We propose to give facts and figures in this chapter that we hope will open the eyes of drowsy, unconcerned Protestants, and help them and their children to apply the brakes to their downward course, and spike the guns of the Vatican with American manhood.

We hope by the time you are through with this chapter you will be ready to make inquiries as to who is to teach your children in the public schools.  Let me ask you, Mr. Protestant, if you ever heard of a Protestant teaching in a Catholic school?  Oh, no!  But then you will fold your hands and be content to allow your children to be taught by a man or woman who secretly despises the public school system.  Shame!  Ten thousand times we exclaim you should be ashamed for not asserting your American and God-given privileges of Protestantism gained for you through the blood of your forefathers!

A general system of education, such as affords all alike an opportunity to cultivate and expand the intellect, the poor as well as the rich, is, beyond all question, one of the greatest blessings that any nation can enjoy.  Such a system had its birth in America while it was yet comparatively free from the blighting influence of a religio-political corporation whose whole history is one uninterrupted and relentless war upon every system of education which broadens the intellect and causes people to think.  In America was born the public free school system, and from the date of its birth, in 1695, to the present, it has been the means of giving to this nation its most renowned statesmen, jurists, patriots, agriculturists, teachers and divines.  It is one of the principal agents by which the United States of America has been enabled to advance to the first rank in all things that make a nation great.

But against this most sacred product of American liberty Rome lifts her unholy hands.  Against our schools she hurls her worst anathemas.  But it is our purpose in this chapter to let the Roman Catholic Church speak for itself.  Its language is plain and needs no interpretation.  Listen to Rome’s damnable utterances: 

    “These public schools are devouring fires and pits of
    destruction.  They ought to go back to the devil, from whence
    they came.”—­The Freeman’s Journal.

“If your son or daughter is attending a state school you may be sure that you are violating your duty as Catholic parents and conducting to the everlasting anguish and despair of your child.  Take it away.  Let it rather never know how to write its name than to become the bound and chained slave of satan.”—­The Shepherd of the Valley.

    “The common schools of this country are sinks of moral
    pollution and nurseries of hell.”—­Chicago Tablet.

“The public or common school system is a swindle on the people, an outrage on justice, a foul disgrace in matters of morals, and should be abolished forthwith.”—­New York Tablet.

    “The hideous fetish, called the public school, is only an
    ugly idol after all.”—­Colorado Catholic.