The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1900-02-24
Great Britain and Ireland

Spain ........ 49,. ..-....... Jos
Average .......' =. :. 800 go. l65
Mixed. Attendance.
Holland .......... ...... ...... ..... liza
| Cahaud '''''''' ''''' $3.50 --.------- 1Uu
Average.....- -.--......... l4t
1t will he seen at once that in a COM
parison between countries under Pro
testant governments and countries I'M
der Catholic governments. the Catho-
lies are slightly ahead in the matter
of school attendance. France is away
ahead of Australia, the highest and
far exceeds Great Britain and Ireland
Austria and the United States have the
same figures, while Spain which is 50
despised nowadays as a degenerate ma
ton is not so far behind her ancient
rival, Britain. and is abreast with Can
ada.
But it may be said that Ireland is d
Catholic country and should not be
Jumped with Great Britain. As Ire
! land is under d Protestant government,
and as in the three Kingdoms, there
are 29.3S0000 Professionals to 5,336,0O0
/ Catholics. our plan is fair But even
| leaving out Ireland. the report of the
! United States commissioner of educa-
ton for 1SS9-90 vol. l.. PIP. J53-557 gives
! the number of children enrolled in
school per 1000 Of the population, for
/ England and Wales 1855; for Scotland,
! 164, which figures are lower than those
! for France.
From the same report let us see how
| the various provinces of
| THE GERMAN EMPIRE STAND.
Bavaria, which is saven-tenths Catho-
| lie, has an enrolment of 212. Baden,
tWo-thtrGs Catholic. 206: SaXOny, Pro
| testant, POP; Prussia two-thirds Pro
! testant, 1856, WuertembeTg, Protestant,
| 1870. 1t will be seen. there fore. that the
! Catholic provinces stand at the head.
| This is fair test, because the people
! are of the same stock with the same
| opportunities, and owing to the federal
character of the German constitution,
| Catholics and PrOtestants are free to
! follow their own desires. There are
| three points which must be cleared up
| before completing this comparison.
/ l. Where are the figures for Ire
| land? 2. Where are the figures for
Italy and Portugal? 8 What about
Mexico and South America?
IRELAND.
Though a Catholic country. Ireland
is under Protestant government.
England, for nearly 200 years tried to
make the Irish people Protestants. The
means they employed were, first, muir
der; then robbery, ard finally. ig-
norance. Cromwell consigned all the
Irish Catholics Ito hell or to Con-
naught." The penal laws confscated
the property of Catholics and forbade
them to own real estate, to take a lease
or to possess a horse over the value of
$40. Catholics could not teach under
penalty of transportation, and Cath
Ole parent who sent his child out of
the country to be educated was first
fined and then OutlaWed.
These facts are stated by Henry Bar
nard, Ii. D., the first United States
commissioner of education, in his Jour-
nal CT Education. vol. XII, p. 1874:
Until the beginning of this century
the Catholics, who constituted four
fifths of the population of Ireland, were
not only not permitted TO endOw, con-
duct or teach schools, but Catholic
parents even were not permitted to edu-
cate their children abroad: and it was
made an Offense, punished by trans
portation (and if the party returned it
was made high treason), in any Catho
lie to act as a schOolmaster, or even as
tutor in a private family"
Hence, if the older generation OF
Irishmen in this country was illiterate
the reason was that the English Pro
testant government made them illit-
crate. The middle generation was less
illiterate because the Irish Catholics
were winning back their ancient rights.
There will be no illiterateS among the
new generation. for equality at least in
primary EDUCATION is now gained.
ITALY.
The figures for Italy and Portugal
are. in the MulhalI tables, 80 and 81.
These are the lowest Of the countries
given. What is the reason? 1t can
not be their religion, because We saw
that other Catholic countries COM
pared well with Protestant countries.
What, then. is the cause?
In Italy the causes are we'll known.
This has been a disastrous century fol
the peninsula. The beginning of the
century saw it the theatre of Ma
pOleon's wars. The middle of it saw
it oppressed by foreign enemies and
agitated by domestic revolutions. The
end Of it sees the nation grOaning I'M
der a burden of taxation becoming too
heavy to bear. When a country is thus
distracted, it is not surprising that
school attendance should fall off
Moreover. it must be remembered
that Italy is the home of art and Gull
ture now as she has been in the past.
From her came the impulse which made
our modern civilization. Her libraries
her art galleries, her palaces, her
churches draw men from every race
and creed and country. They are all
the works of her own sons, she owes
nothing to outside influences
In Rome, the city of the Popes, there
has been a system for free education
since 1897. In the '40's, Laing, a Pro-
teStant traveller. was in Rome He
wrote then:
In every street in Rome. for instance,
there are at short distances public Dri-
mary schools for the education of the
children of the lower and middle classes
in the neighborhOod. Rome, with a
population of 15S,67S souls, has 372 pub
lie primary schools, with 4S2 teachers
an6 14.009 children attending them Has
so many public schools for
the instruction of those classes? [
doubt it. Berlin, with a population
about double that of Rome, has only
264 schools
In 1860, when the population of Rome
had reached 220.532, there were %, sos
pupils in the schools, not counting the
students. That the rate was
not kept up in the rest of Italy was
owing to the political troubles which
made all governments insecure Still
it is worthy of remark that with all
these drawbacks the number of schools
in Italy was still greater than the num-
Der of schools in Germany.
LATIN AMERICA.
By Latin America is meant Mexico
and the countries to the south of it
which were colonized by the SpaniarGis
and Portuguese. When we compare
those countries we must bear in mind
the fundamental fact that the manner
in which those countries were eolonized
is entirely different from the manner
employed by the English in colonizing
the United States