cannot endure if not supported by a self-restrained, God-fearing, justice-loving people.

This Association may be content to perfect the work already established, feeling sure that the success attained by the Catholic educational system shows that it meets with God's approval, and leaving to Him to provide for its support in the future as He has so graciously done in the past.

DISCUSSION

RT. REV. JOSEPH SCHREMBS, Bishop of Toledo: I have nothing of special importance to say, because the paper speaks for itself. It is exhaustive in its treatment of the subject, and I don't know that I have any criticism to offer. There were several things suggested by the paper, which should be emphasized in the practical, everyday treatment of the question. Mr. Smith, among other things, called attention to the fact that the State in its care for the proper education of the citizens at large, makes certain regulations, and I fear there are some of us who in the spirit of ultra-independence, are somewhat inimical to such legislation. I believe that we ought to meet the stand of the State in the spirit of kindliness in all matters pertaining to the general welfare of the child, and I can see no good reason for refusing certain elementary politeness. On the whole, I believe that there ought to be a greater compliance in Catholic schools in general, and in that way we would not arouse a spirit of bitterness against our schools. I think the same holds good also of excessive criticism of the public school.

HOW TO DEAL WITH PUBLIC LEGISLATION

AFFECTING OUR COLLEGES

REV. FRANCIS HEIERMANN, S. J., ST. XAVIER COLLEGE, CINCINNATI, OHIO

In regard to public legislation, whether concerning our schools or any other branch of human activity, our attitude is always one of profound respect. Catholics are nothing if not law-abiding citizens. This inborn respect for authority has led us sometimes I fear to pay too little attention to the manner in which laws are made and to forget that we, as citizens in a representative form of government, have a right and a duty to assume our share in the making of wise laws and sound enactments.

In every State of the Union it may be said that of the making of educational laws there is no end. Even the federal Congress puts in at times an educational oar.* The United States Bureau of Education has issued pamphlets entitled State School Systems and Legislative and Judicial Decisions Relating to Public Education by Edward C. Elliott, Professor of Education in the University of Wisconsin. Number one deals with the laws enacted from October 1, 1904 to October 1, 1906; number two with the laws from October 1, 1906 to October 1, 1908; number three continues the work up to October 1, 1909. (Publications of the Bureau of Education. Whole Numbers 363, 396, 438.)

A glance at the table of contents shows that the legislators have bestowed their attention on almost every possible school interest: administration, financial support, buildings, teachers and teachers' certificates, school attendance, health regulations.

There was pending some time ago in the Senate a bill (Page) appropriating over $12,000,000 a year for universitics, normal schools and secondary schools for the teaching of agriculture, trades, indu-tries, an annually increasing appropriation maximum $2,900,000, for extension departments; $180,000 for preparation of teachers in agriculture and trade schools.

school supplies, free text-books (free spectacles the latest in New York), libraries, education of delinquent and defective children, etc., etc. Of late years vocational education and especially industrial education law has covered many pages of our statute books. The School Review of June, 1912, gives a digest of legislation for the last three years on vocational education. The Catholic Educational Review too, frequently gives a summary account of school legislation, proposed or recently enacted. The above mentioned pamphlets offer only a digest of the many hundreds of laws enacted in the several States. Every one who has followed this development of legislation must recognize the ever growing tendency to spend more and more money on public education, to transfer the work of education. from the parents to the government. There is an ever growing State paternalism.

