educational propagandism, or shall the State pay it? Here the question is one of dollars and cents.

The amendment proposed by ex-Speaker Blaine answers this question by declaring that "no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect, nor shall any money so raised ever be divided between religious sects or denominations." Though this would not dispose of all the issues involved in the School problem as debated by religious sects, yet, if the amendment were placed in the fundamental law of the land, one question, and that too a very important one, would receive a final settlement. The Rev. Thomas S. Preston-one of the most considerate and able writers on the Catholic side of the question-in a pamphlet published by him a few years since, took the ground that education and religion are inseparable; and that the State should adopt a system by which "every religious denomination which has its own schools shall draw its proportion of the sum raised by general taxation, according to the number of children whom it educates." We shall have occasion hereafter to examine both of these propositions; yet for the present it is sufficient to say that ex-Speaker Blaine's amendment gives an emphatic and unqualified negative to the latter proposition; and if Congress will propose, and the State Legislatures will ratify the amendment, that

will be the end of all schemes for a division of school funds among religious sects.

III.

THE PROTESTANTS.

The term Protestant, used as a title of distinction from Catholics, applies to all the professedly Christian sects of this country. These sects may be regarded as forming one great body of religionists, in the aggregate more numerous and influential than the contrasted Catholic sect. Considered, however, relatively to each other, they are divided. into several branches, or religious denominations -as Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, the Reformed Church in America, Unitarians, Universalists, and other smaller sects-all agreeing in being Protestants, as distinguished from Catholics, and yet thus divided, as the result of differences in doctrine or polity or both. They all claim the Christian name, and all profess to rest their religion, either wholly or in part, upon the authority of the Bible. Their number, their intelligence, their general standing as citizens, their Church wealth, their religious zeal, and their instrumental agencies for operating upon the thoughts of men, invest them with great power in reference to any public question. Taken as a whole, they unques

tionably form the best and most useful portion of the American people. The religion, the moral influence for good, and the numerous charities of the land, are largely identified with their efforts.

There is one aspect of the School question in respect to which these Protestants march together as nearly a solid host. However much they may be divided among themselves, they are, with very few exceptions, an absolute unit in opposing the Catholic programme in regard to the public schools. Submit to them the question whether any portion of the school funds shall be placed in the hands of the Catholics for the support of their sectarian schools, or whether the public schools shall be so conducted as practically to be Catholic schools, or whether the school funds shall be divided pro rata among religious sects, according to the number of pupils taught in their respective denominational schools, and the overwhelming mass of Protestants would promptly reject each of these propositions. It is quite possible that some HighChurch Episcopalians would accept the last proposition; yet the School question can be placed in no form that will be satisfactory to Catholics, without at once awakening the earnest and most intense opposition of the great majority of Protestants. While the latter are willing that the former should organize and conduct as many parochial or private schools as they choose to support, they are not willing to be taxed for any such purpose; and any

political party that should place them in this position would be swept from power, at the very first opportunity. With some this opposition is largely a matter of anti-Catholic prejudice; but, with the more intelligent Protestants, it rests on the palpable inconsistency between what the Catholics desire and the whole genius and nature of our political institutions. Nothing can well be more certain than that the Catholics cannot Romanize our public schools or foist their own sectarian schools upon the State for support, as a general thing, unless they immensely increase the number of their voters. They are met at every point of the contest by a nearly-united opposing Protestantism. Here Protestants are of one mind, having little if any ground of debate among themselves.

When, however, we change the issue from the purely negative form of resistance to Catholics, and ask these Protestants to give us a positive. scheme of their own, their unity and harmony very speedily disappear. The great mass of them may be conveniently arranged into three classes:

I. A small number, as compared with the whole, take the ground (advocated by the Rev. John Miller, of Princeton, in a letter published in the New York Tribune, December 9th, 1875) that the whole system of State schools for popular education is a mistake; and that the true solution of the School question consists in dropping the system altogether, and remitting the entire business.

to the family and such auxiliary agencies as it sees fit to employ. This was the view held by the late Gerrit Smith. The theoretical basis upon which it rests is that the education of children, especially in a democratic republic, does not lie within the normal functions of government at all. The constitution of things assigns this duty to the family; and the State might as well undertake to stand in loco parentis in respect to the discipline and government of children as to do so in reference to their education. Education is the proper work of parents, and not that of the State. This theory is supplemented by adding that education and religion cannot be separated, and that the moment the State attempts to give the former it necessarily becomes involved in the latter; that, on the whole it will be best for the State and best for the people to leave education to the family and to voluntary effort; and that the State cannot participate in the work without becoming entangled in the collisions and jealousies of religious sects, making itself more or less a party thereto, and perhaps doing injustice to some, if not all of them.

These are among the reasons assigned by this class of Protestants for abandoning the whole scheme of government education. The State has travelled beyond its proper sphere as really as it would if it should undertake to be a banker, a manufacturer, a merchant, a grocer, or a pedler; and by so doing it has gotten itself into difficulty