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 CHOOL QUESTION 
 
 FROM A 
 
 PIISBiilMiHffi^nil^! 
 
 STANDPOINT. 
 
 ZACH, MONTGOMERY. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 ®|itji. ®iijt5rig|t !fn. 
 
 Shelf Ldl. , » 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
POISON DROPS IN THE FEDERAL SENATE. 
 
 THE 
 
 SCHOOL QUESTION 
 
 FROM A 
 
 PAEENTAL AND NON-SEGTAEIAN STAND-POINT. 
 
 AN EPITOME OF THE EDUCATIONAL VIEWS 
 
 OF 
 
 ZACH. MONTGOMERY, 
 
 ON ACCOUNT OF WHICH VIEWS A STUBBORN BUT FRUITLESS EFFORT WAS MADE 
 
 IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE TO PREVENT HIS CONFIRMATION 
 
 AS ASSISTANT ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 
 
 Compiled by himself from the United States Census Reports 
 and from his ozvn writings. 
 
 WASHINGTON : 
 Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders. 
 
 .- i8S6. ^ 
 
In order to prevent crime Mas- 
 sachusetts, as early as 1647, gave 
 
 I the educational control of chil- 
 dren to the public, and after over 
 200 years trial, to wit, in i860, 
 
 I she had i native white criminal 
 to every 649 people. 
 
 u 
 
 X 
 
 Virginia's crime column in 1860, 
 1 criminal to every 6,566. 
 
 Virginia, down to i860, had al- 
 ways left the educational control 
 of children to their fathers and 
 mothers, and the result was i 
 criminal to every 6,566 inhabi- 
 tants. 
 
 Foi- proof of similar results wherever the parental and anti- 
 parental systems have been tried read this book. Herein v^ill be 
 found the record evidence w^hich the late Richard Grant White, of 
 N. Y., declared — 
 
 " Proves the case against the pziblic-school system as clearly 
 and undeiiiably as the truth of Nexvton^s theory of gravitatioj?. 
 ts proved by the calculatioits which enable astronomers to declare 
 the tnotions and zveigh the substance of the planets.'''' 
 
 (See North American Review, Dec, 1880.) 
 
 Z. MONTGOMERY, 
 
^ 
 
 ^ CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Page. 
 The school question in the United States Senate — An anonymous and 
 libelous pamphlet quoted — Demand for this publication — Corres- 
 pondence with Senators Ingalls and Edmunds — Endorsements by ex- 
 Governor Burnett and Mr. Richard Grant White i-8 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 Crime in parental and anti-parental school States compared 9-20 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 Another test — Difference in results between a small and a large dose of 
 anti-parental education, when operating upon the self-same commu- 
 nity 20-29 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Yet another test — A voice from the grave of the suicide — Four times as 
 many suicides, in proportion to population, where the State con- 
 trols education, as where the parents control it— Cause of the differ- 
 ence 29-36 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Mr. Wines, special agent, on the fearful increase of our insane, idiotic, 
 
 blind, and deaf mutes — Corresponding with growth of crime 36-38 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 Political poison in the public-school books — The mutilated, false, and 
 forged Webster's Dictionary now in use in our public schools —Every 
 leading political word in the language radically changed — Ten mil- 
 lions of American children forced to daily drink the deadly doctrine 
 of centralization and despotism!!! 38~4- 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 Mistakes of Catholics in dealing with the school question — Archbishop 
 
 Hughes' petition — The work entitled " Catholics and Education "..42-47 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 The Roman Pontiffs on the parental rights of non-Catholics — The equal 
 rights of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Pagans upheld — Letter 
 of Rt. Rev. Bishop O'Connell to the author — Important Pontifical 
 instructions to American bishops concerning non-interference, in 
 Catholic schools, with religious views of non-Catholic pupils 47~50 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 Specification of fatal errors in the New England school system — Sir 
 William Blackstone, Kent, and Dr. Wayland on natural duties of 
 parents — Public-school system in direct conflict with natural law — 
 Difficulties in the way of harmony amon-gst friends of reform — A 
 common ground for all — The anti-parental system dissected and 
 analyzed 50-58 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 A voice from San Qijentin — California's educated convicts; all the 
 younger ones can both read and write — Two more penitentiaries 
 
 3 
 
iv Contents. 
 
 Page, 
 necessary in Massachusetts — California public schools the high- 
 road to the penitentiary — How the one serves as a preparatory 
 department for the other — A forcible illustration 58-65 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 
 Can the political State teach morals.? — Impossible without teaching 
 religion — Nor can the State teach religion without destroying re- 
 ligious liberty ••65-73 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 
 The Author interviewed — Not in favor of Archbishop Hughes' plan — 
 The plan he favors, and how it would work— Danger to religious 
 liberty of non-Catholics if such Catholics as endorse the pi-esent 
 public-school system ever get control of the system 73-77 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 
 The great battle-ground on which the educational question must be 
 
 fought 77-82 
 
 Chapter XIV. 
 
 A non-sectarian platform of educational principles almost unanimously 
 endorsed by those who have studied it— Publicly discussed in the city 
 of Oakland at a large meeting presided over by State superintendent of 
 public instruction and endorsed by a majority vote — Petition to Leg- 
 islature signed by people of all creeds and callings — Views of Rev. 
 Dr. John LeConte, president of California State University— Views 
 of Rev. Dr. Joseph LeConte, of same University — Views of other 
 prominent Protestant clergymen— Substantial endorsement by Con- 
 gregational Council of California — Substantial endorsement by Pres- 
 byterian Synod and by several leading American Roman Catholic 
 bishops and archbishops — Endorsement by Cardinal Manning, of 
 England — Seven answers to a prize question — Six in favor of pa- 
 rental control against one in favor of State control in educational 
 matters..- 82-99 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 
 A vital question for public-school teachers — Want of discipline not due 
 to incapacity of teachers, as charged, but to system itself^Teachers 
 cannot control children when they receive their authority, not from 
 the parent but from the public— Teachers at the mercy of every pu- 
 pil who has an influential parent — Example given by Gail Hamilton, 
 showing the humiliating position of public-school teachers — Profes- 
 sor Carr on the subject— Every competent teacher prefers to rely on 
 his own merits, rather than on the favor of politicians, for prefer- 
 ment 99-116 
 
 Chapter XVI. 
 
 Extract from Sacramento speech by the author— Difference between pa- 
 rental and anti-parental system in the production of great men— The 
 charge of bigotry refuted — A word about so-called " Liberal Catho- 
 lics " 117-120 
 
 Chapter XVII. 
 
 Henry George and Rev. Dr. McGlynn — Review of Henry George's 
 Progress and Poverty — His premises false and illogical, and his 
 doctrines communistic and dangerous, but in perfect harmony with 
 the principles of the present public-school system 120-138 
 
CHAPTEE I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY — THE SCHOOL QUESTION IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE — AN 
 ANONYMOUS AND LIBELLOUS PAMPHLET QUOTED — DEMAND FOR THIS PUB- 
 LICATION — CORRESPONDENCE WITH SENATORS INGALLS AND EDMUNDS. 
 
 The vigorous and bitter fight made in the United States Senate 
 against the author during the 49th session of Congress for the pur- 
 pose of preventing his confirmation as Assistant Attorney-General, 
 because of his views on the school question, seems to have awakened 
 a very general desire in the public mind to know just what those 
 views are. 
 
 So frequent and so urgent have been the demands upon him — by 
 letters and otherwise — for information on this subject, that he finally 
 determined to meet this demand by republishing " Drops from 
 THE Poison Fount^^in," enlarged by the addition of certain other 
 articles of his recently published in " The Family's Defender." 
 
 This course seems the more necessary in view of the fact that 
 some of those who supported his appointment have been called 
 upon, and others aie liable to be called upon, to justify their action 
 in maintaining in official position a man entertaining such senti- 
 ments upon this educational question and kindred subjects as have 
 been charged — and some of them yalsely charged — upon the writer. 
 
 As an illustration of the views attributed to him, it will be remem- 
 bered by those who read the late "Senatorial debates" that, during 
 the discussion of what is known as the 
 
 BLAIR BILL, 
 
 Senator Ingalls, of Kansas, charged the writer with having given 
 utterance to sentiments such as were not only unpatriotic, but ut- 
 terly incompatible both with his duties as a citizen and his oath 
 as an officer of the Government. 
 
 But it will also be remembered that Mr. Ingalls did not tell the 
 Senate nor the public that his only authority for making these 
 charges was an anonymous pamphlet published in the city of San 
 Francisco in 1873 in order to advance the partisan ends of a most 
 intolerant band of anti-Catholic proscriptionists. Neither did the 
 Senator reveal the fact that said publication was, at the time of its 
 appearance, branded as false in a published card signed by more 
 than a dozen as respectable gentlemen as could be found in said 
 
2 '•''Poison Drops^' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 city. If the Senator had only been magnanimous enough, ox just 
 and truthful enough, to make known the contents of said card — 
 which he could easily have done — he would have thereby effectually 
 neutralized the venom with which his utterances went freighted to 
 the country. 
 
 Let the reader peruse the following card, as originally published 
 in the leading journals of San Francisco, August 7, 1873, and re- 
 published in the N. T. Tribune^ J"ly ^o? 1885^ ^.nd then de- 
 termine how much value ought to be placed upon the honor., the 
 veracity, or the moral worth of a Senator who, with a full 
 knowledge of the contents of said card, could stand up before 
 an American Senate, and before the world, and reiterate as true 
 the a7ionymous calumnies therein branded as false by a crowd 
 of unimpeachable witnesses. But here is the card, together with 
 an introductory note to the editor of the Tribune : 
 
 [From Nezu York Tribzme, July loth, 1885.] 
 
 MR. MONTGOMERY AND THE SCHOOLS. . 
 
 NOT THE AUTHOR OF CERTAIN WORDS ATTRIBUTED TO HIM. 
 
 To the Editor of the Tribune : 
 
 Sir : A short time since there appeared in The Sandusky (Ohio) 
 Register what purported to be an extract from an address of mine 
 delivered some time ago before a meeting of Catholic Sunday-school 
 teachers. Subsequently The Register stated editorially that the ex- 
 tract was copied from The Tribune. Neither was the language 
 reported ever uttered nor the sentiments which it expressed ever 
 entertained by me. The extract referred to\vas taken from an anony- 
 mous and libellous pamphlet published in San Francisco in 1873. 
 Said pamphlet, immediately after its appearance, was denounced 
 as false in a card published in The San Francisco Call and The 
 Chronicle, and signed not only by myself, but a dozen other well- 
 known gentlemen, including the reporters of the said two leading 
 daily newspapers of that city. The card, which appeared August 7, 
 1873, was as follows : 
 
 TO THE PUBLIC. 
 
 The undersigned deems it his duty to the public, no less than jus- 
 tice to himself, to brand as false a certain anonymous pamphlet, the 
 contents of which were reproduced in The News Letter of July 36. 
 The pamphlet referred to purports to contain " Remarks by the 
 Hon. Zach. Montgomery before the Roman Catholic Sunday-school 
 teachers, July 6, 1873." 
 
 The pretended address ftilsely makes me say the following, among 
 
Introductory. ' 3 
 
 other silly, ridiculous, and infamous things, not a word of which is 
 true : 
 
 " /, therefore, relinquish all preference or desire of my own 
 and obey the commands of the high, political authority of the 
 Church. 
 
 " Inroads made by the telegraph, steamboat, railroad, and the 
 printing-press upon our Church are almost irreparable. 
 
 " Obey your pastor, and look to Jiim for all your knowledge, 
 both civil and religious. 
 
 '' In this country we have Catholic teachers in the public schools. 
 
 They should teach the doctrines of our holy faith. But they are 
 
 prevented by the laws. Now, for the present, they can whisper 
 
 in the ears of the scholars at times, and tell them where they can 
 
 obtai^i absolution from their sins. 
 
 '' Ihe institutions of this country must be made the institutions 
 of the Church, and then our Sunday-schools and the so-called 
 public schools will be one. 
 
 " One of the refuges we have is in the miracle of the most Holy 
 leather at Rome, who will deliver us from all harm and absolve 
 us if we do our duty to the last.'''' 
 
 In fact, the whole pretended address is so outrageously garbled and 
 falsified as to be utterly unworthy the attention of any candid inan. 
 
 Z. Montgomery. 
 
 We, the undersigned, hei"eby certify, and if necessary will testify, 
 tliat we lieard the address of Hon. Zach. Montgomery, delivered 
 July 6, 18731 to the teachers of the Catholic Sunday-schools of San 
 Francisco, and, after reading the pamphlet above alluded to, we pro- 
 nounce it untrue, as alleged in the foregoing card, which we fully 
 endorse. Geo. W. Smith, reporter San Franciso CJironicle ; J. H. 
 Delahantjs reporter San Francisco Call; A. A. Hynes, P. Ryan, 
 J. Sullivan, T. W. Toliferro, J. H. N. Adams, P. Malery, O". D. 
 Kennift', M. J. Barer, T. J. Schenbeck, M. Lawton, M. Connelly. 
 
 For the sake of righting a wrong which you have unintentionally 
 done the writer, will you have the kindness to insert the above card, 
 so that the antidote may follow the poison.'' 
 
 Respectfully, Z. Montgomery. 
 
 Washington, D. C, fune 28, 1885. 
 
 EFFECT OF THE CARD UPON THE MINDS OF HONEST SENATORS. 
 
 The sending of a printed copy of the above card to each member 
 of the Senate effectually disposed of the vile calumny to which it 
 referred. 
 
 Its effect upon every fair-minded Senator may be gathered from 
 the following remarks of Senator Blair (R.) of New Hampshire, 
 made on the floor of the Senate during the session of March 6th, and 
 
4 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate, 
 
 reported in the Congressional Record of March 7th, at p. 2071, 
 as follows : 
 
 "Mr. Blair. During the progress of the discussion upon the 
 " school bill, which has just passed, a violent attack was made 
 " upon Mr. Zach. Montgomery, as will be remembered, and I con- 
 " curred in the sentiments that were expressed against him, assum- 
 " ing that the statements which were read upon the floor of the 
 " Senate represented truly his sentiments. He has since sent me 
 " a disclaimer, and, kno"wing no reason to believe him to be other 
 " than an honorable gentleman, and being desirous, if I have my- 
 " self done him an injury, to repair that injury, I ask that this state- 
 " ment, which he has sent me, be printed, so that as much publicity 
 " be given to his justification as has been to the attack upon him. 
 
 "Mr. Edmunds. What is the paper.? 
 
 " Mr. Blair. It is a paper which Mr. Montgomery sends me, 
 " which was originally published in the New Tork Tribzme, in 
 " which he denies what he alleges to have been a misrepresentation 
 " of his sentiments as expressed in 1873. It is very brief, and I 
 " think, injustice to the gentleman, it ought to be printed." 
 
 It further appears, from the recorded proceedings, that just at 
 this juncture Mr. Senator Ingalls so shaped his tactics as to prevent 
 said card from going upon the record. 
 
 This, of course, was not surprising, for we all know that •'• Sup- 
 pressio veri" and " JBxpressio falsi " are vipers of the same brood. 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE KANSAS SENATOR. 
 
 During the last days of February, 1886, in order to meet boldly 
 and fairly the opposition which was being made to the writer, either 
 because of the views falsely attributed to him by the aforesaid 
 anonymous publication, or because of his real views as expressed 
 in " Drops from Poison Fountain," he sent a copy of said last- 
 named pamphlet to every member of the Senate, including of course 
 Senator Ingalls, of Kansas. The pamphlet sent to said Senator 
 was accompanied by a brief note, requesting that honorable gentle- 
 man to be good enough to point out to the writer the particular 
 expressions in said painphlet upon which objections to his con- 
 firmation were being based. To this note no answer was received 
 until after the Senator's speech above referred to, in which he took 
 for his chief text the aforesaid anonymous libel. The next day after 
 the delivery of that speech he replied briefly to our note ; and the 
 contents of the Senator's answer can be gathered from our rejoinder, 
 which ran as follows : 
 
Introductory, ^ 
 
 Department of "^Interior, 
 Assistant Attorney-General's Office, 
 
 March 5, 1886. 
 Hon. J. J. Ingalls. 
 
 Dear Sir : Yours of the 3d inst. is at hand, wherein you 
 acknowledge the i-eceipt of ''pamphlet ('Drops from Poison 
 " ' Fountain,') with request for information as to the particular 
 " expressions therein upon which objection to your (my) confir- 
 "• mation was based, and in reply would say, that if you will consult 
 " the Congressional Record of this date you will find in the 
 " remarks that I submitted upon the Blair Educational Bill an 
 " expression of opinion upon this subject which I trust may be 
 "■ satisfactory." * 
 
 Pursuant to your suggestion I have turned to your speech referred 
 to by you in your letter, and I see that you have quoted my pam- 
 phlet somewhat after the style of the man who quoted that portion of 
 the Bible which says, " there is no God," omitting the first part of 
 the sentence, .which, if expressed, would have made the quotation 
 read, "■ The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." 
 
 I am not a little surprised to find that, in order to make good 
 your opposition to my confirmation, you appear to have thought it 
 incumbent on you not to confine yourself to objecting to what I had 
 said in my pamphlet, but to many things that I never said at any 
 time nor in any place. 
 
 If the sentiments contained in the pamphlet I sent you had, in 
 your opinion, constituted a sufficient objection to the confirmation 
 of my appointment, you could scarcely have thought it necessary to 
 supplement this objection by a series of quotations from a false and 
 anonymous pamphlet. Neither could you have thought it nec- 
 essary to so torture my card as published (first in San Francisco, 
 Aug. 7, 1873, and afterwards in the N. T. Tribtine, July 10, 1885) 
 either into a twelve years' silence or into a partial admission, on 
 my part, of the infamous utterances attributed to me, although em- 
 phatically disproved by more than a dozen unimpeachable wit- 
 nesses, including two well-known newspaper reporters, all of whom 
 were present and heard what I did say on the occasion in question. 
 
 I am free to admit that if I had ever uttered or entertained the in- 
 famous sentiments you and your anonymous author attribute to me, 
 I would not only be unfit to hold office, but unworthy the counte- 
 nance of all honorable and intelligent people. If the "• No-Popery " 
 cry is to be the weapon with which my enemies propose to fight me, 
 I trust that in future it may be an honest cry of, at least, seeming 
 truth, backed by as much as one reputable name, and not resting 
 solely on the false charges of an anonymous scribbler. 
 Respectfully, 
 
 Zach. Montgomery. 
 
6 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 LETTfik TO MR. SENATOR EDMUNDS. 
 
 Department of the Interior, 
 Office of Assistant Attorney-General, 
 
 Washington, D. C, Feb. 37, 1886. 
 
 Hon. Geo. H. Edmunds, 
 
 Chairman Senate jfudiciary Com?nittee. 
 
 Sir : I have been informed that, on account of my real or sup- 
 posed position on the school question, some objection has been 
 urged by certain members of your committee to the confirmation 
 of my appointment to the office of Assistant Attorney-General, 
 and apprehending that my said position is not propeidy under- 
 stood by those who make this objection, 1 take the privilege of 
 presenting you ^vith the seven short propositions which embody 
 my views touching the question referred to. 
 
 (See propositions. Chapter xiv.) 
 
 Should any further information on the same subject be required, 
 I would respectfully refer you to a little book of my writing, enti- 
 tled "Poison Fountain," and also to a still larger book and of 
 more recent date, entitled " The Family's Defender," both of 
 which are in the Congressional Library. 
 
 The seven propositions which constitute my educational creed 
 are incorporated in a petition to the California Legislature, pre- 
 pared by myself, and signed by many of the leading thinkers of 
 that State, embracing Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and non-relig- 
 ionists. 
 
 Now, it is evident that any objection to the confirmation of my 
 appointment resting on the grounds stated mtist be in consequence 
 of my adherence to some principle embodied in one or more of 
 these seven propositions. I will, therefore, request, both as a favor 
 and as an act of justice, that the objecting members of your com- 
 mittee will be good enough to point out the particular proposition 
 or propositions the maintaining of which, in their opinion, renders 
 me unut to discharge the duties of Assistant Attorney-General. 
 
 I also beg leave to request that you will be so good as to notify 
 me of whatever objections may be urged against my confirmation, 
 and that I may be allowed an opportunity to defend myself against 
 such objections. I make this request with full confidence that it 
 will be granted, especially in view of the following passage, which 
 I find in your report of the i8th instant, as published in the Con- 
 gressio7tal Record of the 19th, where you say : 
 
 " It is known to every Senator that, so far as the Senate has had 
 "to do both with removals and appointments, it has for a gi'eat 
 " number of years been its practice, when any officer or person was 
 " before it for removal or appointment, against whom any serious 
 " accusation has been made, which would, if true, influence the 
 " action of the Senate in the case, to cause the person concerned to 
 " be informed of the substance of the complaint against him, and 
 " give him an opportunity to defend himself." 
 
httroductory. >j 
 
 Confidently trusting that your honorable body will not make my 
 case an exception to this rule, 
 
 I remain, with great respect, your humble servant, 
 
 Zach. Montgomery. 
 
 A SECOND LETTER TO SENATOR EDMUNDS. 
 
 Department of the Interior, 
 Assistant Attorney-General's Office, 
 
 Washington, D. C, March ist^ 1886. 
 
 Hon. Geo. F. Edmunds. 
 
 Dear Sir: Enclosed please find a pamphlet of my production, 
 which, as I gather from Saturday's WasJiington Star, expresses sen- 
 timents such as a majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee sup- 
 pose to be suflicient proof of my unfitness for the ofiice of Assist- 
 ant Attorney-Genei-al. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that the action of the committee must have 
 been based on a mistaken notion as to the contents of this pamphlet, 
 for whoever will carefully read it must see that its very lij'e and 
 soul and poxvcr^ for good or evil, lie in its truly startling statistics 
 of crime. These have with great care and at some expense been 
 compiled from the United States Census Reports. In proof of the 
 correctness of my figures, I beg leave to refer you to the testimony 
 of the late distinguished Richard Grant White, of New York, 
 which you will find in a marginal note on page ^ of the accom- 
 panying pamphlet. If for publishing these statistics at my own 
 expense I deserve to be forever ostracised from office, then what can 
 be said in defence of those Hon. Senators and Representatives who 
 originally enacted the law^ requiring these very same statistics to be 
 gathered and printed at the -people's expense t 
 
 I have no apology to make for the publication of this pamphlet. 
 Indeed, so important do I regard the work of making known its 
 facts and figures to the American people, that nothing but my pov- 
 erty prevents me from placing it gratuitously in the hands of every 
 man, woman, and school-child in the United States, for I am 
 fully persuaded that a general knowledge of these facts and figures 
 would result in such a reformation in our public educational system 
 as to place it in harmony with the God-ordained relations between 
 parents and children. And this is all the reformation I ever desired 
 or advocated. Be kind enough to examine this pamphlet and notify 
 me of anything you may find therein tending to prove my unfitness 
 for the office of Assistant Attorney-General, and much oblige, 
 Yours, most respectfully, 
 
 Zach. Montgomery. 
 
 No answer to either of the above letters was ever received. 
 
 The pamphlet referred to in the last pi-eceding letter was that en- 
 titled " Drops from the Poison Fountain," and will be found 
 incorporated into this little volume. It was concerning the matter 
 
8 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 contained in that same pamphlet that the Hon. Peter H. Burnett, 
 California's first Governor under American rule, and one of the 
 most eminent of her Supreme Court judges, in a letter addressed to 
 the author, said : 
 
 " It is one of the most conclusive argutnents I have ever read 
 upon any disputed subject.^^ 
 
 The late Mr. Richard Grant White, of N. Y., who professed 
 neither the religious nor political faith of the author, but who was a 
 gentleman distinguished throughout the whole country for his 
 learning, ability, and great accuracy as a writer, published in the 
 North American Review for Dec, 1880, a carefully prepared arti- 
 cle entitled 
 
 " The Public-School Failure." 
 
 The leading facts upon which Mr. White based his article — as he 
 tells us himself — were taken from said pamphlet. In a foot-note to 
 said article he says : 
 
 ' ' My attention was directed to these facts by a pamphlet on the 
 system of anti-parental education, by the Hon. Zachary Montgom- 
 ery, of California, which I received on the 23d of October last, after 
 the publication of my articles on the public schools in the New 
 York Times. Mr. Montgomery's trenchant pamphlet contains very 
 elaborate tables, made up from the United States census reports. 1 
 have verified them by those reports^ and find them essentially ac- 
 curate and trustworthy." 
 
 As introductory to Mr. White's quotations from our tabulated 
 statistics, he characterizes them as 
 
 " Evidence which proves the case against the public-school 
 system as clearly and as undeniably as the truth of Newton's 
 theory of gravitation is proved by the calculations which enable 
 astronomers to declare the motions and weigh the substance of 
 the planets." 
 
 And yet, for the publication of that evidence., and the drawing 
 therefrom deductions which are as irresistible as that two and two 
 make four, the author has been denounced upon the floor of an 
 American Senate, and throughout the country by a certain class 
 of politicians, as if he were unfit to live in any civilized commu- 
 nity, and much less fit to be entrusted with any public office what- 
 ever. And all this, too — be it remembered — was done in the name 
 oi education^ civilization, liberty, and progress ! ! ! 
 
 Let the reader peruse the following pages, and then decide whether 
 it is the author or his accusers that deserve the anathemas that have 
 been heaped upon the head of the former. 
 
Crime in Parental and anti- Parental Scliool States Compared . 9 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CRIME IN PARENTAL AND ANTI-PARENTAL SCHOOL STATES COMPARED. 
 
 The writer intends to ofter no apology to the reading community 
 for this publication. As soon would he think of apologizing to the 
 .slumbering inhabitants of a city in flames for attempting to disturb 
 their rest by the vigorous ringing of a fire-bell. Far better that they 
 awake even in anger, than to awake not at all. 
 
 If the reader will but follow us, even to the extent of a few pages, 
 we promise to demonstrate, by incontestable facts and figures drawn 
 from sources that will not and cannot be impeached, that the calamity 
 at which we are endeavoring to alarm our countrymen is far more 
 widespread and direful in its consequences than any conflagration 
 that ever devastated a city. We promise to prove that our boasted 
 New England public-school system, as now by law established 
 throughout the length and breadth of the American Republic, is a 
 poisonous fountain, fraught with the seeds of human misery and 
 moral death. But, says the reader, how can that possibly be true.? 
 Can it be denied that an educated people are more-moral and virtu- 
 ous, more contented, happy, and law-abiding than an ignorant peo- 
 ple, and if so, how can it be charged that a system of education 
 which almost entirely banishes illiteracy from the land is fraught 
 with so much evil to those who are brought under its influence .? 
 These are candid questions, and they shall receive candid answers. 
 It is very true that ignorance is the mother of vice. It is also true 
 that an educated people, if properly educated, are more moral, 
 virtuous, contented, happy, and law-abiding than an ignorant peo- 
 ple. 
 
 Thus for, we think there can be no difference of opinion between 
 the most inveterate supporter of the New England public-school 
 system and ourselves. 
 
 Now, keeping steadily in view this common stand-point, namely, 
 that a people properly educated are more moral, virtuous, contented, 
 happy, and law-abiding than an ignorant people, let us suppose that 
 we somewhere find living, side by side, two communities, one of 
 which is made up almost entirely of educated people, while the 
 other is largely composed of illiterate people ; and let us further 
 suppose that amongst those considered educated you find that in 
 proportion to their population they have six criminals to where the 
 
lO " Poison Drops'''' in the Federal Seizate. 
 
 more illiterate community have but one ; suppose that they have 
 nearly two paupers to where the more illiterate people have but 
 one ; suppose that they have two insane to where the illiterates have 
 only one ; suppose that their death list shows four suicides to where 
 that of the illiterates shows but one ; and suppose that the same list 
 shows three deaths from the criminal indulgence of the brutal pas- 
 sions, while that of the illitei-ates shows but two, what conclusion 
 would you arrive at with reference to that kind of education ? 
 
 Adhering to the proposition with which we set out a moment 
 ago, namely, that a people properly educated are more moral, vir- 
 tuous, contented, happy, and law-abiding than an uneducated peo- 
 ple, would you not be forced to the conclusion that there must be 
 something wrong, terribly^ radically ivrong^ in a system of edu- 
 cation so much more direful in its results than even illiteracy itself? 
 
 But just here, perhaps, the reader will ask us, as he has a right to 
 ask, " what application has your supposed case to the question un- 
 der discussion?" Just have a little patience, good reader, and you 
 shall see the application. 
 
 For this educated community, let us take the native born-white 
 population of the six New England States, to wit, Massachusetts, 
 Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, 
 and for the unlettered community, we will take the native-boi-n 
 whites of the six States of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, 
 North Carolina, and South Carolina. It will be observed that the 
 States thus enumerated are either a part of the original thirteen, or 
 such as have been carved out therefrom. 
 
 Both of these communities started on their career of existence 
 about the same time ; both were composed mainly of people from 
 the same part of Europe ; people who spoke the same language and 
 had been accustomed to the same laws, manners, and usages ; peo- 
 ple who possessed the same Christian religion, pretty much all of 
 whom (outside of little Maryland) were of the protestant faith, and 
 took as their religious guide the same Bible, and even the same'ti-ans- 
 lation of that Bible. 
 
 There was o7ie important particular, however, in which these two 
 communities widely differed at the very start, as we shall i^resently 
 see. "More than two hundred years ago the principle was incor- 
 " porated into the legislation of Massachusetts, that the whole peo- 
 " pie must be educated to a certain degree at the public expense^ 
 " irrespective of any social distinctions." ^ 
 
 1 See work entitled " The Daily Public School," published by J. B. Lippincott in 1866, p. 121. 
 See Kent's Commentaries, vol. ii, p. 210. 
 
Crlvic ill Parental ai/d a /it/'- Parental School States Cojnparcd . 1 1 
 
 Again : "In Massachusetts, by statute, in 1647 each town consist- 
 " ing of fifty householders was directed to maintain a school to teach 
 " their children to read and write, and every town of one hundred 
 " families was to maintain a grammar school to fit youth for the col- 
 " lege. The common schools of Massachusetts have been kept up 
 " to this day by direct tax and individual subscription, and nowhere 
 " in a population of equal extent has common elementary education 
 " been more universally diffused. "^ 
 
 " The compulsory system of supporting common and grammar 
 " schools in each town is sustained, to this day, in Massachusetts, 
 " and enforced by indictment."- 
 
 At a very eai^ly day, after their settlement, a similar system of educa- 
 tion was adopted in all the other New England States, from which 
 fact the system seems to have taken the name of " the New England 
 " system." Chancellor Kent says: " In New England it has been 
 •^ a steady and governing jorinciple from the very foundation of the 
 " colonies, that it was the right and duty of the government to pro- 
 " vide, by means of fair and just taxation, for the instruction of all 
 "■ the youth in the elements of learning."'^ 
 
 On the other hand, the six enumerated States, comprising what we 
 have agreed to call the unlettered community, steadily resisted the 
 New England system up to a very recent date. 
 
 Virginia, which occupies about the same relation to the latter com- 
 munity that Massachusetts does to the former, according to Lippin- 
 cott's Gazetteer of the World, published in 1856, had at that time no 
 general free school system, but " made an appropriation for the in- 
 struction of the poor."* * 
 
 Thus these two communities, the one w//// its New England pub- 
 lic-school system, and the other xvithotit it, travelled along, side by 
 side, for about two hundred years, until A. D. i860, when the eighth 
 United States decennial census was taken, and the following was the 
 showing of these two communities, as will appear by reference to 
 the annexed table No. i. We find that at the date referred to, to 
 wit, i860, Massachusetts and her five New England sisters had 
 2,665,945 native-born white inhabitants, and out of these only 8,543 
 adults who could not read nor write, while Virginia, with her five sis- 
 ters, numbered 3,181 ,969 native-born whites, of whom 263,803 adults 
 could neither read nor write. So that in the six New England States 
 the proportion of illiterate native whites was only one to every 312, 
 
 ' See 2 Kent, 210-211. 
 
 " Commonwealth vs. Inhabitants of Dedham, 16 Mass. R., p. 141. 
 
 3 See 2 Kent, 210. 
 
 * See Lippincott's " Gazetteer of the World," published in 1856, p. 2049. 
 
12 " Poison Drops" in the Fedei-al Senate. 
 
 while Virginia and her five sisters counted one illiterate to every 12. 
 But mark you ! Hov^^ stand the criminal lists ? Massachusetts and 
 her five sisters, out of her native white population of a little more 
 than two and a half millions, had on the first of June, i860, just 
 2,459 criminals in prison, while Virginia and her five comparatively 
 unlettered companions, with a native white population of over three 
 millions, had but 477 in prison. That is to say, those educated un- 
 der the New England system had one native-born white criminal to 
 every 1,084 native white inhabitants, while those who had generally 
 rejected that system had but one prisoner to every 6,670, being a dis- 
 proportion, according to the whole number of natives whites, of more 
 than six criminals in New England to one in the other community. ^ 
 A glance at the same table will show that the natives educated under 
 the New England system had one pauper to every 178, while those 
 who had managed to live without that luxury had but one pauper to 
 every 345. 
 
 Of those who in one year had died by suicide. New England had 
 one to every 13,285 of the entire population, while Virginia and her 
 five sisters had but one suicide to every 56,584, and of those who 
 perished, the victims of their criminal lusts, New England had one 
 to every 84,737, while her neighbors, that had never enjoyed her 
 educational advantages, had but one such victim to every 128,729. 
 We have not before us the list of insane in the several States for i860, 
 so we borrow from the report furnished by the Census Marshal of 
 1870, where it appears that the New England system produced (of 
 those born and living in their native States respectively) one insane 
 person to every 800 native-born inhabitants, while the rejection of 
 that system resulted in one insane to 1,682 native inhabitants.^ 
 
 1 Great care has been taken to avoid mistakes in these computations, but should any inaccuracy 
 be discovered, the author ■will take it as a favor to be informed of the fact, so that it may be cor- 
 rected in future editions. We omit fractions. 
 
 2 Since the appearance of the first edition of the "Poison Fountain," Prof. Samuel Koyce, in a 
 work published in Boston, entitled, " Deterioration andBace Education," although he claims that 
 " the power and wisdom of the State alone are to be trusted with this great work and responsi- 
 bility " of educating the young, nevertheless admits on pages 462-3, upon the authority of an of- 
 ficial report, that there is " hardly a State or countii in the civilized world where atrocious and fla- 
 grant crimes are so common as in educated MassacMisetts." And on page 36, while referring to 
 the alarming increase of crime in America, he says : '^Neither will it a^iswer to lay it to the foreign 
 elem^7it, the criminal rate of which has remained the same, or even lessened, while the 7iative crimi- 
 nals have increased during 1860-1810 from 10,143 to 24,173." 
 
 It is sometimes claimed that the chief reason why the public-school States have so large a pro- 
 portion of criminals is because of their large cities. It is undoubtedly true that, like every other 
 kind of pestilence, this poisonous and crime-breeding system of education rages with more tferrible 
 fury in great cities than in small villages or country places ; but that its ravages are by no means 
 confined to large cities is abundantly proved by statistics. For example : In 1860 eleven of Con- 
 necticut's largest towns and cities did not equal in populatiou the single city of Baltimore, the 
 metropolis of Maryland, and yet Maryland had but one native white criminal to every 5,276 na- 
 tive white inhabitants ; while Connecticut numbered one native white criminal to every 845 in- 
 habitants. At that time Maryland had the public-school system in its infancy, while Connecticut 
 had it in its maturity. But only ten years later, (in 1870,) when Maryland's expenditures for pub- 
 lic-school purposes had swollen from $205,319 (the amount expended in 1860) to $1,146,057, her na- 
 tive white criminals had correspondingly increased from one for every 5,276 to one for every 
 1,717 inhabitants. 
 
Crime in Parental and anti- Parental School States Compared, i ; 
 
 CD ?i of -k^ ^ 
 
 ^ S a '^ ^ 
 
 «^ 
 
 ,o ; 
 
 
 
 *i a -S no BD 
 
 ■g 3 aos ca 
 .wT* ^ o ft 
 ■S bDO a) 
 
 * » a S 
 
 I « § " s 
 
 S-ga 
 
 « CD cafe 3 
 
 ^^ •" cs" a * 
 
 i^ S 'I £"* ^ 
 
 d m 'S a H 
 
 '"^'S 'S •- 
 
 »^ -•E^ 
 
 n 
 
 -1860. 
 he entii 
 7th, deat 
 X States 
 us Kepo 
 age 508 ; 
 
 
 
 A 
 u 
 
 3D 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 i-o'i'a-Sx' 
 
 
 a 
 
 LE 
 ii; 3 
 icid 
 nth 
 S. C 
 rate 
 
 S 
 Ph 
 
 W o g •" . ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 <'^Z SPs 
 
 es 
 
 H^^i^a 
 
 fl 
 
 a,tive white popD 
 mber of deaths 
 rresponding cla 
 drawn see Eight 
 e 62 ; for native 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 < 
 * 
 
 e entire n 
 , entire nu 
 ong the CO 
 gures are 
 ation, pag 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 SaS'Sg. 
 
 « 
 
 
 a K aSo 60 
 sj-a JToc^ ca 
 
 a s 
 
 A 
 
 ^ TH p^ 03 lac .- 
 n.§ oT^ t^ 
 
 60^ am 
 
 a ■£ >C ^- 2 a 
 
 .a & cu'o^'*^ 
 «'taS§§"§ 
 
 aao P.S 
 
 Proportion be- 
 ing— 
 
 o% 00 00 CO la 
 t~"<o' t-'o'co' 
 
 Deaths from syph- 
 ilis. 
 
 Proportion of sui- 
 cides being — 
 
 *rH to CI •* 
 
 00 OOOS tH CO (M 
 
 CO tH -* 05 CO t- 
 
 Suicides. 
 
 Proportion of pau- 
 pers being — 
 
 CO iH O O 00 •* 
 COCO(Mrt CJ iH 
 
 (N t- CO CO lO 00 
 ■*•* 00 00'* O 
 rH 1-1 rH rH C^ CO 
 
 Native paupers re- 
 c e 1 V i n g State 
 aid, June 1,1860. 
 
 t- (M O CO 00 Ift 
 T^ t- iH O -^ •* 
 
 Proportion of 
 criminals be- 
 ing— 
 
 03 iH lO ■* ■* t- 
 OiJ^ (Ti CO 00 C0_ 
 
 cftrTco*" --r 
 
 Na t i V e criminals 
 in prison June 
 1st. 
 
 Proportion of na- 
 t i V e illiterale 
 being — 
 
 Natives over 21 
 years of age who 
 can neither read 
 nor write. 
 
 Population, native 
 white. 
 
 Population, total. 
 
 t- 00 o w5 as o 
 
 O5CO00C35 ^O 
 
 ■ Oi C^ -^ o -^ 
 
 C^ d CO •* -^ iH 
 
 CO CO CO ^ »o c? 
 
 OOOSCO O iM O 
 CO 005 O OS !N 
 
 CO m lo CI .-1 CO 
 iM CO m »fl lA CI 
 
 00 W CO 05 -* CJ 
 
 OiCO OOCO t- 3 
 t- t- 05 CO •* C'J 
 
 Qo'co'io'w'o"'*" 
 CdCJrt ?3 O C- 
 CO CO CO CI ■<*< ^ 
 
 ®W 2 S 2 » 
 ' b. a JO 13 '5 
 
 OS 00 C30 ?5 1-1 
 
 •* CO ca o ro 
 
 ; i-i -t*! I 00 
 
 COiH .1 iH 
 
 iH CJJ O t-CO 
 
 tK O 00 OO'^ CO 
 t- iH O lO t- CO 
 O CI 1-1 O »-• Ol 
 
 cTco*" crT GtT co" t-^ 
 
 '*gc^ci looo 
 
 oo g a s 
 
 :^,^^^ 
 
 •° !--2 ^ 
 
 a- f« rj jT: 
 fi£ ® 2 
 =" S 53 a 
 
 M'a "to a 
 S ■«'-' 0) 
 
 § Ji o ca 
 •s .2 .Q a 
 
 lio-2 
 
 < a °-2 
 
 'S.2S 0) 
 .o ;d CO js 
 
 S s 
 
 rH t- m CO CN t- 
 
 -* -* O 00 ?o o 
 
 >« ;!^= 
 
 '^^ (Mco o ei o 
 
 to CO C^ i-H -^ -"H 
 
 CO ?D OS <M b- O 
 t* CO CI 05 iH tH 
 
 (N vn co_Oi_co^i-t_ 
 
 OS CO Oi t- <M t- 
 Oi CO .H t- CO O 
 
 »0 <N GO CI X 00 
 
 XI O O IC t- OS 
 
 CO X r-l '* t- rH 
 
 ■^ iftCO t--* CO 
 C5 OS »0 tH CO i-( 
 
 <N t^ O CO *C OS 
 »C O r-1 »-0 CO C» 
 
 OS XCO CO d X 
 ^ iH tH X CI O 
 O CO CI CI CO t- 
 
 X OS iH lO OS O 
 
 : p o 
 
 r .a ^ a.a ^ 
 
 a >3g oi 
 
 1-1 
 
 r5 
 
 tj 
 
 >i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 
 si 
 
 J 
 
 ,a 
 
 ^. 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 .a 
 
 •3 
 
 .a 
 
 o 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 S 
 
 C3 
 
 
 •^ 
 
 p 
 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 j^ 
 
 ria 
 
 
 a 
 
 CD 
 
 ^ 
 
 o 
 
 n 
 
 a 
 
 
 ©■g O O CS 
 
 o a .-a 
 
 » 7 >.S >? 
 
 ' ^ a «= -^ 
 
 P fla a " 
 D-s g a oj 
 
 •^-gs ^a 
 
 B ca f-»a -i 
 
 . a 
 
 "S a c „• * 
 ' o.i"S 
 
 .2 .a 
 
 § a g^ § 
 
 ;Ss»5a 
 
 fe'JSTa 3,a 
 
 ^ ^ ^ O 4; 
 
 "m"S ca ca 
 
 a 6.- a '-I 
 ca^S <c 
 
 nS'm 00 fl"S 
 
 2^a:2« 
 0-0.80 
 
H 
 
 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 bom white 
 and South 
 will be re- 
 esolated by 
 QS of most 
 gland anti- 
 
 'i 
 
 fi 
 
 a' 
 o 
 
 ative- 
 olina, 
 
 2, it 
 een d 
 
 be rei 
 
 ew En 
 
 t 
 
 umber of n 
 North Oar 
 s table No 
 tates had b 
 ated, and t 
 if ter the N 
 
 0) 
 
 > 
 
 
 2- 
 1? 
 
 ompared with t 
 -Delaware. Geo 
 in table No. 1. 
 after the latter s 
 egro slaves ema 
 last, but not le 
 
 5.S 
 
 m'a 
 
 H 3 tHWo --r 
 
 Mrs 
 
 P-" f' O UJ IM 
 
 i^i iS a !» & ° ^ a a> 
 
 o ^S=« 
 
 o a+= 
 
 S.S.aco$gftOS 
 aH'-gg^^^aaa 
 
 w ►^ o (D o S2 &P — T 
 ^ >^ I. ara -rt '^ ° - 
 
 Sa^SS-aa^'^^ 
 p.a2as!=l"„, n 
 
 a-riaHocsffl-rt 
 
 s go.a «!="■§§ I 
 
 .|bf^a^-=ia^a> 
 
 ISs^^Sa^l 
 
 S ■3 a ^ "" 
 Sift's "S^" 
 
 —i te-P 
 
 
 > ""^ 0) 3 g 2:g . 
 
