ruption gnawing at the brain and the heart of republican liberty; but, thank God! we have not yet sunk as low as imperial France. Our thoughts, and our tongues, and our pens are our own, free and unmuzzled, and we have the right and it is our duty to speak out in the bold, manly, ringing tones of the freedom wherewith nature and Christ have made us free. Let us not sigh for the gauntleted hand of arbitrary power to be placed on the mouth of political ribaldry and infidel scoffing. Our turn would soon come; to-mor row it would be on our own mouths, and then, with a tiger's spring, its deadly gripe would clutch our throats. But what avails our freedom, if we know not how to use it; if, through our own supineness, reason, the godlike instrument of thought, has not been tempered and sharpened by liberal education; if our tongues stutter weak unmeaning words, the idle prattlings of intellectual infancy. A lofty destiny beckons us onward; a wider and more glorious field of contest and of triumph opens before us than ever burst on the vision of the soldiers of the Cross. We are strong in our numbers, strong in our faith, strong in our love of Holy Church; why cannot we be strong in liberal culture? Does Catholicity make a man's brain too giddy to stand on the mountain top of science? is the air too keen pure there for Catholic lungs? Will the Catholic banner flap lazily and lifelessly in that high serene atmosphere, where falsehood and impiety, Protestantism and infidelity flutter their gaudy flags in mocking triumph? Culture, education, large-mindedness, and still larger-heartedness, these are what we want. The crown of grace is never more resplendent than when it rests on the lofty brow of natural excellence. Gold and precious stones are the foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem; philosophy and art are the fitting cornerstones of the city of God on earth.

and

"Vain dreamer! legislator for Utopia; fit inmate of the Paradise of fools! Talk of Catholics in this country having the same external advantages as their opponents-pshaw ! moonshine all! Thou thrower of stones into a quiet pond; thou builder of castles in Spain, of universities and colleges in cloud-land! We are poor; we have neither time nor money for liberal education. We do not, as thou dost, consider salvation secure; we wish to save our souls and our children's; we must legislate for the heart first, and then, Deo volente, we shall legislate for the head. As it is, our schools are as good as any in the land. Our Catholic A. B.'s and A. M.'s can hold their heads as high as graduates of Yale or Harvard; they can dig as deep for Greek roots, and climb a genealogical tree of ancient worthies as nimbly as any disciple of Anthon and Felton, of Arnold and Hamilton. Recreant child, betrayer of Catholic cause! hast thou forgotten that the Protestant universities which thou didst so flippantly praise, were founded by Catholics, that their glory is stolen property, that it was once our

the

own ?"

These were the words of reproof that echoed on the July air, the censorial lightnings that flashed in the July sky.

The remarks that called forth these criticisms from a portion of the Catholic press, were not novel. They had been advanced in substance three several times before in the pages of the Review, in articles by F. G., on "Our Colleges," and in the "Conversations of Our Club." Every day that the writer of this has spent in college has convinced him more forcibly of their truth. It was in that conviction, and in the belief that a time had come when the question of education imperiously clamored for a thorough agitation by all loyal children of the Church, that the article on Dr. Arnold as an educator was written. The literary revival in Ireland and Belgium, attested by the establishment of the Irish Catholic University and the rising fame of the University of Louvain; the beginning of a seminary to recruit the American Missions in connection with the latter institution; the founding by the Holy Father and the hierarchy of this country of the American College in Rome; and the many bulls and briefs in which, during the last ten years of his Pontificate, Pope Pius IX. has drawn the attention of the bishops and the clergy to the necessity of instant and persevering endeavors to promote Catholic education, all these we took in good faith as signs of the times. We may have been deceived, imprudent, if you will, but we set down naught in malice. Does a Catholic transgress the bounds of propriety, of due respect for the opinions of those whose station and experience challenge his obedience and love, if, frankly and good temperedly, he tries to make good his stand on a free question, a question open, from its very nature, to a wide divergence of opinion and practice? Does our true interest lie in the hush-up policy? Have we so little confidence in our cause and ourselves as to be afraid of discussion? Any subject apart from the dogmas and the traditional teaching and policy of the Church that cannot bear ventilation, merits not a moment's thought. If our systems and opinions must be kept in hermetically sealed cans, as we keep fruit and vegetables from summer to winter, they will soon mildew. If they cannot bear the air and rough handling, they are pretty toys, curious fossils, nothing more, and the sooner we get rid of them the better.

