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CATHOLIC EDUCATION AND ITS SUPPORTERS

VERY REVEREND F. X. MC CABE, C. M., PRESIDENT OF DE PAUL UNIVERSITY, CHICAGO, ILL.

Among the various questions agitating the minds of thinking men and women of the present day is the all-important subjèct of education. We are living in an age of fads and fancies, and men are making experiments along all lines, and education has not escaped the damaging influence of the mania for change. One new system after another has been tried as an improvement upon the trusted and tried system that has weathered the storm of centuries.

We, as a body, have been, during the past three days, occupied in discussions all tending to the betterment of our system of education, which we believe to be the only system of education—a system which carries with it all that is perfect and true in education, for by education we understand the development of the rational creature, which means nothing more than that as man is composed of a body and a soul, these two distinct forces, united in the one being, must be developed side by side if we are to have a perfect individual.

The world is constantly making progress, so we are told, along all lines, but it is a question as to whether the world is making any substantial progress in the great field of education. To judge of the merits of any particular system of education we must understand what the essentials of education really demand, and as we have said that education means the development of a rational creature, we must naturally come to the conclusion that no system can be perfect unless it supplies the essentials necessary for the thorough development of such a creature.

Now, every human being coming into this world represents a distinct phase of humanity, there being no two alike in every respect. There is in every man that which constitutes him a

man-human nature. But there is more than this. There is given to each man something which is given to no other human being, and that something is his own individuality. He comes from the hand of his Creator with a body which is material, animated by a soul which is spiritual. He is a creature endowed with a body and a soul, endowed with an intellect, and guided by a will. These are his own. They belong to no other creature. They are his through life, and will be his for all eternity. God Himself could not destroy them without destroying his nature. This body, this intellect, this will, this individuality, is his, but not for himself alone. It is his that first and above all he may honor and glorify the God who made him, and thus attain eternal happiness hereafter. The body must be cared for; its physical powers must be developed; the intellect must be taught to follow. after and learn its object-truth, that it may direct the will in seeking after its object-good.

Education is the sole means to this end, and therefore it must possess these essential qualities: It must be physical, intellectual and moral. Let any one of these essentials be wanting, and your system of education is false. It stands to reason that if we train and develop the physical powers of a man to the detriment of his intellectual and moral powers, we are but sending forth into the world a mere brute. If, on the other hand, we develop his physical powers and his intellectual powers, paying no attention whatsoever to the training of his heart in the lessons of morality and virtue, we send into the world a villain cool and crafty, with wit enough to plot and power enough to execute all crimes and shames, and cunning enough to avoid detection. In these two cases the system of education would be imperfect, because wanting in one of its essentials. If, however, we devote ourselves to the development of the physical powers, the training of the intellect and the fostering in the heart of the desire of moral and virtuous living, we are sending into the world a perfect man, a masterpiece of God's creation, upon which the Creator looks down, and can say, as of the rest of creation-"It is good."

This is in reality the perfect system of education. Is it the system of the present day? We could hardly claim such perfection for the education in our country-for education as it is

understood in the institutions of our country at the present dayfor there can be no moral training where God is excluded, and in our system of education as it is understood in our country to-day, God is necessarily excluded, and as a natural consequence religion must be excluded. Our common school system, by reason of its constitution, cannot lay claim to perfection, because of its godlessness. So also is it true of our colleges and universities claiming to be non-sectarian. They are imperfect in their system of education, for there can be no morality without religion, and religion is necessarily banished from any institution claiming to be non-sectarian. The results of such a system of education are only too apparent in the everyday life of our country. We have but to cast our eyes around about us, to pick up our daily papers, to study the conditions of the times in the business, the social and the political world, to realize the awful havoc resulting from the godless system of education so prevalent in our country. The awful records of the divorce courts, the overcrowding of our jails and our penitentiaries and the various State institutions for the reformation of our boys and girls, all cry aloud against the system of education as it is understood in our country to-day. The total lack of reverence manifested in the younger generation of to-day, the want of respect for age, the indifference to all things pertaining to the supernatural or to the religious life, the direct opposition to all constituted authority, the trampling under foot of the sanctity of the home, race suicide, feticide, and all the unmentionable crimes of society to-day, increasing at a most rapid rate, also prove the imperfection of the system of education as understood in our country to-day. It is not my intention to decry our common school system, for there is no one who will deny that the system of education in our country is, as far as it goes, almost perfect, but the trouble lies in the fact that it does not go far enough, and the reason that it does not go far enough is that it does not embrace the development of the heart or the training of the individual in moral and virtuous living.

