We cannot, 
 therefore, feel confident that the progress of knowledge will 
 necessarily be fatal to a system which has, to say the least of it, 
 stood its ground in spite of the immense progress made by the 
 human race in knowledge since the days of Queen Elizabeth.
 
 [02] 
 
 111 fine, All". Pixley speaks of the intolerance and persecutinflf 
 
 Kjiirit of the (!atholic Clmrch. Tlii.s is a lar^je subject, and 
 would obviously take mon? time than I could now devote to it, 
 to deal with it proj)erly. I will merely remark that, as far as 
 this country is concerned, whatever intolerance was shown and 
 whatever persecution was done came frcjm the j:»^entlemen " on 
 the other side of the house." The most ridiculous and intoler- 
 ant enactments that could be imagined were framed by the an- 
 cestors of the editor of the Ar(/o7iau/.. It was even made a pun- 
 ishable offense for a man to kiss his grandmother on the Sunday* 
 Here is a specimen of the laws that Mr. Pixley's progenitors 
 made in this land : "No woman shall kiss her child on the 
 Sabbath or fasting day." I wonder what would Bob lugersoll 
 say to that? Again: " If any man shall kiss his wife, or wife 
 her husband, on the Lord's day, the party in fault shall be 
 punished, at the discretion of the Court of Magistrates." I am 
 afraid if Mr. Pixley were living in those days it would go hard 
 with him, for I believe he is a loving and amiable husband. 
 What fun men would poke at Leo XIII if he made such enact- 
 ments as these. But it is the old, old story over again, that we 
 can see motes in other people's eyes, but not beams in our own. 
 Then there was another ridiculous enactment, said to have been 
 made, but I have never been able to hunt it up, which made it a 
 criminal offense to brew beer on a Saturday, lest it should icork 
 on a Sunday? In fine, I would ask Mr. Pixley who bored the 
 ears of the Quakers with red-hot irons? "Who, burned the 
 witches, and made it death for a Catliolic priest to be caught in 
 certain of the States? But there is no need of going into detail 
 on this matter. 
 
 In conclusion, having now discharged what I believed to be 
 my duty — that is, having informed the community of the state of 
 Mr. Pixley's mind, or, in other words, the deplorable hallucina- 
 tion under which he is laboring in regard to the Catholic Church 
 — all will accordingly henceforth be able to understand the value 
 they should attribute to his writings when he speaks on Catholic 
 matters. And, so far as I myself am concerned, I am firmly re- 
 solved never again to refer to the editor of the Argonaut, no 
 matter what he may say against the religion of which I am a 
 member. 
 
 W. Gleesox.
 
 [03] 
 
 A Card in Reply to Mr. Pixley. 
 
 Editor Post: Iu tbe sense that " one canuot touch pitch 
 "without being defiled," I suppose the Rev. Father Gleeson made 
 a mistake in accei^tiug a challenge ' ' to discuss the common 
 school question iu a Jriendl;/ icay " with a person so truculent 
 and mendacious as Frank Pixley admittedly is. But the truth 
 of the matter is this, the reverend gentleman, iu the simplicity 
 of his heart, never for a moment suspected, until too late to 
 withdraw from the contest, the utter moral depravity of his an- 
 tagonist. Those who read Father Gleeson's last letter in your 
 paper must give him credit for extraordinary forbearance in the 
 face of so violent and altogether unprovoked attack upon his 
 Church; and yet Pixley, with an audacity born of incredible 
 wickedness, accuses Father Gleeson of having in the letter re- 
 ferred to indulged in " ribald (!) buflbonery," etc., and even of 
 " having abandoned the discussion of the original question, the 
 character of our common schools! " 
 
 I ask, in all candor, can unblushing mendacity and brazen 
 effrontery reach lower depths of degradation ? 
 