The past is the prophet of the future. We can argue from what we have done to what we can do. The thousands of crosses that shower down from Catholic steeples their silent benisons on the world beneath; our cathedrals and parish churches; our religious orders, and numerous secular clergy; our schools, hospitals, and asylums; the vast sums annually and ungrudgingly expended in noble charities, all these prove that Catholic faith and Catholic zeal can work miracles. Are we to believe that the devotion of our people decreases in proportion to the increase of their numbers and wealth; that the poor emigrants of twenty years ago could do more for God

and his Church than their children of to-day? It may be so; it may be that the agencies that could sow Catholic schools and colleges broadcast over the land, are inadequate to support and improve them. It may be that we are like the man in the Gospel, who began to build without having wherewith to finish. Grant it all; but then we say, and truth says with us, that it is not want of means but want of will, want of disinterestedness, that cramps our efforts now. As the country advances in wealth and population, we advance too. As the engines of error are multiplied and improved, God provides that truth shall have the same advantages. But God acts by secondary causes; he leaves his work to be done in great measure by us. As the necessities of extensive, liberal education increase, God multiplies our means of education. Are the literary wants of American Catholics less pressing than those of their brethren in Ireland and Belgium, the two most Catholic nations of Europe? Are the enemies of religion less numerous and bitter here than on the other side of the Atlantic? Are they not freer rampant, for having the fewer checks? If Irish and Belgian Catholics, who have sucked in devotion to the Church, to every thing noble and good, with their mothers' milk, must needs keep their blood from stagnation, by walking in the groves of the Academy and the porch of Zeno, what of those whose blood is in danger of taint, of utter corruption, from the poison of indifferentism, heresy, and atheism, which they draw in with every breath!

and more

From the State we receive no countenance. A system of Common Schools, which throws open the class-room door to admit Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, and to kick religion out, is radically wrong. It is atheistical, based on the assumption that the God of Christianity is a local divinity, at home in the sanctuary and pulpit, but as much out of place in the school-room and the peda gogue's chair, as an Esquimaux would be in the saloons of Paris. The attempt to educate without religion will entail misery on the individual and society. Practically, the schools find it impossible to exclude religion. It must enter, but it enters in a counterfeit form, in the guise of sectarianism. It will nestle, in spite of him, on the tongue of the teacher, and peep out from the pages of geographies and histories. Catholics cannot, of course, tolerate this state of things; they withdraw their children, and yet continue to pay taxes for an institution which is as just to them as the Anglican establishment in Ireland is to the Celtic peasant.

The State, we have said, has a right to take education under its patronage. Its prosperity, yea, its very existence depends on the intelligence and virtue of its citizens. The instinct of self-preservation leads it to establish schools, colleges, and universities as the centres and homes of political and moral science. cially is the throne of Republican Liberty built on education, on the clear heads and the loyal hearts of freemen.

More espe

"Though the State," says Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, "was to derive no advantage from the instruction of the inferior ranks of the people, it would still deserve its attention, that they should not be altogether uninstructed. The State, however, derives no inconsiderable advantage from their instruction. The more they are instructed, the less liable they are to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition, which, among ignorant nations, frequently occasion the most dreadful disorders. An instructed and intelligent people, besides, are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one. They feel themselves, each individually, more respectable, and more likely to obtain the respect of their lawful superiors, and they are, therefore, more disposed to respect those superiors. They are more disposed to examine, and more capable of seeing through the interested complaints of faction and sedition; and they are, upon that account, less apt to be misled into any wanton or unnecessary opposition to the measures of government. In free countries, where the safety of government depends very much upon the favorable judgment which the people may form of its conduct, it must surely be of the highest importance that they should not be disposed to judge rashly or capriciously concerning it."

