PUBLIC CHARITIES.

PUBLIC CHARITIES.Moderncivilization has no higher or more important question to deal with than that of ameliorating the condition of the poor, the unfortunate, the ignorant, and the vicious. Governments are and can be engaged in no more appalling work than that of legislating wisely in regard to these classes, and in seeing that not only are their inevitable wants provided for and the public interests protected, but also that their rights are secured in fact as well as in theory, and that the instruments employed in these exalted spheres of public administration are suited to their purpose, and are guarded against degenerating from means of amelioration into agencies of oppression, cruelty, and injustice.There are two chief motives which lead to the care and provision for the unfortunate members of the social body—charity on the one side, and philanthropy on the other. Religion inspires every motive for this great and holy work, and of all the virtues which religion inspires, charity is the highest, purest, and best. Charity is the love of God, and of man for God’s sake. That God of charity has revealed to us that, of faith, hope, and charity, the greatest is charity; that he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord; that he who performs works of charity to the least of the human race performs themipso factoto the Lord, creator and ruler of the universe; and that the eternal doom of every human being at the last dread day will be decided by this great test. Christianity itself, like her divine founder, is charity. The church of God, like her Lord and Spouse, is charity. She is imbued with and reflects his divine essence, which is charity. Charity arises from no statute or arbitrary decree, which might or might not be made according to the option of the legislator; it is the essence and motive of all good. It exists in the very nature of things. And as the love of God by man is the first and necessary relation of the creature to the Creator, and as our fellow-creatures exist from God, andin and by him, it is only through God and in him that we love them. Thus charity is no human sentiment or affection, like philanthropy or the natural love of our neighbor and brother; it is a supernatural virtue, springing from God, and sustained by his grace. The man who does not love his neighbor cannot love God, but rejects his love and violates the first law of his being. Every word and act of our divine Saviour, while engaged on earth in establishing his church, proves this, if there be need of external proof. Even after his work on earth was done, and he had ascended to his Father, he speaks to us through the mouth of S. Paul: “If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and have all faith, so I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and should give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”[1]Philanthropy, on the other hand, is the love of man for the sake of man; in other words, humanitarianism. It is a human affection springing from natural motives. To alleviate human sufferings, and promote human pleasures and enjoyments, are its aims. Its object is the body rather than the soul, earth rather than heaven, time rather than eternity. Its motive power is sentiment or feeling rather than reason or religion. It is a sensitiveness to all human suffering, because suffering or pain is repulsive to human nature. Philanthropy is a virtue in the natural order, springing from human motives, and not a supernatural virtue springing from religious motives and inspired by divine grace. Philanthropy is good in itself, for our human nature still remains; nature and grace are not antagonistic, and may co-exist; nature is dependent on grace to raise it to the supernatural state and transform it into charity. Charity includes philanthropy, as the greater includes the lesser. Philanthropy without charity is earthly in its aims, frequently rash and sometimes unjust in its measures, tyrannical in the exercise of power, and not unfrequently barren in its results.Now, the church and the state are the organized representatives of these two virtues, the divine and the human. The church is a divine kingdom, and cultivates the divine virtue of charity; the state is a human kingdom, and cultivates the human virtue of philanthropy. The church is a supernatural body, and practises the supernatural virtue of charity; the state exists in the natural order, and practises the natural sentiment of philanthropy. The church is of heaven, and her greatest jewel, charity, is of heaven; the state is of earth, and the greatest of her merits is philanthropy, which is of earthly birth. The church is eternal, so is charity; the state is temporal, as is philanthropy. The church is of God, God is charity, so the church is charity; the state is of man, so is philanthropy. The rewards of the one are eternal; of the other, temporal. Charity is a Christian virtue, and can violate no other Christian virtue in adopting her measures; she cannot make the end justify the means; but philanthropy is a human virtue, and stops at no means necessary to attain its end. Abuses are not necessarily the results of philanthropy, for philanthropy, guided by even human reason, is capable of respecting the rights of God and men, and, when guidedby supernatural grace, is exalted to charity.[2]What we have chiefly to deal with in this article are institutions of benevolence, which are either wholly public property, and such as, though conducted either by private individuals or by incorporated boards of citizen managers, yet receive large shares of the public funds for their foundation, buildings, or current support, and thus become, to that extent, public institutions, and as such liable to be inquired into and criticised by the state and its citizens who pay the taxes thus expended.The state in our times and in almost every country undertakes the restraint and custody of the persons of idiots, lunatics, drunkards, and other persons of unsound mind, for their safety; of paupers, for their maintenance; and of minors, unprovided with natural guardians, for purposes of their education, reformation, and maintenance. It is not for us to discuss at length in this article the right of the state in any country toeducate and reformminors, or, in other words, to assume the place of teacher and priest; for it cannot undertake to educate without assuming the place of teacher, and still less can the state undertake the work of reformation without usurping the sacred functions of the sacerdotal office. Our faith, our reason, and our convictions teach us that such offices belong not to the state, but to the church. The state can establish places of restraint and punishment, and support and maintain them, both for the protection of the public, for the safety of the individuals themselves, and for purposes of philanthropy. Having done this, it is the duty of the state to leave free the consciences of its wards and prisoners, and to give every facility to the ministers of every church and religious persuasion to have free and unrestricted access to the children and prisoners belonging to those respective churches or persuasions. We claim this for ourselves as Catholics, and we leave the sects, the Jews, and every other society of religionists to claim the same for themselves. We are willing to make common cause with them for the attainment of our rights. That it is a charity for the state, or, more correctly speaking, a work of humanity, to assume the temporal care and provision for those unfortunate members of society who, either by their own fault, by the visitation of Providence, or by misfortune, are unable to take care of themselves, we are not disposed to deny at present, though even this belongs primarily to the religious duties of the individual, and, therefore, comes within the province of the church; and we know how well the church discharged this duty before the Reformation, and is doing it now. Yet we do not deny to the sects, to all men, and to the state, the right to perform good deeds and to practise the broadest philanthropy. Such at least seems to be one of the accepted works of government. We therefore accept such institutions and works as we find them, and we will view them in the same light in which our fellow-citizens generally regard them. As citizens, as Americans, we feel the same interest in them, experience thesame pride in them, and, as a question of property and public right, we hold them as a common heritage, in which we have the same interest and authority as our fellow-citizens. We are, therefore, equally interested in their proper management and good government, and we yield to none in our desire to promote their prosperity and success. There is no part of public administration more sacred or important, no function of the state so momentous, no public responsibility so awful, as this. Accepting them, as we do, as a part of our common property and united work, we shrink not from any effort for their good government and success, and, if need be, for their improvement, reformation, and correction. When properly conducted, we have nothing but praise for them; and if, on the other hand, they are mismanaged, the funds extravagantly applied; if they are made the instruments of cruelty, perversion, or despotism; if in them or any of them religious liberty is violated, and systems of proselytizing are carried on against Catholic children, or the children of the sects, or those of the Jewish Church, we as Catholics and as American citizens will speak out freely and boldly in denouncing them. We are not disqualified from doing this, either as citizens or Catholics; not as citizens, because they belong to us as much as to other citizens; our money is there with that of others; and the Constitution gives us liberty of speech and of the press, and guarantees to us “the right to assemble and petition for the redress of grievances”;[3]not as Catholics, for we have as such the experience of eighteen hundred years of the most exalted works of charity; and because we claim for ourselves no special privilege over others, but are willing to concede to all what we claim for ourselves. No clamor will deter us from the exercise of this right, or from the performance of this duty. And whilst we cannot yield our rights to any one sect of Protestantism, we are equally determined, while respecting the rights of all Protestants, not to yield our constitutional rights to all the sects of Protestantism combined under the false and deceptive name of unsectarianism. We do not believe inex-parteand sham investigations of public abuses in respect to public institutions, and we do not belong to, and are determined not to be deluded by, whitewashing committees of investigation and amiable grand juries. We are ever ready to praise, yet we shrink not from administering censure.The theory upon which governmental institutions are founded, and those established by private citizens or boards are assisted is, that of protecting society from a large, idle, ignorant, vicious population, by providing the means for the temporal relief and social improvement and correction of these classes, so as to bring them to the age of self-support in the case of children, to punish criminals, relieve the poor, and thus gradually return them all to society as sober, enlightened, honest, industrious, and thrifty citizens. For these purposes heavy taxes are laid on the citizens, immense piles of buildings are erected at the public expense, and such institutions are annually maintained or aided at enormous cost to the people. In our November, 1872, number, while admitting and praising the philanthropic motive which sustains these institutions, we regarded them “as really nuisances of the worst kind, so far as Catholic children are concerned, on accountof their proselytizing character. Moreover,” we said, “in their actual workings they violate the rights both of parents and children, and we have evidence that these poor children are actually sold at the West, both by private sale and by auction. The horrible abuses existing in some state institutions are partly known to the public, and we have the means of disclosing even worse things than those which have recently been exposed in the public papers.” It is difficult to perceive the success of such institutions as ameliorating or reformatory agents, for our public press is loaded every day with evidences of the enormous increase of crime and pauperism, and with dissertations on the causes of such increase. The public are naturally slow in believing that such institutions, upon which so much treasure has been spent, are failures. Such a reflection is an unpalatable one; it is humiliating to our pride, and damaging to the boasted progress of the XIXth century. It crushes our self-esteem to know that, of all places needing correction, our Houses of Correction need correction most; and that, of all institutions calling for the stern hand of reform, there are none that need so much reformation as our schools of reform. A religious paper calledThe Christian Unionhas given strong proof of its dislike to have the public eyes opened to these unpalatable truths, and we do not think we should have returned so soon to this subject but for a rather disingenuous article in that paper, couched in terms not calculated to convince the public that it derived its name from the practice or spirit of the virtue of Christian union, which, while challenging us to expose these wrongs and abuses, declared but too great a willingness to believe “that these charges, so frequently made in Roman Catholic journals, have already received thorough investigation and perfect refutation.”We complain that our Catholic children in institutions which are supported in whole or in part by public funds—funds, therefore, in which we have a common property with our fellow-citizens—instead of being allowed the instruction and practice of their Catholic religion, are taught Protestantism in its, to us, most offensive form, and are thus exposed to the almost certain loss of their faith. The facts upon which we base the charge have never been denied, but, on the contrary, they are openly admitted and announced. Protestants deny that they proselytize Catholic children so as to make them members of any distinctive sect, but they admit that Catholic teaching and practices are rigidly excluded, and yet that the children are taught a certain religion. Is it not evident that, if such religious instruction produces any result, it is to make these children cease to be Catholics, to become non-Catholics, to take the Bible as their only rule of faith, to reject the infallible teachings of their own church, and to accept the teachings of the institutions as all that is necessary for them to know? This is proselytism of the most offensive kind; our children are either madeliberal Christians, or are placed in circumstances which inevitably lead to their joining one or other of the distinctive forms of Protestantism or lose all religion whatever. Wherever a chaplain is employed, he is either a Methodist minister, such as Rev. Mr. Pierce in the New York House of Refuge, or he is a Baptist, Episcopalian, or other sectarian minister. In many of these institutions, the religious instruction is under the direction of a lay superintendent, as in the Providence School of Reform. And herewe beg to give a piece of testimony showing how incompetent laymen are for religious instruction in public reformatories. The witness under examination was at the time one of the trustees of the Providence Reform School:“Q. Have you any knowledge in relation to the distribution of religious books among the pupils, and their being taken away?“A. I don’t of my own knowledge; I furnished once one book of a religious character, and one only; I furnished it to theofficer having in charge the devotional exerciseson the girls’ side; I gave that to the officer for his own use; it was given to him in consequence of considerable religious feeling that there was existing among the girls at the time; the girls were holding among themselves what they called prayer-meetings; thegentleman having in charge the devotional exercises said he felt utterly incompetent to conduct the devotions in suitable words,” etc.Religious liberty is openly and positively denied in the New York House of Refuge, as will be seen from their own “Report of Special Committee to the Managers of the House of Refuge,” 1872; from which it appears, at pp. 21, 22, that the religion of the house consists in “Christian worship in simple form, and Gospel lessons in Sunday-schools,” and that the “inmates are brought into thesamechapel for public worship,” and that “the whole regimen of the house,” including of course the religious part, “is devised and pursued with careful attention to thewants of the inmates, but is not submitted to the control of themselves or their friends.” As Americans we have been taught from our infancy that liberty of conscience is the dearest right of the American citizen. We learned in our college days that even “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”; but we now learn that what the highest legislative power in the nation, and what no state legislature, can do, the managers of the New York House of Refuge have done and are now doing: they have made a law respecting the establishment of a religion in the House of Refuge, a public institution—a religion which they have called variously “Christian worship in simple form,” “Gospel lessons,” “Unsectarianism,” “The Broad Principles of Christianity”—and have forbidden the free exercise of any other religion. Even if all Christians were united in this worship and in these principles, have Jewish citizens no rights under the Constitution? As citizens of the State of New York, we have learned from the state constitution and Bill of Rights “that the free exercise and practice of religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference shallfor ever be allowed to all mankind.” Chancellor Kent, in hisCommentaries on American Law, says that “the free exerciseand enjoyment of religious profession and worship may be considered as one of theabsolute rights of individuals, recognized in our American constitutions and secured to them by law.”[4]And Story, in hisCommentaries on the Constitution, maintains in equally strong terms “the freedom of public worship according to the dictates of one’s conscience.”[5]But we are now told by the Managers of the House of Refuge that “delinquency has, under the law, worked some forfeiture of rights, and that neither the delinquents nor their friends for them can justly claim, while under sentence of the courts, equal freedom with the rest of the community who have not violated the law.”[6]Such was theanswer given by American citizens, constituting the Board of Managers of the New York House of Refuge, to the committee of American citizens sent by the Catholic Union to demand liberty of conscience and freedom of religious worship for the Catholic children in the Refuge! Either this answer means that the children in the House of Refuge are not a portion ofmankind, or that religious freedom is one of the rights forfeited by delinquency, or the Board of Managers have proclaimed themselves guilty of the grossest violation of the rights of man and of God. We presume these gentlemen will not admit either the first or the third of these alternatives; indeed, they almost say in terms that a commitment to the House of Refuge works a forfeiture of that religious liberty guaranteed to all mankind. We know delinquency under the law suspends the civil rights of the delinquent while in prison, such as the right to hold public office or administer a private trust; but it does not work even a forfeiture of property except in the case of an outlawry of treason. These are all the forfeitures worked by the highest crimes known to the law. Religion is not a civil right; no crime can forfeit it; no power on earth can extinguish it. The greatest of public malefactors, the murderer and the traitor, enjoy it even on the scaffold: does the child whose only offence is poverty or vagrancy forfeit it? In the sacred names of Liberty and Religion, what sort ofRefugeis this to stand on American soil?The Children’s Aid Society is another New York institution largely supported by public funds. We learn from its Nineteenth Annual Report, 1871, that one of its objects is to shelter in its lodging-houses the orphan and the homeless girls and boys, and labor incessantly to give them the “foundation ideas of morals and religion” (p. 5). Alluding to theItalianSchool, No. 44 Franklin Street, the report says: “We haveconquered the prejudices and superstition of ignorance, andconvertedinto useful citizens hundreds of this unfortunate class.” With such a programme of unsectarian conversion, the leading feature in which is indifferentism in religion, the immediate forerunner of infidelity and agrarianism, it is no wonder that the report immediately proceeds: “So much so, indeed, that the Italian government,” that same godless government which is so ferociously waging war on Catholicity, “has taken a deep interest in our institution” (p. 28).It is only necessary to read these reports to be convinced that the system either leads to materialism, the religion of worldly prosperity and thrifty citizenship, or to some form of Protestant sectarianism. The system of “emigration” pursued by such institutions, by which children are sent out West and placed with anybody and everybody who will take them, completes the work commenced in the East. On pages 54-56 of the report last quoted is related the case of a youth sent East, who “cannot speak of his parents with any certainty at all”; it matters not what religion they were of, the son is nowpreparing for the ministryof one of the sects. His letter also recites a similar case in reference to another boy “who was sent out West.” It is certain that he is not preparing for the Catholic ministry, for his impressions of a miracle are thus expressed: “To be taken from the gutters of New York City and placed in a college is almost a miracle.” The story of young “Patrick,” p. 59, whose education was obtained at the Preparatory School at Oberlin and atCornell University, is significant. On page 60 is told the story of anIrishorphan girl sent to Connecticut, and placed with “an intelligent Christian woman, who means to do right.” On page 63 is told the history of a little boy sent to Michigan, who is well pleased with toys and new clothes, “like all other children; he has a splendid new suit of clothes just got, andhe attends church and Sabbath-school.” A similar case is related at page 65, of a little girl sent to Ohio, and we shall show below what has become of little girls sent to that state. These are some of the model cases of which this unsectarian society makes a boast in its report. It is a significant fact that, of the 8,835 who came under the influences of this society in one year, 3,312 were of Irish birth, and it may be estimated with certainty that a considerable proportion of the other children of foreign, as well as many of home birth were Catholics. The number of children born in Ireland who were sent West during the year was 1,058. This institution received for the furtherance of these unsectarian objects the sum of $66,922.70 in this year from our public funds.We have also before us the Twentieth Annual Report of the New York Juvenile Asylum, 1871, which proves the proselytizing character of this public-pap-fed unsectarian institution. “The children that are entrusted to us are at themost susceptible period of life,” etc., “when their destiny for time, if notfor eternity, may be fixed” (p. 9). “They must be drilled into systematic habits of life in eating, sleeping, play, study, work, andworship” (p. 10). To “attend church” (p. 21), and “the evening worship,” and religious services generally, are frequently recurring duties of the children. In this institution the children of foreign birth during the year were 3,648, and of these 1,981 were born in Ireland. Of course we cannot say how many of the children of home birth were the children of Irish and Catholic parents. We have, alas! but too much certainty that a large proportion of the children are Catholic. We casually met recently with an interesting proof of this inScribner’s Magazine, November, 1870, in an account given by a visitor to the Juvenile Asylum. In the evening the visitor was invited to see the girls’ dormitory as the girls were going to bed. She writes: “All the children were saying their prayers. I noticed that several of them made the sign of the cross as they rose.” Touching evidence of their traditional faith and parental teaching! a simple but sublime tribute to holy church! an earnest sign of love and hope for those sacraments which came to us through the cross, but which, like that cross itself, were not a part of the religion, worship, and practice of this unsectarian asylum.In the list of model examples presented in the report of the Western agent will be seen the usual proselytizing influence of such institutions. The cases either show mere material or worldly advantage, or the embrace of pure sectarianism. On page 50 is related the case of a little girl, who “scarcely remembers her parents,” of whom it is related that “she is a member of the Presbyterian Church.” Two other girls are indentured to members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The “church and Sunday-school” are prominent features in nearly every case. The amount received during the year by thisunsectarianinstitution from our public funds was $62,065.24..The Five Points House of Industry, which received, from 1858 to 1869, the sum of $30,731.69. from our Board of Education, states inits charter, among the objects for which it was incorporated, the following: “III. To imbue the objects of its care with the pure principles of Christianity, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, without bias from the distinctive peculiarities of any individual sect.” This means that the children belonging to distinctive religious denominations, instead of being allowed to follow the distinctive tenets, and practise the worship, in which they were reared, are deprived of this right, and, as respects the Catholic children, they are to reject and exclude every tenet and devotion distinctively Catholic. How far even this profession of unsectarianism is carried into practice will be discovered from theMonthly Recordof the Five Points House of Industry for April and May, 1870, p. 302, giving an account of the dedicatory exercises:“The services consisted of an opening anthem by the children, followed by a prayer byRev.Dr. Paxton, asking a blessing upon the House and its objects.“This was followed by a hymn; a statement of the affairs of the institution, byRev.S. B. Halliday; a recitative by the children; a statement as to city missions, byRev.G. J. Mingins; a short discourse on the ‘Union of Christian Effort,’ byRev.H. D. Ganse; a discourse on the ‘Lights and Shadows of Large Cities,’ byRev.John Hall, D.D.; and, finally, a roundelay given by the children.”How far the pledge given in the charter of this establishment, “withoutbiasfrom the distinctive peculiarities of any individual sect,” is carried out is further seen from the following extract from a letter addressed by the president to the Rev. John Cotton Smith, a prominent minister of the Episcopalian sect: “Between your church and the institution the most kind and harmoniousco-operationhas ever existed. They will ever cherish a most pleasing remembrance of the relations that have subsisted between them.”[7]We might have alluded to the “Howard Mission and Home for Little Wanderers,” founded by that arch-proselytizer, the Rev. W. C. Van Meter, which during seven yearsdisposed of7,580 “little wanderers” of this city, in an unsectarian manner; but want of space forbids our doing so. But theanimuspervading this and other unsectarian institutions is exhibited to us now in the fact, that this reverend has transferred the field of his labors from the Five Points to the city of Rome, the centre and headquarters of Catholicity. He has there established a mission and home for the little Romans. We do not stand alone in our opinion that such institutions are nuisances for Catholic children, and we quote the closing words of a letter recently addressed to the Rev. Mr. Van Meter by the editor of theVoce della Verita, at Rome:“Now, dear sir, excuse me if I remind you, that although a very ignorant person, ‘when I was a little boy,’ I also went to school, and learned a few things about your country. I remember to have heard it said that misery and ignorance abounded there, and that many hundreds of thousands of your compatriots knew of no other God than the almighty dollar. Why do you not go back and teach in Nebraska or Texas, and leave us alone? You might positively do some good there—now you are a—well, let me tell the truth—anuisance. By your homeward voyage, you will benefit both your own country and ours.”[8]Another complaint that we make against our semi-governmental charities relates to the violation of the rights of parents and children, in the sale of these children at the West. This pernicious practice of exiling and transporting children from New York to the West is still in full vigoramongst these institutions. How can we boast of our charities, when their main feature consists in shifting the burden from our own shoulders to those of others, and they are strangers? It is in vain that we claim these children as the wards andprotégésof society and of our city, if we repudiate the duties and responsibilities of our guardianship. Against this cruelty and injustice we protest in the names of civilization and Christianity. The institutions whose reports we have referred to not only admit, but they boast of this outrage upon the rights of parents and of children. One of them, the Children’s Aid Society, refers to this branch of operations, “its Emigration System,” as the “crown” of all its works. The number of children thus exiled from the state by this society and transported to distant regions, during the year of the report referred to, was 3,386; the whole number since 1854 was 25,215. More than half the 3,386 were sent to Ohio, and to the distant states of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska. Of one little boy thus exiled, who was separated from his parents at the age of eight years, the Western agent reports: “I think his mother would scarcely know him.” He reports that the mistress to whom another was “disposed of” writes of him: “Indeed, I don’t know what I should do without him, for he saves me a great many steps. I wish we could find out about his brother and sister, he often cries about them.”Exile and transportation of children is also practised by the Five Points House of Industry. They have obtained extraordinary powers for this purpose from the Legislature. For while the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction, a purely governmental institution, possess the power of indenturing children to citizens of the state of New York and adjoining states only, the Five Points House of Industry has received the power to send them anywhere and everywhere. But the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction send the poor children they get into their power to the most remote states in violation of the express law of the case. For instead of confining their indentures to citizens of New York and the adjoining states, as the law directs, they send them indiscriminately to every state, even the most distant. We ask those public servants by what fiction of law they make California and TexasadjoinNew York?The New York Juvenile Asylum has also a “regular agency at Chicago, by which the work of indenturing children at the West is conducted.”[9]The total number of children sent West during fifteen years, from 1857 to 1871 inclusive, is 2,206, and the annual average, 147-1/15 (p. 47).The extent to which thiscrowningcruelty of our non-sectarian institutions is carried, is appalling. We have only cited the cases of the three whose reports happened to be before us. But we have been informed, unofficially, and we think the statement can be made good, that there are in the city of New York no less than twenty-eightcharitableinstitutions engaged in this cruel practice of transporting our New York children to the West and other remote parts, and the average number of these little exiles per week is about two hundred, making about ten thousand every year. What untold abuses and hardships must result from this barbarous practice! However noble, generous, and philanthropic may be the motives of the citizen-managersof these institutions, they cannot attend in person to the details or even the general management of their work. Not only are their houses in the city confided to the management of hired and salaried agents and servants, but the work of transporting children to the West is confided generally to the same class of agents, and we intend to show how thischaritablefunction is discharged. They are actuated by no higher motives than usually actuate their class. The love of God, and of man for God’s sake, is not the spirit that inspires their labors and guides their steps. Corruption and infidelity to duty have stalked brazenly into the public service everywhere; what reason have we for claiming an exemption in favor of those who find profitable employment in the administration of public charities?But, as theChristian Uniondemands further proof than is accessible to the public, we will produce some additional evidence, although we think we have already shown enough to condemn this system; and the tone of that journal’s article leads us to believe that if an angel from heaven disclosed to its view the same corruption and oppression which we see in this branch of public administration, it would still cling to its idols.Now we have before us a letter, dated September 23, 1872, addressed by a clergyman at Tiffin, Ohio, to a clergyman in the East, from which we quote:“In answer to your request concerning those children brought on some four or five years ago from the East to be disposed of, I might say with prudence, that to several counties of Ohio had been brought car-loads of children from three years on to twelve and thirteen years old, and offered to thepublicto take one or more; for they who offered the children said those who would take them had to pay the expenses of bringing them to the place. For some children the man said the expense would be fifteen dollars, for others more, others less. This is the way the affair was carried on for some time.”The gentleman to whom the foregoing letter was addressed, and who sent it to us, gives also his own testimony on this public traffic in innocent human beings. His letter is dated September 25, 1872, and reads as follows:“At that time,” some four or five years ago, “I was on a trip to Tiffin. Delayed for a short time at Clyde, I asked some questions of the baggage-master. Three little girls were near him, and I asked him: ‘Are these your daughters?’ A. ‘No, I bought them?’ ‘Bought them! how? from whom?’ A. ‘Oh! from the ministers. They bring car-loads of these little ones every few weeks, and sell them to any one who wants them. I gave $10 for this one, $12 for the next, and $15 for the oldest. I had not the money, but I borrowed it from the tavern-keeper, and paid for the girls. Lately there was another load of them. There was a very fine girl. I wanted her. But the minister said, ‘No; I have promised her to a rich man in Forrest, who will pay more than you.’ After some further conversation of a similar character, the train came in sight, and I left. The next day I was speaking of the circumstance at table. Rev. Mr.—— remarked that he knew the baggage-master well, and that what he said was true. He added, ‘Within the last month there was a sale of some thirty of these children in our Court House. One of my parishioners, Mr.——, came along as the sale was about over. A little boy was standing before the Court House crying; the German asked him, ‘What is the matter?’ He said, ‘That man wants to sell me, and no one will buy me.’ The boy was bought by the German for $10. I had heard such transactions described in one of his lectures by F. Haskins. But I scarcely realized how fearful such conduct is until I heard a description of these sales from persons who had seen them.”Such, indeed, is the “crowning” work of some of the charitable institutionsof New York! Is this the fulfilment of the Gospel of charity, or of the Sermon on the Mount, or of the broad principles of Christianity? Perhaps, rather, it is the Rev. Mr. Pierce’selasticsystem of religion.[10]Compare these humiliating facts with the self-congratulatory reports on “Emigration” of the Children’s Aid Society, which in 1871 sent three hundred and seven of these little wards of the city to the same state of Ohio.[11]At page 10 we read:“Every year we expect that the opposition of a very bigoted and ignorant class will materially lessen thisthe most effective of our charitable efforts. We have surpassed, however, owing to the energy of our Western agents, the results of every previous equal period, in the labors of the past year.“Crowds of poor boys have thronged the office or have come to the lodging-houses for a ‘chance to go West’; great numbers of very destitute but honest families have appealed to us for this aid, and our agents have frequently conveyed parties of a hundred and more. The West has received these childrenliberallyas before; and there has been less complaint the past year than usual of bad habits and perverse tempers. The larger boys are still restless as ever, and inclined to change their places where higher inducements are offered. But this characteristic they have in common with our whole laboring class.”Again:“Emigration.—This department has worked most successfully the past year. A larger number has been removed from the city than ever before.”It would seem, however, that the experience of the New York Juvenile Asylum, though still persevering in this traffic as a good work, has not been as satisfactory as that of the Children’s Aid Society. We will give an extract from the Twentieth Annual Report, showing even from the mouths of those who practise it as a good work what a crying evil this is, and confirming the extracts we have given in reference to the sales of children in Ohio:“Removing and replacing children is one of the important functions of the agency. Our children are first placed on trial, and in nearly every company some have to be replaced over and over again before they are permanently settled. But even after indentures have been executed, newdevelopmentsoften compel removals. Such are the weaknesses of human nature, and such the instability of human affairs, that, without provision to meet the exigencies consequent upon them,cases of extreme hardship and inhumanity would be frequent. They who have not had experience in this kind of work are not apt to realize, and it is often difficult to persuade them of,the imperative need of such provision.Children will not unfrequently get into improper hands in spite of every precaution, and in many cases success is more or less problematical.Death of employers also, and change of circumstances, are often the occasion of removals.Not a month goes by that does not furnish cases where, but for timely attention, suffering, mischief, and irreparable evil would result.A little familiarity with the field work of this agency would convince its most obdurate opponent thatto leave children without recourse among strangers in a strange land is an unjustifiable procedure.”Apart from the inhumanity of this procedure, from its unchristian character, from its proselytizing effects, we protest against it in the name of law, of right, and of human liberty. The common law of England is our heritage, and by that common law “no power on earth, except the authority of parliament, can send any subject of England out of the land against his will; no, not even a criminal. The great charter declares that no freeman shall be banished unless by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land; and by thehabeas corpusact it is enactedthat no subject of this realm who is an inhabitant of England, Wales, or Berwick shall be sent into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or other places beyond the seas.”