 ■§«||=;;^g'g^3! 
 
 O CJ I . , 
 o S C3 0= . 
 
 «tes§gg.s 
 
 ^ S a 'd '^.pi « -t^ ^3 
 
 fl a o-^ g,a son 
 DB.aa3c2'*^&i^fci 
 
 So a cs o P. <2 
 
 Proportion of 
 insane being — 
 
 C^ 05 CC ?0 CO ?o 
 
 »o iH OS in 00 o 
 
 Insane, born 
 and living in 
 the State. 
 
 t- O iO CD t- 00 
 CO -* m ■* -^rH 
 
 Pro portion o f 
 native white 
 paupers being 
 
 Native white 
 paupers re- 
 ceiving State 
 aid June 1 , 
 1870. 
 
 C<1 l-O Oi ^ CO i 
 00 CO C<l O CO c 
 
 o; cs i-H CO CO t- 
 
 ^ CO CO CM (M O 
 
 Pro portion o f 
 native white 
 prisoners be- 
 ing— 
 
 ) o^co^ 
 
 i-Tr-T 
 
 Native white 
 prisoners June 
 1st. 
 
 »rs Oi CO (M in CO 
 10 05 ^ IO^^tH 
 (M iH iH tH C«iH 
 
 Population, na- 
 tive white. 
 
 b- t- fM CO in t 
 
 Population, en- 
 tire native. 
 
 ■<i< OS CO d 10 t 
 
 t- 00 00 0(M CO 
 
 10 cq (M T-i -* i-i 
 
 oiW o § S « 
 
 CO oa »ft Lo Lo tH 
 
 O i-< CO O O CD 
 
 b- <N tr- 00 O 00 
 OS 00 -* O CO O 
 
 00 00 t- CD CO 00 U5 
 CO Ift 1-1 oa O <N 00 
 
 CO CO •* -<*H CD CO >* 
 
 tH CN CO O Gi 00 OS 
 00 '^ CT t- iH 00 CO 
 t- 05 CN C^ T-1 00 00 
 
 t- Ci i-H lO t' GO 00 
 1-1 O CD 00 tH CO rt) 
 t- iH 1-1 Oi i-l t-I OS 
 
 '"^ rH CO CD Ol O 00 
 O CO iH <M CO CO CO 
 
 CO 00 O t- Oi Oi la 
 
 C^ OS CTi (M t- 00 O 
 
 la CO CO CD d -^ 
 
 Cq OS OS C^ CM (M CO 
 CO O t- 00 CO CO <N 
 
 CR 1-1 T-t C- CD CT) (M 
 CO <M iH 1-t O CO '* 
 
 cd c3 
 
 fl a - 
 
Crime in Parental and anti' Parental School States Compared. 1 5 
 
 Proportion being 
 one to. every — 
 
 O -H* CO CO 
 T-l CO CO CO 
 
 Q0C0Os05C0rH<N(N 
 OSCO^O'^'^t-'?^'-' 
 00 CO o o_co CO Oi o_ 
 
 uui.'J03wvv*Ji— >u-^'--< COlOt— COOO rHlOrHrHtr— OO 
 
 OS CO ?0 ■* "* t- <M r-t t- CO Oi O CO O lO CO tH O '^ 
 
 Co'c^OD^r-Tcf '*'"co''*"co"cr t-^ 
 
 C1t'C0'*05 tO'^LOfNO t- 
 
 Deaths from 
 syphilis. 
 
 O W5 -^ O? CO GO '^ iH «0 CO OS tH iH iH 00 t- CO t-4 -H* CO OS CI 
 i-( iHrH CI CI tH iH 
 
 Proportion being 
 one to every — 
 
 "^005COOO«DQOb-t-»ftTHlOOOO"*i-HOOmOS»C OOi-HCO 
 
 ^t-C^coo^oClO-* 
 
 tHlCOSCOOOlCOrHCS-^iHOCOt-OiOtOOO i-IOdt-»r:CDa3t-^':DCO'*i-HO 
 
 tHiOCO'<*<CO»OCOClCOCOiH"*i-IClCO'*-* rHCKTltOl 
 
 S i-H 00 CO C? i-l ifl -^ 
 
 Total suicides. 
 
 THCOQOOOC3'<t*e<l'^lOQOlOCIOCO'^OCDOOS-<*< rH-*r-liOttirH'*'*OOOOsOOCO 
 C^ CO CI C^ ■* CI iH CO C» CO iH i-H CO d CI CO C» CO iH "* 00 i-( 00 d CM CO tH 
 
 Proportion being 
 one to every — 
 
 Otr-HCOWiCt-CDClO'X'rHClXClTHftDCOt-lb-m 
 0SC0ClTt<Oi-ca0<X>O<©OCSO'rt<'^Q0Q00CCDO 
 
 t-OiinddCOOOOt-t-ClCOt-CI 
 
 ■' "'■-LO»000"*000-*tH 
 
 Native paupers 
 supported b y 
 the State, June 
 1st, 1860. 
 
 ., .'QOi-lii^«5t-OCIt-OSCOt-iHCDOiOCOas dOOCDClOL. _. _ 
 
 COt-OMHCOOOOCICi ■«*1'r*i-*dOt-t-i-IC0 t-Of:DCJOrHC5- 
 
 J lO -* eo 00 O O HO 
 
 -<* ,-H i-H IC CO rH iH I 
 
 t- tH T-4 !© CI «D d I 
 
 cf i-Tc-^i-Turr 
 
 Proportion being 
 one to every — 
 
 C0»0'*»O0iaS(MdCI»Ct0TH?D0S'<00S00aSrHO fHOit-t-CSO-^CIOt^OOffiCOO 
 
 CI»OOi'*Cl»OOiCOWCNOSClrHOit-^X005DOO 
 
 ) 00 m CI OS '*^»f5^CO^'^,<^ 00 OS^CI^CD rH^OO^-^^O^ 
 
 »HCIO»HOOOSt-t-t-Ht-r-IC^<00 
 
 Native criminals 
 in prison, June 
 1st. 
 
 C0iH?0OS0SC0l:-COOSiHC?l:-OSt-Ol»O>fi'W5«0«D' X-*iHdin<0:DOt7-COtOOCOCl 
 00 CD OO ^ i-t 1-t t- iH d «0 C? -^ Ift OS OS OS O CO CO iH CO CI CO «D « »0 O lO CO <£> 00 CO t- 
 
 Proportion being 
 one to every — 
 
 COCOOOQO'^CI'^CI'^COCOOOt-lO^COCIt-t- 
 rH iH CI rH tH iH CO C» -* CO i-l rH '^ iH 00 t- d iH O 
 
 CIOS«OOOTHOiW-*OOi-(»HCIdt' 
 COt-*-^i-H -* CO W iH r-t iH CO O rH 00 
 
 Natives over 21 
 years who can 
 neither read 
 nor write. 
 
 •0siCC0OO00C0C0Was0SCDO-«*4OC0C0int-C0t 
 
 O30O'MOiCi0'*OO0S'*( 
 
 JOOddCldCOOCO 
 
 ^OSlCrHlOtr-OSOSCOt-COCOt-OiHrHi-HOCOOOSrHXOdC 
 
 ^OSCOCOt-l-HOCOOCSOCOCOOCD 
 
 t- CO i-H 1-H no CO <7s lo d : 
 
 COdrH r-H -^ CO \0 r-i 
 
 10D»Ci-lr-l THdCD-*Q0iH'*T-lLOOSi-t 
 
 Population, na- 
 tive white. 
 
 CS'^:0rHC0Ot-00-*dC0dt-C0M<drHCDOl0lCtCt'>O'*t-C0OCD00CDt 
 
 COOSCDlClOt-r-lO^COt-lO'^ddlCdfH-^C 
 
 3dOSCOO-*rHdrHi-OdlOOlO 
 
 t-lO-*>#dCO-^COC100lC-**<dXCOC:sOi-HL':d'^rH(MOdCICOt-dCOODdCO?:)OS 
 
 coocoosi-inooot-doo'*ococ 
 
 rHdX>b-Ot-COOOCOCDOSt-CSOSdt^OTHOT-t< 
 iO CO d « i-( — " - - ----- - 
 
 lOocDcocOdtoosdXi-ii; 
 
 H d 00 d O 00 
 .- _ , _,.--_ , - ., <-*t-C0OSr-(tr-00t-OS 
 lOSCOCOOSrH C0»000:00 "^rHdXCOCIO'* 
 
 THOH<t-CD'<*COiHOOCO«D'*dOSOSCOCOmdCOrHCOWmd.H»OinOOOTHlOOOXrH 
 
 OidOS'-^i-HdOOlCdrHOOOOt-'^COi-HOi-Hd-^t-COCOdi-HCDiHdOOi-Hi-HrHOO 
 
 Population, to- 
 tal. 
 
 '"^t lo OS o ■: 
 
 ■(OiH'<4il0r-ll0l:-O»0Oda0C0'«*<asXt-dC-ll:-Q00SC0i 
 
 • O O O 1— I OS t- 
 
 OS -^ CO '<*< iH tH O C* CO CO tH I-H t- CO CD d t- t- I-H 1-1 CO CO X OS CO OS r-t t- i-H CO 05 lO t- 
 
 ■ J ^ 
 
 iill 
 
 S «.2 S 
 
 =8 3 
 
 .3 =3 
 
 fl 9 o 
 
 ■3 =1^ ?" 2 ? 
 
 J ■^' i : 9 -^ § -S 'S 1 ■S § I o O 
 
i6 
 
 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 did m 
 
 o 2 « 
 ft® » 
 
 £ i'" 1 
 
 
 THrH-^OOiccT-I^^OStOOST-l 
 T-H rM i-( tH cT'-' CI rH -.ir iH 
 
 1=1 fl 
 
 ^ a :e 
 
 is! 
 
 CO 'd ,d 
 
 CC tH LO 00 b- O C 
 
 ^-^-^Cn-'^fCOOOt-OOOOfMTH TH:D(NO00-^THC5000iC0b-C^ 
 
 tH -^ Oq t- -^ tH O (M O -rtl CO Oi t- Oi "^ "^ r-« "^ i-H O O i-H O CO lO 00 O 00 lO 
 
 00T-l':O'^'«:*^THT-^CO 
 
 CD ■* rH CO CO CO O 
 
 
 a^ 
 
 S O ftOD 
 
 
 iOOCO 00 t-<Nc 
 
 3COOO)iCiOdGO-^<NOCDC 
 
 ) Oi CO Ol CO lO CO 
 
 >*'^CDCOrH-^Oi'^ObCi'^t-OOOOCOOt-OCOTHC:COCDOOOOOOCDCOOOCT-^C5(NlOOOCO 
 •4lG^05CO-^rH"^COU500000iHCD<Mi-IOl'M CO_CO GO r-l lO lO CO 00 f^JO CO CO C5 OO^Cl CO -* 00 
 
 rHrHTHrMiHrHTHT 
 
 -<^OOrHCOCOOOCOCOCOlCCOClCSTHCOOOCOOO'<:t<t-OiaDOiCriasC^'*t:-crcOCOT-IC^CrjTtH 
 
 CO (M CO tH (M 
 
 •rH0000OC0t>'"*00C3c0t-H0iC<110CqC0C0a0.-ll0CDl0OaDC0t-C0-^C0C 
 .. . _ „ .. _ . . . ._ CO ^ CD Oi C^ Oi 00 CO 
 
 ft>«i.g 
 
 ■n o "> 
 1 .2^ 
 
 ^C^il^'^iHC'lCOCliOa^t-COClU^CDOOOt-i-I-r^b-CirH-^t-OOi-ICOloasOOt- 
 
 ,-iOrHCflCDCOC6C10sOt-t-lCir3i— i-^ioo- 
 Ti(COl005rHlCCiCOT-ICD-*05CO(nL-Ci"^asi 
 
 -r^cO'd^'Mb-r-^OicoOiOOcooo<^^t'0'*t 
 
 
 a5t*(Mlf:!C0OC00iTHC0(MK:)O10-rH(Nt:- 
 
 MCt-OiCOCO<M(MlOOOcOOC^t*COiHOO<M 
 
 COCOrHT-l(MC^(M05t-OCq^lCOir5i-IC^asCDCOC00500CqCOailOOOT-tCO-^CO-^COCOCa 
 
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Crhne in Parental and anti- Parental School States Compared. 1 7 
 
 Table 5—1870. 
 In 1870, the several States and Territories of the United States, not counting 
 Mississippi, Texas, and Utah, supported 183,198 public-school teachers, edu- 
 cated 6,228,060 public-school pupils, at an expense of 164,030.673. (See Com- 
 pendium of Ninth Census of the U. S., page 488.) The following table is com- 
 piled from the above source : 
 
 Alabama , 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 California 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 Delaware 
 
 Florida 
 
 Georgia 
 
 Illinois 
 
 Indiana 
 
 Iowa 
 
 Kansas 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 Louisiana 
 
 Maine 
 
 Maryland 
 
 Massachusetts . . 
 
 Michigan 
 
 Minnesota 
 
 Mississippi 
 
 Missouri 
 
 Nebraska 
 
 Nevada 
 
 New Hampshire 
 
 New Jersey 
 
 New York 
 
 North Carolina.. 
 
 Ohio 
 
 Oregon 
 
 Pennsylvania.... 
 Khode Island... 
 South Carolina.. 
 
 Tennessee 
 
 Texas , 
 
 Vermont 
 
 Virginia 
 
 West Virginia... 
 Wisconsin 
 
 Total number of 
 pupils, male and 
 female, attend- 
 ing the public 
 schools in 1870. 
 
 67, 263 
 
 72, 045 
 
 75, 527 
 
 88,449 
 
 16, 835 
 
 10, 132 
 
 11, 150 
 
 677, 623 
 
 446, 066 
 
 205, 923 
 
 58,030 
 
 218, 340 
 
 25, 832 
 
 152. 765 
 
 83, 226 
 
 242, 145 
 
 254, 738 
 
 103, 408 
 
 320, 313 
 
 15, 052 
 
 1,856 
 
 59. 408 
 
 80, 105 
 
 719, 181 
 41,912 
 
 737,693 
 29, 822 
 
 745, 734 
 27, 250 
 31, 362 
 82, 970 
 
 52, 067 
 
 8,700 
 
 101,493 
 
 337, 008 
 
 Total income used 
 for public-school 
 purposes. 
 
 .$629, 626 
 
 552, 461 
 
 1. 627, 733 
 
 1,426,846 
 
 127, 729 
 
 76, 389 
 
 175, 844 
 
 7, 810, 265 
 2, 063, 599 
 3, 245, 352 
 
 660, 635 
 1,150,457 
 
 473, 707 
 
 843, 435 
 1, 146, 057 
 3, 207, 826 
 2, 164, 489 
 
 895, 204 
 
 3, 092, 733 
 
 182, 160 
 
 81,273 
 
 403, 310 
 
 1, 562, 573 
 
 8, 912, 024 
 205, 131 
 
 8, 528, 145 
 139,387 
 
 7, 292, 946 
 355, 582 
 279. 723 
 683, 008 
 
 516, 702 
 
 98. 770 
 
 599,811 
 
 2, 209, 384 
 
 Cost to every 
 pupU, being — 
 
 $9 36 
 
 7 66 
 
 21 .55 
 
 16 13 
 
 7 58 
 
 7 53 
 15 77 
 11 52 
 
 4 62 
 15 75 
 
 11 37 
 
 5 26 
 
 18 33 
 
 5 52 
 13 77 
 13 24 
 
 8 49 
 
 8 65 
 
 9 65 
 
 12 10 
 43 78 
 
 6 78 
 
 19 56 
 
 12 38 
 4 89 
 
 11 56 
 
 4 67 
 9 77 
 
 13 04 
 8 90 
 
 8 23 
 
 9 92 
 11 35 
 
 5 90 
 
 6 55 
 
1 8 " Poison Drops''' m the Federal Senate. 
 
 One very noticeable fact in this connection, as shown by the fore- 
 going tables, is that in the State of Massachusetts, which claims the 
 honor of being the founder of the New England system of education, 
 while she had by far the smallest porportion of illiterate native-born 
 adults of any, even of the New England States, she had at the same 
 time much the largest proportion of native white criminals, having 
 one criminal to every 649 native white inhabitants. 
 
 The nearest approach to her was the showing made by the State 
 of Connecticut, where there was one native white criminal to every 
 845 native v/hite inhabitants. 
 
 And now, good reader, if you will take the pains to turn to the 
 sixth column of figures in table three, which shows the relative pro- 
 portion of native-born white criminals in every State in the Union 
 in i860, you will see that Massachusetts stands solitary and alone in 
 the grand and magnificent proportions of her criminal list. Califor- 
 nia at that time came next to her chosen model, having one native- 
 born white criminal to every 697 native whites, while, as above 
 stated, Massachusetts had one to every 649. 
 
 California seems to have resolved, however, not to be surpassed in 
 her crime list even by her great exemplar, for when the next decen- 
 nial census reports were returned, to wit, in 1870, California made 
 a showing of one native white criminal to every 512 native white in- 
 habitants, thus carrying oft^ the palm which ten years before had 
 been awarded to the old State of Massachusetts. 
 
 In view of the foregoing facts and figures, is it any wonder that 
 the Boston correspondent of the San Francisco Morning Call tells 
 us " that a large number of public-school men have come to the 
 " conclusion that the public-school system of that city is a failure .?"i 
 Or is it surprising that another of our leading dailies, \}a&Alta Califor- 
 nia^ speaking editorially of the same system as it exists in this State, 
 calls it " our anaconda," and declares that if we are to "judge this 
 " system by its apparent fruits, we shall have to pronounce it not 
 " only a melancholy but a most disastrous failure, and that it will 
 " be idle to look for the cause of the general rowdyism, idleness, and 
 " viciousness of the rising generation anywhere but in the training 
 " which it has been receiving V- 
 
 Even after the civil war, which raged with such terrible fury over 
 the Southern and Southwestern States during the years from 1861 
 to 1865, whereby property to the value of thousands of millions of 
 dollars was destroyed, a servile i-ace was emancipated, and the very 
 
 1 See Morning Call of August 5, 1877. ^ Alta editorial, January 31, 1872. 
 
Crime in Parental and anti- Parental School States Cotnpared. 1 9 
 
 foundations of the whole social and political fabric upheaved and 
 broken to atoms — even after all the bad government which bad white 
 men and bad black men had succeeded in forcing upon the subjugated 
 States — still, when the census reports for 1870 were published, they 
 showed that neither their native white ci'iminals nor paupers counted 
 in the proportion even of so much as one to where those counted 
 two who had been for two hundred years subjected to the ravages of 
 the New England public-school system. (See table No. 2.) 
 
 And this precious system of education is the great boon for which 
 in 1870 the American people were paying to the tune of $64,030,673,1 
 while at the same time they were grinding through this mill of moral 
 death no less than 7,628,060 children. In order to maintain this 
 very same system, California alone expended during the last fiscal 
 year no less than $2,749,729.46, as appears from the recently pub- 
 lished biennial report of the State Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Indeed, so infatuated has our young State become with this crime 
 and pauper-breeding system of public instruction, that she has made 
 it a penal offence for the parent or guardian of any child between 
 the ages of 8 and 14 years to keep such child from the public school, 
 even for the sake of sending it to a far better private school of his 
 own choice, and at his own expense, unless he fii'st seeks and obtains 
 the gracious permission of the school directors so to do. 
 
 But lest the reader should be disposed to doubt the existence of so 
 tyrannical a statute, here it is as enacted by the California Legisla- 
 ture on the 28th day of March, 1874: 
 
 " Section i . Every parent, guardian, or other person in the State 
 of California, having control and charge of any child or children be- 
 tween the ages of 8 and 14 years, shall be required to send any such 
 child or children to a public school for a period of at least two-thirds 
 of the time during which a public school shall be taught in each city 
 and county, or school district, in each school year, commencing on 
 the first da}' of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
 hundred and seventy-four, at least twelve weeks of which shall be 
 consecutive, unless such child or children are excused from such at- 
 tendance by the Board of Education of the city, or city and county, 
 or of the trustees of the school district in which such parents, guar- 
 dians, or other persons reside, upon its being shown to their satisfac- 
 tion that his or her bodily or mental condition has been such as to 
 prevent attendance at school, or application to study for the period 
 required, or that the parents or guardians are extremely poor or sick, 
 or that such child or children are taught in a private school or at 
 home in such branches as are usually taught in the primary schools 
 
 ' In 1880 the amount was over $96,000,000. 
 
20 '' Poison Drops ^^ in the Federal Senate. 
 
 of this State, or have already acquired a good knowledge of such 
 branches ; Provided., In case a public school shall not be taught for 
 three months during the year, within one mile by the nearest travelled 
 road of any person within the school district, he shall not be liable 
 to the provisions of this act." 
 
 " Section 3. In case any parent, guardian, or other person shall 
 fail to comply with the provisions of this act, said parent, guardian, 
 or other person shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall 
 be liable to a fine of not more then twenty dollars ; and for the second 
 and each subsequent offence, the fine shall not be less than twenty 
 dollars nor more than fifty dollars, and the parent, guardian, or other 
 person so convicted shall pay all costs. Each such fine shall be 
 paid to the clerk of the proper Board of Education or of the dis- 
 trict trustees." 
 
 Thus it is that the votaries of this system have absolutely under- 
 taken, by the most tyrannical legislation, to strip every parent of the 
 guardianship of his children, and to transfer their entire control to 
 an irresponsible Board of School Trustees ; so that if these school 
 directors choose to appoint a libertine or a harlot as the tutor of your 
 daughters, and at the same time refuse their gracious permission for 
 you to send them to a private school of your own choice, it is with 
 fines or prison dungeons that the law proposes to reward you, should 
 you, in obedience to the dictates of right, reason, and your own con- 
 science, seek to shield them from the contaminating touch of a vile 
 teacher. Is it any wonder that vice flourishes or that virtue perishes 
 under the influence of such a system 1 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 ANOTHER TEST — DIFFERENCE IN RESULTS BETWEEN A SMALL AND A LARGE 
 DOSE OF ANTI-PARENTAL EDUCATION WHEN OPERATING UPON THE SELF- 
 SAME COMMUNITY. 
 
 In their desperate efforts to find some plausible explanation for 
 the astounding growth of crime in the public-school States, in 
 excess of that found in the parental-school districts, which will 
 vindicate their idolized '•^system.,'" the advocates of State governed 
 schools have sometimes claimed that the difference between the 
 number of convictions for crime in the public-school States and the 
 nvimber found in the parental-school States is owing to a variety 
 of local causes, entirely unconnected with and independent of 
 
Another Test. 21 
 
 difference in educational systems. But a complete refutation of this 
 assumption is found in the following statistics of public-school edu- 
 cation and crime, demonstrating that in the very same localities 
 every material increase of expenditures for public-school purposes 
 has, without a single exception, been followed by a corresponding 
 increase of crime. For example : 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 In 18=^0 the State of Massachusetts had a native white population 
 of 827,430.1 
 
 At that date her public-school pupils numbered 176,475, and her 
 income for the support of these schools was $1 ,006,795, being $5.70 
 to each pupil. - 
 
 With this comparatively limited expenditure for the maintainance 
 of her anti-parental schools, she had, out of a native population of 
 818,366, but 653 native-born criminals, being only one to every 
 1,267 native inhabitants. 
 
 This, comparatively speaking, was a very small number for a pub- 
 lic-school State, though a very large number when compared with the 
 number of criminals in any parental or private-school State. 
 
 But coming down to 1880, just thirty years later, we find that her 
 income for public-school purposes had swollen to $4,696,612 for the 
 benefit of 316, 630 public-school pupils, being $14.83 per pupil, count- 
 ing every pupil that attended school at any time during the year. But 
 Massachusetts expended on her schools during that same year more 
 than her income, to wit, the sum of $4,720,951, being $20.03 f'"*' ^'^^ 
 pupils in average daily attendance. 
 
 And out of a native-born white population of 1,320,897 there were 
 2,070 adult native white convicts,'^ being one to every 638 inhabitants 
 ill oiace of one t(j every 1,267 "^^ "^ ^^S^? ^^^ ^'^^ leaves out of the 
 count some 60S juvenile convicts, confined in various reformatory in- 
 stitutions. By including these, the native white convicts of Massa- 
 
 ' See " Compeuclium of Census for 1870," page 534. 
 
 - This artkl- was written in 1884, in San Diego, California, and not having the United States 
 Census Reports for 1850 before me, I took from " Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World," (old 
 edition,) both for Massachusetts and Louisiana, the amount expended on their public schools 
 in 1850, and also the number of pupils then being educated in those schools. 
 
 The statistics (tor 1850) of the other States are taken from the " Compendium of the United 
 States Census of 1870," where they are reproduced from the census of 1850. In this compen- 
 dium the ijupils both of public and private schools are enumerated together, as are also the ag- 
 gregate expenditures for educational purposes, so that the amounts given, small as they may 
 seem, even exceed the then expenditures for public schools. 
 
 Also, at least a small portion of the children enumerated for 1850, even in the States of Con- 
 necticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, and Khode Island, were being edu- 
 cated in jirivate schools. 
 
 But inasmuch as there was far more virtue in those States in 1850 than in 1880, it is not prob- 
 able that the friends of the systx.ni will complain of a failure to credit any of said pupils to private 
 schools. — Editor. 
 
 3 See " Compendium United States Census for 1880," pages 332, 1638-39 
 
22 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 chusetts, in 1880, would amount to one out of every 493 native white 
 inhabitants. 
 
 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Turning now to Connecticut, " the land of steady habits," we find 
 an entirely similar condition of things. In 1850 Connecticut had in 
 her schools 79,003 pupils, wilh an income for school purposes of 
 $430,826, being $5.45 per pupil. At that time her native popula- 
 tion^ numbered 331,560, of whom 344 were convicts, being one to 
 every 1,358 native inhabitants. 
 
 But in 1880" her income for public schools was $1,441,255, being 
 $12.15 ^"^^ every pupil that attended at any time during the year; 
 or, counting only the 72,725 pupils in average daily attendance, 
 it 'vs^ould be $19.81 per pupil, and out of a native white popu- 
 lation of 481,060 she had 432 adult criminals, being one to every 
 1 ,136, leaving ovit of the count 403 juvenile convicts, the most damag- 
 ing portion of the whole record, v\^hich, when added to the adults, 
 makes 835 criminals, or one to every 576 native whites.*^ 
 
 VERMONT. 
 
 Likewise in 1850 Vermont had an income for school purposes of 
 $246,604 for the education of 100,785 pupils,* being $2.44 per pupil. 
 At that time she had a native population of 280,055, of whom only 
 64, or one to every 4,372, were criminals. But turning to the cen- 
 sus report for 1880, we find her expending $452,693 upon 731237 
 pupils, being $6.31 per pupil, or counting only the 47,206 pupils in 
 average daily attendance and we have $9.58 per pupil. And instead 
 of one criminal to every 4,372 inhabitants, as in 1850, she had out 
 of a native white population of 290,281 just 196 adult native con- 
 victs, being one to every 1,481 native whites. When to these are 
 added 134 native white juvenile offenders, of whom she seems to 
 have had none in 1850, we shall have an aggregate of 330, or one 
 native white criminal to every 879 native whites. 
 
 1 See " United States Compendium Census for 1870," page 534. The report before me for 1850 
 makes no separate classification of the whole number of native whites and native blacks in the 
 free States. — Editor. 
 
 = See Census for 1880. 
 
 = The United States Commissioner of Education in his report for 1881, pages 686 to 691, enu- 
 merates 71 reformatory institutions in the United States. Only six of these were in existence in 
 1850, to wit, two in Massachusetts, three in New York, and one in Philadelphia, so that it is taken 
 for granted that prior to that time children in Connecticut were either less addicted to crime than 
 at present, or else they were sent to prison like other criminals, and were consequently included 
 in the enumeration of criminals. 
 
 * See " Compendium United States Census Reports for 1870," p. 492. 
 
Anot/ie}' 'Test. 23 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 New Hampshire, in 1850. expended on her schools, public and 
 private, the sum of $221,146 for the education of 81,237 pupils, 
 being $3.73 per pvipil, and at that time, out of a native population 
 of 303,1^63, she had just 35 native criminals, being one to every 
 12,142. But thirty years later we find her with an income of $559,- 
 133 for the use of 64,670 pupils, being $8.64 for every pupil attend- 
 ing school at any time during the year, or $11.43 per pupil if we 
 only count the 48,943 in average daily attendance, and, presto., 
 change^ instead of one native criminal to every 13,143 as in 1850, 
 when expending about one-fourth as much for each pupil, she has 
 out of 399,99^ natives 309 native white criminals, or one to every 
 1,435 native white inhabitants. If to these be added New Hamp- 
 shire's native white juvenile criminals for 1880, to wit, 91, we shall 
 have an aggregate of 300, or one to every 999 of her native white 
 population. 
 
 MAINE. 
 
 In 1850 Maine's total expenditures for schools, public and private, 
 was $380,633 for the education of 199,745 P"pils, being $1.90 per 
 pupil, and at that time, out of a native population of 550,878, she 
 had but ^(i native criminals, being one to every 8,346 native inhabit- 
 ants. 
 
 But in 18S0 her income for public schools reached the sum of 
 $1,074,554, for the use of 150,811, being $7.11 for every pupil that 
 attended school at any time during the year, or if we count only the 
 106,760 in average daily attendance we shall have $10.00 per pupil ; 
 and out of a native white population of 588,193 she had 331 adult 
 native white criminals, being one to every 1,833, and if we add her 
 112 native white juvenile criminals we shall have433, or one to every 
 1,358. 
 
 RHODE ISLAND. 
 
 Rhode Island, in 1850, expended on all her schools $136,739 for the 
 benefit of 34,881 pupils, being $5-53 per pupil, and out of a native 
 population of 133,564 she had 58 criminals, being one to every 3,130. 
 But in 1880 her public-school income was $541,810 for the benefit 
 of 43,489 pupils, being $13.74 for every pupil that attended school 
 at any time during the year, or if we only count the 37,453 in aver- 
 age daily attendance, we should have $19.73 per pupil, and out of a 
 native white population of 196,108 she had 187 native white adult 
 criminals, being one to every 1,049 native white inhabitants. Add 
 
24 ' ' Poison Drops " in the Federal Senate. 
 
 to these her 141 native white juvenile offenders, and w^e have 328, or 
 one to every 597* 
 
 This completes the circuit of the six New England States where 
 the system originated, where it has longest existed, and its results 
 have been the most thoroughly tested. 
 
 LOUISIANA. 
 
 Of all the States of the Union, Louisiana, thirty years ago, was 
 the most lavish in the expenditures of her money for public or anti- 
 parental school purposes. According to " Lippincott's Gazetteer of 
 the World," (see old edition, p. 1091,) Louisiana had, in 1850, 664 
 public schools with 25,046 pupils, and $349,679 income for public- 
 school purposes. The amount would be $13.96 per pupil for every 
 child attending the public schools, which was more than double the 
 amount at that time being paid even by any of the New England 
 States, and the result v^^as already cropping out in her criminal sta- 
 tistics, for during this same year the United States Census Reports 
 show that out of a native white popvilation of 186,577 she had 240 
 native criminals, being one to every 777, by far the largest criminal 
 record in proportion to population at that time to be found anywhere 
 in America, if not in the world. 
 
 Still, in order to prevent crime., she continued to increase her 
 expenditures for public-school purposes, until in 1870 she was 
 expending $473,000 on 25,832 pupils, amounting to $18.33 per 
 pupil ; and the result was, that out of a native white population of 
 301,450 she had 460 native white criminals, being one to every 
 655 native white inhabitants. 
 
 But coming down to 1880, Louisiana— according to the census 
 reports of that year — out of a native white population of 402,177, 
 had but 89 native white convicts in prison, being but one to every 
 
 Lest some enthusiastic admirer of our great and glorious system.^ 
 in a desperate effort to find one supporting fact for his tottering 
 idol, should jvuiip to the conclusion that this great falling off in 
 Louisiana's catalogue of criminals, between 1850 and 1880, was 
 owing to her increased anti-parental educatioit facilities, let us 
 caution him to first glance at her educational statistics for that year. 
 From these statistics he will learn that Louisiana's public-school 
 income was but $498,409 for the benefit of 81,012 public-school 
 children, being only $6.15 per pupil ; or counting only those in 
 daily average attendance, it would be still only $8.93 per pupil, in 
 lieu of the $18.33 P^i' pupil in 1870. 
 
Another 7est. 35 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 In 1850 the State of New York had a native-born population of 
 2,436,771. She then had in her schools, all told, 737,156 pupils, at 
 an annual cost of $2,431,247, or $3.34 per pupil. At that time her 
 native-born criminals numbered only 649, or one native-born crimi- 
 nal to every 3,754 native inhabitants. 
 
 But with the laudable pui-pose of lessening the tendency of her 
 people to commit crime, the State government went on year by year 
 increasing the burdens of taxation for public-school purposes, until 
 in 1880 her receipts for the education of 1,027,938 children were 
 $11,035,511, being $10.78 for every pupil that entered her schools 
 at any time during the year, and the result was that, with a native 
 white population of 3,807,317, she had 5,177 native white criminals 
 in prison, being one to every 741 people, instead of one to ever}- 
 3,754 as in 1S50. That is to say, having increased her expenditures 
 for anti-parental and godless schools a little more than three hun- 
 dred per cent, in order to decrease crime, she was rewarded by 
 an increase of crime to the tune of ow ex Jive hundred per cent. 
 
 What seems astonishing is that, in the face of these appalling 
 facts, the demand for more money, more money, still goes forth 
 from those who have grown rich by the ruin of the rising genera- 
 tion. We shall here extract from the report of the United States 
 Commissioner of Education for 188 1 (page 71) the following re- 
 freshing piece of information. 
 
 Referring to New York's State Superintendent as his authority, 
 the Commissioner says : 
 
 " With an increase of nearly 31,000 in the number of youth, five 
 to twenty-one years of age, there was a decrease of over 10.000 in 
 public-school enrolment, and over 13,000 in average daily attend- 
 ance. * * * He thinks the schools increased in efficiency in 
 greater proportion than the attendance fell oft", and that the results 
 attained justified the expenditure, which was $511,026 greater than 
 the preceding year. * * * Xhe figures show a smaller number 
 of public-school houses, but a greater estimated value of school prop- 
 erty, 28,000 fewer volumes in district libraries, an average school 
 term of one day shorter, fewer men and more women teaching, but 
 a slight increase in their average pay." 
 
 Here is certainly some valuable food for reflection for such as have 
 stomachs sufficiently strong to digest it. From this statement it 
 would appear that the cost of public-school work in the State of New 
 York increases in an inverse ratio to the number of pupils taught, 
 while, as we have seen, crime increases in direct proportion to 
 such cost. 
 
26 " Poison Drops" in the federal Senate. 
 
 But, says the Superintendent, " the schools increased in efficiency 
 in greater proportion than the attendance fell oftV And the only 
 evidence he furnishes us in corroboration of this statement is found 
 in the fact that 38,000 volumes disappeared from the district 
 libraries in the short period of one school year. History tells us 
 that in ancient Sparta the most accomplished and highly honored 
 youths were those who could steal without being caught. But we 
 very much doubt if Sparta's lads in her palmiest days could have 
 purloined 28,000 books in so short a time and escaped detection. 
 
 OHIO. 
 
 In 1850 Ohio had a native population of 1,757,746, and was 
 expending on 502,826 pupils $1,018,258, or $2.03 per pupil, and 
 at that time she had but 103 native-born criminals, being one native 
 criminal to ever}^ 17,233 people. But in 1880 she was receiving from 
 the people $11,085,315 for the public-school education of 752,944 
 pupils, being $14.72 per pupil, and out of a native white popu- 
 lation of 2,723,582 she had 1,674 criminals, being one to every 
 1,626, in place of one to every 17,232 as in 1850. In other words, 
 while Ohio was increasing her expenditures upwards of sevenfold 
 in order to check crime, her criminals increased upwards of tenfold. 
 
 (See United States Census Report for 1S80.) 
 
 ILLINOIS. 
 
 Take, again, the State of Illinois. In 1850 that State was expend- 
 ing on 130,411 pupils $403,138, or $3.08 per pupil. And out of 
 a native population of 736,149 she had 164 criminals, being one 
 to every 4,488. But she went on increasing her godless educa- 
 tional fund until in 18S0 she was expending, on 704,041 children, 
 $9,850,011, being $13.99 P^^' P^^pi^ ! '^"c^ oi^it of a native white pop- 
 ulation of 3,448,173 she had 3,223 native-born white criminals, or 
 one to every 1,101. To put the case in words instead of figures, 
 it may be stated thus : 
 
 In order to prevent crime and thus protect the propeily, the lives, 
 the liberties, and the reputations of her citizens, Illinois, in the space 
 of thirty years, more than quadrupled her annual expenditures per 
 capita for the anti-parental education of her pupils, and the result 
 was that she more thait quadrtiplcd the ratio of her native-born 
 white criminals to prey upon her people. 
 
 We cannot, in the short space of one article, review the history 
 of education and crime in all the States, but we must not close with- 
 out a brief allusion to our own California. 
 
Another Test. 27 
 
 In i860 California had in her public schools 24,977 Pupils, with 
 an income for public-school purposes of $3531096, being $14.13 
 for each pupil. Her record of crime amongst her native-born 
 whites at that time surpassed everything in the United States except 
 that of Massachusetts. She then had out of a native white popula- 
 tion of 233,466, some 336 native white convicts, being one to every 
 694. But in 1880 California collected an income of $3,535,^30 for 
 the use of 161,477 pupils, being $31.83 apiece for each pupil that 
 ever darkened the door of a public-school house at any time during 
 the year, or $33.30 each for the 106,179 in average daily attend- 
 ance, and she had a corresponding crop of adult native white 
 criminals of 1,396 out of a native white population of 549,539, be- 
 ing one to every 393 of her native white population. And if to 
 these we add her 142 native white youths serving their time in re- 
 formatories, we shall have one native white criminal to every 3^57 
 native white inhabitants. 
 
 In conclusion let vis take a bird's eye view of this question of anti- 
 parental education and crime, as it affected the whole country at 
 the two periods above-named, to wit, in 1850 and in 1880. 
 
 In 1850, our income in the whole United States for our public 
 and private schools was $16,163,000. The whole number of pupils 
 in both classes of schools at that time was 3,642,694, consequently 
 our expenditures for educational purposes were $4.40 per pupil. 
 At that time our native white population numbered some 17,308,460, 
 and our native white criminals 4,336, or one to every 4,001 of the 
 native white population (omitting fractions.) 
 
 But in 1880 our public school income alone reached the enormous 
 sum of $96,857,534, 1 being $9.72 per pupil for each of the 9,946,- 
 160 pupils who at any time during the 3'ear entered a jDublic-school 
 house ; or, counting only the 6,376,398 in average daily attendance, 
 and we have $15.43 per pupil. And during that year (1880) out 
 of a native white population of 36,843,291 we had 39.377'' native 
 white criminals, making one criminal for every 1,254 inhabitants, 
 instead of one to every 4,001 as in 1850. If to the above number, 
 29,377 native white adult convicts, we add the 9,118 native white 
 juvenile convicts in our seventy-one reformatory institutions, we 
 shall have 38,495, or one to every 957 native white people. 
 
 Should any mistake in any of our figures be discovered, we shall 
 be obliged to the person making such discovery to inform us of the 
 
 ' This is independent of expenses of State officers of public instruction, normal schools, col- 
 leges, and schools for Indian children. 
 
 - The whole number of native convicts as given in the Census Reports for 1880 was 46,338, 
 16,961 of whom were colored. Deducting these leaves the number above given. 
 
28 " Poison Drofs" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 fact, as we have no desire to perpetrate an injustice, even against as 
 great an enemy of our race as we believe our anti-parental public- 
 school system to be. 
 
 We here take occasion to caution the reader — as we have done 
 before — against drawing from our figures or our arguments any in- 
 ference that we look upon education as the cause of crime. On the 
 contrary, we maintain that ignorance is the mother of vice. But it 
 is against &. false system of education that we are leveling our bat- 
 teries — a system that intrusts to politicians an authority over the 
 child which can only be properly wielded by its own parents. 
 
 In the face of these startling statistics, is it not high time for those 
 who claim that the present public-school system tends to dimijiish 
 crime, to point out at least one State or one fraction of a State 
 where the system has not produced exactly the opposite result P 
 
 Our figures are ofl^cial, and if any friend of our present public- 
 school system will take them, read them, study them, and from 
 them or any other reliable authority prove that the present public- 
 school system tends to prevent crime., he will perform a more stu- 
 pendous iniracle than if he should raise the detid to life. 
 
 A DIALOGUE WITH A MORAL UNDERSTOOD. 
 
 Madam Jonathan, whose son, young Jonathan, lies at death's door from 
 a tumor, consults Dr. Plain Talk. 
 
 Madam Jonathan. " Oh, Dr., what shall I do.'"' 
 Dr. Plain Talk. " Well, madam, what's the matter now?" 
 Madam Jonathan. " Oh, Dr. , my poor, /^ofr boy Jonathan Junior had a 
 mite of a tumor, the size of a pea, you know, and we called in Dr. Puffum- 
 BiG, and Dr. Puffumbig said : ' Give the boy, every day, an ounce of some 
 sort of stuff he called ' common sAutes,' just to purify the blood and dry up 
 the tumor, you know. And I gave it to Jonathan Junior, and in a week's 
 time the tumor was as big as a hen's egg. And Dr. Puffumbig said, 'Double 
 the dose of common skiiles.' And I doubled it. And in another week the 
 tumor was as big as your head, Dr. And Dr. Puffumbig said it was all 
 because I was too pleggy stingy with the ' common skiiles.'' ' Give him at 
 least a pound of common skules three times a day,' said Dr. Puffumbig. And, 
 fool like, I gave it, and now that ugly tumor is as big as a milk-pail. Oh, 
 Dr., what shall I do.'"' 
 
 Dr. Plain Talk. "Well, madam, if it is your desire to turn your boy 
 all into tumor I must say you have the right doctor, and he has pi-escribed 
 the right treatment. In fact, I think you might ransack the apothecaries of 
 the infernal regions without finding anj'thing better suited to such a purpose. 
 And, pray, what is your own opinion, madam?" 
 
