The age-herald., 1898-01-04
The Child Study Congress
 Of the Roman Catholic Church

A few days ago there convened at New York a number. of intellectual Catholic men and women who, realizing the trend of modern thought, are determined to Keep abreast with the great movements Of the day which have any relation to the chil- dren of America.
 This convocation was styled the "Child Study Congress- and in it's brief session of two days much was accomplished for the good of those children who come within the influence of Catholic instruction. The aims and objects of the congress are thus stated by exchange:
 The Child Study congress, which conven- ed in this city last night and will continue its sessions through tomorrow. marks new departure in the methods Of Roman Catholic educators. An outgrowth, as IL is of the summer school on Lake Champaign and the Teachers Institutes, 1t shows ike these the determination or the churcn 10 maintain it's historic policy of adapting itself, in far as it can without sacritc- ing it's tenets to conditions which it finds itself unable to resist and abolish. The Summer school was really concession to the demands of Catholic women for share In the higher education, and that it has brought about hitherto unknown promi- hence of women in educational affairs with in the church, and of freedom of public discussion for both sexs was evident last
 
 and struck the keynote of the convention the necessity for a spiritual side to educa- ton, spiritual as including, the religious and ethical. So urgent does this church hold this necessity to be that she is ap- parently willing at last to relinquish the point of making this training purely Cath ollie by making it Christian simply.
 Let us have" said one of the speakers, the Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, "a textbook of ethics which all creeds can accept and let it have it's place in every curriculum"
 To the lack of this sort of higher, or . general religious training, these Catholic teachers and spiritual advisors of the mass es ascribe the growing discontent and the revolutionary ideas which threaten society and government today. Now, as ever, they are frankly against the secularizaton of education, and against the men whose ideas have contributed to this result The first applause of the first meeting was given to quoted opinion of Dr. Harris, the United States commissioner of education, to the effect that Herbert Spencer's famous essay on the subject is an unscientifc work
 Other notable points were the frank warn ing against the present tendency to teach equality, being another fruitful means Of spreading the discontent that prevails among the masses today, and the tacit re- buke of the blatant patriotism which is now inculcated in the public schools. Make your children moral, obedient to the laws and venerators of their superiors, and you will make them patriots; the true patriot IS the upright and industrious citiZen was the burden of the advice.
 In the audience today were many back robed sisters from the orders interested in education, those whose rules do not admit of their appearing in public like the Urus- lines, for instance, being represented by authorized proxies. This very general in- terest of the orders in the public discus- sion of the problems of education is due, so the Catholic women of the congress say, to the teachers institutes, referred to above, which have done good work in bringing Catholic teachers, especially those of the closer orders. abreast of modern pedagogical demands. These institutes which are conducted on the plan of univer- sity extension courses, were started in this city-like the present congress, under the auspices of the Paulist Fathers-in Septem- Der, 1895, since which time they have been extended to other parts of the country Mrs. B. Allen Burke. who was the initiator Of this system of educating teachers was Tor many years a teacher herself in the public schools of this and other states. and her object has been to make these institutes a means of equalizing the parochial with the public schools by giving the parochial teacher an equivalent training in the. latest methods.