[12]Chancellor Kent, in hisCommentaries on American Law(ii. 34), claims the same proud privilege as one of the absolute rights of American citizens, and, while declaring that “no citizen can be sent abroad,” states that the constitutions of several of the states of our confederacy contain express provisions forbidding transportation beyond the state.We come now to the last and not the least painful task, which theChristian Unioninsists upon our undertaking; it relates to “the horrible abuses existing in some of our state institutions.” And here, as in the preceding remarks, we must confine ourselves to a portion only of the mass of materials before us, and, in fact, confine ourselves to a single institution; for, if such things exist in a single case, this is enough to prove not only the possibility, but also the probability of the same thing in others, and to dispel the fatal blindness which can see nothing defective either in their constitution or management. We must pass over the charges recently preferred against the New York House of Refuge, relating to improper food, of excessive labor, of cruel punishments, employment of unfit and incompetent agents in the management of the institution, and of religious intolerance. While we think that the evidence produced on the trial of the boy, Justus Dunn, for killing one of the officers of the Refuge, goes far to substantiate most of the charges preferred, we have, in common with the community, but little respect for the whitewashing certificate given by the grand-jury, who made a flying visit to the institution, by invitation, on an appointed day. Of course the officers put their house in order, and failed not to put their best foot foremost, on this preconcerted occasion. The managers placed no reliance on this acquittal, for they courted another soon afterwards. The second investigation by the State Commissioners of Charity was very little better; it wasex parteon all the charges except that of religious intolerance, and the Refuge was acquitted on all the charges except this last.We must also pass over, for want of space, the revolting case which occurred at the New York Juvenile Asylum in June last, in which one of the inmates of the asylum, a colored girl, instead of finding there an asylum from temptation and seduction, fell a victim to the lust of one of the officers of the institution, who fled precipitately on discovery of the fact.[13]We must pass over, for the same reason, the investigations recently conducted at St. Louis, which are far from showing a satisfactory result for the management and conduct of public reformatories. We must confine ourselves now to a single institution—a case in which the evidence is replete with horrible abuses, cruelties, improprieties, and wrongs. While we would be sorry to apply the maxim,ex uno disce omnes, we can but regard this case as a general warning to our people to beware of regarding as good everything in the moral order that goes under the much-abused name ofreform.The Providence School of Reform is an institution supported by funds received both from the state of Rhode Island and from the city of Providence. Its object seems to be the temporal, social, and moral reformation of juvenile delinquents ofboth sexes. Some time prior to 1869, it had been the subject of the gravest charges and investigation, which tended to show that, so far from having been in all its departments and workings a school of reform, it had in some instances become a school for vice and immorality. The whitewashing process, that facile and amiable way of avoiding disagreeable complications, prevented the accomplishment of any change for the better. But in 1869 the charges against the institution took a more definite form, and were signed and presented by thirty-one citizens of Providence to the corporate authorities—citizens of the first respectability and standing. The Board of Aldermen of the city of Providence, headed by the Mayor, undertook the investigation, and the evidence is contained in two large volumes in one, extending over eleven hundred and forty-two pages.[14]The charges were the most serious ones that could be brought against an institution, especially against one professingreform, and had their origin with citizens without distinction of creed. Their true character and extent can only be understood by a perusal of them:“First. That vices against chastity, decency, and good morals have prevailed in the school, and have been taught and practised by teachers as well as by pupils; that these vices have existed both in the male and female departments, and that the children usually leave the school more corrupt than when they entered it.“Second. That teachers have used immodest and disgusting language in the presence of children, and have addressed females in an indecent manner by referring to their past character, and by calling them vile and unbecoming names.“Third. That modes of punishment the most cruel and inhuman have been used in said school, such as knocking down and kicking the pupils, and whipping them when naked, and with a severity not deserved by their offences.“Fourth. That young women are said to have been kicked, knocked down, dragged about by the hair of the head, and otherwise brutally treated, but more especially that all modesty and decency have been outraged by stripping them to the waist and lashing them on the naked back; taking them from their beds and whipping them in their night-dresses; tying their hands and feet and ducking them; and by other forms of punishment which no man should ever inflict upon a woman.“Fifth. That names of children committed to said school have been changed and altered by the officers of the said institution.“Sixth. That children have been apprenticed to persons living in remote sections of the country, and who have no interest in taking proper care of them, and that a needless disregard to the rights and feelings of their parents has often been evinced by the officers of the school.“Seventh. That the goods of said school are reported to have been used dishonestly for purposes for which they were not intended, and that the state of Rhode Island is said to have been charged with the board of children who were living at service and were no expense to said school.“Eighth. That a spirit of proselytism and of religious intolerance has prevailed in the school, as is shown in the fact that children of different creeds are compelled to attend a form of worship which is contrary to the conscientious convictions of a large majority of them; which is directly in conflict with the spirit and letter of our state constitution, which ensures to the inhabitants thereof the liberty of conscience, in the following language: ‘No man shall be compelled to frequent or to support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatever, except in fulfilment of his own voluntary contract;’ and that the children of said school are denied the use of books and all religious instruction in the religion of their choice.”Although there is evidence in the volume ofInvestigationbefore us tending to sustain the “fifth” and “seventh” charges, we yet exceptthose two charges from our remark, when we say that the other six charges, constituting the gravamen of the prosecution, are not only sustained in whole or in part by nearly one hundred witnesses, but, with all deference to the five aldermen out of ten who found most of themnot proved, we think that no unbiassed reader of the heavily laden and sad volume before us, no true philanthropist, no man of true charity, can fail to pronounce the wordguiltyas to all or some part of every one of the first, second, third, fourth, seventh, and eighth charges. We are sorry to be forced to the conviction that the testimony is overwhelming. There are cases of punishment cruel in the extreme—some have called them inhuman, and even brutal—inflicted on about sixty boys; and, while nearly every page shows this, we refer particularly to pages 112, 123, 172, 234, 238, 274, 279, 280, 281, 289, 290, 295, 318, 364, 366, 375, 379, 383, 387, 388, 402, 403, 410, 414, 416, 419, 421, 425, 432, 437, 440, 446. See evidences more particularly referring to the use of the loaded whip, page 378; the strap, the cat, the strings, 286, 339; the butt, 492; blood drawn, 364, 485; terrorism, 239, 269, 270, 305, 371, 418, 424, 425, 492; whipping little boys over the knuckles with a bunch of keys, 146, 147; kicking, 447, 485, 526, and 323 of vol. ii.; boys struck on the head with a hammer, 331, 379; profanity and indecency, 280, 302, and page 135 of vol. ii.; Catholic books taken away from Catholic children, 308, 309, 310; state of Rhode Island charged with board of children who had been put out of the institution, 307, which was regarded as “an error of the head and not of the heart,” 327 of vol. ii.There are also detailed in theInvestigationcases of about thirty girls punished in a cruel and revolting manner. For girls lashed, bodies striped and bruised, see pages 18, 19; a girl struck, caught by the throat, pounded, and dragged by the hair of the head, 23; a girl struck with fist, and black eye, 55; a girl stripped to the waist of all her clothes, except undergarment, and whipped with cat-o’-nine-tails, and body marked, 93; another girl dragged by the hair, 95; a girl ducked, 102; a girl boxed until her nose bled, and water dashed on her, 102; a girl chased, kicked, and held under flowing water, 108; a girl dragged by the hair, kicked, and ducked, 219, 220; another girl dragged by the hair and kicked, 228; another lashed black and blue, 229; a girl lashed on the back after she had gone to bed, 338; another girl whipped with the straps, and kicked, 344; another girl stripped to the waist, leaving only undergarment on, and whipped with a knotted strap, 360; a girl ducked, 272. A mother is refused permission to see her child, who was whipped, and refused information as to whither the child was transported. The mother said: “I will travel Rhode Island through, and I will travel Connecticut through, but what I will find her. I have not seen her for the last six or eight years, and a mother’s nature goes beyond any mortal thing in this world. A mother wants to see her child. I could not get anything from them,” 374. Another girl is stripped like the others, and lashed, marked, and scarred on the back, 395. A witness, at page 396, says: “I saw—— stripped with her dress down; she was badly bruised on the shoulder; I did not see any blood, but I saw the bruises were pretty bad bruises; there were scars clear across her shoulders; you could not see scarcely a piece of plainflesh on her shoulders.” At page 443, a former inmate testifies to the treatment received by another inmate: “I saw him shower her and strike her; he knocked her against the building with his fist, and the blood ran out of her nose and ears while she was by the fence, while he stood there punishing her.” At page 454, we read an extract from the testimony of a Mrs. Bishop: “Q. Were you ever kicked or beaten in the school by——? A. Yes, sir. I was punished up-stairs because I could not learn my lesson. I had had no schooling at that time; I could not do much reading; he punished me up-stairs; I told him I could not learn it, unless he could let a girl come up and help me; I was told to kneel down; I looked around, and he kicked me across the aisle; he pulled me by my dress, and kicked me across the aisle, and twice across the room; I was put up-stairs before devotions were to come off; I said I was going to tell my mother; he said I could not see my folks again if I did tell her; he was going to give me two hundred dollars if I had not said anything; I was sick after this kicking; he carried me home himself away from the school; I could not move nor stir; I could not move one eye; I walked on crutches after it; it affects me now; affects my gait, so I can’t walk all the time; I have to hire my work done part the time now; when there comes a storm, I can’t move, I have to sit still in the house; sometimes I have to lie in bed, because it affects me so; I was thirteen years old at that time.” A girl, a new-comer only three days in the school, is ducked, strapped, and locked up two days for laughing in school, p. 629, and further ill-treated, 639. Another girl dragged by the hair, pounded, and dreadfully bruised, 661. Girls ducked and whipped at night, 678. Girls called names of supreme contempt by teachers in allusion to their past lives, 684, 737, and 39, 71, 317, of vol. ii. A girl taken up at night, and whipped in her night-clothes by male officer, 693. A girl is pulled over the desk by the hair, for not singing, 705. A girl is imprisoned and fed on bread and water for twenty-three days, 320 of vol. ii.For instances of girls whipped on the naked back by men, see pp. 61, 339, 630; girls kicked by men, 318, 328, 345, 348, 354, 360, 631; same proved by defence, 41 of vol. ii.; girls dragged by the hair by men, 231, 347, 348, 636; girls struck with fist by men, 347, 349; black eye given, 350; marks on bodies, 360, 367, 395, 719; girls taunted about their former lives, 86, 96, 100, 397, 687, 737, and 317 of vol. ii.; terrorism, 269, 270, 305, 371, 424, 425, and 41 of vol. ii.; girls ducked by men, 92, 94, 97, 102, and 295 of vol. ii.The first charge, the most serious that could be brought against a school ofreform—“crimes against chastity, decency, and good morals”—is fearfully sustained. One of the employees, a man of years, who had become notorious for his vulgarity and indecency in both the male and female departments, to both of which he had access, is caughtflagrante delicto. The partner of his sin was one of the female inmates, who was sent there to bereformed, and they were detected by other female inmates of this school of reform (page 75). And again,horribile dictu, ateacherin the same nursery ofreformlived, “month in and month out,” in criminal conversation with one of the inmates of the female department (pages 63, 76), and the appalling fact is again proved by the defence (ii. 322). But, more shocking than all this, notonly were immodest and indecent conversations held by an employee with the boys and girls, but another fiend in the flesh, an officer of the Providence School of Reform, introduced among the boys and taught them habits the most immoral and disgusting, destructive at once of their souls and bodies, of their manhood, and of their temporal and eternal happiness. This fact is proved solely by the defence at page 321 of vol. ii. The offender was dismissed, but the school still exists! Where are Sodom and Gomorrah?The evidence for the defence consists chiefly of denials andnon-mi-ricordosby the officers and employees; but some of the charges are proved by the defence itself, and some of the most damning evidence against the institution came from this very quarter. The mayor and one of the aldermen declined to take any part in the decision, because they were members of the board of trustees. Three other aldermen refused to sign the decision, and gave decisions of their own, finding portions of the charges true. Five out of ten of the judges sign the decision, which, while finding most of the chargesnot proved, strongly inculpates the institution on several of the charges. In it is stated that two instances have occurred of offences against chastity, decency, and good morals, on the part of officers and female inmates, page 384 of vol. ii.; that knocking down was practised, though alleged to have been in self-defence; and that boys were whipped on the bare back, 384 of vol. ii.; that girls have had their dresses loosened and removed from the upper part of the back and shoulders, leaving only the undergarment on, and thus punished by the (male) superintendent; and in a very few cases during the past nine years, when they have, in violation of the rules of the school, made loud noises and disturbances in the dormitories at night, they have been punished in their night-clothes (by a male officer) in the presence of a female officer, page 385 of vol. ii.; ducking is admitted, page 385.One of the dissenting aldermen in his decision says: “Being fully aware that the class of inmates sent to this school require a strong and efficient discipline, and not feeling competent to say what that discipline should be, yet I cannot resist the conviction that the punishments described have a tendency todegrade rather than to elevate, not only the one who receives, but the one who administers them.” “I therefore feel bound to protest against such punishments, and earnestly hope that some better mode of discipline will speedily be adopted by the managers of this institution” (p. 394, vol. ii.). The superintendent stated on oath that, in case a child sick andin extremisrequired a Catholic priest to be sent for, he would first go and seek the advice of three or four of the trustees before he would admit, even under such circumstances, a Catholic or any other clergyman; and on this subject the same alderman remarked: “In my view, any superintendent of this institution who would hesitate to allow the consolations of religion to be administered in the form desired by the child, under such circumstances, should be promptly relieved from duty,” page 396 of vol. ii. Another alderman says: “I am of opinion that cruel and unnecessary punishment has been inflicted. I do not suppose that striking with the clenched fist, kicking, or dragging by the hair of the head has been common, but I think it has occurred in some instances,” page 397; and he mentions the case of an “unfortunate girl who seems to have sufferedevery form of discipline known to this school, from beingduckedto being ‘pushed under the table with the foot.’ If it be said she was vile, I would ask how she came to be? She was but six or seven years of age when she entered this institution. No one is wholly bad at that tender age. She remained under its care and influences fornine years, and, if she is vicious and dissolute, why is she so? If, on the other hand, she was insane, is it not painful to reflect that such punishments were inflicted on an irresponsible child?” (p. 399.) One of the trustees actually resigned a year before the investigation, rather than be connected with such scenes; he started an investigation, but it seems to have done no good; and such was the condition of things at the time of this first investigation that the assistant superintendent offered to give one hundred dollars to a friend to shield him from being called as a witness.The religious instruction given in this institution isof courseunsectarian; everything distinctively Episcopalian is denied to Episcopalian children, everything distinctively Baptist is denied to Baptist children, everything distinctively Methodist is denied to Methodist children, everything distinctly Presbyterian is denied to Presbyterian children, and everything distinctly Catholic is denied to Catholic children. Nothing whatever is said tending “to keep children in the faith to which they belonged when they entered the school.” “Q. Does not the system of religious instruction tend to bring the children to that form of religion which gives to each person the private judgment and interpretation of the Scriptures? A. We hope it tends to make them better. Q. Does it not tend to have them choose their own Bible and their own interpretation of it as the source and principle of religion? A. I should hope that it tends to have them accept the Bible. Q. Do you teach them the doctrine of the private interpretation of the Scripture? A. No, sir, not at all. Q. As I understand it, all the religious instruction they get is simply reading from the Bible, and no interpretation. They can interpret it just as they please. A. They can interpret it just as they please. Sometimes one speaker comes, and sometimes another” (page 234, vol. ii.) ... “Q. Now state the afternoon services on Sunday? A. One of the trustees (they all alternate except the mayor) procures a speaker for Sunday afternoon to address the scholars. Q. Of what class are those speakers—of any particular or of all classes? A. Since I have been there, I think every denomination has been represented or been invited to speak? Q. Are they particularly members of churches, or laymen, lawyers, doctors, or anybody who will give a moral address to the children? A. I could not speak with certainty of the professions. We often have clergymen, perhaps oftener than any other class, but not unfrequently men of other professions, and many times those following no profession to speak in connection with others. We often have more than one speaker—sometimes half a dozen. Q. These are business men of the city? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you have lawyers sometimes? A. I think all professions are represented. Q. Do you have ministers if you can get them? A. Yes, sir.” And yet in this unsectarianism the most direct sectarianism prevailed. “Q. Do you know what version of the Bible is used? A. It is the common English translation. Q. (By the mayor) It is the ordinary Bible, is it not? A. Yes, sir. (By Mr. Gorman)TheDouayis the ordinary one. (By Mr.——) We call that anextraordinaryone” (page 62, vol. ii.).Now, we have the Bible without comment, but ministers, lawyers, doctors, and business men are called in every Sunday, sometimes half a dozen at one time, to give the comments, each according to his own view. Every religious denomination was invited, but it does not appear that any Catholic ever accepted the invitation; for, if he accepted, he would leave his Catholicity outside until he finished his unsectarian discourse. There may be something in common with all the sects which sometimes may be called general Protestantism, though they profess to call it unsectarianism; but one thing we know is common to them all, and this something is opposition to Catholicity, and the dodge of unsectarianism is adroitly invented in order to exclude Catholics from enjoying equal rights with Protestants in matters relating to public education and public charities. The state must let religion alone, and unsectarians must desist from their disguised effort to unite church and state in this country, while it has so strenuously opposed their union in every Catholic country. They know that Catholics can take no part in unsectarian teachings, but they would like us to do so, for in proportion as we did so would we cease to be Catholics. The Catholic view was so admirably expressed by the late Bishop Fitzpatrick, of Boston, in his letter in the Eliot School difficulty, that we must give it to our readers:“I. Catholics cannot, under any circumstances, acknowledge, receive, and use, as a complete collection and faithful version of the inspired books which compose the written Word of God, the English Protestant translation of the Bible. Still less can they so acknowledge, accept, or use it, when its enforcement as such is coupled expressly with the rejection of that version which their own church approves and adopts as being correct and authentic; and yet this is required of them by law. The law, as administered, holds forth the Protestant version to the Catholic child, and says, ‘Receive this as the Bible.’ The Catholic child answers, ‘I cannot so receive it.’ The law, as administered, says you must, or else you must be scourged and finally banished from the school.“II. The acceptance and recital of the Decalogue, under the form and words in which Protestants clothe it, is offensive to the conscience and belief of Catholics, inasmuch as that form and those words are viewed by them, and have not unfrequently been used by their adversaries, as a means of attack upon certain tenets and practices which, under the teachings of the church, they hold as true and sacred.“III. The chanting of the Lord’s Prayer, of psalms, of hymns addressed to God, performed by many persons in unison, being neither a scholastic exercise nor a recreation, can only be regarded as an act of public worship—indeed, it is professedly intended as such in the regulations which govern our public schools. It would seem that the principles which guide Protestants and Catholics, in relation to communion in public worship, are widely different. Protestants, however diverse may be their religious opinions—Trinitarians, who assert that Jesus Christ is true God, and Unitarians, who deny he is true God—find no difficulty to offer in brotherhood a blended and apparently harmonious worship, and in so doing they give and receive mutual satisfaction, mutual edification. The Catholic cannot act in this manner. He cannot present himself before the Divine presence in what would be for him a merely simulated union of prayer and adoration. His church expressly forbids him to do so. She considers indifference in matters of religion, indifference as to the distinction of positive doctrines in faith, as a great evil which promiscuous worship would tend to spread more widely and increase. Hence the prohibition of such worship; and the Catholic cannot join in it without doing violence to his sense of religious duty.”Non-sectarianism is the plea uponwhich those public institutions justify their interference with the religious rights of their inmates. They argue that, because this system is acceptable to Protestants of every sect, therefore it must be acceptable to Catholics. Whereas, on the contrary, what is called unsectarianism is the concentration of sectarianism. Unsectarianism is made up of all those points upon which the sects concur, and is therefore pre-eminently sectarian. It is either that or simple deism; for if you take away the distinctive tenets of Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and of all the distinct sects, there remains nothing but deism. This involves, and will inevitably lead to, the denial of revelation; and the very Scriptures themselves, which Protestantism claims as the sole source of religious teaching, must and will inevitably, if non-sectarianism long prevails, be cast away. Is the teaching of deism alone inoffensive to Christians? The teaching of a few points, even if agreed upon by all, would be, on account of its exclusiveness, as sectarian as any other religious system—indeed more so; and is subject to an objection not applicable to the others, in that it conceals its true nature, and assumes a false name: whereas the Catholic Church and the avowed sects proclaim their distinctive and exclusive character, and in this at least are truthful and honest. If religious teaching resolves itself into latitudinarianism, it then constitutes a new sect in itself. A perfect neutrality, as long as anything positive is taught, is an impossibility. This very selection, which makes up this professed unsectarianism, is an anti-Catholic principle. It proclaims the right of man to determine all things in religion by his own private judgment, and in this consists the distinctive feature of Protestantism.We have thus shown that non-sectarianism, as a system of religious teaching, is an impossibility. We now propose to show that in our schools, asylums, reformatories, etc., it is in practice, as well as in theory, an impossibility. We will show this, too, by Protestant and unsectarian authority. At p. 264, vol. ii.,Providence Reform School Investigation, we read from the testimony of a Protestant Episcopal trustee, who resigned on account, in part, of this impossibility:“Q. Didn’t you know that no sectarian instruction was admitted inside that institution? A. I don’t know what you call sectarianism. It is pretty hard to say down in that school. We have had everything taught and preached there. Q. Was not this an Episcopal book? A. It was a book of devotions and prayers—a work by a divine of the English Church. It was an Episcopal book. Q. Do you mean to say that a book of Episcopal exercises is or is not a sectarian work? A. I am a member of the Episcopal Church; we do not call ourselves a sect. Q. Didn’t you know at the time you gave this book to the teacher that it was against the rules of the school to have the doctrines of the true church given out there, or of any church? A. I had never supposed it was against the rules of that institution, and I should have been unwilling to have sat for one hour as its trustee if I had supposed that I was myself forbidden to pray, or to advise others to pray there, through Jesus Christ, our Lord; and if the prayers I indicated, marked, and numbered in that book are prayers forbidden in the Providence Reform School or any other school, I have for the first time to learn what is sectarianism. They are prayers which every Christian, whether he belongs to any one of the various organizations of Christians in this or any other country or not, would, I think, be willing to use morning, noon, and night. Q. Didn’t you know that the by-laws place religious instruction exclusively under the care of the superintendent of the school” [who is a layman]?The Hon. John C. Spencer, Secretaryof State and Superintendent of Schools in 1840, said in his report to the New York Legislature: “There must be some degree of religious instruction, and there can benonewithout partaking more or less of asectarian character.The objection itself proceeds from a sectarian principle, and assumes the power to control that which it is neither right nor practicable to subject to any denomination. Religious doctrines of vital interest will be inculcated.”Another who has discussed this question of sectarianism with force and great plainness of speech is the Rev. Dr. Spear, of Brooklyn, in the columns of theIndependent, thus:“It is quite true that the Bible, as the foundation of religious belief, is not sectarian as between those who adopt it; but it is true that King James’ Version of the Holy Scriptures is sectarian as to the Catholic, as the Douay is to the Protestant, or as the Baptist Version would be to all Protestants but Baptists. It is equally true that the New Testament is sectarian as to the Jew, and the whole Bible is equally so as to those who reject its authority in any version.... There is no sense or candor in a mere play on words here. It is not decent in a Protestant ecclesiastic, who has no more rights than the humblest Jew, virtually to say to the latter: ‘You are nothing but a good-for-nothing Jew; you Jews have no claim to be regarded as a religious sect, or included in the law of state impartiality as between sects which Protestants monopolize for their special benefit. Away with your Jewish consciences! You pay your tax bills, and send your children to the public schools, and we will attend to theirChristianeducation.’ It is not decent to say this to any class of citizens who dissent from what is known as Protestant Christianity. It is simply a supercilious pomposity of which Protestants ought to be ashamed. It may please the bigotry it expresses, but a sensible man must either pity or despise it. In the name of justice we protest against this summary mode of disposing of the school question in respect to any class of American citizens. It is simply an insult.”Again, Dr. Anderson, President of the Rochester University, one of the first men in the Baptist Church in these United States, addressing the Baptist Educational Convention in the city of New York, says:“It is impossible for an earnest teacher to avoid giving out constantly religious and moral impulses and thought. He must of necessity set forth his notions about God, the soul, conscience, sin, the future life, and Divine Revelation.“If he promises not to do so, he will fail to keep his word”—these are true words—“or his teachings in science, or literature, or history will be miserably shallow and inadequate. Our notions of God and the moral order form, in spite of ourselves, the base line which affects all our movements and constructions of science, literature, and history. Inductions in physics, classifications in natural history, necessitate a living law eternal in the thought of God.”These gentlemen speak of religious instruction, only inasmuch as it is connected with the education of youth, and yet their logical minds showed them the absurdity of unsectarianism. What, then, could they have said of visionary men attempting direct teaching of religion without sectarianism?The following extract is too pertinent to our subject and too clever to be omitted, as an illustration of the impossibility of teaching religion upon the unsectarian system:“UNSECTARIANISM.”SOME OF THE DIFFICULTIES OF A TEACHER IN A MIXED SCHOOL.(From the New Orleans Morning Star.)We find the following in our San Francisco contemporary, thePacific Churchman, taken originally from theLondon Church Review, an organ of the Church of England. The editor of theChurchmanremarks that “with some changes it will equally apply to some of ourun-sectarian schools.” As far as theChurchmangoes againstun-sectarian schools in this country, we are with it. This seemsto be one scene taken from others. Considering that it conveys a good argument for us, our readers will excuse the term “Romanism,” thrown in as a reproach. We quote:The schoolroom of a boarding-school. Time, the hour of religious instruction. Bible to be read and explained without inculcating the dogmas of any particular denomination. Teacher certificated, unsectarian, highly conscientious. Class consisting of children from thirteen down to six or seven, and of various grades, from respectable poor to gutter children. Schoolroom and teacher span new. Teacher a little nervous. Children—some looking curiously about them, some disposed to loll and idle, some attentive. Teacher opens the great Bible, and begins to read St. Matthew ii., as being a narrative likely to interest the auditory, and easy to explain in an undenominational sense. First, however, a little preliminary explanation is necessary.Teacher.You must know, my dear children, that Joseph and Mary were two very good people who lived a very great many years ago in a country far away from London, and I am going to read to you about them and their son (reads slowly verse 1. of the chapter).Ragged Arab(not accustomed to observe much ceremony). Please, sir, who’s that?Teacher(aghast, and wishing to gain time). Whom do you mean, my boy?Arab.That there Jesus.Teacher(aside). [How can this question be answered in an undenominational sense? This is the religious difficulty, full blown. If I say “a good man,” that will hardly do, for I know several of the boys are the children of the church people and Romanists; and if I say “the son of God,” that won’t do, for Tommy Markham is a Unitarian, or, at any rate, his parents are; besides, such a dogmatic statement is sectarian.] (Aloud.) I will explain all about him when I have finished the chapter.Continues to read. The class listens with various degrees of attention until the 11th verse is finished, and then—A Boy.Please, sir, who’s Mary? The mother of the little baby, wasn’t she?Teacher.Yes; she was his mother.Boy.Oh! and what does “wusshupped” mean?Teacher.It means paying great respect, kneeling down and bowing, as we should to God.Another Boy(better taught than boy No. 1, and jumping at once to a sectarian conclusion). Then, that there baby was God, sir?Tommy Markham(stoutly). No, that he wasn’t!Teacher.Silence, boys, the lesson cannot go on if you talk and quarrel. (Struck by a bright idea.) You know that a great many people believe that he was God; but some do not; but we must not quarrel because we do not all think alike.First Boy(disagreeably curious). Well, but what doyouthink, master?[Terrible dilemma! Teacher hesitates. At length, desperately]—Ithink he was God.Boy.Don’t yerknowit?Teacher(aside). [Perverse youth. Pest take his questions and him too! If I’d known what “unsectarian” teaching involved, I’d sooner have swept a crossing. Whatwillthe Board say? Why, the very essence of our principle is toknownothing and think anything. But you can’t make the boys reason.] (Aloud.) My dear boy, it is very difficult to say what we know. I can only teach you what I think, and teach you how to be good and do what is right, and obey all that God tells you to do in this Holy Book.A Boy(interrupting,sans cérémonie). Did God write that there book?Teacher.Yes; and he tells us what we are to do to get to heaven; and his son came, as you see, as a little child, and when he grew up, he preached and told us how we ought to love one another, and all we ought to do to lead a good life.Boy(interested). And was he averygood chap?Teacher(a little shocked). Yes, of course; you know he was—[pauses; his haste had almost betrayed him into a dogmatic explanation, and the forbidden word “know” had actually passed his lips].Another Boy(with vexatiously retentive memory). You said afore, master, that he was God, and the gentlemen wusshupped him—was hereellyGod?Teacher(boldly, taking the bull by the horns). Yes.Boy.And did God’s mother wusshup him too, master?Teacher.You must not call her themother of—[interrupts himself; recollects that it is as sectarian to deny to the Blessed Virgin the title of Mother of God as to bestow it upon her; continues]: yes, she worshipped him too; but I want you to learn about the things that he told us to do.Another Boy(doggedly). But we wants to know fust who he be, ‘cause we ain’t to do jist what a nobody tells us; only, if that there gentlemen be God, there’s somethin’ in it, ‘cause I’ve ‘eard parson say, at old school, where I was once, that what God said was all right.Teacher(aside). [Certainly that poor Arab has got the root of denominational education. It is, I begin to think, a failure to attempt the teaching of morality without first making manifest what that morality is based upon, and the moment you come tothatyou are in for denominationalism at once. (Wipes his brow and continues)—Of course, my boy, you must know why it is right to tell the truth and do what is right, but then if I tell you God commanded all this and read to you what his Son said about it, there is no need for troubling so much about—about—Boy(interrupting). Oh! but I likes to ax questions, and it ain’t no sort of use you telling us it’s wrong to lie—nobody at ‘ome ever told methat—if yer don’t say who said it, ‘cause I ain’t bound to mind whatyousay, is I?[Teacherchecks the indignant “Indeed you are” that rises to his lips, arrested by the terrible and conscientious thought whether it be not a new and strange form of denominationalism for the teacher to make his own dictum infallible in matters of morality. Would not this be to elevate into a living, personal dogma an unsectarian teacher?—a singular clash, surely. Teacher shivers at the bare idea. Soliloquizes: How can I meet this knock-down reasoning? These Arabs are so rebellious, so perverse; why must they ask so many questions, and require to know the why and wherefore of everything? (Glances at the clock.) Ah! thank my stars, the time is almost up! but this dodge won’t do every time. I’m afraid I shall have to give up the whole thing as a bad job.] (Aloud.) We have only five minutes more to-day, lads, so you must let me finish the chapter without asking any more questions.(Boys relapse into indifferent silence. Curtain falls.)In conclusion, we insist that the state shall obey its own constitution, and let religion alone. In purely state institutions, the consciences must be left free, and no experiments with religion can be tried. Every child in such institutions must enjoy liberty of conscience and free access to its own ministers and sacraments.If any sect undertakes to help the state to do its work, by establishing reformatories, protectories, and asylums for its own children, excluding all other religions and the children of other religions, we shall not object to its receiving a justper capitafrom the state; and under this system we claim the same and no more for purely Catholic institutions doing the work of the state in respect to Catholic children. If, however, sectarian, unsectarian, or non-Catholic institutions receive support from the state, and receive the children of the Catholic Church and of other persuasions, they must be conducted upon the same principle with state institutions, and in them “no law respecting the establishment of a religion” must be made or enforced, but the most perfect liberty of conscience must prevail. We ask no special favors for ourselves or our church; all we claim is perfect equality before the law and the state, and the full benefit of that fair play which we extend to others.

