others wherever there could be found place and
opportunity. The Council of Lateran, in 1179, ordained the establishment
of a grammar school in every cathedral for the gratuitous instruction of
the poor. This ordinance was enlarged and enforced by the Council of
Lyons, in 1245. In a word, from the days of Charlemagne, in the ninth
century, down to those of Leo X., in the sixteenth century, free schools
sprang up in rapid succession over the greater part of Europe; and,
mark well, it was almost always under the shadow of her churches and her
monasteries! Throughout the entire period, called, by ignorant bigotry,
the "dark ages," Roman Pontiffs and Catholic Bishops assembled in
council and enacted laws requiring the establishment of free schools in
connection with all the cathedral and parochial churches. This is a fact
so clearly proven by Catholic and Protestant historians, that to deny it
would be to betray a gross ignorance of history. Even at the present
day, the Papal States, with a population of only about 2,000,000,
contain seven universities, with an average attendance of 660 students,
whilst Prussia, with a population of 14,000,000, and so renowned for her
education, has only seven! Again, in every street in Rome there are, at
short distances, public primary schools for the education of the
children of the middle and lower classes. Rome, with a population of
only about 158,000 souls, has 372 public primary schools, with 482
teachers, and over 14,000 children attending them, whilst Berlin, with a
population more than double that of Rome, has only 264 schools. Thus
originated the popular or common schools, or the free education of the
people, as an outgrowth of the Catholic Church.

Every one knows that to the Catholic Church is due the preservation of
literature after the downfall of the Roman Empire; and all those who are
versed in history must admit that the Popes, the rulers of the Church,
have been the greatest promoters and protectors of literature and
learned men in every age. They collected and preserved the writings of
the great historians, poets, and philosophers of Greece and Rome, and
they encouraged and rewarded the learned men who, by their labors, made
those fountains of classical literature easily accessible to all
students. What shall I say of the patronage which they accorded to
painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and the other arts which raise
up and refine the human soul? Even the present g