Pratt's Rhoda Thornton's Girlhood, 575. Preston's Lectures upon the Devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, 720. Pronouncing Handbook of 3,000 Words, 287. Real Presence, The, 574. Recent Music and Musicians, 432. Rhoda Thornton's Girlhood, 575. Rituale Romanum Pauli V. Pontificis Maximi Jussu Editum et a Benedicto XIV. Auctum et Castigatum, etc., 575. Sacred Eloquence, 144. Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pleadings of the, 859. Saxe Holm's Stories, 574. Scotti's Meditations for the Use of the Clergy, 431. Segneri's Lenten Sermons, 859. Seven Stories, 574. Songs from the Southern Seas, 431. Soule and Campbell's Pronouncing Vocabulary, 287. Spain and Charles VII., 429. Spalding's Life of Archbishop Spalding, 432. Story of Wandering Willie, The, 432. Thompson's The Life of the Ven. Anna Maria Taigi, 858. Tissot's Real Presence, 574. Townsend's Arena and the Throne, 575. Voyages aux Montagnes Rocheuses et Sejour ches les Tribus Indiennes de l'Oregon, 287. White's Gordon Lodge, 574. Wiseman's Essays on Various Subjects, 429. THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVIII., No. 103.--OCTOBER, 1873.[1] ARE OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS FREE? "Give Catholics their full rights; ask nothing of them you would not willingly concede if you were in their place."--_New York Journal of Commerce._ The subject of education, the method and extent of it, is undoubtedly one of the foremost topics of discussion to-day, and will be more conspicuous than ever in the immediate future. And, while all men are agreed that a sound and sufficient education of the entire people is our only ground of hope for the perpetuity of our rights and liberties--that, in truth, it is vital--it is not to be wondered at that men differing in the depth as well as extent of their individual culture, should also widely differ as to the constituent elements of a sound and sufficient education. There are, for instance, some, as yet happily few in number, who, in the maze of confusion and Babel-like discussions of sectarians and false teachers turn their faces away in hopeless, helpless uncertainty, and suggest that _religion_ of every name and kind must be excluded and the Deity himself ignored in our public schools, so that public education shall be _secular_; and however much of "religion" of any and every sort may be taught, it must be _in private_. This is natural enough in those unfortunate persons who so far lack a _positive faith_ that they see no safety except in uncertainty, and hence adopt a kind of _eclecticism_ which, embracing some abstract truth, may confessedly also contain something of error. The early settlers of this country--this "land of liberty"--however, had no idea of excluding religion from the schools; and if any among them or their immediate successors entertained even any peculiar notions as to what constituted religion, they were very summarily "squelched out."