Two recent stories — the President’s embarrassing denunciation of religious education in Ireland and, more locally, a New Hampshire Superior Court Judge’s ruling against educational choice in the Granite State — reminded me of the fact that there has long been something of a tension between those who advocate publicly-funded government education and religious persons.
In this country, it goes back to the nineteenth century.
The wonderful book, The Public School System, by Father Michael Mueller, has been out of print for more than 100 years now, but the complete text is now available on line. It was published in about 1872 and, offers the insights of an heroic Catholic priest on the status quo of public education in those times. The book has many eye-openers. For instance, if you think the abortion problem in America is something recent, you will be shocked by what Father Mueller describes in chapter VI.
Archive.org includes the actual scanned pages from the book.
Father Mueller was one of the most powerful and influential American Catholic writers in the 19th century. He was an apologist, controversialist, and missionary who wrote many excellent books, only a few of which are available. You can purchase several of those books from our online store, and you can read a biographical article on him on this site.
