And after all, the principal object for getting up Catholic schools is not to show off their superiority to, or their equality with, infidel schools--this is not even a secondary end--we want Catholic schools to preserve our Catholic religion, our Catholic traditions, our Catholic spirit and morals; we want them to raise in them children for heaven, not for hell; children for God, not for the devil; children for a happy eternity, not for everlasting damnation. That's all. Hence Jesus Christ, on the Day of Judgment, will not ask parents and pastors of souls whether their schools could compete with infidel schools, but whether they did all in their power to secure the eternal welfare of their children by a good Catholic education. Father John de Starchia, Provincial of the Friars Minor, made regulations more favorable to worldly science than to the spirit of piety and religion, attaching, as he did, more importance to the education of the mind than to that of the heart. St. Francis of Assisium upbraided him for it, but in vain. So the great servant of God cursed the Provincial, and deposed him at the ensuing chapter. The saint was entreated, by some of his brethren in religion, to withdraw this curse from the Provincial, a learned noble man, and to give him his blessing. But neither the learning nor the noble extraction of the Provincial could prevail upon St. Francis to comply with their request. "I cannot," said he, "bless him whom the Lord has cursed"--a dreadful reply, which soon after was verified. This unfortunate man died exclaiming: "I am damned and cursed for all eternity!" Some frightful circumstances which followed after his death, confirmed his awful prediction. (Life of St. Francis of Assisium.) Such a malediction should strike terror into the hearts of all those who attach more importance to the cultivation of the mind than to that of the heart, and on that account prefer godless Public Schools to Catholic schools. Again, one may object: "The religious development does not necessarily suppose a literary development too. A person may be illiterate, and yet learned in the science of the saints, and a man may be learned in science, and ignorant of his duty towards God and his fellow-creatures. There were, are, and will be members of the Catholic Church, who, ignorant of science, of book-learning, did not become infidels, but exhibited a practical faith throughout life, and died in the odor of sanctity. Divine faith does not require as a companion, in the individual Catholic, a knowledge of profane literature, but humility, compunction, self-denial, and a contempt of the world. Schools are therefore not absolutely necessary for our children."