The schools were originally founded by a religious people for a religious end, not by seculars for a purely secular end. The people at so early a day had not advanced so far as they have now, and did not dream of divorcing secular education from religion. The schools were intended to give both religious and secular education in their natural union, and there was no thought of the feasibility of separating what God had joined together. The Bible was read as a class-book, the catechism was taught as a regular school exercise, and the pastor of the parish visited the schools and instructed them in religion as often as he saw proper. Indeed, he was, it might be said, _ex officio_ the superintendent of the parish schools; and whether he was chosen as committee-man or not, his voice was all potent in the management of the school, in the selection of studies, and in the appointment and dismissal of teachers. The superiority in a religious and moral point of view to the schools as now developed may be seen by contrasting the present moral and religious state of New England with what it was then. The religion, as we Catholics hold, was defective, and even false; but the principle on which the schools were founded was sound, and worked well in the beginning, did no injustice to any one, and violated no conscience; for Congregationalism was the established religion, and the people were all Congregationalists. Even where there was no established religion and different denominations obtained, conscience was respected; for the character of the school, as well as the religion taught in it, was determined by the inhabitants of the school district, and nobody was obliged to send his children to it, and those only who did send were taxed for its support. But in none of the States is there now an established religion, and in all there are a great variety of denominations, all invested with equal rights before the state. It is obvious, then, the Massachusetts system cannot in any of them be adopted or continued, and the other system of taxing only those who use the schools cannot be maintained, if the schools are to be supported from the income of public funds, or by a public tax levied alike on the whole population of the district, town, municipality, or State. Here commences the difficulty--and a grave one it is, too--which has as yet received no practical solution, and which the legislatures of the several States are now called upon to solve.