 Madam Jonathan (pensively). " I guess it's a mighty nice thing for Dr. 
 Puffumbig, who sells his nasty stuff for $96,000,000 at a dash, but a horrid 
 
Tet Another Startling Test. 
 
 29 
 
 thing for \r\y poor Jonathan Senior and Jonathan Junior, too, since the one 
 has to foot these monstrous bills, while the other is dying of the tumor made 
 an awful sight worse by the di\rX.y fizen of that unmitigated old quack." 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 YET ANOTHER STARTLING TEST — A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE OF THE SUICIDE. 
 
 The gratuitous and utterly unsupported assertion has sometimes 
 been made by the friends of State-controlled education that the reason 
 why statistics show the largest list of criminals in those localities 
 where the most money has been lavished upon the public schools is 
 because those are the only localities where the criminals are all, or 
 nearly all, caught and convicted ; while in those places where there 
 is little or no public-school training the criminals cannot be caught. 
 
 Now it will scarcely be denied that dead criminals can be caught 
 even in those States where they have no public schools. 
 
 Then how stands the record with reference to this particular class 
 of criminals .? 
 
 As we have already seen, it was in the early period of their first 
 settlement in America that the colonists of Massachusetts, Maine, 
 Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island tried the 
 experiment of taking from the fathers and mothers the educational 
 control of their own children and entrusting it to the general public, 
 while six other colonies, to wit, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, 
 Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina left this educational 
 control of children in the hands of parents, their natural guardians. 
 With slight exceptions, in a few of the last-named communities, 
 (towards the close of the period,) this experiment continued down 
 to i860. 
 
 The comparative number of suicides in these two localities, as 
 shown by the United States Census Reports for that year, was as 
 follows. (See tables ante.) 
 
 WHERE THE STATE COKTROLLED 
 EDUCATION — SUICIDES. 
 
 Maine 1 to every 19,738 
 
 New Hampshire 1 to every 10,518 
 
 Vermont 1 to every 15,749 
 
 Massachusetts 1 to every 11,191 
 
 Connecticut 1 to every 16,433 
 
 Rhode Island 1 to every 12,472 
 
 Aggregate 1 to every 13,285 
 
 WHERE THE PARENTS CONTROLLED 
 EDUCATION — SUICIDES. 
 
 Maryland 1 to every 49,074 
 
 Virginia 1 to every 53,210 
 
 Delaware 1 to every 56,108 
 
 Georgia. 1 to every 48,058 
 
 North Carolina 1 to every 66,074 
 
 South Carolina 1 to every 87,963 
 
 Aggregate 1 to every 56,584 
 
^O " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 An analysis of these figures will show that in every solitary in- 
 stance where the political State had controlled the education and 
 training of children, the ratio of suicides ranged from 250 per cent, 
 to 800 per cent, higher than where the education and training had 
 been left to parental control, while the aggregate ratio shows over 
 four times as many suicides under State education as under parental • 
 education. This enormous excess in the number of suicides amongst 
 people educated under State control over that found amongst those 
 educated under parental control must have a catcse., and a cause 
 adequate to the effect. Now, 
 
 WHAT IS THE CAUSE } 
 
 In explanation of the facts shown by the foregoing statistics, we 
 maintain that there are chiefly two causes, both of which are inti- 
 mately connected, the one, in fact, springing from the other. The 
 first cause which we propose to consider is the loss of parental au- 
 thority and home influence over children, through and by means of 
 a State-controlled system of education. The second cause, and one 
 which, as just stated, is closely allied to the first, is a neglect of moral 
 and religious education and training. 
 
 It requires little ai-gument to prove either to the readers of history, 
 or to the close observer of current events, or to any affectionate son 
 or daughter, who has grown to manhood or womanhood under the 
 guardianship of an intelligent, affectionate, and conscientious father 
 and mother, that parental inffuence is one of the Almighty's chief 
 agencies for promoting the purity, preservation, and happiness of the 
 human race. All history, all philosophy, and all poetry point to the 
 home as the birthplace and nursery of virtue, morality, patriotism, 
 and religion. Home is the ever-living fountain of present joys, 
 sweet memories, and cherished hopes. Where is the little lad or 
 lass whose heart does not gladden, whose eye does not brighten, and 
 whose pace does not quicken while returning from field or forest or 
 school, when nearing the loved spot which he or she calls by the 
 sacred name of home .? What colors can paint, or what words de- 
 scribe, the sweet pleasures of a truly happy home.? 
 
 What artist has ever yet delineated the matchless charms of the 
 true conjugal and maternal love that beams in the eye, dimples the 
 cheek, or quivers in the voice of the true wife and mother, radiating, 
 illuminating, and cheering the home and sending sunshine and 
 warmth, and life and hope and happiness into the hearts and 
 souls of husband and sons and daughters and friends ? Or where 
 on earth can there be found a truer picture of the primeval paradise 
 
Yet Another Startlmg Test. 31 
 
 than in an intelligent, virtuous, orderly, affectionate, united, and 
 happy family of father, mother, and children ? He who enjoys such 
 a home, or the cheering hope of such a home, or even the bright 
 and soothing memory of such a home, w^ill find therein an ever- 
 present- talisman, an almost infallible shield against the horrible 
 crime of self-destruction. Who, in his sane mind and sober senses, 
 can ever seriously plot against his own life, however burdensome 
 that life may have become, when remembering that in doing so he is 
 plotting against the happiness of brothers and sisters to whom he is 
 bound by the endearing ties of blood and ten thousand sweet memo- 
 ries ; against an aged fother and mother whom he loves, and by 
 whom he is beloved with an ardor that knows no cooling ; against 
 the devoted and faithful wife of his bosom, and against his own help- 
 less, innocent, and confiding babes? 
 
 These considerations are, however, in one sense, only collateral 
 barriers against the crime of self-murder, and, unless supported by 
 higher and stronger motives, are liable to be battered down by the 
 surging billows of human passion, or to be crushed by the almost 
 unbearable weight of worldly woes. 
 
 But a deeper and stronger barrier against this black and horrid 
 crime is found in an educated conscience. 
 
 In marshaling our proofs in support of this proposition, we shall 
 assert : 
 
 F irst., That man is a rational creature, and, being rational, what- 
 ever he does while possessed of his reason he does for a motive. 
 The motive may be a good one or it may be a bad one, but it is, 
 nevertheless, a motive. 
 
 Secondly^ Above all other considerations personal to himself, man 
 naturally hates misery and loves happiness. Hence, whatever he 
 does or refuses to do while in the exercise of his reason, is done, or 
 refused to be done, for the purpose of avoiding misery or of finding 
 happiness. 
 
 Thirdly. Men difier widely as to their choice of roads in the 
 pursuit of happiness, as well as in their eflbrts to avoid misery ; 
 and. 
 
 Fourthly. There are chiefly three roads by which men travel in 
 their pursuit of happiness or in their flight from misery, namely : (i) 
 The road which leads to the gratification of the animal appetites, 
 and which avoids whatever tends to their restraint ; (3) the road 
 which leads to human applause and worldly honors, while keeping 
 at a distance from whatever wounds pride or vanity ; (3) the road 
 which leads to truth and justice ; to the triumph of God Almighty's. 
 
32 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 law ; to honors imperishable ; and to happiness unmixed with pain 
 and as enduring as eternity itself. Unlike the other roads, this 
 turns neither to the right nor to the left ; neither to shun that which 
 pains the body or mortifies vanity or pride. Its course is ever up- 
 ward and onward. The truly faithful traveller upon this road, 
 instead of repining at the endurance of bodily pain, the loss of for- 
 tune, the betrayal of friends or the malice of enemies, seizes upon 
 those passing woes as so many precious coins with which to pur- 
 chase imperishable joys. 
 
 Now, it requires but a moment's reflection to enable us to see 
 that a man's choice, as between these three roads, must, in the na- 
 ture of things, depend very much on his early training and educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Man has three classes of faculties, namely : the faculties of the 
 body, the faculties of the mind, and the faculties of the conscience ; 
 and, undoubtedly, all these three classes of faculties were designed 
 by the Creator to be exercised, and to be exercised in harmony. 
 But, in order to be exercised in harmony, it is necessary, in the na- 
 ture of things, either that the demands of these three faculties be 
 always in harmony, or else, in cases of conflict, one class of desires 
 must yield obedience to another class. But it is easy to see that 
 these three classes of desires are not always in harmony, for it often 
 happens that one class of desires — as, for example, in the case of an 
 inordinate desire for strong drink or impure pleasures — are directly 
 at war both with the desires of the mind and the conscience, and it 
 can scarcely require argument to prove that, in such cases of con- 
 flict, the desires of the body ought to yield obedience to the opposing 
 desires of mind and conscience. But then, again, the mind may, 
 and often does, in defiance of conscience, at the peril of bodily health 
 and life, and even at the hazard of disaster to itself, desire to circum- 
 vent, overreach, defraud, and ruin others, and would, in its vaulting 
 ambition, go so far as to usurp the throne of God Himself. Hence, 
 in all cases of conflict between the unjust desires of mind and the 
 dictates of conscience, the conscience should rule supreme. And, 
 unless conscience do rule supreme, there is no adequate barrier to 
 check the wrongs which the body and mind may perpetrate against 
 themselves, against each other, against conscience, or against God 
 and society. Hence, the true welfare, tlie safety and the happiness 
 of every man's body, mind and conscience, as well as the safety of 
 society, demand that every man's conscience should reign supreme 
 over both his bodily appetites and his mental desires, aims, and 
 ambitions. But all these three classes of man's faculties need edu- 
 
Yet Another Startling Test. 33 
 
 cation, training, and exercise. The physical man needs education, 
 training, and exercise, not only to give him bodily strength and 
 skill, but to teach and accustom him to subject his animal appetites to 
 the dictates of mind and conscience. The mind needs to be taught 
 and trained and exercised, not only to strengthen and store it with 
 knowledge necessary for the proper direction and government of the 
 body, and the enlightenment of itself and of conscience by the lamp 
 of reason, but to accustom it to habits of prompt and willing obe- 
 dience to conscience. And the conscience needs to be educated, 
 trained, and exercised, in order that it may learn and accustom itself 
 to walk always in the path whither duty calls and to which right 
 reason jDoints, and never to allow either itself or its mind or its bodv 
 to stray from that path. But, while it is true that the entire man, 
 including body, mind, and conscience, requires education, training, 
 and exercise, it is no less true that the conscience, the governing part 
 of man, most of all requires this education, training, and exercise. 
 If an individual in the jDrivate walks of life makes a mistake for 
 the want of proper education or training, the evil consequences of 
 such a mistake are usually unfelt by the general public, but if the 
 governor of a State, or the President of the United States, for a 
 similar reason, make a mistake in his official capacity, then the 
 whole country must suffer the consequences. So, likewise, if, for 
 the want of proper bodily training, a boy stumps his toe or cuts 
 his finger, while his body must endure a temporary pain, yet his 
 mind is not impaired nor his conscience tarnished. So, if for want 
 of mental education, the boy should insist that the world is Hat 
 instead of round, or should prove himself so deficient in a knowl- 
 edge of figures as to lose his situation, he might still escape the 
 pangs of a guilty conscience and preserve a spotless reputation for 
 integrit3^ But if, for the want of a conscience, educated, trained, 
 exercised, and strengthened in habits of honesty, he should pocket 
 his employer's money, in obedience to the demands of his animal 
 appetite or to satisfy the claims of vanity, the whole man would 
 sufler. For example : the conscience would suffer not only from re- 
 morse, but it would suffer from being blunted and obscured, and 
 rendered less fit to perform its functions ; the mind would suffer 
 from anxiety and the fear of discovery, or from the mortification 
 of detection ; and the body would suffer from the labor required 
 to cover the tracks of guilt, or from being forced to endure the 
 punishment which either the natural or the human law, or both, 
 would visit upon it. Can it, then, be denied that the education, 
 training, and constant exercise of the conscience is of the very 
 
34 '"''Poison Drops'''' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 first and greatest importance in giving direction and formation 
 to the human character? Of course we are now addressing our- 
 selves to those who recognize tlie existence of the human con- 
 science as the great director and regulator of human motives and 
 human actions. Ought, then, the consciences of children to be 
 developed, instructed, and exercised as a part of their education? 
 And ought this instruction and education to go hand in hand with 
 the education and training of the mind and body during the hours 
 of school ? 
 
 It is maintained by multitudes of parents and many clergymen, 
 while admitting that it is necessaiy that the consciences of children 
 should be educated, that this education ought to be confined to the 
 home circle and the church, and that the daily school should be 
 exclusively reserved for the education of the mind and the body. 
 But have we not seen that the conscience must be the governor 
 and supreme ruler of the entire man ; that the conscience must be 
 taught the habit of governing, and that both the mind and body 
 must be teiught habits of pi'ompt and willing obedience ? But if, 
 throughout the live-long day, the conscience is to remain practically 
 dormant, while the mind and body are both in the process of active 
 development, what will be the necessary result ? 
 
 Is it not a universally admitted fact that every human organ, 
 whether it be an organ of the body, the mind, or the conscience, is 
 strengthened by exercise and weakened by disuse? Then, how is 
 it possible that the conscience can maintain its supremacy over the 
 mind and body if it is to be left sleeping or chained down in mute 
 and motionless bondage, while the body and mind are daily grow- 
 ing in strength, activity, and habits of insubordination? If, from 
 the cradle to the grave, there is any one period of life more than 
 any other when the conscience not only needs to be trained, but to 
 be called into active service, it is during the time spent at school. 
 It is then that pride and vanity, and anger and lust, and all the 
 other passions that war against conscience are in their most active 
 state of development ; and if, instead of training these growing pas- 
 sions in habits of subjection to conscience, and instead of training 
 the conscience to the habit of wielding its authority over these pas- 
 sions, the passions, on the contrary, be trained to lord it over the con- 
 science, what must be the natural result ? When a child has reached 
 manhood, with passions fully developed and trained to command, 
 and a conscience dwarfed and enfeebled by disuse, and trained to 
 habits of base and cowardly servitude, what power, short of a miracle, 
 can sufficiently restore the lost energy of such a conscience or give it 
 
Tet Aitother Startliitg Test. 35 
 
 the mastery over the entire man ? But when the conscience has lost 
 her sceptre and become the slave of the mere animal or intellectual 
 man, then such a man lives only for the present life, and looks not 
 beyond the portals of the grave, either in his search for happiness or 
 in his flight from pain. Such a man seeks happiness, chiefly, either 
 in the gratification of his animal appetites, or in the acquisition of 
 wealth, or in the paths of wordly ambition, marching to the music 
 of human applause and grasping at the bubble of fame. So long as 
 an average success continues to crown the efforts of one of these 
 seekers after mei'e worldly happiness, the chances are that he will 
 consent to live ; but let disaster overtake him, and what then } If a 
 man of wealth, let fires, or floods, or a touch of hard times sweejD away 
 his accumulated millions ; if an over-ambitious man, let the last lin- 
 gering hope of political preferment be blasted ; or if he be a man en- 
 chained in the bondage of his unholy lusts, let even the crime-steeped 
 partner of his debaucheries frown cruelly upon him, and what as- 
 surance have we that he will not cut short the miserable existence 
 that has ceased to yield pleasure and promises nothing but disap- 
 pointment and pain.'' 
 
 The man who suffers from a raging tooth-ache is not censured for 
 swallowing- a small dose of laudanum in the hope of putting him- 
 self to sleep until the period of pain shall have passed ; and if death 
 were an eternal sleep and life promised nothing but pain, who could 
 be censured if, to escape a life of suffering or shame, he should so 
 enlarge his dose of laudanum as to render his sleep perpetual } 
 
 Here, then, in our humble opinion, is the true source of that 
 alarming growth of suicides so prevalent in the United States. It 
 is found in an educational system which has broken down parental 
 authorit3s sundered the sacred bonds of affection that bound together 
 brothers and sisters, parents and children, and which has weakened 
 and almost obliterated the human conscience. 
 
 It requires but a moment's reflection to show that the same causes 
 which lead to the crime of suicide lead to every other crime known 
 to the laws of God or man. Both reason and daily experience prove 
 that the man or woman who has no sweet and endearing memories 
 of childhood's home ; who cherishes no love for father or mother or 
 brother or sister ; and, worse still, the man or woman who believes 
 in no God, no devil, no heaven, no hell, can never be trusted. Such 
 a man may reach the very pinnacle of wealth and fame and political 
 power ; he may be flattered and praised and applauded by the press 
 and the people as the very pink of patriotism and honesty ; but let 
 the day of trial of come ; let the voice of duty call to the right, while 
 
36 
 
 " Poison Drops'' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 his ruling passion for guilty pleasure, forbidden wealth, or crime- 
 bought fame beckons to the left ; and duty may call, and call, and 
 call ; but, alas ! it will call in vain. 
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 MR. WINES, SPECIAL CENSUS AGENT, ON THE FEARFUL INCREASE OF OUR 
 INSANE, IDIOTIC, BLIND, AND DEAF-MUTES. 
 
 Mr. Fred. H. Wines, Special Census Agent, in his preface to 
 the statistics of crime, pauperism, insanity, etc., for 1880, presents 
 the following synopsis of the number of the insane, idiots, blind, and 
 deaf-mutes found in the United States during the years 1880, 1870, 
 i860, and 1850, respectively, to wit: 
 
 Class. 
 
 1880. 
 
 1870. 
 
 i860. 
 
 1850. 
 
 Insane 
 
 91,997 
 76, 895 
 48,928 
 33,878 
 
 37,432 
 24, 527 
 20, 320 
 16, 205 
 
 24,042 
 18,930 
 12,658 
 12,821 
 
 15,610 
 
 15,787 
 
 9,794 
 
 9,803 
 
 Idiots 
 
 Blind 
 
 Deaf-mutes 
 
 Totals 
 
 251,698 
 
 98, 484 
 
 68,451 
 
 50, 994 
 
 
 As remarked by the Agent, the total population for each of these 
 years was as follows, to wit : 
 
 " In 1850 it was 23,191,876 ; in i860, 31,443,331 ; in 1870, 38,558,- 
 371 ; and in 1880 it was 50,155,783. In other words, while the popu- 
 lation has only a little more than doubled in thirty years, the number 
 of defective persons returned is nearly five times as great as it was 
 thirty years ago. 
 
 '' During the past decade (or since 1870) the increase in population 
 has been thirty per cent.; but the apparent increase in the defective 
 classes has been a little more than one hundred and fifty-five per cent." 
 
 As shown elsewhere, it is also painfully apparent that our crimi- 
 nals have increased almost in the exact ratio with the increase of our 
 insane, idiotic, and other defective classes. 
 
 In commenting on the astounding growth of crime, insanity, pau- 
 perism, etc., in the United States during the last thirty years, the 
 Special Agent says : 
 
Mr. Wines^ Special Census Agent. 3*^ 
 
 " The interest and importance of the inquiry into the number and 
 condition of the defective classes, and of the criminal and pauper 
 population, arises from the fact that these ai'e burdens to be borne — 
 drains upon the vitality of the community. When we consider the 
 growth of our population and our material resources, we are in 
 danger of forgetting that there is another side to the picture. It 
 is startling to know that of 50,000,000 of inhabitants over 400,- 
 000 are either insane, idiots, deaf-mutes, or blind, or inmates of 
 prisons, reformatories, or pooi^-houses. If to these we add the out- 
 door poor and the inmates of private charitable institutions, the num- 
 ber will swell to nearly or quite half a million, or one per cent, of the 
 total population." 
 
 We italicize and fully indorse the closing words of the Agent, in 
 which he says : 
 
 " We cafinot begin too soon or prosecute too vigorously the in- 
 quiry into the causes of the prevalence of these evils., which are 
 like a canker at the heart of all our prosperity. Nothing ca7i be 
 more important than for us to ascertain., at the earliest possible 
 moment^ the rate at which they are increasing and the means of 
 arresting their groxvth. 
 
 " The subject is obscure," says the Agent, " but in the study of 
 it ive may almost be said to have our finger upon the pulse of the 
 nation." 
 
 While, as suggested, we fully indorse the said italicized words, 
 we are not entirely disposed to indorse the declaration that the sub- 
 ject is an " obscure" one, especially to those who will carefully ex- 
 amine the statistics embodied in his report, and study them by the 
 light of a few common-sense principles. 
 
 If it is true that a child brought tip in the way he should go will 
 not depart fro?n it when he is old., who will venture to deny that 
 there has been something radically wrong in the bringing up of a 
 generation which so readily and so rapidly betakes itself to the paths 
 of crime, or which, either ignorantly or otherwise, brings upon itself 
 the constantly increasing maladies of idiocy, insanity, and kindred 
 evils } 
 
 In 1880 our public-school property was valued at $211,411,540. 
 Our receipts during that one year for public-school purposes reachdd 
 the enormous sum of $96,857,534. There were gathered into our 
 public schools 9,946,160 children, and out of our public-school treas- 
 ury we were paying $55,745,039, in the way of salaries, to some 
 236,019 public-school teachers, in order to prevent crime and save 
 the expenses of paying peace-officers and building city prisons, 
 county jails, and State penitentiaries. And behold the result ! ! 
 
 Our towns and cities swarm with policemen ; our prisons, work- 
 
38 " Poison Drops'''' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 houses, and reformatories are crowded almost to suffocation with 
 impecunious thieves, I'obbers, and cut-throats, while gilded crime 
 goes unpunished, and moneyed malefactors without number strut 
 our streets with heads erect, spit upon the law, laugh justice to 
 scorn, and fatten upon their ill-gotten millions, while multitudes 
 of their wronged and ruined victims are lodged in almshouses and 
 lunatic asylums, or seek refuge from so sad a fate in the still more 
 horrid doom of self-destruction. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 POLITICAL POISON IN THE PUBLIC-SCHOOL BOOKS — TEN MILLIONS OF AMER- 
 ICAN CHILDREN FORCED TO DRINK DAILY THE DEADLY DOCTRINE OF 
 CENTRALIZATION AND DESPOTISM ! ! ! 
 
 From a Si^eech by the Author, delivered at San Diego, Gal., Oct. 30, 1884. 
 
 In our California public schools, as in those of most of the other 
 States, Webster's Dictionary is the legally established authority for 
 the definition of words. This would all be well enough if the 
 Webster of to-day were the Webster of twenty-five years ago. But 
 the illustrious and patriotic Noah Webster would blush in his grave 
 at the thought of being made to father the bastard brood of political 
 heresies which are now being taught in our public schools, through 
 the medium of a false, forged, and mutilated dictionary bearing his 
 honored name. 
 
 To show how the overthrow of constitutional liberty and the 
 inestimable right of democratic self-government are being brought 
 about by changing the meaning of words, a few examples will 
 suffice. 
 
 Take for example the word "Constitution." "Webster's Una- 
 bridged Dictionary," as published in 1859, "^ gi'^i^g the legal defi- 
 nition of the word " Constitution," says : 
 
 " In free States the Constitution is paramount to the statutes 
 or laws enacted by the Legislature., Iimiti7tg and controlling its 
 power ; aizd in the United States the Legislature is created and 
 its powers designated by the Cojtstitiition." 
 
 But every word of the above definition is expunged from the 
 Webster now used and required by law to be used in our public 
 schools, and in its place we find the following definition of the woi"d 
 " Constitution," to wit: 
 
Political Poison in the Public-School Books. 39 
 
 " The principal or ficndajucntal laws which govern a State or 
 other organized body of men., and are embodied in written docu- 
 ments or implied in the institutions or usages of the country or 
 society J" 
 
 Thus, under public-school tuition, the rising generation no longer 
 look upon the written Constitution as the source and limit of legis- 
 lative power; but on the contrary the mere "■ usages of society" 
 are raised to the dignity of constitutional law. 
 
 What a very convenient way of clothing official villainy in the 
 garb of constitutional authority ! After our corrupt and perjured 
 officials have violated, in a hundred ways, the Constitution they 
 had solemnly sworn to support in order to carry out their nefixrious 
 schemes of fraud and plunder, how ^vould it have been possible 
 for them to have contrived a more ingenious device to justify in the 
 eyes of the rising generation their official misdeeds, than by thus 
 adopting, legalizing, and forcing into the public school, through 
 their w^illing tools, a definition of the word " Constitution" suffi- 
 ciently elastic to cover every species of their accustomed rascalities ? 
 
 Again ! The old Noah Webster of twenty-five years ago, in giving 
 to the word ''Union" its political signification, defines it as 
 " States united. Thus the United States of America are 
 
 SOMETIMES called THE UnION." 
 
 But in the false and mutilated Webster which the public-school 
 system now forces our children to study this definition is entirely 
 suppressed, and in its place we have the word " Union" defined 
 as meaning — 
 
 "A consolidated body, as the United States of America, 
 ARE OFTEN CALLED THE ' Union.' " Thus, while the real statesmen 
 of both political parties are warning the people against the danger 
 of a consolidated government, the children, who are soon to take the 
 places of these statesmen, through our public-school machinery are 
 indoctrinated with the idea that we already have a consolidated 
 republic. In the case of McCollough vs. The State of Maryland, 
 Chief-Justice Marshall, of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 said: "No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of 
 breaking down the lines which separate the States and of compound- 
 ing the American people into a solid mass." 
 
 But what no political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of 
 in Judge Marshall's time is now taught as an accomplished fact. 
 
 Again, " Webster's Dictionary" twenty-five years ago defined the 
 word " Federal " as — 
 
 " Consisting in a compact between parties, particularly 
 
AO '' Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 AND CHIEFLY BETWEEN StATES AND NATIONS FORMED ON ALLI- 
 ANCE BY CONTRACT OR MUTUAL AGREEMENT, AS A FEDERAL GOV- 
 ERNMENT, SUCH AS THAT OF THE UnITED StATES." But the 
 
 present public-school Webster, after expunging every syllable of 
 this definition, defines " Federal " as being " specifically composed 
 of States, and which retain only a subordinate and limited sover- 
 eignty, as the Union of the United States and the Sonderbund of 
 Switzerland." 
 
 A moment's reflection will show that under such a definition of 
 the word "Federal," the several States composing the American 
 Union would have no rights and no sovereignty which the General 
 Government would be bound to respect. 
 
 Now it is undoubtedly true that in all those matters in which, 
 under the Constitution, the Federal Government has been clothed 
 with sovereign authority, the authority of the States is subordinate 
 to the Federal Government. But in all things else the sovereignty 
 of the States is as supreme and as independent of the Federal sov- 
 ereignty as if the Federal sovereignty had never existed. 
 
 In the celebrated Dred Scott case the United States Supreme 
 Court said : 
 
 " The principles upon which our Governments rest, and upon 
 which alone they continue to exist, is the union of States, sovereign 
 and independent within their own limits, in their internal and 
 domestic concerns." 
 
 But if, as now taught in the public schools of California and else- 
 where, the States have no sovereignty except such as is subordinate 
 to the sovereignty of the United States, what becomes of our sover- 
 eign right to local self-government.'' Suppose that the Federal 
 Government should to-morrow, in the exercise of its supposed supe- 
 rior sovereignty, undertake to nullify our State Constitution and 
 laws, abrogate our State Government, remove from office our 
 Governor, abolish our State Courts and our legislature, and force 
 us to accept for our local government just such laws as the Federal 
 Congress might choose to give us, such State, county, and municipal 
 officers as the President might send to rule over us, what remedy 
 would we have .? Shall I be told that such action on the part of the 
 Federal Government, clashing, as it would, with the principles of 
 State sovei'eignty, would not be tolerated.? 
 
 But I would answer, if a State possesses no sovereignty except 
 such as is subordinate to the sovereignty of the Federal Govern- 
 ment, would not our subordinate sovereignty be forced to yield to 
 the superior sovereignty to which it is subordinate } Is it not a law 
 
Poliiical Poison in the Public- School Books. 41 
 
 of nature that whenever two unequal forces meet, the inferior must 
 yield to the superior? 
 
 My countrymen, disguise the fact as we may, there is in this 
 country to-day, and in both the political parties, an element which 
 is ripe for a centralized despotism. There are men and corporations 
 of vast wealth, whose ii"on grasp spans this whole continent, and 
 who find it more difficult and more expensive to corrupt thirty odd 
 State Legislatures than one Federal Congress. It was said of Nero 
 of old that he wished the Roman people had but one head, so that 
 he might cut it off at a single blow. And so it is with those 
 moneyed kings w^ho would rule this country through bribery, fraud, 
 and intimidation. 
 
 It is easy to see how, with all the powers of government centered 
 at Washington in one Federal head, they could at a single stroke put 
 an end to American liberty. 
 
 But they well understand that before striking this blow the minds 
 of the people must be prepared to receive it. And what surer or safer 
 preparation could possibly be made than is now being made, by in- 
 doctrinating the minds of the rising generation with the idea that ours 
 is already a consolidated government ; that the States of the Union 
 have no sovereignty which is not subordinate to the will and pleasure 
 of the Federal head, and that our Constitution is the mere creature of 
 custom, and may therefore be legally altered or abolished by custom } 
 
 Such are a few of the pernicious and poisonous doctrines which 
 ten millions of American children are to-day drinking in with the 
 veiy definitions of the words they are compelled to study. And yet 
 the man who dares to utter a word of warning of the approaching 
 danger is stigmatized as an enemy to education and unfit to be men- 
 tioned as a candidate for the humblest office. 
 
 Be it so. Viewing this great question as I do, not for all the offices 
 in the gift of the American people would I shrink from an open 
 and candid avowal of my sentiments. If I have learned anything 
 from the reading of history, it is that the man who, in violation of great 
 principles, toils for temporary fome, purchases for himself either total 
 oblivion or eternal infamy, while he who temporarily goes down 
 battling for right principles always deserves, and generally secures, 
 the gratitude of succeeding ages, and will caiTy with him the sustain- 
 ing solace of a clean conscience, more precious than all the offices 
 and honors in the gift of man. 
 
 History tells us that Aristides was voted into banishment because 
 he was just. Yet who would not a thousand times rather to-day be 
 Aristides than be numbered amongst the proudest of his persecutors } 
 
42 " Poiso7t Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 Socrates, too, in violation of every principle of justice, was con- 
 demned to a dungeon and to death. Yet what name is more honored 
 in history than his? And which of his unjust judges would not 
 gladly, hide himself in the utter darkness of oblivion from the with- 
 ering scorn and contempt of all mankind ? 
 
 From the noble example of Aristides and of Socrates let American 
 statesmen learn wisdom, and from the undying infamy of their cow- 
 ardly time-serving persecutors let political demagogues of to-day take 
 warning. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 MISTAKES OF CATHOLICS IN DEALING WITH THE SCHOOL QUESTION. 
 
 The New York Catholic Review of November 26th, 1881, pub- 
 lished an able article on the educational question, taken from The 
 Boston yozimal of Education., and in commenting on the same, 
 our Catholic contemporary among other things said : 
 
 '•'•Let it always be borne in mind that we are in favor of free 
 . schools., provided they be fair''' 
 
 This, of coui'se, is an entii^ely safe proposition as stated, because 
 everybody is supposed to be in favor of whatever is fair., as he 
 understands the meaning of the word fair. But we are left in 
 doubt as to what kind of free, schools our esteemed contemporary 
 would consider fair. 
 
 Suppose, for example, that all our public schools were such that 
 every child in the land could be educated therein, without any 
 danger either to its health, its life, its morals, or its religion. In 
 other words, suppose that the public-school system were otherwise 
 perfect, would it be fair to make them free for all., and would the 
 editor of the Review be in favor of making them free for the chil- 
 dren of the rich as well as those of the poor.? If he would, then 
 we should like to have him answer one or two other questions, 
 namely : Does not every parent, by vii'tue of assuming the duties 
 of the parental office, become bound by the natural law to feed and 
 clothe and educate his children.? In other words, is not the educa- 
 tion of one's own children a just debt which, if able, he is morally 
 bound to pay .? And if a proper education is a debt which every 
 parent, according to his ability, owes to his own children, upon 
 
Mistakes of Catholics in Dealing with the School ^?iest/on. 43 
 
 what principle of fairness or justice can the State take one man's 
 money with which to pay the debt of another ? 
 
 Again, if feeding, clothing, and educating one's own children 
 are all parental obligations with exactly the same origin, standing 
 upon precisely the same moral footing, and having identically the 
 same binding force, then has not the vState the ver}^ same right 
 to feed and clothe that it has to educate, at public expense, the 
 children of parents who are abundantly able to discharge these 
 obligations ? And if it is just and fair to raise by general taxation 
 a common fund for the feeding, clothing, and educating of all the 
 children in the country, why is it not equally just and fair to extend 
 the same principle still further, by compelling all to contribute to 
 a common fund for the purpose of feeding and clothing everybody 
 else, as well as everybody's children? 
 
 Again, is it fair that the poor old man and his decrepit wife, 
 whom God has never blessed with children, but who have to labor 
 hard sixteen hours a day, the former with his solitary horse and 
 cart, and the latter over her wash-tub, in order to keep soul and 
 body together, should be taxed to help educate the children of the 
 millionaire, w^ho lives in all the splendor of a prince? In other 
 words, would it have been fair to levy upon the rags of Lazarus a 
 tax to pay for educating the children of Dives? 
 
 We do not now propose to discuss these questions, but shall await 
 the answers thereto by the learned editor of the Catholic Revietv^ 
 and we hope that when we understand each other we shall both be 
 on the same side. 
 
 In commenting on the article quoted from the Boston Journal of 
 Educatio7i^ the editor of the Catholic Reviexv^ while referring to 
 our pi'esent public-school system, remarks : "Instead of being a 
 bulwark, it is really a very great danger, as people, now that Cath- 
 olics have left off makins^ so much noise about the matter^ begin 
 to see f 07' themselves.'''' 
 
 The intimation which seems to be conveyed by this remark is that 
 agitation of the school question by Catholics necessarily tends to pre- 
 vent non-Catholics from seeing or acknowledging the evils of the 
 system. That there are some people so blinded by their antipathy 
 to Roman Catholicism that they would not accept any truth upon 
 Catholic authority we do not doubt, but that the great body of non- 
 Catholic Americans are the victims of so blind a bigotry we do not 
 believe, and our convictions are based upon some years of contact 
 with people of all shades of religious and non-religious belief, from 
 the strict followers of Knox and Calvin to the disciples of Thomas 
 
44 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 Paine. That there is a very general disposition amongst non-Cath- 
 olics to distrust the motives of Catholics vv^hen agitating this school 
 question is undoubtedly true, but for this distrust w^e hold that 
 Catholics are themselves very largely responsible. The great evils of 
 the public-school system are such as affect not Catholics alone, but 
 which strike at the authority of every parent, and imperil the v^el- 
 fare, the honor, and the happiness of every family, and consequently 
 any movement against this common foe should from the start have 
 been in the name and on the behalf of the whole people, and not for 
 the benefit of only a small fraction of the people. 
 
 When the municipal authorities of New York City, more than forty 
 years ago, were appealed to for relief against the unjust exactions and 
 cruel oppressions of this monstrous system, that appeal, as it seems 
 to us, ought to have been in the name of the people of that city, and 
 for the benefit of the whole people ; but instead of that, the petition 
 prepared by, or under the aspices of, the illustrious Archbishop 
 Huo-hes, which was expected to result in securing their educational 
 rights to a small portion of the inhabitants of that great metropolis, 
 was headed thus : 
 
 " To the Honorable the Board of Aldermen 
 
 of the City of New York : 
 " The Petition of the Catholics of New York Respect- 
 fully Represents," &c. 
 
 The petition then goes on to enumerate the hardships and injustices 
 which Catholics were suffering from this system, seemingly taking 
 it for granted that it was good enough for the rest of mankind. 
 
 To this it may be answered that Catholics had some grievances 
 to complain of under the system which non-Catholics had not. This 
 may be very true, but then it is equally true that underlying the whole 
 system was a fundamental wrong which was sapping the foundation 
 of family government, and poisoning the very sources of all domes- 
 tic happiness, and threatening the downfall and ruin of all civil gov- 
 ernment and of social order itself. Under these circumstances it was 
 seemingly as illy^advised a movement for Catholics to make an isolated 
 attack upon the system, upon the sole ground of its antagonism 
 to their faith, as it would have been in revolutionary times for the 
 Catholics of old Maryland to have declared war against Great Britain 
 upon the sole ground that she was a Protestant power and imposed 
 unjust burdens upon the Catholics of that colony. Had the Catholics 
 of those days raised such an issue as that, and insisted upon their 
 non-Catholic neighbors aiding them in fighting their battles upon 
 
Mistakes of Catholics in Dealing with the School Question. 45 
 
 such purely Roman Catholic grounds, instead of planting themselves 
 upon the broad principles of human liberty, which were admittedly 
 as dear to the Virginia Episcopalians and New England Puritans as 
 to themselves, how many recruits outside of their own boi'ders would 
 they have been able to raise for such a war? Here then, we believe, 
 was the first fatal mistake that the Catholics of this country fell into 
 in fighting the school question, namely, the making of it a Roman 
 Catholic question instead of a parental one. And from that day to 
 this a similar blunder has been periodically perpetrated — only on a 
 smaller scale — in various pai"ts of the country, invariably resulting 
 in widening the breach between Catholics and non-Catholics on this 
 educational question. Another serious blunder — to call it by no 
 harsher name — which many of our Catholics appear to us to have 
 made, is the keeping up of a terrible cry about the Godless public 
 schools, and the injustice of forcing Catholics to pay for their sup- 
 port, whenever they are denied a share in the filthy lucre which pays 
 the price of running the institution ; and then subsiding into the 
 utmost docility, and becoming perfectly reconciled to this demon of 
 iniquity the moment they are allowed to pocket the price of the inno- 
 cent souls which it sends to destruction. 
 
 It is evident that one great reason vv^hy this class of Catholics — if 
 they can be called such — have made so little impression upon the 
 non-Catholic mind by the " noise" they have made about the public- 
 school system was because their course of conduct has not harmo- 
 nized with their words. 
 
 Still another reason is, that there has not been, and is not now, 
 any proper harmony between Catholics themselves. We find priest 
 disagreeing with priest, and layman disagreeing with layman on 
 this vital question. All this appeai^s to us to arise from the fact of 
 ignoring the great and fundamental principles of the natural law 
 which makes it the right and the duty of fathers and mothers, of all 
 creeds and of no creed, to direct and control the education of their 
 own children according to the dictates of their own consciences. 
 This is a pi'inciple which is dear not only to the Catholic, but to the 
 Protestant, the Jew, and the infidel. It is upon this platform that 
 many of our best and ablest California minds, of all classes of re- 
 ligionists and non-religionists, are beginning to take their stand. 
 And we do but simple justice when we say that, as a general rule, 
 we have found Protestants and other non-Catholics as ready, and 
 oftentimes far more ready, to take their stand with us upon this plat- 
 form than were many of our co-religionis^s. If we Catholics would 
 make sure of non-Catholic assistance in our efforts to reform our 
 
46 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 public-school system, we must first make sure that we, ourselves, 
 are on the right road to such reform, and that our platform of prin- 
 ciples is not only right, but broad enough to afford standing room for 
 all child-loving parents, however widely they may differ from us on 
 religious questions. But if Catholics themselves proclaim false 
 principles, they ought not to find followers. That some very emi- 
 nent Catholics have, from time to time, undertaken to maintain very 
 erroneous theories touching this educational question seems to us 
 undeniable. For example, v^e now have before us a book published 
 in 1876 by the Catholic Publication Society of New York, entitled 
 " Catholics and Education" apparently intended to set forth the 
 position occupied by Catholics on the much vexed school question. 
 The book is made up of articles ^vritten by eminent Catholics, and 
 originally published in the Catholic World. The following lines 
 from the preface explain the object of this publication : 
 
 " The desire to understand the position of Catholics on this sub- 
 ject is vs^ide-spread, and there is a demand among Catholics them- 
 selves for more abundant information. These considerations have 
 induced the editor of the Catholic World to reprint the following 
 series of articles from the pages of that magazine." 
 
 One of these articles, which is thus given to the world as an ex- 
 planation of " the position of Catholics on this subject," at page 93 
 contains the follov^^ing : 
 
 " We are decidedly in favor of free public schools for all the 
 children of the land, and we hold that the property of the State 
 should educate the children of the State." 
 
 Now for one, we most solemnly protest against the soundness of 
 this so-called Catholic position on the school question. We main- 
 tain that it is both Communistic and Pagan. We utterly deny that 
 the State has any children. It is true that, by a fiction of the law in 
 use in England, bastard- children are sometimes called the children 
 of the people. And if the writer of the article from which the 
 above extract is taken intends to say that the property of the State 
 should bear this burden of educating the State's bastard children, 
 we shall urge no particular objection ; but then the question arises. 
 What is the property of the State ? Surely it is not the property of 
 the private citizen. If the State owns all the property which we 
 have heretofore supposed belonged to individual citizens, the reign 
 of Communism has already begun. If, as seems to be claimed, the 
 State owns all the children and all the property too, we can see no 
 good reason why she may not, and ought not, in common fairness. 
 
Roman Pontiff's on Parental Rights of non- Catholics. 47 
 
 to make an equal distribution of her own propert)^ amongst her own 
 children. After all, this is the true theory upon which rests this 
 Communistic system of public schools. 
 
 On page 94, in the course of the same article just quoted, after 
 advocating a general division of the public school money, among 
 such religious denominations as might desire such division, the 
 writer goes on to say : " But we are asked what shall be done with 
 the large body of citizens who are neither Catholic nor Protestant ? 
 Such citizens, we reply, have no religion ; and they who have no 
 religion have no conscience that people who have religion are bound 
 to respect. If they refuse to send their children either to Hebrew 
 schools, or the Catholic schools, or, in fine, to the Protestant schools, 
 let them found schools of their own at their own expense." 
 
 In other words, let us of the various churches — Catholics, Protest- 
 ants, and Jews — combine our forces and inflict upon all who can not 
 honestly and xvill not hvpocritally join some church exactly the 
 same kind of wrong under whicli we ourselves have been groaning 
 for a long series of years. 
 
 If the editor of the Catholic Review refers to noises like these, 
 we fully concur with him in his intimation thai stich " noises" were 
 well calculated to prevent other people from perceiving the evil 
 results of our public schools. But if Catholics will wisely maintain 
 the great principles of human liberty and equal parental rights with- 
 out regard to differences upon questions concerning either politics or 
 religion, there is no danger but that they will find a ready and cor- 
 dial response on the pai't of intelligent and honest people, whether 
 they belong to any church organization or not. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE ROMAN PONTIFFS ON THE PARENTAL RIGHTS OF NON-CATHOLICS THE 
 
 EQUAL RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS, PROTESTANTS, JEWS, AND PAGANS UPHELD. 
 
 The following extract from a sermon of Right Rev. Bishop 
 Cameron, delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of a new con- 
 vent at Sidney, is copied from the Cleveland Catholic Universe of 
 November 6th, 18S4. 
 
