Catholics and Their Schools

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 8, 4 March 1925, Page 57

Catholics and Their Schools

(By MaJik 0. Shrivbr, Jux., in America.)

■■ Catholics are deplorably ignorant of matters concerning Catholic (schools. .. They know little or nothing of the history of • Catholic education; they seem calmly oblivious of the attacks made on the schobls in Oregon, ‘Washington, and. other States: . Ask a ,•'thousand ■ a simple question 'us to curricula, organisation, numbers, teacher-train-ing, and not five would he 41)le to answer. This' information, and mijch more, is readily, available in ’a Ismail ■ pamphlet, The'; Cathccliiihn of '.Catholic Edam- . ... ' * ' tion, . written by Rev. James H. Ryan of the. Educational Department of the National Catholic Welfare Council, to which acknowledgment is made for much of the material in’ this article. ; I

.All of ns have heard, the ancient calumny that Catholics arc opposed to education. Many not of the Faith have been brought to believe it the truth.. But how many, even among ourselves, have heard that the first school established in < this new world was a Catholic school at St. Augustine in 1606? The Spaniards did that, and before 1629, four years before ithere wore- any schools at all in the original colonies, Catholics had many elementary schools in Florida, Texas, New Mexico,! and California. By 1776 there woi'c seventy- Catholic schools in the Thirteen Colonies as far .west as Missouri, and as far north ns ’Maine. A Jesuit college had been founded at Newton, Maryland, in 1677, and the direct descendant of that college still exists as; Georgetown, ‘University. ■••

The public school system, supported by general taxation, as we know it to-day, was non-existent until about 1850. All the early schools were religions, anti there was a fine Catholic school-system, throughout, what is now the United States under. the direction of the Society o-f Jesus.- To-day that system has grown and expanded beyond. belief. There are 8706 schools of'every Lind, (with 1,981,051 students, -j Qf those 34,000 are in the colleges and universities, 130, in,. the .high schools and 1,795,073 in the elementary grades., The remaining 13,000 arc in' the normal schools and seminaries/ . . ~ , . .

The ■curriculum’.'of the Catholic ' school' is practically tho same a. 4 that of the more progressive’ public school ’ 'and mm-Catholic college. Approximately' the same time is given to languages, science, history, and mathematics, hut whore I iion-Caihblics assign' the remaining .. time To electives, Catholics give it to religion and religions instruction. Religion, of course, permeates Cal|iolic school work; literature, history,' and science are interpreted -and under. Rood in the light of the- Catholic Faith and ithe religious heritage is given the first place, f Educators agree that This is far from a fail!t. The- religious instruction does’, mil consume'! an undue -allowance.; of Time or yen el the ordinary studies To ho. neglected. , j : j .’. -, .. Oatliolibbschools have held and hold , fast whenever permitted, jto an ' old-fashioned ratio studioruin. There is up experimenla-

tion with educational fads and intellectual foibles; innovations and, unproved plans meet with little sympathy, for the Catholic curriculum insists ‘on fundamentals. History, language, mathematics and science are its hackljoiio and clectivisln is at a minimum. That is the system, it is what Catholic men and women must support and maintain and defend. It is our heritage, to be guarded and preserved. .

The things a man values he safeguards and passes on to his children. Catholics who prize and value the Faith, realising that it can best be handed down by religions instruction in the schools’, must rally to the standard of Catholic education, and hand down the precious heritage to those who comb after us. No one can be negligent, lethargic, neglectful, when lie reads what thoughtful men have said of religions education.' Burke lias written that true religion is tile very foundation of society. Once that is shaken, the whole fabric cannot be stable or lastihg. In more modern days, former Vice-President Marshall declared that there has never ’been a timer when men so honestly confessed that • government docs not hang on constitutions or leagues of nations, but depends- on the Gospel of Christ .for its salvation that the real evil of the Church is that it has turned over too many of its functions to the civil power. “We arc face to face,” writes Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, “with a teaching that holds Christianity to be not only.a superstition and aii'-illu-sion. but a fraud invented to ’gain control over inch,” Speaking- to the National Society of London in 1920, Mr. Arthur Belfour said . that . a division between secular and- religious - training .was-h fundamentally erroneous, and that if religious (raining, was a good .thing, it should not be divorced from the- training of- the mind; that a school whs not arid opght’not to be a place- merely for filling some ■ unfortunate child toothy brim with what is called secular learning. In an address' to. the- Brooklyn ,Y:M.ChA;,j Dr. ,-S. patkcS.’Cadtmm recently ,-roinarked!: '

.'M-lieligiouk education'is the largest task (hat •faces the world to-day. Culture, alone cannot save mankind. If .it- could -Athens would he the coni re of eivilisalioii.”

.Mr. Herbert AS(|i.ii(h’.in ,-a disciiSsiyn .of education writes:

“Denominational schools arc an indispensable - part of the educational ssyteup. You cannot get .rid of them because you cannot find a. practical substitute for them.’

So it goes with ; Catholic and non -Catholic voicing the, need of adequate moral- training. For, American children, the needy is -selfevident, \ if our institutions are to endure. A,, nation cannot stand when its v citizens manifest a. disregard for law and order. The future of ’The’ : country, no ’ less than ; the ftl thro of the Church, depends on allegiance to the -idea of- religious education, and if religious education is to continue among! us, .Catholics---, of America must not- swerve, in their, fidelity to : the' principles,, laid; down, by

(be Church. • . Catholics may not, send thfeir children to schools where religious;; tefichiifg is alnuidoiukl, and teaching of inprMiiy&e& eluded, front'Hit' curriculum. Says Mr. Bitd S. Color : . . , . . - i'it't?

“No system of ethics that had behind it fid living faith was ever .successfulyini- curfeifig the evil inclination of the human flesh. No 1 ethical code has even been'; north its paper that did not have behind it the ; authority (of a living faith.’’ ~, \ There nitist ho religious . instruction,' arid for us that can he laid only in the Catholic school. .-. : •’' ;' - vtCCyv

Catholic schools must hear the . burden teaching a standard of ethics riot gene hillyaccepted by the masses. >. Through, it they, will preserve the Faith for their and at the same time educate fearless,-, upright citizens for the State. ; Fort Catholics the way is clear; the duty ' plain. s We must know our schools, wo: must support tkfcim, we must defend them. Wo must sekv’Hi£i: every Calholic child is blessed with aircliL gious education iip a- Catholic schoblj "ihlid having before, our eyes the , experience :of Oregon, Michigan, and Alabama, .must ;% see to it that the fight' for the Catholic stdipiol;is the fight of every Catholic man and woman in the country. : -- -. r y-;U-Tjv’-