ing to Christian education; and education must remain under the
guardianship of the Church, if it will not cease to be Christian.
History shows us that it is the Church that has civilized the nations,
and it is the Church that keeps them from falling back into their former
degradation. Learning was not diffused among mankind until the Church
removed the veil of sin and ignorance, made man really free, and widened
the narrow limits of human thought by showing to man the infinite, the
eternal destiny that awaited him. This supernatural light--this "freedom
of the children of God"--is the very foundation, the very lifespring of
civilization. The Catholic Church, then, far from being opposed to
education, is its great and most zealous promoter. But she cannot help
being opposed to the Pagan system of education adopted in the Public
Schools of this country.

It is clear that this plan takes away the right of parents, whom God has
charged with the care of their children, and it must necessarily
interfere with the proper management of families. In the second place,
it ignores the rights of the Church, to whom Christ gave the commission
to teach all nations. In the third place, since governments, as
constituted at present, have no religion, the teaching they give must
tend to infidelity. In the fourth place, if governments take into their
hands the management of things which do not appertain to them, the
probability is that they will neglect, or carry on badly, the great
temporal affairs which it is their duty to attend to. In the last
place, experience shows that education carried on by the State is most
expensive, and that it opens the way to intrigues and frauds. To confirm
all these observations, it is sufficient to refer to France, where State
influence has been supreme for the last seventy years in university
education, and where the Government has exercised an exorbitant control
over every branch of public instruction. What has been the result?
Literature has fallen away, the number of schools has decreased, the
French language has decayed, whilst moral corruption has penetrated the
heart of the country, and infidelity of the worst kind has been
patronized and encouraged among the teachers of youth, and the highest
honors have been decreed to Littres and Renans, and other decided
enemies of Jesus Christ. May we not read the condemnation of all such
proceedings in the lurid flames of the burning Capital of modern
civiliza