 In defining the position of the church on this question of parental 
 rights in educational matters, the learned Bishop says : 
 
^8 " Poison Drops''^ in the Federal Senate. 
 
 " Her principle and practice in this matter were admirably illus- 
 trated in the thirteenth century, when the Popes were in the very 
 zenith of their temporal power and influence, and Innocent III ruled 
 the world from the Chair of Peter. Certain zealots proposed that 
 the infant children of Jews and Mahometans should be forcibly taken 
 away from their pai-ents, baptized and educated as Catholics. How 
 was the proposal met.'* St. Thomas Aquinas, the prince of theolo- 
 gians, repudiated it as a wicked innovation. 
 
 " He urged that such was not the usage of the Catholic Church ; 
 that there had been powerful Catholic sovereigns, the Con- 
 stantines and Theodosii, who had many saintly and enlightened 
 prelates, like Saints Sylvester and Ambrose, to advise them, and 
 that such faithful bishops would not have neglected to recommend 
 the proposed plan, had it been conformable to reason. He further 
 proved that it was repugnant to natural justice, nature having 
 made the child a thing belonging to the father, the author of 
 its being, and that child, therefore, ought to remain under the 
 parents' care and control until it should attain to the vise of 
 reason. Hence, it ^vould be manifest injustice to withdi^aw the 
 child in the meantime from the parents, or to do anything to it 
 against the parents' will ; but when the young person has attained 
 the use of his free will, he is then his own, sui juris., and is to be 
 led to the church, not by violence, but by persuasion, (213, q. 10, 
 a. 12). Such was the unanswerable logic with which ' the Angel 
 of the Schools,' the wonder of all ages and the admiration of his 
 own, utterly discredited the proposed encroachment on parental 
 rights, and upheld their inviolable sacredness. 
 
 ***** * * 
 
 " In the best period of Roman society we are told that ' the State 
 presumed not to pass the threshold of the Roman father ' with any 
 educational code in hand, though it did, at a later and worse period, 
 attempt to enforce the tyi-annous and novel system imported from 
 captive Greece, which gradually changed and disfigured the fair 
 face of Roman life, n^ But hostile as was the Roman Empire before 
 its conversion to Christianity, it did not seek to educate the children 
 of Catholics in Paganism, or to prevent Catholic parents from bring- 
 ing up their children in their own religion. Even when Julian the 
 Apostate closed the imperial schools to Christian teachers, and for- 
 bade Christians to study the Pagan classics and philosophy, he never 
 encouraged the kidnapping of Christian children and the educating 
 of them in the religion of the State. This is a refinement which 
 exclusively belongs to modern secularism , utterly at variance both 
 with Christian tradition and with the sacredness and inviolability 
 of parental authority. Representing the temporal order, the State, 
 whether Pagan or Christian, has the right to look after the material 
 wants and interests of society, not after men's minds, ideas, intelli- 
 gence, motives, and consciences. The Christian State is bound to 
 use its own powers accoi'ding to the Christian law, but the Christian 
 law gives it no additional power whatever. All the power it has 
 is the power belonging to all States, whether Pagan or Mahometan. 
 
Roman Pontiffs on Parental Rights of non- Catholics . 49 
 
 A Pagan prince loses no i-ight by his baptism, neither does he gain 
 any new right by it over his subjects. As ^vell, then, might you 
 hold that Nero, Diocletian, or Julian the Apostate, had a right to 
 educate their Christian subjects in the enormities of heathenism, as 
 to maintain that the civil power has now the right to trample on the 
 inalienable right of parents to educate their own offspring as their 
 conscience may dictate. The State, therefore, can interfere in edu- 
 cation only as a helper of those naturally charged with the education 
 of the young ; consequently its first duty, in a community of mixed 
 religions, is that of strict impartiality with regard to the various 
 churches. To employ its educational machinery to protestantize the 
 Catholic, or to catholicize Protestant children, or to sap the religious 
 faith of either, would be an intolerable usurpation and injustice. 
 Such a course of proceeding would, instead of helping, hinder 
 parents from educating their children according to their conscientious 
 convictions. No ; it can never be too often repeated that the State 
 has no right to educate or to control education. For Christian 
 States, as States, are not different from Pagan States, both having 
 the same end and the same matter for their jurisdiction ; and who 
 will presume to say that the Pagan State ever had the right to con- 
 trol and direct the education of its Christian subjects? Who will 
 presume to say that it had or has the right to mould Christians' 
 minds, to discipline their understandings, to control their wills, to 
 dii'ect the whole man, and to fashion him after its own prejudices 
 into a so-called good citizen.?" 
 
 As a most admirable supplement to Right Rev. Bishop Cameron's 
 sermon on parental rights, it affords us great pleasure to be able to 
 present herewith an extract from a letter just received from Right 
 Rev. E. O. Council, of Marysville, California. The letter was 
 written from Baltimore during the late session of the plenary coun- 
 cil, and bears date Nov. 27, 18S4. The Right Rev. Bishop says : 
 
 " My Dear Mr. Mo7ttgo7nery : Some time ago I promised to 
 furnish you with the exact words of the Pope forbidding the least 
 pressure to be put upon wc/z-Catholic children attending Catholic 
 schools. But 'tis not till now that I was able to find the precise 
 words, viz : 
 
 " ' We forbid non-Catholic pupils attending Catholic schools to 
 be obliged to assist at Mass or other religious exercises. Let them 
 be left to their own discretion.' Instruction of the Sacred Congre- 
 gation of Propaganda Fide, 25th April, 1868, transmitted to all 
 the Catholic bishops of North America." 
 
 These are potent utterances in behalf of liberty, which speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 It is our firm belief, founded both on reason and personal experi- 
 ence, that if all our American Catholics, bishops, priests, and 
 people, instead of clamoring for special school laws intended for 
 
^o " Poison Drops''"' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 their own exclusive benefit, would boldly and persistently proclaim 
 to the world these broad and universal principles of parental liberty 
 as the inalienable heritage of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mahom- 
 etans, and Free-thinkers, they would soon find their voices heard 
 and their ranks — as the friends of . educational reform — swollen by 
 tens of millions of those who are to-day numbered with their bitterest 
 opponents. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SPECIFICATION OF FATAL ERRORS INHERENT IN THE NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL 
 
 SYSTEM. 
 
 Every standard writer on the subject of either law or morals pro- 
 claims with one voice that parents are bound by the natural law to 
 feed, clothe, and educate their own children. Bouvier says : " The 
 ' principal obligations which parents owe their children are their 
 ' maintenance, their protection, and their education." ^ Chancellor 
 Kent says : " The duties of parents to their children, as being their 
 ' natural guardians, consist in maintaining and educating them 
 ' during their season of infancy and youth. ""^ 
 
 Sir William Blackstone says : " The last duty of parents to their 
 ' children is that of giving them an edtication suitable to their sta- 
 ' tion in life ; a duty pointed out by reason, and of far the greatest 
 ' impoi'tance of any. For," continues that author, " as Puffendorf 
 ' very well observes, ' it is not easy to imagine or allow that a pa- 
 ' ' rent has conferred any considerable benefit upon his child by 
 ' ' bringing him into the world if he afterwards entirely neglects 
 ' ' his culture and education, and suffers him to grow up like a 
 ' ' mere beast, to lead .a life useless to others and shameful to him- 
 ' ' self.' "^ Dr. Wayland, in his Elements of Moral Science, says; 
 ' The duty of parents is generally to educate or to bring up their 
 ' children in such manner as they believe will be most for their 
 'future happiness, both temporal and eternal."* Again: "He 
 ' (the parent) is bound to inform himself of the peculiar habits 
 ' and reflect upon the probable future situation of his child, and 
 ' deliberately to consider what sort of education will most con- 
 ' duce to his future happiness and usefulness. "^ Again: "The 
 
 1 Bouvier's Institutes, vol. 2, p. 118. - 2 Kent, 196. 
 
 3 Cooley's Blackstone, vol. 1, p. 449. 
 
 ■* Wayland's Elements of Moral Science, 314 
 
 ° Wayland's Moral Science, 316. 
 
Fatal Errors InJierent in New England System. 51 
 
 " duties of a parent are established by God, and God requires us 
 " not to violate them."i According to the laws of nature, says 
 Wayland, '■'•the teacher is only the agent; \S\& parent \% \he. ^x'\\\- 
 " cipal."- But, under the New England system, as by law estab- 
 lished, the parent is not recognized as the principal, nor is the 
 teacher regarded as his agent. The Legislature of California has 
 gone so far towards elevating the teacher above the parents as to 
 make it a penal offence for any parent to even insult the teacher 
 of a public school in the presence of his pupils, no difference what 
 the provocation may be. 
 
 Section 654 of the Penal Code of this State reads : " Every pa- 
 " rent, guardian, or other person, w^ho upbraids, insults, or abuses 
 " any teacher of the public schools, in the presence or hearing of a 
 " pupil thereof, is guilty of a misdemeanor." 
 
 If the teacher insults the parent, in the presence of his children, 
 there is no penalty to pay, or if the dirtiest loafer in the land insults 
 the teacher of a private school, without the least cause or provoca- 
 tion, that is all right; but woe be to the father or mother who has 
 the temerity to breathe one offensive word against the teacher of a 
 public school, in the hearing of his pupils, even should it be to chide 
 him for his immoral conduct towards the child of the offender. 
 
 In his biennial report for 1864, our State Superintendent of Pub- 
 lic Instruction — quoting from the judicial decisions of some of the 
 Eastern States, construing their public-school laws, which are in 
 all respects similar to our own — maintains the proposition that 
 " the child should be taught to consider his instructor., in many 
 " respects., superior to the parent in point of authority ^^^ and 
 " that the vulgar impression that parents have a legal right 
 "• to dictate to teachers., is entirely erroneous," and, further, that 
 " parents have no remedy as against the teacher."^' In the State 
 of Vermont, in 1874, a School Committee expelled from a public 
 school certain children because of their absence from school on a 
 religious holiday, although they had remained absent in obedience 
 to the commands of their parents ; and this, too, was after the school 
 authorities had been appealed to in vain for leave of absence. This 
 action of th'e School Committee was afterwards sustained by the Su- 
 preme Court of the State, which based its decision, in part, at least, 
 on the ground that " no Divine aiithority had been quoted or as- 
 " serted" to sustain the right claimed by these parents.* 
 
 1 Wayland, 321. 
 - Wayland, 316. 
 
 ^ See Superintendent Swett's Biennial Report for 1864, pp. 164-5-6, and Judicial Decisions there 
 quoted. 
 * Ferriter V8. Tyler, 48 Vt., 444. 
 
52 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 Thus the law of nature and nature's God, which ordains that it is 
 both the right and duty of parents to educate their children " iti such 
 ' ' manner, as they believe will be most for their future happiness " is 
 utterly disregarded and set at naught by the State, which ordains that 
 it is neither the right nor the duty of parents, but of the State, to say 
 when, where, by whom, and in what manner our children shall be 
 educated. 
 
 Now, it is always possible for either individuals or States to dis- 
 regard and to violate natui'e's laws, but it is not possible to do so 
 without suffering, sooner or later, a penalty, and a penalty, too, 
 corresponding in magnitude with the importance of the law vio- 
 lated. Hence it is — and we assert it without the fear of successful 
 contradiction — that those communities, which have so long and so 
 glaringly violated nature's laws in the matter of education, are now 
 reaping so heavy and so deadly a harvest of crime, pauperism, in- 
 sanity, and suicides. 
 
 Dr. Wayland has well said " that the relaxation of parental au- 
 " thority has always been found one of the surest indications of the 
 " decline of social order and the unfailing precursor of public tur- 
 " bulence and anarchy."^ Now, under the law, as we hare already 
 seen, parental authority is not merely relaxed., but it is utterly set at 
 defiance. What, we would ask, does parental authority amount to, 
 in the matter of educating children, when a parent is not recognized 
 as having any " rem.edy., as against the teacher^'' for the wrongs 
 he may perpetrate against his child, and when, as in California to- 
 day, the parent is, in the eye of the law, a criminal who ventures 
 to send his own child to a school of his own choice, and at his own 
 expense, without fii'st going widi his hat under his arm to a board 
 of petty officials to beg their permission so to do } 
 
 If parents, any longer, have the least vestige of authority over the 
 all-important matter of their own children's education, which is not 
 wholly subordinated to the private interests, prejudices, and petty 
 spites of any and every little conclave of irresponsible upstarts who, 
 by hook or by crook, can so manage on election day as to have their 
 names on the tickets of the winning party, we should feel under 
 many obligations if somebody would inform us what that remaining 
 parental authority is, or where it is to be found. 
 
 Is it not the almost unanimous cry, on the part of parents, thi'ough- 
 out the length and bi-eadth of the land, that they can neither com- 
 mand the respect nor obedience of their children, and are not our 
 
 * Wayland's Elements of Moral Science, p. 313. 
 
Fatal Errors Inherent in New England System. 53 
 
 police courts crowded, and our county prisons and State peniten- 
 tiaries being filled with beardless boys, many of whom have had 
 comfortable homes, and have grown up in the society of respectable 
 parents, but never binder their cojttrol? 
 
 But, perhaps, we shall be asked, why is it that neither politicians 
 nor the parents of. children have thus far done anything towards 
 furnishing a remedy for all these crying evils ? 
 
 We answer, the reasons are numerous ; but the first and most 
 important reason we shall assign, is ignorance: ignorance of the 
 true and Heaven-ordained relations between parent and child ; igno- 
 rance of the reciprocal duties which they respectively owe to each 
 other ; yes, and ignorance— total ignorance — of the foregoing, terri- 
 ble facts, so clearly revealed by the United States Census Reports. 
 
 Let any one who doubts the general ignorance of our people, on 
 this last subject, test the matter, by catechising the first ten men he 
 meets concerning the facts shown by our published tables. The 
 truth is, that the advocates of this New England system have been so 
 long, so loud, and so persistent in proclaiming to the world its sup- 
 posed excellencies that nine-tenths of the world have, w^ithout the 
 least investigation, concluded to accept it for all that its most enthu- 
 siastic admirers represent it to be. Were it not for the widespread 
 and almost total ignorance on the part of parents, as regards the 
 poisonous and deadly fruits which they and their children, and 
 society at large, are daily reaping from this anti-parental system of 
 education, it could not survive a single month in its present shape. 
 O, how true it is that Ignoratice is the mother of vice I 
 
 Another reason why no reinedy has been applied to this fearful 
 malady is a long-standing, deep-seated, and constantly fomented 
 prejudice in favor of the public-school system, which makes the 
 politicians afraid to attack the monster lest they hurt their popu- 
 larity. 
 
 STILL ANOTHER DIFFICULTY 
 
 is a want of harmony among those who see and lament the terrible 
 evils which this system is bringing on the countiy, and who are 
 willing to make any and every sacrifice to avert those evils. One 
 says, Let us have the Bible in the schools. Another says, No ; I want 
 no Bible in mine. A third says. Let us divide the school funds 
 amongst all the different religious denominations in such a rhanner 
 that each denomination shall, as a body, have control of a portion of 
 those funds con-esponding with the number of its members ; while a 
 fourth says, Away with such silly nonsense ; we have far too much 
 ecclesiasticism in the public schools already. But is there not, we ask, 
 
^4 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 A COMMON GROUND WHEREON EVERY FRIEND OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM CAN 
 
 STAND ? 
 
 Most undoubtedly there is. Let us recognize, just as the law of 
 nature recognizes, the right and the duty of all parents, having the 
 ability so to do, to educate their own children in their own way and 
 by the use of their own funds. 
 
 After all, it is not less the interest than the duty of parents, when 
 they can do so, to pay the cost of their own children's education, 
 and not to allow the State to pay it for them, for be it remembered 
 that the cost aitd care of properly feedings clothings and educa- 
 ting the child are but the price which Nature demands of par- 
 ents for the incomparable treastire of the child' s love., honor., and 
 obedience., and just in proportion to the extent to which parents 
 neglect or refuse to pay this price., in precisely the same propor- 
 tion do they forfeit their right to this inestimable boon. 
 
 Let us suppose that the State should take upon itself to feed and 
 clothe, as well as to educate, the child ; does any one doubt that a 
 child thus fed, clothed, and educated at the public expense would 
 grow up almost wholly destitute of parental affection } And who is 
 so stupidly blind as not to see that the education of the child, after 
 all, is the great nourisher of its affections? Respect, love, and 
 veneration do not depend near so much on either the source or the 
 character of the food which enters the stomach*, as upon the source 
 and character of that which is taken into the mind and heart. 
 
 But in cases where parents have not sufficient worldly wealth to 
 give their children a good elementary education, let the State aid 
 them just exactly as it should aid them, when necessary, with means 
 to feed and clothe their children, rather than let them either starve 
 or go naked. But for the same reason that the State would not feed 
 the children of its more needy citizens upon the most dainty and 
 costly delicacies, nor clothe them in the finest silks and satins, so 
 neither should it educate them in those higher or merely ornamental 
 sciences not necessary for those avocations in which they are likely 
 to engage in after life. And when the State furnishes educational 
 aid, let it do so, always, in harmony with the principles of parental 
 guardianship over the child. Let the parent in such cases select the 
 school, and the State pay the teacher. Let this boon be extended to 
 all who need State aid, without regard to differences in politics or 
 religion. 
 
 Perhaps, though, we shall be told that so radical a change in the 
 public-school system, as that suggested, would work the destruction 
 
Fatal Errors Inherent in New England System. 55 
 
 of the system itself. If that be so, then we would ask whether it is 
 better for us to destroy the system, or to let the system destroy us? 
 
 Again, it may, perhaps, be objected that even if every parent in 
 the land had the means and the privilege of educating his own chil- 
 dren in his own way. still there would always be found some parents 
 in every community who would neglect this most sacred duty ; and 
 what ought to be done with such pai^ents ? We answer : What ought 
 to be done with those heartless parents who, having the means at hand, 
 either of their own or such as have been furnished by the State, to 
 comfortably feed and clothe their children, would, nevertheless, 
 deliberately leave them to die of starvation or perish with cold? 
 In either case such parents should be punished as criminals against 
 the laws both of God and society. But so long as the State under- 
 takes to force upon the children of any class of parents a system of 
 education which they cannot accept without a violation of cour 
 science and of Nature's laws, it is nothing less than the most cruel 
 tyranny on the part of the State to make such a system compulsory. 
 
 Let every friend of educational reform unite in maintaining these 
 plain, just, and most reasonable principles, and the day is not distant 
 when — with Heaven's blessing — we shall restoi"e parental authority, 
 re-establish family government, and teach the rising generation to 
 love, honor, and obey, not only their fathers and mothers, but also 
 the laws, both of God and their country. 
 
 THE ANTI-PARENTAL SCHOOL SYSTEM DISSECTED AND ANALYZED. 
 
 Should we wish to ascertain the exact character and propei'ties of 
 the waters of our great Pacific ocean, we would not undertake to 
 analyze the whole ocean, for that would be an endless task, but we 
 would take up at^ost a few ounces of this water, and,' after making 
 a thorough analysis of it, we would announce the result as indicating 
 the properties and character of the waters of the Pacific. So it is 
 if we would make a careful and reliable analysis of the essential 
 principles and elements which go to make up what is known as the 
 public-school system. If we were to undertake to subject to an 
 analytical test the whole system, with its entire paraphernalia of 
 teachers, pupils, parents, school directors, school teachers, school 
 books, school funds, and school houses, as they exist throughout the 
 country, we should become amazed and bewildered at the magnitude 
 of our undertaking, and would probably abandon the enterprise in 
 despair. So let us take from this very large mass of school material 
 a small quantity of its essential elements, just enough to be handled 
 with ease and examined with care, and we shall be the better able to 
 
^6 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 see what is the character of the ingredients which go to make up the 
 system. In order that you, good reader, may not accuse us of un- 
 fairness in our selection of the particular sample to be analyzed, we 
 will allow you to choose your own material. Then cast your eyes 
 around you among your friends and neighbors and name for us two 
 of the very best, purest, most intelligent, highly-educated, and reli- 
 able men of your acquaintance. Let them be men of your own re- 
 ligion, and belonging to the same political party as yourself. In a 
 word, let them be two men to whom, in preference to all others in 
 the world, you would be willing to entrust the guardianship of that 
 beautiful little girl of yours, should it please God to take you and 
 and her mother away from her during her years of childhood. Now, 
 these two friends of yoiu's, whom we shall call A and B, we shall 
 take it for granted, are the very best material to be found in that 
 great mass of voters w^ho control by their votes the destinies and 
 shape the character of the public-school system as it exists in 
 your city. 
 
 Now, suppose these two model men and neighbors should some 
 day come to your house and address you thus : Mr. C, we are informed 
 that you are the father of a bright, beautiful, and intelligent little 
 girl, now about seven years old — just the proper age to begin her 
 education. We feel quite anxious that she should be properly edu- 
 cated, and, to tell you the plain truth, we are afraid that if we leave 
 the matter entirely" with you her education will be neglected. Now 
 here is what we propose to do. We propose that we — your two 
 best friends^together with yourself, shall all enter into a written 
 contract, binding ourselves during your daughter's minority to con- 
 tribute annually a certain percentage upon the assessed value of our 
 property, which shall constitute a fund for the education of this, your 
 little girl. But it must, at the same time, and in the same contract, 
 be stipulated that it shall at all times be in the power of a majority 
 of us three to select the teachers and the school books for your child. 
 Should you, against the wishes and without the consent of a major- 
 ity of us, take your child away and send her to some other school, 
 you must agree to forfeit — should we choose to exact it — not exceed- 
 ing twenty dollars for the first offence, and not less than twenty dol- 
 lars for each subsequent repetition thereof. You must also agree and 
 bind yourself in advance not to withhold your assessment, even should 
 you withdraw your child from the school of our selection, because 
 we should in that event need the money for the education of other 
 children. 
 
 Now tell us, good reader, could you ever consent, while living 
 
Fatal Errors Inherent in New Etigland System. 57 
 
 and in the possession of your reasoning faculties, to entrust sucli a 
 power as this over your infant child — girl or boy — to any two men 
 in existence ? Would you not spurn such a proposition as the above 
 with indignant scorn, come from what source it might? We may 
 here remark, in passing, that it surely could not better the matter 
 should these supposed friends and neighbors, in consideration of 
 this proposed outrageous betrayal of your parental trust, even offer 
 to perpetrate a similar wrong against their own children by turning 
 over to you, the insulted father, a corresponding share in their 
 parental authority. And yet, good reader, this miniature picture 
 which we have just drawn of the public-school system presents 
 that system in its very best possible aspect ; because we have repre- 
 sented you, the father, as still allowed to retain in your own hands 
 one-third of that parental jurisdiction and control which the God of 
 nature requires you to exercise over your child, while the other 
 two-thirds are to be entrusted to two of the very best men in the 
 whole community. But under the public-school system, as it is by 
 law established, instead of retaining in your own hands even so much 
 as one-third of your parental authority, you retain only an infini- 
 tesimal fraction thereof. Where there are, as in San Francisco, 
 tens of thousands of voters, each father divides his parental au- 
 thority into tens of thousands of equal fragments, retaining but 
 one of these fragments for himself, whilst the great bulk of this 
 authority, instead of being lodged, as in the case above supposed, 
 in two of the very best men to be found in the city, is scattered 
 around broadcast amongst tens of thousands of people, good, bad, 
 and indifferent. It is gobbled up and wielded by every rough and 
 every rake who is allowed to vote ; and this is what they call our 
 great American Free-School System. 
 
 Those who attempt a justification of this monstrous usurpation 
 of parental authority never fail to intrench themselves behind the 
 hackneyed and much abused maxim, that "the majority has the 
 right to rule." But there are some things in which the majority 
 has no right to rule. For example : The majority has no right to 
 select for a man his religion ; neither has it a right to choose for a 
 man the wife, nor for a woman the husband, who is to become a 
 parent of his or her children. 
 
 Now the teacher of a child is simply a pei'son who, for the time 
 being, acts as a substitute for its parents. But if a majority has no 
 right to select the principal^ what right has it to select the sub- 
 stitute? In other words, if a majority has no right to force a man 
 or woman, who aspires to become the father or mother of a child, 
 
58 " Poison Drops ^' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 to marry a spouse, to whom he or she objects, on the ground that 
 such a spouse by pernicious teachings or bad example w^ould cor- 
 rupt the childreft of such marriage, or poison their minds and hearts 
 against the objecting party, then, in the name of consistency and com- 
 mon sense, what right has this same majority to accomplish the self- 
 same and even worse result, by selecting as the teacher (to take the 
 place of both parents) a person who is distasteful to them and who 
 may imperil and destroy "the health, the lives, the honor, the virtue, 
 and the filial affection of their children, as well as their own peace 
 of mind, without in any way being held responsible to them or 
 either of them for his conduct? 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 A VOICE FROM SAN qUENTIN — CALIFORNIA'S EDUCATED CONVICTS — ALL THE 
 YOUNGER CRIMINALS CAN READ AND WRITE — TWO MORE PENITENTIARIES 
 
 NECESSARY TO ACCOMMODATE MASSACHUSETTS PUBLIC-SCHOOL PUPILS 
 
 CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS THE HIGH ROAD TO THE PENITENTIARY 
 
 HOW THE ONE SERVES AS A PREPARATORY DEPARTMENT FOR THE OTHER. 
 
 The following is from resident director's (Lieutenant Governor 
 Johnston's) biennial report, showing the condition of the California 
 State prison and State prisoners for the two years ending June 30, 
 1877. This report, under the caption of " Education," says : 
 
 " Turnkey's Table, Number VII, showing the educational abilities 
 of the inmates of the prison, gives the number who can read and 
 write at nine hundred and eighty-five ; read but not write, at twenty- 
 four ; neither read nor write, at three hundred and nine. If we 
 consider the number of Chinese and Indians in our prisons who 
 can neither read nor write, and deduct them from the whole number 
 so as to match our whites and negroes against the same in other 
 States, it will be found that ours possess the advantage in a large 
 degree. In fact, among the younger convicts they can all read and 
 write." 
 
 The Turnkey's Table, Number III, shows that the number of Chi- 
 namen in the State prison is 197. Now, if we deduct this 197 
 from the entire number of convicts who can neither read nor write, 
 it leaves just ii3 who can neither read nor write against 985 .who 
 can both read and v^rite. Then again, from this 112 there remain 
 still to be deducted the Indians, whose number is not given in the 
 Turnkey's Table. But the most startling revelation contained in the 
 
 .t 
 
A Voice from San ^uentin. 551 
 
 above extract is found in the concluding sentence, which says : " /;? 
 fact^ among the younger convicts^ they can all read and write " 
 
 Now, of the younger convicts, as appears from the Turnkey's Ta- 
 ble, (No. 6,) there are some 353 but twenty-one years old or under, 
 while there are 831 under thirty years old. But while our young 
 State is making such rapid strides in the way of forcing her boys 
 first into her anti-parental schools and then into her penitentiaries, 
 her great exemplar, Massachusetts, it would seem, is not neglectful 
 of her laurels. The regular Boston correspondent of the vSan Fran- 
 cisco Morning Call, under date of November 16, 1877, says: 
 " The rapid progress of k?ioivledge peculiar to the educational 
 " system of this State has led to the erection of tivo more State 
 " prisons, one of which, for women, was successfully opened a 
 " few days ago, the number of wicked females who knocked for 
 " admission being forty-four. Present indications point toward the 
 " rapid filling up of this new institution in a few months." ^ 
 
 We are constantly told, by the friends and admirers of our anti- 
 parental educational system, that it is much better and more econom- 
 ical for the State to expend money for schools and school-houses than 
 for jails and penitentiaries. Now, taking the foregoing figures as a 
 basis of calculation, it would be a very interesting process, and would 
 doubtless lead to most important results, if some admirer of our pres- 
 ent educational system, who is a good calculator, would make an 
 estimate in dollars and cents of the amount of money saved to the 
 State of California per annum by that kind of education, which is 
 sustained at a cost of more than two and a half millions of dollars a 
 year, and which sends to the State prison its hundreds of beardless 
 boys, while total illiteracy — which we all lament as a great evil — 
 sends not so much as one solitary boy to that popular institution. 
 
 Should anybody, in making such an estimate, find the profits ex- 
 ceedingly small in proportion to the investment, let him not convert 
 that fact into an argument against education itself, but only against 
 this anti-parental system of education ; a system which, being con- 
 ceived in crime, brought forth in crime, and nurtured in crime, 
 must, of necessity, propagate crime. Hoping that some one better 
 versed in figures than ourselves will solve for us the above problem, 
 we shall now proceed to show 
 
 HOW IT IS THAT OUR EDUCATED BOYS FIND THEIR WAY TO THE PENITENTIARY. 
 
 Here, we will suppose, is an honest, industrious, hard-working 
 laboring man, who has a family consisting of himself, his wife, 
 
 1 See Call of November 25, 1877. 
 
6o " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 and half a dozen children, half girls and half boys. To put 
 the case in as favorable an aspect as possible, we will suppose 
 that he is in moderately good circumstances, being out of debt 
 and the owner of a comfortable homestead, but is compelled to 
 rely solely on his own labor and that of his wife for means 
 wherewith to feed and clothe his family. All his children are 
 of an age to attend school, and all are attending the public 
 schools, as the laxv directs. In the first place, heavy and fre- 
 quent drafts are made on the father's scanty and hard-earned re- 
 sources in order to supply these children with all the required 
 books and stationery. These six childi^en, too, must each and all 
 be dressed, not according to the means of their parents, but accord- 
 ing to the rules of the school and the demands of fashion, and inas- 
 much as the more wealthy and aristocratic classes prescribe the law 
 of fashion, they must dress as well as the children of the man who 
 counts his wealth by the million. If they do not so dress, they will 
 have to encounter not only the contemptuous sneers of fellow-pupils 
 and class-mates, but, perhaps, the displeasure of teachers, if not 
 expulsion from school. The father would reason and, perhaps, re- 
 monstrate with the teacher on.the subject of these rigid and extrava- 
 gant rules of dress, but then he remembers that the law has said 
 that the teacher of a public school is not the agent of the parent, 
 nor answerable to him for his conduct toward the pupil. He also 
 remembers that the law makes it criminal for a parent to insult a 
 teacher, while the teacher may insult the parent with impunity ; 
 and for these reasons he does not care to risk an altercation with the 
 teacher on the subject of the boy's dress ; it would be too unequal 
 a contest. So, in order to meet these growing demands for books, 
 stationery, and clothing for their children, these poor parents are 
 compelled to work harder, dress lighter, and feed more scantily than 
 is compatible with either health or comfort. The father rises earlier 
 in the morning than formerly, works later at night, and goes -with 
 w^orn-out, ragged, or patched-up clothes, in order that his eldest boy 
 may get a new suit so as to make as respectable an appearance as 
 any lad at the Lincoln School. 
 
 The mother, too, in worn-out and tattered apparel, plies her wash- 
 board with unwonted vigor in order to get money to pay the dress- 
 maker for fitting, cutting, and making Lizzie's nice new dress, for 
 the teacher says she must not come to school looking like an old wash- 
 erwoman's girl. The daughter, too, is learning to play upon the 
 piano, and of course it will not do for her to lend a helping hand to- 
 wards washing either clothes or dishes, for the teacher says it will 
 
A Voice from San ^uentin. 6i 
 
 spoil the shape of her fingers and impair the delicacy of her sense 
 of touch. Thus both father and mother work harder than slaves, 
 and dress coarser than beggars, in order that their children may en- 
 joy the gi'eat advantages of our glorious free-school system of edu- 
 cation. 
 
 In the meantime these children are sitting in the same classes, 
 studying the same books, wearing the same costly fabrics, partici- 
 pating in the same amusements, contracting the same habits, imbib- 
 ing the same love of ease, and the same aversion to manual labor, 
 and the same contempt for manual laborers, as do their far more 
 wealthv and aristocratic school-fellows. 
 
 Leaving out of sight the five younger children, we shall now give 
 our undivided attention to the eldest son of this poor laborer. 
 
 After years of study he at length completes his course at the Lin- 
 coln High School, acquitting himself with great honor, amidst the 
 cordial congratulations of professors and school directors, and elicit- 
 ing the vociferous applause of the admii'ing multitude. We may im- 
 agine we see his poor old father crouching on the outskirts of the 
 crowd, feasting his eyes upon an occasional glimpse of his boy, but 
 not daring to approach him because he has no clothes fit to be seen 
 on such an occasion ; doubtless that father is picturing to himself a 
 brilliant future for his boy. He is, perhaps, looking forward to the 
 time when he shall be a governor, a senator, or possibly President 
 of the United States. Very likely, too, he fancies that in his declin- 
 ing years he shall be able to look to his son for that assistance and 
 support which his own exhausted means may then refuse to afford 
 him. But alas ! how baseless are all these castles in the air. The 
 day after quitting school the young man finds himself, for once, 
 thrown on his own unaided resources. His father says to him : 
 " Well, my boy, I have been a long time struggling with pov- 
 erty and want in order that you might become educated. You 
 see that both your mother and I are in rags, and that handsome 
 suit which you now wear is yet to be paid for. You now have 
 a fortune in your education, and hereafter you must learn to shift 
 for yourself, and, if possible, lend a helping hand from time to 
 time to the support of your younger brothers and sisters." 
 
 Thus situated, the young man, probably for the first time in his 
 whole life, asks himself seriously the question : What business he is 
 going to follow. A more appropriate question would be. What 
 business can he follow .^ There he stands in the midst of a great 
 bustling city, without a cent of money at his command ; without 
 friends, without occupation, and without the necessary qualifica- 
 
02 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 tions for any earthly employment within his reach. Probably his 
 first effort will be to find a position as clerk in some bank or other 
 business establishment ; but he soon learns that these positions are 
 all filled by the sons of wealthy or influential parents. Occasionally 
 he meets a former schoolmate, discharging the duties of some cov- 
 eted place, but, on inquiry, he learns that he has obtained his position 
 at the instance of a wealthy father or an influential friend. Failing 
 in everything else, he at length seeks for copying as a means of earn- 
 ing bread. He gets hold of a city directory and makes a list of the 
 names and locations of all the law offices in the city. He then goes 
 from office to office in quest of the only work he really knows how 
 to do. But everywhere he is forestalled ; everywhere he is doomed 
 to disappointment. On every hand he meets young men and boys 
 similarly situated, and making similar fruitless efforts to raise a few 
 dimes with which to stave off' starvation. Already the boy has spent 
 weeks in an earnest but vain endeavor to find work as a copyist. In 
 the meantime he has been living partly on his old father and partly 
 on what he could pick up at the free-lunch tables. Seeing the son's 
 extreme embarrassment, the father perhaps suggests to him that, in- 
 asmuch as he has been disappointed in everything else, he had bet- 
 ter come and help him lay down those cobble-stones on Battery street, 
 where he can at least earn money enough to buy victuals and clothes. 
 But alas ! his hands are wholly unused to toil, and, what is infinitely 
 worse, he has been, as we before said, so trained up as to despise both 
 manual labor and manual laborers. He would be ashamed for one 
 of his school companions to even meet him walking the street in com- 
 pany with his own father, because of the old man's horn-like palms 
 and his laborer's dress ; so that, even if he knew how to work, still, 
 in view of the fact that it was only the other day that he finished his 
 educational course with so much eclat and amidst such a shower of 
 bouquets as rained around him from the fair hands of San Francisco's 
 wealth and beauty, is it to be expected that he is now going to heave 
 cobble-stones on a public street here, under the very shadow of his 
 alma mater ^ to be twitted and jeered at by those who envied him the 
 literary honors with which he came loaded from the Lincoln school.? 
 No, no ; that is utterly impossible ; propose anything but that. Yet, 
 says he, something must be done, and that soon ; I must have clothes, 
 and I must have bread ; the world owes me a living, and I intend to 
 have it. Thus saying, he turns his back upon his humble and des- 
 titute home, and betakes himself again to perambulatmg the streets, 
 ready for any desperate turn in events that promises him money. 
 Let the reader pause here and ask himself the question. What is 
 
A Voice from San ^itentiit. 63 
 
 there to save this youth from becoming a pest to society, a disgrace 
 to his old father and mother, and finally a convicted felon, doomed 
 to serve the State within penitentiary walls? Perhaps it will be 
 claimed that the bare recollection of his newly acquired literary 
 honors, and the fear of losing the esteem of those who, the other 
 day, so vociferously applauded his youthful oratory and threw at his 
 feet such a profusion of flowers, ought, of itself, to be sufiicient to 
 shield him from temptation's harm. But, unfortunately, those 
 withered flowers will not serve for food, nor can he make clothes 
 either of approving smiles or shouts of applause. But can it be 
 possible, you say, that one so 3^oung, so intelligent, and so well edu- 
 cated has no respect for the law.'' Why, sir, if you talk to him 
 about respecting the law he will laugh you to scorn. Who is it that 
 respects the law, he will say, except just so far as the law subserves 
 his purposes.? Have we not laws against bribery.? And yet do not 
 even our law-makers, on election days, send out their dirty minions 
 with money in their pockets with which to buy their way into the 
 very halls of legislation.? Are not seats in the United States Senate 
 sometimes bought with gold.? And does not even the election of a 
 United States President often depend more upon successful lying, 
 frauds, and bribery, than upon the people's honest votes.? Then 
 why prate to me about the sanctity of the law when the very men 
 who make the laws trample them unceremoniously under their feet 
 w^henever it suits their purposes.? But, you will say, if this youth 
 has no regard for human law, surely he cannot be wholly indiflerent 
 to the laws of God. Be not so fast, my dear sir. Have you for- 
 gotten that the boy was educated in our public schools, where it is 
 a criminal offence, punishable by a forfeiture of all intei-est in the 
 public school moneys, to even mention the subject of religion in the 
 hearing of a pupil.? And do you know that there is no such joro- 
 hibition against inculcating the horrible doctrines of atheism in these 
 schools.? That many of our public-school teachers are avowed 
 atheists, who believe neither in God nor devil ; neither in hell nor 
 heaven ; and that our young hero is a firm believer in these dismal 
 and diabolical doctrines.? Very true, you say ; I knew very well 
 that no religion was allowed to be taught in the public schools, but 
 then why did not his father and mother teach him religion at home.? 
 We first answer the question by asking another, and it is this : 
 How do you know that his parents themselves had any well defined 
 notions of religion, or, in fact, any religion at all.? If they had 
 firmly believed in the teachings even of that natural religion which 
 an AJmighty hand has written in indelible characters on every human 
 
64 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 heart, they surely would never have consented to surrender to the 
 public at large the right to select the teachers, and in all essential 
 particulars to shape the mental and moral as w^ell as the physical 
 destinies of their child. 
 
 But suppose that his parents were in every other particular real 
 models of perfection, both in their professions and in their practices 
 of religion, was it to be expected that he, their son, would accept 
 religious instruction from them ? Are not they illiterate, and is not 
 he educated ? And shall wisdom take lessons from ignorance ? Has 
 he not learned to despise them both for their poverty and their sim- 
 plicity ? Can it be doubted that even the sacrifices which they made 
 in his behalf; that the very patches with which they mended their 
 old garments, in order that he might be handsomely dressed ; that 
 the very toils and hardships which have wrinkled their brows, soiled 
 their features, and imparted the bony touch to their palms, in order 
 that he might learn to lead a life of ease and freedom from manual 
 labor, are, on his part, requited with coldness and contempt? And 
 after learning to despise his parents, is it at all likely that he would 
 profit either by their religious instruction or their praiseworthy ex- 
 ample? No, no; theii" religion, just like their toilsome lives and 
 their old clothes, may be good enough for them, but to an educated 
 young man like himself it is only a bundle of cumbei^some and use- 
 less rubbish, and he will have none of it. 
 
 Then, since our young hero has learned to respect neither the laws 
 of man nor the laws of God, and will neither be directed by the 
 good counsels nor influenced by the exemplary lives of his own 
 father and mother, whei"e, let it be asked, shall we look for the 
 controlling power that is to shape his future destinies ? Just follow 
 him as he hurries along yonder busy street and you shall see. Al- 
 ready he is in company with half-a-dozen of his late school-mates, 
 each of whom has a tale of woe and disappointments to tell, quite 
 like his own. Now, for the first time since leaving school, each and 
 all of these boys find themselves in congenial society. They feel 
 that the world cares nothing for them, and they care nothing for 
 the world. They all have empty stomachs and seedy clothes, and 
 there is not money enough in the crowd to purchase even one night's 
 lodging at the meanest lodging-house in the city. 
 
 One of the party suggests that, having failed in everything else, 
 he has an idea of making an effort to get a position as dish-washer 
 in some hotel, or, failing in that also, he might seek employment as 
 stable-boy to clean out the stalls of some livery stable. The major- 
 ity of his companions, however, frown down the proposition with 
 
The Political State as a Teacher of Morality. 65 
 
 contemptuoLis indignation, and our hero threatens never hereafter to 
 speak to the low-bred rascal should he ever again be guilty of ad- 
 vancing a proposition so far beneath the dignity of an educated gen- 
 tleman. In order, however, to put at rest the question as to the feas- 
 ibility of finding even that kind of employment, one little fellow, the 
 smallest in the crowd, puts in a word to assui'e his companions that 
 there is not enough in the last suggestion to be worth quarrelling 
 about. He says he has been, for the past three days and a good part 
 of the nights, hunting from house to house, both in public hotels and 
 private dwellings, for any kind of light work such as boys could do, 
 and everywhere he has found the field already occupied, most always 
 by Chinamen ; whereupon they all agree that they could not if they 
 'would, and would not if they could, enter into successful competi- 
 tion with Chinamen for the honor of discharging the menial duties 
 of either stable boys or kitchen servants. 
 
 At this particular juncture one of the party suggests that his old 
 widowed aunt has $500 in gold twenties buried under her barn floor, 
 and that he knows just where to find the cash. They can get this 
 money and nobody but themselves need be any the wiser for it. He 
 says she has plenty without that, and she is such a stingy old hag 
 that it would be serving her just right for them to go and relieve her 
 of that five hundred. We do not propose to follow this little band 
 of young hoodlums farther for the present, but if any friend of our 
 present public-school system can discover any motive which will 
 deter from crime and preserve from the penitentiary any one of the 
 hundreds upon hundreds of our city's youths, whose education and 
 situation in life differ in no essential particular from that of the boys 
 just above described, he will by pointing out such a motive unques- 
 tionably confer a great and lasting benefit both on the rising genera- 
 ation and on society at large. From the fate of this eldest boy of 
 our poor laborer we shall leave the reader to guess the doom which 
 awaits his younger brothers and sisters. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE POLITICAL STATE AS A TEACHER OF MORALITY. 
 
 Section 1703 of our California School Law provides, among 
 other things, that " It shall be the dtcty of all teachers to endeavor 
 "■ to impress upon the minds of the pupils the principles of nio- 
 " rality:' 
 
66 '•'•Poison Drops''' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 But just here the question arises, " What is morality?" And how 
 is a teacher to know what it is that he or she is required to teach in 
 order to comply with this requirement of the statute? 
 
 The immortal Washington has said : '•'•Let us with caution indulge 
 '•''the supposition that 7norality can be maintained xvithout relig- 
 " ion.'''' But if morality cannot be maintained without religion, then 
 how is it possible, we would inquire, for the teacher to inculcate the 
 principles of morality without inculcating the principles of religion ? 
 But the principles of religion are understood by the Jews diffei-ently 
 from what they are by the Christians, and by the Roman Catholics 
 differently from what they are by Protestants, by the Episcopalians 
 differently from what they are by the Presbyterians, by the Presby- 
 terians differently from what they are by the Unitarians, and by those 
 who reject the authority both of the Old and New Testament differ- 
 ently from what they are by either Jews or Christians of any denom- 
 ination whatever. 
 
 Then how is it possible for the State to require the teaching of 
 morals in the public schools without requiring as the basis of such 
 teaching the inculcation of religious principles, such as are necessa- 
 rily antagonistic to the conscientious convictions of the parents of 
 at least a portion of the children attending these schools ? It is true 
 we hear a great deal about the " broad principles of conifnon mo- 
 " rality" and of a common religion, but we have never yet had the 
 good fortune to find anybody who was able to give a definition of 
 this common morality or common religion to the perfect satisfaction 
 of any one, except perhaps it was the self-conceited author of such 
 definition. 
 
 A certain professor of our State Normal School, to whom we not 
 long ago addressed an open letter, (which, by the way, we believe 
 has never been answered,) in an address of his which was published 
 in the May number of the Defender, 1881 , took the ground that "the 
 ethics of the Ten Commandments and of the Sermon on the Mount 
 are as absolutely unsectarian as the law of gravitation." Now to 
 assume that the Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount 
 are absolutely unsectarian is to assume that people of all religious sects 
 or denominations, as well as all non-religionists, understand them 
 in the same sense, and accept them as coming with the same author- 
 ity and having the same binding force. 
 
 But is it true that people of all religious denominations, as well 
 as non-religionists, do understand either the Ten Commandments or 
 the Sermon on the Mount in the same sense ; or as coming with the 
 same authority, or as having the same binding force ? We say no ! 
 
The Political State as a Teacher of Morality. 67 
 
 Most emphatically no. Waiving the differences in the various trans- 
 lations of these important parts of the Bible, we shall proceed at 
 once to consider some of the various and conflicting beliefs w^hich 
 have been made to_ rest for their foundation either upon those Ten 
 Commandments or upon the Sermon on the Mount. Take, for exam- 
 ple, the commandment, "Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath 
 day," and we find even Christians differing widely as to whether 
 under the Christian dispensation the keeping holy of the Sunday is 
 a sufficient compliance with the requirements of that commandment. 
 As an illustration of this fact we may remark that the leading print- 
 ing and publishing house of Oakland, and in fact one of the foremost 
 establishments of its kind on the Pacific coast, is owned and run by 
 an association of Christians who would conscientiously regard it as 
 a sin to do unnecessary work on a Saturday ; and we all know that 
 pretty much our entire Jewish population entertain a similar belief. 
 But not only do our people differ as to the particular day which is 
 required by the above commandment to be kept holy, but they differ 
 also as to the proper mode of keeping it holy. Thus, the Catholic 
 believes that unless released' from the obligation by some lawful ex- 
 cuse, such as distance, sickness, or the like, he should sanctify the 
 Sunday, in part at least, by assisting at mass, while other Christian 
 denominations recognize no such obligation. Some Christians be- 
 lieve it sinful to engage in hunting, fishing, or almost any kind of 
 amusement on the Sunday, while others, equally conscientious, re- 
 gard these pastimes as harmless. Then, again, a large number of 
 people disbelieve both in the Old and New Testament, and conse- 
 quently do not look upon the commandment to keep holy the Sab- 
 bath day as having any binding force. We here state these different 
 views with reference to the above-quoted commandment, not for the 
 purpose of discussing the question as to which are right and which 
 are wrong, but for the purpose of showing that such differences exist ; 
 and in view of the fact that they do exist, we maintain that it is im- 
 possible for the public-school teacher to teach said commandment 
 according to any of said views without violating Section 1672 of our 
 public-school law, which declares that " no sectarian or denomina- 
 tional doctrine must be taught therein." Perhaps we shall be told 
 that the commandments should be taught just in the words in which 
 we find them, without interpretation or comment. But let us see for 
 a moment how this would work. Here is a ten-year-old boy, we 
 will suppose, who has just read from his Bible the command, " Re- 
 member thou keep holy the Sabbath day." The boy being naturally 
 of an inquiring mind, turns to his teacher and asks the very natural 
 
68 .^^ Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 question, "What is the Sabbath day?" What ought the teacher 
 under such circumstances to say? Ough the to say, I don't know; 
 or, I am not allowed to tell you, because to tell you would be sec- 
 tarian teaching? To such an answer, the boy in his own mind 
 would probably reply, " Of what earthly use is this command to 
 keep holy the Sabbath day, if I am not to know what the Sabbath 
 day is?" And suppose that the boy, still pressing his inquiry, asks 
 the further question, " In what way am I to keep the Sabbath holy? 
 What is it necessary to do, and what necessary to abstain from doing 
 in order to obey this commandment?" Must the teacher again 
 reply, " I am not allowed to tell you." 
 
 If anything in the world is calculated to bring both the teacher and 
 the Bible into ridicule, we think that such a teaching as this would 
 surely accomplish that result. 
 
 We do not propose in this connection to discuss the question as to 
 the State's right to enact and enforce Sunday laws ; but we may re- 
 mark in passing that it appears to us as if legislation in that direction 
 ought to be limited to the enactment of such laws as have for their 
 object the protection of citizens in the uninterrupted discharge of 
 what they believe to be their religious duties, and not such as may 
 be designed to compel an observance of the Sunday in any particular 
 manner for the spiritual welfare of those thus compelled. We think 
 there would be but little merit in a man's attending church on a 
 Sunday, not for the love of God, but for the love of the mo7iey which 
 he might have to pay as a fine for his failure to attend. Persecutions 
 against conscience may make hypocrites, but never genuine converts 
 to the doctrines thus sought to be enforced. 
 
 With reference to the Sermon on the Mount, its different interpre- 
 tations are no more harmonious than are those of the commandment 
 referred to. Even people professing themselves Christians differ 
 widely as to whether that sermon was a divine or only a human ut- 
 terance. The Unitarians, for example, not believing in the divinity 
 of Christ, only look upon that sermon as a human production, while 
 other Christian denominations accept its every word as the infallible 
 teaching of infinite wisdom ; so that the teacher cannot undertake to 
 tell his pupil in the public school, after reading to him that sermon, 
 whether he is to accept it as the word of God or only as the word of 
 a man, without again invading the realms of denominational teach- 
 ing. And all will admit that there is an infinite difference between 
 the weight to be attached to the language of an All-wise God and 
 even the wisest utterances of a mere man when giving expression to 
 the deductions of his own finite and feeble reason. Then, again, as 
 
The Political State as a Teacher of Morality. 69 
 
 it is with the interpretation of the commandments so it is with the 
 interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount. Tliere are many 
 passages in that sermon which are very differently construed 
 by people of different religious denominations. For example, 
 it is there said, "• Ye have heard that it was said to them of old, Thou 
 shalt not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto the Lord thine 
 oaths ; but I say unto you. Swear not at all." This passage is by 
 many very conscientious people interpreted as prohibiting the taking 
 of an oath as a witness or otherwise, and hence they never swear, 
 even in our courts of justice, but affirm. 
 
 Again, it is said in the Sermon on the Mount, as read in the Douay 
 Bible, " If thy right eye scandalize thee, (or as the new version has 
 it, ' cause thee to sttitnble^'^ pluck it out and cast it from thee, for 
 it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather 
 than that thy whole body go into hell." Now suppose that some pub- 
 lic-school teacher, when reading or having read this passage to his 
 pupils, should be asked the question, "What is the meaning of 
 hell.? " what answer could he give which would not be sectarian or 
 denominational in its character.? How could he so frame a defini- 
 tion of the word " hell" as to make it acceptable both to the Uni- 
 versalist and the Presbyterian, or the Roman Catholic? 
 
 In this same sermon it is said : " When thou fastest, anoint thy 
 head and wash thy face that thou appear not to men to fast, but to 
 thy Father, who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in seci-et 
 will repay thee." Now, if the public-school teacher w^ere asked by 
 a pupil whether this passage was to be taken as a Divine authority 
 for the practice of fasting, how could he answer this question with- 
 out again violating that section of the Code which forbids all sec- 
 tarian or denominational teachings in the public schools.? 
 
 Again, Christians of some denominations interpret the Sermon 
 on the Mount as authorizing the absolute dissolution, by divorce, of 
 the valid bonds of matrimony for certain causes, so as to allow one 
 of the divorced parties to marry again during the life of the other, 
 while other Christians maintain that all such second marriages dur- 
 ing the lives of both the divorced parties are, morally speaking, 
 invalid and wrong. 
 
 Indeed, it would require a volume to point out all the different 
 interpretations which have been placed upon the Ten Command- 
 ments and the Sermon on the Mount. How, then, is it possible to 
 teach even these portions of the Bible in the public schools without 
 teaching sectarian or denominational doctrine.? It certainly would 
 not be called teaching in any other educational institution in the 
 
7o '•'• Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 wide world (except it be an American public school) to simply 
 cause the pupil to pronounce, like a trained parrot, a certain form 
 of woi'ds and at the same time refuse to tell him the meaning of 
 those words. 
 
 Our conclusions, then, are these, namely : First ; that Washing- 
 ton was right, when he said: " Let us with caution indulge the 
 supposition that morality can be maintained without religion." 
 Second ; that the State cannot teach morality without teaching 
 religion as its foundation. Third ; that the State cannot teach either 
 morality or religion without either establishing a new religious 
 denomination, or else teaching it as it is taught by some one of the 
 existing denominations. Fourth ; that the State can neither teach 
 religion as it is now taught by any existing denomination, nor as it 
 might be taught by a State-begotten denomination, without a fatal 
 infringement upon the doctrine of religious liberty ; and that, there- 
 fore, the true and proper business of the State is not to teach nor 
 to pay for teaching either morality or religion, but to foster and 
 encourage the teaching of both, by carefully and scrupulously 
 guarding and protecting the equal rights of all citizens to worship 
 God and to educate their children according to the dictates of their 
 own consciences. 
 
 We say, let the State neither undertake to teach nor to pay for 
 the teaching of morality or religion, because it is impossible to teach 
 a State morality without teaching a State religion, and it is impos- 
 sible to teach a State religion without the destruction of the religious 
 liberty of the citizen. Should the State ever assume the burden 
 of paying for religious teaching, its next step would logically be to 
 assume the right to say what that I'eligious teaching should be. It 
 is in order to make it harmonize with the principles here asserted 
 that the seventh proposition of our platform is so framed as to 
 allow every pai'ent, whose child is entitled to receive a secular edu- 
 cation at public expense, to select the school wherein that secular 
 education shall be given, so that if in obedience to conscience he 
 elect so to do, the parent may without cost to the State secure for 
 such child a moral and religious training at the same time that, af 
 the State's expense, it is receiving its secular training. 
 
 In order to do this, we see no practical way, except to pay the 
 teacher, not according to the time he is employed in teaching, but 
 according to his success in imparting to his pupils secular knowl- 
 edge — the only kind of knowledge for which (as we believe) the 
 State can venture to pay without ultimate danger to the principles 
 of religious liberty. We can see no more objection to the State's 
 
The Political State as a Teacher of Morality. 71 
 
 paying a religious teacher according to results for imparting secular 
 knowledge to a child which has to be educated at public expense 
 than there would be in its paying a religious stone-cutter by the job 
 for dressing a certain quantity of building stone to be used in the 
 erection of a public building. 
 
 If two stone-cutters are working by the piece for the Government, 
 and one of them works and curses, while the other works and 
 prays, we can see no good reason why the man who prays should 
 get less pay for his work than does the man who curses, for work 
 of precisely the same quality and quantity. So, likewise, if there 
 be two teachers working by the job for the Government in the 
 business of teaching children to read, write, and cipher, and if one 
 of them should teach Tom Paine's ''Age of Reason" as a reading 
 book, scoff at everything which Christians regard as sacred, and 
 finally complete his work by turning over to the State a score of 
 infidel scholars, perfect in reading, writing, and arithmetic, while 
 the other uses the Bible as a class-reader, speaks reverently of God 
 and religion, and eventually graduates from his school some twenty 
 Christian gentlemen, perfect masters of the three R's, would there 
 be any good reason why the first-named teacher should be paid for 
 his secular teaching and the other get nothing for his.'' 
 
 In the cases supposed we would ask the State to pay nothing for 
 inculcating the principles of Tom Paine, and nothing for teaching 
 the doctrines of the Bible, but in each case we would have the teacher 
 paid for teaching his pupils how to read without regard to the fact 
 that in one case they had used Paine's "Age of Reason," and in the 
 other case the Bible as a class-book. And we would do this, not be- 
 cause we claim that there is any comparison between the writings of 
 Tom Paine and the Bible, but because we are opposed to having the 
 Stiite step between the pai"ent and the child in a matter of so much 
 importance as that which concerns the child's education touching re- 
 ligious subjects. 
 
 If we recognize the State in its political capacity as having the 
 right to decide for us and for our children as to the I'elative merits 
 of the Bible and Tom Paine's "Age of Reason " as class-books, we 
 virtually agree to stand by its decision ; and for a Christian to agree 
 to stand by its decision would, in effect, be to agree to apostatize from 
 his faith whenever the State demands such a sacrifice. 
 
 To reiterate our position, the principle for which we are contend- 
 ing is not that the political State ought to enforce the teaching of some 
 particular kind of religion, or any religion at all, but that it ought to 
 
tj2, " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 leave parents perfectly free to obey the dictates of their own con- 
 sciences in that regard. 
 
 It has sometimes been suggested that the plan we propose might en- 
 able the teacher to proselytize his pupils to his own faith against the 
 will and consciences of their parents. To this suggestion we reply 
 that one of the very strongest arguments in favor of this plan is that it 
 would place in the hands of the parents of each child the very best pos- 
 sible safeguard against such pi-oselytizing. The safeguard to which 
 we allude is found in the fact that, upon the very first intimation of any 
 such proselytizing, the parent could and would withdraw his child 
 from school and thereby diminish the teacher's pay. In that regard 
 the proposed system would be infinitely superior to the present one ; 
 for it is a well-known fact that, notwithstanding the statutory law for- 
 bidding the teaching of sectarian doctrines in the public schools, yet 
 whenever the teachers, the school directors, and a majority of the pub- 
 lic in any given locality have a leaning in favor of or against any given 
 sect, that fact is pretty sure to make itself felt in the public-school 
 room, either in the books used or the instruction given. Under such 
 circumstances, the teacher has everything to gain and nothing to lose 
 by overriding the law and the rights of those belonging to the un- 
 popular creed, in obedience to the wishes of the more popular sect, 
 at whose will and pleasure he holds his position and draws his sal- 
 ary. Under the plan which we propose, the teacher or principal 
 of each school, being master of his own time and the author and 
 architect of his own discipline, could easily adjust matters in such 
 a way as to give moral and religious instructions to the children of 
 such parents as might so desire without any encroachment upon either 
 the time or the religious prerogatives of pupils belonging to a differ- 
 ent faith or to no faith at all. In proof of this we need but to look 
 around us right here in the cities of Oakland and San Francisco, where 
 there are scores and scores of private schools being taught, in some 
 instances by Presbyterians, in others by Congregationalists, in others 
 by Methodists, in others by Roman Catholics, etc., and in pretty 
 nearly, if not quite, all of these schools there are pupils whose parents 
 belong some to one creed and some to another, and some to no creed 
 whatever, and there are classes in which denominational doctrines are 
 taught to those children whose parents desire it without the least in- 
 terference with others whose parents are of a different way of thinking. 
 
 We frequently hear of troubles and contentions in the public schools, 
 though pretendedly non-sectarian, because of the sectarian teachings 
 therein practised, in defiance both of the statutory law and of the rights 
 
The Author Interviewed on the School Question. 73 
 
 of parents and children, while in schools professedly denominational 
 we seldom or never hear of any such complaint. 
 
 The reason of this difference is obvious. In the former case the 
 teacher is not amenable to the parents of his pupils, but in the latter 
 he is. 
 
 We want no Board of Education, sitting in judgment, to determine 
 whether certain teachings in the public schools are antagonistic to the 
 faith of some of the parents whose children attend these schools. If 
 parents themselves do not know what they religiously believe, we are 
 at a loss to know how a board of politicians, called school directors, 
 can inform them. We want no State standard for either morality or 
 religion. If any one desires to see a specimen of State morals and 
 State religion as taught by State authority, let him read the recent 
 proceedings of the California State prison investigating committee. 
 In the course of those proceedings the fact was revealed that certain 
 convicts, whose terms of penal service for crimes of which they stood 
 convicted were about expiring, and against whom other criminal 
 charges were awaiting trial in the courts, found in their moral in- 
 structor a most willing and efficient adviser and assistant in their 
 efforts to baffle the officers of the law, avoid re-aiTest, and thus de- 
 feat the ends of justice. Such is State morality, taught under State 
 authority, and at the State's expense. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE AUTHOR INTERVIEWED ON THE SCHOOL qUESTION. 
 
 The following is from The Oakland (California) Mirror for 
 December, 1881 : 
 
 Last week Mr. Montgomery returned to Oakland from San 
 Diego, where he has recently purchased a ranch, and was soon 
 called upon by our reporter on educational matters, who informed 
 him that Gen. Eaton, United States Commissioner of Education, 
 had recently been in Oakland and stated he had heard in Washing- 
 ton of an anti-public-school man in California named Zach. Mont- 
 gomery, and that he should like to know more of him and his pecu- 
 liar views, and that he had exacted a promise from him (the 
 reporter) to interview this odd Californiau, and to send him a copy 
 of such interview. 
 
 " Sit down," said Mr. Montgomery. 
 
 The reporter returned thanks and seated himself, with pencil and 
 note-book in hand, and, after learning incidentally that his hospita- 
 
74 '-''Poison Drofs" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 ble host was a native of Nelson county, Kentucky, the interview 
 then opened vigorously and ran as follows : 
 
 Reporter. Now, Mr. Montgomery, have you any objections to 
 answering a few questions relative to your object in withdrawing 
 from the legal profession and devoting yourself to the agitation of 
 the school question and the progress which that agitation is making.'* 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. None in the world, sir. This agitation con- 
 cerns the public, and the public have a right to know all about it. 
 
 Reporter. Is it true that your object is to procure a division of 
 the public-school funds upon what is called a sectarian basis, upon 
 a plan similar to that once proposed by Archbishop Hughes, of 
 New York .? 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. No, sir, it is not true ; and I will further 
 state that, while I am a firm believer in the doctrines and teachings 
 of my own church, the Catholic, I now am, and always have been, 
 utterly opposed upon principle to the State's taxing any class of citi- 
 zens to pay for teaching anybody's children any kind of doctrines 
 or principles touching the subject of religion, either pro or con., when 
 the citizens thus taxed or any of them do not believe in the doctrine 
 so taught. 
 
 Reporter. Will you be good enough, for the benefit of the 
 readers of The Mirror., to give me a brief outline of your true po- 
 sition on this educational question ? 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. Certainly, sir, since you desire it. My 
 views in brief I keep as standing matter on the last page of my 
 Reviexv., the Fafnily' s Defender., epitomized in the shape of seven 
 short propositions, which are substantially as follows : 
 
 I maintain, in the first place, that the cost of educating children, 
 just like the cost of feeding and clothing them, is a debt which evei'y 
 parent owes to his own children, and that it is as unjust to take one 
 man's money w^ith which to educate the children of another who is 
 able to educate them himself as it would be to take one man's 
 money to buy victuals and clothes for children whose parents have 
 the ineans wherewith to feed and clothe them. Hence, I contend 
 that education, at public expense, ought to be limited to those chil- 
 dren whose parents are unable to educate them. I further contend 
 that, as a rule, education, when at public expense, should be re- 
 stricted to the elementary English branches, coupled with such an 
 industrial education as will fit the party educated to eami an honest 
 living. I believe, also, that the whole business of teaching school 
 should be thrown open to private enterprise and free competition, 
 just like practising law or medicine or running a shoe factory ; and 
 then I would allow every parent who is deemed fit to be the guardian 
 of his own children to select the particular school wherein they are 
 to be educated. I would have as our only school officers one or 
 more examiners, either elected or appointed for each district, wliose 
 duty it should be to periodically examine, in the legally appointed 
 secular branches, all such pupils as are being taught at public ex- 
 pense, and to report upon the value of the teacher's services as indi- 
 cated by the progress of his pupils, so that he might be paid accord- 
 
The Author Interviewed on the School ^uesti'otz. 75 
 
 ing to that value. I would have no questions asked as to whether the 
 teachers were Catholics, Protestants, Jews, or Free-thinkers ; or 
 whether, in addition to the secular training given at public expense, 
 these same teachers had, either gratuitously or at private expense, 
 and at the request of parents, given religious instructions to any or 
 all of their pupils. 
 
 Reporter. By limiting education at public expense to the com- 
 mon English branches, would not many of our brightest youths be 
 deprived of the possibility of obtaining such an education as is at all 
 in keeping with their talents, and the State thereby be made the 
 loser } 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. I said, •• as a rule" education, when at pub- 
 lic expense, should be thus limited, but most general rules, you 
 know, have their exceptions ; and, in this case, I would make an 
 exception in favor of such youths as possess extraordinary talent for 
 any particular science, coupled with a corresponding degree of merit. 
 
 Reporter. But where and how could you draw the line between 
 those parents who are and who are not able to educate their children 
 at their own expense.^ 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. There may be many ways of drawing this 
 line, but in the absence of a better way I would suggest that the law 
 be so framed as to require every parent who has children of school 
 age, and who is worth a given sum per child to be educated, over 
 and above his debts and liabilities, exclusive of property exempt 
 from execution, to educate his own children at his own expense, and 
 to allow all parents, worth less than the designated sum, to have 
 their children educated at the public's expense. In this way the 
 assessor's returns could be made to settle the question as to who are 
 and who are not able to educate their own children. 
 
 Reporter. Suppose this plan were to be adopted, what dispo- 
 sition could be made of all our public-school property.^ 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. Why, sir, without doubt it would all be in 
 immediate demand for educational purposes. You must remember 
 that the same children who are now attending school would still have 
 to be educated. It is true there would not be nearly as many of them 
 studying the so-called higher branches, but what would be far bet- 
 ter, thousands of children would be perfecting themselves in spell- 
 ing, reading, writing, and arithmetic, who are now neglecting these 
 essential branches in order to get a mere smattering in drawing, 
 music, or the foreign languages. 
 
 Reporter. You will excuse me, Mr. Montgomery, but I do not 
 yet see how, under your proposed plan, all our public-school 
 grounds, houses, and furniture could be made available. All these 
 ai'e public property, while your plan would virtually turn over the 
 great body of our children to private schools, and this, it seems to 
 me, would necessarily leave our public-school property vacant. 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. I was just going on to explain that, under 
 the plan suggested, private schools would be vastly multiplied and, 
 in order to carry on these private schools, school-grounds, houses, 
 and furniture would be absolutely necessary, so that the public-school 
 
hS ^'•Poison Drops" ht the Pederal Senate. 
 
 property could be easily rented or sold to private-school educators. 
 And inasmuch as the most competent and successful educators 
 would get the most patronage, they are the persons who could af- 
 ford to pay the highest prices for this public-school property ; and, 
 therefore, they are the ones who in future would educate our chil- 
 dren. 
 
 Reporter. And what disposition would you make of the funds 
 arising from the rent or sale of our school property .? 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. I would have the rent of all this property, or 
 the interest on the money arising from the sale of it, used to pay for 
 educating in the proper English branches all such children as could 
 not otherwise get such education. There are now upwards of 
 $6,000,000 worth of public-school property belonging to this State, 
 and there is scarcely a doubt but that the rent of this property, or 
 the interest upon its value, would be nearly, if not quite, sufficient 
 to give to every child in this State, whose parents are not able to 
 educate it, a far better education than can now be obtained, under 
 the present system, by the annual expenditvxre of $3,000,000, in ad- 
 dition to the use of this $6,000,000 worth of school property. 
 
 Reporter. If I understand you, then, your opinion is that the 
 adoption of the proposed plan would save to the people of this 
 State at least $3,000,000 per annum in the single item of school 
 taxes, and at the same time vastly impi-ove the educational advan- 
 tages of the rising generation .? 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. Yes, sir, that is exactly my position. 
 
 Reporter. Do you find inany persons who agree with you in 
 these views } 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. Why, sir, the fact is I seldom find a man 
 who dissents from them, when he understands them. As an evi- 
 dence of the intrinsic popularity of these views witness the over- 
 whelming endorsement they received after full discussion, in the 
 old Congregational church in Oakland, at a large meeting presided 
 over by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who, as is 
 well known, used his utmost endeavors, even as a presiding officer, 
 to defeat their adoption. Witness also the fact that almost every 
 leading clergyman, both of Oakland and San Francisco, including 
 upwards of twenty Protestant ministers and a number of Jewish 
 rabbis, besides many of the prominent officers of every shade of 
 politics, as well as lawyers, doctors, and thinking men in all the va- 
 rious walks of life, have signed a petition asking that these same 
 views be submitted to a vote of the people as a preliminary step 
 towards so changing our State Constitution as to make it harmonize 
 with them. 
 
 Reporter. If it is not too much of a digression, I should like to 
 know what you think of the fear that is sometimes expressed on 
 account of the growth of Roman Catholicism in this country, and 
 its supposed antagonism to the principles of liberty? 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. Well, sir, I will tell you candidly what I think 
 about that. Should the Government of this country ever fall into 
 the hands of such Catholics as endorse the present public-school 
 
Battle Gro7i7td on xvhicJi Edticational ^lestlon jnust be Fought. 77 
 
 system other denominations may well tremble for their liberty, as 
 you can readily see. Tliis system, as you know, rests upon the as- 
 sumption that a majority of the people have a right to determine 
 whether any, and, if any, what kind of religion shall be taught in 
 the public schools, and to compel the minority to submit to that 
 determination. Now let us suppose that this majority should be 
 composed of a class of so-called Catholics, who believe in this mon- 
 strous doctrine that in educational matters the minority has no rights 
 which the majority is bound to respect, will you tell me what is to 
 prevent a majority composed oi such Catholics as these from forcing 
 the children of a helpless minority of Protestants to study the Cath- 
 olic catechism in the public schools, provided that by so doing they 
 can make themselves popular and put money in their pockets .? 
 
 Reporter. Of course they could not do that without violating 
 our present constitution. 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. Very true ; but written constitutions you must 
 remember furnish only feeble barriers against unwilling majorities, 
 and that for two reasons, namely, such majorities can either change 
 the existing constitution or override it with impunity. 
 
 Reporter. Do you really think that the Catholics of whom you 
 speak, even if they had the power, would ever so use that power as 
 to oppress their Protestant neighbors } 
 
 Mr. Montgomery. Well, %\x^ you might trust them, but I could 
 not ; and I will tell you why. These same Catholics — if I may call 
 them such — are now helping to use exactly this same power for the 
 cruel and unjust oppression of other Catholics, as well as non-Catho- 
 lics, who do not believe as they do in the immaculate character of the 
 present public-school system, and I can scarcely think that they 
 would deal any more liberally or more justly with Protestants, 
 Jews, or Free-thinkers than the)^ are now dealing with their co-re- 
 ligionists, especially when by so doing they would sacrifice both their 
 popularity and their self interest. It is true that they can find no 
 warrant in the authoritative teachings of their church for forcing 
 upon non-Catholic children religious teachings which are repugnant 
 to the consciences of their parents ; but neither can they find there 
 any warrant for forcing upon the children of either Catholics or non- 
 Catholics, in defiance of the protesting consciences of their fathers 
 and mothers, the Godless, vicious, and crime-breeding system of 
 education which now curses our land fi-om the shores of the Atlantic 
 to the shores of the Pacific. 
 
 CHAPTEK XIII. 
 
 CHE GREAT BATTLE GROUND ON WHICH THE EDUCATIONAL qUESTION MUST 
 
 BE FOUGHT. 
 
 It must be clear to every thinking mind that the chief reason 
 why the present anti-parental and crime-producing public-school 
 system has obtained so strong a hold upon the country is to be 
 
78 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 found in a w^ant of united and harmonious action on the part of 
 those who see and lament its pernicious influence over the rising 
 generation, but differ as to the precise thing which constitutes the 
 fundamental evil of the system, and consequently they equally 
 differ as to what ought to be the remedy for said evil. For 
 example : Many honest and conscientious people believe that the 
 •great wrong committed by the political State, through its public- 
 school system, consists in its prohibiting the reading of the Bible 
 in the public schools, while many others, equally conscientious 
 and equally opposed to the present system, believe that the State 
 is right in forbidding the use of the Bible in the schools, but that 
 it is wrong in allowing " Johnson's Cyclopedia" and certain other 
 books, believed to have either a sectarian or a partisan bias, to be 
 taught in these schools. Still another class object to the system, 
 because of the immoral or incompetent character of many of its 
 teachers, or because of the objectionable methods of teaching in 
 use in its schools, or because of the commingling of the sexes, or 
 for other kindred reasons. 
 
 But to our mind, the chief vice of the system lies in its usurpa- 
 tion of parental authority, and in its attempting to do for each 
 child, through political agencies, that which can be properly done 
 by nobody else in the world, except by its own father and mother. 
 We contend that this usurpation of parental authority by the politi- 
 cal State is the main trunk out of which naturally grow the other 
 evils just mentioned, and that, until this parent tree be rooted up, 
 we shall never be able to rid our country of its poisonous branches, 
 or their bitter and deadly fruits. 
 
 The question which we are discussing, and the question which 
 we urge every intelligent citizen to consider, is not whether the 
 Bible ought or ought not to be read in school ; nor whether 
 "Johnson's Cyclopedia" is a proper book for school libraries; 
 nor whether a particular class of teachers are or are not the best 
 adapted to school woi^k ; nor whether the commingling of the sexes 
 in the schools has a moi-alizing or a demoralizing tendency ; nor 
 whether the teaching of religion and the physical sciences ought or 
 ought not to go hand in hand ; nor whether good children, who 
 have been carefully and morally trained at home, ought or ought 
 not to be sent to the same school with the vicious and depraved, 
 with the view of reforming the latter. That there is a wide and an 
 honest difference of opinion amongst the American people as to 
 these questions no candid and intelligent citizen will deny. And 
 accepting this honest difference of opinion as an existing fact., the 
 
Battle Grotmdon zvhich Educational ^ziestion nntst be Fought. 79 
 
 question which we now propose to discuss is this : Does it right- 
 fully belong to the political .State to determine these questions for 
 parents and childi'cn, and to compel them to submit to its decision? 
 If the political State has the right to decide these questions for par- 
 ents, and to enforce obedience to its decisions, even as against 
 their judgments and consciences, then it necessarily follows as a 
 consequence that in all cases of conflict between the judgment of 
 the political State on one side and the judgment of the parent on 
 the other, touching any of the above-mentioned questions, it becomes 
 the duty of the parent to subject his own judgment to the judgment 
 of the State. For surely it cannot be claimed that, where the State 
 has the right to command, the citizen has the right to disobey the 
 command. But in cases of conflict between his own conscientious 
 judgment and the judgment of the State as to the fitness of 
 teachers, or books, or school companions, etc., can the parent, 
 without moral crime, subject his own judgment to that of the State.'' 
 Suppose, for example, the case of a strictly conscientious Prot- 
 estant parent who, by the use of all the lights within his I'each, has 
 come to the conclusion that the constant presence and daily reading 
 of the Bible in the school is one of the indispensable means of pre- 
 serving the moral purity of his child ; of protecting it against what 
 he firmly believes are the dangerous and damnable doctrines of 
 atheism ; and of preparing it for a life of virtue, honor, and useful- 
 ness in this world, and a life of eternal happiness in the world to 
 come ; and suppose the political State, in the exercise of its judgment, 
 forbids the Bible to be read in its schools, can such a parent, 
 without crime, send his children to such schools, believing in his 
 heart that by doing so he is preparing them for a life of sin and 
 shame, and an eternity of woe.^ Be it remembered that we are not 
 now discussing the question as to whether the Bible is or is not a 
 necessary or a proper book for daily use in the schools, but we are 
 discussing the proposition as to the State's jurisdiction to decide that 
 question, and to enforce obedience to its decision as against the 
 judgment and consciences of parents. If the political State has the 
 legitimate power and the rightful jurisdiction to make a binding de- 
 cision on this disputed question, then whichever way it decides the 
 question — whether it be in favor of or against the use of the Bible 
 in the schools — its decision must be equally binding. For the power 
 to decide a disputed question, on condition that it be decided one 
 particular way and no other, simply means no power to decide the 
 question at all. Therefore, if the State has a rightful jurisdiction 
 over this question, and should decide to teach the Bible in the schools. 
 
8o " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 to the children of parents who do not believe in the Bible, such 
 parents would have no right to complain. For if the parental judg- 
 ment and conscience are subordinate and ought to yield to the State's 
 judgment and conscience, where would be the ground for complaint? 
 
 Again, if the State may rightfully, and without trenching upon 
 the doctrine of religious liberty, yor^/t^ the teaching of the Bible in 
 the schools, to the children of parents whose judgments and con- 
 sciences demand such teaching, or may enforce the teaching of the 
 Bible to the children of those whose judgments and consciences are 
 opposed thereto, it then follows, as a matter of coui'se, that the 
 State must have jurisdiction to decide as to which one of all the 
 various versions and translations of the Bible is the correct one. In 
 other words, it must have jurisdiction to determine which one of the 
 various books known as the ' ' Bible " is entitled to be called by that 
 name. Not only that, but if the State can, without encroaching 
 upon the just liberty of conscience, decide what book is the Bible, 
 and then enforce the teaching of such Bible in the schools, against 
 the judgments and consciences of the parents of the children who 
 are so taught, it must also have jurisdiction to decide, as between 
 conflicting interpretations, what is the meaning of the various texts 
 of the Bible, for it would be as absurd and as barren of good results 
 to simply teach the ivords of the Bible to a child, while leaving it 
 in ignorance as to their signification, as it would be to teach the same 
 child to repeat, in a parrot-like manner, the words of its arithmetic 
 or of its grammar, while allowing it to grope in darkness as to the 
 real scientific meaning which those words were intended to convey. 
 
 But if the State has the rightful jurisdiction to decide pro or con 
 upon the authenticity of the Scriptures, and also to interpret them 
 for its schools, and in defiance of the judgment and consciences of 
 parents to teach the Scriptures, as it interprets them, to the rising 
 generation, does not this of itself involve the right — within the limits 
 of its educational domain — to establish a State religi on ? We can 
 see no escape from an affirmative answer to this proposition. In 
 other words, we maintain that it is impossible, logically, to justify 
 our present anti-parental State-controlled educational system, with- 
 out the maintenance of principles which would justify the political 
 State in establishing, at public expense, a State church, and teaching 
 to the rising generation a State religion, and compelling every child 
 to learn and practise such teachings. If the true and just relations 
 between the political State and its citizens are such that, in settling 
 the question as to the kind of education that shall be given to the 
 children of the latter, it is the right of the State to command and 
 
Battle Ground on which Educational Question must be Fought. 8i 
 
 the duty of the parent to obey, then it follows that if we were 
 citizens of some barbarous country, where the political State 
 requires every child to learn and practice the doctrine of snake-wor- 
 ship, it would become our bounden duty to allow our children to be 
 taught these vile and revolting doctrines. 
 
 Here again we insist upon its being borne in mind that we are not 
 discussing the question as to what kind or whether any religion 
 ought or ought not to be taught to children ; but we are only con- 
 sidering the question as to whether or not it rightfully belongs to the 
 " political State " to determine that question, and in doing so, to 
 override the judgments and consciences of the fathers and mothers 
 of children. 
 
 It seems to us that, from the innermost depths of every human 
 heart, not wholly dead to the noblest impulses of man's nature, there 
 rises up one spontaneous universal protest against this vile and 
 monstrous usurpation of parental authority by the political State. 
 And we firmly believe that the only thing necessary is that the peo- 
 ple of this country, of all creeds and parties, be brought fairly and 
 squarely face to face with this deadly foe to their liberties, so as to 
 see the horrid monster in all its hideous deformity, and that they will 
 then promptly stamp it out of existence. Therefore, in our humble 
 opinion, the true and proper course to be pursued by the friends of 
 educational reform is to keep prominently before the people as the 
 fundamental, the vital issue, this question, namely : Shall the parent 
 or the political State determine for a child who shall be its teacher, 
 its companions, and what books it shall or shall not study? Let all 
 other issues be made subordinate to this. As long as we make our 
 chief fight on the question of Bible or no Bible, religion or no relig- 
 ion, division of public-school funds or no division, mixed or separate 
 schools for girls and boys, and similar questions concerning which 
 men will differ — and as things are, naturally and honestly differ — so 
 long will there be contention and strife amongst the real friends of 
 educational reform. Each of these contending factions is willing to 
 see, and does see, the evils of an anti-parental system of education 
 when that system strikes at his o-wn rights, as he understands those 
 rights ; but is slow to see the same evils when they only affect the 
 rights of his neighbors, who choose to exercise their rights in a 
 manner different from himself. 
 
 This should not be so. If we expect the assistance of our neigh- 
 bors in our struggles for our own parental rights, we must be will- 
 ing to assist those neighbors in securing theirs. And we must not 
 demand, as a condition precedent, that these neighbors shall agree 
 
82 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 to exercise their parental rights just as we do oui's, because this 
 would be as intolerant and oppressive, and as opposed to parental 
 liberty, as is the present public-school system ; or rather it would be 
 simply a new application of the same system. It would simply be 
 the taking of the martyred victim who is being roasted on one side, 
 and turning the other side to the fire. 
 
 We must realize the fact that in union there is strength, and that 
 we can only have union by being just and liberal towards eacli other. 
 While standing firmly by our own rights and the rights of our chil- 
 dren, we must realize and act upon the fact that our neighbors' 
 rights and our neighbors' children are as dear to them as ours are to 
 us. And however widely mistaken we may believe our neighbors 
 to be in their manner of educating their children, we should remem- 
 ber that it is not our business, nor our. right, to force o?^r views upon 
 them any more than it is their business to force their views upon 
 us. It is not for their children but for our own that we shall be 
 called upon to render an account to that God who gave them. 
 
 If, then, we would work for zinion^ if we would work for success 
 in the cause of educational liberty, let us lay aside all those side 
 issues, w^hich every parent should settle according to his own judg- 
 ment and conscience, and let us raise aloft the broad banner of par- 
 ental rights and equal educational liberty, without distinction of 
 creed, party, or calling. Under this banner we ca7i conquer ; under 
 any other I believe we shall surely fail. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 A NON-SECTARIAN PLATFORM OF EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES ALMOST UNANI- 
 MOUSLY ENDORSED BY THOSE WHO HAVE STUDIED IT. 
 
 PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 Parents are bound, by the law of Nature, (each according to his 
 ability), to properly feed, clothe, and educate their own children, 
 and unwilling parents should be compelled, by appropriate legisla- 
 tion, to discharge these duties. 
 
 II. 
 
 It is a public duty to assist, at public expense, in furnishing the 
 necessary means wherewith to properly feed, clothe, and educate 
 
A non- Sectarian Platform of Educational Principles. 83 
 
 children whose parents are unable to so feed, clothe, and educate 
 
 them. 
 
 III. * 
 
 No citizen of this State should ever be taxed for the feeding, 
 clothing, or educating of children — not his own — whose parents are 
 amply able to feed, clothe, and educate them. 
 
 IV. 
 
 All such parents as are neither mentally nor morally unfit to have 
 the custody of children are entitled, and in duty bound, to select for 
 the education of their own children schools wherein they believe that 
 neither the teachers, the associations, nor the kind of instruction 
 given, will seriously endanger either their health, their lives, or their 
 morals, but will best pi"omote their temporal and eternal welfare. 
 
 Neither the State, nor any municipal or other government organized 
 under its authority, should ever force upon the child of any parent — not 
 legally adjudged mentally or morally unfit to discharge the duties of 
 the parental office — any particular teacher, book, or system of relig- 
 ious or non-religious instruction against the conscientious objections 
 of such parent. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Tuition, when at public expense, should embrace a good common 
 English and business education, added to such a thorough training in 
 one or more of the mechanic arts, or the manufacturing, domestic, or 
 productive industries, as will best prepare youth for the practical 
 business of self-support, but should not extend to the merely orna- 
 mental or more abstruse arts or sciences, except in a limited class of 
 cases (to be provided for by law) as a reward for exalted merit, when 
 coupled with a high order of talent and a special aptitude for such 
 arts or sciences. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The whole business of educating and training the young should, 
 like other professions, be open to private enterprise and free compe- 
 tition : Provided.^ That the State should establish and maintain such 
 necessary educational institutions as private enterprise shall fail to 
 establish and maintain ; and every parent or guardian entitled to 
 have his or her child or ward educated at public expense should 
 select for such purpose his own school, and the teacher or principal 
 of such school should be paid periodically for teaching such pupil a 
 
84 '"''Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 compensation, the maximum of which shall be fixed by law, which 
 compensation should be proportionate to the progress made by the 
 pupil during such period of tuition in the legally appointed secular 
 branches. Said progress to be ascertained by examiners duly elected 
 or appointed in such manner as may be provided by law ; but no 
 religious tuition which may be given in any such school should be 
 at public expense or subject to the supervision of said examiners. 
 
 HOW INTELLIGENT CITIZENS OF ALL CLASSES REGARD THE ABOVE PROP- 
 OSITIONS. 
 
 The friends and opponents of the foregoing propositions held a 
 meeting in the city of Oakland on the evening of October 6, 1879, 
 for the purpose of considering their merits. In inferring to that 
 meeting, and its action touching said propositions, a leading Oakland 
 daily, the Evening Tribune., in its issue of October loth, among 
 other things said : 
 
 " A large audience gathered last Monday evening at the old 
 Congregational church building, to hear the Hon. Zach. Mont- 
 gomery discuss the demerits of the Public-School System of the 
 United States. It was generally expected and hoped that the 
 Rev. Horatio Stebbins, D. D., of San Francisco, would be present 
 and take issue with the views advanced by Mr. Montgomery, but 
 the reverend gentleman did not put in an appearance. Fred. M. 
 Campbell, State Superintendent-elect, at the request of Mr. Mont- 
 gomery, presided. * * * Jn support of the two principal opin- 
 ions, namely, the pernicious influence of our present system of pub- 
 lic instruction, and the right and duty of the parent to select and 
 control the education of tlie child, as well as clothe and feed it, he 
 advanced seven propositions, which, if carried out practically, he 
 believed would prove vastly superior to the present system. He 
 was frequently plied with questions, put by persons in the audience, 
 to which he responded with alacrity. A vote was taken on the several 
 propositions advanced by Mr. Montgomery to ascertain the sense of 
 the audience in regard to the subject, and invariably the result showed 
 that the speaker was sustained by the majority of his hearers." 
 
