to use historical records to convince without the shadow of a doubt that our statements are true.  However, I do not need these historical facts, as I have traveled extensively through Europe and many other countries, and I know whereof I speak, by personal observation and by coming into personal contact with both Catholic and Protestant nations.  However, we are not going to be satisfied with this alone, as we do not want the reader to rely implicitly upon our individual statements, but we propose to bring facts to bear upon your mind which cannot be over-thrown, as statistics are stubborn and unyielding facts, which none but fools dispute.

We propose to take statistics from the Peabody Reporter, which you can corroborate with the official report of the United States Commissioner of Education.  The statistics that we above refer to follow: 

“To every ten thousand inhabitants under the Roman Catholic school system, there are 1,400 illiterates, 410 paupers and 160 criminals, while in the public school system we only find to every ten thousand inhabitants 350 illiterates, making a difference of 1,050 to every ten thousand.”  Thus you see that what we have said in previous chapters of this book in regard to Romanism being founded upon the mountains of ignorance is true.

Education in its literal meaning, means an infusion of intelligence that lifts up the minds of man, and it is generally so accepted by the world at large, but education, as far as Catholicism goes, means only a rehearsal of abominations, which have been practiced upon the followers of this creed for centuries in the past, and does not in the least bear upon the principles of true education.

The public school system is established on the principle that the intelligence and virtue of the people constitutes the foundation of free government.

Our public schools therefore form one of the chief cornerstones of our American republic; they are the sheet anchor of our hopes.  The growth and prosperity which have characterized the first century of our schools fulfills their mission.

Education is the watchword of the hour among Protestants, but never among Catholics.  We must educate if we would elevate, and unless we elevate the minds of men we will have humanity running riot with vice and immorality, and this is why the Catholic nations of the earth are found with their morals trailing in the slime of degeneracy.

Our public schools are to-day the great assimilating power in this country.  We find in them children of all nationalities, and whether they be English, Irish, Scotch, Danish, Norwegians, French, Italians, or some other nationality, when they enter these institutions they pass out of the school houses, scattered all over this land, Americans, one and all, as it is absolutely impossible to make anything but a true American out of a pupil who has been turned out of the public schools of this country, and one who has been permitted to assimilate the doctrines of broad education taught in these schools.