Though the Catholic Church and her children are so anxious for the progress of knowledge, and have made such sacrifices for the civilization and enlightenment of the world, yet they do not indiscriminately approve of every system of education. Every one knows how much is done in our days, by the enemies of religion, to poison the sources of knowledge, and to undermine religion, under the pretext of promoting the liberal arts and sciences. In order to give a proper impulse to study, by securing protection for it, some insist that the full control of public instruction should be given to the government of each country, to be carried on by Ministers of State, or public boards; others attach so much importance to the development of the intellectual faculties, that they call for compulsory and gratuitous education, in order to give a great degree of culture to all classes; and others, in fine, demand an unsectarian education, pretending that God should be banished from the school, and children brought up without being subjected to any religious influences. The Catholic Church and her pastors, being charged to feed the flock of Christ with the food of truth and life, and to preserve the lambs of the fold from the contagion of error, cannot approve such systems, which seem to have been invented by the fashion of the day, a desire of innovation, or a spirit of hostility to religion. It was to His Church, and not to the State, that Jesus Christ gave the command, "Go and teach all nations."--(Matt. xxviii.) "As the Father hath sent Me, so do I send you also."--(John xx.) "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep."--(John xxi.) The office of the Church is to teach and sanctify all men. She receives the child on its first entrance into the world, and, by means of holy baptism, makes it a child of God. Like her Divine Bridegroom, she says: "Suffer the little children to come to me."