PUBLIC CHARITIES.Moderncivilization has no higher or more important question to deal with than that of ameliorating the condition of the poor, the unfortunate, the ignorant, and the vicious. Governments are and can be engaged in no more appalling work than that of legislating wisely in regard to these classes, and in seeing that not only are their inevitable wants provided for and the public interests protected, but also that their rights are secured in fact as well as in theory, and that the instruments employed in these exalted spheres of public administration are suited to their purpose, and are guarded against degenerating from means of amelioration into agencies of oppression, cruelty, and injustice.There are two chief motives which lead to the care and provision for the unfortunate members of the social body—charity on the one side, and philanthropy on the other. Religion inspires every motive for this great and holy work, and of all the virtues which religion inspires, charity is the highest, purest, and best. Charity is the love of God, and of man for God’s sake. That God of charity has revealed to us that, of faith, hope, and charity, the greatest is charity; that he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord; that he who performs works of charity to the least of the human race performs themipso factoto the Lord, creator and ruler of the universe; and that the eternal doom of every human being at the last dread day will be decided by this great test. Christianity itself, like her divine founder, is charity. The church of God, like her Lord and Spouse, is charity. She is imbued with and reflects his divine essence, which is charity. Charity arises from no statute or arbitrary decree, which might or might not be made according to the option of the legislator; it is the essence and motive of all good. It exists in the very nature of things. And as the love of God by man is the first and necessary relation of the creature to the Creator, and as our fellow-creatures exist from God, andin and by him, it is only through God and in him that we love them. Thus charity is no human sentiment or affection, like philanthropy or the natural love of our neighbor and brother; it is a supernatural virtue, springing from God, and sustained by his grace. The man who does not love his neighbor cannot love God, but rejects his love and violates the first law of his being. Every word and act of our divine Saviour, while engaged on earth in establishing his church, proves this, if there be need of external proof. Even after his work on earth was done, and he had ascended to his Father, he speaks to us through the mouth of S. Paul: “If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and have all faith, so I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and should give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”[1]Philanthropy, on the other hand, is the love of man for the sake of man; in other words, humanitarianism. It is a human affection springing from natural motives. To alleviate human sufferings, and promote human pleasures and enjoyments, are its aims. Its object is the body rather than the soul, earth rather than heaven, time rather than eternity. Its motive power is sentiment or feeling rather than reason or religion. It is a sensitiveness to all human suffering, because suffering or pain is repulsive to human nature. Philanthropy is a virtue in the natural order, springing from human motives, and not a supernatural virtue springing from religious motives and inspired by divine grace. Philanthropy is good in itself, for our human nature still remains; nature and grace are not antagonistic, and may co-exist; nature is dependent on grace to raise it to the supernatural state and transform it into charity. Charity includes philanthropy, as the greater includes the lesser. Philanthropy without charity is earthly in its aims, frequently rash and sometimes unjust in its measures, tyrannical in the exercise of power, and not unfrequently barren in its results.Now, the church and the state are the organized representatives of these two virtues, the divine and the human. The church is a divine kingdom, and cultivates the divine virtue of charity; the state is a human kingdom, and cultivates the human virtue of philanthropy. The church is a supernatural body, and practises the supernatural virtue of charity; the state exists in the natural order, and practises the natural sentiment of philanthropy. The church is of heaven, and her greatest jewel, charity, is of heaven; the state is of earth, and the greatest of her merits is philanthropy, which is of earthly birth. The church is eternal, so is charity; the state is temporal, as is philanthropy. The church is of God, God is charity, so the church is charity; the state is of man, so is philanthropy. The rewards of the one are eternal; of the other, temporal. Charity is a Christian virtue, and can violate no other Christian virtue in adopting her measures; she cannot make the end justify the means; but philanthropy is a human virtue, and stops at no means necessary to attain its end. Abuses are not necessarily the results of philanthropy, for philanthropy, guided by even human reason, is capable of respecting the rights of God and men, and, when guidedby supernatural grace, is exalted to charity.[2]What we have chiefly to deal with in this article are institutions of benevolence, which are either wholly public property, and such as, though conducted either by private individuals or by incorporated boards of citizen managers, yet receive large shares of the public funds for their foundation, buildings, or current support, and thus become, to that extent, public institutions, and as such liable to be inquired into and criticised by the state and its citizens who pay the taxes thus expended.The state in our times and in almost every country undertakes the restraint and custody of the persons of idiots, lunatics, drunkards, and other persons of unsound mind, for their safety; of paupers, for their maintenance; and of minors, unprovided with natural guardians, for purposes of their education, reformation, and maintenance. It is not for us to discuss at length in this article the right of the state in any country toeducate and reformminors, or, in other words, to assume the place of teacher and priest; for it cannot undertake to educate without assuming the place of teacher, and still less can the state undertake the work of reformation without usurping the sacred functions of the sacerdotal office. Our faith, our reason, and our convictions teach us that such offices belong not to the state, but to the church. The state can establish places of restraint and punishment, and support and maintain them, both for the protection of the public, for the safety of the individuals themselves, and for purposes of philanthropy. Having done this, it is the duty of the state to leave free the consciences of its wards and prisoners, and to give every facility to the ministers of every church and religious persuasion to have free and unrestricted access to the children and prisoners belonging to those respective churches or persuasions. We claim this for ourselves as Catholics, and we leave the sects, the Jews, and every other society of religionists to claim the same for themselves. We are willing to make common cause with them for the attainment of our rights. That it is a charity for the state, or, more correctly speaking, a work of humanity, to assume the temporal care and provision for those unfortunate members of society who, either by their own fault, by the visitation of Providence, or by misfortune, are unable to take care of themselves, we are not disposed to deny at present, though even this belongs primarily to the religious duties of the individual, and, therefore, comes within the province of the church; and we know how well the church discharged this duty before the Reformation, and is doing it now. Yet we do not deny to the sects, to all men, and to the state, the right to perform good deeds and to practise the broadest philanthropy. Such at least seems to be one of the accepted works of government. We therefore accept such institutions and works as we find them, and we will view them in the same light in which our fellow-citizens generally regard them. As citizens, as Americans, we feel the same interest in them, experience thesame pride in them, and, as a question of property and public right, we hold them as a common heritage, in which we have the same interest and authority as our fellow-citizens. We are, therefore, equally interested in their proper management and good government, and we yield to none in our desire to promote their prosperity and success. There is no part of public administration more sacred or important, no function of the state so momentous, no public responsibility so awful, as this. Accepting them, as we do, as a part of our common property and united work, we shrink not from any effort for their good government and success, and, if need be, for their improvement, reformation, and correction. When properly conducted, we have nothing but praise for them; and if, on the other hand, they are mismanaged, the funds extravagantly applied; if they are made the instruments of cruelty, perversion, or despotism; if in them or any of them religious liberty is violated, and systems of proselytizing are carried on against Catholic children, or the children of the sects, or those of the Jewish Church, we as Catholics and as American citizens will speak out freely and boldly in denouncing them. We are not disqualified from doing this, either as citizens or Catholics; not as citizens, because they belong to us as much as to other citizens; our money is there with that of others; and the Constitution gives us liberty of speech and of the press, and guarantees to us “the right to assemble and petition for the redress of grievances”;[3]not as Catholics, for we have as such the experience of eighteen hundred years of the most exalted works of charity; and because we claim for ourselves no special privilege over others, but are willing to concede to all what we claim for ourselves. No clamor will deter us from the exercise of this right, or from the performance of this duty. And whilst we cannot yield our rights to any one sect of Protestantism, we are equally determined, while respecting the rights of all Protestants, not to yield our constitutional rights to all the sects of Protestantism combined under the false and deceptive name of unsectarianism. We do not believe inex-parteand sham investigations of public abuses in respect to public institutions, and we do not belong to, and are determined not to be deluded by, whitewashing committees of investigation and amiable grand juries. We are ever ready to praise, yet we shrink not from administering censure.The theory upon which governmental institutions are founded, and those established by private citizens or boards are assisted is, that of protecting society from a large, idle, ignorant, vicious population, by providing the means for the temporal relief and social improvement and correction of these classes, so as to bring them to the age of self-support in the case of children, to punish criminals, relieve the poor, and thus gradually return them all to society as sober, enlightened, honest, industrious, and thrifty citizens. For these purposes heavy taxes are laid on the citizens, immense piles of buildings are erected at the public expense, and such institutions are annually maintained or aided at enormous cost to the people. In our November, 1872, number, while admitting and praising the philanthropic motive which sustains these institutions, we regarded them “as really nuisances of the worst kind, so far as Catholic children are concerned, on accountof their proselytizing character. Moreover,” we said, “in their actual workings they violate the rights both of parents and children, and we have evidence that these poor children are actually sold at the West, both by private sale and by auction. The horrible abuses existing in some state institutions are partly known to the public, and we have the means of disclosing even worse things than those which have recently been exposed in the public papers.” It is difficult to perceive the success of such institutions as ameliorating or reformatory agents, for our public press is loaded every day with evidences of the enormous increase of crime and pauperism, and with dissertations on the causes of such increase. The public are naturally slow in believing that such institutions, upon which so much treasure has been spent, are failures. Such a reflection is an unpalatable one; it is humiliating to our pride, and damaging to the boasted progress of the XIXth century. It crushes our self-esteem to know that, of all places needing correction, our Houses of Correction need correction most; and that, of all institutions calling for the stern hand of reform, there are none that need so much reformation as our schools of reform. A religious paper calledThe Christian Unionhas given strong proof of its dislike to have the public eyes opened to these unpalatable truths, and we do not think we should have returned so soon to this subject but for a rather disingenuous article in that paper, couched in terms not calculated to convince the public that it derived its name from the practice or spirit of the virtue of Christian union, which, while challenging us to expose these wrongs and abuses, declared but too great a willingness to believe “that these charges, so frequently made in Roman Catholic journals, have already received thorough investigation and perfect refutation.”We complain that our Catholic children in institutions which are supported in whole or in part by public funds—funds, therefore, in which we have a common property with our fellow-citizens—instead of being allowed the instruction and practice of their Catholic religion, are taught Protestantism in its, to us, most offensive form, and are thus exposed to the almost certain loss of their faith. The facts upon which we base the charge have never been denied, but, on the contrary, they are openly admitted and announced. Protestants deny that they proselytize Catholic children so as to make them members of any distinctive sect, but they admit that Catholic teaching and practices are rigidly excluded, and yet that the children are taught a certain religion. Is it not evident that, if such religious instruction produces any result, it is to make these children cease to be Catholics, to become non-Catholics, to take the Bible as their only rule of faith, to reject the infallible teachings of their own church, and to accept the teachings of the institutions as all that is necessary for them to know? This is proselytism of the most offensive kind; our children are either madeliberal Christians, or are placed in circumstances which inevitably lead to their joining one or other of the distinctive forms of Protestantism or lose all religion whatever. Wherever a chaplain is employed, he is either a Methodist minister, such as Rev. Mr. Pierce in the New York House of Refuge, or he is a Baptist, Episcopalian, or other sectarian minister. In many of these institutions, the religious instruction is under the direction of a lay superintendent, as in the Providence School of Reform. And herewe beg to give a piece of testimony showing how incompetent laymen are for religious instruction in public reformatories. The witness under examination was at the time one of the trustees of the Providence Reform School:“Q. Have you any knowledge in relation to the distribution of religious books among the pupils, and their being taken away?“A. I don’t of my own knowledge; I furnished once one book of a religious character, and one only; I furnished it to theofficer having in charge the devotional exerciseson the girls’ side; I gave that to the officer for his own use; it was given to him in consequence of considerable religious feeling that there was existing among the girls at the time; the girls were holding among themselves what they called prayer-meetings; thegentleman having in charge the devotional exercises said he felt utterly incompetent to conduct the devotions in suitable words,” etc.Religious liberty is openly and positively denied in the New York House of Refuge, as will be seen from their own “Report of Special Committee to the Managers of the House of Refuge,” 1872; from which it appears, at pp. 21, 22, that the religion of the house consists in “Christian worship in simple form, and Gospel lessons in Sunday-schools,” and that the “inmates are brought into thesamechapel for public worship,” and that “the whole regimen of the house,” including of course the religious part, “is devised and pursued with careful attention to thewants of the inmates, but is not submitted to the control of themselves or their friends.” As Americans we have been taught from our infancy that liberty of conscience is the dearest right of the American citizen. We learned in our college days that even “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”; but we now learn that what the highest legislative power in the nation, and what no state legislature, can do, the managers of the New York House of Refuge have done and are now doing: they have made a law respecting the establishment of a religion in the House of Refuge, a public institution—a religion which they have called variously “Christian worship in simple form,” “Gospel lessons,” “Unsectarianism,” “The Broad Principles of Christianity”—and have forbidden the free exercise of any other religion. Even if all Christians were united in this worship and in these principles, have Jewish citizens no rights under the Constitution? As citizens of the State of New York, we have learned from the state constitution and Bill of Rights “that the free exercise and practice of religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference shallfor ever be allowed to all mankind.” Chancellor Kent, in hisCommentaries on American Law, says that “the free exerciseand enjoyment of religious profession and worship may be considered as one of theabsolute rights of individuals, recognized in our American constitutions and secured to them by law.”[4]And Story, in hisCommentaries on the Constitution, maintains in equally strong terms “the freedom of public worship according to the dictates of one’s conscience.”[5]But we are now told by the Managers of the House of Refuge that “delinquency has, under the law, worked some forfeiture of rights, and that neither the delinquents nor their friends for them can justly claim, while under sentence of the courts, equal freedom with the rest of the community who have not violated the law.”[6]Such was theanswer given by American citizens, constituting the Board of Managers of the New York House of Refuge, to the committee of American citizens sent by the Catholic Union to demand liberty of conscience and freedom of religious worship for the Catholic children in the Refuge! Either this answer means that the children in the House of Refuge are not a portion ofmankind, or that religious freedom is one of the rights forfeited by delinquency, or the Board of Managers have proclaimed themselves guilty of the grossest violation of the rights of man and of God. We presume these gentlemen will not admit either the first or the third of these alternatives; indeed, they almost say in terms that a commitment to the House of Refuge works a forfeiture of that religious liberty guaranteed to all mankind. We know delinquency under the law suspends the civil rights of the delinquent while in prison, such as the right to hold public office or administer a private trust; but it does not work even a forfeiture of property except in the case of an outlawry of treason. These are all the forfeitures worked by the highest crimes known to the law. Religion is not a civil right; no crime can forfeit it; no power on earth can extinguish it. The greatest of public malefactors, the murderer and the traitor, enjoy it even on the scaffold: does the child whose only offence is poverty or vagrancy forfeit it? In the sacred names of Liberty and Religion, what sort ofRefugeis this to stand on American soil?The Children’s Aid Society is another New York institution largely supported by public funds. We learn from its Nineteenth Annual Report, 1871, that one of its objects is to shelter in its lodging-houses the orphan and the homeless girls and boys, and labor incessantly to give them the “foundation ideas of morals and religion” (p. 5). Alluding to theItalianSchool, No. 44 Franklin Street, the report says: “We haveconquered the prejudices and superstition of ignorance, andconvertedinto useful citizens hundreds of this unfortunate class.” With such a programme of unsectarian conversion, the leading feature in which is indifferentism in religion, the immediate forerunner of infidelity and agrarianism, it is no wonder that the report immediately proceeds: “So much so, indeed, that the Italian government,” that same godless government which is so ferociously waging war on Catholicity, “has taken a deep interest in our institution” (p. 28).It is only necessary to read these reports to be convinced that the system either leads to materialism, the religion of worldly prosperity and thrifty citizenship, or to some form of Protestant sectarianism. The system of “emigration” pursued by such institutions, by which children are sent out West and placed with anybody and everybody who will take them, completes the work commenced in the East. On pages 54-56 of the report last quoted is related the case of a youth sent East, who “cannot speak of his parents with any certainty at all”; it matters not what religion they were of, the son is nowpreparing for the ministryof one of the sects. His letter also recites a similar case in reference to another boy “who was sent out West.” It is certain that he is not preparing for the Catholic ministry, for his impressions of a miracle are thus expressed: “To be taken from the gutters of New York City and placed in a college is almost a miracle.” The story of young “Patrick,” p. 59, whose education was obtained at the Preparatory School at Oberlin and atCornell University, is significant. On page 60 is told the story of anIrishorphan girl sent to Connecticut, and placed with “an intelligent Christian woman, who means to do right.” On page 63 is told the history of a little boy sent to Michigan, who is well pleased with toys and new clothes, “like all other children; he has a splendid new suit of clothes just got, andhe attends church and Sabbath-school.” A similar case is related at page 65, of a little girl sent to Ohio, and we shall show below what has become of little girls sent to that state. These are some of the model cases of which this unsectarian society makes a boast in its report. It is a significant fact that, of the 8,835 who came under the influences of this society in one year, 3,312 were of Irish birth, and it may be estimated with certainty that a considerable proportion of the other children of foreign, as well as many of home birth were Catholics. The number of children born in Ireland who were sent West during the year was 1,058. This institution received for the furtherance of these unsectarian objects the sum of $66,922.70 in this year from our public funds.We have also before us the Twentieth Annual Report of the New York Juvenile Asylum, 1871, which proves the proselytizing character of this public-pap-fed unsectarian institution. “The children that are entrusted to us are at themost susceptible period of life,” etc., “when their destiny for time, if notfor eternity, may be fixed” (p. 9). “They must be drilled into systematic habits of life in eating, sleeping, play, study, work, andworship” (p. 10). To “attend church” (p. 21), and “the evening worship,” and religious services generally, are frequently recurring duties of the children. In this institution the children of foreign birth during the year were 3,648, and of these 1,981 were born in Ireland. Of course we cannot say how many of the children of home birth were the children of Irish and Catholic parents. We have, alas! but too much certainty that a large proportion of the children are Catholic. We casually met recently with an interesting proof of this inScribner’s Magazine, November, 1870, in an account given by a visitor to the Juvenile Asylum. In the evening the visitor was invited to see the girls’ dormitory as the girls were going to bed. She writes: “All the children were saying their prayers. I noticed that several of them made the sign of the cross as they rose.” Touching evidence of their traditional faith and parental teaching! a simple but sublime tribute to holy church! an earnest sign of love and hope for those sacraments which came to us through the cross, but which, like that cross itself, were not a part of the religion, worship, and practice of this unsectarian asylum.In the list of model examples presented in the report of the Western agent will be seen the usual proselytizing influence of such institutions. The cases either show mere material or worldly advantage, or the embrace of pure sectarianism. On page 50 is related the case of a little girl, who “scarcely remembers her parents,” of whom it is related that “she is a member of the Presbyterian Church.” Two other girls are indentured to members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The “church and Sunday-school” are prominent features in nearly every case. The amount received during the year by thisunsectarianinstitution from our public funds was $62,065.24..The Five Points House of Industry, which received, from 1858 to 1869, the sum of $30,731.69. from our Board of Education, states inits charter, among the objects for which it was incorporated, the following: “III. To imbue the objects of its care with the pure principles of Christianity, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, without bias from the distinctive peculiarities of any individual sect.” This means that the children belonging to distinctive religious denominations, instead of being allowed to follow the distinctive tenets, and practise the worship, in which they were reared, are deprived of this right, and, as respects the Catholic children, they are to reject and exclude every tenet and devotion distinctively Catholic. How far even this profession of unsectarianism is carried into practice will be discovered from theMonthly Recordof the Five Points House of Industry for April and May, 1870, p. 302, giving an account of the dedicatory exercises:“The services consisted of an opening anthem by the children, followed by a prayer byRev.Dr. Paxton, asking a blessing upon the House and its objects.“This was followed by a hymn; a statement of the affairs of the institution, byRev.S. B. Halliday; a recitative by the children; a statement as to city missions, byRev.G. J. Mingins; a short discourse on the ‘Union of Christian Effort,’ byRev.H. D. Ganse; a discourse on the ‘Lights and Shadows of Large Cities,’ byRev.John Hall, D.D.; and, finally, a roundelay given by the children.”How far the pledge given in the charter of this establishment, “withoutbiasfrom the distinctive peculiarities of any individual sect,” is carried out is further seen from the following extract from a letter addressed by the president to the Rev. John Cotton Smith, a prominent minister of the Episcopalian sect: “Between your church and the institution the most kind and harmoniousco-operationhas ever existed. They will ever cherish a most pleasing remembrance of the relations that have subsisted between them.”[7]We might have alluded to the “Howard Mission and Home for Little Wanderers,” founded by that arch-proselytizer, the Rev. W. C. Van Meter, which during seven yearsdisposed of7,580 “little wanderers” of this city, in an unsectarian manner; but want of space forbids our doing so. But theanimuspervading this and other unsectarian institutions is exhibited to us now in the fact, that this reverend has transferred the field of his labors from the Five Points to the city of Rome, the centre and headquarters of Catholicity. He has there established a mission and home for the little Romans. We do not stand alone in our opinion that such institutions are nuisances for Catholic children, and we quote the closing words of a letter recently addressed to the Rev. Mr. Van Meter by the editor of theVoce della Verita, at Rome:“Now, dear sir, excuse me if I remind you, that although a very ignorant person, ‘when I was a little boy,’ I also went to school, and learned a few things about your country. I remember to have heard it said that misery and ignorance abounded there, and that many hundreds of thousands of your compatriots knew of no other God than the almighty dollar. Why do you not go back and teach in Nebraska or Texas, and leave us alone? You might positively do some good there—now you are a—well, let me tell the truth—anuisance. By your homeward voyage, you will benefit both your own country and ours.”[8]Another complaint that we make against our semi-governmental charities relates to the violation of the rights of parents and children, in the sale of these children at the West. This pernicious practice of exiling and transporting children from New York to the West is still in full vigoramongst these institutions. How can we boast of our charities, when their main feature consists in shifting the burden from our own shoulders to those of others, and they are strangers? It is in vain that we claim these children as the wards andprotégésof society and of our city, if we repudiate the duties and responsibilities of our guardianship. Against this cruelty and injustice we protest in the names of civilization and Christianity. The institutions whose reports we have referred to not only admit, but they boast of this outrage upon the rights of parents and of children. One of them, the Children’s Aid Society, refers to this branch of operations, “its Emigration System,” as the “crown” of all its works. The number of children thus exiled from the state by this society and transported to distant regions, during the year of the report referred to, was 3,386; the whole number since 1854 was 25,215. More than half the 3,386 were sent to Ohio, and to the distant states of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska. Of one little boy thus exiled, who was separated from his parents at the age of eight years, the Western agent reports: “I think his mother would scarcely know him.” He reports that the mistress to whom another was “disposed of” writes of him: “Indeed, I don’t know what I should do without him, for he saves me a great many steps. I wish we could find out about his brother and sister, he often cries about them.”Exile and transportation of children is also practised by the Five Points House of Industry. They have obtained extraordinary powers for this purpose from the Legislature. For while the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction, a purely governmental institution, possess the power of indenturing children to citizens of the state of New York and adjoining states only, the Five Points House of Industry has received the power to send them anywhere and everywhere. But the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction send the poor children they get into their power to the most remote states in violation of the express law of the case. For instead of confining their indentures to citizens of New York and the adjoining states, as the law directs, they send them indiscriminately to every state, even the most distant. We ask those public servants by what fiction of law they make California and TexasadjoinNew York?The New York Juvenile Asylum has also a “regular agency at Chicago, by which the work of indenturing children at the West is conducted.”[9]The total number of children sent West during fifteen years, from 1857 to 1871 inclusive, is 2,206, and the annual average, 147-1/15 (p. 47).The extent to which thiscrowningcruelty of our non-sectarian institutions is carried, is appalling. We have only cited the cases of the three whose reports happened to be before us. But we have been informed, unofficially, and we think the statement can be made good, that there are in the city of New York no less than twenty-eightcharitableinstitutions engaged in this cruel practice of transporting our New York children to the West and other remote parts, and the average number of these little exiles per week is about two hundred, making about ten thousand every year. What untold abuses and hardships must result from this barbarous practice! However noble, generous, and philanthropic may be the motives of the citizen-managersof these institutions, they cannot attend in person to the details or even the general management of their work. Not only are their houses in the city confided to the management of hired and salaried agents and servants, but the work of transporting children to the West is confided generally to the same class of agents, and we intend to show how thischaritablefunction is discharged. They are actuated by no higher motives than usually actuate their class. The love of God, and of man for God’s sake, is not the spirit that inspires their labors and guides their steps. Corruption and infidelity to duty have stalked brazenly into the public service everywhere; what reason have we for claiming an exemption in favor of those who find profitable employment in the administration of public charities?But, as theChristian Uniondemands further proof than is accessible to the public, we will produce some additional evidence, although we think we have already shown enough to condemn this system; and the tone of that journal’s article leads us to believe that if an angel from heaven disclosed to its view the same corruption and oppression which we see in this branch of public administration, it would still cling to its idols.Now we have before us a letter, dated September 23, 1872, addressed by a clergyman at Tiffin, Ohio, to a clergyman in the East, from which we quote:“In answer to your request concerning those children brought on some four or five years ago from the East to be disposed of, I might say with prudence, that to several counties of Ohio had been brought car-loads of children from three years on to twelve and thirteen years old, and offered to thepublicto take one or more; for they who offered the children said those who would take them had to pay the expenses of bringing them to the place. For some children the man said the expense would be fifteen dollars, for others more, others less. This is the way the affair was carried on for some time.”The gentleman to whom the foregoing letter was addressed, and who sent it to us, gives also his own testimony on this public traffic in innocent human beings. His letter is dated September 25, 1872, and reads as follows:“At that time,” some four or five years ago, “I was on a trip to Tiffin. Delayed for a short time at Clyde, I asked some questions of the baggage-master. Three little girls were near him, and I asked him: ‘Are these your daughters?’ A. ‘No, I bought them?’ ‘Bought them! how? from whom?’ A. ‘Oh! from the ministers. They bring car-loads of these little ones every few weeks, and sell them to any one who wants them. I gave $10 for this one, $12 for the next, and $15 for the oldest. I had not the money, but I borrowed it from the tavern-keeper, and paid for the girls. Lately there was another load of them. There was a very fine girl. I wanted her. But the minister said, ‘No; I have promised her to a rich man in Forrest, who will pay more than you.’ After some further conversation of a similar character, the train came in sight, and I left. The next day I was speaking of the circumstance at table. Rev. Mr.—— remarked that he knew the baggage-master well, and that what he said was true. He added, ‘Within the last month there was a sale of some thirty of these children in our Court House. One of my parishioners, Mr.——, came along as the sale was about over. A little boy was standing before the Court House crying; the German asked him, ‘What is the matter?’ He said, ‘That man wants to sell me, and no one will buy me.’ The boy was bought by the German for $10. I had heard such transactions described in one of his lectures by F. Haskins. But I scarcely realized how fearful such conduct is until I heard a description of these sales from persons who had seen them.”Such, indeed, is the “crowning” work of some of the charitable institutionsof New York! Is this the fulfilment of the Gospel of charity, or of the Sermon on the Mount, or of the broad principles of Christianity? Perhaps, rather, it is the Rev. Mr. Pierce’selasticsystem of religion.[10]Compare these humiliating facts with the self-congratulatory reports on “Emigration” of the Children’s Aid Society, which in 1871 sent three hundred and seven of these little wards of the city to the same state of Ohio.[11]At page 10 we read:“Every year we expect that the opposition of a very bigoted and ignorant class will materially lessen thisthe most effective of our charitable efforts. We have surpassed, however, owing to the energy of our Western agents, the results of every previous equal period, in the labors of the past year.“Crowds of poor boys have thronged the office or have come to the lodging-houses for a ‘chance to go West’; great numbers of very destitute but honest families have appealed to us for this aid, and our agents have frequently conveyed parties of a hundred and more. The West has received these childrenliberallyas before; and there has been less complaint the past year than usual of bad habits and perverse tempers. The larger boys are still restless as ever, and inclined to change their places where higher inducements are offered. But this characteristic they have in common with our whole laboring class.”Again:“Emigration.—This department has worked most successfully the past year. A larger number has been removed from the city than ever before.”It would seem, however, that the experience of the New York Juvenile Asylum, though still persevering in this traffic as a good work, has not been as satisfactory as that of the Children’s Aid Society. We will give an extract from the Twentieth Annual Report, showing even from the mouths of those who practise it as a good work what a crying evil this is, and confirming the extracts we have given in reference to the sales of children in Ohio:“Removing and replacing children is one of the important functions of the agency. Our children are first placed on trial, and in nearly every company some have to be replaced over and over again before they are permanently settled. But even after indentures have been executed, newdevelopmentsoften compel removals. Such are the weaknesses of human nature, and such the instability of human affairs, that, without provision to meet the exigencies consequent upon them,cases of extreme hardship and inhumanity would be frequent. They who have not had experience in this kind of work are not apt to realize, and it is often difficult to persuade them of,the imperative need of such provision.Children will not unfrequently get into improper hands in spite of every precaution, and in many cases success is more or less problematical.Death of employers also, and change of circumstances, are often the occasion of removals.Not a month goes by that does not furnish cases where, but for timely attention, suffering, mischief, and irreparable evil would result.A little familiarity with the field work of this agency would convince its most obdurate opponent thatto leave children without recourse among strangers in a strange land is an unjustifiable procedure.”Apart from the inhumanity of this procedure, from its unchristian character, from its proselytizing effects, we protest against it in the name of law, of right, and of human liberty. The common law of England is our heritage, and by that common law “no power on earth, except the authority of parliament, can send any subject of England out of the land against his will; no, not even a criminal. The great charter declares that no freeman shall be banished unless by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land; and by thehabeas corpusact it is enactedthat no subject of this realm who is an inhabitant of England, Wales, or Berwick shall be sent into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or other places beyond the seas.”