all its children, whatever their condition, rich or poor, Catholics or Protestants. It has taken the American people over two hundred years to arrive at this conclusion, and never by our advice shall they abandon it. 3. The first and second solutions must then be dismissed as unsatisfactory. The first, because it excludes religion, and makes the public schools nurseries of infidelity and irreligion. The second, because it breaks up and destroys the whole system of free public schools, and renders the universal education demanded by our institutions impracticable, or unlikely to be given, and in so far endangers the safety, the life, and prosperity of the republic. We repeat it, what we want is not the destruction of the system, but simply its modification so far as necessary to protect the conscience of both Catholics and Protestants in its rightful freedom. The modification necessary to do this is much slighter than is supposed, and, instead of destroying or weakening the system, would really perfect it and render it alike acceptable to Protestants and to Catholics, and combine both in the efforts necessary to sustain it. It is simply to adopt the third solution that has been suggested, namely, that of dividing the schools between Catholics and Protestants, and assigning to each the number proportioned to the number of children each has to educate. This would leave Catholics free to teach their religion and apply their discipline in the Catholic schools, and Protestants free to teach their religion and apply their discipline in the Protestant schools. The system, as a system of free schools at the public expense, with its fixtures and present machinery, would remain unimpaired; and a religious education, so necessary to society as well as to the soul, could be given freely and fully to all, without the slightest lesion to any one's conscience, or interference with the full and entire religious freedom which is guaranteed by our constitution to every citizen. The Catholic will be restored to his rights, and the Protestant will retain his.