 As another evidence of the intrinsic popularity of the foregoing 
 platform of principles it may be stated that a petition asking that a law 
 be passed to submit said platform to a vote of the people, to test the 
 sense of the public upon the question of so amending the California 
 State constitution as to bring it into harmony with said platform, was 
 endorsed by nearly every leading citizen of the cities of San Francisco 
 and Oakland who examined the question. Among these signers 
 were included the most prominent ministers of almost every religious 
 denomination, as well as non-religionists of the different schools of 
 
A 71071- Sectarian Platfor^n of Educational Prmcifles. 85 
 
 thought. Indeed, it is a noteworthy fact that amongst these signers 
 was the Hon. J. F. Swift, the able and distinguised Republican 
 nominee for Governor of California in this year of our Lord 1886. 
 A bill was introduced in the California State Senate, in 1880, by 
 Hon. B. F. Langford, providing for carrying out the objects of said 
 petition. It was referred to the Senate Committee on Education, 
 came back with a divided report, was placed on the regular files of 
 business, but the session — being by the constitution restricted to sixty 
 days — expired by limitation before the bill could be reached for 
 action. It is a well-known fact, however, that many of the ablest 
 and most influential members of that body stood ready to give it 
 their cordial support. 
 
 The following are but a few of the prominent and influential names 
 appended thereto, to \\-it : 
 
 Hon. James T. Farley, (U. S. Senator.) Hon. E. W. McKinstry, (Supreme Judge.) 
 
 Hon. S. B. McKee, (Supreme Judge.) Hon. A. M. Crane, (Superior Judge.) 
 
 (Several other Superior Judges.) 
 Hon. John R. Glascock, (M. C.) Hon. W. W. Foote, (R. R. Commissioner.) 
 
 Hon. J. F. Swift. Hon. J. A. Stanley. 
 
 Dr. S. Merritt. F. Delger. 
 
 Rt. Rev. W. I. Kipp, (Episc. Bishop of Cal.) Rev. W. A. Scott, (Presbyterian.) 
 
 Rev. J. K. McLean, (Cougregationalist.) Rev. G. S. Abbott, (Baptist.) 
 
 Rev. C. Kenrick, (Campbellite or Christian.) Rev. L. Hamilton, (Independent.) 
 
 Rev. Thos. Guard, (Methodist.) Rev. J. Fuendelisg, (Reformed Ger. Ch.) 
 
 Rev. F. W. Fischer, (Evangelical Ass'n.) Rev. G. MuEHLSTEPH,(Gennan Lutheran,) 
 
 And fourteen other prominent Protestant clergymen of San Francisco and Oakland belonging to 
 the different denominations just enumerated. 
 
 Also Most Rev. J. S. Alemany, of San Francisco, and several other Roman Catholic Clergymen. 
 
 Also Dr. D. H. Vidaver and Dr. A. J. Mes.sing, Jewish rabbis. 
 
 Rev. Doctor John LeConte, while president of the California 
 State University, an eminent Presbyterian divine, after reading the 
 author's views as expressed in " Poison Fountain" — without fully 
 committing himself to these views — wrote as follows : 
 
 " There can be no doubt that the gradual impairment and loss 
 of parental authority and influence is one of the most serious 
 afid mome?itous evils which besets the American civilization. It 
 undertnines the very foundations of the family — the essential 
 unit of society." 
 
 Rev. Dr. Joseph LeConte, likewise a distinguished Presbyterian 
 minister, a professor of the same University and a scientist and au- 
 thor of world-wide celebrity, addressed the writer a letter, saying, 
 amon^ other things: '•''I filly concur tvith you in your view that 
 any education which weakens the family tie strikes at the very 
 foundation of society., and no amount of good in other directions 
 can atone for this greatest of all evils. I fully concur with you 
 
86 " Poison Dt'ops^'' m the Federal Senate. 
 
 also in your opposition to compulsory State education. This 
 certainly strikes at the integrity of the fainily ., for it makes chil- 
 dren ' the wards of the State' I fully believe.^ also^ that private 
 schools, each parent choosittg his own ^furnish a better education., 
 all things corzsidered., than any public-school system." 
 
 Rev. A. Adams, of Los Angeles, (Protestant,) writing to the 
 author, says : "/ am struck with the sifnilarity of our views on 
 the school question., and bid you Godspeed in propagating your 
 views as contained in the publication before m,e. I see that yo7i., 
 a Catholic, and /, a Protestatit., are united here.'''' 
 
 Dr. Thomas W. Dawson, of Downey City, (non-religionist,) con- 
 cludes a letter to the author as follows : '•'• I honestly believe that your 
 array of facts and reaso7ting are simply unanswerable." 
 
 Mr. W. D. Blackwell, of Trenton, New Jersey, wrote to the au- 
 thor, saying : '•'• I am a Presbyterian., but you and myself are in per- 
 fect harmony and accord upon this all-important school question." 
 
 Mr. W. L. Prather, a well-known citizen and notary public of 
 Oakland, a strict member of the Methodist Church, concluded a 
 letter to the author as follows : " Truth is the invincible weapon 
 that you have so efficiently em-ployed ; a weapon that has already 
 and tvill continue to work as leaven in the social and political 
 himp until., as I trust., the whole shall become leavened." 
 
 Hon. J. Burckhalter, of Santa Rosa, Cal., a prominent lawyer 
 and staunch member of the Campbellite (or Christian) Church, ad- 
 dressed a letter to the writer on the subject of his educational fight, 
 concluding thus : '•'' I hope you will have courage and go on in the 
 good work until success shall have crowned your efforts." 
 
 Mr. George Washington, the grand-nephew and nearest living 
 relative of the illustrious Father of his Country, wrote to the author 
 from Center View, Mo., April 13th, 1880: 
 
 " Please send me a copy of your celebrated pamphlet against pub- 
 lic schools. I have read copious extracts from the same, but want a 
 copy in full for re-reading and reference. It will keep. I am as much 
 opposed to the system as yoin*self, but have not the ability to express 
 my objections as clearly, pointedly, and forcibly as you have yours. 
 '' Respectfully, 
 
 " George Washington." 
 
 TWO MOST SIGNIFICANT FACTS — SUBSTANTIAL ENDORSEMENTS BY A CONGRE- 
 GATIONAL STATE COUNCIL AND A PRESBYTERIAN STATE SYNOD. 
 
 It is well known that the Congregational clergymen of California 
 are mostly New England men, and it is equally well known that such 
 of them as have investigated the subject are almost, if not quite, a unit 
 
A no?i- Sectarian Platform of E ducat zonal Principles. 87 
 
 in their endorsement of our educational platform. As an evidence 
 of this, in 1879 a California State Council of Congregational clergy- 
 men convened in San Francisco appointed Rev. Dr. J. K. McLean, 
 one of its most distinguished members — and a signer of the above- 
 mentioned petition embodying our educational platform — to prepare 
 a document touching the school question. At an adjourned meet- 
 ing, which convened in Oakland October 6th, 1880, the Rev. Doc- 
 tor made a carefully-prepared report, entitled — 
 
 " THE PROPER LIMITS OF STATE EDUCATION." 
 
 This report w^as in substantial accord with the principles set forth 
 in said platform. 
 
 In proof of this, only a few quotations will be necessary. For 
 example, this report says : 
 
 "• Pke State sJioiild litn it itself in tJie feld of education as it 
 does in all the other f elds it occupies ; that is, it may provide, and 
 ought to provide, eletnetitary teaching for t/iose iv/io would not 
 otherwise get it ; but only on the same groutid on which it pro- 
 vides bread and clothing and shelter and medicine for those who 
 would not otherwise get them.^' Again, 
 
 " State education should be limited certainly to what is known 
 as common-school instructio7t ; possibly to the three elettientary 
 brandies, reading, zvriting, and aritJimetic.'''' Again, 
 
 "• A rapidly increasing number of people in the churches, perceiv- 
 ing the impossibility of harmonizing opinions into any sort of working 
 agreement as to what shall be taught, as to how it shall be taught, 
 and by what kind of persons it shall be taught, are arriving at the 
 conclusion that the wiser way, the juster wav, the far more satis- 
 factory way, will be no longer to put our education money into a 
 common fund, except so far as to guard the State against utter illit- 
 eracy ; but for the party of each opinion to be allowed to keep its 
 higher educational money in its own hands, and to expend it in 
 such manner as shall seem to itself good. This will be for the in- 
 terest of State harmony no less than for the interest of education 
 itself. Then the Catholic father can enjoy his indefeasible right 
 to educate his child after his own judgment and co)iscience ; tJie 
 inf del father can enjoy his indefeasible right, and the Protest- 
 afit Christian his.'' Again, the Rev. Doctor's report says : 
 
 " As matters now stand, the non-religionist party are, in some of 
 our States, oppressors. They are refusing the religionist liberty of 
 conscience as touching a most important and far-reaching matter. 
 The non-religionist exacts money from the religionist for purposes 
 of a common education, and then refuses the religionist any voice or 
 influence in the management of that education. For me, a relig- 
 ionist, believing that a certain moral culture should be joined to all 
 mental culture; believing, indeed, that the two cannot by any pos- 
 sibility be separated ; believing that the absence of positive moral 
 
88 ''''Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 culture is equivalent to a culture in «V/zmorality — just as the absence 
 of certain elements in the atmosphere leaves it poisonously noxious — 
 for me to insist that some appliances for inoral culture shall be in- 
 cluded in our common system of education is bigotry. There must 
 be two taxes and one voice. I can pay, but can have no say. There 
 is no bigotry in the non-religionist having w^hat he wants at the com- 
 mon expense, but for the religionist to claim some allowance for 
 his v^ants is the essence of bigotry. 
 
 So great is the divergence of opinion as to systems of education, 
 so impossible of remediation does this divergency appear to be, that 
 very many of us are beginning to think that the only peaceable and 
 harmonious way must be to follow the example set in early days in 
 the matter of State religion — for the State simply to protect all par- 
 ties in their opinions, and relegate to each parent the business of 
 providing his children with such higher education as his judgment 
 may suggest or his conscience dictate. The same principle., pre- 
 cisely., appears to undei'lie both matters., that of church and 
 State., and that of school atzd State." 
 
 This able report of the Rev. Doctor's was promptly adopted and 
 published to the world as expressing the views of the Council. Sub- 
 sequently, a Presbyterian State Synod, held in San Francisco, ap- 
 pointed Rev. Dr. Scott, one of its ablest members, (who was also 
 one of the signers of our said petition), to prepare a report on the 
 same subject. His report, when prepared, was also in perfect har- 
 mony with said petition and with the views proclaimed by the Con- 
 gregational Council. Rev. Dr. Scott's report was also adopted by 
 nearly, if not quite, a unanimous vote of the Synod. 
 
 The important significance of the action thus taken by these two 
 highly- intelligent and influential bodies of men in favor of parental 
 rights and equal liberty in educational matters can scarcely be over- 
 estimated. 
 
 It would be easy to fill page after page with the endorsements from 
 distinguished Protestant, Jewish, and non-religious sources, but it 
 is now in oi"der to show that our non-sectarian platform of educa- 
 tional principles is as acceptable to intelligent and fair-minded Cath- 
 olics as it is to non-Catholics. 
 
 For example : Archbishop Seghers, writing from Portland, Ore- 
 gon, March 26th, 1883, among other things, says : 
 
 " The logic with which you grapple with the educational prob- 
 " lem is irresistible, and, as the champion of the only system of edu- 
 " cation that can be reared on principles of truth and justice, you 
 " are simply admii-able. When I read your thoughts I feel that 
 " they are the outcome of long, careful, patient study and of con- 
 " scientious convictions." 
 
A 7ton- Sectarian Platform of Edticational Principles. 89 
 
 Bishop Grace, of St. Paul, Minnesota, in February, iSSi, writing 
 to the author upon the subject of his magazine, then being pubHshed, 
 among other things, said : 
 
 " You have judged wisely in making your magazine non-sectarian 
 " and appealing to the common sense and calm judgment of the 
 " American people at large. I have long since been convinced that 
 " this was the proper course from the beginning. By making the 
 " movement appear a strictly Catholic movement, upon Catholic 
 " grounds, ive forfeited the sympathy and co-operation of the 
 " commu7iities of other creeds^ a?id by 07ir over-heated zeal we 
 " alienated frofn ?is the liberal-minded am.o7ig o7ir better citize7is 
 " in general." 
 
 Subsequently, the same eminent prelate wrote to the author, say- 
 ing : 
 
 " If you need any words of mi lie to encourage you in the course 
 you are pursuing, you have them from my heart. Every day con- 
 vinces me more and more that the ground you have taken in defence 
 of the rights of the family against the encroachments of the State is 
 really the ground upon which the opposition to the State school sys- 
 tem should have been based from the beginning. Natural rights, as 
 involved in this question, no legitimate Government will infringe, or 
 allow to be infringed, upon due proof. The law of majorities, the 
 vox pop7fli, has no weight against the claims of natural family rights." 
 
 More than a dozen other distinguished American bishops and 
 archbishops, including Archbishop Elder, of Cincinnati ; Bishop 
 Spalding, of Peoria ; Bishop Ryan, of Buffalo, N. Y.; Bishop 
 Gilmoure, of Cleveland, Ohio ; Bishop Marty, of Dakota ; Bishop 
 Seidenbush, of Minnesota; Bishop Fink, of Leavenworth ; Bishop 
 Hogan, of Kansas City, and all the Pacific Coast bishops, have 
 joined in the substantial endorsement of our aforesaid educational 
 platform ; and, last but not least, the great Cardinal Manning, or 
 England, concluded an article on the school question (published in 
 the Nineteenth Century for April, 1883) by saying that he could 
 not do better than repeat the above letter of Bishop Grace, commend- 
 ing, as we have just seen, in the strongest terms the author's position. 
 
 The truth is that wherever., and whenever., and by whomsoever., 
 our platform of educational principles has been studied in connec- 
 tion with our compilation of criminal statistics, it has been almost 
 invariably endorsed. 
 
 At least we feel warranted in saying that wherever the school 
 question has been carefully considered from the stand-point presented 
 in these pages, the number of those who endorse our platform, 
 compared with the number who reject it, stands in the proportion 
 of not less than 
 
go " Poison Drops" ut the Jhederal Senate. 
 
 SIX TO ONE. 
 
 As a fair test of the truth of this proposition it may be stated 
 that, in the month of June, 1881, it was announced in the Oakland 
 papers that the writer would deliver two pay lectures in Cameron 
 Hall, Oakland, to wit: on the evenings of Friday and Saturday, 
 July ist and 2d; the first lecture to be in answer to the question, 
 " Which of the two is the more plausible theory, namely, that man 
 is an improved monkey, or that the monkey is an improved man?" 
 and printed on the backs of the tickets of admission was the follow- 
 ing, as indicating the programme and the nature of the subject for 
 Satui-day evening's lecture, to wit : 
 
 CHANCE FOR A PRIZE. 
 
 On the evening of the second lecture a prize, consisting of twenty- 
 five per cent, of the net proceeds of both lectures, will be awarded 
 to the person present who shall, in the fewest words, not exceeding 
 one hundred in number, furnish in writing the best original an- 
 swer, with the chief reasons therefor, to the following question, 
 to wit : 
 
 In cases where, on the one hand, the judgment and conscience of 
 a proper parent, fit to be guardian of his own child, and on the 
 other, the judgment and conscience of the school officials and of the 
 general public differ, irreconcilably, as to whether said child, when 
 of school age, can, with safety to its health, its life, or its morals, 
 be educated in such schools as the public has provided for that pur- 
 pose, whose judgment and conscience ought to control — that of the 
 parent or that of the school officials and the general public } 
 
 Said award will be made immediately before the second lecture, 
 by an umpire to be chosen by the competing respondents, whose 
 answers must all be handed to the doorkeeper by 7^ o'clock. 
 
 The answer taking the prize will constitute the subject of the sec- 
 ond lecture. 
 
 The lectures came off' as appointed, and seven competing answers 
 to the foregoing questions were handed in. Hon. J. C. Martin vs^as 
 elected umpire to pass upon the merits of the several answers ; and 
 upon his request to have two assistants to aid him in arriving at a 
 correct conclusion, he was authorized by a unanimous vote to select 
 such assistants, whereupon he selected Dr. D. Skilling and Mr. 
 John Lynch. After a careful examination and comparison of the 
 various answers, the preference was, by unanimous consent, given 
 to that of Hon. A. R. Redman, which is as follows : 
 
 The judgment of the parent must control, because — 
 
 1st. The instinctive love and mutual affection of parent and child 
 
A non-Sectarian Platform of Educational Pri?iciples. 91 
 
 afford assurances of protection for the latter, and are elements which 
 cannot be alienated, transferred, or divested. 
 
 2d. These natural instincts and the duty of the parent to support 
 the child, the right to enjoy its services and companionship, cannot 
 co-exist w^ith a higher authority resting elsewhere to ^ educate " it, 
 without an irrepressible conflict subversive of these natural and in- 
 alienable duties and obligations, which are based upon the laws of 
 nature and of God. 
 
 (Signed) A. R. Redman. 
 
 The following are the other six competing answers, with the sig- 
 natures of their respective authors appended : 
 
 The judgment of the school officials and the general public 
 (should control), " because the school officials and general public, 
 being equally interested in all the children, decide unselfishly." 
 
 2d. The motto of the school ofiicials and general public is. The 
 greatest good to the greatest number. 
 
 3d. The school which the public has provided is the result of the 
 aggregated wisdom and virtue of the State or community. 
 
 4th. The school officials and general public believe that virtue 
 must be brought in contact with vice both to strengthen virtue and 
 to weaken vice. 
 
 5th. The public school proposes a suflSciently high but general 
 development for all. 
 
 (Signed) J. C. Lawson. 
 
 The judgment of the parent (should control), because he " is a 
 proper parent ft to be guardian of his own child ^'^ none feeling 
 the same interest in the child as the parent, and none so able to form 
 its character. 
 
 2d. Because the parent is directly responsible to God for the proper 
 training of the child, and no one other than the parent should have 
 control or assume the responsibility that rests only on the parent. 
 (Signed) W. L. Prather. 
 
 A proper parent should control the education of his child. His 
 judgment concerning the mental, physical, and moral needs of his 
 own offspring, with whom he is in daily contact, must be better 
 than that of paid officials, who, in handling an incongruous mass of 
 immatuie minds, can know little of each individual temperament, 
 and in many instances cares less. The sound judgment of the par- 
 ent admitted, his conscience would naturally dictate to him his duty. 
 He should place his child under the best moral and social influence, 
 and of them he is the best judge. 
 
 (Signed) J. L. Abell. 
 
 The parent, (should control), otherwise would he violate the law 
 guaranteeing liberty, and providing that no citizen should be de- 
 prived of liberty except by due process. Naturally the parent is 
 the best judge, knowing the child best, and he would from every 
 
93 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 consideration care most, and certainly the community's real interests 
 are never jeopardized by the true interest of one of its citizens. The 
 great interest of the child is not considered by the people or their repre- 
 sentatives — the greatest and best interest of the soul. The parent 
 looks to this, if a proper parent. 
 
 (Signed) J. C. Kendrick, M. D. 
 
 God has made it both the right and the duty of the parent to sup- 
 port and educate his child, nor can any powder justly deprive him of 
 this right or release him from this duty. The duty and the right 
 are inseparable. 
 
 If the State can of right prescribe the schools and education, it 
 can of right prescribe its religion. This would be anti-American 
 and subversive of our free institutions. 
 
 (Signed) H. H. Hendrix. 
 
 None should come betvs^een my child and me, or dictate hov^ I 
 should educate or raise it ; for my heart alone will grieve if false 
 teachings lead it astray, and my soul alone is responsible to the 
 eternal God for His charge. My money is mine^ and it is but just 
 that I use it for my child's interest in schools I approve. 
 
 Education without religion is as bad as total ignorance. Better 
 a godly citizen than a classical knave ; political mills are not places 
 wherein my child can learn honesty, morality, and virtue. 
 (Signed) M. E. L., 
 
 375 Fourth Street, City. 
 
 It will be observed that there is nothing either in the question 
 itself, or in any of the foregoing answers, in the least tinged with 
 w^hat is usually called sectarian bias. Six of the competing parties 
 were either Protestants or non-religionists, and two of the umpires 
 were Protestants and one Catholic. Taking both the seven com- 
 petitors and the three umpires, they make ten in all, and represent 
 almost that many shades of religious belief; and yet — as will be 
 seen by reading these answers, and the names of the umpires 
 appended to the award — they stood solid for parental rights, nine 
 against one. It is our solemn conviction that whenever this ques- 
 tion can be brought squarely before the people, so that they can vote 
 upon it understandingly, more than nine to one will vote against 
 this monstrous usurpation, whereby parents are robbed of their 
 natural and God-given rights in so sacred a matter as that of select- 
 ing schools for their own children. 
 
 There is but one of the foregoing answers upon which we deem 
 it necessary to comment, because each of the others seems to 
 embody, in different forms of expression, the same sound doctrine 
 as that contained in the one to which the umpii-es gave the pref- 
 
A non- Sectarian Platform of Educational Principles. 93 
 
 erence. The answer to which we cannot subscribe is that of Mr. 
 Law^son . 
 
 He maintains that w4iere there is a conflict between the judgment 
 and conscience of a proper parent on the one side, and the judg- 
 ment and conscience of the school officials and the general public 
 on the other, as to whether a child can with safety to its health, its 
 life, and its morals be sent to such school as the public has estab- 
 lished, the judgment of the school officials and the general public 
 should control. And his reasons are : First, " because the school 
 officials and the general public, being equally interested in all the 
 children, decide unselfishly." 
 
 Now, in the first place, we deny the truth of this statement, 
 because, vinless the school officials are all old bachelors, or other- 
 wise childless persons, it is impossible for them to be " equally 
 Interested in all the children.'''' In other words, it is in the very 
 nature of things impossible for the parents of children to feel no 
 more interest in the proper education of their own than in that of 
 their neighbor's children or the children of strangers. Should the 
 school officials happen to be childless persons, it may then be pos- 
 sible for them to feel "equally interested in all the children ; " but, in 
 such a case, we contend that as a rule they could not feel that 
 degree of interest in any of the children which the person ought 
 to feel whose duty it is to select a school for the pi'otection of the 
 health, the life, and the morals of a child. To show, in a few words, 
 the utter fallacy of Mr. Lawson's first argument, let us suppose 
 that instead of a young child, whose health and morals are at stake, 
 we take the case of a young swine, whose health and life alone are 
 Involved, and we will ask the question whether that young swine 
 ought for safety to be left to the care of its own mother, who feels 
 for it an instinctive affection that no other swine can, or whether 
 it would be better to take it from its own mother and intrust it to 
 the tender mercies of a herd of strange hogs ? Most unquestionably, 
 according to Mr. Lawson's first proposition, the pig would be better 
 taken care of by the general herd, because they would take just as 
 much interest in that as they would in any other strange pig. Yet 
 we venture the opinion that were Mr. Lawson engaged in the busi- 
 ness of raising hogs instead of raising babies, he would rather trust 
 the care and management — and educational control, if you please — 
 of his young pigs to their own mothers than to any or all the other 
 swine in Christendom ; not certainly upon the ground that she felt 
 an equal interest in all the pigs in the country as in her own, but 
 upon the very ground that she did not, because if those affections. 
 
^4 " Poison Drops'''' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 and that interest which ought to be lavished upon a dozen of her 
 own, were divided in equal parts between them and a thousand 
 others it is very certain that her own would suffer. The God of 
 nature, in His infinite wisdom, has ordained that the educational 
 control of the child should be entrusted to those who feel for it far 
 more than such a general interest as is equally applicable to all 
 the children in the community. He who is to select a school for 
 a child with a view^ of preserving its health, its life, and its morals, 
 ought to be a person who loves such child with a parent's love ; 
 and nobody but a parent can do that. He ought to be a person 
 v^^ho has a parent's opportunities of knowing both the mental and 
 physical peculiarities of the child, because a strong, robust child 
 might with safety endui'e a school atmosphere which would be cer- 
 tain death to another of a more delicate constitution. 
 
 Again, a cross, stern, and severe teacher, such as would be an 
 absolute necessity for a certain class of rough, uncouth, incorrigible 
 youths, would often so unrlerve the child of a timid, sensitive nature 
 as to destroy its health, inspire it with horror for the very name of 
 school, and place it beyond the range of possibility for it to learn. 
 
 Again, he who is to control the child's education ought to feel, 
 as only a parent can feel, that his own individual happiness, as well 
 as that of the child, will largely depend upon the kind of teachers 
 and companions he selects for such a child. He should feel that 
 either the death or moral ruin, or the unfitting of such child for 
 an}^ honest pursuit within its reach, will result in an irreparable 
 disaster to himself ?i& well as the child. 
 
 As suggested in one of the foregoing answers, the child in the 
 hands of its pai'ents is a sacred trust from the Almighty, and He 
 has imposed, even in this life, terrible penalties upon the violators 
 of this trust. In the language of an immutable law, which He has 
 indelibly written on the parental heart, He has plainly said to every 
 father and mother to whom He has given a child : " This child is 
 My handiwork. It bears My image. It is a jewel more precious 
 than all the treasures of earth. At thy solicitation I intrust it to thy 
 keeping, in order that thou mayest feed and clothe and train it up in 
 the way it should go. I charge thee to shield it from sickness and 
 death, and the still more terrible curse of crime against My laws." 
 
 In order to make the faithful discharge of this trust a pleasing duty, 
 rather than an irksome task, the Almighty has given to you — fathers 
 and mothers — a fond and ardent love for your own child., such as 
 other parents may bear towards their children, but such as no other 
 human being in this world can ever bear towards yours. He has. 
 
A non- Sectarian Platform of Edztcational Principles. 95 
 
 moreover, Implanted in the heart of your child the seeds of filial 
 love for YOU, such as other children may feel for their own parents, 
 but such as none but your children can ever feel iov you. 
 
 He has likewise sealed and confirmed your parental authority 
 over your child by commanding it, under the severest penalties, to 
 kofior and obey you ^ \i?, father and mother. Thus armed with a 
 God-given authority, and charged with the God-imposed duty of se- 
 lecting for your oivn child a proper school, if, in deference to the 
 wishes, or in obedience to the commands, of the outer world, you 
 allozv your child to be hurried to an untimely grave or plunged into 
 the polluting mire of iniquity, it is not the outer uoorld — the usurper 
 of your sacred oflice — hwX. yoji., yourself., together with your child, 
 who must chiefly suffer the terrible consequences of such usurpa- 
 tion. 
 
 Yours are the sleepless nights that must be spent in watching by 
 the bedside of your sick or dying child, and yours the bleeding 
 heart that must writhe in agony as you look upon the lifeless form 
 of that beautiful cherub who has fallen a victim to the poisoned air 
 of an over-crowded school-room, or other death-producing cause, to 
 which, in defiance of your own solemn convictions of duty, you 
 have exposed it, because the public-school officials demanded the 
 sacrifice ; or worse. 
 
 Still, should your idolized son, or your once spotless daughter, 
 in consequence of the false maxims or bad example of an immoral 
 teacher, or the vile associations of wicked school-mates, become a 
 burning disgrace to your name, it xs you who will have to hang your 
 head in unutterable shame and confusion, while the very persons 
 at whose bidding you have allowed yovu" child's mind and heart to 
 be poisoned, and its doom of degradation and misery sealed for 
 time and eternity, will shun you as they would shun a leper ; and 
 they will point you out to the passing stranger as an *•' old fellow 
 who has a son in the penitentiary," or " a daughter in a house of 
 ill-fame." And on the great accounting day, what excuse can you 
 frame for so base a betrayal of your high trust.'' 
 
 Mr. Lawson's second reason assigned in support of his theory, 
 that the parent's judgment and conscience ought to yield to the judg- 
 ment and conscience of the public-school officials and the general 
 public, is "because the motto of the school officials and the general 
 public is. The greatest good to the greatest number." 
 
 Now, if we have been successful — as we think we have — in show- 
 ing that God Almighty has so formed human nature, and so estab- 
 lished the relations between parent and child, that, as a general 
 
96 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 rule, the greatest good both of children'and parents requires that the 
 parental judgment and conscience should control in the matter of 
 selecting schools for children, then we think that the said second 
 reason is already fully answered. 
 
 Mr. Lawson's third reason is that the school which the public has 
 provided is the result of the aggregated wisdom and virtue of the 
 State or community. We think that a little reflection, and a careful 
 inspection of facts and figures, such as we have carefully collected 
 from the United States Census Reports and placed before our readers, 
 will convince any candid mind that, as a general proposition, " the 
 school which the public has provided " comes much nearer being 
 " the result of the aggregated " folly and vice of " the State or com- 
 munity " than it does to being its aggregated wisdom and virtue. 
 
 We would, moreover, inquire what does, or can, the aggregated 
 wisdom of the State know about the individual tastes, dispositions, 
 inclinations, mental, moral, and physical peculiarities of your little 
 seven or ten-year-old girl, whgse very existence is not known to more 
 than one out of ten thousand of the voters who are supposed to rep- 
 resent "the aggregated wisdom of the State?" And who, we ask, 
 if in search of knowledge touching those very characteristics and 
 peculiarities of the child "which ought to be considered when select- 
 ing the school wherein her whole future life is to be shaped, would 
 not infinitely rather consult the father and mother than all " the 
 aggregated wisdom " of the outside world } We would much 
 rather trust to the individual wisdom of a mother goose for the 
 proper management and training of her own goslings than to the 
 aggregated wisdom of all the other geese in Christendom. 
 
 But Mr. Lawson's fourth reason for depriving parents of the right 
 to exercise their own judgments and consciences in the matter of 
 selecting schools for their children, although in perfect harmony both 
 with the theory and the practical workings of our present public- 
 school system, is certainly a most startling one. He says : " The 
 school officials and general public believe that virtue must be brought 
 in contact with vice both to strengthen virtue and to v^^eaken vice." 
 If this be sound philosophy, then should every young man who 
 aspires to a reputation for strict and sterling integrity first serve his 
 time in the company of pick-pockets, burglars, forgers, counterfeit- 
 ers, garroters, thieves, and robbers. And no young lady should be 
 considered strong in the virtue of purity until she has first v\^altzed 
 with a thousand lascivious rakes and served an apprenticeship in a 
 bawdy-house. 
 
 It is evident that Pope, the poet, was not versed in the Lawsonian 
 
A non- Sectarian PlatfortJi of Edttcaiional Principles. 97 
 
 philosophy, or he never would have written those oft-quoted lines 
 saying : 
 
 "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien 
 As to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
 Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
 We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
 
 Neither did Lord Byron have the least idea of the great advan- 
 tage which a virtuous boy derives from vile associations, nor how 
 easy it is for a young lad to grow strong in virtue amidst scenes of 
 vice, when he penned the words — 
 
 " Ah vice ! how soft are thy voluptuous ways ! 
 
 When boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape 
 The fascination of thy magic gaze?' 
 
 We wonder if it was because of his contact with vice and the 
 vicious enemies of our Saviour that the Apostle Peter became so 
 strong in virtue that at the voice of a servant handmaid he denied 
 his Divine Master and swore that he knew not the man? 
 
 As stated in another chapter, a committee of Massachusetts ladies, 
 after visiting the public schools of their State a short time ago, made 
 a report, declaring *•' that teachers almost universally complain of the 
 prevalence of lying, stealing, profanity, and impurity among their 
 scholars." Now, if this statement is true, and if Mr. Lawson's 
 philosophv is sound, what a splendid place a Massachusetts public 
 school must be in which to strengthen and give, as it were, the fin- 
 ishing touch to the pious education of a virtuous youth. If Mr. 
 Lawson's doctrine — which, after all, is simply the doctrine whereon 
 rests the present anti-parental public-school svstem — is to be the set- 
 tled doctrine on educational questions in this country, what becomes of 
 the liberty of conscience.'' If the public and not the parental judg- 
 ment and conscience must determine as to tlie fitness of the school 
 for each individual child, suppose that the people of some religious 
 denomination should one of these days obtain a predominating 
 influence in elections, and should, in obedience to the public con- 
 science, force the teaching of their religion upon all children, in 
 utter disregard of the dictates of the parental conscience of thou- 
 sands of unbelievers in the popular religion ; would anybody deny 
 that this would be a violation of the principle of religious liberty.-' 
 And yet is it any more a violation of religious liberty to force a 
 child to study the doctrines and principles of a religion, against 
 which the consciences of its parents protest, than to foi"ce that same 
 child into associations with immoral teachers and vile companions 
 which these same parents conscientiously believe will be a thousand 
 
q8 " Poison Drops ^^ in the Federal Senate. 
 
 times more injurious to the child than the most objectionable re 
 ligious teachings? In this connection there is one thought that 
 sometimes fills us with amazement with reference to the action of 
 a vast number of people of all creeds, and it is this : While they 
 are particularly, and we may say properly, careful to guard against 
 the teaching of any religion in the public schools which may tend 
 to estrange their childi-en from their own, there is, as a rule, com- 
 paratively little heed paid by any class of religionists to the vicious, 
 degrading, and criminal principles and practices of either teachers 
 or school companions, by means of which millions of those children 
 not only lose all faith in the creeds of their parents, but learn to 
 despise the very name of religion, and finally leave school both 
 confirmed atheists and hardened criminals. Our readers will 
 understand that this remark is not made in any sectarian sense, for 
 we believe in our heart that it applies with nearly equal force to 
 Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. 
 
 Judging from their actions and their non-actions, it would really r 
 seem that there is a vast number of professing religionists, clergymen 
 as well as laymen, who think it matters but very little if children do 
 go to hell, provided they get there by some other road than by the 
 wav of a wrong religion. For our own part we do sincerely believe 
 that our ungodly and anti-parental public-school education is doing 
 far more to-day to people the devil's dominions than all the false 
 religions in the world. 
 
 THE ACTION OF THE PRESIDENT AND SENATE WITH REFERENCE TO THE 
 writer's APPOINTMENT AND CONFIRMATION. 
 
 The bitter and unrelenting war so recently waged against the 
 writer's appointment and confirmation as U. S. Assistant Attor- 
 ney-General because of his views on the educational question is 
 well known to the public, and the utter failure of that bigoted 
 and fanatical war to accomplish its purpose is equally well known. 
 The Senatorial discussions touching the immediate subject of his 
 confirmation having been conducted in secret session, the writer 
 has, of course, no means of knowing, except from generally-ac- 
 cepted report, what was said or done either by his friends in 
 order to secure his confirmation or by his opponents in order to 
 prevent it. It is generally understood, however, that the matter 
 was twice referred to the Judiciary Committee and twice reported 
 upon adversely by a strictly partisan vote. It was also generally 
 understood and never — to the writer's knowledge — denied that, after 
 the refutation of the anonymous slander quoted by Mr. Senator In- 
 
A Vital Question for Public- School TeacJiers. 99 
 
 galls during the debate on the ''Blair" bill, the only objection 
 openly urged against him was because of his views on the school 
 question, as set forth in his little pamphlet, "Drops from the 
 Poison Fountain;" 
 
 It was in view of this objection that — as stated in our introduc- 
 tory remarks — we sent a copy of said pamphlet to every member 
 of the Senate, accompanied by a request in each case that if the 
 Senator to whom it was addressed could find anything therein 
 tending to prove the author's unfitness for the office he held he 
 might be notified of the fact. No such notification was ever re- 
 ceived, and the fact that his confirmation followed soon after the 
 distribution of said pamphlets, while it does not prove that a ma- 
 jority of the Senators or any of them endorse the writer's views 
 on the school question, it does prove that a majority of the mem- 
 bers of that august body, including a number of broad-minded 
 Republicans, could find nothing in said views to warrant them in 
 ostracizing from official position the man who proclaimed them. 
 And this of itself can only be regarded as a most magnificent 
 triumph of intelligence over ignorance ; of truth over falsehood ; 
 and of true liberality over bigotry, fanaticism, and proscription. 
 With these barriers broken down, if the principles we proclaim 
 are just and right they are sure to prevail. But if they are wrong 
 we do not desire their success. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A VITAL qiJESTION FOR PUBLIC-SCHOOL TEACHERS. 
 
 In a work entitled the "Daily Public School," published by 
 Lippincott in 1866, at pages 77-7S we find it stated that the 
 most frequent failures uoticed in the reports are in ^natters 
 of discipline or goveriiment. And this is perhaps the most 
 difficult of all others to re?nedy-'' 
 
 The author then goes on to attribute this failure of discipline in 
 the public schools to a want of capacity in the public-school teach- 
 ers to govern pupils. 
 
 We have no doubt but that in many cases there is amongst our 
 public-school teachers a lack of governing capacity. But we main- 
 tain that, as a general rule, the want of discipline amongst our com- 
 mon-school pupils arises chiefly from causes inherent in the very sys- 
 
lOO '•'•Poison Drops^^ in the Federal Senate. 
 
 tern under which they are being educated. These causes consist 
 chiefly in a lack of legitimate authority, and are of such a nature 
 that the very best of teachers are powerless to remove or control 
 them. 
 
 We maintain the principle laid down by Blackstone, and recog- 
 nized by all moral and I'eligious writers, as well as every lawyer 
 worthy of the name, that all authority is from God, and that to 
 fathers and mothers has He entrusted so much authority as is neces- 
 sary for the government of their own children. 
 
 The Divine command, which says ' ' Honor thy father and mother," 
 w^as engraved upon the heart of every child of Adam long before it 
 was either written upon tables of stone or thundered from the heights 
 of Sinai. The law requiring children to obey their own parents need 
 not to be learned, for it is innate in their very natures. It is born 
 with them ; it is a part of themselves, and instinctively becomes 
 their rule of conduct before their young ininds are capable of even 
 the simplest process of reasoning. Just as the young lamb naturally 
 hearkens to the voice of its own mother, while heedless of the babel- 
 like bleatings of a thousand other ewes of the same flock, so does the 
 young babe — vmless deterred by the folly or wickedness of those who 
 called it into being — instinctively recognize and obey the parental 
 command, despite the jarring and discordant notes of ten thousand 
 protesting tongues. 
 
 The God of nature has so w"isely and so beneficently connected 
 the path of parental duty on the one side with the path of filial 
 obedience on the other that it is next to impossible for fathers and 
 mothers to faithfully pursue the former w^ithout leading their chil- 
 dren into the latter. 
 
 Until taught suspicion by repeated contact with a selfish, deceit- 
 ful, and treacherous world, children are by nature of a trustful, con- 
 fiding disposition, and, as a rule, parents have only to prove them- 
 selves worthy of the confidence of their little ones in order to insure 
 that confidence. 
 
 The child's earliest impressions are the deepest., the strongest, 
 and the most enduring ; and these impressions are, as a rule, de- 
 rived from its own father and mother. 
 
 By the merciful dispensations of Divine Providence the new-born 
 babe, in the very dawn of its infant consciousness, finds itself sweetly 
 reposing in the arms and nestling in the bosom of a loving mother, 
 or gleefully dangling upon the knee of a doting father. Out of its 
 mother's breast it draws the very sustenance of life, whilst from her 
 ever-watchful eye beams the first genial sunlight of human sympathy 
 
A J7^a/ Question for PiihJic- School Teachers. loi 
 
 and affection capable of warming into life and activity the love germs 
 which Divinity has planted in its pure and innocent heart. And who 
 does not know that love constitutes the great motive power of obe- 
 dience? Did not He, who is the very source and fountain of truth, 
 say " If you love me you will keep my commandments?" And what 
 is easier or sweeter or more gratifying to human nature than the do- 
 ing of that which most pleases the one who is the most beloved ? 
 And who on earth has more numerous or stronger claims upon the 
 love of a child than its own- father and mother, provided they dis- 
 charge the duties of father and mother? 
 
 In view of these and kindred considerations, it becomes obvious 
 that, as a rule, nobody in the wide world stands in so favorable a 
 position to command the obedience of a child as do its own parents, 
 because nobody else is in a position to establish so perfect a title to 
 the love and gratitude of the child ; nor has anybody else the same 
 natural right to be honored and obeyed by a child, in all things law- 
 ful, as have its own father and mother. 
 
 Therefore, the school teacher who expects a willing and cheerful 
 obedience at the hands of a pupil should come invested with an 
 authority which belongs alone to the father and mother of such pupil, 
 and with which they alone have the power to clothe him. Such is 
 the authority which parents confer upon the teachers of private 
 schools whom they select for the extremely delicate and important 
 duty of educating and training their children. 
 
 But such is not the authority which the teacher of a public school 
 wields over his pupils. 
 
 On the contrary, as the law provides and as the covu'ts have re- 
 peatedly decided, 1 the teacher dei'ives his authority over his pupils 
 not from their respective parents but from the political State. It is 
 by and under the State's authority that rules are made both for 
 teachers and pupils ; it is by and under State authority, and in de- 
 fiance alike of teachers, parents, and pupils, that particular books 
 are used and others proscribed ; and it is in obedience to State au- 
 thority, and not of their own free-will and choice, that parents are 
 compelled to send their children to these schools under pain of 
 absolutely forfeiting all money paid by them for public-school pur- 
 poses, besides hazarding numberless prosecutions and fines for a 
 failure to send them. 2 
 
 Therefore, when the pupil of a common school is commanded by 
 
 ' See California State Superintendent's Biennial Report for 1864-'65, and judicial decision there 
 cited. 
 
 - See statute passed by the California Legislature March 2 ^ 1874, (quoted ante.) 
 
I02 " Poison Drops'" it? the Federal Senate. 
 
 his teacher to be punctual in his attendance, to read a particular 
 book, to devote himself to a particular study, to refrain from this or 
 that forbidden practice, he does not and cannot regard such command 
 as bearing the seal of parental authority. On the contrary, he feels 
 and knows in his heart of hearts — however imperfectly he may be 
 able to express that knowledge — that such command comes from the 
 political State, the usurper of the parental prerogative, the violator 
 of parental right, and the destroyer of parental authority. 
 
 He feels and knows that his own father, however intelligent, hon- 
 orable, and upright he may be, has had no more voice in determining 
 who should be his teacher, what classes he should attend, what 
 books he should use, or what rules he should obey, than had the 
 meanest and most besotted drunkard, ruffian, and rake that ever 
 polluted the precincts of a tippling-shop with his vile presence. 
 
 If, then, it is true that love is the great incentive to obedience, 
 what sort of motive shall we bring to bear upon the minds and 
 heai'ts of the pupils of our anti-parental common schools in order 
 to incite them to obey their rules and obsei've their discipline.? 
 
