Skip to main content
Artist/Maker
Thomas Nast
(American, born Germany, 1840 - 1902)
Datepublished May 8, 1875
MediumWood engraving on newsprint
DimensionsComposition: 10 11/16 in. × 9 in. (27.1 × 22.9 cm)
Sheet: 16 13/16 × 11 3/16 in. (42.8 × 28.4 cm)
Credit LineGift of Professor Emeritus Jay Williams, Class of 1954
Object number2019.13.282
Not on view
DescriptionCaptioned "LITTLE JONATHAN. 'Miss Columbia will not try your teaching, as it has proved to be so injurious in Dame Europa's school that our adopted children who left her don't / care to learn under that system again.' / THE INFALLIBLE ONE. 'Oh, you Godless, infidel vipers, I'll be revenged on you, for I keep the keys of heaven!' / ...... 'Moreover--and here is a consideration which the people of this country must face sooner or later, and they may as well begin to face it now--the education given or superintended / by Catholic priests is a bad education; indeed, for political purposes, worse than none. It unfits children for the citizenship of free states. If extended widely enough it would ruin this / Government. It has been tried for ages in various countries, and has in all worked unutterable mischief, and destroyed the source of national greatness by killing the sincerity, the truthfulness, / the courage and high-mindedness, on which national greatness is based. The thoughtful and patriotic men of all Catholic countries are to-day getting rid of it as a national curse. And it / would be an astonishing spectacle if, after the priests had been excluded from the work of public instruction in France, Spain, Italy, and Bavaria, they were allowed to carry it on here / with taxes voted by American citizens. Compromise with these men has, in short, never succeeded, and never will. The only thing that does not succeed with them is their rigorous subjection to / the common law.'--The National, April 1, 1875." typeset beneath title in black ink. Illustration occupies the top of the sheet, spanning three quarters of the height. The sheet below is divided into four columns of an article titled "The Public Schools and their Foes".
Collections
Additional Details
Provenance
2019: Hamilton College (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art), by gift of Jay G. Williams.
Signature
Signed "Th Nast" in block at lower left composition.
Inscribed
Title typeset beneath image in black ink. Publication date "May 8, 1875," publisher, and page number "385" typeset above image at top of the sheet.
Barbara Walker MBE RA
Date: 2018
Medium: Graphite on embossed paper
Object number: 2019.11
Thomas Nast
Date: published November 8, 1873
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.222
Elias Sime
Date: 2016
Medium: Reclaimed electronic components and insulated wire on panel
Object number: 2017.2
William E. Williams
Date: 2004
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 2008.5.1
Thomas Nast
Date: published June 27, 1874
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.245
Unknown artist
Date: 1875-1900
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: S2018.2.137
Thomas Nast
Date: published December 19, 1874
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.265
Marla Sweeney
Date: 2003
Medium: Archival inkjet print
Object number: 2020.8.22
Thomas Nast
Date: published August 27, 1883
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 1944.1.15
Unknown artist
Date: 1875-1900
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: S2018.2.136