THE FRENCH SCHOOL SYSTEM

New Zealand Tablet, 21 September 1911, Page 1851

THE FRENCH SCHOOL SYSTEM

BANEFUL IMFLUENCE OF LAY SCHOOLS There is no doubt (writes a special correspondent of the Catholic Times') that in the present condition of France the chief cause of the gradual dechristianising of the country is the influence of the lay schools, that M. Caillaux professes himself so eager to defend. The generations of boys and girls that are given over to the teaching of these godless instructors are taught not merely to ignore the religion in which they have been baptised, but to hate it. At the same time, in spite of the high-flown moral sentences that are inscribed on the walls of the Government schools, the children’s ideas of morality are lowered by the theories and by the example of their masters. The letter of a village cure, just published by that first-class Catholic paper, the Univers, gives a picture that is drawn from life of The Baneful Influence of the Lay Schools, and similar examples occur at every step throughout the country. The cure in question is an absolutely sincere man, for whose veracity the Univers vouches. He begins by stating a fact, well known to those who are acquainted with the conditions of life in a French village that if there are still a few old schoolmasters who are respectable and honest men, all those 'who have come into office during the last twenty years are the servile instruments of the Freemasons, who govern France, and their action is chiefly sectarian and political. The cure, who writes the letter from which we gather these details, is pastor of two villages, each of which numbers about 350 inhabitants. In one, the teacher for boys and girls is a woman, who from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning and from Wednesday to Friday (Thursday is the French . holiday) leaves the village to visit the neighboring town. She generally starts before the end of the school time and comes back late, but these irregularities are overlooked by the authorities, whose good graces she has gained by her anti-religious attitude, by her free use of the school books prohibited by the Bishops, and lastly by her Purely Civil Marriage to a clerk in the town close by. Her teaching and her general conduct have excited the displeasure of the

most respectable among the villagers, and the ‘Marne’ petitioned for her removal, but no heed was paid to his request, and the worthy peasants are obliged to trust heir children to a woman of whose morality they cordially disapprove. • • In the other village things are no better. . The school is directed by a master. He is, unlike his coleague, religiously married, but is none the less hostile to the Church. His school is neglected, for he gives up his time to propagating Socialistic theories. He has founded a democratic committee,’ and openly works against the peaceable local authorities. He is constantly to be seen at the public-house ; never, of course, comes to church—not even to attend funerals—and shows his zeal by obliging his pupils to use the prohibited books, threatening them, if they refuse to do so, with exclusion from the school during several months. He' Punishes the Boys who Serve Mass, and openly proclaims that ‘ Mass means nothing.’ Even more than the Maire,’ he is the Government representative in the place, and so great, adds our informant, is the fear that he inspires, that even grown boys and young men are influenced by his opinions after they have left school. Some of these are, at heart, believing Catholics, but they are,, like most French peasants credulous and timid, and they consider that it would _ compromise ’ them to assist the cure in any of his undertakings for the common good of the village, in the souls of many children the evil teaching of the ■schoolmasters sows seeds of irreligion and hatred; even in the best it implants a spirit of cowardice, born of the conviction that it is unsafe not to side with the Government—a sentiment that is often expressed, even by well-meaning peasants. The conditions graphically described by the cure whose letter is quoted by the Univers exist in thousands of French villages; they explain _ The Gradual Dying Out of the Faith in provincial France. In the large centres, in Paris especially, there is more independence, and the schoolmaster, however evil may be his intentions, is not, as he is in a small village, a king of men, the dispenser of Government favors, invested with a mysterious superiority by his more ignorant neighbors. As a striking example of the ‘religious’ liberty that exists in the Department of Public Instruction we may quote a private circular that was sent, last June, to the school teachers of the district of Vendome limy were requested to answer the following questions: When and where did the ceremony of the First Communion take place in your village How many children missed school to attend catechism ? When and where did they receive Confirmation ? Give the names of the children who made their-First Communion and who were confirmed,’ etc. The children who follow the religious exercises preparatory to the First Communion are, in many places, ridiculed before their companions • worse still whatever their merits may be, they are systematically excluded from all the advantages that are dlSpenS6d t 0 the P u P ils of the Government Contemptible Conduct. q a , la Only the other day, in Paris, a little boy named paladin, weak and worn by want of fresh air, was informed that he had been chosen to form nart of a colome de yacances ’ organised for the benefit of the school privilege that entitled him to a month's stay in the country Unfortunately, ,the day when the little fellow was to be taken to see the doctor, previous to starting, happened -to be the day of his First Communion. His mother requested permission to take him another day; to this no objection would have been raised if the poor woman had not unsuspectingly mentioned the reason why. The holidays in the country are meant for those who do not make their First Coni mumon,’ was the harsh reply; ‘your boy’s name will be taken off the list. And so it came to pass. The Artfulness of the Atheists. Another little boy, a frail, white-faced little Parisianj was also a pupil of the lay school, but in his case the influence of a Catholic ‘patronage’ counted'

balanced the evil teaching. He was sent to the country with a colony of other boys, and his mother, on being asked if she wished him to attend Mass on Sundays, signed a paper to that effect. On the first Sunday after the colony’s arrival, the boys were informed that they were to start for a long country excursion; our small boy discovered that if he attended Mass he must renounce the day’s outing, and he was told to make his choice. The little fellow did not hesitate; he prevailed upon a comrade, who needed encouragement, to be as staunch as himself, and every Sunday the two plodded off to Mass, while their companions were taken to explore the country. The Parisian is made of firmer stuff than his country cousin, and this little fellow, on being mocked for his ‘bigotry,’ quietly replied: ‘Je m’en fais gloire ’ —‘ I glory in it.’ These examples are encouraging, but they are, and will ever be, exceptions, and it is difficult to exaggerate the evil effects of the tremendous- pressure, the Petty Tyranny, the cowardly deprivations by which the lay teachers carry out the evil work that is entrusted to them by the God-hating Freemasons, who are the rulers of France at the present day. Nevertheless, even the republican newspapers confess that the letter in which, two years ago, the French Bishops denounced the anti-religious spirit of the Government schools has produced some results. The Lanterne grudgingly owns that the laws issued to enforce lay education have ‘ partially failed in their object. ’ In many ‘ departments ’ the Government inspectors are forced to recognise the fact that when two schoolsa free school, founded by Catholics, and a Government school—are in presence, the former is bv far the more popular and flourishing. There is but one remedy for this abuse, says the Lanterne : let the State assume the monopoly even of primary education; and the same paper bitterly remarks that the religious men and women, whose schools were taken from them and whose Congregations were suppressed, have resumed as laymen and laywomen the work that they had been forced to renounce. Surely this is a striking tribute to the adaptability, tenacious purpose, and self-sacrificing spirit of the persecuted teaching Orders.