[12]Chancellor Kent, in hisCommentaries on American Law(ii. 34), claims the same proud privilege as one of the absolute rights of American citizens, and, while declaring that “no citizen can be sent abroad,” states that the constitutions of several of the states of our confederacy contain express provisions forbidding transportation beyond the state.We come now to the last and not the least painful task, which theChristian Unioninsists upon our undertaking; it relates to “the horrible abuses existing in some of our state institutions.” And here, as in the preceding remarks, we must confine ourselves to a portion only of the mass of materials before us, and, in fact, confine ourselves to a single institution; for, if such things exist in a single case, this is enough to prove not only the possibility, but also the probability of the same thing in others, and to dispel the fatal blindness which can see nothing defective either in their constitution or management. We must pass over the charges recently preferred against the New York House of Refuge, relating to improper food, of excessive labor, of cruel punishments, employment of unfit and incompetent agents in the management of the institution, and of religious intolerance. While we think that the evidence produced on the trial of the boy, Justus Dunn, for killing one of the officers of the Refuge, goes far to substantiate most of the charges preferred, we have, in common with the community, but little respect for the whitewashing certificate given by the grand-jury, who made a flying visit to the institution, by invitation, on an appointed day. Of course the officers put their house in order, and failed not to put their best foot foremost, on this preconcerted occasion. The managers placed no reliance on this acquittal, for they courted another soon afterwards. The second investigation by the State Commissioners of Charity was very little better; it wasex parteon all the charges except that of religious intolerance, and the Refuge was acquitted on all the charges except this last.We must also pass over, for want of space, the revolting case which occurred at the New York Juvenile Asylum in June last, in which one of the inmates of the asylum, a colored girl, instead of finding there an asylum from temptation and seduction, fell a victim to the lust of one of the officers of the institution, who fled precipitately on discovery of the fact.[13]We must pass over, for the same reason, the investigations recently conducted at St. Louis, which are far from showing a satisfactory result for the management and conduct of public reformatories. We must confine ourselves now to a single institution—a case in which the evidence is replete with horrible abuses, cruelties, improprieties, and wrongs. While we would be sorry to apply the maxim,ex uno disce omnes, we can but regard this case as a general warning to our people to beware of regarding as good everything in the moral order that goes under the much-abused name ofreform.The Providence School of Reform is an institution supported by funds received both from the state of Rhode Island and from the city of Providence. Its object seems to be the temporal, social, and moral reformation of juvenile delinquents ofboth sexes. Some time prior to 1869, it had been the subject of the gravest charges and investigation, which tended to show that, so far from having been in all its departments and workings a school of reform, it had in some instances become a school for vice and immorality. The whitewashing process, that facile and amiable way of avoiding disagreeable complications, prevented the accomplishment of any change for the better. But in 1869 the charges against the institution took a more definite form, and were signed and presented by thirty-one citizens of Providence to the corporate authorities—citizens of the first respectability and standing. The Board of Aldermen of the city of Providence, headed by the Mayor, undertook the investigation, and the evidence is contained in two large volumes in one, extending over eleven hundred and forty-two pages.[14]The charges were the most serious ones that could be brought against an institution, especially against one professingreform, and had their origin with citizens without distinction of creed. Their true character and extent can only be understood by a perusal of them:“First. That vices against chastity, decency, and good morals have prevailed in the school, and have been taught and practised by teachers as well as by pupils; that these vices have existed both in the male and female departments, and that the children usually leave the school more corrupt than when they entered it.“Second. That teachers have used immodest and disgusting language in the presence of children, and have addressed females in an indecent manner by referring to their past character, and by calling them vile and unbecoming names.“Third. That modes of punishment the most cruel and inhuman have been used in said school, such as knocking down and kicking the pupils, and whipping them when naked, and with a severity not deserved by their offences.“Fourth. That young women are said to have been kicked, knocked down, dragged about by the hair of the head, and otherwise brutally treated, but more especially that all modesty and decency have been outraged by stripping them to the waist and lashing them on the naked back; taking them from their beds and whipping them in their night-dresses; tying their hands and feet and ducking them; and by other forms of punishment which no man should ever inflict upon a woman.“Fifth. That names of children committed to said school have been changed and altered by the officers of the said institution.“Sixth. That children have been apprenticed to persons living in remote sections of the country, and who have no interest in taking proper care of them, and that a needless disregard to the rights and feelings of their parents has often been evinced by the officers of the school.“Seventh. That the goods of said school are reported to have been used dishonestly for purposes for which they were not intended, and that the state of Rhode Island is said to have been charged with the board of children who were living at service and were no expense to said school.“Eighth. That a spirit of proselytism and of religious intolerance has prevailed in the school, as is shown in the fact that children of different creeds are compelled to attend a form of worship which is contrary to the conscientious convictions of a large majority of them; which is directly in conflict with the spirit and letter of our state constitution, which ensures to the inhabitants thereof the liberty of conscience, in the following language: ‘No man shall be compelled to frequent or to support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatever, except in fulfilment of his own voluntary contract;’ and that the children of said school are denied the use of books and all religious instruction in the religion of their choice.”Although there is evidence in the volume ofInvestigationbefore us tending to sustain the “fifth” and “seventh” charges, we yet exceptthose two charges from our remark, when we say that the other six charges, constituting the gravamen of the prosecution, are not only sustained in whole or in part by nearly one hundred witnesses, but, with all deference to the five aldermen out of ten who found most of themnot proved, we think that no unbiassed reader of the heavily laden and sad volume before us, no true philanthropist, no man of true charity, can fail to pronounce the wordguiltyas to all or some part of every one of the first, second, third, fourth, seventh, and eighth charges. We are sorry to be forced to the conviction that the testimony is overwhelming. There are cases of punishment cruel in the extreme—some have called them inhuman, and even brutal—inflicted on about sixty boys; and, while nearly every page shows this, we refer particularly to pages 112, 123, 172, 234, 238, 274, 279, 280, 281, 289, 290, 295, 318, 364, 366, 375, 379, 383, 387, 388, 402, 403, 410, 414, 416, 419, 421, 425, 432, 437, 440, 446. See evidences more particularly referring to the use of the loaded whip, page 378; the strap, the cat, the strings, 286, 339; the butt, 492; blood drawn, 364, 485; terrorism, 239, 269, 270, 305, 371, 418, 424, 425, 492; whipping little boys over the knuckles with a bunch of keys, 146, 147; kicking, 447, 485, 526, and 323 of vol. ii.; boys struck on the head with a hammer, 331, 379; profanity and indecency, 280, 302, and page 135 of vol. ii.; Catholic books taken away from Catholic children, 308, 309, 310; state of Rhode Island charged with board of children who had been put out of the institution, 307, which was regarded as “an error of the head and not of the heart,” 327 of vol. ii.There are also detailed in theInvestigationcases of about thirty girls punished in a cruel and revolting manner. For girls lashed, bodies striped and bruised, see pages 18, 19; a girl struck, caught by the throat, pounded, and dragged by the hair of the head, 23; a girl struck with fist, and black eye, 55; a girl stripped to the waist of all her clothes, except undergarment, and whipped with cat-o’-nine-tails, and body marked, 93; another girl dragged by the hair, 95; a girl ducked, 102; a girl boxed until her nose bled, and water dashed on her, 102; a girl chased, kicked, and held under flowing water, 108; a girl dragged by the hair, kicked, and ducked, 219, 220; another girl dragged by the hair and kicked, 228; another lashed black and blue, 229; a girl lashed on the back after she had gone to bed, 338; another girl whipped with the straps, and kicked, 344; another girl stripped to the waist, leaving only undergarment on, and whipped with a knotted strap, 360; a girl ducked, 272. A mother is refused permission to see her child, who was whipped, and refused information as to whither the child was transported. The mother said: “I will travel Rhode Island through, and I will travel Connecticut through, but what I will find her. I have not seen her for the last six or eight years, and a mother’s nature goes beyond any mortal thing in this world. A mother wants to see her child. I could not get anything from them,” 374. Another girl is stripped like the others, and lashed, marked, and scarred on the back, 395. A witness, at page 396, says: “I saw—— stripped with her dress down; she was badly bruised on the shoulder; I did not see any blood, but I saw the bruises were pretty bad bruises; there were scars clear across her shoulders; you could not see scarcely a piece of plainflesh on her shoulders.” At page 443, a former inmate testifies to the treatment received by another inmate: “I saw him shower her and strike her; he knocked her against the building with his fist, and the blood ran out of her nose and ears while she was by the fence, while he stood there punishing her.” At page 454, we read an extract from the testimony of a Mrs. Bishop: “Q. Were you ever kicked or beaten in the school by——? A. Yes, sir. I was punished up-stairs because I could not learn my lesson. I had had no schooling at that time; I could not do much reading; he punished me up-stairs; I told him I could not learn it, unless he could let a girl come up and help me; I was told to kneel down; I looked around, and he kicked me across the aisle; he pulled me by my dress, and kicked me across the aisle, and twice across the room; I was put up-stairs before devotions were to come off; I said I was going to tell my mother; he said I could not see my folks again if I did tell her; he was going to give me two hundred dollars if I had not said anything; I was sick after this kicking; he carried me home himself away from the school; I could not move nor stir; I could not move one eye; I walked on crutches after it; it affects me now; affects my gait, so I can’t walk all the time; I have to hire my work done part the time now; when there comes a storm, I can’t move, I have to sit still in the house; sometimes I have to lie in bed, because it affects me so; I was thirteen years old at that time.” A girl, a new-comer only three days in the school, is ducked, strapped, and locked up two days for laughing in school, p. 629, and further ill-treated, 639. Another girl dragged by the hair, pounded, and dreadfully bruised, 661. Girls ducked and whipped at night, 678. Girls called names of supreme contempt by teachers in allusion to their past lives, 684, 737, and 39, 71, 317, of vol. ii. A girl taken up at night, and whipped in her night-clothes by male officer, 693. A girl is pulled over the desk by the hair, for not singing, 705. A girl is imprisoned and fed on bread and water for twenty-three days, 320 of vol. ii.For instances of girls whipped on the naked back by men, see pp. 61, 339, 630; girls kicked by men, 318, 328, 345, 348, 354, 360, 631; same proved by defence, 41 of vol. ii.; girls dragged by the hair by men, 231, 347, 348, 636; girls struck with fist by men, 347, 349; black eye given, 350; marks on bodies, 360, 367, 395, 719; girls taunted about their former lives, 86, 96, 100, 397, 687, 737, and 317 of vol. ii.; terrorism, 269, 270, 305, 371, 424, 425, and 41 of vol. ii.; girls ducked by men, 92, 94, 97, 102, and 295 of vol. ii.The first charge, the most serious that could be brought against a school ofreform—“crimes against chastity, decency, and good morals”—is fearfully sustained. One of the employees, a man of years, who had become notorious for his vulgarity and indecency in both the male and female departments, to both of which he had access, is caughtflagrante delicto. The partner of his sin was one of the female inmates, who was sent there to bereformed, and they were detected by other female inmates of this school of reform (page 75). And again,horribile dictu, ateacherin the same nursery ofreformlived, “month in and month out,” in criminal conversation with one of the inmates of the female department (pages 63, 76), and the appalling fact is again proved by the defence (ii. 322). But, more shocking than all this, notonly were immodest and indecent conversations held by an employee with the boys and girls, but another fiend in the flesh, an officer of the Providence School of Reform, introduced among the boys and taught them habits the most immoral and disgusting, destructive at once of their souls and bodies, of their manhood, and of their temporal and eternal happiness. This fact is proved solely by the defence at page 321 of vol. ii. The offender was dismissed, but the school still exists! Where are Sodom and Gomorrah?The evidence for the defence consists chiefly of denials andnon-mi-ricordosby the officers and employees; but some of the charges are proved by the defence itself, and some of the most damning evidence against the institution came from this very quarter. The mayor and one of the aldermen declined to take any part in the decision, because they were members of the board of trustees. Three other aldermen refused to sign the decision, and gave decisions of their own, finding portions of the charges true. Five out of ten of the judges sign the decision, which, while finding most of the chargesnot proved, strongly inculpates the institution on several of the charges. In it is stated that two instances have occurred of offences against chastity, decency, and good morals, on the part of officers and female inmates, page 384 of vol. ii.; that knocking down was practised, though alleged to have been in self-defence; and that boys were whipped on the bare back, 384 of vol. ii.; that girls have had their dresses loosened and removed from the upper part of the back and shoulders, leaving only the undergarment on, and thus punished by the (male) superintendent; and in a very few cases during the past nine years, when they have, in violation of the rules of the school, made loud noises and disturbances in the dormitories at night, they have been punished in their night-clothes (by a male officer) in the presence of a female officer, page 385 of vol. ii.; ducking is admitted, page 385.One of the dissenting aldermen in his decision says: “Being fully aware that the class of inmates sent to this school require a strong and efficient discipline, and not feeling competent to say what that discipline should be, yet I cannot resist the conviction that the punishments described have a tendency todegrade rather than to elevate, not only the one who receives, but the one who administers them.” “I therefore feel bound to protest against such punishments, and earnestly hope that some better mode of discipline will speedily be adopted by the managers of this institution” (p. 394, vol. ii.). The superintendent stated on oath that, in case a child sick andin extremisrequired a Catholic priest to be sent for, he would first go and seek the advice of three or four of the trustees before he would admit, even under such circumstances, a Catholic or any other clergyman; and on this subject the same alderman remarked: “In my view, any superintendent of this institution who would hesitate to allow the consolations of religion to be administered in the form desired by the child, under such circumstances, should be promptly relieved from duty,” page 396 of vol. ii. Another alderman says: “I am of opinion that cruel and unnecessary punishment has been inflicted. I do not suppose that striking with the clenched fist, kicking, or dragging by the hair of the head has been common, but I think it has occurred in some instances,” page 397; and he mentions the case of an “unfortunate girl who seems to have sufferedevery form of discipline known to this school, from beingduckedto being ‘pushed under the table with the foot.’ If it be said she was vile, I would ask how she came to be? She was but six or seven years of age when she entered this institution. No one is wholly bad at that tender age. She remained under its care and influences fornine years, and, if she is vicious and dissolute, why is she so? If, on the other hand, she was insane, is it not painful to reflect that such punishments were inflicted on an irresponsible child?” (p. 399.) One of the trustees actually resigned a year before the investigation, rather than be connected with such scenes; he started an investigation, but it seems to have done no good; and such was the condition of things at the time of this first investigation that the assistant superintendent offered to give one hundred dollars to a friend to shield him from being called as a witness.The religious instruction given in this institution isof courseunsectarian; everything distinctively Episcopalian is denied to Episcopalian children, everything distinctively Baptist is denied to Baptist children, everything distinctively Methodist is denied to Methodist children, everything distinctly Presbyterian is denied to Presbyterian children, and everything distinctly Catholic is denied to Catholic children. Nothing whatever is said tending “to keep children in the faith to which they belonged when they entered the school.” “Q. Does not the system of religious instruction tend to bring the children to that form of religion which gives to each person the private judgment and interpretation of the Scriptures? A. We hope it tends to make them better. Q. Does it not tend to have them choose their own Bible and their own interpretation of it as the source and principle of religion? A. I should hope that it tends to have them accept the Bible. Q. Do you teach them the doctrine of the private interpretation of the Scripture? A. No, sir, not at all. Q. As I understand it, all the religious instruction they get is simply reading from the Bible, and no interpretation. They can interpret it just as they please. A. They can interpret it just as they please. Sometimes one speaker comes, and sometimes another” (page 234, vol. ii.) ... “Q. Now state the afternoon services on Sunday? A. One of the trustees (they all alternate except the mayor) procures a speaker for Sunday afternoon to address the scholars. Q. Of what class are those speakers—of any particular or of all classes? A. Since I have been there, I think every denomination has been represented or been invited to speak? Q. Are they particularly members of churches, or laymen, lawyers, doctors, or anybody who will give a moral address to the children? A. I could not speak with certainty of the professions. We often have clergymen, perhaps oftener than any other class, but not unfrequently men of other professions, and many times those following no profession to speak in connection with others. We often have more than one speaker—sometimes half a dozen. Q. These are business men of the city? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you have lawyers sometimes? A. I think all professions are represented. Q. Do you have ministers if you can get them? A. Yes, sir.” And yet in this unsectarianism the most direct sectarianism prevailed. “Q. Do you know what version of the Bible is used? A. It is the common English translation. Q. (By the mayor) It is the ordinary Bible, is it not? A. Yes, sir. (By Mr. Gorman)TheDouayis the ordinary one. (By Mr.——) We call that anextraordinaryone” (page 62, vol. ii.).Now, we have the Bible without comment, but ministers, lawyers, doctors, and business men are called in every Sunday, sometimes half a dozen at one time, to give the comments, each according to his own view. Every religious denomination was invited, but it does not appear that any Catholic ever accepted the invitation; for, if he accepted, he would leave his Catholicity outside until he finished his unsectarian discourse. There may be something in common with all the sects which sometimes may be called general Protestantism, though they profess to call it unsectarianism; but one thing we know is common to them all, and this something is opposition to Catholicity, and the dodge of unsectarianism is adroitly invented in order to exclude Catholics from enjoying equal rights with Protestants in matters relating to public education and public charities. The state must let religion alone, and unsectarians must desist from their disguised effort to unite church and state in this country, while it has so strenuously opposed their union in every Catholic country. They know that Catholics can take no part in unsectarian teachings, but they would like us to do so, for in proportion as we did so would we cease to be Catholics. The Catholic view was so admirably expressed by the late Bishop Fitzpatrick, of Boston, in his letter in the Eliot School difficulty, that we must give it to our readers:“I. Catholics cannot, under any circumstances, acknowledge, receive, and use, as a complete collection and faithful version of the inspired books which compose the written Word of God, the English Protestant translation of the Bible. Still less can they so acknowledge, accept, or use it, when its enforcement as such is coupled expressly with the rejection of that version which their own church approves and adopts as being correct and authentic; and yet this is required of them by law. The law, as administered, holds forth the Protestant version to the Catholic child, and says, ‘Receive this as the Bible.’ The Catholic child answers, ‘I cannot so receive it.’ The law, as administered, says you must, or else you must be scourged and finally banished from the school.“II. The acceptance and recital of the Decalogue, under the form and words in which Protestants clothe it, is offensive to the conscience and belief of Catholics, inasmuch as that form and those words are viewed by them, and have not unfrequently been used by their adversaries, as a means of attack upon certain tenets and practices which, under the teachings of the church, they hold as true and sacred.“III. The chanting of the Lord’s Prayer, of psalms, of hymns addressed to God, performed by many persons in unison, being neither a scholastic exercise nor a recreation, can only be regarded as an act of public worship—indeed, it is professedly intended as such in the regulations which govern our public schools. It would seem that the principles which guide Protestants and Catholics, in relation to communion in public worship, are widely different. Protestants, however diverse may be their religious opinions—Trinitarians, who assert that Jesus Christ is true God, and Unitarians, who deny he is true God—find no difficulty to offer in brotherhood a blended and apparently harmonious worship, and in so doing they give and receive mutual satisfaction, mutual edification. The Catholic cannot act in this manner. He cannot present himself before the Divine presence in what would be for him a merely simulated union of prayer and adoration. His church expressly forbids him to do so. She considers indifference in matters of religion, indifference as to the distinction of positive doctrines in faith, as a great evil which promiscuous worship would tend to spread more widely and increase. Hence the prohibition of such worship; and the Catholic cannot join in it without doing violence to his sense of religious duty.”Non-sectarianism is the plea uponwhich those public institutions justify their interference with the religious rights of their inmates. They argue that, because this system is acceptable to Protestants of every sect, therefore it must be acceptable to Catholics. Whereas, on the contrary, what is called unsectarianism is the concentration of sectarianism. Unsectarianism is made up of all those points upon which the sects concur, and is therefore pre-eminently sectarian. It is either that or simple deism; for if you take away the distinctive tenets of Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and of all the distinct sects, there remains nothing but deism. This involves, and will inevitably lead to, the denial of revelation; and the very Scriptures themselves, which Protestantism claims as the sole source of religious teaching, must and will inevitably, if non-sectarianism long prevails, be cast away. Is the teaching of deism alone inoffensive to Christians? The teaching of a few points, even if agreed upon by all, would be, on account of its exclusiveness, as sectarian as any other religious system—indeed more so; and is subject to an objection not applicable to the others, in that it conceals its true nature, and assumes a false name: whereas the Catholic Church and the avowed sects proclaim their distinctive and exclusive character, and in this at least are truthful and honest. If religious teaching resolves itself into latitudinarianism, it then constitutes a new sect in itself. A perfect neutrality, as long as anything positive is taught, is an impossibility. This very selection, which makes up this professed unsectarianism, is an anti-Catholic principle. It proclaims the right of man to determine all things in religion by his own private judgment, and in this consists the distinctive feature of Protestantism.We have thus shown that non-sectarianism, as a system of religious teaching, is an impossibility. We now propose to show that in our schools, asylums, reformatories, etc., it is in practice, as well as in theory, an impossibility. We will show this, too, by Protestant and unsectarian authority. At p. 264, vol. ii.,Providence Reform School Investigation, we read from the testimony of a Protestant Episcopal trustee, who resigned on account, in part, of this impossibility:“Q. Didn’t you know that no sectarian instruction was admitted inside that institution? A. I don’t know what you call sectarianism. It is pretty hard to say down in that school. We have had everything taught and preached there. Q. Was not this an Episcopal book? A. It was a book of devotions and prayers—a work by a divine of the English Church. It was an Episcopal book. Q. Do you mean to say that a book of Episcopal exercises is or is not a sectarian work? A. I am a member of the Episcopal Church; we do not call ourselves a sect. Q. Didn’t you know at the time you gave this book to the teacher that it was against the rules of the school to have the doctrines of the true church given out there, or of any church? A. I had never supposed it was against the rules of that institution, and I should have been unwilling to have sat for one hour as its trustee if I had supposed that I was myself forbidden to pray, or to advise others to pray there, through Jesus Christ, our Lord; and if the prayers I indicated, marked, and numbered in that book are prayers forbidden in the Providence Reform School or any other school, I have for the first time to learn what is sectarianism. They are prayers which every Christian, whether he belongs to any one of the various organizations of Christians in this or any other country or not, would, I think, be willing to use morning, noon, and night. Q. Didn’t you know that the by-laws place religious instruction exclusively under the care of the superintendent of the school” [who is a layman]?The Hon. John C. Spencer, Secretaryof State and Superintendent of Schools in 1840, said in his report to the New York Legislature: “There must be some degree of religious instruction, and there can benonewithout partaking more or less of asectarian character.The objection itself proceeds from a sectarian principle, and assumes the power to control that which it is neither right nor practicable to subject to any denomination. Religious doctrines of vital interest will be inculcated.”Another who has discussed this question of sectarianism with force and great plainness of speech is the Rev. Dr. Spear, of Brooklyn, in the columns of theIndependent, thus:“It is quite true that the Bible, as the foundation of religious belief, is not sectarian as between those who adopt it; but it is true that King James’ Version of the Holy Scriptures is sectarian as to the Catholic, as the Douay is to the Protestant, or as the Baptist Version would be to all Protestants but Baptists. It is equally true that the New Testament is sectarian as to the Jew, and the whole Bible is equally so as to those who reject its authority in any version.... There is no sense or candor in a mere play on words here. It is not decent in a Protestant ecclesiastic, who has no more rights than the humblest Jew, virtually to say to the latter: ‘You are nothing but a good-for-nothing Jew; you Jews have no claim to be regarded as a religious sect, or included in the law of state impartiality as between sects which Protestants monopolize for their special benefit. Away with your Jewish consciences! You pay your tax bills, and send your children to the public schools, and we will attend to theirChristianeducation.’ It is not decent to say this to any class of citizens who dissent from what is known as Protestant Christianity. It is simply a supercilious pomposity of which Protestants ought to be ashamed. It may please the bigotry it expresses, but a sensible man must either pity or despise it. In the name of justice we protest against this summary mode of disposing of the school question in respect to any class of American citizens. It is simply an insult.”Again, Dr. Anderson, President of the Rochester University, one of the first men in the Baptist Church in these United States, addressing the Baptist Educational Convention in the city of New York, says:“It is impossible for an earnest teacher to avoid giving out constantly religious and moral impulses and thought. He must of necessity set forth his notions about God, the soul, conscience, sin, the future life, and Divine Revelation.“If he promises not to do so, he will fail to keep his word”—these are true words—“or his teachings in science, or literature, or history will be miserably shallow and inadequate. Our notions of God and the moral order form, in spite of ourselves, the base line which affects all our movements and constructions of science, literature, and history. Inductions in physics, classifications in natural history, necessitate a living law eternal in the thought of God.”These gentlemen speak of religious instruction, only inasmuch as it is connected with the education of youth, and yet their logical minds showed them the absurdity of unsectarianism. What, then, could they have said of visionary men attempting direct teaching of religion without sectarianism?The following extract is too pertinent to our subject and too clever to be omitted, as an illustration of the impossibility of teaching religion upon the unsectarian system:“UNSECTARIANISM.”SOME OF THE DIFFICULTIES OF A TEACHER IN A MIXED SCHOOL.(From the New Orleans Morning Star.)We find the following in our San Francisco contemporary, thePacific Churchman, taken originally from theLondon Church Review, an organ of the Church of England. The editor of theChurchmanremarks that “with some changes it will equally apply to some of ourun-sectarian schools.” As far as theChurchmangoes againstun-sectarian schools in this country, we are with it. This seemsto be one scene taken from others. Considering that it conveys a good argument for us, our readers will excuse the term “Romanism,” thrown in as a reproach. We quote:The schoolroom of a boarding-school. Time, the hour of religious instruction. Bible to be read and explained without inculcating the dogmas of any particular denomination. Teacher certificated, unsectarian, highly conscientious. Class consisting of children from thirteen down to six or seven, and of various grades, from respectable poor to gutter children. Schoolroom and teacher span new. Teacher a little nervous. Children—some looking curiously about them, some disposed to loll and idle, some attentive. Teacher opens the great Bible, and begins to read St. Matthew ii., as being a narrative likely to interest the auditory, and easy to explain in an undenominational sense. First, however, a little preliminary explanation is necessary.Teacher.You must know, my dear children, that Joseph and Mary were two very good people who lived a very great many years ago in a country far away from London, and I am going to read to you about them and their son (reads slowly verse 1. of the chapter).Ragged Arab(not accustomed to observe much ceremony). Please, sir, who’s that?Teacher(aghast, and wishing to gain time). Whom do you mean, my boy?Arab.That there Jesus.Teacher(aside). [How can this question be answered in an undenominational sense? This is the religious difficulty, full blown. If I say “a good man,” that will hardly do, for I know several of the boys are the children of the church people and Romanists; and if I say “the son of God,” that won’t do, for Tommy Markham is a Unitarian, or, at any rate, his parents are; besides, such a dogmatic statement is sectarian.] (Aloud.) I will explain all about him when I have finished the chapter.Continues to read. The class listens with various degrees of attention until the 11th verse is finished, and then—A Boy.Please, sir, who’s Mary? The mother of the little baby, wasn’t she?Teacher.Yes; she was his mother.Boy.Oh! and what does “wusshupped” mean?Teacher.It means paying great respect, kneeling down and bowing, as we should to God.Another Boy(better taught than boy No. 1, and jumping at once to a sectarian conclusion). Then, that there baby was God, sir?Tommy Markham(stoutly). No, that he wasn’t!Teacher.Silence, boys, the lesson cannot go on if you talk and quarrel. (Struck by a bright idea.) You know that a great many people believe that he was God; but some do not; but we must not quarrel because we do not all think alike.First Boy(disagreeably curious). Well, but what doyouthink, master?[Terrible dilemma! Teacher hesitates. At length, desperately]—Ithink he was God.Boy.Don’t yerknowit?Teacher(aside). [Perverse youth. Pest take his questions and him too! If I’d known what “unsectarian” teaching involved, I’d sooner have swept a crossing. Whatwillthe Board say? Why, the very essence of our principle is toknownothing and think anything. But you can’t make the boys reason.] (Aloud.) My dear boy, it is very difficult to say what we know. I can only teach you what I think, and teach you how to be good and do what is right, and obey all that God tells you to do in this Holy Book.A Boy(interrupting,sans cérémonie). Did God write that there book?Teacher.Yes; and he tells us what we are to do to get to heaven; and his son came, as you see, as a little child, and when he grew up, he preached and told us how we ought to love one another, and all we ought to do to lead a good life.Boy(interested). And was he averygood chap?Teacher(a little shocked). Yes, of course; you know he was—[pauses; his haste had almost betrayed him into a dogmatic explanation, and the forbidden word “know” had actually passed his lips].Another Boy(with vexatiously retentive memory). You said afore, master, that he was God, and the gentlemen wusshupped him—was hereellyGod?Teacher(boldly, taking the bull by the horns). Yes.Boy.And did God’s mother wusshup him too, master?Teacher.You must not call her themother of—[interrupts himself; recollects that it is as sectarian to deny to the Blessed Virgin the title of Mother of God as to bestow it upon her; continues]: yes, she worshipped him too; but I want you to learn about the things that he told us to do.Another Boy(doggedly). But we wants to know fust who he be, ‘cause we ain’t to do jist what a nobody tells us; only, if that there gentlemen be God, there’s somethin’ in it, ‘cause I’ve ‘eard parson say, at old school, where I was once, that what God said was all right.Teacher(aside). [Certainly that poor Arab has got the root of denominational education. It is, I begin to think, a failure to attempt the teaching of morality without first making manifest what that morality is based upon, and the moment you come tothatyou are in for denominationalism at once. (Wipes his brow and continues)—Of course, my boy, you must know why it is right to tell the truth and do what is right, but then if I tell you God commanded all this and read to you what his Son said about it, there is no need for troubling so much about—about—Boy(interrupting). Oh! but I likes to ax questions, and it ain’t no sort of use you telling us it’s wrong to lie—nobody at ‘ome ever told methat—if yer don’t say who said it, ‘cause I ain’t bound to mind whatyousay, is I?[Teacherchecks the indignant “Indeed you are” that rises to his lips, arrested by the terrible and conscientious thought whether it be not a new and strange form of denominationalism for the teacher to make his own dictum infallible in matters of morality. Would not this be to elevate into a living, personal dogma an unsectarian teacher?—a singular clash, surely. Teacher shivers at the bare idea. Soliloquizes: How can I meet this knock-down reasoning? These Arabs are so rebellious, so perverse; why must they ask so many questions, and require to know the why and wherefore of everything? (Glances at the clock.) Ah! thank my stars, the time is almost up! but this dodge won’t do every time. I’m afraid I shall have to give up the whole thing as a bad job.] (Aloud.) We have only five minutes more to-day, lads, so you must let me finish the chapter without asking any more questions.(Boys relapse into indifferent silence. Curtain falls.)In conclusion, we insist that the state shall obey its own constitution, and let religion alone. In purely state institutions, the consciences must be left free, and no experiments with religion can be tried. Every child in such institutions must enjoy liberty of conscience and free access to its own ministers and sacraments.If any sect undertakes to help the state to do its work, by establishing reformatories, protectories, and asylums for its own children, excluding all other religions and the children of other religions, we shall not object to its receiving a justper capitafrom the state; and under this system we claim the same and no more for purely Catholic institutions doing the work of the state in respect to Catholic children. If, however, sectarian, unsectarian, or non-Catholic institutions receive support from the state, and receive the children of the Catholic Church and of other persuasions, they must be conducted upon the same principle with state institutions, and in them “no law respecting the establishment of a religion” must be made or enforced, but the most perfect liberty of conscience must prevail. We ask no special favors for ourselves or our church; all we claim is perfect equality before the law and the state, and the full benefit of that fair play which we extend to others.