Tell me not that the home can supply the deficiency in this respect. It may be true in some cases that the influence of the home is such that it may be able to counteract the evil influences

of such a system, but these cases are so rare that the great majority always suffer. Even where home influences are what they should be, there is, to say the least, great danger of perversion, for the spirit prevailing throughout the higher institutions of learning in our country tends to destroy rather than foster the belief in God upon which rests the foundation of all morality. There is, in all that I have said so far, nothing intended to wound the feelings or the susceptibilities of any man or class of men. It is the God-given duty of every man to look the questions of the day full in the face, and to speak the plain truth, even though by so doing he forfeits the favor of the people. The man who for the sake of popular favor will connive at error, conceal the truth or openly deny it, is a moral coward unworthy of the name of man. This must necessarily be the judgment of all right thinking and broad-minded citizens, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, at the present day.

We have been taking a rather dark and gloomy view of things, but it is not because we believe that all is dark, or because we are urged on by a spirit of pessimism. Far from it. We believe we know that this world was made for better and brighter things, and we further know that the better and brighter things can be had if we but open our eyes and look for them. As Catholics we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we possess the real, true and perfect system of education, because in our system of education are fulfilled all the essentials necessary to the perfect development of the rational creature, man. From the very first day on which the Savior said, "Go teach all nations," the Church established by Him as His visible representative on earth, and vested with His authority, has gone on fostering education and dispelling the darkness of ignorance by that light which illumines the intellect and directs the will of man that he may know the truth and ever follow after it. Not until our enemies succeed in obliterating from the pages of history the records of the past nineteen centuries-records that are written in gold-will they be able to convince thinking men, no matter what their beliefs may be, that the Church has ever proved unfaithful to the grand mission confided to her, to teach

all nations, to educate and uplift mankind. She has done it only by making untold and innumerable sacrifices. She has done it, not indeed so much by the number of her schools, colleges and universities of learning, though as a matter of fact they are innumerable, as by the adoption of a system of education that answers every essential needed for the development of the rational creature, man—a system of education which is physical, intellectual and moral.

She claims the right to educate her own children in her own schools, even though they be supported by sacrifice that has meant everything to her. She claims this right because she wishes to be at liberty to instill into their young hearts and minds that first of all they are moral agents, and have a duty to perform which must be a guiding star in their every act through life, both to themselves and in their relations with their fellow

men.

It is not an unknown thing to the generality of the reading public that for many years, and even in this day of so-called enlightenment, the Church has been charged with the crime of having set her heel on progress, dwarfing the intellects of men by forbidding them to enter the fields of investigation—all this because thus she will be able to accomplish the crime of which she is accused-keeping the minds of men in bondage through ignorance.

The accusation is false, false as the false hearts of the false. men who utter it. It needs no refutation. In answer to those who bring against her such an accusation she proudly points to her sons and daughters who are the admiration of the world in every walk of life, in arts and in science. In every branch of education she walks before them, leading the way, and supplying the means to penetrate and dissipate the darkness of ignorance by the divine light of truth. The masterpieces of painting, sculpture, music and literature over which the world raves even at the present day, are the work of her sons, who drew their inspiration from the beauty of her teachings and ever found in her a wise and prudent guide to true greatness. She gave to the world a Raphael, a Michael Angelo, a Canova, a Dante, an Al

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