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Show 00sis?er$afiefi$ of Our feiub'-.-JBySESS?--- In last week's installment the debate on the public school question was continued, con-tinued, Diefenbach holding the floor. To him it appeared that the public Sfhunls am tn hp iirpfpvrprl pvpii In a religious view, to Catholic schools, I w hich are altogether inferior under the ehargp, as many, of them are, of incompetent in-competent teachers, from whom the children can learn little, and that little imperfectly. De Bonneville supports Diefenbach along other lines of expediency. ex-pediency. His remarks begin this week's installment of "Conversations." Ed. I. M. C ' CONVERSATION IX. (Continued.) "It is not possible," said De Bonneville, Bonne-ville, "for you to establish Catholii schools, supported by yourselves out of your limited means, that shall successfully suc-cessfully compete with the common schools, supported by- a public tax or by public funds, and at the same time build your churches and provide for the services of religion. The funds are not in your hands. You cannot build first-class school houses tor all your children, or afford to pay the salaries which will command the' services of first-class teachers. In most places the pastor is poor, and struggling with debt, and if he attempts to establish a first-class school, he Involves himself him-self still deeper in debt, is still more embarrassed to find the ways and means of meeting his expenses. He becomes so harassed, distracted and worn out with, his temporal affairs that he has hardly time, strength or courage cour-age to devote himself to the spiritual welfare and progress of his charge. Except Ex-cept in a very few places, the establishment estab-lishment and maintenance of a free school impose upon the clergyman a burden too great to be borne, and under un-der which, after a few years of struggle, strug-gle, he does and must break down, un- less sustained by supernatural agency." "It is only fair," said Father John, "to presume that those of our bishops who insist so earnestly on the establishment estab-lishment of parochial schools have , taken all the objections And difficulties difficul-ties suggested by Mr. Diefenbach and Mr. de Bonneville into consideration, and that stronger reasons in their minds overrule them, and induce them to decide in favor of parochial schools wherever they are able to establish them. But I do not understand them to require the clergy to establish schools ! wherp tJiev arc imoracticable. or where the pastor ai;d people are unable to do it without great Inconvenience, or where they cannot establish a school every way equal to the public schools. Ir- my own view of the matter, I think the public schools, sectarian as -they frequently are, preferable to very poor parochial schools, under the charge of wholly Incompetent teachers, and dragging drag-ging out a painful, lingering, half-dying existence. I consider the church has made it obligatory on us to establish es-tablish schools, as far as we are able, In which our children will not be ex- posea to me iosh oi meir im.uu, u the corruption of their morals; but I do not regard as such schools, though called Catholic, those in which the children in study and behavior are not brought up to the common average of the public schools of the country.'! ' CONVERSATION X. "If," said O'Flanagan, "we are to accept ac-cept Father John's view of the public schools, expressed a few evenings since, and send our children to them where we have not and cannot have schools of our own every way equal to them, this advantage. Will result, that our venerable bishops and priests will have more leisure and means to devote to the, elevation .ofjour colleges, acad emies and seminaries. The education of the whole mass 'of the children hi common schools may be a necessity of modern times, especially in a - democratic demo-cratic country, but it can never, however how-ever thorough, suffice for the wants of the church or of society. The first want of the church is a numerous and I well-educated clergy. The fields are always white for. the harvest,- but the laborers are always too few. The es-1 es-1 tablishment and support of petit-seminaire petit-seminaire in every diocese is a desideratum, desider-atum, and would do far more for the Interests of religion than the multiplication multipli-cation td any extent possible of simple parochial schools.'? - - "The veil of modern society," added Winslow, "is an exaggerated democ racy, w men iooks at me mass ana neglects neg-lects the individual, collects a body of privates and neglects to provide them with proper ofttcers.r Education may be much more diffused in modern society than it was in antiquity or in the middle mid-dle ages, but the higher and more j thorough education of the few is relatively rela-tively more neglected, and inferior in the cultivation and discipline of." the mind and in the formation of character. charac-ter. Especially is this the case in our own country, where what Is called libel lib-el al education that is. the education of freemen, liberl or generosi. In contradistinction con-tradistinction from the education of the servile, or menial, classes is below what it is In any other civilized country. coun-try. We cut but a sorry figure in this respect. beside Italy, France, Germany, England. -Spain or even distracted Mexico. Mex-ico. The speeches of the members of our congress cannot compare, under the point of view of scholarship, with the speeches of the. members of the British Brit-ish parliament, and even the Mexican diplomatic and state papers show a more thorough training than for the most part do our own. In the whole range of our pr-isidential messages, from Washington to Buchanan inclu- j sive, we can find no one to compare, favorably with the first message of Louis Napoleon to the French notional assembly. We have plenty of privates, but we lack officers leaders who can oiganize them into an army and lead them to victory. Officers are more important im-portant than men, the architect than the mechanic who work after his plan, the artist than the artisan, the leader than the followers. 'Give me the. man,' said Napoleon Bonaparte, 'I can find men enough anywhere.' Say what. we will of democracy f.nd shout equality till our throats are sore, the people have and must have leaders, and it is of far more moment what the leaders than what the followers are, i This principle, which is true of the popula tion or me couuiiy m Keiitri ai,. is equally equal-ly true of the Catholic population in particular. Gather all your children Into common schools and give them what is called a good common school education: if you stop there, you have! private soldiers, but no-marshals, gen- i etals, colonels, majors, captains, lieu- J tenants an unorganized mass, not an army; a mob. not a state. You want officers, you want lenders men qualified quali-fied to organize and direct what without with-out them is inorganic and lifeless. You want first the clergy, for the religious wants are primary Ample provision, first of all, needs to be made for a numerous and thoroughly educated clergy, who should stand at the head of society In learning and Intelligence, as well as In wisdom and virtue. But the people need leaders in secular as well as in spiritual affairs. They want their lawyers.- their surgeons and physicians, their statesmen, men vvlio can lead them, defend their rights and vindicate their interests in every department of public and social life. After the seminary, semi-nary, or school for training and preparing pre-paring the spiritual chiefs of the people, peo-ple, the next most important thing is the college and university for training and preparing their lay or temporal chiefs." ... "The college and university are the more necessary to he Catholic n'onu'la tion . of this country,', remarked De Bonneville, because, if worst comes to worst, you can use the public schools; and it seems to me that the college and university do not receive the attention their importance demands, and the at tention given to your coneges is given , to them rather as petits-seminaires, or as feeders to your ecclesiastical seminaries sem-inaries and religious orders, than as schools for the education of the lay chiefs of the Catholic society. They seem to me, -to a great extent, to fail in both objects. With all submission to authority, I think your bishops would better accomplish their object the obtaining of candidates for the seminary if they confined their exertions exer-tions mainly to establishing, instead of colleges chiefly for the education of seculars,, little seminaries, as feeders of the theological seminary. They would find more vocations, and more speedily supply the want of priests, which is now almost everywhere so deeply felt. I think their best plan would be to confine their direct efforts to supplying the wants of the spiritual society, and leave The college and university, uni-versity, save in what regards religion and morality, to the secular society. We have all agreed that the church is not bound to provide or to give a secular sec-ular education to seculars, and therefore there-fore she is not bound to train up the lay chiefs of society. She provides for the spiritual society, and secular society so-ciety ought to provide for its own wants. No doubt there have been times and places in which, if the church had not volunteered to provide for those wants, no provision would j have been made for them." j (To be continued.) |