laced you as Bishops, but in particular to watch over
children and young men. They ought to be the special object of your
paternal love, of your vigilant solicitude, of your zeal, of all your
care. They who have tried to subvert society and families, to destroy
authority, divine and human, have spared no pains to infect and corrupt
youth, hoping thus the more easily to execute their infamous projects.
They know that the mind and heart of young persons, like soft wax, to
which one may give what form he pleases, are very susceptible of every
sort of impression; that they keep tenaciously, when age has now
hardened them, those which they had early received, and reject others.
Thence the well-known proverb taken from the Scripture, 'A young man
according to his way, even when he is old he will not depart from it.'
Suffer not, then, venerable brethren, the children of this world to be
more prudent in this respect than the children of light. Examine,
therefore, with the greatest attention, to what manner of persons is
confided the education of children, and of young men in the colleges and
seminaries; of what sort are the instructions given them; what sort of
schools exist among you; of what sort are the teachers in the lyceums.
Examine into all this with the greatest care, sound everything, let
nothing escape your vigilant eye; keep off, repulse the ravening wolves
that seek to devour these innocent lambs; drive out of the sheepfold
those which have gotten in; remove them as soon as can be, for such is
the power which has been given to you by the Lord for the edification of
your sheep."

_Rescripts of His Present Holiness Condemning the Queen's Colleges of
England._

Our Holy Father Pope Pius IX., consulting for the special wants of the
Catholics of Ireland, has not ceased, almost from the very beginning of
his glorious pontificate, to repeat similar instructions in his
apostolic letters to the Irish Bishops. Hence, by his rescripts of
October 1847, and October 1848, he condemned, from their first
institution, the Queen's Colleges, on account of their "grievous and
intrinsic dangers to faith and morals"; and since then he has frequently
repeated his sacred admonitions, warning the bishops and the faithful
people to beware of evil systems of public instruction; and to secure,
by every means in their power, the blessings of Catholic education for
the rising generation.

_Resolutions of Irish Bishops in 1824 and 1826._