ROMAN CATHOLIC EDUCATION.

Archbishop VAUGHAN said he had been asked to lay the foundation-stone of the new schoolroom. . .
He was first of all going to speak about the origin of this attempt to secularize education, and then what seemed to be the upshot of it. In order to understand this question they must go back some three hundred years. There were three systems of civilization—he meant the Pagan civilization of ancient Rome, Greece, and Egypt; there was the civilization of the Jewish people under the old law, which had in it much that was beautiful and much that was true ; and there was the civilization of Christianity which was a still more perfect civilization coming from God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now he maintained that it had been proved not only by St. Paul, in the Romans, but by all historians, that the Pagan civilization, though it very much refined, polished, and developed the intellect, tended to, and did in reality, deprave the heart. Then they came to that chosen people whose civilization was not founded in material things, but upon their belief in one God, all their teachings and laws, and their formation of character and heart, being impregnated with the beautiful teachings of the divine religion under the old law. Then they came to the Christian civilization, which was brought in by Jesus and his Apostles, and this in the course of a short time, as they knew, permeated the whole of the European thought, and directed legislation and social life and moral force, and all these things that elevated and instructed man. If they traced all that was good and pure, all that was noble and refined, all that was orderly and self-sacrificing in the history of the European states under Christianity, they could only go back to the time of their Saviour. Let them kneel before Him, thank Him for his merciful goodness, and tell Him that they would maintain His faith even to the shedding of their blood. (Cheers.) At one time there was one faith, as they knew themselves, and, however different were the forms of government, there was very little difficulty in teaching that faith in the Christian schools of the world. But immediately a certain portion of the world apostatized, three hundred years ago, from the unity of the faith, they had a multiplicity of beliefs, until now no man could count the number of sects that lived and crept in the midst of men. The consequence of this was that the Government said that it could not teach religion in the schools when there was so many religions—the only thing can do is to keep it out of the schools altogether, and instruct the children in these things we have to do with in this world—such as reading, writing, and arithmetic. They would find that these who had no belief in religion at all had been vary glad to make use of all of this argument to keep religion out of the schools altogether. If they went to Russia, they would find that the Government, in order that they might convert or pervert the poor down-trodden Polish people, introduced their rationalism into the schools. There was also a party in the States of Germany who were only too glad as far as they were able to introduce a school system which upset belief in religion altogether. And if they went to Belgium they would find the solidaires, or men professing to believe in no religion, who had endeavoured to expunge every vestige of Christianity out of the schools ; and the same thing had occurred in Austria, where men, trampling on the Concordat, tried to remove the principles of Christ out of the minds of the people.
 Coming back to our own country, it was very natural that they should look at the cause of this movement. It was said by these engaged in it "we do love religion, our religion is the right one." But they did not seek to establish it. They did not say, Let us expunge the existing religion, and let us have our religion taught. They said, Let us do away with religion, let us have secular instruction, let us fit men for this world, let us do what we can to make them good citizens, but as for heaven and hell, God and Church—let us leave that to the priest. The great International Society had endeavoured to bring these principles to bear upon the populations of the world. The cardinal points of the international or socialistic party in Switzerland was contained in these words, and their echo was found here—compulsory and gratuitous education up to the completion of the fourteenth year of the child's age, separation of the Church from the State, and also of the schools from the Church. An education league had been introduced into France by the solidaires. The principal object of these men was an association to prevent men and women, either in life or at death, from receiving the sacraments of religion. The third article of their statute was, that neither politics nor religion shall have any part in education. They sought to build up a new society, based solely upon learning and instruction One of the prizes given by a society belonging to this association of men for the spread of education was a prize for good conduct awarded to a daughter of a free-thinker, who had never attended any place of worship (Laughter)
 Coming to America, so much talked about, it was the same as in other parts of the world. The commencement of the system of secular education there could be traced to a woman, Fanny Wright, who flourished about the year 1825. She married a Frenchman, and she and he endeavoured to introduce into America a society something like the Italian Carbonari—a society formed in order that they might undermine religion—in order that they might do away with the indissolubility of the marriage tie, in order that they might do away with the belief in God and the immortality of the soul, in order that men's and women's earthly happiness might be promoted without let and hindrance, and that they might be able so far to forget the other world as to throw themselves away on this. The three great enemies to their system they considered, were—religion first, marriage second, and private property third, and in place of them they were going to substitute for religion, science; for private property, community of goods ; and for marriage, community of wives (Laughter ) This lady, with her husband, introduced a secret society into the United States of America, which at last got a great hold upon a good many men, and they worked this principle of secular education in order to introduce the dissolubility of marriage, the abolition of private property, and the upsetting of all religion, and the consequence of this is that we read there are 25 millions of people in America who do not profess any distinct religion whatever; and the secular Public system has so degraded and debased the population, that men of thought, and men of purity, men who desire the good of the people, do not know on which side to turn to remedy the almost universal system of corruption (Applause )
