And it might almost be said that the failures are to be ascribed, in part, if not to over-education, at least to the common misdirection of acquirements, accompanied with the vague ambition and desires which they invariably excite, but rarely serve to satisfy. Why, I could find, for instance, in the history, management, and success of every newspaper editor, a living proof of my proposition. Not that I leave it to be inferred that there is not, in these newspapers, the evidences of every kind of acquirements and ability; but that the founders within my knowledge, and those who have made it the _power_ and _success_ that it is, have worked with these ordinary instruments. But why give one instance when there are so many on every side--so much so that the success of what is called the learned class is so rare, that it must be put among the exceptions. As to those who are able, and desire further information, they can have it to any extent at the colleges, convents, academies and higher schools. Many of our "dissenting brethren," of the various denominations, are equally diligent, according to the measure of grace and light given them, to bring their children up in Christian morals and education. They have their own schools, and support them, or they send their children to Catholic institutions, and will not have them tempted or corrupted by the evil influences, moral, social, and intellectual, that emanate and surround those "_whited sepulchres_"--the godless schools--as the miasm emanates and surrounds the pestilent marsh. In all these schools the children are carefully trained in Christian practices, prayers, and religious duties, as well as taught a good, plain, practical course of studies. In fact, they are truly _educated_; while in the Public Schools they are simply instructed, as you might irrational animals, according to their instinct. The Jews also teach and bring up their children in the religion of their fathers, at their own expense; so that more than one-half are, fortunately for themselves, and fortunately for society, the good order and well-being of the State, educated outside of immoral and dangerous pest-houses. It is on this element of our population that the future of the State depends; for if we are to have a sound public conscience and a controlling conservative influence in public or private affairs, we must, under God and His Church, obtain it from a true Christian education. At these parish schools, supported by voluntary aid, the expenses of pupils per year is under seven dollars; at the Public Schools, it is, I am informed, about thirty-two dollars; so that it costs about four times as much to give the poor, miserable, shallow, infidel instruction in the Public Schools, as it does to give a good Christian education in the denominational ones; or, in plainer language, to educate 20,000 children in denominational schools saves to tax-payers not less than the _small sum_! of $500,000.