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Show . Conversations of ur Glub . . . : By Orestes A. Brownson The discussion of the school question ques-tion with regard, to the obligations of the state, the church and the parents par-ents to provide for the education of the children is continued, and wlil be found of great interest, as it relates to the parochial system introduced in many dioceses throughout the country. coun-try. CONVERSATION IX. (Continued.) "I am well aware," replied O'Flan-agan, O'Flan-agan, "that it is impossible in a country coun-try like this, for the state to establish estab-lish a system of education satisfactory satisfac-tory to Catholics, and, therefore, I am opposed to state schools. I would carry the voluntary principle into education, ed-ucation, as we have carried it into religion." re-ligion." "And leave the bulk of your children chil-dren to grow up without attending any school," threw in Diefenbach. "I would much prefer no education educa-tion to a sectarian education, or a secular sec-ular education without religion " replied re-plied O'Flanagan. ' "If you could have a no-education" answered Diefenbach, "but your children chil-dren do not and will nnr prnw nn -m,-,. out education of some sort. If they have not that of the schools, they will have that of the streets." "But," remarked Winslow. "though we send not our children to the public schools, we may send them to schools of our own. We have already numerous nu-merous Catholic schools, and we' may establish more." "But not enough, nor half enough for all your children," remarked De Binneville. "You have net the teachers teach-ers nor the means for that In Boston, about one-half of the children of school age are children of Catholic parents; and the city of oBston expends ex-pends annually on her public schools, for ordinary expenses, three hundred and thirty-three thousand dollars. Where are the Catholics of that city to obtain the half of that sum annually, annu-ally, together with a million of dollars outlay for the erection of school houses and fixtures? In the city of New York, there are Catholic schools for about one Catholic child in six or Seven. Who is Of nrnnpr cri-M oo-q Now, what are you to do with five-sixths five-sixths or six-sevenths of your children unprovided for? In neither Boston nor New York have you the means to provide pro-vide a proper education for all your children. In neither city, as yet, have you half church room or half priests enough for your Catholic population. The church must precede the School-house, School-house, the priest the schoolmaster, and you must provide for the sacraments sacra-ments before providing for education. With a church without 'revenues, and a Catholic population for the"" most part made up of the poorer classes of old Europe, with the best intentions in the world, j-ou cannot provide for the common school education of more than a sixth of your children, unless you avail j-ourselves of the public schools. What do you propose for these five-sixths whom you leave out of your own schools?" "It ' is not necessary," replied Win-slow, Win-slow, "that all the children, of the land should be educated in secular learning. learn-ing. I do not find that they have been so in the most Catholic ages and nations na-tions of the world." "But are these children who attend neither Catholic schools nor the public pub-lic schools, who receive no secular education, any better trained in their religion?" asked ' Diefenbach, "than those who do attend the public schools? If you take your children from the public schools where you have not and cannot have Catholic schools for them, you must leave them to learn not religion and morality, but all manner of mischief. How much better off under a moral and religious point of view are your children who run at large in the streets, associate with the vilest and most criminal portion por-tion of the depraved population of modern cites , are . Initiated, before a dozen years of age, into every vice and crime known to that population, and who grow up to be food for your brothels, your houses of correction, city penitentiaries, state prisons, and the gallows, how much better off. even under a Catholic point of view, are these than they who attend the public schools, and in them acquire, at least, habits of order and study, and the rudiments of a solid secular education? edu-cation? It is .singular that people canont understand that there is " a very influential, but a very undesirable undesir-able education acquired by children who attend no school, in the streets, and from association with the vile and nal. I am almost scandalized at the indifference, the " improvidence, and utter neglect of their children by large numbers even of Catholic parents at the multitudes