This is a brief history of the Public Schools. It tells, in clear terms, all that they are, and all that they are to bring about, namely: a generation without belief in God and immortality, free from all regard for the invisible--a generation that looks upon this life as their only life, this earth as their only home, and the promotion of their earthly interests and enjoyments as their only end--a generation that looks upon religion, marriage, or family and private property as the greatest enemies to worldly happiness--a generation that substitutes science of this world for religion, a community of goods for private property, a community of wives for private family; in other words, a generation that substitutes the devil for God, hell for heaven, sin and vice for virtue and holiness of life. We may, then, confidently assert that the defenders and upholders of _Public Schools without religion_ seek in America, as well as in Europe, to turn the people into refined Pagans. They recently betrayed themselves. They wish, as Dr. Wehrenphennig and Dr. Wirgow openly said, for an equalization of religious contradictories, a religion and an education which stands above creeds, and knows nothing about dogmas; in other words, they wish for a religion of which a certain poet says: "My religion is to have no religion." The object, then, of these godless, irreligious _Public Schools_ is to spread among the people the worst of religions, the _no religion_, the religion which pleases most hardened adulterers and criminals--the religion of irrational animals. How far this diabolical scheme has succeeded is well known, for there are at present from twenty to twenty-five millions of people in the United States who profess no distinct religious belief. Everywhere the same effects have been observed. Licentiousness, cruelty, and vice--"Positivism," or the substitution of the harlotry of the passions for the calm and elevating influences of reason and religion. How can it be otherwise? FOOTNOTES: [A] Jean Macé. [B] "_La Solidarite." _(Le Monde Maconnique, October, 5866 [1866], p. 472.) [C] "_La Solidarite." _(Le Monde Maconnique, February, 5867 [1867].) [D] Vive le Materialisme. [E] Le Monde Maconnique, June, 1866. CHAPTER IV. EXPOSE OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.