to discuss the secular system of education from the public school, through the high school, and on to the university.

I am sorry that I have not had an opportunity of reading this paper before this convention, but the truths presented by Father Larkin are not open for discussion—they have been our sentiments always, and our duty is to spread those sentiments in the localities in which we may live throughout these United States.

BROTHER GERALD, S. M., Kenrick High School, St. Louis, Mo.: Father Larkin's paper pointed out to us various fallacies in the present educational system, followed mainly outside of our own schools, such as over zealous kindergarten work, nature study, coeducation, eugenics, the teacher-doing-all method, etc., and has emphasized the fact, that any kind of an education, without the teaching of religion as its foundation, is based on a false system of pedagogy; and surely in this we all agree with him. For education without religion, considered from a Catholic standpoint, is no education at all. How can it be? "If the chief end of education," says Archbishop Spalding, "is virtue; if conduct is threefourths life; if character is indispensable while knowledge is only useful, then it follows that religion-which, more than any other vital influence, has power to create virtue, to inspire conduct, and to mould character should enter into all the processes of education."

It is true, that in some systems of education, ethical culture, as Father Larkin remarks, has been proposed to take the place of religious teaching; but, ethical culture has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

A system of education which is genuinely true, cannot be planned in a day; nor is it the result of any one educational reform. Rather is it a system built on the best principles enunciated and put into practice by the leading educational reformers from the time of the Renaissance to our day.

It is almost an impossibility to state definitely which system of pedagogy is genuinely true, which genuinely false. Nearly all educational reformers have something that is worthy of praise and admiration, if not always of imitation. It shall be my purpose to touch lightly upon the merits as well as upon the faults of a certain number of them, and allow you to draw your own conclusions.

Amongst the leading reformers since the days of the Renaissance, we must mention particularly the Jesuits, Comenius, Locke, St. John Baptist de la Salle, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel and Herbart.

It was quite natural that at the time of the Renaissance, with the printing press just invented and literature again coming to its own, educators were of opinion, that their principal duty was to teach the Latin and Greek classics, and to emphasize their teaching, if need be, with switch in hand. This brought about, in most scholars, a hatred for study. When the Jesuits arrived on the scene, they at once discarded corporal

punishment, except in extreme cases, reduced the hours of class by about half, brought about emulation by means of rewards and prizes, and placed great importance upon public speech and manners. Their object was to make learning a pleasure. In this they succeeded, and their reputation spread throughout Europe. Their greatest contribution to pedagogical reform, however, was the establishment of a system of education, which they follow to this day, and which is embodied in their Ratio Studiorum, a work which is a veritable gold mine of pedagogical wisdom.

About the beginning of the seventeenth century, a reaction against mere book learning set in, led by one who designated schools as "places where minds are fed on words." "Why shall we not," he said, “instead of dead books, open the living book of nature?" This reformer was John Amos Comenius, a man of consummate intelligence and tireless energy. The object of his life was to ennoble man and make him happy by means of education. To attain this object, he drew up, in his Didactica magna, a system of pedagogy in which no phase of education is left untouched. Here are some of his leading principles:

1. Education is a development of the whole man.

2.

Educational methods should follow the order of nature.

3. There should be an easy gradation in studies, the one leading naturally to the other.

4. In the sciences, the student should have the objects studied before him.

5. Discipline should aim at improving character.

6. The teacher should be an example in person and conduct of what he requires of his pupils.

These principles stamp Comenius as one who deserves to rank among the leading educational reformers of the world. His greatest error consisted in this, that he overestimated the power of the human mind to acquire knowledge. He wished man to know all things, and yet there are many things of which we must perforce be ignorant.

The next among the great educators is Locke. He emphasizes physical education, and places character formation higher than knowledge. "That which every gentleman desires for his son, is contained," he says, "in these four things: virtue, wisdom, breeding, and learning." He puts learning last, for according to his own words, he considers it "the least." The keystone of his pedagogy is man, the subject, and not knowledge, the object of education. However, in this he is an extremist, for Cardinal Newman, in his Idea of a University, asserts, that "the tone of Locke's remarks is condemnatory of any teaching which tends to the general cultivation of the mind." His chief fault lies in the fact, that he exaggerates the power of the individual reason in its search for truth, and that nowhere, in his pedagogical teaching, do we come across a higher principle, much less the spirit of Christianity with its life-giving strength.

In 1682, St. John Baptist de la Salle founded the order of Brothers of the Christian Schools, better known in this country as the order of Christian Brothers. Education, up to his time, favored, almost exclusively, the individual and the rich; but our saint instituted his brotherhood for the education of the masses, with a predilection for the poor. That he has a right to be classed among pedagogical reformers can be readily deduced from the following list of reforms which he either originated or perfected:

