Catholics, and others not Catholics, do deny that "the state" is the best educator, to the exclusion of the church; and they do their best to maintain the rights of minorities as against the tyranny of majorities.
There are certain words and phrases used in this "Document No. 4" which we do not altogether like; as, for instance: "The state a better educator than the church"; for, in the light of certain events not long since occurring here and in Washington, "the state" has come to be used, and perhaps understood, in a sense of which we are somewhat suspicious. The doctrine of "centralization" is slowly becoming something more than _theory_ with a certain class of politicians and office-holders; and the words, "the state," the "civil authorities," and the "government," are beginning to have an ominous ring in our ears.
To be sure, when we are told, in a somewhat dogmatic way, that "the state is a better educator than the church," we _may_ infer from the text illustrating the dogma (page 8, Document No. 4) that in this connection the state is manifest in the persons of the public-school authorities, and that _they_ are a power in opposition to "a sect" or to "sects." And when our public schools are "open alike to youth of all classes," of all creeds, and Catholics are fairly represented among "school authorities," and are allowed an equal voice in direction and control, and in the choice of teachers--in short, when they have their rights as component parts and members of "the state," we shall probably hear no more about this "war upon the public schools," but until then probably this clamor for their rights will still be heard.
All this talk, however, about secularizing education means nothing more nor less than the divorcement of religion from all public education; and it remains to be seen how far the descendants and the heirs of that people who asserted that liberty of conscience and freedom to worship God (even in the school-room) meant something, and are paramount, will tolerate this "new departure."
The Catholic barons of England wrung from King John at Runnymede the famous _Magna Charta_, and the Catholic settlers of Maryland gave the first constitution recognizing equal rights for all men; and the "Church of Rome," as a British Presbyterian writer has said, "has always been an 'independent, distinct, and often opposing power'; and that civil liberty is closely connected with religious liberty--with the church being independent of the state." Every school-boy might and ought to be taught these and other like facts, for history mentions them; and the assailants of the Catholic Church ought to be ashamed to ignore or deny them. And yet such ignorance and such denials are the capital in trade of the bigots and the fanatics who fear and affect to see in the spread of Catholicism a menace to our liberties.