unite our Catholic faith with patriotism, have become better citizens, and more genuine friends of our liberties."[1] In 1879, Ferry introduced new laws to suppress the Jesuit schools. In the Revue des Deux Mondes (1880), Albert Duruy asked Ferry whether the Jesuit pupils had less bravely fought against the Germans in the war of 1870, or whether more Jesuit pupils had taken part in the Commune; whether especially the ninety pupils of the one Jesuit school in Rue des Postes, Paris, who had fallen in the battles of that war, had been bad citizens, devoid of patriotism?[2]
The same question may be asked in every country where Jesuits are engaged in educating youth: Have Jesuit pupils ever shown less patriotism, less heroism, less self-sacrifice for their country than pupils of secular institutions? Was Charles Carroll of Carrollton less patriotic than the men who were educated at Harvard and Yale? Was Bishop John Carroll lacking in patriotism? And yet, John Carroll had been a Jesuit himself, and both had been educated in Jesuit Colleges in Europe. And we may safely challenge any one to prove that the American Jesuits and their pupils are less patriotic, less attached to the interests of their country, and less solicitous for its fair name among the nations than the teachers and pupils of other institutions. And we should like to know the facts on which the American writer has based the
- ↑ Similar protests of Jesuit pupils were published in 1879, when Ferry had cast suspicion on the patriotism of the Jesuits. See De Badts de Cugnac, Le patriotisme des Jésuites.
- ↑ Of the pupils of St. Clement (Metz) 31 died on the battlefield, of the College of Sainte-Geneviève 78; of the College of Vannes 20, etc.