 The Boston Pilot of April 6, 1872, says —"That the devil is in the public schools, raging and rampant there among the pupils, as well as among the teachers, no one can well doubt who has sent a child into them as guiltless of evil or unclean thoughts as a newly fallen snow flake, and had him come home in a short time contaminated, almost beyond belief, by the vileness and filth which he has seen and heard and learnt there." A distinguished Frenchman, Professor Agassiz, says :—"A large proportion of the prostitutes of Boston trace their fall to the influences that they met with in the public schools " (Cheers ) He was ashamed, as a Catholic Bishop, to bring before than the words that are made use of in that book with regard to the most frightful vices that seem to grow with a growth irresistible where there is no religion to place its foot upon that vile monster—the passion of man (Cheers) Governor Brown, addressing not long ago the National Teachers' Convention in St Louis, said :—" it is a very customary declaration to pronounce that education is the great safeguard of republics against the decay of virtue and the reign of immorality, yet the facts can scarcely bear out the proposition. The highest civilizations, both ancient and modern, have sometimes been the most flagitious. Now-a-days, certainly, your prime rascals have been educated rascals." (Laughter and cheers ) In order that their good friends might not imagine that he was against enlightenment—for he wished to open the door as wide as possible-(cheers)—in order that he might not be misunderstood—he was going to bring forward an argument to show that he was not against instruction, when it was directed by religion. But he would no more think of imparting mere secular instruction without religion than he would place a minie rifle in the hands of a boy who did not know how to use it, and trust himself in his presence. ( Applause ) It was not possible for a mere secular instruction, in what was called the three R.'s, to fit persons to fight the great battle with the passions of man, but it was possible with the combination of instruction with religion to fit them for that battle, and to prove this he would bring forward a few figures—only a few, for he would not go into statistics, which nobody ever read. In France the men and women both were educated—the men in the public schools, and without religion, where the priests have not been allowed to bring in their influence and the women are educated principally under the influence of religious persons, and religion is brought into their schools. If they compared the record of crime committed by men and women they would find very curious results. The men were far more criminal than the women, and what was most striking and curious was that they were more depraved in proportion as they were more highly educated without religion, while the women, the more highly they were educated with religion, became the more pure and holy. (Applause.) These returns were made up for eighteen years, from the year 1829 to 1846, and the criminals were divided into three classes—persons who were called ignorant—that is, who could neither read nor write; the instructed formed the second class—that is, those who could read and write more or less well; and the third class, the better instructed, who had received a higher education than the, primary education. This record shows that amongst the ignorant, who could neither read nor write, there were before the Courts, out of every 100,000, not less than 751 persons. Of the instructed in the second class, out of every 100,000, there were more before the Courts—there were 942; and of the better instructed, out of every 100,000 there were 1289 before the Courts.
. . . . So they found that in proportion as they received instruction combined with the teachings of holy religion they had been pure and holy, while the more they received mere secular instruction so they became more and more depraved. He did not set himself up against secular education, but let them bring in religion along with it. (Applause.) Now he was not going to speak of any league in Belgium, or any league in France, or any league in Germany, but he was going to speak of a league that had just budded out of the ground in this beautiful spring weather. (Laughter.) This league says that "amongst all nations religious instruction is held to be supremely important," and yet was doing all it could— well, he would not say doing all it could to shove it out altogether—but only leaves enough of it to let people know that it was there once, but is not there now. (Cheers.)
  These gentlemen had published a manifesto—and while he wished to speak of all persons with great respect, yet it was only fair that he should say what he thought of their system, as they had a right to say what they thought of his. These gentlemen had published a manifesto of what they called the New South Wales Public School League, for making primary education national, secular, compulsory, and free. He should give it a different name, and call it the manifesto of the New South Wales Public School League for making primary education sectarian, cruel, tyrannical, and debasing. (Cheers.) He did not think these gentlemen meant this, but he was guided by the results of certain principles, and he thought the results of these principles laid down in the manifesto would be to make education sectarian, cruel, tyrannical, and debasing. Let them come to the point. Were these schools for the children of the wealthy merchant, the rich squatter, the flourishing tradesman, or men of substance. Oh no. There was very little chance of a league being formed to force their children into schools without religion. This system was brought forward for the children of the poor—the helpless poor. (Cheers.) This system was not national, because it would simply reach the poor man and the poor woman who have no money to pay for their children's education in a school where Christ is taught. This manifesto had for its object to bring in a system that would tell only upon the helpless poor, and it was brought forward by men who would never be able to enlist into their confidence people who have had experience of the sufferings of the poor, and the love they bear to Jesus Christ—men who have had no direct communication with the poor, and who do not know that the poor have the same interest in the principles of religion and the tender love of God as the highest in the land, although they were placed in a position of comparative helplessness. It was for these who had not Christ in their hearts to come forward and bring in a measure which strikes down the poor without touching the rich. This League was composed of several gentlemen, and he had tried to find out something about them, but no one seemed to know who they were.  (Applause.) They called it secular, but he called it cruel. He thought it cruel, because, first of all, it was a system which was fixed upon the helpless poor; secondly, because it excludes that which the poor love best—religion— from the heart of the children, and thirdly, because it excludes that which is valued by every man not altogether depraved— morality. It excluded religion because it was secular. Although it was said that there was no wish to take all religion from the schools, everyone knew that it was only sought to leave so much religion as might admit the thin end of the wedge, and afterwards they would push it and exclude from them religion altogether. . . .

Sydney Morning Herald (NSW ) 1874, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13341287