94 PERILS. — liELlGlON AND THE I'UJiLlC SCHOOLS. 



79.) The free school system is intended to build up soci- 

 ety by developing in the pupil a strong individuality, 

 while Catholic education strengthens the church at the 

 expense of individuality. This is frankly admitted by 

 the late Father Hecker, who was one of the ablest as 

 well as most loyal writers of the Roman Catholic 

 Church in the United States. In his recent work, pub- 

 lished just before his death, he says: "The defense of 

 the church and the salvation of the soul were ordinarily 

 secured at the expense necessarily of those virtues which 

 properly go to make up the strength of Christian man- 

 hood."! (The salvation of the soul at the exj^ense of 

 Christian virtues!) "In the principles above briefly 

 stated," he continues, "may in a great measure be 

 found the explanation why fifty million of Protestants 

 have had generally a controlling influence, for a long 

 period, over two hundred million Catholics in directing 

 the movements and destinies of nations."-^ 



But doubtless the decree of the Third Plenary Council 

 in 1884, ordering the establishment of parochial schools, 

 was due quite as much to a significant fact as to the 

 Roman Catholic theory of education. That fact is the 

 heavy loss sustained by the Roman Catholic Church 

 among the descendants of immigrants in the United 

 States. Tlie editor of the Irish World, who is called by 

 an intelligent Catholic writer "a master of statistics," 

 has made an elaborate analysis of the population, from 

 which he infers that there are now living in the United 

 States ten million persons, who as descendants of 

 Roman Catholics ought to be members of the Roman 

 Church, but who are lost to it. This loss is commonly 

 attributed to the influence of the public school. Says 

 the Catholic Review of August 31, 1889: " The parochial 

 school is necessary because Catholic children cannot be 

 brought up Catholic and attend the public school. This 

 is a recognized fact. ... At the present moment the 



> The Church and the Age, p. 16. 

 2 Ibid., p. 17. 