 Amid the repeated clashings and conflicts between home thought, 
 home instruction, and home discipline on one side, and common- 
 school thought, common-school instruction, and common-school 
 discipline on the other, such as the pupils of our common schools 
 are necessarily doomed either to witness or to encounter in one 
 shape or another, it must soon become apparent to the intellect of 
 the dullest of these pupils that his teachers, however intelligent, 
 learned, and virtuous they may be, are not at liberty to follow either 
 the dictates of their own judgments and consciences, or to respect 
 the wishes of its parents, either in prescribing the particular books 
 it shall study, the companions with whom it shall associate, the rules 
 it shall obey, or the punishment it shall vmdergo as the penalty of 
 its disobedience. 
 
 The hild soon learns the lesson taught by Mr. John Swett in his 
 Biennial Report as California State Superintendent of Public In- 
 struction in 1864, namely : That 
 
 " The vtilgar itnpression that parents have a legal right to 
 dictate to teachers is entirely erroneous.''^ That 
 
 " There is no privity of contract betweeti the paretits of pupils 
 to be sent to school and the school-master . That the latter is em- 
 ployed and paid by the town., and to them only is he responsible 
 on his contract." That 
 
 " The only persons who have a legal right to give orders to the 
 teacher are his employers., nam,ely., the cotnmittee in some States 
 and in others the directors or trustees ." And that 
 
A Vital Question for Public- ScJiool Teachers. 103 
 
 "7/" his conduct is approved of by his ejiiployers^ the parents 
 have no remedy against him or them.'''' 
 
 Excellent teachers of common schools often complain that their 
 pupils disregard their commands, and that when punished for so 
 doing their parents get angry and use harsh and insulting language 
 towards them. 
 
 To the common-school teacher who does not stop to trace effects 
 back to their legitimate causes, it of course looks very unreasonable 
 that parents should get angry and become abusive and insulting to 
 them because of their having inflicted merited punishment upon 
 their children. But a moment's reflection will show that the anger 
 of such parents is not after all so unreasonable as might at first 
 blush appear. 
 
 Before any one can be properly entitled to punish another two 
 things are essentially necessary, namely : 
 
 First, the pvmishment should be just ; and. 
 
 Secondly, it should come from one having authority to adminis- 
 ter it. 
 
 It is a well-settled principle of law that the killing of the very 
 worst murderer in the world by one not properly authorized to in- 
 flict the death penalty, even after such criminal has been tried, con- 
 victed, and sentenced to death, would itself be murder. Not, 
 indeed, because the murderer did not deserve killing, but because 
 his slayer had no authority to kill him. 
 
 But it is as natural with an individual as it is with a Government 
 to resent any unauthorized invasion by another of his personal ju- 
 risdiction and authority. Even the owner of a dumb brute dislikes 
 to have it punished by another without his individual consent. 
 Hence, he who kicks his neighbor's dog, without asking that neigh- 
 bor's permission, need not be surprised if he receive another kick 
 in return, although the dog may have richly deserved the punish- 
 ment. 
 
 Is it, then, surprising if parents revolt at the idea of having their 
 little children, their own flesh and blood and bone, beat and bruised 
 and mangled, not by their authority, but by the authority of the 
 town ? 
 
 Even well-merited chastisement, when inflicted on a child, cannot 
 have its proper effect unless the child is made to realize the fact that 
 he who authorized such punishment did so in obedience to the dic- 
 tates of a loving heart. 
 
 But where is there a child that God has blessed with an affection- 
 ate father and mother that is so stupi.d as not to know that for it 
 
I04 " Poison Drops''' iit the Federal Senate. 
 
 the most loving heart on earth is the parental heart? Yet, whenever 
 the common-school teacher either spares the rod or lays on the lash, 
 he does so, as we have seen, not by parental authority, but in obedi- 
 ence to the requirements and at the dictation of the " town.'''' 
 
 Here, then, is the first great and insui'mountable obstacle which 
 even the very best teachers necessarily encounter in their eftbrts to 
 enforce discipline in a common school, namely, the wrong source 
 whence they derive their jurisdiction and authority over their pupils. 
 
 And it is easy to see that this difficulty can never be remedied 
 under the present system ; because the system itself is at war with 
 the unchanging and unchangeable laws of nature and nature's God, 
 commanding children to love, honor, and obey their fathers and 
 mothers, but not commanding them to obey those who wrongfully 
 usurp their fathers' and mothers' places. 
 
 Another and kindred difficulty which bars the way to discipline, 
 and defies the best intended efforts to maintain order in the common 
 schools — even by the best of teachers — arises in part from a want of 
 that degree of freedom and independence which would allow the 
 teacher to hearken to the dictates of his own judgment. On every 
 side the principals and teachers of the common schools find them- 
 selves crippled, haltered, and hampered in a thousand ways. They 
 are hampered by statutory school laws ; hampered by State boards 
 of education ; hampered by county boards and by city boards ; ham- 
 pered by superintendents ; hampered by the ceaseless criticisms, 
 fault-findings, and backbitings of jealous rivals, who have either 
 been superseded by them in their positions as teachers, or by whom 
 they are themselves in danger of being superseded ; and hampered 
 by the ceaseless dread of offending in the person of some influential 
 ward politician, or soine purse-proud upstart parent who demands 
 special privileges for his precious scion. 
 
 In the first place, as just stated, the teacher is hampered by the 
 statutory school laws in a manner to defy discipline. 
 
 For example : We all know how fatal to the discipline of a 
 school is the perpetual presence of even a few rude, unruly boys. 
 And yet the law leaves the teachers and even the principals of pub- 
 lic schools utterly helpless so far as any power of their own is con- 
 cerned to rid their schools of the vilest young imps that ever 
 breathed. 
 
 For instance, we have a statute giving to school directors or trus- 
 tees the sole power to exclude '■'■Jilthy or vicious children from 
 school.''^ 
 
 Under the operation of this statute, no difference how unruly, dis- 
 
A \'ital Question fo}- Pi<hIic-ScJwoI Teachers. \o^ 
 
 obedient, or vile a pupil may be, nor how destructive to the discipline 
 of the school his pernicious example may prove, still it depends upon 
 the trustees., and upon them alone, to either rid the school of his 
 presence or not at their option. 
 
 As a fair illustration of the disciplinary workings of this machine 
 system of common schools, we shall here repeat an anecdote related 
 by the inimitable Gail Hamilton, at page 109 of her spicy little book 
 entitled 
 
 " OUR COMMON-SCHOOL SYSTEM." 
 
 " Not long ago," says the authoress, '^ a boy of the third class, in 
 a school thoroughly furnished with all the officers required by our 
 efficient system., was eating candy in school, and was directed by his 
 teacher to throw it into the waste-basket. He complied at once, re- 
 marking, as he passed her, that she was ' a d — d fool,' in tones loud 
 enough to be heard throughout the room. The teacher sent him 
 home, and appealed to the superintendent of schools, who replied 
 that 'had she suspended the boy he could do something, but now 
 did not like to interfere, and would rather the committee should set- 
 tle it.' The committee were consulted, the boy remaining in the 
 school the while, and the committee held up the discipline of the 
 school and the beauties of the ' system ' by the startling assurance 
 to the boy that for the next offence, of whatever nature, he was to be 
 ' sent to me !' " 
 
 Now, it can require but ver}' little calm reflection to convince even 
 the dullest intellect how utterly impossible it would be for the best 
 teacher in America to maintain the discipline of his or her school 
 under circumstances like these. 
 
 By thus impliedly excusing the boy for calling his teacher a fool, 
 this committee virtually joined in reiterating the odious and insult- 
 ing epithet, and thereby licensed every other pupil in the school to 
 manifest their regard for her and her authority in a similar manner. 
 
 If it be said that this was only an isolated case, we reply that, 
 while this particular case may be an isolated one, the spirit of in- 
 subordination to which it owes its origin is not by any means an 
 isolated or an exceptional one, as the above quotation from " The 
 Daily Common School" clearly indicates, and as the daily expe- 
 rience of our public-school teachers throughout the country abun- 
 dantly attests. 
 
 The reasons why teachers cannot, as a rule, rely upon school 
 trustees to actively and cordially second their efforts to maintain 
 the discipline of their schools have already been dwelt upon ; but 
 a few more words in this connection on that subject may not be out 
 of place. 
 
io6 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Seriate. 
 
 As already intimated, it very often happens that school trustees 
 do not have, and are not required or expected by those to whom they 
 are chiefly indebted for their positions to have, any special fitness for 
 their offices aside from an unswerving fidelity to their friends, 
 coupled with the necessaiy^capacity to render themselves serviceable 
 to those who have served them. Let us take, then, for example the 
 case of the boy spoken of by Gail Hamilton, who had called his 
 lady teacher a fool. The boy's conduct is reported to the superin- 
 tendent, whose duty it is supposed to be to protect the teacher against 
 insult and to maintain the discipline of the school. But it so hap- 
 pens that this boy's father is an influential ward politician. He 
 belongs to the same political party as the superintendent. He did 
 as much as any other man, if not more, to secure his nomination for, 
 and his election to, the office he now holds. For him to counsel the 
 boy's expulsion from school or the infliction on him of any other pun- 
 ishment at all commensurate with his offence might so incense his 
 father as to convert him from a warm and most valuable friend into 
 a bitter and dangerous foe. "And," says the superintendent, 
 "■ another election is near at hand, when I shall greatly need not only 
 my friend's vote, but the votes oi his numerous friends, first to carry 
 the primaries and secure my renomination, and next to aid me at the 
 polls on the day of election. The teacher is only a woman anyhow. 
 She has no vote, and very few, if any, friends whose votes she can 
 inffuence." Therefore he shirks a responsibility^ which the duties 
 of his oflSce seemed to impose upon him, and throws it upon the 
 shoulders of the school committee. 
 
 But when the school committee was appealed to we do not find 
 that the matter was bettered in the least. And if the whole truth 
 were known, it is not at all unlikely that they too had certain per- 
 sonal or political axes of their own to grind, and were also looking 
 to the father of the offending boy for help. 
 
 But whatever may have been the particular motive of the school 
 officials, \h&fact remains all the same that the teacher whom they had 
 charged with the duty of maintaining the discipline of the school — ^just 
 like thousands of other teachers similarly situated — found herself with- 
 out the necessary authority, and utterly powerless to perform that duty. 
 Not only that; she was compelled, in humiliation and shame, to 
 pocket a most outrageous insult at the hands of an inferior, perpe- 
 trated in the presence of her whole school, and then had, moreover, 
 to submit to be publicly snubbed by those whom the law had placed 
 
 ' In the State referred to by Gail Hamilton the law slightly varies from that of Calif orria in its 
 details but not in its principles. 
 
A Vital Question for Public- School Teachers. 107 
 
 above her, because she had dared to seek for relief in the only quar- 
 ter where the law allowed her to seek it. 
 
 In order to realize how truly dependent, how pitiably humiliating 
 is the position in which our boasted '' systetii'' places the teachers 
 of its schools, it is only necessary to consider how perilous to their 
 positions it would often prove for them to even attempt the enforce- 
 ment of discipline amongst their pupils. 
 
 Open, as our common schools are, to all kinds of children, and 
 the children of all kinds of parents, how rarely can it be truthfully 
 said of one of these schools that there is not amongst its pupils even 
 one who, if angered by its teacher, could, through its parents, 
 exert sufficient influence over some one or more members of the 
 school board to effect the teacher's removal .? 
 
 And if even one such pupil be found in school, then will the teacher 
 feel himself completely at its mercy. 
 
 But to be at the mercy of any one pupil in school is virtually to be 
 at the mercy of all. For whenever it becomes known to the whole 
 school that there is one of their number who can with impunity defy 
 the teacher's authority, it will no longer be possible to find even so 
 many as one who, in the light of such knowledge, will respect that 
 authority. 
 
 We are fully aware that there are in our common schools many m- 
 competent teachers, but we think we have now pretty clearly shown 
 that the very best of teachers can not, as a rule, maintain discipline in 
 these schools, and that for the double reason that the teacher has too 
 little authority, and that this little comes from the wrong source, 
 namely, from the public instead of the parent. 
 
 The failure of the pupil to make progress in his studies is almost 
 sure to be attributed to the teacher's lack of ability to teach, whereas 
 this failure not unfrequently results from the want of discipline. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that in a school where there is litde or 
 no discipline there can be little or no progress. It requires no ar- 
 gument to prove that even one unruly child, whom the teacher can 
 neither govern nor expel, can so bedevil an entire school as to make 
 study impossible. And without an application to study there can 
 be no improvement. 
 
 The teacher, too, is generally made the scape-goat to bear the 
 blame for all the demoralization and corruption of the school ; 
 whereas if St. Peter himself were the principal of one of these 
 schools, with all the other apostles as assistant teachers ; if he were 
 compelled to receive into his school children of all kinds, classes, 
 and characters, and of all degrees of moral depravity ; if his au- 
 
loS " Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 thority over these children were not derived from their parents, but 
 vs^as only such as came from the political State ; if he had not the 
 privilege of making and enforcing rules for the government of his 
 school, but were compelled to accept whatever rules and regulations 
 such a board of politicians as the trickeries, the frauds, the briberies, 
 and the accidents of an election might chance to place in power ; 
 and if, besides being denied the authority to either punish or expel, 
 according to the dictates of his own judgment, refractory or corrupt 
 and vicious pupils, he was furthermore forbidden to inculcate any 
 principle of morality having for its object a higher aim than the 
 gratification of man's animal appetites and earthly desires, we do 
 not hesitate to declare it as our firm conviction, based on the fore- 
 going reasons, that, as a rule, under such a system and subject to such 
 degrading and huiniliating conditions, not even St. Peter, with all 
 the other apostles to help him, would find it possible, in the natural 
 order of things, to check the swelling tide of common school im- 
 morality and crime. Except by rare chance, .he could neither 
 reform the least vicious nor shield from utter ruin the most virtuous 
 children in his school. 
 
 If we are at fault in this conclusion, we are open to conviction, 
 and shall take it as a favor if somebody will point out the fallacy of 
 our reasoning. But if we are correct, then we ask, in all sincerity, 
 if it is just and right to throw upon the teachers of our public 
 schools all the blame for the lying and lechery, the dishonesty, im- 
 piety, and every other kind and degree of hopeless depravity which 
 are to-day blasting and corrupting so many millions of our American 
 common-school children ? Every honest, intelligent, and capable 
 common-school teacher sees., feels., and laments the evils of which 
 we speak. It was a knowledge of these evils and of their parent 
 causes which drew from the able and distinguished Dr. Joseph 
 LeConte, a leading professor of our California State University, in 
 the course of a letter to the writer of this article, the remark else- 
 where quoted — 
 
 " That any education which weakens the family tie strikes at the 
 very foundation of society, and no amount of good in other directions 
 can atone for this greatest of evils." 
 
 It was this same knowledge which prompted the Hon. Ezra S. 
 Carr, former State Superintendent of Public Instruction, in his offi- 
 cial report for i878-'79, page 39, when speaking of the workings of 
 our common school system, to declare that — 
 
 " Dependence on one side and patronage on the other destroy the 
 
A V^ital Question for Public-School Teachers. 109 
 
 free and harmonious play of benefits between the home and the 
 school ;" and that 
 
 '"'•Private institutions^ colleges., and sejninaries draw axv ay our 
 best teachers., who thus avoid what is, to a sensitive and high- 
 Tninded teacher., an intolerable burden." 
 
 Similar to these also are the views of Gail Hamilton, a writer 
 already quoted, who, at page 203 of her book, says : 
 
 " The tendency of our 'system' is to degrade the teachers more 
 and more by the, perhaps, unconscious subjection of the teacher's 
 duties to the machinery." % 
 
 On page 306 she adds : 
 
 " The ' system ' is constantly degrading teachers into menials, and 
 concentrating authority in the hands of outside men who have noth- 
 ing whatever to do with the actual teaching, and have the slightest 
 possible contact with the children." 
 
 Now, we ask in all candor, if it is possible to degrade the teacher 
 without degrading the pupil also ? Can you degrade the master 
 without degrading the disciple? 
 
 There is, there can be, no higher or more honorable occupation 
 on this earth than that of a teacher who understands his calling 
 and faithfully discharges its duties. Amongst all the poets, orators, 
 sages, statesmen, and her6es of ancient Greece, where is there one 
 whose illustrious name shines to-day with so bright and unfading 
 a lustre as that of Socrates, the teacher of Athenian youth? And 
 were we to blot out from the history of China the name and the 
 teachings, and the fruits of the teachings, of Confucius, it would, so 
 far as that country is concerned, be like blotting the sun from the 
 heavens. The great mission of the Messiah Himself, on earth, was 
 that of teacher. 
 
 Whatever country can boast of its great statesmen, great orators, 
 great warriors, great jurists, great scientists, or of the great intelli- 
 gence, morality, and virtue of its people, must acknowledge that, 
 next to God, it is to its teachers it owes its highest debt of gratitude 
 for so inestimable a boon. 
 
 But how is it possible for a teacher, though never so well qual- 
 ified for his position, to earn this gratitude, who is not allowed to 
 exercise his teaching qualifications? 
 
 Brought, as he is, in direct contact with, and required to govern, 
 to teach, and to develop in due proportions all the faculties of a 
 multitude of children, widely differing in mental powers, in moral 
 training, in natural dispositions, in tastes, in physical constitutions, 
 
iio " Poison Drops'''' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 and in their modes of daily home life, there is probably no other 
 calling which requires the exercise of more unrestrained freedom 
 of action than does the calling of a principal or teacher of a school. 
 And yet there is no other calling in which so little freedom is allowed 
 in the performance of its duties. 
 
 Thus, for example, the physician who undertakes to doctor a 
 patient reserves the liberty to prescribe both the kind and quantity 
 of the medicines to be used, and the intervals at which they are to 
 be taken, as well as the right to change his treatment whenever in 
 /^/V-judgment such change is desirable. So, also, the mechanic who 
 undertakes the job of building a good house always reserves the 
 right both to choose his tools and to reject rotten or defective mate-" 
 rials. But the common-school teacher can neither reject intractable 
 nor rotten timber nor select the tools (the books) with v/hich he is 
 to do his work. 
 
 Not even the calling of a kitchen servant is near so dependent 
 and servile as that of a common-school teacher under our present 
 system, because even the kitchen servant has but 07te mistress to 
 please in order to retain her place and earn her bread ; whereas 
 the common-school teacher, as we have seen, imperils his position 
 every time he angers a child and incurs the displeasure of a parent 
 who has influence with the school trustees. 
 
 Perhaps we may be asked, wherein consists the difference between 
 the freedom or independence belonging to a private-school teacher 
 and that which is enjoyed by the teacher of a public school ? 
 
 We think that enough has already been said to render such 
 difference quite apparent ; but inasmuch as this is a very important 
 branch of ovu" subject, a few words more on that point may not be 
 amiss. 
 
 In the first place, the man who proposes to establish a private 
 school, just like a lawyer, a doctor, a merchant, a banker, or a 
 mechanic, when seeking to build up a business, will rely chiefly 
 upon his individual capacity and merit in order to secui^e employ- 
 ment. If he intenis to make teaching his permanent business — 
 and if not he had better go at something else — he will either buy, 
 build, or rent his own school-house and premises, and procure his 
 own school furniture. He will then establish his own rules and 
 regulations, as well for the admission and expulsion of pupils as 
 for their government and discipline while under his charge. These 
 rules and regulations he will make known to those whose patronage 
 he desires to secure, so that every parent or guardian who sends his 
 children to such school will understand, at least in general terms, 
 
A ^'ital ^7(est{on for Pi(blic-School Teachers. iii 
 
 not only the rules by which they are to be governed, but also the 
 character of the pupils with whom they are to associate. The 
 teacher will also select for the use of his school the particular books 
 by the use of which he believes himself capable of accomplishing 
 the best results. 
 
 When parents send their children to such a school, it is because 
 they agree with the teacher as to what sort of school is best for 
 their children. In such a school there is no conflict or clashing 
 between the jurisdiction of the parent and that of the teacher ; 
 because it is from the parents of each pupil, and only from its 
 parents, that the teacher derives his authority to direct it, to teach 
 it, to admonish it, to command it, and to enforce its obedience ; 
 and it is to the parents, and only to the parents of each, that he 
 stands amenable for the manner in which he uses or abuses his 
 powers. In such a school, so long as the teacher keeps within the 
 scope of his authority, his counsels, his commands, and his chas- 
 tisements become the counsels, the commands, and the chastise- 
 ments of the child's own parents, because they come backed bv pa- 
 rental authority and bearing the seal of the parental sanction. 
 Should the pupil of a private school demand of his teacher by 
 what authority he requires him to study this or that book, to refrain 
 from this or that forbidden practice, to be present at a given hour, or 
 to retire at the tap of a particular bell, the teacher need only reply — 
 
 " It is by the authority of your father, who loves you as he loves 
 his own life. It was he, of his own free-will and choice — without 
 reference to what others might think, say, or do — who placed you 
 here. He selected this school because he himself had confidence in 
 its teachers, approved of its rules, its discipline, and its course of 
 study. Therefore you cannot violate the rules of the school, nor 
 refuse obedience to its teachers, without disobeying your own father 
 and mother, disobeying God, and proving yourself an unnatural, 
 undutiful, and ungrateful child." 
 
 And what stronger motives — to discipline and study — than these 
 could possibly be placed before the mind of an intelligent and well- 
 bred youth ? 
 
 But suppose that the private teacher, after having exhausted his 
 authority in the way of counsel and correction, should still find his 
 pupil refractory. What then .^ Why, he would dismiss or expel 
 him of course. And if the father of the dismissed pupil should 
 even have the wealth of the Vanderbilts, the Goulds, the Stanfords, 
 and the Crockers combined, still he would not be able, even if so 
 
112 " Poison Dj'ops" in the federal Senate. 
 
 disposed, either to damage the school or to frighten the teacher out 
 of one moment's peace of mind. 
 
 The noble independence of such a proceeding could but result in 
 improving the discipline, strengthening the popularity, and swelling 
 the i-anks of the school. The expulsion of such a pupil could no 
 more destroy the teacher's patronage than one of the Egyptian pyr- 
 amids could be destroyed or overturned by plucking a single rotten 
 pebble from its base and replacing it with a solid stone. 
 
 In cases of punishments not amounting to dismissal or expulsion, 
 the most that any dissatisfied patron could do would be to withdraw 
 his own children from school. But in all such cases let the teacher 
 be sure to have right on his side, and for every pupil thus with- 
 drawn he will gain two in its place. When a teacher has once suc- 
 ceeded in thus establishing a school of his own, resting on no other 
 foundation than its merits, he is no more afraid of being turned out 
 of his employment and left without the means of a support, because 
 of having incurred the displeasure of one or a dozen discontented 
 patrons of his school, than a lawyer, a doctor, or a merchant, when 
 backed by the unbounded confidence of nearly an entire community, 
 would be afraid of having his business ruined, and himself reduced 
 to beggary, because of having incurred the enmity of a few unrea- 
 soning fault-finders. . 
 
 Where, then, we would ask, is there a teacher to be fovmd who 
 would not to-day infinitely prefer the princely independence of 
 teaching and managing a school under parental auspices, relying 
 for patronage solely on his or her own merits — provided, of course, 
 there are any merits to rely upon — rather than be compelled, as mul- 
 titudes now are compelled, to beg, entreat, flatter, and fawn at the 
 feet of pot-house politicians and public-school boards for the poor 
 and pitiful privilege of playing the menial to their inferiors as the 
 price of bread .^ 
 
 But here the inquiry presents itself: How would it be possible 
 for all our public-school teachers, even if all were fully capable of 
 teaching, to find a living patronage for schools under "• parental au- 
 spices," so long as multitudes of parents would be unable to pay 
 anything for their children's education, while other multitudes 
 would be unwilling, after paying their school taxes into the public 
 treasury, to pay, virtually, a second time for their children's educa- 
 tion. 
 
 This, we confess, is, to a large extent, an insurmountable diflSculty, 
 so long as the present anti-parental attd teacher-enslaving- system 
 remains intact. Although so odious is this system becoming in the eyes 
 
A Vital Question for Public- School Teachers. 113 
 
 of thinking parents, as well as of intelligent teachers, that educational 
 institutions established and run under private auspices are every 
 day growing more and more into public favor. But for this fact, 
 ex-,Superintendent Carr would not have been able truthfully to de- 
 clare, in the language already quoted, that — 
 
 "• Private institutions., colleges ., and setnifzaries draiv away 
 otrr best teachers., who thus avoid what is to a setisitive and 
 high-minded teacher an intolerable burden.'''' 
 
 Yet it is only a comparatively limited number of parents who feel 
 able to protect their children from the demoralizing and blighting 
 effects of a State-school training, at so heavy a cost as the paying 
 a second time for their education. 
 
 But, if it is true, as asserted by Prof. Joseph LeConte in his 
 letter already quoted — 
 
 That '"'• private schools., each parent choosing his own, furnish a 
 better education, all things considered, that any public-school 
 system ; " and if it is also true, as maintained by ex-Superintendent 
 Carr, that the public-school atmosphere is so much more uncon- 
 genial and unwholesome for '•'' high-tninded teachers " than is to be 
 found in '''•private institutions;" in other words, if private institu- 
 tions are so much better than the public ones, both for teachers 
 and pupils, then we are confronted with this important question, 
 namely : 
 
 Does not common sense suggest, and do not the true interests 
 both of teachers and pupils demand, that the aforesaid schools of the 
 better kind be multiplied, and those of the inferior kind diminished 
 in numbers, in patronage, and in influence? And ought not this to 
 be done as quickly and as rapidly as possible, until not a teacher 
 in America, who is unwilling to be a slave for the pitiful considera- 
 tion of a most precarious salary, and not a child, whose parents 
 have so much as the least appreciation of the dignity or the respon- 
 sibility of the parental office, shall any longer be victimized upon 
 the altar of our false, servile, and ruinous system of education? 
 
 It seems clear to our mind that this question can only be answered 
 in the affirmative, and that, therefore, the only remaining inquiry 
 is, as to how so desirable a result can be accomplished. 
 
 As for ourselves we shall be satisfied with any just and practicable 
 mode of accomplishing the end proposed. But until some other 
 and better plan be suggested we shall still insist upon that which is 
 outlined in the seventh proposition of our platform of principles. 
 (See ante Chap. XIV.) 
 
114 " P'^^soit Drops'^ in the Federal Senate. 
 
 We ai'e convinced that this, or some similar plan, by throwing 
 open the whole business of teaching school to private enterprise 
 and free competition, leaving every parent and guardian to select a 
 school to suit himself, and requiring the State to pay for a good 
 common secular education according to results in all cases where 
 parents are unable to pay, would call to the front the very best and 
 ablest teachers that the country affords. The adoption of such a 
 plan would shatter the fetters that hold in bondage thousands of 
 really good and competent teachers in our common schools, whose 
 usefulness is now being destroyed, and the light of whose genius is 
 being smothered beneath the accumulated rubbish of senseless rules 
 and meaningless formalities. 
 
 Undoubtedly many of these teachers are capable of taking their 
 places in the very front ranks of the world's greatest educational 
 benefactors. And yet, after long years of labor, vexation, and dis- 
 appointment, they find themselves neither understood nor appre- 
 ciated, either in the public-school department or out of it. And 
 the reason is that they are so circumscribed and hampered in their 
 work that they have no more chance of displaying their real 
 powers than an eagle w^ould have to prove its ability to fly while 
 kept in a cage with a baboon for a keeper. 
 
 There is, however, another class of public-school teachers who, 
 like counterfeit coin, often pass for much more than their value. 
 In fact, owing to a certain false and brassy glitter which they put 
 on, they frequently outshine the pure gold of genuine worth. 
 
 But it is to the former class of public-school teachers that we now 
 appeal for their countenance and support in aid of educational 
 reform upon the plan just indicated. 
 
 Inasmuch as the establishment of this plan will result in forc- 
 ing every teacher to rise or fall, to sink or swim, to survive or per- 
 ish, according to his own individual merits or demerits, we know 
 it would be vain for us to expect either aid, sympathy, or counte- 
 nance from that other class of teachers who, being conscious of 
 their own unfitness to teach a school, know full well that under 
 the plan we propose their teaching career would be at an end. 
 
 To illustrate : Let us suppose that by the same cord we were to 
 bind an eagle and a monkey to an inflated balloon ; both would as- 
 cend with equal velocity, and both would rise equally high ; but 
 this would be a very poor test of their comparative powers of 
 flight. 
 
 If, however, when in mid-air, it were proposed, in language in- 
 telligible to them both, to cut the cord which held them to the 
 
A 'Vital Question for Public-School Teachers. \\^ 
 
 balloon, we think it would not be hard to tell, from the joyous 
 and triumphant screams of the eagle compared with the pitiful 
 shrieks and squalls of the monkey, which of the two could fly and 
 which must fall. 
 
 Like unto this inflated balloon is our common -school system. 
 Like unto an eagle tied to this balloon is many an able and highly- 
 accomplished teacher, who could soar far higher without the system 
 than with it ; and like unto this monkey is many a worthless fraud, 
 who rises and soars with the system, but who could neither rise nor 
 soar without it. 
 
 Naturally enough, these are the implacable foes of the reform for 
 which we plead. The others are at heart its friends. 
 
 The time has now arrived when it behooves these friends of gen- 
 uine educational reform who hold positions in the public-school de- 
 partment to be up and doing. They have the power, if they will 
 but use it, to do more for the advancement of this great cause than 
 any other class of citizens, and in projDortion to their power will be 
 their responsibility. Their reputation, too, more than that of any 
 other class, is involved in the issues here at stake. 
 
 It is every day becoming more and more apparent, from the in- 
 spection of statistics, that all over the country the growth of crime 
 is commensurate with the spread, growth, and development of our 
 common-school system. 
 
 To show that this growth of crime is going on within the temples 
 of learning, and under the very eyes of our public -school teachers, 
 we need only remind our readers of the statements repeatedly quoted 
 by us, not only of leading public-school teachers of California, but 
 also of Massachusetts, the boasted mother of the system. 
 
 For example : In the month of December, 1881, a California State 
 Teachers' Institute was held in the city of San Francisco, and in the 
 progress of its proceedings several of the leading teachers of our 
 State schools made speeches, in the course of which, with scarcely 
 a dissenting voice, it was declared that the children of our public 
 schools were addicted to '•'• lying and dishonesty. '" (See reports of 
 these speeches in the daily Chronicle., Call., and Examiner of De- 
 cember 28, 29, 1881 ; also see Defender of March, 1882.) 
 
 And we have on several occasions quoted the report, made by a 
 committee of ladies, touching the result of their visits to the public 
 schools of Massachusetts, for the purpose of ascertaining their moral 
 condition, wherein they declared that — 
 
 " The teachers almost universally complain of the prevalence of 
 lying, stealing, profanity, and impurity among their scholars.'' 
 (See S. F. Chronicle., October 3, 1880.) 
 
ii6 ''^Poison Drofs^^ in the Federal Senate. 
 
 Then, again, we have the statement, more general in its nature, 
 quoted, as above, from the " Daily Public School," declaring that 
 " The most frequent failures aoticed in the reports are in the mat- 
 ter oi discipline or government ^ 
 
 And, of course, where there is "no discipline" or "govern- 
 ment " there is no progress in knowledge, and no check upon 
 vicious children or the growth of vice. 
 
 Now, the great and overshadowing question to which we desire 
 
 to call the attention of the public-school teachers of America is this : 
 
 Where lies the chief blame for this want of discipline^ and 
 
 this consequent growth of demoralization and crim-e., in the 
 
 public schools? 
 
 Is it true^ as claimed by the author of the "Daily Public School," 
 that the fault is in the teachers ? Or is it true, as claimed by us, 
 that the fault is in the syste7n itself, by which the teachers are con- 
 trolled ? 
 
 And are we, or are we not, correct when we assert that, as 2i gen- 
 eral rtile., the very best teachers in the world, under this system, can 
 have no satisfactory assurance of being able to preserve proper dis- 
 cipline or prevent the spread and growth of immorality and crime 
 amongst their pupils? 
 
 Should any public-school teacher take the ground that the fault 
 lies not in the " system " but in the teachers, we shall then ask him 
 to tell us by -whai practical process, taking things as we find them, 
 it would be possible, under our existing " system.,'" to rid ourselves 
 of the present incompetent teachei^s and to replace them with better 
 ones. 
 
 But if, on the other hand, as we anticipate will be the case, every 
 intelligent and really competent teacher will, on mature reflection, 
 agree that the chief fault lies with our false system of education, then 
 we shall earnestly ask, and confidently expect, the co-operation of 
 every such teacher in our earnest efforts to sunder the shackles where- 
 with this " system" enslaves him, and binds down, in the dungeons 
 both of ignorance and vice, millions of America's loveliest, brightest, 
 and most gifted sons and daughters. 
 
Coinparison between Pare7ttal and anti-Parental Systems. 117 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE PARENTAL AND ANTI-PARENTAL EDUCATIONAL 
 SYSTEMS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF GREAT MEN —DOES OPPOSITION TO 
 ANTI-PARENTAL EDUCATION ARISE FROM BIGOTRY? 
 
 Extract from a speech on the school question, delivered by the 
 author before the Convention Committee on Education, at Sacra- 
 mento City, November 30, 187S : 
 
 After two hundred } ears' trial, your Massachusetts State system 
 produced annually, in proportion to her population, ten times as many 
 native white criminals, nearly twice as many native white paupers, 
 four times as many suicides of all classes, more than three times as 
 many deaths from syphilis, and one and a half times as many in- 
 sane persons as did the parental system of Virginia. 
 
 Then tell me what superior advantage Massachusetts has derived 
 over Virginia from her anti-parental system of education. Is it found 
 in the greater number and ability of her statesmen, in the superior elo- 
 quence of her orators, or in the greater courage, skill, and heroic 
 achievements of her warriors.^ 
 
 It is undoubtedly true that Massachusetts has given to our country 
 some of its very brightest and ablest literary men. The names of 
 Prescott, Everett, and Bancroft — all students of Harvard University — 
 and of William Cullen Bryant, who studied at Williams College, 
 and of many other illustrious children of the old Bay State, are 
 familiar as household words, and are pronounced with just pride 
 wherever the English language is spoken ; but it would be difficult 
 to trace the literary greatness of one of these distinguished men to 
 public-school training. 
 
 It is also true that Massachusetts gave birth to the illustrious Ben- 
 jamin Franklin, but he was far more indebted for his education to 
 his own mighty intellect, his indomitable perseverance, and the 
 training of a Philadelphia printing office, tnan to the public schools 
 of his native State. It is equally true that Massachusetts has given 
 to the country two of its Presidents — the elder and the younger 
 Adams. But'it is no less true that they, too, were both educated at 
 Harvard University, an institution which owes its origin rather to 
 the private munificence of an Englishman than to the bounty of the 
 State of Massachusetts. But as against these and a few lesser lights 
 born upon the soil of Massachusetts, look at old Virginia's bright 
 and glorious galaxy of statesmen, orators, and military heroes ! Look 
 at the long line of illustrious Presidents she has given to the Repub- 
 lic, beginning with the immortal Washington, the " Father of his 
 Country," followed by Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Harrison, 
 Tyler, and the unconquerable old '^ Rough and Ready," the hero of 
 Buena Vista. It was she who gave to our country the author of 
 the world-renowned Declaration of American Independence. It was 
 she who gave us that matchless orator, the incomparable Patrick 
 
ii8 '•'•Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 Henry, whose burning eloquence fired the American heart with the 
 thrilling sentiments of that noble Declaration. To her belongs the 
 honor of having given us the General-in-Chief to lead our half- 
 famishing and half-naked armies triumphantly through the terrible 
 and bloody war of the Revolution. 
 
 And when engaged in our more recent struggle with a neighbor- 
 ing republic, they were Virginia's chosen sons, Zachary Taylor and 
 Winfield Scott, who carried our victorious arms in triumph into the 
 very capital city of Mexico, and won for us this Golden State, 
 whose destinies you, gentlemen, now hold in your hands. Then, 
 again, when our late terrible civil war burst upon the country, there 
 stood at the head of each opposing host a child of Old Virginia ; and 
 throughout that fearful contest did the military prowess of the Old 
 Dominion shine forth in all its pristine splendor. 
 
 However widely men may honestly differ as to the merits of that 
 contest, there is no difference of opinion as to the manly courage, 
 the splendid generalship, and the dauntless heroism of General 
 Lee, of Stonewall Jackson, Turner Ashby, A. P. Hill, Joseph E. 
 Johnston, and a host of other Confederate generals, whose earliest 
 footprints were marked upon the soil of Old Virginia. 
 
 And against this mighty galaxy of genei"als whom Virginia gave 
 to the Confederate cause, what did Massachusetts do for the other 
 side? Why, she gave you the Union-sliding Banks and Benjamin 
 F. Butler, which last was not her own child, by-the-by, but one 
 who, like the great Daniel Webster, had been imported from the 
 granite hills of New Hampshii'e. * * * 
 
 Your humble servant has been sometimes charged with being a 
 bigoted Roman Catholic^ and with seeking to establish the public- 
 school system on a sectarian basis. Now, that you may know how 
 far my Catholic sectarianism carries me on this school question, al- 
 low me to assure you that, while I am an humble member of the 
 Roman Catholic Church, and recognize to its fullest extent the 
 teaching authority of that Church in religious matters, and, with a 
 very few isolated exceptions, have the highest respect for the learn- 
 ing, ability, and piety of its clergy, yet if every priest and bishop 
 in California and in America, backed by the Holy Father, the Pope 
 of Rome himself, should do so improbable and unwarranted a thing 
 as to command me to send my child to be educated by a particular 
 teacher, whom I, as the father of the child, should conscientiously 
 believe an unsuitable person to be entrusted with that important 
 work, it would not only be my right, but my bounden duty, both as 
 a Roman Catholic and a -parent., to disobey the command ; and 
 whyJ* Because this a matter in which the law of nature throws 
 upon me the responsibility of acting according to my own best judg- 
 ment, based upon all the lights within my reach. Leaving all other 
 considerations aside, is it at all probable that even all these priests, bish- 
 ops, and Pope, with all their learning and piety, could know as 
 much of the teacher's real character as I, the father, who daily read 
 that character in the language and conduct of my own child } 
 
 And suppose that from that language and conduct, or from any 
 
Comparison between Parental and ant/'- Parental Systems. 1 19 
 
 other source of infortnation, I, the parent, should come to the con- 
 clusion that the teacher of my young son or daughter is an unprin- 
 cipled libertine, whose detestable conduct or vile maxims would, 
 in a single day, or, perhaps, in a single moment, corrupt and ruin 
 my child — shall it be said that I must still wait until my priest or 
 bishop, or any other man, whether he be churchman or statesman, 
 shall grant me permission to snatch my child from the jaws of de- 
 struction ? 
 
 No ! no ! This is a power, an authority over my child, which, 
 whilst living, I can neither entrust to nor divide with any other manJ 
 
 And the very same right which I claim for myself I claim for every 
 other parent, be he Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or non-religionist ; 
 and this is the length, the breadth, the height, the depth, and the 
 thickness of my Roman Catholic sectarianism on the school ques- 
 tion ; and when I speak thus I believe I speak the sentiments of 
 every well instructed Roman Catholic in the world, except it be a 
 certain nondescript kind usually styling themselves Liberal Catho- 
 lics, and whom, in California, you may generally know by the fact 
 that, whenever in their presence the charge of religious bigotry is 
 prefen-ed against your humble servant in connection with this school 
 question, they always stand ready to shout Amen! to the slander. 
 
 This is a class of Catholics, every one of whom, while agreeing 
 with me that it would be wrong to surrender his parental authority 
 to any bishop or priest, no matter how learned and holy he might 
 be, would not at the same time hesitate to divide that authority with 
 every hoodlum and loafer and bummer and. drunkard ; with every 
 thief, rake, and robber, provided only they have votes with which to 
 
 1 The question may perhaps be asked : Does not the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church to-day command its members to withhold their children 
 from anti-parental and Godless public schools? And do not Catho- 
 lic parents consider themselves in conscience bound to obey the 
 command? We answer most assuredly. Yes ! And if that Church 
 should command its members to keep their children out of the fire, 
 every intelligent and conscientious Catholic parent would doubtless 
 feel bound to obey that command also. But suppose a priest or 
 bishop or Pope, or all these combined, not only in violation of the 
 command of their Church, but in defiance of the plainest dictates 
 of the natural law, should order a Catholic parent to cast his 
 children into the fire, would it logically follow from the fore- 
 going proposition that he must obey such an order as this? On 
 the contrary, the moral law being incorporated into the Catholic's 
 creed, and forming, as it does, an essential part thereof, no Catholic, 
 who has been sufficiently educated in his religion to know what the 
 moral law is, can ever regard it as a conscientious duty to violate 
 that law in obedience to the dictates of any mortal man. Hence we 
 do not hesitate to assert that if the Pope himself should command a 
 Catholic parent, or any other parent, to send his children to an anti- 
 parental. Godless, and crime-producing school, against his own 
 judgment and conscience, it would be his duty not to obey. 
 
I20 '"'• Poiso7i Drops'''' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 lift his miserable carcass into some petty office, where, with the prefix 
 of honorable to his name, he will seek to cover his worse than 
 Judas-like treason — treason to his children, treason to his country, 
 and treason to his God. 
 
 It has not unfrequently been said to me: "Were it not for your 
 radical and uncompromising notions on the school question you 
 could have this office, and that office, and the other office." I now 
 give due notice, both to my friends and my foes, that I recognize 
 no more honorable office on earth than the office of vindicating 
 down-trodden truth, and I may add that I neither ask nor desire any 
 higher office than the office of stripping and exposing in all their 
 horrid and naked deformity, and lashing -with the relentless scourge 
 of truth, these trimming, time-serving, pot-house politicians, whether 
 of high or low degree, called Liberal Catholics., who would not 
 only barter their own birthright, but that of their children, and 
 their children's children, to the end of time for a dirty mess of po- 
 litical pottage. 
 
 CHAPTEK XVII. 
 
 MR. HENRY GEORGE AND REV. DR. MCGLYNN ON THE SAME PLATFORM. 
 