 Your readers know who abandoned the discussion of the 
 " original C[uestion," and the most critical perusal of Father 
 Gleeson's letters fails to reveal the slightest departure in them, 
 even from the canons of correct literary taste or from Christian 
 charity. To be sure, the subject of Pixley's "hallucination" 
 (an essentially charitable hj'pothesis,) was handled in a serio- 
 comic vein, simply for the reason that it would have been mani- 
 festly absurd to any longer treat his wild and untruthful ravings 
 in a serious manner. 
 
 If Father Gleeson's Latin quotations are not literal, and if 
 " his grammar is bad," it certainly devolves upon the classic (?) 
 editor of the Argonaut to give examples of the alleged errors, 
 for surely no one henceforth will be simple minded enough to 
 accept as true, without corroborative proof, any statement from 
 his pen on this or any other subject. The fact is only too a]i- 
 pareut that Pixley, conscious of defeat, and writhing under the 
 lash so cleverly and dextrously applied by his revereiul oppo- 
 nent, puts aside in the last issue of his paper all pretentions to 
 truth and decency, and in his blind and brutal rage has earned 
 for himself still another title to the contempt of mankind. 
 
 The writer of this letter once knew Pixley personally, and he 
 has now the privilege of being on terms of intimacy with Father 
 Gleeson. From his knowledge of both he can say, with all sin- 
 cerity, that he cannot conceive two men so antithetical; the 
 former being — as General Barnes once wittily and a])tlysaid-- 
 " a remarkable example of arrested development; " while Fatlier 
 Gleeson illustrates in his moral and mental constitution the com-
 
 [04] 
 
 pleteness of fully developed mftuhood — firm as adamant, wliere 
 principle is involved, but entirely free from the narrownesM of 
 sectarian bigotry or prejudice — in a word: Smts pf.ur el muH re- 
 proche. 
 
 As this communication is somewhat personal, you have per- 
 mission to reveal my proper name to the party in interest, 
 in case he asks it. 
 
 April 80, '83. Lex Talionih. 
 
 What Mr. Pixley Thought of Common Schools, in 1881. 
 
 [From the Argonaut, June, 1881.] 
 
 " France is a great republic, and its greatness — especially fi'om 
 " a financial point of view — is due almost eutireb' to its splendid 
 "educational system." This profound reflection is the 
 iitterance of John W. Taylor, Superintendent of Schools 
 for the City and County of San Francisco. If there is 
 any nation in the world whose system of education is unlike 
 ours, it is France. The French system is radically and totally 
 different, having no element corresponding to the American 
 free-school system in a single particular. In France, education 
 has — except with brief j^eriods of interruption — been controlled 
 by the Roman Catholic Church. Priests and nuns have been 
 charged with the education of the children of France for almost 
 the entire period of its history. The peasantry, in all matters 
 except in the geography, history, and glory ol France, are the 
 most imperfectly educated of any people of advanced civilization 
 in Europe. The ordinary school-book used throughout the rural 
 district is a Avonderful thing. It is more than curious. Mar- 
 velous stories of the grandeur of France; of the splendor of its 
 places; the valor of its kings; the bravery of its warriors; its 
 grand historic achievements; the piety of its early saints — Saint 
 Louis and other saintly kings; its conquests and triumphs in 
 arms through an undimmed and glorious historic past; its 
 strength; its wealth; its piety as a nation — all these are mixed 
 up in its primary school-book with aves and pater nosters; with 
 miracles and miraculous narratives. Popes of Eome, and Kings 
 of France and warriors and saints are mixed in inextricable con- 
 fusion. The peasant child, when taken away at an early age 
 from school, carries with him and into his unambitious, toiling, 
 frugal, peasant life a very limited knowledge of history or geog- 
 raphy, or any of the branches of learning that are of practical 
 use to him in any other avocation of life than that of an agri- 
 cultural laborer. He is thoroughly ii::bued with the simple and 
 mild superstitions of the Church of Rome; with all his suul he
 
