the unhallowed precincts of those
mixed institutions.

In fine, the opinion of all the Irish Catholics on this subject of
education is so well known, that nearly all of the Liberal candidates
who sought their votes at the last elections for the House of Commons,
declared in their electioneering addresses their adhesion to the
principle of denominational education, and their determination to uphold
it, and push it forward in Parliament.

And with good reason are they steadfast in those principles, for they
know the necessary connection between good education and the
maintenance of religion in their country. And they are determined to
struggle for the establishment, in Ireland, of a sound Catholic system
of public education, and never to relax their efforts till they obtain
the recognition of this, their own and their children's right, even as
they wrung Catholic emancipation from a hostile Parliament.

Thus the Catholic laity practise what their pastors teach; and in
Ireland and other countries, both pastors and people are united in
holding that nothing so effectually destroys religion in a country as a
godless system of instruction, whilst they believe, at the same time,
that a good Christian education contributes to preserve true religion,
and to spread the practice of every virtue and of good works through the
land.

Though the Catholic Church and her children are so anxious for the
progress of knowledge, and have made such sacrifices for the
civilization and enlightenment of the world, yet they do not
indiscriminately approve of every system of education. Every one knows
how much is done in our days, by the enemies of religion, to poison the
sources of knowledge, and to undermine religion, under the pretext of
promoting the liberal arts and sciences. In order to give a proper
impulse to study, by securing protection for it, some insist that the
full control of public instruction should be given to the government of
each country, to be carried on by Ministers of State, or public boards;
others attach so much importance to the development of the intellectual
faculties, that they call for compulsory and gratuitous education, in
order to give a great degree of culture to all classes; and others, in
fine, demand an unsectarian education, pretending that God should be
banished from the school, and children brought up without being
subjected to any religious influences. The Catholic Church and her
pastors, being charge