and after a speech of thanks to the retiring president made by the Rev. P. F. O'Brien, and a short address by the new President, the meeting adjourned. COLLEGE NIGHT On Wednesday evening, June 26, a public meeting was held in the Lecture Hall, under the auspices of the College Department. Very Rev. M. A. Hehir, C. S. Sp., presided and introduced the speakers. The following program was given: Organ Solo, "Guillaume Tell"... Professor Caspar P. Koch, Duquesne University Vocal Duet "Oh, Haste, Crimson Morning" Rossini Domzetti Messrs. John F. Corcoran and Clarence A. Sanderbeck, Accompanist, Professor Caspar P. Koch Address "The College Man, an Ideal Knight" Medley "Grand Opera Airs". . Arr. by Recker Duquesne University Orchestra Address "Righteousness in Business" John E. Laughlin, Esq., Georgetown University Chorus, with Orchestral Accompaniment "Anvil Chorus"..l'erdi Address "The College Man in American Politics" Mr. Frank A. Smith, Mt. St. Mary's College Medley "Standard American Airs". Duquesne University Orchestra Address "The Catholic Graduate in Journalism" Arr. by Recker Mr. Hugh A. O'Donnell, Notre Dame University Organ Solo "Marche Heroique de Jeanne d' Arc”..............Dubois Professor Caspar P. Koch M. A. SCHUMACHER, C. S. C., Secretary PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS EDUCATIONAL LEGISLATION AS IT AFFECTS CATHOLIC INTERESTS WALTER GEORGE SMITH, ESQ., PHILADELPHIA, PA. From the time of the adoption of Christianity in the reign of Constantine as the State religion of the Roman Empire till the religious and political revolt of the sixteenth century, known to history as the Reformation, there was a simple and easily understood philosophy governing the relations of Church and State. The things that were Caesar's and the things that were Go l's, however they might be confused in the individual apprehension, were not obscure to educated thinkers. The Church taught the abstract principles of justice as revealed by her Divine Founder, and the State sought to approximate as nearly as possible in the actual conduct of public affairs a practical application of those principles. Obedience to authority both spiritual and secular was required by the Church of all her children. If instead of profound peace and international and domestic agreement there was a succession of wars lasting through the centuries, it was first because of the great and prolonged effort required to civilize and Christianize the barbarians who broke up the old Roman Empire, and afterwards the jealousies, seemingly inseparable from human nature, even when surroundel by the atmosphere of religion and with the teaching of unselfishness constantly echoing through the ages from the life of the Savior of man. If the world did not practice in their perfection the principles of Christianity, it did not in terms reject them. On the contrary, slowly but surely a civilization emerged from the remnants of the old order, preserving what was best in its social and political life, with ideals nobler and purer than any that pre ceded it because they were based upon a recognition of standards of morality supernaturally revealed. It needs but the least reflection upon the highest forms of pre-Christian morality to see how far they fall below the standard of conduct taught by our Divine Lord. It required a direct revelation to show its truth and the Sacrifice of Calvary to enforce it, and still men must make it a life's effort approximately to live up to it, in vain bringing their own strength against their downward tendencies, unless aided by God's grace. The most powerful indictment against the cruelties, follies and excesses of the ages of faith cannot fail to take account of their lofty spiritual ideals, which found expression in the lives of saintly men and women, in monuments of architecture, in poetry, in pictorial and plastic art, and in the establishment of principles of justice in the social and political relationships upon which all that is best in modern civilization finds its foundation. The past four centuries have added little or nothing to the sum total of knowledge of the laws of eternal justice. When authority is sought we are apt to go back to the Fathers of the Church and the great constructive thinkers of the Middle Ages. From their works as from a quarry are taken the foundation stones of modern works on abstract justice. Men have been blinded by the dazzle of their triumphs over physical nature, which are in truth the real conquests of modern times; but in the realm of the spiritual world they have fallen away rather than advanced since they have sought to ignore the supernatural or to destroy it utterly. Nowhere do we find this truth borne in upon us with greater force than in the educational theories that have gained large acceptance in our own land. We who stand for the Church's teaching on the subject of the education of the young have no