 [65] 
 
 venerates the Pope; he confides in his priest. In a word, he is 
 a good Catholic. He is a confiding, superstitious, ignorant, un- 
 ambitious, patriotic Frenchman; he is industrious and with sim- 
 ple habits; he toils, and is economical; he is patient, and accu- 
 mulates; he provides a dot for his daughter's marriage portion; 
 he eats hard bread and an onion for his dinner, and drinks thin 
 claret; he is sober, saves his money, and loves* France. When a 
 loan is called for by the government, the aggregated accumula- 
 tions of the peasant class swell to millions. When soldiers are 
 required, the conscription brings to the battle field, or to the 
 casernes of Paris, the material for a splendid army. We are not 
 saying that the kind of teaching which produces simple-minded, 
 honest, economical, industrious, patriotic men and virtuous 
 working-women has not its advantages. We are not attempting 
 in this article to sound the praises of that system of common 
 schools which in Boston and San Francisco is turning out some 
 scholars that are 7iot simple-minded and who will not work, and 
 are ambitious only to spar for office; that are made to feel that 
 their education places them upon a social plane above their 
 parents, and elevates them above the hereditary hod and wash- 
 tub. There are compensations in a system of education that 
 does not inoculate all its pupils with an ambition to go to Con- 
 gress. If Mr. Taylor had said that the greatness of France, its 
 financial and military strength, was largely dvie to the lack of 
 education among the peasant classes, he would have come nearer 
 the truth than he did. Mr. Taylor was endeavoring to break the 
 force of the remarks of the editor of this paper, who on the 
 previous day had said to the Board of Supervisors that the com- 
 mon schools were an insupportable burden to the tax-payers of 
 San Francisco; that the expenditure for their maintenance was 
 inexcusably extravagant; that the cosmopolitan school was a 
 crime; the high-schools an imposition, and in fraud of the legal 
 rights of citizens; that the establishment of normal schools, to 
 give teachers a free education, was robbery; that the special in- 
 struction given in languages and accomplishments was open and 
 inexcusable extortion; that the high salaries of teachers was out 
 of proportion to what equal learning and equal service can earn 
 in the journalistic or other professions, or in business occupa- 
 tions, when it was considered that during they year the give only 
 nine months' service, only five days of labor during the week, 
 and less than eight hours' service per day. To educate, at the 
 expense of the community, the child of any person able to pro- 
 vide that education, is an imposition. It is practical communism. 
 It is stealing under the guise of law. The community 
 is under no higher obligation to educate the wealthy class than 
 to feed or clothe them. To educate, at the expense of the com- 
 munity, the child of any poor person beyond the rudiments of an 
 English education, is as much of an imposition as it would be to 
 be compelled to provide that child with fashionable clothing and 
 luxurious food. To impose a tax upon an American-born citizen
 
 [66] 
 
 to raaintaiu Hchoola wbore the cliildrGu ot' German anrl French 
 residents may l)o taught French and German, is robbery with 
 insult added. No honest man, native or foreign-born, would 
 accept such extorted alma; and no honf^st law-maker, or super- 
 visor, or school-director, who did not, away 'lown in his cow- 
 ardly and demagogical nature, fear the foreign vote, would 
 countenance or upliold such unblushing public extortion. The 
 rich or poor man who will allow his children to be instructed in 
 the higher mathematics, or in the higher or ornamental branches 
 of classical learning, or in modern languages, at the expense of 
 his fellow-citizens, is guilty of an act of gross and palpable in- 
 justice, for which the poor man ought to be ashamed, and the 
 rich man ought to be punished. There is not half so good a 
 reason for educating teachers at the public expense as could 
 be given for educating physicians, journalists, or horse-doctors. 
 Those who are thus educated, without the intention of teaching 
 for a profession, are dishonest. There is in all this common- 
 school business an amount of humbuggery, sentimentality, pre- 
 tense, and sham that exists in no other institution. It is nin by 
 narrow-brained pedagogues, and selfish, unprincipled dema- 
 gogues. It is endured by a patient, tax-paying community, be- 
 cause public opinion has not j«t subjected the system to any 
 thoughtful and earnest consideration. 
 
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