Moderncivilization has no higher or more important question to deal with than that of ameliorating the condition of the poor, the unfortunate, the ignorant, and the vicious. Governments are and can be engaged in no more appalling work than that of legislating wisely in regard to these classes, and in seeing that not only are their inevitable wants provided for and the public interests protected, but also that their rights are secured in fact as well as in theory, and that the instruments employed in these exalted spheres of public administration are suited to their purpose, and are guarded against degenerating from means of amelioration into agencies of oppression, cruelty, and injustice.

There are two chief motives which lead to the care and provision for the unfortunate members of the social body—charity on the one side, and philanthropy on the other. Religion inspires every motive for this great and holy work, and of all the virtues which religion inspires, charity is the highest, purest, and best. Charity is the love of God, and of man for God’s sake. That God of charity has revealed to us that, of faith, hope, and charity, the greatest is charity; that he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord; that he who performs works of charity to the least of the human race performs themipso factoto the Lord, creator and ruler of the universe; and that the eternal doom of every human being at the last dread day will be decided by this great test. Christianity itself, like her divine founder, is charity. The church of God, like her Lord and Spouse, is charity. She is imbued with and reflects his divine essence, which is charity. Charity arises from no statute or arbitrary decree, which might or might not be made according to the option of the legislator; it is the essence and motive of all good. It exists in the very nature of things. And as the love of God by man is the first and necessary relation of the creature to the Creator, and as our fellow-creatures exist from God, andin and by him, it is only through God and in him that we love them. Thus charity is no human sentiment or affection, like philanthropy or the natural love of our neighbor and brother; it is a supernatural virtue, springing from God, and sustained by his grace. The man who does not love his neighbor cannot love God, but rejects his love and violates the first law of his being. Every word and act of our divine Saviour, while engaged on earth in establishing his church, proves this, if there be need of external proof. Even after his work on earth was done, and he had ascended to his Father, he speaks to us through the mouth of S. Paul: “If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and have all faith, so I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and should give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”[1]

Philanthropy, on the other hand, is the love of man for the sake of man; in other words, humanitarianism. It is a human affection springing from natural motives. To alleviate human sufferings, and promote human pleasures and enjoyments, are its aims. Its object is the body rather than the soul, earth rather than heaven, time rather than eternity. Its motive power is sentiment or feeling rather than reason or religion. It is a sensitiveness to all human suffering, because suffering or pain is repulsive to human nature. Philanthropy is a virtue in the natural order, springing from human motives, and not a supernatural virtue springing from religious motives and inspired by divine grace. Philanthropy is good in itself, for our human nature still remains; nature and grace are not antagonistic, and may co-exist; nature is dependent on grace to raise it to the supernatural state and transform it into charity. Charity includes philanthropy, as the greater includes the lesser. Philanthropy without charity is earthly in its aims, frequently rash and sometimes unjust in its measures, tyrannical in the exercise of power, and not unfrequently barren in its results.

