It is unnecessary to state the number of schools established by Catholics in the United States, which have been placed under the control of the Jesuits; neither is it necessary to trace the attempts which have been made by the papacy, at irregular periods in our history, to obtain the control of our public school system. The affairs at Stillwater, Minn., and at Farabault, in the same State, while unsuccessful, were weather vanes showing the direction of the wind,—were posers to test the public pulse, and just so surely show the policy of the papacy in educational matters. Of far greater importance to us as Protestants is the fact that _Jesuitical principles may and do prevail in our popular system of education_, and these principles, whether carried out by Jesuits, or by the ordinary teacher who is unconscious of her situation, and unmindful of the result of her methods, bring about the fall of Protestantism and republicanism. Our nation has repudiated her foundation principles; are our Protestant churches doing likewise? The history of the educational institutions of the United States, which are discussed in the next chapters, will show how the plan of work now followed in our universities, colleges, and schools of lower grades, are patterning after Sturm, and how they go farther back, connecting the twentieth century with the scholasticism of the Middle Ages. It is without the slightest feelings of animosity toward the Jesuits or the papacy that these facts are traced. These both do for their cause what will best serve to upbuild it. Their methods, in so far as they accomplish their desired end, are to be commended, and their zeal is ever to be admired. [Sidenote: An educational question for Protestants] The one problem for Protestants to solve is whether to accept Jesuitical, papal education, and thus become papal, forming “an image to the Beast,”—to use the language of the Apocalypse,—or whether they will follow the principles of Christian education, and remain true to the name PROTESTANT. Let the reader forget the names; but let him remember that there are but two _principles_ in the world, when the standard of eternal truth is recognized; one exalts Christ, and gives life everlasting; the other exalts man, and its life is for this world alone. Education according to the second does, in its methods, dwarf, enfeeble, and belittle. It puts stress upon the unimportant, and passes by truth without a glance. It prepares the mind for absolutism both in government and religion. Education according to the first will be based upon methods which develop, in every particular, the human being. It is a mental, moral, and physical education, and its object is so to educate that eventually each of these three natures will assume the right relation to the other two, and again, as on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Son of God, “divinity within will flash forth to meet divinity without.” XIV AMERICA AND THE EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM