A Lesson from Alabama

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 49, 5 December 1907, Page 9

A Lesson from Alabama

'Way- down- in Alabama there is a- State Superintendent of Education — which his name rt is Gunnells. Now Superintendent Gunnells appears to, believe -that there is a- statute "of limitation against ihe application of the constitutional principle which, accords to all citizens equality before, the. law. In parts, at least; of- Alabama. State-^the Protestant "-version of the JPille is tau'ghi," on Protestant lines, in the supplemental .course in some of th» public schools, arid (according to despatches from Montgomery to the American secular press) pupils have even been punished for not studying these lessons— as was once the case in the public schools of Boston.- The Catholics of Montgomery have : protested against this .sectarianising of the -State schools-, for the support of which they are taxed in common with, other citizens. But (says the Philadelphia ' CaJttholic Standard' of October 12, iri a summary- of the "press despatches) ' Superintendent* Gunnells says he wiirnot order the practice stopped ; that it has grown up with" and seems to, be almost a part of the public school syssem, and that he will not interfere so long as the courts do -not force him to do so '. - Evidently, this longstanding abuse, "' ' f .- - .' ' Because deliver 'd down from sire to son, - Is kept- and guarded as a. sacred thing" '-

by some high officials in Alabama. The upshot of the affair has been this-: -the Catholics are resorting -to the courts in order o td protect themselves against being taxed for the -support of a more or less compulsory State propaganda of Protestantism. There is in all this a lesson that New Zealand Catholics should mark, learn," and inwardly digest.