1. The organization and management of elementary, grade and normal schools.

2. The Sunday school, technical schools, and the reform school.

3. The perfecting and application of the simultaneous method of teaching.

4. The modern popular system of education.

Coming down to the times of the French Revolution, we come across one, who might be called a pedagogical revolutionist instead of a pedagogical reformer. This is Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, though not the first educator to advocate a return to nature, was the leading exponent of the "Return to Nature" pedagogy. Being a pessimist, he found fault with existing civilization, and advocated, as a remedy, a return to primitive simplicity. "Everything had to be natural, even his children," as one writer puts it. Goethe styles his Emile the nature gospel of pedagogy - das Naturevangelium der Paedagogik. Rousseau maintained, in this his principal work, that every new born child is pure as an angel, and is spoiled only by its parents, relatives, teachers, etc. He thus denies the doctrine of original sin. Again, though Christ, the teacher par excellence, said: "Let little children come unto me and forbid them not," Rousseau wishes them to hear of God and religion, only after the age of fifteen. Another of his errors is, that no educational influence, either by word or deed, should be brought to bear upon the child, and that the latter should consider nobody higher or better than itself. In what, then, consists his merit? In this, that he emphasized the great psychological fact, though some claim he discovered it, that the child lives in an entirely different world from that of its superiors. He says: "Childhood has its own manner of seeing, perceiving, and thinking, peculiar to itself." It is on this account that he is hailed by some as the forerunner of child study.

And now a word of Pestalozzi and Froebel, the one "the father of popular education," the other, "the discoverer of childhood." We link their names, because, based on their great love for children, they have much in common. They both believed in training as opposed to mere instruction. They both believed in early training; and this causes the one to extol the great influence of the mother in educating the child at home, the other, the influence of those taking the mother's place in the kinder

garten. And yet, Pestalozzi and Froebel differ. The former wishes the child to do what he wants it to do, in the manner he thinks best, and towards an end he has in view; the latter teaches the child what it wants to do, in the way it thinks best, and with an end in view wholly its own. Pestalozzi wishes the child to see, feel, hear, understand, and express things as he does, whilst Froebel leaves all this to the child's selfactivity, with but a guidance that is indispensable. Both have left an impress upon educational methods that is readily discernible to this day. Yet, each had his faults. Pestalozzi, believing with Rousseau in the sinlessness and innocence of childhood, refused to acknowledge Christ as the Redeemer of mankind. However, he was ever actuated by a deep religious feeling, and never did he oppose the doctrines of Christ. As to Froebel, he was accused of inculcating but a natural religion; besides, his kindergarten idea was found fault with, because it frequently leads to methods "which stimulate precociousness, make genuine work distasteful, and impoverish the sources of life by too early and too persistent appeals to self-consciousness."

One more important educational reformer must be mentioned before I finish. It is Johann Friedrich Herbart. Rein says of him, that he is "the only one among the original thinkers of modern times who not merely casually touched, but directed the whole force of his theoretical and practical knowledge upon the question of pedagogy." His whole system of pedagogy rests upon his psychology, and though his psychology is, in part, unsound, its application to pedagogy was a move in the right direction. The highest object of teaching, according to Herbart, is the development of good character. Knowledge and mental discipline are simply means to attain this object. Interest is the highest purpose of instruction. It is excited not for learning's sake, but for its own sake. "The greatest sin in instruction is to make it tedious," Herbart himself says; and in order to maintain this interest, he makes one study a center about which all others are to revolve. "This doctrine of interest, howcver," says Dr. Harris, "needs some limitation, because the idea of the will and the idea of duty are omitted." Then again, the value of mere instruction in comparison with that of discipline is exaggerated. That his system, founded as it is on a broad scientific and philosophical basis, has merit, no one will deny; and yet, it "knows no place for free will, nor, if logically pressed, for individual responsibility."

Having thus reviewed in brief the principal merits and defects of some of the leading educational systems, it remains for us to "ring out the false, ring in the true," and with renewed enthusiasm continue our grand work of Christian education, keeping in mind that what the teacher "in his inmost soul hopes, believes, and loves, has far deeper and more potent influence, than mere lessons can ever have."

THE RECITATION: ITS NATURE, SCOPE AND PRINCIPLES

BROTHER CONSTANTIUS, PH. D., LL. D., CHRISTIAN BROTHERS COLLEGE, MEMPHIS, TENN.

"Education," pertinently observes Archbishop Spalding, "is little less than the continuous methodical suggestion of what is true, useful and good, to the end that the pupil may be brought under its influence and permit it to mould his life. It is by means of suggestions that the teacher is able to make him feel that he is a free agent, that it lies in his power to become other and nobler than he is and that it is his duty as it is his privilege to develop in himself a diviner kind of consciousness which alone makes truer knowledge and purer love possible. Persuade him that he has ability, and he will labor to justify your opinion of him; but if the master discourage him he loses self-confidence and ceases to make effort."

Hence, everything that is communicated should be so presented as to be understood by the pupil. This often-neglected principle, if observed, will insure a double advantage. The more direct advantage is, that the knowledge thus communicated becomes. a solid appropriation in the mind of the learner, and the indirect but more comprehensive good is, that the powers of the mind are by this means developed, and enabled to reach forth in quest of knowledge for themselves in all other directions and to make it their own wherever found. On the other hand a twofold evil results from the neglect of this most rational principle. Superficial knowledge is its direct consequence, while mental insincerity is its more fearful result. A pupil who is accustomed to take the teacher's dictum as sufficient without verifying it by his own judgment and to regard as knowledge what is at best only a vague impression, admitting it into memory in the precise form in which it is presented without blending and