 In the New York Freeman'' s Journal of July 15, 1882, was 
 copied from the New 7'ork Sti?i a synopsis of a speech delivered 
 by Rev. Dr. McGIynn, of St. Stephen's Church, on the occasion 
 of the then recent Davitt reception, which runs as follows : 
 
 The Rev, Dr. McGlynn, of St. Stephen's Church, took the stand 
 after Mr. Swinton Dr. McGlynn addressed the throng as " Ladies 
 and Gentlemen," adding that he presumed that there must be work- 
 ing-women among them. He was glad to join in bidding Godspeed 
 to Michael Davitt. He would make no apologies for being there, in 
 spite of the length of his coat and his sacerdotal countenance. If 
 anybody asked what the priest was doing there, anyhow, he would 
 say that, being a priest, he did not lose his character as a man. 
 [Applause.] A good priest ought to be a good man, and a great 
 man. [Applause.] No cause could be worthy of the applause 
 and sacrifices of men unless it was the cause of universal man. 
 He was not ashamed to say he did not set up for a bloated aris- 
 tocrat ; and he would say, as there were enough there to keep the 
 seci^et, that he was not much of a lover of bloated aristocrats. The 
 fact that he was a priest was an additional reason why he should be 
 there. The cause of suffering, martyred poor in Ireland was the 
 cause of true religion. If there seemed to be a divorce between the 
 Church and the masses, it was not the fault of the masses. Perhaps 
 it would be better for the clergy to come a little oftener out of their 
 pulpits and come a little nearer to the people to discover the cause 
 of their complaint, and, if possible, to apply the remedy. [Ap- 
 plause long continued.] Christ himself was but an evicted peasant. 
 
Mr. Henry George and Rev. Dr. Mc Glynn. I3i 
 
 He had complained that, though the foxes had holes, and the birds 
 of the air nests, the Son of Man had not where to lay His head. 
 Christ had come to teach the poorest man that He was all of a man, 
 and the taskmaker that he, too, was only a man, bound to the duties 
 of common humanity. 
 
 As to the land question, he would say, first, that the command- 
 ment that bore upon that question was, "Thou shalt not steal." 
 But who was it that was doing the stealing.? The landlords would 
 say : " Do not dare to touch the pig that pays the rent." It would 
 be a calamity if anything should befall the gentleman that pays the 
 rent. [Laughter.] The poor people of Ireland had got to believe 
 that they must pay the rent, even if, after they had paid rent, they 
 had to lie down and starve. But they had now come to believe that 
 they might eat the pig themselves and throw the feet to the landlords. 
 [Laughter.] The teachings of Davitt and Parnell were rapidly bring- 
 ing the people to a knowledge of their rights. Was it possible that 
 God could see without displeasure the state of aflairs in Ireland.? 
 Such was not God's will, and men were not forbidden to curse such 
 a system of iniquity. He claimed the right of human beings on this 
 earth to so live that they might prepare themselves for a life here- 
 after. He asked the blessing of God on Michael Davitt and such as 
 he who were lighting the battle of the people. He would not have 
 Mr. Davitt explain his gospel, but to preach it. We might have the 
 same problem to solve in this country, and the sooner we solve it the 
 better. He stood on the same platform as Henry George and Bishop 
 Nulty , of Meath. [Applause.] If he did not feel that he was stand- 
 ing on the eternal platform of eternal truth, liberty, and justice, he 
 would not stand on that platform. As a Christian minister, he in- 
 voked the blessing of God upon Michael Davitt. The truth needed 
 martyrs like him. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. McGlynn said that the more Irishmen the British 
 Government put in jail the more etiectual would the Irish movement 
 become. Ireland would never gain anything from a sense of justice 
 in the British Parliament. The only way was to excite British fears. 
 The Englishman's heart was in his pocket, and if you attacked his 
 pocket you attacked him in his most vital point. Dr. McGlynn had 
 cordiallv approved of the " no-rent" manifesto from the beginning. 
 The landlords never owned the lands, and, therefore, no rent could 
 be due them. The non-payment of rent was justifiable on military 
 principles. When a country was in a state of war or siege it was 
 right to refuse supplies to the enemy. Ireland had been petitioning 
 for centuries for the eighth of a loaf to eat, and had been turned 
 away by the British Parliament. He advised Ireland to take the 
 half loaf that was now oftered by Parliament, and after that had 
 been digested to sing out for the other half. 
 
 Wliile there are some things contained in the above synopsis of 
 Rev. Dr. McGlynn's remarks which will challenge the approval of 
 every friend of poor, down-trodden, and long-suflering Ireland, there 
 are, at the same time, other things which we cannot read without 
 
132 '•'Poison Drops''"' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 alarm, especially when we remember that they come as the utter- 
 ances of a talented, eloquent, and influential priest of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. Among other things, the reverend speaker is 
 represented as declaring that " he stood on the same platfor?n as 
 Henry George and Bishop Nulty^ of Meat h." 
 
 Now, while there seems to be some differences of opinion as to 
 the precise position occupied on the land question by the Bishop 
 of Meath, there can be no doubt as to that of Mr. Henry George, 
 unless he has changed ground quite recently. In his work en- 
 titled " Progress and Poverty," published about two years ago, 
 he most clearly, explicitly, and with great force and ability an- 
 nounced his sentiments on the land question. And if the views 
 and sentiments of Mr. Henry George, as set forth in this work, 
 constitute his platform, and the same platform is endorsed by 
 Rev. Dr. McGlynn, then we have only to read Mr. George's said 
 work in order to learn Rev. Dr. McGlynn's position. Mr. George, 
 in the volume referred to, boldly proclaims the doctrine that private 
 property in land is unjust, and the five chapters of the seventh book 
 of his work, as above entitled, are devoted to the task of maintain- 
 ing this proposition. As a sample of the ultra-communistic doc- 
 trines set forth in Mr. George's platform, as expressed in his work, 
 we here quote from page 305, where he says: "Though the 
 sovereign people of the State of New York consent to the landed 
 possessions of the Astors, the puniest infant that comes wailing into 
 the world in the squalidest room of the most miserable tenement 
 house becomes at that moment seized of an equal right with the 
 millionaires. And it is robbed if the right is denied." In a foot 
 note on the same page Mr. George calls this " a natural and inalien- 
 able right to the equal use and enjoyment of land." By way ot 
 supporting so startling a theory the author asks what it is that 
 " constitutes the rightful basis of property.^ What is it that enables 
 a man to justly say of a thing, ' It is mine } ' From what springs 
 the sentiment which acknowledges his exclusive right as against 
 all the world.'' Is it not, primarily, the right of a man to himself, to 
 the use of his own powers, to the enjoyment of the fruits of his 
 own exertions.? Is it not this individual right which springs from, 
 and is testified to by, the natural facts of individual organization — 
 the fact that each particular pair of hands obey a particular brain 
 and are related to a particular stomach ; the fact that each man 
 is a definite, coherent, independent whole — which alone justifies 
 individual owership.? As a man belongs to himself, so his labor, 
 when put in a concrete form, belongs to him." For this reason, 
 
Mr. Henry George a //d Rev. Dr. McGlyiDi. 133 
 
 says Mr. George: '' That which a man makes or produces is his 
 own, as against all the world, to enjoy or to desti-oy, to use, to 
 exchange, or to give. * * * * The pen with which I am writ- 
 ing is justly mine. No other being can rightfully lay claim to it, 
 for in me is the title of the producers who made it. It has become 
 mine, because transferred to me by the importer, who obtained the 
 exclusive right to it by transfer from the manufacturer, in whom, 
 by the same process of purchase, vested the rights of those who 
 dug the material from the ground and shaped it into a pen. Thus 
 my exclusive right of ownership in the pen springs from the natural 
 right of the individual to the use of his own faculties." 
 
 We propose now to examine briefly the foundation whereon Mr. 
 George rests his theory that there cannot justly be any private prop- 
 erty in land ; and we shall undertake the task of showing that in 
 order to be logical, and to maintain a position in harmony with the 
 fundamental proposition whereon rests his whole theory, it will be 
 necessary to go still farther and deny that there is or can be any 
 such thing as a title to private property vested in man, whether 
 such property be land or anything else. 
 
 As we have just seen, Mr. George, as the basis of all property 
 rights in man, asserts the proposition that " »/«« belongs to /ii?n- 
 self.," and that "therefore what he makes or produces," and only 
 what he makes or produces, " is his own, as against all the world, 
 to enjoy or destroy, to use, to exchange, or to give." 
 
 Now, it seems to us scarcely possible for any other writer to 
 crowd so great a number of such gigantic fallacies into the same 
 space as are contained in the foregoing propositions. In the first 
 place we deny that " man belongs to himself," and in order to 
 make good our denial it is only necessary to invoke another propo- 
 sition advanced by the same learned author. For example : On the 
 very page where this self-ownership of man is so triumphantly 
 asserted, it is further maintained that, because of man's ownership 
 of himself, whatever he " makes or produces is his own." If, then, 
 it is true that the making of a thing gives the maker title to the thing 
 made, man unquestionably belongs, not to /limself—unXes?, it can be 
 shown that he made himself— but to God, his creator. And upon 
 this palpably false proposition rests Mr. George's whole theory. 
 But even if this false proposition were true, and if it were admitted 
 that man really owns himself, still, according to Mr. George's idea 
 as to the mode, and the only mode, of acquiring title to property, 
 such acquisition would be utterly impossible, for, as we have just 
 seen, the only original mode of acquiring title to property, accord- 
 
124 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Seriate. 
 
 ing to Mr. George, is to make or produce it. Now to make a thing, 
 in its true and proper sense, means to create it. But man can 
 create nothing. Not so much as one grain of sand. No, nor even 
 so much as the very smallest invisible mote or atom of inatter. 
 But our author would say : " When I used the word ' make'' I did 
 not exactly mean to create^ hence I coupled with it the word 
 '■ prodtice^' " meaning, thereby, simply changing the form of some 
 material substance. Such a change, for example, as the farmer 
 brings about when he is instrumental in converting the earth's rich 
 soil into corn, beans, and potatoes, or the lumberman and the me- 
 chanic when they fell the forest trees and convert them into houses, 
 or the brick manufacturer when he works sand and clay into mortar 
 and moulds them into brick. This, we presume, is the sense in 
 which Mr. George intends to be understood when he uses the words 
 " make or produce." 
 
 But here again the learned author's logic murders itself. On page 
 302 he maintains that " no one can be rightfully entitled to the own- 
 ership of anything which is not the produce of his labor, or the labor 
 of some one else from whom the right has passed to him." And 
 upon this ground he over and over again insists that there cannot 
 justly be any such thing as private property in land, because no man 
 can make or produce land. Now, who does not know that every 
 tree and herb, every grain of corn, and every blade of grass that 
 grows ; every beast, every bird, and every insect is formed from, 
 and, in fact, constitutes a part of the very substance and cream of 
 the land.? Now, if a man cannot make land., neither can he make 
 that particular and most valuable ingredient in the land, which en- 
 ters into the growth and forms, as we have just said, the very sub- 
 stance both of animal and vegetable matter. And if man does not 
 and cannot own the land, of which these things are made, how is it 
 possible for him to own the things themselves? Should a thief take 
 a bar of silver to which he had no title, but which belonged to 
 another, and melt and run it into coin or silver spoons, no honest 
 judge in the world would say that the mere fact of his having ex- 
 pended his skill and labor upon this piece of stolen metal could 
 possibly give hiin a title either to the coin or the spoons into 
 which he had manufactured it. Neither does it seem any more 
 possible to change the rightfulownership of the soil by converting 
 it into porridge than it does to change the ownership of a silver bar 
 by converting it into spoons with which to eat the porridge. Ac- 
 cording to Mr. George's theory, if we understand it aright, the man 
 who, with his hard and honestly earned money, purchases a field 
 
Mr. Henry George and Rev. Dr. Mc Glynn. 125 
 
 from one who holds a title, recognized as genuine by the solemn 
 sanctions of his country's laws and the general consent of mankind, 
 is, nevertheless, a robber if he denies that " tJic pi/nicst infant 
 that comes wailing into the world in the squalidest room of the most 
 miserable tenement house becomes at that moment seized of an 
 equal right " with himself. Nor do the monstrous conclusions of 
 this strange logic even stop here. For, according to Mr. George, 
 while the man who, under the solemn sanctions of law and with 
 the general consent of mankind, invests his money in the purchase 
 of land is a robber if he claims anything by virtue of his purchase, 
 his neighbor, on the other hand, who neither invested a cent in said 
 land nor inherited it from any one who has, and who, against the 
 protest of the purchaser, in violation of the statutes of his country, 
 and in defiance of the common judgment of mankind, would, by 
 inti-usion, take joint possession with such purchaser, and without 
 consideration appropriate to his own use the soil which had been 
 so purchased and enriched by another, would for so doing be worthy 
 of all commendation as an honest and upright man ! Truly, if this 
 is not the robber's gospel we know not what is. 
 
 It seems to us that Mr. George's false conclusions as to what he 
 calls the " injustice of private property in land" are at least partly 
 due to his erroneous ideas as to what really constitutes the highest 
 human title to property and the exact nature and extent of such 
 title. The kind or degree of title of which he seems to be speaking 
 rests, as we have seen, upon the false assumption that man is the 
 absolute owner of himself, and, consequently, that he is the absolute 
 owner of whatever he makes or produces, (although he make it out 
 of God Almighty's material), and that the character of this owner- 
 ship is such as gives him the right, not only to use and enjoy as he 
 pleases, but even to utterly destroy the thing owned. Such a title 
 as this^e hold none but God alone possesses, because it is not man., 
 as claimed by Mr. George, but only God who owns himself; and, 
 consequently, it is only God who can rightfully claim the absolute and 
 ultimate title to himself and to the things he has made, no difierence 
 whether those things be in the shape of lands, or cattle, or of fruits, 
 flowers, and fields of waving grain. Neither do we see how it is 
 possible for either Mr. George or his reverend follower to escape 
 these conclusions without either denying the existence of God, who 
 made all things, or else repudiating his own premises wherein it is 
 asserted as a fundamental proposition that he, and only he, who 
 owns himself owns also that which he has made. 
 
 If a man belongs absolutely to himself, then he is responsible only 
 
136 " Poison Drops^'' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 to himself for his dealings with himself; and whether, on the one 
 hand, he live the life of a lazy, worthless sot, and die the horrible 
 death of the suicide, or whether, on the other, he lead a sober, in- 
 dustrious, virtuous life, and then die a natural and honorable death — 
 in either case he will have but exercised what Mr. George would 
 call his inalienable right to do as he pleases with tliat which be- 
 longs to himself. 
 
 This brings us to a point where it will be in order to define what 
 we understand to be the nature and extent of man's ownership in 
 property, whether it be in the nature of lands or of goods and chat- 
 tels. 
 
 In order to have a clear idea of the nature and limits of man's 
 title to property we must constantly bear in mind the fact, as already 
 suggested, that man did not make himself, but that he was made by 
 another, and, consequently, that he does not belong to himself, but 
 that he belongs to another. That his entire physical, mental, 
 and moral self; his body, with its flesh and blood, and bone 
 and marrow ; its every muscle, fibre, and atom of matter, froin the 
 very tip of his hair to the end of his little toe-nail ; his soul, with its 
 will, memory, and understanding; and, in fact, every faculty v^hich 
 it is possible for him to use, either in the acquisition of knowledge 
 or the accumulation of worldly wealth, are all the absolute property 
 of his Creator. That the earth, the air, and the ocean, with all their 
 teeming wealth of animate and inanimate things, are also the prop- 
 erty of Him who created them. Therefore whatever title man has 
 acquired, or can acquire, to any species of property, whether it be 
 land or personal chattels, must of necessity be from God, the only 
 true owner, and subject at all times to His supreme will and control. 
 That man has a genuine but subordinate title to the earth and the 
 ocean, with all their varied productions, is manifest not only from 
 the testimony of natural reason, but also from the v\^ords of holy 
 writ, for in the first chapter of Genesis it is written that God said : 
 " Let us make man to our own image and likeness; and let him 
 have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, 
 and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that 
 moveth upon the earth." Here, then, is the source of man's title, 
 not only to his personal goods and chattels, but to his landed estates 
 as well. For it will be observed from the language just quoted that 
 man's " dominion" was not to be limited to the "• fishes of the sea, 
 and the fowls of the air, and the beasts," but was to be extended to 
 " the whole earthy''' as well as to '' every creeping thing that moveth 
 upon the earth." Here, then, is man's title-deed, through which he 
 
Mr. Henry George and Rev. Dr. ISIc Glynn. 127 
 
 traces back to his Lord and Maker his right to property, both real 
 and personal. 
 
 It may be that Mr. George denies the genuineness of our title- 
 deed, but we presume the reverend New York convert to Mr. 
 George's platform, with whom we are partly dealing, will not 
 join in that denial. 
 
 We have said that man's title to property, both real and personal, 
 is but a subordinate and qualified one, subject at all times to the su- 
 perior and ultimate title of the Creator, and of this foct we must not 
 lose sight. In order that we may the more certainly keep this fact 
 steadily in view, let us inquire a little more closely into the reason 
 for this limitation upon man's title to property. No intelligent being 
 has ever yet knowingly and designedly put into shape anything 
 without a purpose. And the Almighty, being infinitely wise, has 
 neither made nor done anything without an infinitely ivise purpose. 
 And being infinitely good. He has neither made nor done anything 
 without an infinitely good purpose. Hence we are led to conclude 
 that when He made the earth, the air, and the ocean, with all their 
 elements of material wealth. He must have made them for an infi- 
 nitely wise and an infinitely good purpose. Consequently, when He 
 gave to man dominion over all these things it must have been 
 His will that he use them in a manner to correspond with the 
 objects for which they were made. But what was the Almighty's 
 object in creating these elements of worldly wealth of which we are 
 speaking.'' Was it not to promote His own honor and glory, and at 
 the same time to supply man's proper physical, mental, and moral 
 wants, and thereby to contribute to his happiness.? 
 
 The gift by the Almighty to man of dominion over the earthly 
 creation was of course a gift in common, whereby every human 
 being was allowed to draw from this common and abundant her- 
 itage, and appropriate to his own use such articles — not previously 
 appropriated — as were suited to his necessities, tastes, and lawful 
 desires. And when men began this process of individual appro- 
 priation, then and there began the origin and history of private 
 pi-operty, without the necessity of man's having to make an article 
 as the only test of his rightful ownership. The man who first 
 found a wild turkey's nest, a swarm of bees, or a precious stone 
 upon unclaimed land, did not make either the bees, the turkey eggs, 
 or the precious stone ; and yet, if he chose to have it so, they be- 
 came his property by the mere act of appropriation. If the learned 
 author of '•'• Progress and Poverty" were to go into a wild forest, 
 and cut the timber and saw the lumber with which to build him a 
 
128 '''•Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. " 
 
 house, he would doubtless say that the house, when built, was his., 
 because he made it. But was not the material his even before he 
 built the house? And yet he did not make the material. If, after 
 he had selected his lumber tree, and was on the ground ready for 
 work, clearly indicating his purpose — even before his axe had 
 pierced the outer bai'k — some later claimant had made his appear- 
 ance and objected to his cutting the tree, would he not have said, 
 " Sir, this is my tree !" But according to Mr. George's theory, by 
 what right could he have claimed that it was his tree ? For surely 
 he had not made the tree, any more than he had made the land 
 whereon the tree had grown. Hence, we claim that Mr. George 
 is in en-or when he assumes that it is impossible for man justly to 
 have private property in a thing which was not tnade or produced 
 either by himself or by some other person, viz., some other human 
 being, whose title he holds. And it is upon this erroneous assump- 
 tion that our author denies the justice of private property in land ; 
 that is to say, because man did not make the land. But if it is true 
 that, by the simple act of appropriation, man can become the rightful 
 owner of a nest of turkey eggs, a swarm of bees, a precious stone, 
 or a timber tree, which neither he nor any human being whose title 
 he claims ever made or produced, then upon what principle can it 
 be said that, by a similar act of appropriation, man cannot justly 
 acquire private property in land not previously appropriated .? 
 
 It must be borne in mind, however, that man's title to property, 
 whether in land or in movables, and whether held in community or 
 in severalty, is a qualified and limited title in the nature of a triist, 
 coupled with an obligation to so use such pi'operty as to subserve the 
 end for which it was created, namely : the honor of God and the 
 welfare of man. Therefore, it is not true, as held by Mr. George, 
 that man holds, or can hold, even what he calls his own property, 
 by such an absolute title as to give him ipso facto a right to destroy 
 that property. To show, by a simple illustration, how monstrous 
 is the doctrine here asserted by our author, let us suppose the case 
 of a very wealthy man, who counts his money by the millions of 
 dollars. He neither owns nor claims to own a foot of land, and 
 his money has all come to him through what Mr. George would call 
 just and legitimate channels. To make the matter clear, we will 
 suppose that he has dug every dollar of it with his own pick and 
 shovel out of the rich placers of California. No sooner has he 
 amassed this immense fortune than he learns that a most deadly 
 plague has simultaneously attacked the people of New York, Bos- 
 ton, Philadelphia, Charleston, Savannah, Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. 
 
Mr. Henry George and Rev. Dr. Mc Glynn. 139 
 
 Louis, Chicago, Louisville, New Orleans, and San Francisco, and 
 is rapidly spreading to all the neighboring towns and cities, and 
 even into the homes of the rural districts. He has further learned that 
 one and only ofie remedy has been found for this dreadful destroyer of 
 his race, and that remedy is quinine. With the quickness of 
 thought a gigantic project is resolved upon, and in the execution of 
 this project he immediately telegraphs to every druggist in the 
 United States, purchasing, at whatever cost, all the quinine in the 
 country. This quinine he causes to be shipped to New York, and 
 there securely stored in an iron warehouse. Owing to this com- 
 plete monopoly of the only medicine that could cure the plague, 
 death is mowing down men, women, and children by tens and even 
 hundreds of thousands per day. By the use of quinine every patient 
 could be cured ; without it not one can live. Our millionaire is be- 
 sieged with applications for the precious drug. But all to no pur- 
 pose. First one thousand, then five, then ten thousand dollars per 
 ounce are proffered. And while the wealthy ply him with offers of 
 money, the poor, in the name of God and humanity, beseech and 
 implore, on bended knees and with tearful eyes, for just enough med- 
 icine to save a perishing daughter, a stricken son, a dying wife, or an 
 expiring mother. But no ! Neither for the love of money nor in the 
 name of sweet charity will he let go so much as one solitary atom of 
 his hoarded medicine, and, finally, in the exercise of what Mr. 
 George claims to be his undoubted right (to either '' enjoy or 
 destroy" his own property) he causes this entire stock to be 
 dumped into the ocean, leaving millions of his countrymen to per- 
 ish who could and would have been saved if such a wretch as he 
 had never been born. Yet, according to the ethics of Mr. Henry 
 George's platform, this diabolical act of wholesale murder would 
 be but the exercise of a man's right to do as he pleases with his 
 own property. As for ourselves, we plead guilty to such a degree 
 of obtuseness in our moral vision that we cannot possibly distinguish 
 the difference between the guilt of the monster who would expend 
 his money in the purchase of poison for the wanton destruction of 
 human life and that other monster who, when the fatal poison of a 
 raging pestilence was doing its work of death, would use his money 
 for the purchase and destruction of the only antidote which could 
 save the lives of the infected. 
 
 Or, take another illustration : If a man has a right to do as he 
 pleases with the property which Mr. George would call his own, 
 because his labor has earned it, then who can censure the drunken 
 husband and father who, on every Saturday night, squanders his 
 
130 " Poison Drops'''' in the Federal Senate. 
 
 week's wages for whiskey, while the wife of his bosom and the 
 children of his loins are left naked and hungry, to shiver with 
 cold and to die of starvation? And if this theory of Mr. George's, 
 which holds that the lawful owners of personal property have a 
 right to do with it as they please, is a true one, it furnishes a coin- 
 plete justification for all the outrages that were ever practised upon 
 poor suffering humanity by any and every species of monopolists — 
 except land monopolists — from the morning of creation down to the 
 present moment, provided, only, that such monopolists acquired their 
 wealth either by producing it or else by securing to themselves the 
 title of the producers. According to this doctrine, the man of money 
 may buy up all the food within a thousand miles of his plethoric store- 
 houses, and thus force provisions up to starvation prices, spreading 
 famine, starvation, and death amongst the poor, and yet do nothing 
 but what a man may rightfully do with his own property. 
 
 The solemn truth is that man does not, never did, and never can, 
 own property in that absolute sense in which Mr. George seems to 
 understand the word " ownerships It is only the Almighty, we re- 
 peat, who does or can own property in that absolute sense ; and when 
 He entrusted man v/ith dominion over His property He never author- 
 ized him to use it for any purpose antagonistic to the great object for 
 which he created it. When Dives refused to allow poor Lazarus to 
 eat the crumbs that fell from his table he did exactl}' what Mr. George 
 claims he had a right to do, becavise these were the crumbs of Dives, 
 and Mr. George says a man has a right to do as he pleases with his 
 own property. And yet, because Dives, like our New York divine, 
 chose to stand upon Mr. Henry George's platform, the Scripture as- 
 sures us that when he died he was buried in hell. 
 
 No, it is not true that man has a right to use even the productions of 
 his own hands as he pleases, unless he should please to use them in ac- 
 cordance with the great law of justice and charity ; in other words, un- 
 less he please to use them for the honor and the glory of the Almighty 
 Giver and the good of man — for man simply holds property in trust, 
 and it is only thus that he can execute that trust. It is true that 
 along with this trust comes the right to the personal use of so much 
 of the trust-fund as is proper to gratify the possessor's lawful desires 
 and to contribute to his individual legitimate comfort, as well as the 
 comfort of those depending upon him, but the ''crumbs" that fall 
 from his table, namely, wealth not needed for other purposes, should 
 not be withheld from the hungry, the naked, and the homeless. He 
 is the Almighty's almoner, and is, therefore, morally a criminal if he 
 wastes his Master's substance and leaves the poor to perish. 
 
Mr. Henry George and Rev. Dr. Mc Glynn. 131 
 
 We do not say that the rich man should recklessly distriljute all 
 his surplus wealth indiscriminately amongst his needy neighbors, 
 leaving himself no surplus capital with which to accumulate more. 
 Not at all ; for this would be like turning: <^ lot of thoughtless, hun- 
 gry children into the buttery, where they would soon eat themselves 
 sick and waste more than they would eat. But the truly charitable 
 man should not fail to hold the reins of prudence over his liberality. 
 We hold that every man has, primarily, a moral right to the free use 
 and enjoyment of so much property as he can honestly acquire, either 
 by appropriation, by labor, by inheritance, by purchase, or by ex- 
 change, whether in lands or personal chattels. 
 
 When we speak of honestly acquiring property, we mean acquir- 
 ing it in such manner as does not interfere with the vested rights of 
 others. 
 
 Enough has already been said to show that he who would over- 
 turn all human title to land, upon the ground that man did not make 
 the land, need not be long in finding an equally plausible reason 
 for denying likewise all title to personal property. Because, as 
 already remarked, man did not make the material which enters 
 into and constitutes the very substance of all kinds of personal prop- 
 erty. And if, as claimed by Mr. George, the man who, with the 
 highest sanction of human law, enters upon and appropriates to 
 himself a piece of hitherto unappropriated land, clears the dense 
 forests, cuts away the roots, plows the ground, plants him an 
 orchard, builds him a house, and digs him a well, acquires no title 
 to the land because he did not make it, then may it not, with at 
 least equal justice, be contended that the man who, under the sanc- 
 tion of the same human law, digs down into the bowels of the 
 earth and draws forth coal or iron, or copper or silver, or gold or 
 precious stones, has no title and can convey no title to any of these 
 things, because, forsooth, he did not make them? And would not 
 the same kind of logic serve equally well to prove an industrious, 
 thrifty farmer to be a heartless robber, who would deny to his 
 indolent neighbors an equal right with himself to take and eat the 
 corn from his crib and the bacon from his meat-house, because 
 these articles of food were drawn from and are, in fact, a part of 
 the substance of the land } 
 
 We are fully aware that Mr. George does not yet carry his doc- 
 trines to the extent of denying the justice of man's title to personal 
 property, but what we maintain is, that the logic of these doctrines, 
 if followed to its legitimate conclusion, would of necessity lead 
 to that result. Let Mr. George's premises be generally accepted 
 
132 " Poison Drops" in the Federal Seizate. 
 
 and it will not be long before some more logical communist than he, 
 building upon the foundation which he has laid, will readily reach 
 the climax just indicated. 
 
 Mr. George's communistic theories would be far less dangerous 
 in this country were it not for the fact that so much has been and 
 is daily being done by the American people to prepare the public 
 mind for their favorable and logical acceptance. When the doctrine 
 is boldly proclaimed that every child born into the world may 
 demand, not simply as a charity due to the poor, but as a right 
 due to all, that he be educated at the public expense, there can be 
 no logical denial of the vfact that the general acceptance of such a 
 doctrine is the practical acceptance of a communism even broader 
 and more sweeping in its grasp than that contended for by the 
 author of "Progress and Poverty." 
 
 If, as maintained by Blackstone, and Kent, and Wayland, and 
 every other standard author on either law or morals, it is the 
 natural duty of parents to " feed, to clothe, and to educate" their 
 own children ; in other v\^ords, if parents are under the very same 
 obligation to supply their own children with a proper education 
 that they are to supply them with proper victuals and clothes, is it 
 not just as communistic to take one man's money with which to 
 educate the children of another, when that other is in duty bound 
 to educate them himself, as it would be to take the same man's 
 money with which to feed and clothe the same children.? 
 
 " Communism," as defined by Webster, means " the doctrine of a 
 community of property, or the negation of individual rights in 
 propeily." Now, if the man who has earned, or otherwise law- 
 fully acquired, property has no individual right thereto as against 
 his neighbors who desire to use it for the education of their chil- 
 dren, why may not these same neighbors with equal justice declare 
 that he has no individual right to the same property against those 
 who choose to take it for the feeding and clothing of their children .? 
 And if they may rightfully communize — so to speak — his propei^ty 
 for the feeding and clothing of their children, why may they not 
 with like justice "■communize" the same property for the feeding 
 and clothing of themselves } In fact, if it is just and right to force 
 the whole people to put their private property into a common fund 
 in order to supply the educational wants of children which the natu- 
 ral law requires their fathers and mothers to supply at their indi- 
 vidual expense, we can see no logical reason why the whole people 
 inight not justly and rightfully be forced to put their individual prop- 
 erty into a like common fund in order to supply any other want which 
 
Mr. Henry George and Rev. Dr. McGIv?in. 133 
 
 the natural law requires each member of society to supply for himself. 
 We are not now denying the propriety or the justice of levying a tax 
 to pay, to a certain extent, for the education of children whose par- 
 ents are unable to educate them. That is undoubtedly justifiable 
 upon the same grounds upon which we would justify the furnishing 
 of both children and parents with victuals and clothes at public 
 expense whenever their necessities were such as to render them 
 objects of public charity. But the levy of a public-school tax for 
 the education of all the children in the State, rich as well as poor, 
 rests upon no such foundation. The levy of this communistic pub- 
 lic-school tax for the maintenance of schools instituted for all the 
 children is, by the advocates of the system, sometimes likened to 
 the levy of a public-road tax, or a tax for the support of the Gov- 
 ernment. But the cases are by no means parallel, as a moment's 
 reflection will show. To construct or to take care of a public road 
 is in no proper sense a private duty. If it were, we could no more 
 rightfully shift that private duty on to the public shoulders than any 
 other private duty. If the road to be built or repaired, instead of 
 being a public road, were a private one within the proprietor's own 
 enclosure, where is there an honest man whose sense of justice would 
 not revolt at the idea of taxing the public to pay for the construction 
 or repair of such a road.? As for the man whose domestic relations 
 are of so unsatisfactory a character that he is unable to claim any 
 individual rights in the children which he calls his, other than such 
 as he may properly accord to his neighbors, we can see no injustice 
 in his demanding that those neighbors assist him in supplying such 
 children with the means of an education. But whoever, when 
 looking upon a child of his household with the faith and confidence 
 of one who has never for a moment distrusted the fidelity of its 
 mother, can say with unfaltering faith, " This, indeed, is my child F' 
 ought never, never, to repudiate the high, the holy, and the God- 
 imposed obligation of educating such child. Indeed, according to 
 our humble way of thinking, there is no kind or degree of com- 
 munism so utterly revolting as that which, for educational purposes, 
 virtually asserts a community of title, not only to the property, but 
 also to the children of the private citizen. Yet, this, unfortunately, 
 is the communism of America ; a communism having for its main 
 trunk an educational system the most ruinously expensive and the 
 most demoralizing that the world ever saw. A communism whose 
 poisonous roots have spread far and wide, and struck deep down 
 into the soil of American literature, American politics, and, we may 
 say, American religion. 
 
134 '•'•Poison Drops''' in the Federal Seriate. 
 
 Millions of American childi'en, of all creeds, classes, and condi- 
 tions, daily gather beneath the wide-spreading branches and inhale 
 the poisonons odors of this deadly upas. Tens of thousands of these 
 little ones die annually from diseases contracted in its overcrowded 
 and tainted atmosphere, while hundreds of thousands meet a moral 
 death ten thousand times worse for themselves, their parents, and 
 their country than that physical death which consigns its victims to 
 an untimely grave. These children,, as a rule, grow to manhood 
 and womanhood without any proper knowledge of the duties which 
 they owe to their fathers and mothers, to their country or their God. 
 About the only thing which they are taught touching the rights of 
 property is, that every child born into the world is entitled to an 
 education at the expense of the community, which, as we have seen, 
 is the very quintessence of the logic of communism. Under these 
 circumstances, with the whole educating power of the country en- 
 listed in the work of inculcating into the minds of American youth 
 both the doctrines and pi'actices of communism, and the whole 
 political power of both State and Federal Governments backing the 
 movement, how long will it be before the morally depraved and 
 penniless portion of Young America, with the sword in one hand 
 and the torch in the other, will demand of the wealthy an equal 
 share of their worldly goods, and, in the language of Mr. George, 
 will call it " robbery" if their demand be denied.^ 
 
 And when this anti -parental. Godless, and communistic training, 
 which so many millions of American children are now receiving, 
 shall have matured its legitimate fruits of violence and blood and 
 pkmder, whither shall the guilty authors and architects of ruin — 
 the uncompromising friends and advocates of this kind of training — 
 find protection, either for their liberty, their lives, or their material 
 wealth ? Will they invoke the shield of the law .? Alas ! they will 
 find, to their bitter sorrow, that those whom they have taught to 
 despise parental authority, and to ignore both God and His com- 
 mandments, will respect no law but that of their own unbridled 
 appetites. Will they rely for protection upon physical force } Unfor- 
 tunately for them the physical force will be upon the other side. 
 When, therefore, the evil day shall come, let not the man of means — 
 who now boastfully pours out his money like water in order to in- 
 doctrinate the rising generation in the false and dangerous principles 
 of communism — shrink from the logical results of his own blind 
 folly. To-day he sows the wind ; to-morrow let him prepare to 
 reap the whirlwind. 
 
 Mr. Henry George draws a frightful and, undoubtedly in the 
 
Mr. Henry George and Rev. Dr. Mc Glynn. 135 
 
 main, a very truthful picture of the poverty, misery, and degradation 
 which have been, and are being, brought about by the improper vise 
 of large fortunes, whereby the poor are daily becoming poorer and 
 the rich richer. This, however, is not the necessary result of accu- 
 mulated wealth, but arises, first, from the dishonest and even diaboli- 
 cal means resorted to for its procurement ; and next, from the mean, 
 sordid, selfish, and criminal uses for which it is employed by those 
 who hold with Mr. George that they have a right to do as they 
 please with their own pioperty. 
 
 Great worldly wealth, whether in land or money, just like great 
 worldly learning, like steam, electricity, and the printing-press, is a 
 great power either for good or evil, depending mainly for its good 
 or bad fruits upon the good or bad purposes for which it is used, 
 and the purposes for which it is used depend chiefly upon the good 
 or bad qualities of the man by whom it is used. For the bad use 
 and the consequent evil results to society from each and all of these 
 mighty engines of power, whether they be in the shape of worldly 
 wealth, worldly wisdom, or anything else, we know^ of but one ef- 
 fectual remedy, and that is to make more just, more charitable, and, 
 in a word, more virtuous those who in future are destined to guide 
 and control them. To this end every lover of his country and his 
 race should arouse himself to a realizing sense of the great and 
 overshadowing importance of properly educating and training up 
 in the paths of virtue those who will soon have it in their power 
 to either lift the nations into a loftier and purer atmosphere of truth, 
 justice, religion, humanity, and fraternal love, or to plunge them into 
 still deeper, darker, and fouler depths of crime, misery, and hopeless 
 ruin. The very first lesson we should teach our children is, that 
 man does not belong to himself but to his Creator ; that he is as 
 much the absolute property of his Maker as is the planet upon which 
 he lives ; that in the vast economy of God's eternity each individ- 
 ual man is of far more value than the mightiest orb that rolls in 
 space ; that his superior value over that of the material universe is not 
 found in the superior quality of the clay of which his body is formed, 
 but in his noble attributes of soul, which distinguish him as an im- 
 mortal child of God and an heir to everlasting happiness. He should 
 be taught that worldly wealth, like worldlv wisdom, is only truly 
 valuable in proportion as it aids us in our journey from this land of 
 misery, sin, sorrow, and death to our true country, and that it can 
 only so aid us when used in the manner which its Great Author had 
 in view in creating it ; and that unless properly used it becomes not 
 a help but a positive hindrance to man's happiness both here and 
 
136 '"''Poison Dj'ops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 hereafter. But how is it possible for our children to learn in what 
 manner their Maker would have them use property unless they first 
 learn what is that Maker's will as regards themselves, and the duties 
 which they owe both to Him and to their fellow-man? In other 
 words, unless they learn, both in theory and in practice, so far as 
 the same may be applicable to themselves, the great law of morality 
 and religion v\^hich God has given to man for his government. 
 
 Without this knowledge, which is absolutely essential to enable 
 them to make a proper use both of their worldly wisdom and 
 worldly wealth, neither the one nor the other can be anything else 
 than a source of danger and disaster both to themselves and to society. 
 
 He who, in the midst of his family, would place in the hands of his 
 little child a Colt's revolver, both loaded and cocked, without first 
 teaching him how to use and how not to use it, could only be re- 
 garded as either crazy or criminally foolish ; for he would be imper- 
 illing not only the life of his child, but that of every one within the 
 reach of his pistol. Like unto him is the father who would store the 
 mind of his child with Avoiddly knowledge, or lavish upon him heaps 
 of worldly wealth, without teaching him the law which God has 
 given him for his guidance in the use of that knowledge or that 
 wealth. And yet is not this precisely what the great body of Ameri- 
 can people, of all parties, creeds, and conditions, are doing to-day, both 
 as regards their worldly knowledge and their worldly wealth.'' Is it 
 not a fact that the great body of American people, while engaged, as 
 it were, in a death struggle to grow rich and to leave their children 
 rich, and while expending about $100,000,000.00 annually in order 
 to cram the minds of these children with worldly knowledge, are 
 at the same time not only taking no pains to instruct these little ones, 
 or to cause them to be instructed, in the use v^^hich they ought and 
 are in conscience bound to make both of their learning and their 
 wealth, but are absolutely closing every avenue through which it 
 is possible for them to receive such instruction.'' To fathers and 
 mothers has the Almighty entrusted the sacred duty of teaching 
 their little ones, or causing them to be taught, the great moral and 
 religious truths which should always constitute their rule of action 
 in their dealings both with God and their fellow-men. Then how 
 lamentable is the fact that, instead of discharging this most sacred 
 duty, vast multitudes of parents, of all creeds and classes, seem vir- 
 tually to have conspired against God, against their children, and 
 against society by denying to those children, through the medium 
 of an anti -parental and Godless education, that verj' knowledge 
 without which they can neither be true to themselves, to their 
 country, nor their God.'' 
 
Mr. Henry George and Rev. Dr. Mc Glynn. 137 
 
 We sincerely believe that moral and religious training are nec- 
 essary for a child in order that it may know the proper use to 
 make of this world's goods and this world's wisdom, but we hold 
 that, amidst conflicting creeds and opinions on religious questions, 
 it is not for the public but for the parental conscience to direct 
 and control, by the aid of the best lights before it, the religious 
 education of the child. And it is not for the public but the 
 parental purse to pay for that education. We hold it to be a viola- 
 tion of religious liberty to force a man to pay for teaching a religion 
 against which his conscience revolts, as well as it is to force him to 
 accept such teachings for his children. But under our existing ed- 
 ucational system moral and religious teachings are as utterly impos- 
 sible, without doing violence to somebody's conscience, as they 
 would be in a law-established church. Hence, the language of 
 the 7th proposition of our platform (see ante) is so framed as to 
 recognize the propriety' and the liberty of imparting to children 
 moral and religious education without cost to the public, and upon 
 a basis objectionable to the conscience of none. 
 
 While we adhere to the proposition that religious education is 
 essential both for the welfare of the child and the good of the 
 State, yet we would not have the public to force such educa- 
 tion on atiy child against the conscientious objection of its parents, 
 because it is not the public but the parent that is the God-appointed 
 guardian of the child ; and hence, it is not the public, but the pa- 
 rental, conscience that must answer for any neglect to discharge the 
 duties of so sacred a trust. Direful as inay be the result of allow- 
 ing multitvides of children to grow up in the community with no 
 knowledge of God or His holy law, yet it would be infinitely worse 
 to allow the political State to domineer over the consciences of its 
 citizens. Moreover, it is undoubtedly true that, while oppressive 
 laws sometimes make hypocrites, they never make men truly relig- 
 ious. While we would allow even the infidel to educate his own 
 children in his own way, for a still stronger reason we would desire 
 that religionists of all creeds should enjoy a like privilege, for we 
 regard almost any sort of religion which is sincerely professed, how^- 
 ever erroneous in itself, as furnishing some sort of safeguard to so- 
 ciety such as cannot be found in the utter scepticism of the atheist. 
 Moroever, the faint and almost imperceptible glimmerings of relig- 
 ious truth which penetrate the dark caverns of the most erroneous 
 of creeds, if faithfully followed, may serve to lead the honest 
 searchers for light into the full blaze of open day. Hence we can 
 see no reason for any division or even for the least discord amongst 
 
138 '■'•Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. 
 
 the friends of educational liberty and reform. Even the confirmed 
 atheist, in standing upon our platform, will find himself at liberty, 
 without molestation from man, to indulge his dark dreams of anni- 
 hilation and despair, and to pour into the startled ear of his own child 
 the gloomy forebodings which blacken and make desolate the dreary 
 landscape of his own deluded soul. But he must leave to his 
 neighbors at least the poor privilege of believing what he proclaims 
 himself unable to believe, and of pointing out to their little ones 
 the path of duty as the path which leads to a better land, where, 
 free from death, and sin, and sorrow, they may bask in the bright 
 sunshine of an eternal day. 
 
 We sincerely believe, in the veiy depths of our soul, that the only 
 lasting and effective cure for the crying wrongs with which greedy 
 monopolists, heartless tyrants, and unprincipled politicians are 
 scovu'ging our countiy, and the only preventive against the still 
 more direful disaster v\^ith which we are threatened at the hands of 
 communistic demagogues, is to be found in a more widely spread 
 and deeper moral and religious sentiment among the people. And 
 it is our earnest conviction that, in order to implant this sentiment 
 in the minds and hearts of our people, we require more of our 
 Saviour's gospel and less of Mr. Henry George's. 
 
jM