The San Francisco call., 1896-01-09
REV, Mr., GOODWIN DEFENDS MASSACHUSETTS

satisfied consider ourselves fairly treated unless
similar privileges are granted to u.s.
The Catholic World for April, 1871, says:
Education is the American hobby-regarded, as
uneducated and poorly educated people usually re-
gard 1t, as a sort OF panacea for all the ills that
flesh is heir to. We. ourselves Catholics, are as
decidedly any other class OF American citizens
in favor of universal education as thorough and
extensive as possible-if its quality suits us. We
do not, indeed, prize so highly some of our coun-
trymen appear to do the simple ability to read,
write and cipher. Some men are born TO be leaders
and the rest are born TO he led. The best ordered
and administered state is that in which the few
are well educated and lead, and the many are born
TO obedience are willing to be directed, content to
follow, and do not aspire TO be leaders. In extend
ing education and endeavoring to train all to be
leaders we have only extended presumption con-
ceit, indocility and brought incapacty to the sur
face.
We believe the peasantry in old Catholic coun-
tries two centuries ago We're better educated,
although for the most part unable TO read or write,
than are the great body of the American people to-
day. They had faith they had morality. they had
a OF religion, they were instructed in the
great principles and essential truths of the Gospel
were trained to be wise unto salvation. and they
had the virtues, without which WISE stable and
efficient government is impractcable We hear it
said, or rather read in the journals, that the supe-
riority the PrusSian troops have shown to the
French is due to their superior education. We do
not believe word of il. We have no evil
dence that the French common soldiers are not as
well educated and intelligent the PruSSian,
The superiority is due to the fact that the Prussan
officers better educated in their profession,
were less overweening in their confidence of vic
tory and maintained better and severer discipline
in their armies than the French officers
The Northern armies in our recent Civil War
had no advantage in the superior education of the
rank and file over the Southern armies, where
both were equally well officered and commanded.
Good officers, with an able general at their head
can make an efficient army out of almost any ma
teras. For the great mass of the peo pie the edu-
cation needed is not secular education, which
simply sharpens the intellect and generates pride
and presumption, but moral and religious eduCa-
ton, which trains up children in the way they
should go and teaches them TO be honest and loyal,
modest and unpretending, docile and respectful to
their superiors, open and ingenious, obedlent and
submissive to rghtful authority, parental or con-
lugal, civil and ecclesiastical; to know and keep
the commandments OF God and the precepts of the
church and to place the salvation of the soul be-
fore all else in life This sort of education be
given only by the church or under her direction
and control and. as there is for us Catholics only
one church, there is and can be no proper educa-
ton for US not given by or under the direction and
control OF the Catholic church.
Orestes A. Brownson, LID, has been a lead
ing champion OF the Roman Catholic church
since he joined IL in 1914. "Brownson' s
Quarterly Review ably defined the Roman
Catholic doctrine for about twenty years from
1874 onward, was Endorsed by all the bishops
and was regularly republished in London. In
the number for January, 1862, it spoke thus on
the quality of the Roman Catholic schools and
colleges
They practically fail to recognize human prog
ress. As far as we able to trace the effect of
the most approved Catholic education of our day.
whether at home or abroad, il tends 10 represS
rather than quicken the life of the pupil, to unfit
jealous discharge either OF his religious or social
duties They who educated in our schools
seem misplaced and miStimed in the world, if born
and educated for world that has ceased to exist
Comparatively few of them Catholic graduates)
take their stand scholars as men on a level
with the Catholics of mont Catholic colleges, and
those who do take that stand do il by throwing
aside nearly all they learned from their alma ma
ter and adopting the ideas and principles, the
modes of thought and action they find in the gen.
eral civilization of the country in which they live.
The cause OF the failure of what call Catholic
education Is in our judgment, in the fact that we
educate not for the present the future. but for
the past. We do not mean that the dogmas are
not scrupulouSy taught in all our schools and col
leges nor that the words of the catechiSm are not
duly insisted upon. We concede this, ana that
gives TO our so-called Catholic schools merit
which no others have or have.
There can be no question that what passes for
Catholic education in this, or any other country
has its ideal of perfection in the past and that
resists un-Catholic irreligious and opposed to
God the tendencies of modern civilization The
work II gives its Subiec prepares them 10 per-
form is not the work of carrying 1t forward, but
that OF resisting it, driving il back, anathemiZng
II with the gospel and either of negecting it
altogether or taking refuge in coister, in ex-
aggerated asceticism, always bordering immor-
ality, or OF restoring former order OF civilization
no longer living order, and which humanity has
evidently left behind and is resolved shall never be
restored.
Yours for the public schools,
G. A. HUBBELL