theories of our own. If we had it is needless to say they would have no greater, in many instances not as great, authority as those we oppose. It is not our theory, it is the Church's deliberate doctrine, based upon the experience of all the centuries of the Christian dispensation, and sanctioned by God's promise that His spirit will never fail her. What is the Church's doctrine? It is that our first, continued, and paramount duty is the service of God in that sphere in which He has designed us by reason of gifts of body and mind to occupy; that this duty must be the fruit of all education; that spiritual and moral truth are especially under her care and must be taught by her governance; that while there are other truths, not in their nature spiritual, which come under the general designation of profane learning and are not intrinsically under the Church's tutelage, they cannot safely be committed to teachers who do not accept her doctrine; as all knowledge, sacred and profane, touches upon the fundamental subject of God's omnipotence and our subjectivity to His will; that religion therefore is "the centralizing, unifying and vitalizing force in the educational process. Whenever there is positive and immediate danger of loss of faith, the Church cannot allow her children to run the risk of perversion; whenever religion is left out of the curriculum, she tries to supply the defect."1 On this general principle all Catholics are agreed. As has been said by Bishop Walsh: "The child cannot be divided and separated into physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual parts, except by a purely mental or metaphysical process that has no corresponding reality, but everything that happens to the child, from its first breath, is cultivating or educating the child in all four aspects. One part cannot be given to the parent, another to the street, a third to the school, a fourth to the Church, but the whole child is cultivated by each one of these agencies, and the least lack of harmony between them in purpose or means has its effect on the whole child."2 A different view of education has become prevalent among a large portion, though fortunately not among all nor among the most thoughtful educators outside of the Church. The immediate effect of the Reformation among those countries which adopted its varying principles, was not to secularize the education of children, though those principles bore the seeds that brought that harvest. Without going into details which it would be impossible to set out in brief compass, it suffices to say that 113th Catholic Encyclopedia, 555. Religious Education in the Public Schools of Massachusetts, 29 Am. Cath. Quart. Rev., 117. the first scheme of education in the United States under the common school system provided for religious as well as secular education, and where denominational differences made it impracticable to teach religion in the same school, subventions were made for separate schools, as in Lowell, Mass., from 1835 to 1852, and in the city of New York till 1824.3 Although liberty of conscience, including equality of all forms of belief, not interfering with one's neighbor or the safety of the State, is guaranteed by the Constitution of all our American States, it is obvious from a superficial study of laws, whether based on statutes or the decisions of our courts, that they are the laws of a people professing a belief in Christianity. All religions are protected, but the spirit of our institutions, the very language of many of our fundamental laws and the implication to be derived from them, show that there is nothing antagonistic to Christianity in our institutions and very much that favors it. The fact is, all of the colonies were founded by religious people seeking the approval of Almighty God and accepting the doctrine of the Trinity. "Our own country." says Dr. Edward Brooks, “was founded and nursed in the religious beliefs of Penn, Baltimore and the Pilgrim Fathers, and from the oath in the County Justice's Court to the morning prayer in the National Capitol, we show our faith in the relation of divine influences to constitutional history." It was farthest from their minds, when in the belief it would redound to the advantage of the individual and the State they made provision for public education, that all religion should be jealously excluded from the schoolroom, and a negative system of moral instruction substituted in its stead. But this has been the result. Deceived by the thought that a division of the school funds would be giving undue encouragement to differing denominations, and inflamed in many instances by an inherited and stimulated bigotry, many States have inhibited by constitutional provision any support of denominational schools, and others for Catholic Encyclopedia, p. 583. Moral Training," Proceedings Nat'l Educational Ass'n, p. 97, Washington Govt. Pr. Off., 1888. |