This legislation, it is true, affects the college indirectly only, but all educational departments are so intimately connected that we cannot touch one without exerting a strong influence, whether for good or for ill, upon all the others. It is imperative then for those who have the interests of our colleges at heart to study accurately and define clearly the rights of the State and the rights of the family, and the privileges which flow from liberty of education; it becomes imperative to point out in each and every instance where these rights are transgressed, where these privileges are overstepped. Americans as a class are generous and progressive; they approve every law that has any outward seeming of good. But outward seeming and inward reality are often things apart. Grasping at present good, legislators looking no further than their noses fail to see coming evil. When the Ohio legislature was recently about to enact an industrial education law, a short article setting forth financial difficulties and other consequences gave the lawmakers pause. Such occurrences as this would indicate how important it is that in season and out, by private interview, by public address, by press and platform, we insist that State control and public taxes have their limits. It is a sound principle of taxation that public taxes should not be levied for special interests; that the many should not be mulcted for the few, when

the few can easily take care of themselves. If it be true, as we so often hear, that American people are education-mad, it is the duty of safe and sane thinkers to bring them to their senses; a duty all the harder to perform since they will have to deal with a number of persons cocksure of their opinions; a duty nevertheless not without its star of hope, in view of the fact that even many non-Catholic Americans one may mention among them honoris causa, Mr. Bird C. Coler- are taking a stand for safer and saner measures.

Turning to legislation directly affecting colleges, we discover an ever growing tendency which makes for school monopoly; and a number of laws accordingly enacted in several States, which though not fully enforced tend in that direction. Moreover, in the legislatures of various States there are at present not a few bills under consideration, the passage of which will bring us many points nearer to final monopoly; and even Congress itself is, whether intentionally or no, taking in hand measures of the same nature. The promoters of these monopolizing agencies are not always championed by the advocates of the State system only, but even some private universities are working to the same end. These measures do not, as a rule, legislate colleges beyond the pale of the educational trust, out of existence; but they often contain provisions which, insignificant at first blush, are later so developed and expanded as to render Catholic and other denominational colleges unable to endure them.

Thus, New York, since 1892, and Pennsylvania, since 1895, have required every degree-conferring institution to have resources of at least half a million dollars; and in New York, even a college without the power of conferring degrees must have at least an endowment of one hundred thousand dollars. Everybody, of course, has heard of the Carnegie money standard of an endowment fund of at least two hundred thousand dollars for any college; the said standard having already been adopted in several States as the ideal. To use a homely expression, they are in process of freezing out the smaller colleges. In accordance with this process we hear jeremiads anent the excessive number of colleges and universities; the inefficiency born of poverty of resources.

accordance with the process, we perceive larger institutions uniting in a great educational trust. They are strong enough to obtain and hold vast privileges from the State, and, ironical as the situation may seem, they crowd the weakest to the wall after the manner of an older and pagan civilization. Vae victis! The exiles from the weaker colleges will eventually swell their ranks.

Not all educators, it is true, are of the like mind. Many there are who, with the courage of their convictions, contend that the real work of education is best done in the small colleges; and they enforce their convictions with good argument and many a modern instance. Nevertheless the big institutions with their vast and. imposing piles of brick and mortar, their large attendance, their large corps of professors, catch the imagination of the people, even of many Catholics. They recognize the State system as the real school of the land. It is of the people, for the people, and (paid for) by the people. It gives employment to teachers, janitors and all manner of functionaries; it is an educational plumtree. Moreover, a large class of non-enlightened Americans have so long been shouting out that the Catholic schools are unpatriotic, that many people have actually come to believe it. Only yesterday the Right Reverend Bishop of Pittsburgh animadverted on the fact that we Catholics have not always resented the imputation of unpatriotism against our Catholic schools. Indeed, we are meek enough to possess the land. Private educational enterprises demand constant energy. Hence, we are not surprised that even among Catholics, interest in higher education is not always in evidence. Monopolies in education follow the same course as business monopolies; the smaller concerns are absorbed into the larger. Such monopolies and combines are formed on the plea that large endowments are absolutely necessary to efficiency; that degrees should be conferred only by the State; and that a college to be considered worthy the name should have an enrollment of at least fifty in the freshman class.*

NOTE. Regarding the tendency to create in each State a single degreeconferring authority, noticeable especially in the State of New York, Bryce (The American Commonwealth, 3d ed. p. 681) says: "With all respect to the high authorities who advocate it. I hope they will reconsider the problem and content themselves with methods of reform less likely to cramp the freedom of university teaching "