We want, to repeat the statement that the Roman Catholic Church does not want to educate anybody, nor will it do so, where it is not under the pressure of Protestant influence.  However, the American people demand figures and facts before they will be convinced; so as further evidence of the truthfulness of what we are telling you, we propose to quote from a report of the minister of education in Italy, made some few years ago.  This report is true in every particular, and bear in mind that this minister of education was a Catholic himself.  The report follows: 

“Of every 1,000 males in the province of Lombardy, 539 only were able to read, and 461 did not even know their letters.  Of every 1,000 females, only 426 could read and 574 could not read, neither did they know their letters.

“In Naples and Sicily, out of every 1,000 males, only 165 were able to read and 835 could not, and out of every 1,000 females, only 62 could read and 938 could not read and did not know their alphabet.  Taking this report, you will find that out of every 100, only about 10 were able to read.

“In 1864, out of 21,000,000 people, only 3,500,000 could read and write, and the rest did not know their alphabet, and to-day Spain, another country which is completely dominated by the power of Rome, has a population of ignorant dupes, as 80 per cent of the population of Spain cannot read and write.

“In Ireland, where the Romish Church is dominant, this same record is repeated, as in other Catholic nations.  In European countries where Protestantism is taught there is but one out of every ten that cannot read and write, but in the same countries, where Catholicism has absolute sway, there is but one out of every 125 that can read and write.

“In six leading Protestant countries of Europe there are 315 inhabitants to every newspaper or magazine, while in six Roman Catholic countries in Europe there is but one newspaper to every 2,715 people.

“It is estimated that at least seven-eighths of the twenty million inhabitants in Spanish-America, which consists of the countries of Mexico, Cuba, Central America and the north and west parts of South America, are unable to read, and in Mexico alone 90 per cent of the inhabitants cannot read nor write, neither do they know their alphabet;” thus you can see what Roman Catholicism does for the countries which she controls.

We are writing this book, believing that an intelligent class of people will read it, and if such is true, we believe that it is useless for us to try to demonstrate further why the countries which are completely controlled by Catholicism are countries of illegitimacy, for an intelligent reader knows full well that ignorance is the greatest brooder of immorality known to man, and, of course, immorality means illegitimacy, and we believe that we have thoroughly demonstrated to the mind of the reader that Catholicism spreads a cloak of ignorance and superstition wherever she is allowed to rule supreme, and if this is the case, then the natural consequences of such a state of affairs is illegitimacy.