and vocational lines, giving the boy or girl aid in determining after study, or even life-work.

Then, too, we must know that every child is interested in what the men of action from Ulysses to Roosevelt have done. Let us then enrich his experience and broaden his horizon by such a book as Eliza Allen Starr's "Patron Saints;" "then above all, we shall surround him with a cloud of witnesses to the glory of courage and nobility, we shall give him the companionship of the great, the friendship of the true and tried and win him to their likeness." (Chubb). There is room under this heading for the old hero tales-good translations of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey;" stories of the Crusades; the story of "Joan, the Maid," in Lang's "Red True Story Book," if the child has something of the hero worshiper about him; St. Nicholas' "Colonial Stories" and "Revolutionary Stories."

Cultivate the imagination, as Percival Chubb says, and seize the opportunity to follow with them once more Alice's track through Wonderland, to set sail with Jason, to strive with fleet Atalanta, to fare forth on heroic errand with brave Jack or peerless King Arthur; "for without these as household presences, the real world can never be for the child the rich world of wonder, surprise and sweet mystery, the world of heroic possibility and beckoning romance that it might have been." These are the common property of the race; and without a knowledge of them it is scarcely possible to understand even the editorial page of an ordinary newspaper. Give them books Catholic in tone of heart. and mind, such as Dr. Van Dyke's "First Christmas Tree" and "Lost Word." In speaking to such an audience it is unnecessary to remind any one of our Catholic writers, such as Father Finn, Father Copus, Miss Seawell.

There are certain negative qualities to be avoided in children's literature, many of them implied in the foregoing positive qualities required; they are, poor English; inaccuracies; the melodramatic, wherein all the poor are virtuous, all the rich dishonest; the sensational, where more events are crowded into one day of the hero's life than usually happen in a year; of the ordinary priggishness in books of the Buster Brown type, with children ever ready to teach and correct their elders; poetry that has noth

ing but weak sentiment. We have already spoken of commercialism and gloom.

As valuable as the reading habit is, it is not the real end sought. This is rather the upbuilding of character; for next to the vital force of a great personality, that of the book is most potent. "How shall the voice of the book in stately verse, in heroic prose, in inspiring song, the tale of Divine Love be made audible to the child, leaving home and nature with its green fields and blue skies to stay within grim walls to learn of life?" As has been well said, "the teacher and the library together must plan to tempt the stirring, glowing, eager soul of the child, with the information, the story, the song, the dream, the inspiring thing that shall make the child take step after step upward, until, when his school life is finished, early or late, there shall be in his heart that which shall forever make impossible complete surrender to the selfish or base and shall make him for life, here and hereafter, the friend of that which shall help him to bear, to strive, to achieve, as his living friends are doing and as his book friends have done. Shall the best of all that the ages have brought us, lie beyond the child of our schools?"

CHURCH HISTORY IN THE GRADES

A SISTER OF THE IMMACULATE HEART, ST. MARY'S, MONROE, MICH.

"Church History in the Grades," that is, in classes below the high school, is a topic that may surprise those who think that all history courses are to be left for high schools, academies or colleges; yet, if we look over the reports from even our most flourishing dioceses, justly proud of their parochial schools, we shall see that the majority of the children leave from the eighth or lower grades, some to go to work, and others to attend public schools, where they are likely to see their religion ignored or hear it villified.

The writer has in mind a prominent Knight of Columbus, a member of Congress, whose Catholic education extended no farther than his preparation for first Holy Communion. His in

structors, however, had done their work so well that it was a labor of love for him to continue his readings in Church history, which he did with such good results that, when in attendance at one of our state universities, where loss of faith is a common occurrence, he was ever ready, in his own able way, whenever an occasion presented itself, to defend the Church against any maligner, always winning for himself and the Faith which he championed the respect of his audience, who invariably saw him left in undisputed possession of the field. And such a young man at another university had the courage to protest against certain antiCatholic books and cause them to be removed from the library shelves.

Nothing more need be said to show the importance of giving these lower classes at least an outline of Church history, an elementary course adapted to the capacities of the children. Those who remain with us and take a more extended course will find these introductory lessons of great benefit; and to those who do not, they will prove of fundamental importance, especially if the instruction is given by tactful teachers, whose enthusiasm will be communicated to their young hearers, arousing a love for reading and a desire to know more of the matters that have been presented to them in so agreeable a manner.