Now, the church and the state are the organized representatives of these two virtues, the divine and the human. The church is a divine kingdom, and cultivates the divine virtue of charity; the state is a human kingdom, and cultivates the human virtue of philanthropy. The church is a supernatural body, and practises the supernatural virtue of charity; the state exists in the natural order, and practises the natural sentiment of philanthropy. The church is of heaven, and her greatest jewel, charity, is of heaven; the state is of earth, and the greatest of her merits is philanthropy, which is of earthly birth. The church is eternal, so is charity; the state is temporal, as is philanthropy. The church is of God, God is charity, so the church is charity; the state is of man, so is philanthropy. The rewards of the one are eternal; of the other, temporal. Charity is a Christian virtue, and can violate no other Christian virtue in adopting her measures; she cannot make the end justify the means; but philanthropy is a human virtue, and stops at no means necessary to attain its end. Abuses are not necessarily the results of philanthropy, for philanthropy, guided by even human reason, is capable of respecting the rights of God and men, and, when guidedby supernatural grace, is exalted to charity.[2]

What we have chiefly to deal with in this article are institutions of benevolence, which are either wholly public property, and such as, though conducted either by private individuals or by incorporated boards of citizen managers, yet receive large shares of the public funds for their foundation, buildings, or current support, and thus become, to that extent, public institutions, and as such liable to be inquired into and criticised by the state and its citizens who pay the taxes thus expended.

The state in our times and in almost every country undertakes the restraint and custody of the persons of idiots, lunatics, drunkards, and other persons of unsound mind, for their safety; of paupers, for their maintenance; and of minors, unprovided with natural guardians, for purposes of their education, reformation, and maintenance. It is not for us to discuss at length in this article the right of the state in any country toeducate and reformminors, or, in other words, to assume the place of teacher and priest; for it cannot undertake to educate without assuming the place of teacher, and still less can the state undertake the work of reformation without usurping the sacred functions of the sacerdotal office. Our faith, our reason, and our convictions teach us that such offices belong not to the state, but to the church. The state can establish places of restraint and punishment, and support and maintain them, both for the protection of the public, for the safety of the individuals themselves, and for purposes of philanthropy. Having done this, it is the duty of the state to leave free the consciences of its wards and prisoners, and to give every facility to the ministers of every church and religious persuasion to have free and unrestricted access to the children and prisoners belonging to those respective churches or persuasions. We claim this for ourselves as Catholics, and we leave the sects, the Jews, and every other society of religionists to claim the same for themselves. We are willing to make common cause with them for the attainment of our rights. That it is a charity for the state, or, more correctly speaking, a work of humanity, to assume the temporal care and provision for those unfortunate members of society who, either by their own fault, by the visitation of Providence, or by misfortune, are unable to take care of themselves, we are not disposed to deny at present, though even this belongs primarily to the religious duties of the individual, and, therefore, comes within the province of the church; and we know how well the church discharged this duty before the Reformation, and is doing it now. Yet we do not deny to the sects, to all men, and to the state, the right to perform good deeds and to practise the broadest philanthropy. Such at least seems to be one of the accepted works of government. We therefore accept such institutions and works as we find them, and we will view them in the same light in which our fellow-citizens generally regard them. As citizens, as Americans, we feel the same interest in them, experience thesame pride in them, and, as a question of property and public right, we hold them as a common heritage, in which we have the same interest and authority as our fellow-citizens. We are, therefore, equally interested in their proper management and good government, and we yield to none in our desire to promote their prosperity and success. There is no part of public administration more sacred or important, no function of the state so momentous, no public responsibility so awful, as this. Accepting them, as we do, as a part of our common property and united work, we shrink not from any effort for their good government and success, and, if need be, for their improvement, reformation, and correction. When properly conducted, we have nothing but praise for them; and if, on the other hand, they are mismanaged, the funds extravagantly applied; if they are made the instruments of cruelty, perversion, or despotism; if in them or any of them religious liberty is violated, and systems of proselytizing are carried on against Catholic children, or the children of the sects, or those of the Jewish Church, we as Catholics and as American citizens will speak out freely and boldly in denouncing them. We are not disqualified from doing this, either as citizens or Catholics; not as citizens, because they belong to us as much as to other citizens; our money is there with that of others; and the Constitution gives us liberty of speech and of the press, and guarantees to us “the right to assemble and petition for the redress of grievances”;[3]not as Catholics, for we have as such the experience of eighteen hundred years of the most exalted works of charity; and because we claim for ourselves no special privilege over others, but are willing to concede to all what we claim for ourselves. No clamor will deter us from the exercise of this right, or from the performance of this duty. And whilst we cannot yield our rights to any one sect of Protestantism, we are equally determined, while respecting the rights of all Protestants, not to yield our constitutional rights to all the sects of Protestantism combined under the false and deceptive name of unsectarianism. We do not believe inex-parteand sham investigations of public abuses in respect to public institutions, and we do not belong to, and are determined not to be deluded by, whitewashing committees of investigation and amiable grand juries. We are ever ready to praise, yet we shrink not from administering censure.

The theory upon which governmental institutions are founded, and those established by private citizens or boards are assisted is, that of protecting society from a large, idle, ignorant, vicious population, by providing the means for the temporal relief and social improvement and correction of these classes, so as to bring them to the age of self-support in the case of children, to punish criminals, relieve the poor, and thus gradually return them all to society as sober, enlightened, honest, industrious, and thrifty citizens. For these purposes heavy taxes are laid on the citizens, immense piles of buildings are erected at the public expense, and such institutions are annually maintained or aided at enormous cost to the people. In our November, 1872, number, while admitting and praising the philanthropic motive which sustains these institutions, we regarded them “as really nuisances of the worst kind, so far as Catholic children are concerned, on accountof their proselytizing character. Moreover,” we said, “in their actual workings they violate the rights both of parents and children, and we have evidence that these poor children are actually sold at the West, both by private sale and by auction. The horrible abuses existing in some state institutions are partly known to the public, and we have the means of disclosing even worse things than those which have recently been exposed in the public papers.” It is difficult to perceive the success of such institutions as ameliorating or reformatory agents, for our public press is loaded every day with evidences of the enormous increase of crime and pauperism, and with dissertations on the causes of such increase. The public are naturally slow in believing that such institutions, upon which so much treasure has been spent, are failures. Such a reflection is an unpalatable one; it is humiliating to our pride, and damaging to the boasted progress of the XIXth century. It crushes our self-esteem to know that, of all places needing correction, our Houses of Correction need correction most; and that, of all institutions calling for the stern hand of reform, there are none that need so much reformation as our schools of reform. A religious paper calledThe Christian Unionhas given strong proof of its dislike to have the public eyes opened to these unpalatable truths, and we do not think we should have returned so soon to this subject but for a rather disingenuous article in that paper, couched in terms not calculated to convince the public that it derived its name from the practice or spirit of the virtue of Christian union, which, while challenging us to expose these wrongs and abuses, declared but too great a willingness to believe “that these charges, so frequently made in Roman Catholic journals, have already received thorough investigation and perfect refutation.”

We complain that our Catholic children in institutions which are supported in whole or in part by public funds—funds, therefore, in which we have a common property with our fellow-citizens—instead of being allowed the instruction and practice of their Catholic religion, are taught Protestantism in its, to us, most offensive form, and are thus exposed to the almost certain loss of their faith. The facts upon which we base the charge have never been denied, but, on the contrary, they are openly admitted and announced. Protestants deny that they proselytize Catholic children so as to make them members of any distinctive sect, but they admit that Catholic teaching and practices are rigidly excluded, and yet that the children are taught a certain religion. Is it not evident that, if such religious instruction produces any result, it is to make these children cease to be Catholics, to become non-Catholics, to take the Bible as their only rule of faith, to reject the infallible teachings of their own church, and to accept the teachings of the institutions as all that is necessary for them to know? This is proselytism of the most offensive kind; our children are either madeliberal Christians, or are placed in circumstances which inevitably lead to their joining one or other of the distinctive forms of Protestantism or lose all religion whatever. Wherever a chaplain is employed, he is either a Methodist minister, such as Rev. Mr. Pierce in the New York House of Refuge, or he is a Baptist, Episcopalian, or other sectarian minister. In many of these institutions, the religious instruction is under the direction of a lay superintendent, as in the Providence School of Reform. And herewe beg to give a piece of testimony showing how incompetent laymen are for religious instruction in public reformatories. The witness under examination was at the time one of the trustees of the Providence Reform School:

“Q. Have you any knowledge in relation to the distribution of religious books among the pupils, and their being taken away?“A. I don’t of my own knowledge; I furnished once one book of a religious character, and one only; I furnished it to theofficer having in charge the devotional exerciseson the girls’ side; I gave that to the officer for his own use; it was given to him in consequence of considerable religious feeling that there was existing among the girls at the time; the girls were holding among themselves what they called prayer-meetings; thegentleman having in charge the devotional exercises said he felt utterly incompetent to conduct the devotions in suitable words,” etc.

“Q. Have you any knowledge in relation to the distribution of religious books among the pupils, and their being taken away?

“A. I don’t of my own knowledge; I furnished once one book of a religious character, and one only; I furnished it to theofficer having in charge the devotional exerciseson the girls’ side; I gave that to the officer for his own use; it was given to him in consequence of considerable religious feeling that there was existing among the girls at the time; the girls were holding among themselves what they called prayer-meetings; thegentleman having in charge the devotional exercises said he felt utterly incompetent to conduct the devotions in suitable words,” etc.

Religious liberty is openly and positively denied in the New York House of Refuge, as will be seen from their own “Report of Special Committee to the Managers of the House of Refuge,” 1872; from which it appears, at pp. 21, 22, that the religion of the house consists in “Christian worship in simple form, and Gospel lessons in Sunday-schools,” and that the “inmates are brought into thesamechapel for public worship,” and that “the whole regimen of the house,” including of course the religious part, “is devised and pursued with careful attention to thewants of the inmates, but is not submitted to the control of themselves or their friends.” As Americans we have been taught from our infancy that liberty of conscience is the dearest right of the American citizen. We learned in our college days that even “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”; but we now learn that what the highest legislative power in the nation, and what no state legislature, can do, the managers of the New York House of Refuge have done and are now doing: they have made a law respecting the establishment of a religion in the House of Refuge, a public institution—a religion which they have called variously “Christian worship in simple form,” “Gospel lessons,” “Unsectarianism,” “The Broad Principles of Christianity”—and have forbidden the free exercise of any other religion. Even if all Christians were united in this worship and in these principles, have Jewish citizens no rights under the Constitution? As citizens of the State of New York, we have learned from the state constitution and Bill of Rights “that the free exercise and practice of religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference shallfor ever be allowed to all mankind.” Chancellor Kent, in hisCommentaries on American Law, says that “the free exerciseand enjoyment of religious profession and worship may be considered as one of theabsolute rights of individuals, recognized in our American constitutions and secured to them by law.”[4]And Story, in hisCommentaries on the Constitution, maintains in equally strong terms “the freedom of public worship according to the dictates of one’s conscience.”[5]

But we are now told by the Managers of the House of Refuge that “delinquency has, under the law, worked some forfeiture of rights, and that neither the delinquents nor their friends for them can justly claim, while under sentence of the courts, equal freedom with the rest of the community who have not violated the law.”[6]Such was theanswer given by American citizens, constituting the Board of Managers of the New York House of Refuge, to the committee of American citizens sent by the Catholic Union to demand liberty of conscience and freedom of religious worship for the Catholic children in the Refuge! Either this answer means that the children in the House of Refuge are not a portion ofmankind, or that religious freedom is one of the rights forfeited by delinquency, or the Board of Managers have proclaimed themselves guilty of the grossest violation of the rights of man and of God. We presume these gentlemen will not admit either the first or the third of these alternatives; indeed, they almost say in terms that a commitment to the House of Refuge works a forfeiture of that religious liberty guaranteed to all mankind. We know delinquency under the law suspends the civil rights of the delinquent while in prison, such as the right to hold public office or administer a private trust; but it does not work even a forfeiture of property except in the case of an outlawry of treason. These are all the forfeitures worked by the highest crimes known to the law. Religion is not a civil right; no crime can forfeit it; no power on earth can extinguish it. The greatest of public malefactors, the murderer and the traitor, enjoy it even on the scaffold: does the child whose only offence is poverty or vagrancy forfeit it? In the sacred names of Liberty and Religion, what sort ofRefugeis this to stand on American soil?

The Children’s Aid Society is another New York institution largely supported by public funds. We learn from its Nineteenth Annual Report, 1871, that one of its objects is to shelter in its lodging-houses the orphan and the homeless girls and boys, and labor incessantly to give them the “foundation ideas of morals and religion” (p. 5). Alluding to theItalianSchool, No. 44 Franklin Street, the report says: “We haveconquered the prejudices and superstition of ignorance, andconvertedinto useful citizens hundreds of this unfortunate class.” With such a programme of unsectarian conversion, the leading feature in which is indifferentism in religion, the immediate forerunner of infidelity and agrarianism, it is no wonder that the report immediately proceeds: “So much so, indeed, that the Italian government,” that same godless government which is so ferociously waging war on Catholicity, “has taken a deep interest in our institution” (p. 28).

It is only necessary to read these reports to be convinced that the system either leads to materialism, the religion of worldly prosperity and thrifty citizenship, or to some form of Protestant sectarianism. The system of “emigration” pursued by such institutions, by which children are sent out West and placed with anybody and everybody who will take them, completes the work commenced in the East. On pages 54-56 of the report last quoted is related the case of a youth sent East, who “cannot speak of his parents with any certainty at all”; it matters not what religion they were of, the son is nowpreparing for the ministryof one of the sects. His letter also recites a similar case in reference to another boy “who was sent out West.” It is certain that he is not preparing for the Catholic ministry, for his impressions of a miracle are thus expressed: “To be taken from the gutters of New York City and placed in a college is almost a miracle.” The story of young “Patrick,” p. 59, whose education was obtained at the Preparatory School at Oberlin and atCornell University, is significant. On page 60 is told the story of anIrishorphan girl sent to Connecticut, and placed with “an intelligent Christian woman, who means to do right.” On page 63 is told the history of a little boy sent to Michigan, who is well pleased with toys and new clothes, “like all other children; he has a splendid new suit of clothes just got, andhe attends church and Sabbath-school.” A similar case is related at page 65, of a little girl sent to Ohio, and we shall show below what has become of little girls sent to that state. These are some of the model cases of which this unsectarian society makes a boast in its report. It is a significant fact that, of the 8,835 who came under the influences of this society in one year, 3,312 were of Irish birth, and it may be estimated with certainty that a considerable proportion of the other children of foreign, as well as many of home birth were Catholics. The number of children born in Ireland who were sent West during the year was 1,058. This institution received for the furtherance of these unsectarian objects the sum of $66,922.70 in this year from our public funds.

We have also before us the Twentieth Annual Report of the New York Juvenile Asylum, 1871, which proves the proselytizing character of this public-pap-fed unsectarian institution. “The children that are entrusted to us are at themost susceptible period of life,” etc., “when their destiny for time, if notfor eternity, may be fixed” (p. 9). “They must be drilled into systematic habits of life in eating, sleeping, play, study, work, andworship” (p. 10). To “attend church” (p. 21), and “the evening worship,” and religious services generally, are frequently recurring duties of the children. In this institution the children of foreign birth during the year were 3,648, and of these 1,981 were born in Ireland. Of course we cannot say how many of the children of home birth were the children of Irish and Catholic parents. We have, alas! but too much certainty that a large proportion of the children are Catholic. We casually met recently with an interesting proof of this inScribner’s Magazine, November, 1870, in an account given by a visitor to the Juvenile Asylum. In the evening the visitor was invited to see the girls’ dormitory as the girls were going to bed. She writes: “All the children were saying their prayers. I noticed that several of them made the sign of the cross as they rose.” Touching evidence of their traditional faith and parental teaching! a simple but sublime tribute to holy church! an earnest sign of love and hope for those sacraments which came to us through the cross, but which, like that cross itself, were not a part of the religion, worship, and practice of this unsectarian asylum.

In the list of model examples presented in the report of the Western agent will be seen the usual proselytizing influence of such institutions. The cases either show mere material or worldly advantage, or the embrace of pure sectarianism. On page 50 is related the case of a little girl, who “scarcely remembers her parents,” of whom it is related that “she is a member of the Presbyterian Church.” Two other girls are indentured to members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The “church and Sunday-school” are prominent features in nearly every case. The amount received during the year by thisunsectarianinstitution from our public funds was $62,065.24..

The Five Points House of Industry, which received, from 1858 to 1869, the sum of $30,731.69. from our Board of Education, states inits charter, among the objects for which it was incorporated, the following: “III. To imbue the objects of its care with the pure principles of Christianity, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, without bias from the distinctive peculiarities of any individual sect.” This means that the children belonging to distinctive religious denominations, instead of being allowed to follow the distinctive tenets, and practise the worship, in which they were reared, are deprived of this right, and, as respects the Catholic children, they are to reject and exclude every tenet and devotion distinctively Catholic. How far even this profession of unsectarianism is carried into practice will be discovered from theMonthly Recordof the Five Points House of Industry for April and May, 1870, p. 302, giving an account of the dedicatory exercises:

“The services consisted of an opening anthem by the children, followed by a prayer byRev.Dr. Paxton, asking a blessing upon the House and its objects.“This was followed by a hymn; a statement of the affairs of the institution, byRev.S. B. Halliday; a recitative by the children; a statement as to city missions, byRev.G. J. Mingins; a short discourse on the ‘Union of Christian Effort,’ byRev.H. D. Ganse; a discourse on the ‘Lights and Shadows of Large Cities,’ byRev.John Hall, D.D.; and, finally, a roundelay given by the children.”

“The services consisted of an opening anthem by the children, followed by a prayer byRev.Dr. Paxton, asking a blessing upon the House and its objects.

“This was followed by a hymn; a statement of the affairs of the institution, byRev.S. B. Halliday; a recitative by the children; a statement as to city missions, byRev.G. J. Mingins; a short discourse on the ‘Union of Christian Effort,’ byRev.H. D. Ganse; a discourse on the ‘Lights and Shadows of Large Cities,’ byRev.John Hall, D.D.; and, finally, a roundelay given by the children.”

How far the pledge given in the charter of this establishment, “withoutbiasfrom the distinctive peculiarities of any individual sect,” is carried out is further seen from the following extract from a letter addressed by the president to the Rev. John Cotton Smith, a prominent minister of the Episcopalian sect: “Between your church and the institution the most kind and harmoniousco-operationhas ever existed. They will ever cherish a most pleasing remembrance of the relations that have subsisted between them.”[7]

We might have alluded to the “Howard Mission and Home for Little Wanderers,” founded by that arch-proselytizer, the Rev. W. C. Van Meter, which during seven yearsdisposed of7,580 “little wanderers” of this city, in an unsectarian manner; but want of space forbids our doing so. But theanimuspervading this and other unsectarian institutions is exhibited to us now in the fact, that this reverend has transferred the field of his labors from the Five Points to the city of Rome, the centre and headquarters of Catholicity. He has there established a mission and home for the little Romans. We do not stand alone in our opinion that such institutions are nuisances for Catholic children, and we quote the closing words of a letter recently addressed to the Rev. Mr. Van Meter by the editor of theVoce della Verita, at Rome:

“Now, dear sir, excuse me if I remind you, that although a very ignorant person, ‘when I was a little boy,’ I also went to school, and learned a few things about your country. I remember to have heard it said that misery and ignorance abounded there, and that many hundreds of thousands of your compatriots knew of no other God than the almighty dollar. Why do you not go back and teach in Nebraska or Texas, and leave us alone? You might positively do some good there—now you are a—well, let me tell the truth—anuisance. By your homeward voyage, you will benefit both your own country and ours.”[8]

Another complaint that we make against our semi-governmental charities relates to the violation of the rights of parents and children, in the sale of these children at the West. This pernicious practice of exiling and transporting children from New York to the West is still in full vigoramongst these institutions. How can we boast of our charities, when their main feature consists in shifting the burden from our own shoulders to those of others, and they are strangers? It is in vain that we claim these children as the wards andprotégésof society and of our city, if we repudiate the duties and responsibilities of our guardianship. Against this cruelty and injustice we protest in the names of civilization and Christianity. The institutions whose reports we have referred to not only admit, but they boast of this outrage upon the rights of parents and of children. One of them, the Children’s Aid Society, refers to this branch of operations, “its Emigration System,” as the “crown” of all its works. The number of children thus exiled from the state by this society and transported to distant regions, during the year of the report referred to, was 3,386; the whole number since 1854 was 25,215. More than half the 3,386 were sent to Ohio, and to the distant states of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska. Of one little boy thus exiled, who was separated from his parents at the age of eight years, the Western agent reports: “I think his mother would scarcely know him.” He reports that the mistress to whom another was “disposed of” writes of him: “Indeed, I don’t know what I should do without him, for he saves me a great many steps. I wish we could find out about his brother and sister, he often cries about them.”

Exile and transportation of children is also practised by the Five Points House of Industry. They have obtained extraordinary powers for this purpose from the Legislature. For while the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction, a purely governmental institution, possess the power of indenturing children to citizens of the state of New York and adjoining states only, the Five Points House of Industry has received the power to send them anywhere and everywhere. But the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction send the poor children they get into their power to the most remote states in violation of the express law of the case. For instead of confining their indentures to citizens of New York and the adjoining states, as the law directs, they send them indiscriminately to every state, even the most distant. We ask those public servants by what fiction of law they make California and TexasadjoinNew York?

