Popular Education [pp. 228-235]

Popular Education.
its organized resources, but without
wearing the pedagogue's cap. The
wisest governments of Europe, Catholic and Protestant, have done
this. They have abandoned the Lacedemonian usurpation of domestic
rights, reproduced by the first Napoleon, as he expressed the policy in
his curt style, "My principal end in
the cstablishment of a teaching corps is
to possess the means of directing Joitical and moral opinions." A candid
confession for an autocrat. The nephew, who now reigns over France,
has learned by the experience of misfortune to be wiser and more faithful
to natural rights. In Catholic France
education is entirely free and without favoritism. The public educational fund is equitably distributed
to Catholic and Protestant, and each
is permitted to rear, under the supervision of their respective clergy,
as they may elect, the children of
their own religious household. Conscience is respected; and yet the
youth of the country are not deprived of instruction in the Christian
faith at the public schools. Protestant Prussia is as liberal and as wvise
as France, and her system of public
instruction is based upon the necessity of religious teaching, and the
right of the parent to direct the
child, and the just relation of the
pastor to the parent, and therefore
the equity of a proper distribution of
the public-school fund. We have
not the time, nor is it necessary to
go into the details; but it is sufficient to say that the Prussian system
concedes more to the Prussian Catholic than the American Catholic
has yet asked from an enlightened
and democratic American government; and yet, strange to say, the
American Catholic has been violently and persistently charged with hostility to public education, and a conspiracy to destroy republican institu
tions! Even Ellgland, iron-clad in
her prejudices, has adopted the principles of Prussia, niggardly as her
policy toward the public schools has
always been. And what shall we say
of "benighted Austria," the land of
popish concordats! Let Mr. Kay,
a recognized authority upon matters
of education, and a Protestant, answer this question.
"The most interesting and satisfactory
feature of the Austrian system is the great
liberality with which the government,
though so staunch an adherent and supporter of the Romanist priesthood, has
treated the religious parties who differ
from themselves in their religious dogma.
It has been entirely owing to this liberality
that neither the great number of the sects
in Austria, nor the great differences of their
religious tenets, has hindered the work of
the education of the poor throughout the
empire. Here, as elsewhere, it has been
demonstrated that such difficulties may be
easily overcome, when a government understands how to raise a nation in civilization,
and wishes earnestly to do so.
"In those parishes of the Austrian empire where there are any dissenters from the
Roman Church, the education of their children is not directed by the priests, but is
committed to the care of the dissenting
ministers. These latter are empowered and
required by government to provide for, to
watch over, and to educate the children of
their own sects in the same manner as the
priests are required to do for the education
of their children."
He also says:
"And yet in these countries-Austria, Bavaria, and the Rhine provinces, and the Catholic Swiss cantons-the difficulties arising
from religious differences have been overcome, and all their children have been
brought under the influence of religious
education without any religious party having been offended." (Kay, vol. ii. p. 3.)
And bearing testimony to the earnest desire of the Catholic Church
to advance the education of her children everywhere, he says:
"In Catholic Germany, in France, and
even in Italy, the education of the common
people in reading, writing, arithmetic, mu
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