Strange as it may seem, it is a certain undeniable fact that there is not, on the entire continent of Europe, or in the entire world, a single country, Protestant or Catholic, that upholds the Pagan system of education which has been adopted in this free country. In all of them Catholic and Protestant children receive religious instruction, during the school-hours, from their respective pastors. The present system of the Public Schools in the United States professes to exclude all religious exercises. We are often told that this is the American system, and that it is very impertinent for foreigners to wish to bring religion into schools against the American idea. Now the assertion that the exclusion of all religion from the schools is truly American, that it is an essential part of our national system, is utterly false. So far as any system of public schools can be said to have an American idea, the idea will be found to be "education based on religious instruction." The first schools established in the Union were religious denominational schools. These schools were supported by the churches with which they were connected, and by their patrons. Religious exercises formed a part of the daily duties of the class-room. The early founders of this Republic were not able to understand how they could bring up their children in the knowledge, love, and service of God by banishing the Bible, prayer, and religious exercises of every kind from the school. Hence religion was reverenced, and its duties attended to in all institutions of learning in the country. The American system of education, in its incipiency, and for a long while, was one founded on Bible-teaching and religious exercises. The present system is un-American, anti-American. Now how did it happen that the primitive Christian system of education became unchristian and anti-American? To make you understand more clearly the origin of the present system of the Public Schools, I must first show you how _Secret Societies seek to spread Irreligious Education in Europe_. These societies profess the most irreligious and anti-social doctrines. Among the chief means employed by them for pushing forward their diabolical principles is _Education without Religion_. The "International," one of the most powerful of these organizations, has lately put forward a programme, in which the following points are laid down as most necessary to be insisted upon in the agitation conducted by the socialist democratic party in Switzerland: "... _Compulsory and gratuitous education_ up to the completion of the fourteenth year of each child's age.... Separation of the Church from the State, _and also of the schools from the Church_."