abandon the _godless system_, and establish separate schools, when
asked to do so by the members of any denomination.[G]

There _is no exception to this rule, except here!_ With all our boasted
progress, we are behind all civilized nations in this important
particular.

Now by adopting this fair method, the poor orphans and ragged children,
who have the first and best claim of all, would be educated. As it is,
it is a notorious fact, that as far as Public Schools are concerned,
they are left out in the cold. This fact is capable of being
demonstrated to any lady or gentleman who will visit the Catholic
orphanages and poor schools of any city. If any one doubts this, and
does me the honor of putting himself at my disposal, I will show him or
her thousands of such poor ragged little ones in one evening. Now is it
not drawing largely upon public credulity, as well as on the public
purse, to ask for thousands for high schools, and normal schools, etc.,
to educate the children, in great part, of the rich, or, at best,
comparatively well to do, and turn their backs on the poor fatherless
orphans and the ragged children of the poor widow or laboring man? Will
anybody who has his eyesight doubt or deny this? If so, he can be
convinced, any day of the week, by looking at the class and style of
boys and girls who go to the upper Public Schools, and observing the
boys and girls (several hundreds in number) who go to the poor schools
of the Sisters of Mercy, or, in fact, to any other charity convent
school.

The Bible, or religious education in schools, will ever come up to vex
and torment the public, especially the Catholic portion of the
community, until the right of separate schools is granted. It is
especially the Catholics that do and must insist upon having separate
schools, for it is the Catholics that have always done all in their
power to establish and maintain the republican form of government, and
it is through the influence of Catholicity alone that our Republic can
be maintained, and increased in power and glory.

A body which has lost the principle of its animation becomes dust. Hence
it is an axiom that the change or perversion of the principles by which
anything was produced, is the destruction of that very thing; if you can
change or pervert the principles from which anything springs, you
destroy it. For instance, one single foreign element introduced into the
blood produces death; one false assumption admitted