32 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



patriotic sentiments are far stronger and more closely 

 united than with us. 



[It is not, liowever, the rule that the school is kept in the fam- 

 ily ; but if it is detaclied from the fireside, it should nevertheless 

 not cease to be dependent on it. It is by the law of nature that 

 the schoolmaster is subordinate to the parent. He is the aux- 

 iliary, not the rival of the fatlier and mother; lie is to carry for- 

 ward their work, not destroy it.] 



The public interest, that pagan idea so often appealed 

 to against the rights of the individual and the family, 

 could not give to the State a power over education 

 which it does not possess itself. In Sparta, the republic 

 claimed the right of educating tlie children, because it 

 regarded them as its property ; and this principle was, 

 in a greater or less degree, that of all Greek and Roman 

 antiquity.* This is what the latest type of democracy 

 seems ready to reproduce amongst us. It puts at the 

 head of its programme. Obligatory Instruction — obliga- 

 tory, not only as to the fact of instruction (which of 

 itself would be too much), but as to the school and 

 as to the teachers. We can have no doubt of what its 

 design is, in view of its systematic enmity to the liberty 

 of teaching in general, and to religious instruction in 

 particular. It means to deliver future generations from 

 the influences of the family, which form the chief hin- 

 drance to its plans, and to its so-called ''progress." It 

 means to supplant the cnstomary mould of domestic 

 education with tlie mighty mould of national educa- 

 tion ; to withdraw tlie school from the family, in order 

 to give it over to the exclusive control of tlie State. 



* The ^Taud i)ri]iciple of Lycnrf^iiP, ri'])catcd in express terms l)y Aristotle, 

 Avas tliat as the children belong,' to the State, they f hoiild be educated by the 

 State, accordin-? to the views of the i-itate. (See Rollin"» Ancient Uistory.) 