of children lost every year to the church and to society, when a little foresight, a little care, a little ezal, a little earnestness, a little well-directed effort, might easiy save them to both." "Mr. Diefenbach is unable to forego any opportunity cf giving vent to his anti-Celtic spite," said O'Flanagan. "The Irish are not the only disorderly people in our cities, and Catholics do not furnish the whole of our vicious and criminal population. There is more sin, more hardened depravity, more deliberate malice, in a score of your well-dressed, wealthy, prim, long-faced, canting Anglo-Saxon Yankees Yan-kees than in the whole Celtic population popula-tion in the country." "Mr. O'Flanagan,"" returned Diefenbach, Diefen-bach, "notwithstanding his clamorous protestations, must have a very mean opinion of his countrymen, or of his brother Celts, or he would be far less ready to apply my remarks specially to them. O said nothing of Celts, or of Irishmen. I spoke of Catholics; and there are, I believe, in this country, coun-try, persons not Irish, who are Catholics, Cath-olics, and very sorry Catholics, too. Mr. O'Flanagan is, If he will permit me to say so, very unjust to his coun trymen. He takes up the cudgel in their defense where there is no occasion, occa-sion, and does them serious injury by his over-suspiciousness and sensitiveness. sensitive-ness. In the Catholic world, I take it for granted, there is no disposition to overlook or deny their claims or their just merits. The Catholic world is not ignorant of their Catholic wprth and services is not ignorant of the firmness with which the Irish have held fast to the faith, and the sacrifices, sacri-fices, as a people, they have made for conscience. It loves and honors them, and holds them inferior to no Catholic people on the earth. It sympathizes with them, and defends thehi, and no Catholic but feels an insult or injury to them is an insult or injury to himself. him-self. Mr. O'Flanagan must permit me to say that he would serve his countrymen coun-trymen better, if he would learn to respect them more, and not cherish so ungenerous a distrust of them. I am very far from asserting or conceding con-ceding that Catholics, whether of Irish or of any other national origin, furnish the whole vicious and criminal crim-inal population of the cities and towns of the Union, but I fear I must admit that they furnish, at least, their full quota i say not of the mst really criminal and sinful, but of those the administration of justice practically treats as such. Certainly, the "Dead Rabbits" are not greater sinners than the "Plug Uglies"; our poor boys who are sent to Blackwell's Island or to Sing' Sing, are not worse than hundreds hun-dreds of the sons of respectable non-Catholic non-Catholic families, who are regarded as very good boys; and the Catholic who is arraigned for beating his wife in a drunken row, for knocking down a policeman, or stabbing one of the opposing faction in an affray, is less really depraved than many pious evangelical banker, railway president, cashier, or director, member of the legislature, or representative, or senator sen-ator in congress. Our vicious and criminal population are rarely as depraved de-praved as they seem, and when studied stud-ied closely will be found to retain many noble qualities aDd generous sentiments wanting in the corresponding correspond-ing class of non-Catholics. Their offenses of-fenses are the result of thoughtlessness, thoughtless-ness, animal spirits, love of fun, love of adveneure, or of sudden passion, excited perhaps by strong drink, far oftener than of deliberate malice. Yet with all the drawbacks and allowances allow-ances we can make, the broads fact stares us in the face, that we contribute con-tribute our full proportion, if not more than our proportion, in the cities and large towns, to the corrupt and vicious population of the country, and a proportion, pro-portion, I fear, annually increasing instead in-stead of dir . .:ishing. This is a fact well known .v ncn-Catholics, who do not fail to make the most of it against our religion. No doubt non-Catholics regard our faults and defects in a too unfavorable light, and draw from them inferences wholly unwarranted, simply because these faults and defects de-fects are not precisely their own; but it is possible, on the other hand, that we ourselves pass over them too lightly, because we have long been accustomed ac-customed to them. There can be scarcely a graver injury to Catholicity, Catholici-ty, in this country than to let our children chil-dren run at large, and receive their only education in dens of drunkenness, drunken-ness, and haunts of vice and crime. more than overbalance any that could be done by the sectarianism of the public schools." (To be Continued.) , o |