The New York Juvenile Asylum has also a “regular agency at Chicago, by which the work of indenturing children at the West is conducted.”[9]The total number of children sent West during fifteen years, from 1857 to 1871 inclusive, is 2,206, and the annual average, 147-1/15 (p. 47).

The extent to which thiscrowningcruelty of our non-sectarian institutions is carried, is appalling. We have only cited the cases of the three whose reports happened to be before us. But we have been informed, unofficially, and we think the statement can be made good, that there are in the city of New York no less than twenty-eightcharitableinstitutions engaged in this cruel practice of transporting our New York children to the West and other remote parts, and the average number of these little exiles per week is about two hundred, making about ten thousand every year. What untold abuses and hardships must result from this barbarous practice! However noble, generous, and philanthropic may be the motives of the citizen-managersof these institutions, they cannot attend in person to the details or even the general management of their work. Not only are their houses in the city confided to the management of hired and salaried agents and servants, but the work of transporting children to the West is confided generally to the same class of agents, and we intend to show how thischaritablefunction is discharged. They are actuated by no higher motives than usually actuate their class. The love of God, and of man for God’s sake, is not the spirit that inspires their labors and guides their steps. Corruption and infidelity to duty have stalked brazenly into the public service everywhere; what reason have we for claiming an exemption in favor of those who find profitable employment in the administration of public charities?

But, as theChristian Uniondemands further proof than is accessible to the public, we will produce some additional evidence, although we think we have already shown enough to condemn this system; and the tone of that journal’s article leads us to believe that if an angel from heaven disclosed to its view the same corruption and oppression which we see in this branch of public administration, it would still cling to its idols.

Now we have before us a letter, dated September 23, 1872, addressed by a clergyman at Tiffin, Ohio, to a clergyman in the East, from which we quote:

“In answer to your request concerning those children brought on some four or five years ago from the East to be disposed of, I might say with prudence, that to several counties of Ohio had been brought car-loads of children from three years on to twelve and thirteen years old, and offered to thepublicto take one or more; for they who offered the children said those who would take them had to pay the expenses of bringing them to the place. For some children the man said the expense would be fifteen dollars, for others more, others less. This is the way the affair was carried on for some time.”

The gentleman to whom the foregoing letter was addressed, and who sent it to us, gives also his own testimony on this public traffic in innocent human beings. His letter is dated September 25, 1872, and reads as follows:

“At that time,” some four or five years ago, “I was on a trip to Tiffin. Delayed for a short time at Clyde, I asked some questions of the baggage-master. Three little girls were near him, and I asked him: ‘Are these your daughters?’ A. ‘No, I bought them?’ ‘Bought them! how? from whom?’ A. ‘Oh! from the ministers. They bring car-loads of these little ones every few weeks, and sell them to any one who wants them. I gave $10 for this one, $12 for the next, and $15 for the oldest. I had not the money, but I borrowed it from the tavern-keeper, and paid for the girls. Lately there was another load of them. There was a very fine girl. I wanted her. But the minister said, ‘No; I have promised her to a rich man in Forrest, who will pay more than you.’ After some further conversation of a similar character, the train came in sight, and I left. The next day I was speaking of the circumstance at table. Rev. Mr.—— remarked that he knew the baggage-master well, and that what he said was true. He added, ‘Within the last month there was a sale of some thirty of these children in our Court House. One of my parishioners, Mr.——, came along as the sale was about over. A little boy was standing before the Court House crying; the German asked him, ‘What is the matter?’ He said, ‘That man wants to sell me, and no one will buy me.’ The boy was bought by the German for $10. I had heard such transactions described in one of his lectures by F. Haskins. But I scarcely realized how fearful such conduct is until I heard a description of these sales from persons who had seen them.”

Such, indeed, is the “crowning” work of some of the charitable institutionsof New York! Is this the fulfilment of the Gospel of charity, or of the Sermon on the Mount, or of the broad principles of Christianity? Perhaps, rather, it is the Rev. Mr. Pierce’selasticsystem of religion.[10]Compare these humiliating facts with the self-congratulatory reports on “Emigration” of the Children’s Aid Society, which in 1871 sent three hundred and seven of these little wards of the city to the same state of Ohio.[11]At page 10 we read:

“Every year we expect that the opposition of a very bigoted and ignorant class will materially lessen thisthe most effective of our charitable efforts. We have surpassed, however, owing to the energy of our Western agents, the results of every previous equal period, in the labors of the past year.“Crowds of poor boys have thronged the office or have come to the lodging-houses for a ‘chance to go West’; great numbers of very destitute but honest families have appealed to us for this aid, and our agents have frequently conveyed parties of a hundred and more. The West has received these childrenliberallyas before; and there has been less complaint the past year than usual of bad habits and perverse tempers. The larger boys are still restless as ever, and inclined to change their places where higher inducements are offered. But this characteristic they have in common with our whole laboring class.”

“Every year we expect that the opposition of a very bigoted and ignorant class will materially lessen thisthe most effective of our charitable efforts. We have surpassed, however, owing to the energy of our Western agents, the results of every previous equal period, in the labors of the past year.

“Crowds of poor boys have thronged the office or have come to the lodging-houses for a ‘chance to go West’; great numbers of very destitute but honest families have appealed to us for this aid, and our agents have frequently conveyed parties of a hundred and more. The West has received these childrenliberallyas before; and there has been less complaint the past year than usual of bad habits and perverse tempers. The larger boys are still restless as ever, and inclined to change their places where higher inducements are offered. But this characteristic they have in common with our whole laboring class.”

Again:

“Emigration.—This department has worked most successfully the past year. A larger number has been removed from the city than ever before.”

It would seem, however, that the experience of the New York Juvenile Asylum, though still persevering in this traffic as a good work, has not been as satisfactory as that of the Children’s Aid Society. We will give an extract from the Twentieth Annual Report, showing even from the mouths of those who practise it as a good work what a crying evil this is, and confirming the extracts we have given in reference to the sales of children in Ohio:

“Removing and replacing children is one of the important functions of the agency. Our children are first placed on trial, and in nearly every company some have to be replaced over and over again before they are permanently settled. But even after indentures have been executed, newdevelopmentsoften compel removals. Such are the weaknesses of human nature, and such the instability of human affairs, that, without provision to meet the exigencies consequent upon them,cases of extreme hardship and inhumanity would be frequent. They who have not had experience in this kind of work are not apt to realize, and it is often difficult to persuade them of,the imperative need of such provision.Children will not unfrequently get into improper hands in spite of every precaution, and in many cases success is more or less problematical.Death of employers also, and change of circumstances, are often the occasion of removals.Not a month goes by that does not furnish cases where, but for timely attention, suffering, mischief, and irreparable evil would result.A little familiarity with the field work of this agency would convince its most obdurate opponent thatto leave children without recourse among strangers in a strange land is an unjustifiable procedure.”

Apart from the inhumanity of this procedure, from its unchristian character, from its proselytizing effects, we protest against it in the name of law, of right, and of human liberty. The common law of England is our heritage, and by that common law “no power on earth, except the authority of parliament, can send any subject of England out of the land against his will; no, not even a criminal. The great charter declares that no freeman shall be banished unless by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land; and by thehabeas corpusact it is enactedthat no subject of this realm who is an inhabitant of England, Wales, or Berwick shall be sent into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or other places beyond the seas.”[12]Chancellor Kent, in hisCommentaries on American Law(ii. 34), claims the same proud privilege as one of the absolute rights of American citizens, and, while declaring that “no citizen can be sent abroad,” states that the constitutions of several of the states of our confederacy contain express provisions forbidding transportation beyond the state.

We come now to the last and not the least painful task, which theChristian Unioninsists upon our undertaking; it relates to “the horrible abuses existing in some of our state institutions.” And here, as in the preceding remarks, we must confine ourselves to a portion only of the mass of materials before us, and, in fact, confine ourselves to a single institution; for, if such things exist in a single case, this is enough to prove not only the possibility, but also the probability of the same thing in others, and to dispel the fatal blindness which can see nothing defective either in their constitution or management. We must pass over the charges recently preferred against the New York House of Refuge, relating to improper food, of excessive labor, of cruel punishments, employment of unfit and incompetent agents in the management of the institution, and of religious intolerance. While we think that the evidence produced on the trial of the boy, Justus Dunn, for killing one of the officers of the Refuge, goes far to substantiate most of the charges preferred, we have, in common with the community, but little respect for the whitewashing certificate given by the grand-jury, who made a flying visit to the institution, by invitation, on an appointed day. Of course the officers put their house in order, and failed not to put their best foot foremost, on this preconcerted occasion. The managers placed no reliance on this acquittal, for they courted another soon afterwards. The second investigation by the State Commissioners of Charity was very little better; it wasex parteon all the charges except that of religious intolerance, and the Refuge was acquitted on all the charges except this last.

We must also pass over, for want of space, the revolting case which occurred at the New York Juvenile Asylum in June last, in which one of the inmates of the asylum, a colored girl, instead of finding there an asylum from temptation and seduction, fell a victim to the lust of one of the officers of the institution, who fled precipitately on discovery of the fact.[13]We must pass over, for the same reason, the investigations recently conducted at St. Louis, which are far from showing a satisfactory result for the management and conduct of public reformatories. We must confine ourselves now to a single institution—a case in which the evidence is replete with horrible abuses, cruelties, improprieties, and wrongs. While we would be sorry to apply the maxim,ex uno disce omnes, we can but regard this case as a general warning to our people to beware of regarding as good everything in the moral order that goes under the much-abused name ofreform.

The Providence School of Reform is an institution supported by funds received both from the state of Rhode Island and from the city of Providence. Its object seems to be the temporal, social, and moral reformation of juvenile delinquents ofboth sexes. Some time prior to 1869, it had been the subject of the gravest charges and investigation, which tended to show that, so far from having been in all its departments and workings a school of reform, it had in some instances become a school for vice and immorality. The whitewashing process, that facile and amiable way of avoiding disagreeable complications, prevented the accomplishment of any change for the better. But in 1869 the charges against the institution took a more definite form, and were signed and presented by thirty-one citizens of Providence to the corporate authorities—citizens of the first respectability and standing. The Board of Aldermen of the city of Providence, headed by the Mayor, undertook the investigation, and the evidence is contained in two large volumes in one, extending over eleven hundred and forty-two pages.[14]

The charges were the most serious ones that could be brought against an institution, especially against one professingreform, and had their origin with citizens without distinction of creed. Their true character and extent can only be understood by a perusal of them:

“First. That vices against chastity, decency, and good morals have prevailed in the school, and have been taught and practised by teachers as well as by pupils; that these vices have existed both in the male and female departments, and that the children usually leave the school more corrupt than when they entered it.“Second. That teachers have used immodest and disgusting language in the presence of children, and have addressed females in an indecent manner by referring to their past character, and by calling them vile and unbecoming names.“Third. That modes of punishment the most cruel and inhuman have been used in said school, such as knocking down and kicking the pupils, and whipping them when naked, and with a severity not deserved by their offences.“Fourth. That young women are said to have been kicked, knocked down, dragged about by the hair of the head, and otherwise brutally treated, but more especially that all modesty and decency have been outraged by stripping them to the waist and lashing them on the naked back; taking them from their beds and whipping them in their night-dresses; tying their hands and feet and ducking them; and by other forms of punishment which no man should ever inflict upon a woman.“Fifth. That names of children committed to said school have been changed and altered by the officers of the said institution.“Sixth. That children have been apprenticed to persons living in remote sections of the country, and who have no interest in taking proper care of them, and that a needless disregard to the rights and feelings of their parents has often been evinced by the officers of the school.“Seventh. That the goods of said school are reported to have been used dishonestly for purposes for which they were not intended, and that the state of Rhode Island is said to have been charged with the board of children who were living at service and were no expense to said school.“Eighth. That a spirit of proselytism and of religious intolerance has prevailed in the school, as is shown in the fact that children of different creeds are compelled to attend a form of worship which is contrary to the conscientious convictions of a large majority of them; which is directly in conflict with the spirit and letter of our state constitution, which ensures to the inhabitants thereof the liberty of conscience, in the following language: ‘No man shall be compelled to frequent or to support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatever, except in fulfilment of his own voluntary contract;’ and that the children of said school are denied the use of books and all religious instruction in the religion of their choice.”

“First. That vices against chastity, decency, and good morals have prevailed in the school, and have been taught and practised by teachers as well as by pupils; that these vices have existed both in the male and female departments, and that the children usually leave the school more corrupt than when they entered it.

“Second. That teachers have used immodest and disgusting language in the presence of children, and have addressed females in an indecent manner by referring to their past character, and by calling them vile and unbecoming names.

“Third. That modes of punishment the most cruel and inhuman have been used in said school, such as knocking down and kicking the pupils, and whipping them when naked, and with a severity not deserved by their offences.

“Fourth. That young women are said to have been kicked, knocked down, dragged about by the hair of the head, and otherwise brutally treated, but more especially that all modesty and decency have been outraged by stripping them to the waist and lashing them on the naked back; taking them from their beds and whipping them in their night-dresses; tying their hands and feet and ducking them; and by other forms of punishment which no man should ever inflict upon a woman.

“Fifth. That names of children committed to said school have been changed and altered by the officers of the said institution.

“Sixth. That children have been apprenticed to persons living in remote sections of the country, and who have no interest in taking proper care of them, and that a needless disregard to the rights and feelings of their parents has often been evinced by the officers of the school.

“Seventh. That the goods of said school are reported to have been used dishonestly for purposes for which they were not intended, and that the state of Rhode Island is said to have been charged with the board of children who were living at service and were no expense to said school.

“Eighth. That a spirit of proselytism and of religious intolerance has prevailed in the school, as is shown in the fact that children of different creeds are compelled to attend a form of worship which is contrary to the conscientious convictions of a large majority of them; which is directly in conflict with the spirit and letter of our state constitution, which ensures to the inhabitants thereof the liberty of conscience, in the following language: ‘No man shall be compelled to frequent or to support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatever, except in fulfilment of his own voluntary contract;’ and that the children of said school are denied the use of books and all religious instruction in the religion of their choice.”

Although there is evidence in the volume ofInvestigationbefore us tending to sustain the “fifth” and “seventh” charges, we yet exceptthose two charges from our remark, when we say that the other six charges, constituting the gravamen of the prosecution, are not only sustained in whole or in part by nearly one hundred witnesses, but, with all deference to the five aldermen out of ten who found most of themnot proved, we think that no unbiassed reader of the heavily laden and sad volume before us, no true philanthropist, no man of true charity, can fail to pronounce the wordguiltyas to all or some part of every one of the first, second, third, fourth, seventh, and eighth charges. We are sorry to be forced to the conviction that the testimony is overwhelming. There are cases of punishment cruel in the extreme—some have called them inhuman, and even brutal—inflicted on about sixty boys; and, while nearly every page shows this, we refer particularly to pages 112, 123, 172, 234, 238, 274, 279, 280, 281, 289, 290, 295, 318, 364, 366, 375, 379, 383, 387, 388, 402, 403, 410, 414, 416, 419, 421, 425, 432, 437, 440, 446. See evidences more particularly referring to the use of the loaded whip, page 378; the strap, the cat, the strings, 286, 339; the butt, 492; blood drawn, 364, 485; terrorism, 239, 269, 270, 305, 371, 418, 424, 425, 492; whipping little boys over the knuckles with a bunch of keys, 146, 147; kicking, 447, 485, 526, and 323 of vol. ii.; boys struck on the head with a hammer, 331, 379; profanity and indecency, 280, 302, and page 135 of vol. ii.; Catholic books taken away from Catholic children, 308, 309, 310; state of Rhode Island charged with board of children who had been put out of the institution, 307, which was regarded as “an error of the head and not of the heart,” 327 of vol. ii.

There are also detailed in theInvestigationcases of about thirty girls punished in a cruel and revolting manner. For girls lashed, bodies striped and bruised, see pages 18, 19; a girl struck, caught by the throat, pounded, and dragged by the hair of the head, 23; a girl struck with fist, and black eye, 55; a girl stripped to the waist of all her clothes, except undergarment, and whipped with cat-o’-nine-tails, and body marked, 93; another girl dragged by the hair, 95; a girl ducked, 102; a girl boxed until her nose bled, and water dashed on her, 102; a girl chased, kicked, and held under flowing water, 108; a girl dragged by the hair, kicked, and ducked, 219, 220; another girl dragged by the hair and kicked, 228; another lashed black and blue, 229; a girl lashed on the back after she had gone to bed, 338; another girl whipped with the straps, and kicked, 344; another girl stripped to the waist, leaving only undergarment on, and whipped with a knotted strap, 360; a girl ducked, 272. A mother is refused permission to see her child, who was whipped, and refused information as to whither the child was transported. The mother said: “I will travel Rhode Island through, and I will travel Connecticut through, but what I will find her. I have not seen her for the last six or eight years, and a mother’s nature goes beyond any mortal thing in this world. A mother wants to see her child. I could not get anything from them,” 374. Another girl is stripped like the others, and lashed, marked, and scarred on the back, 395. A witness, at page 396, says: “I saw—— stripped with her dress down; she was badly bruised on the shoulder; I did not see any blood, but I saw the bruises were pretty bad bruises; there were scars clear across her shoulders; you could not see scarcely a piece of plainflesh on her shoulders.” At page 443, a former inmate testifies to the treatment received by another inmate: “I saw him shower her and strike her; he knocked her against the building with his fist, and the blood ran out of her nose and ears while she was by the fence, while he stood there punishing her.” At page 454, we read an extract from the testimony of a Mrs. Bishop: “Q. Were you ever kicked or beaten in the school by——? A. Yes, sir. I was punished up-stairs because I could not learn my lesson. I had had no schooling at that time; I could not do much reading; he punished me up-stairs; I told him I could not learn it, unless he could let a girl come up and help me; I was told to kneel down; I looked around, and he kicked me across the aisle; he pulled me by my dress, and kicked me across the aisle, and twice across the room; I was put up-stairs before devotions were to come off; I said I was going to tell my mother; he said I could not see my folks again if I did tell her; he was going to give me two hundred dollars if I had not said anything; I was sick after this kicking; he carried me home himself away from the school; I could not move nor stir; I could not move one eye; I walked on crutches after it; it affects me now; affects my gait, so I can’t walk all the time; I have to hire my work done part the time now; when there comes a storm, I can’t move, I have to sit still in the house; sometimes I have to lie in bed, because it affects me so; I was thirteen years old at that time.” A girl, a new-comer only three days in the school, is ducked, strapped, and locked up two days for laughing in school, p. 629, and further ill-treated, 639. Another girl dragged by the hair, pounded, and dreadfully bruised, 661. Girls ducked and whipped at night, 678. Girls called names of supreme contempt by teachers in allusion to their past lives, 684, 737, and 39, 71, 317, of vol. ii. A girl taken up at night, and whipped in her night-clothes by male officer, 693. A girl is pulled over the desk by the hair, for not singing, 705. A girl is imprisoned and fed on bread and water for twenty-three days, 320 of vol. ii.

For instances of girls whipped on the naked back by men, see pp. 61, 339, 630; girls kicked by men, 318, 328, 345, 348, 354, 360, 631; same proved by defence, 41 of vol. ii.; girls dragged by the hair by men, 231, 347, 348, 636; girls struck with fist by men, 347, 349; black eye given, 350; marks on bodies, 360, 367, 395, 719; girls taunted about their former lives, 86, 96, 100, 397, 687, 737, and 317 of vol. ii.; terrorism, 269, 270, 305, 371, 424, 425, and 41 of vol. ii.; girls ducked by men, 92, 94, 97, 102, and 295 of vol. ii.

The first charge, the most serious that could be brought against a school ofreform—“crimes against chastity, decency, and good morals”—is fearfully sustained. One of the employees, a man of years, who had become notorious for his vulgarity and indecency in both the male and female departments, to both of which he had access, is caughtflagrante delicto. The partner of his sin was one of the female inmates, who was sent there to bereformed, and they were detected by other female inmates of this school of reform (page 75). And again,horribile dictu, ateacherin the same nursery ofreformlived, “month in and month out,” in criminal conversation with one of the inmates of the female department (pages 63, 76), and the appalling fact is again proved by the defence (ii. 322). But, more shocking than all this, notonly were immodest and indecent conversations held by an employee with the boys and girls, but another fiend in the flesh, an officer of the Providence School of Reform, introduced among the boys and taught them habits the most immoral and disgusting, destructive at once of their souls and bodies, of their manhood, and of their temporal and eternal happiness. This fact is proved solely by the defence at page 321 of vol. ii. The offender was dismissed, but the school still exists! Where are Sodom and Gomorrah?

The evidence for the defence consists chiefly of denials andnon-mi-ricordosby the officers and employees; but some of the charges are proved by the defence itself, and some of the most damning evidence against the institution came from this very quarter. The mayor and one of the aldermen declined to take any part in the decision, because they were members of the board of trustees. Three other aldermen refused to sign the decision, and gave decisions of their own, finding portions of the charges true. Five out of ten of the judges sign the decision, which, while finding most of the chargesnot proved, strongly inculpates the institution on several of the charges. In it is stated that two instances have occurred of offences against chastity, decency, and good morals, on the part of officers and female inmates, page 384 of vol. ii.; that knocking down was practised, though alleged to have been in self-defence; and that boys were whipped on the bare back, 384 of vol. ii.; that girls have had their dresses loosened and removed from the upper part of the back and shoulders, leaving only the undergarment on, and thus punished by the (male) superintendent; and in a very few cases during the past nine years, when they have, in violation of the rules of the school, made loud noises and disturbances in the dormitories at night, they have been punished in their night-clothes (by a male officer) in the presence of a female officer, page 385 of vol. ii.; ducking is admitted, page 385.

One of the dissenting aldermen in his decision says: “Being fully aware that the class of inmates sent to this school require a strong and efficient discipline, and not feeling competent to say what that discipline should be, yet I cannot resist the conviction that the punishments described have a tendency todegrade rather than to elevate, not only the one who receives, but the one who administers them.” “I therefore feel bound to protest against such punishments, and earnestly hope that some better mode of discipline will speedily be adopted by the managers of this institution” (p. 394, vol. ii.). The superintendent stated on oath that, in case a child sick andin extremisrequired a Catholic priest to be sent for, he would first go and seek the advice of three or four of the trustees before he would admit, even under such circumstances, a Catholic or any other clergyman; and on this subject the same alderman remarked: “In my view, any superintendent of this institution who would hesitate to allow the consolations of religion to be administered in the form desired by the child, under such circumstances, should be promptly relieved from duty,” page 396 of vol. ii. Another alderman says: “I am of opinion that cruel and unnecessary punishment has been inflicted. I do not suppose that striking with the clenched fist, kicking, or dragging by the hair of the head has been common, but I think it has occurred in some instances,” page 397; and he mentions the case of an “unfortunate girl who seems to have sufferedevery form of discipline known to this school, from beingduckedto being ‘pushed under the table with the foot.’ If it be said she was vile, I would ask how she came to be? She was but six or seven years of age when she entered this institution. No one is wholly bad at that tender age. She remained under its care and influences fornine years, and, if she is vicious and dissolute, why is she so? If, on the other hand, she was insane, is it not painful to reflect that such punishments were inflicted on an irresponsible child?” (p. 399.) One of the trustees actually resigned a year before the investigation, rather than be connected with such scenes; he started an investigation, but it seems to have done no good; and such was the condition of things at the time of this first investigation that the assistant superintendent offered to give one hundred dollars to a friend to shield him from being called as a witness.

