these schools proved more fatal than in these very States.
The reading of the Bible alone, therefore, though it be the Word of God,
will _not_ counterbalance the results of Pagan education.

There are others who maintain "that religious instruction should be left
to parents."

Now it is not only idle, but cruel, to say that the place and provision
for such Christian instruction and formation is under the roof of the
parents' home; that the best school is the family. This is indeed true
of the early formation by affection, influence, example, by which
fathers and mothers fashion the first outlines of character, and mature
them while the education of their children is advancing. None have
reminded parents of this more faithfully than the Pastors of the Church.
But to say that fathers and mothers are to educate their children, and
that their home is to be the school of Christian instruction,
catechetical teaching, formation of conscience, preparation for
sacraments, and the like, is either the shallow talk of men who know
nothing of Christian education, or care nothing for it, or a heartless
mockery of our poor. The rich, the refined, the educated, whose time is
their own, do not educate their own children. They systematically send
them to schools and colleges, or pay for tutors or governesses under
their own roof. They wisely shrink from a work for which, if they have
the time, they seldom have the acquirements or the gift, or the method
of the perseverance or the patience. And if this be, as it is,
universally true of those who are the most competent, and the most
provided with all the means and opportunities for the work, now is it
not hardness of heart, or want of common sense, to say that the children
of the poor are to learn reading, and writing, and summing, indeed, at
school, but that their Christian teaching and formation must be provided
at home? The workingmen of these countries are at labor from twilight to
twilight. Their wives have the burden of the whole family; the poor
mother is alone both the head and the servant of the whole house. When
is she to teach, and train, and shape, and fashion the characters,
hearts, consciences, intellects of the children? Is it to be done in the
midst of a day's work, or in the weariness after the day's work is done?
And are they competent to do what the mother of the rich cannot do?
Broken with cares, wearied by work, suffering from poverty, often
fainting from sickness bec