The State, however, has no right to deny God by ejecting religion from education; neither has it a right to coerce the consciences or insult the convictions of its subjects by teaching a system of religion which they believe to be false. The practical question in regard to State education is to devise a plan which shall combine these two requisites,-the acknowledgment of religion as the most important element, the most energetic power in education, and the exclusion of what any class of citizens regard as sectarian. The system adopted in Germany is clearly the only one at all admissible. Before the State, all forms of religion stand on an equal footing; it is not within its province to decide on the respective claims of the Church and the sects. It must acknowledge, in its schools, the religious equality, in a civil point of view, of all forms of beli f. The educational code of Prussia, drawn up in 1819, provides that difference of religion shall authorize separate schoolsthe Catholic schools to be, in the first instance, under the superintendence of the bishops, deans, and parish priests; the Evangelical, under those of their own clergy. If the union of schools of different persuasions be found expedient, both parties must consent to that union. The head master of the school is, in that case, to profess the faith of the majority of the pupils; his assistant, that of the minority. Never, however, is either religion to interfere with the other.

"The primitive question of every school," says the Prussian law, "is to train youth, that, with a knowledge of the relations of man to God, it may foster in them the desire of ruling their life by the spirit and principles of Christianity. The school shall, therefore, betimes, second and complete the first domestic training of the child to piety.

Prayer and edifying reflections shall commence and terminate the day; and the master must beware that this moral exercise do never degenerate into a matter of routine."

This is all fine enough on paper. Prussia provides for religion as an essential of education, and condemns sectarianism and proselytism, but her practice is not always consistent with her theory. The Dublin University Gazette gives the following information in regard to the state of education in Prussia in 1853 and 1854:

"There are in Prussia three Universities exclusively Protestant; none are exclusively Catholic. The Academies of Munster and Braunsburg have only two Faculties; and while one of these Academies receives nothing of the public money, the other one obtains an insignificant subsidy. The University of Berlin is not officially declared Protestant, but if it is not so de jure, it is, at least, de facto, and scarcely numbers any Catholics among its professors.

"There remain two mixed Universities, Breslau and Bonn. Here the parity between the two confessions is recognized de jure, and one would have expected that their equality would be actually observed. Nothing of the sort. Putting aside the Faculties of Theology, there are at Breslau, among the ordinary professors, thirty Protestants, and only five Catholics. At Bonn they number thirty-seven Protestants, and eleven Catholics. And it ought to be observed that the population of these Universities not only does not represent even the above-mentioned proportion of three to five, but the terms are reversed; and, while the number of Protestant professors has so vast an advantage over that of the Catholic professors, the number of the Catholic students is double that of the Protestants; at Breslau there are 475 Catholic students, and 235 Protestant students; at Bonn there are 561 Catholics, and only 288 Protestants.

"In the Province of Posen, which contains 422,920 Protestants, and 852,148 Catholics; that is to say, double the number of the former, there are three Protestant Gymnasia, or Colleges, and only three Catholic. In the Province of Silesia, where the numbers of the two religions are nearly equal, there are fourteen Protestant Gymnasia to

eight Catholic.

The public treasury, to which all the tax-paying population, whatever their religious confession, contribute in an equal manner, espouses all the preferences of the Prussian Government. The subsidies given by the State to the Protestant schools reach the sum of 629,265 francs, while the Catholic establishments receive but 39,270 francs; not even the fifteenth part of the sum destined for the Prot

estant schools."

Similar acts of injustice have occurred in Ireland. The Pope condemned the Queen's Colleges as godless, because they excluded religion entirely; and now the Irish Catholic hierarchy condemns, not so much the theory, though that is far from perfect, as the practice of the National Board of Education.

The Common School system in the United States is in theory