would be only too happy to follow
them, and to support and encourage them by every means in our power.
What an immense amount of good could thus be achieved in a short time!
Our religion never loses anything of its efficacy upon the minds and
hearts of men; it can only lose in as far as it is not brought to bear
upon them. What is most wanted is not argument, but instruction and
explanation.

"I can hardly account for this want of zeal for true Catholic education
in so many of our clergy, who are otherwise models of every virtue, than
by supposing the fact that their ecclesiastical training must have been
deficient in many respects, or that they must have spent their youth in
our godless Public Schools, where they were never thoroughly imbued with
the true spirit of the Catholic Church--the spirit of God.

"I have quietly, for some time, studied, as far as I was able, the
prevailing spirit of our people; noted the remarks and efforts of a few
ecclesiastics, laics, and Catholic periodicals (and, alas! how very few)
made in behalf of the sacred obligation of education, and endeavored to
compare the results with the efforts, and the observation _made_ is
sadly disheartening.

"Examine the Catholic almanacs, the census of the various States, or
those of the United States, and ascertain, first, the number of
Catholics in the country; second, the number of those between the ages
of six and twenty-one years; then divide this last number by the number
of Catholic schools, including colleges, academies, convents, parochial
and private schools, and the _quotient_ will be what? _Indifference to
Catholic education!_ In other words, this simple operation in vulgar
arithmetic demonstrates that in no country claiming to be enlightened
can be found _thirteen millions_ of Catholics with such an inadequate
number of schools as we have, or are likely to have, if a policy widely
different from that which prevails at present be not _early_ inaugurated
and steadily pursued. It is, indeed, true--and I willingly, cheerfully
admit the fact--that most of our priests, and nearly all our bishops,
are exerting themselves zealously, strenuously, and with marked success,
in the cause of education. But _not all_ the priests; _not all_ the
bishops are enlisted in the cause; nor are all in _positive_ sympathy
with it. All may be, perhaps are, agreed in believing that Catholic
education is necessary; but _all are not_ agreed as to the necessity of
Cat