Parents' Obligation for Educating Their Children

5. Increase your diligence concerning domestic society, the education of youths and of priests, and the best manner of teaching Christian love. The soundness and honor of domestic life, from which health flows into the veins of civil society, must be sought first in the sanctity of marriage, which is indivisible when entered into according to the precepts of God and of the Church. In the next place it is necessary that the rights and duties between the spouses be inviolate and, as far as possible, supported by the greatest possible love and harmony. Parents must provide protection and advantages for their children, especially education. The best and most efficacious example for the children is the lives of their parents. Parents must realize that they can provide for their education properly and well only by exercising great vigilance. In choosing schools and colleges, they must avoid not only those where errors concerning religion are deliberately interspersed with the teaching, or where impiety reigns, but also those that consider Christian culture and morals inappropriate for instruction and offer no courses in them. For those, surely, whose talents are developed by letters and the arts also need to be taught the knowledge of and reverence for divine things. Nature itself admonishes that they must serve God even more than the state; in serving the state, they must direct their steps toward their permanent homeland in heaven. They must keep this goal in mind as they grow older and advance in civil culture both because youths today are urged to a greater desire for knowledge, and because they are exposed daily to great dangers to their faith. The great losses we have suffered prove this. Now concerning the manner of teaching sacred doctrine, concerning the worthiness and knowledge of professors, and concernng the selection of books, the Church reserves her right to prescribe certain things. Nor can she fail to do so since she is bound by a most serious duty to see to it that nothing harmful to the well-being of the faith creeps in and injures the Christian people. The lessons which are taught in churches and meeting places advocating that the seeds of faith and love be nourished and grow should complement and strengthen the sacred instruction which is given in the schools.