The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1890-12-13
PUBLIC SCHOOL READERS.

OF Ireland lS doomed to disaster.
PUBLIC SCHOOL READERS.
Last Sunday Prof. Swing, of Chicago,
delivered an address in that city deplor-
ing the elimination of religion from the
readers used ii the public schools and
the substitution for it of wit and frivolitY.
He recommends that the state should
get up it's own readers for its public
schools and not permit money seeking
men to pander to the materiallsm of the
times. ''The school readers" says he,
''must be for human beings, and that,
too, in their early, flexible years, and to
bind up millions of these books with the
religious sentiments omitted is 10 tell
great falsehoods to millions of our chill
dren." He says that IN McGufey's reader
published thirty-three years ago one
third of the pieces in prose and poetry
we're religious, while in the sixth reader,
recently published. only one-eighth of
the pieces pertain to religion, wit and
humor being substituted to make the
children laugh more and muse less. He
speaks of another reader which has only
four religious pieces in 100, and OF q
popular fourth reader without any re-
ligious selection at all, In an elegant
fifth reader Of great publishing house
only five out OF ninety chapters are de-
voted to religion. "rhus may be stated
fundamentally" he says. ''the moral de-
cline Of the sohoolroom, and it would be
difficult to- prove that it is not the de-
cline of the moral youth of the age as
well'' Prof. Swing goes on 20 say: "The
excision of religious poetry aud prose has
perhaps been done by political school
boards for the purpose of securing votes
from alleged church members who do
NOT believe perhaps in any religious
sentiments except their own. But the
question is not church question; it is
literary and moral one. Millions of
children are now passing through
youth from which all the eloquence and
mystery of Deity has been removed"
He then refers to the Catholic Church
which believes in combining religious
with secular instruction and says that if
it could impart simple religion without
dogmas the nation might ask it to lead
the young mind along the divine and
howery path. Not only are the school
readers non-religlous, But they contain
no literature. To make human liter
ature, he says the volume must open 10
admit Scipio's dream of Heaven and
Addison's picture OF Plato. The reading
child must laugh with Dickens, love ma
sure with Wordsworth, sing with Burns
or Whittier, be scientific with Herschel.
romantic with Scott, and beauty loving
with Ruskin. Until many pages all
covered with thoughts of man and God
shall come into our school books they
will be the products of type and ink, but
they will not be the literature Of man
kind. When Protestant OF such emin-
ence as Prof. Swing deplores the ab-
sence of religion in the readers we are at
q loss to understand why eminent Catho-
lie ecclesiastics are 50 enamoured with
the Poughkeepsie plan or any other plan
which requires Catholic children to feed
upon such literature for mental nourish-
ment. In Minnesota we have a state
series of text books, but in our opinion
they are Of an inferior character aud be-
hind the age. The selections 10 the
readers are pretty fair and on the whole
unobjectionable to Catholics. There is
one, however. from Dickens on, the
Battle of Hastings, which is offensive to
Catholics. The great novelist is known
to have been prejud,oed against the
religion, and his reference to the
Pope IN the selection adverted to is calou-
lated to inspire The children with con-
tempt for the head of the Catholic Church.
The Pope is represented as an unscrup-
ulous, scheming diplomat who 'tcursed
HAROLD and acted double part from
and political motives. Prof.
Swing justly condemns the kind of liter
ature contained in the school books, and
the defenders Of. the public system of
education Peep silent. Let Catholic
bishop or priest speak complainingly of
it and all the bigots of the country will
bark in unison at Roman interference.
And yet q Catholic has far more reason
to be dissatisfied than any Protestant,
for not one selection can be found in any
public school reader from the pen of a
Catholic writer.