"Pope Pius IX said, 'Education outside the Catholic Church is damnable heresy.' Cardinal Gibbons refers to our system of public schools as 'A vicious system of education that undermines the religion of youth.' Cardinal McCrosky says, 'We must take part in the elections, move in solid masses in every state, against the party pledged to sustain the integrity of the public schools.' I do not think it's necessary to quote more of the statements of your leaders. Do you wonder that some of us believe that the public schools would not fare well in the hands of Catholics?" "Reverend Benton, I do not wonder at it. I think you have reasonable grounds for your suspicions, but what I think these men mean is that parochial schools under the supervision of the Catholic Church would be a better system. Personally, I do not agree with them." "Nor can any other man who knows the facts. In Italy, which has been the home of the Papacy since the fourth century, 37 per cent of the population is illiterate, and America, with her free public schools, has only 7.7 per cent. Spain, the most Catholic country in the world, has 58 per cent of her population illiterate, while Protestant England has only 1 per cent. These show a fair average of the difference of illiteracy in Catholic and Protestant countries." "I suppose these church leaders are thinking of the spiritual and character side rather than the intellectual." "Do you suppose the citizens of these Catholic countries, with their high per cent of illiteracy, are more kind, honest, industrious, and law-abiding than the people of the Protestant nations, where there is a lower per cent of illiteracy?" "No, I don't think they are. Understand, Reverend Benton, I am for the public school system." "I am sure you are, as you have always shown yourself to be a progressive citizen." "I thank you for the ride home," said the minister as he got out of the car. Agnew drove away thinking as he had never thought before. Chapter XVIII "Ruth, I am surprised at you! What did you mean by publishing that affidavit?" asked Stover the next morning after her affidavit appeared in the paper. "I meant just what my statement said," she replied. "Didn't you know that you were doing a very wrong thing?" "I just did it for fun. I did not think that it might injure the Ku Klux Klan." "I don't care how much it injured the Ku Klux Klan; it deserves all the criticism it gets. What I dislike about it is that it causes comment about one of my employees and subjects my friend Springer to ridicule." "Oh," she said, laughing, "I'm not shedding any tears over Springer. He should be a little more accurate in his reports. If he had reported the incident accurately and without prejudice he would not have been embarrassed by the exposure." "Don't let anything like that happen again around here." "I promise you I'll not."