1895.02.23 LINCOLN SCHOOL NOT SECTARIAN
Philadelphia Times, p. 4
SENATOR COCKRELL'S CHARGE STRENUOUSLY DENIED.
ALL GO TO THEIR OWN CHURCHES.
The Statement That the Lincoln Institution is Managed on Sectarian Lines Stirs Up Quite a Tempest - Strong Letters Written by Mrs. Mary McHenry Cox, by a Catholic Servant and by a Catholic Pupil.
The charge made by United States Senator Cockrell during a discussion of the Indian Appropriation bill in the Senate on Thursday, that the Lincoln Institution, of this city, is run upon a sectarian basis, has excited a great deal of comment here and those interested in the institution's welfare are gratified that the Senator's objection not have the effect of depriving the institution of its annual appropriation.
Mrs. Mary McHenry Cox, the first directress of the Lincoln Institution, was found at the Girls' Department, 124 South Eleventh street, yesterday afternoon and she readily consented to talk upon the subject.
"I have just written a letter to Senator Cockrell," she said, "and have enclosed a letter from one of our Roman Catholic employes [sic] [employees] and one from a scholar of the same faith and I hope he will be convinced that he has made a mistake in his hasty judgement. They will speak for themselves. I think," she added and then she read copies of the letters.
MAY WORSHIP AS THEY PLEASE.
In her own letter she said:
The majority of our pupils are Protestants, and as a body the school attends the Episcopal Church, but our officers and employes [sic] represent all denominations. Differences between creeds, however, are never made subjects of instruction.
We had an Episcopal clergyman as superintendent of the boys' department, not because he was a clergyman, but because he had experience in England in training children. He was the only clergyman whom we have ever had as superintendent. We found that he was not satisfactory and we discharged him.
The following is from Annie Magee, who has been an employe [sic] of the Lincoln Institution for nineteen years, during the first seven of which it was a home for soldiers' orphans:
I am a Roman Catholic, and have always attended that Church. Any Roman Catholic pupil who has desired to go to church with me has been allowed to do so, and no officer or teacher has ever interfered with their religion. Mrs. Cox has always said that I could take any pupil that desired to go with me to church, and I have taken many a one.
Notes and References
Courtesy of the Philadelphia Times.
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