If it is not possible to teach much of Church history to the younger children, let us, with an earnest will, do what time and opportunity permit. If a dear friend, about to set out in an hour or so on a long and dangerous journey, through a hostile country, were to ask our advice, would we on the plea that the time is too short to admit of a systematic, detailed course of instruction, refuse to give any information? No; we would briefly point out the principal dangers, indicating how they may be avoided or overcome, give warning as to certain misleading guide-posts, and show where further information may be obtained.

So in these days when anti-Christian ideas and opinions are so prevalent, we should not fail to provide our pupils with every safeguard that enlightened zeal can suggest. For, in schools, in offices, in workshops, they will undoubtedly see the Catholic Church assailed, and branded not infrequently as "an institution whose history is marked by bloodshed and fraud;" and if they

are unable to repel these charges, are unprovided with defensive armor, it will not be surprising if many of them grow ashamed of their faith and "drift away from the religious moorings of their fathers."

"He read his way out of the Church" was the remark recently made regarding an apostate Catholic; and no doubt his case may be that of thousands who, having received little or no instruction from reliable sources, take as undoubted truths the misstatements and irrelevant conclusions of those writers who, through ignorance or malice, set themselves to defame the Church.

Having seen the necessity of including Church history in the work of the lower grades, let us consider what can be taught and how it can be taught most effectively. If no suitable elementary text-book is to be found, let us ourselves draw up a synopsis or make good use of the summary appended to the Bible history in our schools. No doubt the history of the New Testament may be completed in the sixth grade and that of the Old Testament in the seventh, leaving the eighth grade free to learn an epitome of the later history of the Church. five half-hours a week are given to Christian Doctrine, three of these periods may be allotted to catechism, and two to Church history. But, besides this regular instruction, much information may be given incidentally in other recitations. In our grammar school grades, for instance, more or less interest is taken in important current events, the happenings of to-day that are making the history of to-morrow; and here the zealous instructor will find many an opportunity to enforce a lesson.

For example, Halley's comet is under observation, and much is said of the scientist who discovered its periodicity and predicted its return. How easy and natural to make a passing remark about Leverrier's discovery of Neptune, the greatest of the many wonderful achievements in astronomy, and conclude with an observation regarding the piety of the eminent astronomer, who was said to have been as devoted to his crucifix as to his telescope. The children, now interested in the science of the heavens, may be referred to Father Brennan's "What Catholics Have Done for Science" for an account of another great astronomer, the Polish priest, Copernicus, who dedicated his immortal work, "De Orbium

Coelestium Revolutionibus," to Pope Paul III. Moveover, the same excellent little book may furnish matter for a composition on the true story of Galileo's rash, dogmatic manner of presenting the Copernican theory.

Again, when the catechism class is learning about that beautiful devotion, the rosary, mention may be made of the favor it found with the distinguished physicists, Volta, Galvani and Ampère. On another occasion, an incident like the following may be related of Pasteur, the "Father of Bacteriology," who is said to have opened the doors of science wider than they were ever opened before. The great chemist, when asked how it was that with all his scientific knowledge, he still retained the simple faith of a Breton peasant, replied: "If I learn still more, I may come to have the faith of a Breton peasant's wife." Pupils thus instructed will be likely to draw their own conclusions that there is certainly no antagonism between science and religion.

Older pupils in "the grades" will no doubt learn something of the glories of the Elizabethan Age in English literature, and the Catholic teacher will be careful to warn them not to look upon the marvelously rapid advance as the result of the so-called Reformation, giving them such testimony as that of the Protestant historian, Henry Hallam, that the new religion actually retarded the Renaissance movement, which had already set in, and quoting Carlyle as to Shakespeare's being assuredly "the product of Catholicity," or citing such confessions as the following from the pen of the statesman-scholar, William E. Gladstone: "Since the first three hundred years of persecution, the Roman Catholic Church has marched for fifteen hundred years at the head of human civilization, and has driven, harnessed to its chariot, as the horses of a triumphal car, the chief intellectual and material forces of the world; its greatness, glory, grandeur and majesty have been almost, though not absolutely, all that in these respects the world has had to boast of."

Pupils are not supposed to pass from the eighth grade until they have taken a course in American history; and what a field does not this subject present for the zealous teacher, who will point with pride to the state of Maryland, which, in the words of Cardinal Gibbons, was "the cradle of religious liberty and the