CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT OP AMERICA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 32, 8 December 1893, Page 23

CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT OP AMERICA.

(London Tablet.) Wb are asked to publish a translation of an article that wu contribated by a non-Catholic gentleman to a German paper of Chicago, the Stoats Zeitung. It shows (says The Catholic Review of New York) bow Catholic schools in America and educational exhibit appear to other eyes : Compared with tbe exposition of tbe Catholic training and educational institutions tbe exhibit of our national public schools scarcely deserves to be noticed. The Catholic school teachers have laid open to our view a picture demonstrating tbe magnitude of the Oatholio school system, its workings, its effects, and tbe aohieved results of the various institutions, so far-reaching, so instructive, and so ably illustrating its high educational character as to discourage and dii. appoint the partisans of tbe American public schools, when they view their miserable, monotonous, and flimsy exhibit. Americans are justly proud of the institute founded by their forefathers, the "free and public schools." They regard those schools as the bulwark of American liberty, as the great, tb9 genuine democratic institution that knows neither rich nor poor, nor religion, nor race, nor colour, but gives gratuitously to each and all, whethtr born on American soil or in a foreign country, a " common echool education."

Petted by the State, raised up bb an idol by catering politicians 1 , regarded as something sacred and a noli me tangere, furnished with all that money can procure— beautiful baildinge, airy class-rooms, apparatus, methode, tpacbers enjoying a fine salary— these American Bchools, the pride of the country, should they not have taken ad van. tage of the presence of the assembled teachers and pedagogues of the world and of an opportunity seized by every country of the globe U exhibit their work, to prove to their admirers their excellence which they boast of in theory, but do not show in practice ?

They do not, we say, and we ask, could they have done it ?

What would those text-book teachers, those lesson hearers, exhibit ? Just that which was to be expected ; models of buildinga, or their photographs, methods and means bought by the State at a heavy expense, but not the results of the schools nor the proofs of tduoation. These are missing in tbe exhibit of the public schools. The kindergarten and the training schools only are praiseworthy exceptions.

Tbe weakness of the public Bchools shows all tbe more forcibly the strength of the Catholic educational institutions at tbe Exposition. lostead of building beautiful models and coatly matbode, they have exhibited the practical results of their schools. And these are gnat results.

All honour to tbe men and women who, without State aid or the encouragement afforded by public opinion, have built those schools • all honour, we say, to the teachers who, not enticed by a aalary, are' educators from principle and not from greed.

The Catholic educational exhibit, situated in (he south-eastern wing of the gallery of the Industrial Building, is, if anything, a collective exhibit, a great object lesson. To those who, through religious fanaticism, ignorance or prejadice have judged unfavourably of the parochial schools, a fine opportunity presents itself to learn their true character and worth, and to correct the false ideaa frequently put forward.

These Catholic institutions impart daily religions instruction* to their pupils, without neglecting any of the secular branches of knowledge. They teach everything in the programme of studies of the public schools, and besides this many specialties that tend to the higher calture of the child. They teach everything except gymnastics, and we say it with regret. They teach the modern languages —German, French ; they tench the c'awics— Latin and Greek ; they teach— mark it well, you friends of the public schools— penmanship, ornamental and line drawing, technical drawing ; they teach model* ling, music, and singing ; they teach the natural sciences ; they give instructions in manual training ; th«y teach philosophy, physiology, hygiene, and general anthropology ; they teach how to cook, to bake, to knit, to sew ; they teach all so-called fads, and, besides tbe element

Ury branches, the three " R's " so thoroughly, so well, that their exhibits in these branches also put to shame those of the public schools* It is difficult to say what tbe Catholic institutions do not teach . From the coloured paper figures of the kindergarten, from the composition, " The Dog," by ten-year-old Johnnie, to tbe philosophical treatise by an older scholar, to the translation into Latin and Greek of Grover Cleveland's message ; from a simple problem in arithmetic to the most difficult mathematical formulas ; from the straight stroke to flourishes ; from simple tracing to drawings of great merit, to mapdrawing scarcely to be distinguished from printed or lithographed work ; specimens of caligrapby in the German and English languages ; musical c mpositions by scholars ; treatises on music, work from the carpenter's bench, the carver's knife, the hammer and anvil— works that would do honour to the master, much more so the scholar, the work of the needle of the slender fingerß of the maiden, embroidery, fancy needlework, paintings— all theae form the mmy -coloured, evercbangiDg picture of every imaginable branch of education. Tbe invitation of the prelates, the bishops of the United States, in 1890, was answered by twenty religious Orders. Twelve hundred institutions sent their contribution?, and if any more had sent their material, Brother Maurelian would have bean at a loss where to display the work, as tbe 20,000 square feet allowed them is already crowded. It would be a loss of time and a useless labour of love to write in detail what one can see in the Catholic educational exhibit, what this or that diocese, religious order, or school, or pupil has exhibited. It would be impossible to make a distinction amid the uniform beauty, and unjust to BiDgle out a particular institution. Suffice it if we make the rounds ; and let us begin at home, in the diocese of Chicago, which, of course, is well represented, as it is so near tbe bureau cf commissioners. The indefatigable Brother Maurelian, president of tbe Christian Brothers' School in Memphis, Teon., who has worked bo hard for the success of the Catholic exhibit, presides, end is sole manager of this department, the outer wall of which is decorated with the portraits of the highly-cultured Bishop of Peorip, Spalding, tbe president of the Catholic Exposition Committee, and that of J. B. de la Salle, tbe founder of the schools of the Chris 1 ian Brothers. In the centre of (he Chicago exhibit a splendid statue of tbe liberal-minded Archbishop Fcehan, of Chicago, in snow-white Carrara marble, has been erected by the clergy of the diocese ; it bears the inscription, " Protector of our schools.'' The reliefs of boys and girls represent education." (To be concluded')