But surely the author of the report cannot think the amount, even as overstated by him, to be disproportionate to the end to be attained--"to cherish, protect, and preserve the free common schools," when it is added that _our_ purpose is also "to extend" and to make our common schools "free" indeed to all, whether Jew or Gentile. All that we ask is to have our equal rights in this land of equal rights, and to extend in the broadest manner the freedom of the public schools, so that the rights and consciences of none may be restricted or violated. We ask simply that the "money raised by taxes," so large a portion of which we are charged to have "abstracted," shall be divided _pro rata_, and so, by dividing the difficulty, conquer it! In the report, it is admitted (p. 4) that the "enormous sum" alleged or intimated to have been surreptitiously "taken" or "abstracted," was not "taken" for the purpose of individual gain, but for "the support of convents, churches, cathedrals, and church schools." What sum, _thus expended_, can be too great? In what is it enormous? Is it enormous because disproportioned to the amount expended by other "sects"? Or is it so because expended for the support of schools kept in "damp basements of churches, so dark that gas has to be used on the brightest days," rather than in the "educational palaces" where Catholics cannot go without a violation of conscience, and from which they are practically excluded? And here it is notable that in the report now under consideration (p. 2) is printed the following, purporting to be an extract from a report of the "Secretary of Commissioners of Charities" to the Legislature in 1871, wherein it is said the secretary "_refers very truthfully to the already marked injury to the public schools of the city of New York caused by building up and supporting from the public treasury so large a number of rival sectarian schools_" (see _Rep._ pp. 99, 100). The italics are not ours.