The religious instruction given in this institution isof courseunsectarian; everything distinctively Episcopalian is denied to Episcopalian children, everything distinctively Baptist is denied to Baptist children, everything distinctively Methodist is denied to Methodist children, everything distinctly Presbyterian is denied to Presbyterian children, and everything distinctly Catholic is denied to Catholic children. Nothing whatever is said tending “to keep children in the faith to which they belonged when they entered the school.” “Q. Does not the system of religious instruction tend to bring the children to that form of religion which gives to each person the private judgment and interpretation of the Scriptures? A. We hope it tends to make them better. Q. Does it not tend to have them choose their own Bible and their own interpretation of it as the source and principle of religion? A. I should hope that it tends to have them accept the Bible. Q. Do you teach them the doctrine of the private interpretation of the Scripture? A. No, sir, not at all. Q. As I understand it, all the religious instruction they get is simply reading from the Bible, and no interpretation. They can interpret it just as they please. A. They can interpret it just as they please. Sometimes one speaker comes, and sometimes another” (page 234, vol. ii.) ... “Q. Now state the afternoon services on Sunday? A. One of the trustees (they all alternate except the mayor) procures a speaker for Sunday afternoon to address the scholars. Q. Of what class are those speakers—of any particular or of all classes? A. Since I have been there, I think every denomination has been represented or been invited to speak? Q. Are they particularly members of churches, or laymen, lawyers, doctors, or anybody who will give a moral address to the children? A. I could not speak with certainty of the professions. We often have clergymen, perhaps oftener than any other class, but not unfrequently men of other professions, and many times those following no profession to speak in connection with others. We often have more than one speaker—sometimes half a dozen. Q. These are business men of the city? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you have lawyers sometimes? A. I think all professions are represented. Q. Do you have ministers if you can get them? A. Yes, sir.” And yet in this unsectarianism the most direct sectarianism prevailed. “Q. Do you know what version of the Bible is used? A. It is the common English translation. Q. (By the mayor) It is the ordinary Bible, is it not? A. Yes, sir. (By Mr. Gorman)TheDouayis the ordinary one. (By Mr.——) We call that anextraordinaryone” (page 62, vol. ii.).

Now, we have the Bible without comment, but ministers, lawyers, doctors, and business men are called in every Sunday, sometimes half a dozen at one time, to give the comments, each according to his own view. Every religious denomination was invited, but it does not appear that any Catholic ever accepted the invitation; for, if he accepted, he would leave his Catholicity outside until he finished his unsectarian discourse. There may be something in common with all the sects which sometimes may be called general Protestantism, though they profess to call it unsectarianism; but one thing we know is common to them all, and this something is opposition to Catholicity, and the dodge of unsectarianism is adroitly invented in order to exclude Catholics from enjoying equal rights with Protestants in matters relating to public education and public charities. The state must let religion alone, and unsectarians must desist from their disguised effort to unite church and state in this country, while it has so strenuously opposed their union in every Catholic country. They know that Catholics can take no part in unsectarian teachings, but they would like us to do so, for in proportion as we did so would we cease to be Catholics. The Catholic view was so admirably expressed by the late Bishop Fitzpatrick, of Boston, in his letter in the Eliot School difficulty, that we must give it to our readers:

“I. Catholics cannot, under any circumstances, acknowledge, receive, and use, as a complete collection and faithful version of the inspired books which compose the written Word of God, the English Protestant translation of the Bible. Still less can they so acknowledge, accept, or use it, when its enforcement as such is coupled expressly with the rejection of that version which their own church approves and adopts as being correct and authentic; and yet this is required of them by law. The law, as administered, holds forth the Protestant version to the Catholic child, and says, ‘Receive this as the Bible.’ The Catholic child answers, ‘I cannot so receive it.’ The law, as administered, says you must, or else you must be scourged and finally banished from the school.“II. The acceptance and recital of the Decalogue, under the form and words in which Protestants clothe it, is offensive to the conscience and belief of Catholics, inasmuch as that form and those words are viewed by them, and have not unfrequently been used by their adversaries, as a means of attack upon certain tenets and practices which, under the teachings of the church, they hold as true and sacred.“III. The chanting of the Lord’s Prayer, of psalms, of hymns addressed to God, performed by many persons in unison, being neither a scholastic exercise nor a recreation, can only be regarded as an act of public worship—indeed, it is professedly intended as such in the regulations which govern our public schools. It would seem that the principles which guide Protestants and Catholics, in relation to communion in public worship, are widely different. Protestants, however diverse may be their religious opinions—Trinitarians, who assert that Jesus Christ is true God, and Unitarians, who deny he is true God—find no difficulty to offer in brotherhood a blended and apparently harmonious worship, and in so doing they give and receive mutual satisfaction, mutual edification. The Catholic cannot act in this manner. He cannot present himself before the Divine presence in what would be for him a merely simulated union of prayer and adoration. His church expressly forbids him to do so. She considers indifference in matters of religion, indifference as to the distinction of positive doctrines in faith, as a great evil which promiscuous worship would tend to spread more widely and increase. Hence the prohibition of such worship; and the Catholic cannot join in it without doing violence to his sense of religious duty.”

“I. Catholics cannot, under any circumstances, acknowledge, receive, and use, as a complete collection and faithful version of the inspired books which compose the written Word of God, the English Protestant translation of the Bible. Still less can they so acknowledge, accept, or use it, when its enforcement as such is coupled expressly with the rejection of that version which their own church approves and adopts as being correct and authentic; and yet this is required of them by law. The law, as administered, holds forth the Protestant version to the Catholic child, and says, ‘Receive this as the Bible.’ The Catholic child answers, ‘I cannot so receive it.’ The law, as administered, says you must, or else you must be scourged and finally banished from the school.

“II. The acceptance and recital of the Decalogue, under the form and words in which Protestants clothe it, is offensive to the conscience and belief of Catholics, inasmuch as that form and those words are viewed by them, and have not unfrequently been used by their adversaries, as a means of attack upon certain tenets and practices which, under the teachings of the church, they hold as true and sacred.

“III. The chanting of the Lord’s Prayer, of psalms, of hymns addressed to God, performed by many persons in unison, being neither a scholastic exercise nor a recreation, can only be regarded as an act of public worship—indeed, it is professedly intended as such in the regulations which govern our public schools. It would seem that the principles which guide Protestants and Catholics, in relation to communion in public worship, are widely different. Protestants, however diverse may be their religious opinions—Trinitarians, who assert that Jesus Christ is true God, and Unitarians, who deny he is true God—find no difficulty to offer in brotherhood a blended and apparently harmonious worship, and in so doing they give and receive mutual satisfaction, mutual edification. The Catholic cannot act in this manner. He cannot present himself before the Divine presence in what would be for him a merely simulated union of prayer and adoration. His church expressly forbids him to do so. She considers indifference in matters of religion, indifference as to the distinction of positive doctrines in faith, as a great evil which promiscuous worship would tend to spread more widely and increase. Hence the prohibition of such worship; and the Catholic cannot join in it without doing violence to his sense of religious duty.”

Non-sectarianism is the plea uponwhich those public institutions justify their interference with the religious rights of their inmates. They argue that, because this system is acceptable to Protestants of every sect, therefore it must be acceptable to Catholics. Whereas, on the contrary, what is called unsectarianism is the concentration of sectarianism. Unsectarianism is made up of all those points upon which the sects concur, and is therefore pre-eminently sectarian. It is either that or simple deism; for if you take away the distinctive tenets of Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and of all the distinct sects, there remains nothing but deism. This involves, and will inevitably lead to, the denial of revelation; and the very Scriptures themselves, which Protestantism claims as the sole source of religious teaching, must and will inevitably, if non-sectarianism long prevails, be cast away. Is the teaching of deism alone inoffensive to Christians? The teaching of a few points, even if agreed upon by all, would be, on account of its exclusiveness, as sectarian as any other religious system—indeed more so; and is subject to an objection not applicable to the others, in that it conceals its true nature, and assumes a false name: whereas the Catholic Church and the avowed sects proclaim their distinctive and exclusive character, and in this at least are truthful and honest. If religious teaching resolves itself into latitudinarianism, it then constitutes a new sect in itself. A perfect neutrality, as long as anything positive is taught, is an impossibility. This very selection, which makes up this professed unsectarianism, is an anti-Catholic principle. It proclaims the right of man to determine all things in religion by his own private judgment, and in this consists the distinctive feature of Protestantism.

We have thus shown that non-sectarianism, as a system of religious teaching, is an impossibility. We now propose to show that in our schools, asylums, reformatories, etc., it is in practice, as well as in theory, an impossibility. We will show this, too, by Protestant and unsectarian authority. At p. 264, vol. ii.,Providence Reform School Investigation, we read from the testimony of a Protestant Episcopal trustee, who resigned on account, in part, of this impossibility:

“Q. Didn’t you know that no sectarian instruction was admitted inside that institution? A. I don’t know what you call sectarianism. It is pretty hard to say down in that school. We have had everything taught and preached there. Q. Was not this an Episcopal book? A. It was a book of devotions and prayers—a work by a divine of the English Church. It was an Episcopal book. Q. Do you mean to say that a book of Episcopal exercises is or is not a sectarian work? A. I am a member of the Episcopal Church; we do not call ourselves a sect. Q. Didn’t you know at the time you gave this book to the teacher that it was against the rules of the school to have the doctrines of the true church given out there, or of any church? A. I had never supposed it was against the rules of that institution, and I should have been unwilling to have sat for one hour as its trustee if I had supposed that I was myself forbidden to pray, or to advise others to pray there, through Jesus Christ, our Lord; and if the prayers I indicated, marked, and numbered in that book are prayers forbidden in the Providence Reform School or any other school, I have for the first time to learn what is sectarianism. They are prayers which every Christian, whether he belongs to any one of the various organizations of Christians in this or any other country or not, would, I think, be willing to use morning, noon, and night. Q. Didn’t you know that the by-laws place religious instruction exclusively under the care of the superintendent of the school” [who is a layman]?

The Hon. John C. Spencer, Secretaryof State and Superintendent of Schools in 1840, said in his report to the New York Legislature: “There must be some degree of religious instruction, and there can benonewithout partaking more or less of asectarian character.The objection itself proceeds from a sectarian principle, and assumes the power to control that which it is neither right nor practicable to subject to any denomination. Religious doctrines of vital interest will be inculcated.”

Another who has discussed this question of sectarianism with force and great plainness of speech is the Rev. Dr. Spear, of Brooklyn, in the columns of theIndependent, thus:

“It is quite true that the Bible, as the foundation of religious belief, is not sectarian as between those who adopt it; but it is true that King James’ Version of the Holy Scriptures is sectarian as to the Catholic, as the Douay is to the Protestant, or as the Baptist Version would be to all Protestants but Baptists. It is equally true that the New Testament is sectarian as to the Jew, and the whole Bible is equally so as to those who reject its authority in any version.... There is no sense or candor in a mere play on words here. It is not decent in a Protestant ecclesiastic, who has no more rights than the humblest Jew, virtually to say to the latter: ‘You are nothing but a good-for-nothing Jew; you Jews have no claim to be regarded as a religious sect, or included in the law of state impartiality as between sects which Protestants monopolize for their special benefit. Away with your Jewish consciences! You pay your tax bills, and send your children to the public schools, and we will attend to theirChristianeducation.’ It is not decent to say this to any class of citizens who dissent from what is known as Protestant Christianity. It is simply a supercilious pomposity of which Protestants ought to be ashamed. It may please the bigotry it expresses, but a sensible man must either pity or despise it. In the name of justice we protest against this summary mode of disposing of the school question in respect to any class of American citizens. It is simply an insult.”

Again, Dr. Anderson, President of the Rochester University, one of the first men in the Baptist Church in these United States, addressing the Baptist Educational Convention in the city of New York, says:

“It is impossible for an earnest teacher to avoid giving out constantly religious and moral impulses and thought. He must of necessity set forth his notions about God, the soul, conscience, sin, the future life, and Divine Revelation.“If he promises not to do so, he will fail to keep his word”—these are true words—“or his teachings in science, or literature, or history will be miserably shallow and inadequate. Our notions of God and the moral order form, in spite of ourselves, the base line which affects all our movements and constructions of science, literature, and history. Inductions in physics, classifications in natural history, necessitate a living law eternal in the thought of God.”

“It is impossible for an earnest teacher to avoid giving out constantly religious and moral impulses and thought. He must of necessity set forth his notions about God, the soul, conscience, sin, the future life, and Divine Revelation.

“If he promises not to do so, he will fail to keep his word”—these are true words—“or his teachings in science, or literature, or history will be miserably shallow and inadequate. Our notions of God and the moral order form, in spite of ourselves, the base line which affects all our movements and constructions of science, literature, and history. Inductions in physics, classifications in natural history, necessitate a living law eternal in the thought of God.”

These gentlemen speak of religious instruction, only inasmuch as it is connected with the education of youth, and yet their logical minds showed them the absurdity of unsectarianism. What, then, could they have said of visionary men attempting direct teaching of religion without sectarianism?

The following extract is too pertinent to our subject and too clever to be omitted, as an illustration of the impossibility of teaching religion upon the unsectarian system:

“UNSECTARIANISM.”

SOME OF THE DIFFICULTIES OF A TEACHER IN A MIXED SCHOOL.

(From the New Orleans Morning Star.)

We find the following in our San Francisco contemporary, thePacific Churchman, taken originally from theLondon Church Review, an organ of the Church of England. The editor of theChurchmanremarks that “with some changes it will equally apply to some of ourun-sectarian schools.” As far as theChurchmangoes againstun-sectarian schools in this country, we are with it. This seemsto be one scene taken from others. Considering that it conveys a good argument for us, our readers will excuse the term “Romanism,” thrown in as a reproach. We quote:The schoolroom of a boarding-school. Time, the hour of religious instruction. Bible to be read and explained without inculcating the dogmas of any particular denomination. Teacher certificated, unsectarian, highly conscientious. Class consisting of children from thirteen down to six or seven, and of various grades, from respectable poor to gutter children. Schoolroom and teacher span new. Teacher a little nervous. Children—some looking curiously about them, some disposed to loll and idle, some attentive. Teacher opens the great Bible, and begins to read St. Matthew ii., as being a narrative likely to interest the auditory, and easy to explain in an undenominational sense. First, however, a little preliminary explanation is necessary.Teacher.You must know, my dear children, that Joseph and Mary were two very good people who lived a very great many years ago in a country far away from London, and I am going to read to you about them and their son (reads slowly verse 1. of the chapter).Ragged Arab(not accustomed to observe much ceremony). Please, sir, who’s that?Teacher(aghast, and wishing to gain time). Whom do you mean, my boy?Arab.That there Jesus.Teacher(aside). [How can this question be answered in an undenominational sense? This is the religious difficulty, full blown. If I say “a good man,” that will hardly do, for I know several of the boys are the children of the church people and Romanists; and if I say “the son of God,” that won’t do, for Tommy Markham is a Unitarian, or, at any rate, his parents are; besides, such a dogmatic statement is sectarian.] (Aloud.) I will explain all about him when I have finished the chapter.Continues to read. The class listens with various degrees of attention until the 11th verse is finished, and then—A Boy.Please, sir, who’s Mary? The mother of the little baby, wasn’t she?Teacher.Yes; she was his mother.Boy.Oh! and what does “wusshupped” mean?Teacher.It means paying great respect, kneeling down and bowing, as we should to God.Another Boy(better taught than boy No. 1, and jumping at once to a sectarian conclusion). Then, that there baby was God, sir?Tommy Markham(stoutly). No, that he wasn’t!Teacher.Silence, boys, the lesson cannot go on if you talk and quarrel. (Struck by a bright idea.) You know that a great many people believe that he was God; but some do not; but we must not quarrel because we do not all think alike.First Boy(disagreeably curious). Well, but what doyouthink, master?[Terrible dilemma! Teacher hesitates. At length, desperately]—Ithink he was God.Boy.Don’t yerknowit?Teacher(aside). [Perverse youth. Pest take his questions and him too! If I’d known what “unsectarian” teaching involved, I’d sooner have swept a crossing. Whatwillthe Board say? Why, the very essence of our principle is toknownothing and think anything. But you can’t make the boys reason.] (Aloud.) My dear boy, it is very difficult to say what we know. I can only teach you what I think, and teach you how to be good and do what is right, and obey all that God tells you to do in this Holy Book.A Boy(interrupting,sans cérémonie). Did God write that there book?Teacher.Yes; and he tells us what we are to do to get to heaven; and his son came, as you see, as a little child, and when he grew up, he preached and told us how we ought to love one another, and all we ought to do to lead a good life.Boy(interested). And was he averygood chap?Teacher(a little shocked). Yes, of course; you know he was—[pauses; his haste had almost betrayed him into a dogmatic explanation, and the forbidden word “know” had actually passed his lips].Another Boy(with vexatiously retentive memory). You said afore, master, that he was God, and the gentlemen wusshupped him—was hereellyGod?Teacher(boldly, taking the bull by the horns). Yes.Boy.And did God’s mother wusshup him too, master?Teacher.You must not call her themother of—[interrupts himself; recollects that it is as sectarian to deny to the Blessed Virgin the title of Mother of God as to bestow it upon her; continues]: yes, she worshipped him too; but I want you to learn about the things that he told us to do.Another Boy(doggedly). But we wants to know fust who he be, ‘cause we ain’t to do jist what a nobody tells us; only, if that there gentlemen be God, there’s somethin’ in it, ‘cause I’ve ‘eard parson say, at old school, where I was once, that what God said was all right.Teacher(aside). [Certainly that poor Arab has got the root of denominational education. It is, I begin to think, a failure to attempt the teaching of morality without first making manifest what that morality is based upon, and the moment you come tothatyou are in for denominationalism at once. (Wipes his brow and continues)—Of course, my boy, you must know why it is right to tell the truth and do what is right, but then if I tell you God commanded all this and read to you what his Son said about it, there is no need for troubling so much about—about—Boy(interrupting). Oh! but I likes to ax questions, and it ain’t no sort of use you telling us it’s wrong to lie—nobody at ‘ome ever told methat—if yer don’t say who said it, ‘cause I ain’t bound to mind whatyousay, is I?[Teacherchecks the indignant “Indeed you are” that rises to his lips, arrested by the terrible and conscientious thought whether it be not a new and strange form of denominationalism for the teacher to make his own dictum infallible in matters of morality. Would not this be to elevate into a living, personal dogma an unsectarian teacher?—a singular clash, surely. Teacher shivers at the bare idea. Soliloquizes: How can I meet this knock-down reasoning? These Arabs are so rebellious, so perverse; why must they ask so many questions, and require to know the why and wherefore of everything? (Glances at the clock.) Ah! thank my stars, the time is almost up! but this dodge won’t do every time. I’m afraid I shall have to give up the whole thing as a bad job.] (Aloud.) We have only five minutes more to-day, lads, so you must let me finish the chapter without asking any more questions.(Boys relapse into indifferent silence. Curtain falls.)

We find the following in our San Francisco contemporary, thePacific Churchman, taken originally from theLondon Church Review, an organ of the Church of England. The editor of theChurchmanremarks that “with some changes it will equally apply to some of ourun-sectarian schools.” As far as theChurchmangoes againstun-sectarian schools in this country, we are with it. This seemsto be one scene taken from others. Considering that it conveys a good argument for us, our readers will excuse the term “Romanism,” thrown in as a reproach. We quote:

The schoolroom of a boarding-school. Time, the hour of religious instruction. Bible to be read and explained without inculcating the dogmas of any particular denomination. Teacher certificated, unsectarian, highly conscientious. Class consisting of children from thirteen down to six or seven, and of various grades, from respectable poor to gutter children. Schoolroom and teacher span new. Teacher a little nervous. Children—some looking curiously about them, some disposed to loll and idle, some attentive. Teacher opens the great Bible, and begins to read St. Matthew ii., as being a narrative likely to interest the auditory, and easy to explain in an undenominational sense. First, however, a little preliminary explanation is necessary.

Teacher.You must know, my dear children, that Joseph and Mary were two very good people who lived a very great many years ago in a country far away from London, and I am going to read to you about them and their son (reads slowly verse 1. of the chapter).

Ragged Arab(not accustomed to observe much ceremony). Please, sir, who’s that?

Teacher(aghast, and wishing to gain time). Whom do you mean, my boy?

Arab.That there Jesus.

Teacher(aside). [How can this question be answered in an undenominational sense? This is the religious difficulty, full blown. If I say “a good man,” that will hardly do, for I know several of the boys are the children of the church people and Romanists; and if I say “the son of God,” that won’t do, for Tommy Markham is a Unitarian, or, at any rate, his parents are; besides, such a dogmatic statement is sectarian.] (Aloud.) I will explain all about him when I have finished the chapter.

Continues to read. The class listens with various degrees of attention until the 11th verse is finished, and then—

A Boy.Please, sir, who’s Mary? The mother of the little baby, wasn’t she?

Teacher.Yes; she was his mother.

Boy.Oh! and what does “wusshupped” mean?

Teacher.It means paying great respect, kneeling down and bowing, as we should to God.

Another Boy(better taught than boy No. 1, and jumping at once to a sectarian conclusion). Then, that there baby was God, sir?

Tommy Markham(stoutly). No, that he wasn’t!

Teacher.Silence, boys, the lesson cannot go on if you talk and quarrel. (Struck by a bright idea.) You know that a great many people believe that he was God; but some do not; but we must not quarrel because we do not all think alike.

First Boy(disagreeably curious). Well, but what doyouthink, master?

[Terrible dilemma! Teacher hesitates. At length, desperately]—

Ithink he was God.

Boy.Don’t yerknowit?

Teacher(aside). [Perverse youth. Pest take his questions and him too! If I’d known what “unsectarian” teaching involved, I’d sooner have swept a crossing. Whatwillthe Board say? Why, the very essence of our principle is toknownothing and think anything. But you can’t make the boys reason.] (Aloud.) My dear boy, it is very difficult to say what we know. I can only teach you what I think, and teach you how to be good and do what is right, and obey all that God tells you to do in this Holy Book.

A Boy(interrupting,sans cérémonie). Did God write that there book?

Teacher.Yes; and he tells us what we are to do to get to heaven; and his son came, as you see, as a little child, and when he grew up, he preached and told us how we ought to love one another, and all we ought to do to lead a good life.

Boy(interested). And was he averygood chap?

Teacher(a little shocked). Yes, of course; you know he was—[pauses; his haste had almost betrayed him into a dogmatic explanation, and the forbidden word “know” had actually passed his lips].

Another Boy(with vexatiously retentive memory). You said afore, master, that he was God, and the gentlemen wusshupped him—was hereellyGod?

Teacher(boldly, taking the bull by the horns). Yes.

Boy.And did God’s mother wusshup him too, master?

Teacher.You must not call her themother of—[interrupts himself; recollects that it is as sectarian to deny to the Blessed Virgin the title of Mother of God as to bestow it upon her; continues]: yes, she worshipped him too; but I want you to learn about the things that he told us to do.

Another Boy(doggedly). But we wants to know fust who he be, ‘cause we ain’t to do jist what a nobody tells us; only, if that there gentlemen be God, there’s somethin’ in it, ‘cause I’ve ‘eard parson say, at old school, where I was once, that what God said was all right.

Teacher(aside). [Certainly that poor Arab has got the root of denominational education. It is, I begin to think, a failure to attempt the teaching of morality without first making manifest what that morality is based upon, and the moment you come tothatyou are in for denominationalism at once. (Wipes his brow and continues)—

Of course, my boy, you must know why it is right to tell the truth and do what is right, but then if I tell you God commanded all this and read to you what his Son said about it, there is no need for troubling so much about—about—

Boy(interrupting). Oh! but I likes to ax questions, and it ain’t no sort of use you telling us it’s wrong to lie—nobody at ‘ome ever told methat—if yer don’t say who said it, ‘cause I ain’t bound to mind whatyousay, is I?

[Teacherchecks the indignant “Indeed you are” that rises to his lips, arrested by the terrible and conscientious thought whether it be not a new and strange form of denominationalism for the teacher to make his own dictum infallible in matters of morality. Would not this be to elevate into a living, personal dogma an unsectarian teacher?—a singular clash, surely. Teacher shivers at the bare idea. Soliloquizes: How can I meet this knock-down reasoning? These Arabs are so rebellious, so perverse; why must they ask so many questions, and require to know the why and wherefore of everything? (Glances at the clock.) Ah! thank my stars, the time is almost up! but this dodge won’t do every time. I’m afraid I shall have to give up the whole thing as a bad job.] (Aloud.) We have only five minutes more to-day, lads, so you must let me finish the chapter without asking any more questions.

(Boys relapse into indifferent silence. Curtain falls.)

In conclusion, we insist that the state shall obey its own constitution, and let religion alone. In purely state institutions, the consciences must be left free, and no experiments with religion can be tried. Every child in such institutions must enjoy liberty of conscience and free access to its own ministers and sacraments.

If any sect undertakes to help the state to do its work, by establishing reformatories, protectories, and asylums for its own children, excluding all other religions and the children of other religions, we shall not object to its receiving a justper capitafrom the state; and under this system we claim the same and no more for purely Catholic institutions doing the work of the state in respect to Catholic children. If, however, sectarian, unsectarian, or non-Catholic institutions receive support from the state, and receive the children of the Catholic Church and of other persuasions, they must be conducted upon the same principle with state institutions, and in them “no law respecting the establishment of a religion” must be made or enforced, but the most perfect liberty of conscience must prevail. We ask no special favors for ourselves or our church; all we claim is perfect equality before the law and the state, and the full benefit of that fair play which we extend to others.

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