The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-09-05
READING HISTORY.

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The objection is often heard in these latter days
that the education of today is not practical-tha
the information and knowledge acquired by chill
dren in the public schools is not useful that the
knowledge impaired in the parochial schools vii
not in any way help the scholar in the battle Oh
life The battle of life in this estimate is usually
considered as battle for the almighty dollar anC
anything that Will not tend to develop an instinct
to accumulate, earn or manipulate dollars into
the pockets of the people is not worthy of serious
study. This falacy is widely held. OF course there
is need for practical education; we need men
trained in the industries-artisans laborers law
yers. We need the practical things and men trained
in the ways of the world But there is the further
need of all the training that is called not practical
The supreme object of life is not the accumulation
of dollars. Each human being has soul to save
And each human being must be trained in some
manner to live in peace and quiet with his fellows.
1t seems that the demand for the practical has
somewhat overshadowed this fact--that each of us
must live with our fellows.
1t is important that we should know as much
about the earth and the planets as we can. We
should know how to produce the things which add
thing of the political principles of our country and
about electricity, and the wonders of the world.
But beyond all these things, which in these latter
days held high above spiritual matters, lies the
fundamental principle that we are human beings,
placed on this earth with other human beings, and
knowledge of human beings-of man-and of his
relations with man and Gods the beginning of
wisdom. For no man can rightly understand the
social relations of the human family without more
or less knowledge based on the history of man. and
the development of the religious and spiritual
thought of the world
If the history of the human race were better
understood, if the the experiences of the human
family were more fully set forth in the works of
man, would have less patience with some of
the political reformers who are today advocating
principles as old as Aristotle, proved faacious
than twenty centuries ago. The principles of
the Socialist have been tried over and over again
in the long history of the human family and the
results have been invariably bad Of course, it is
impossible that we as people can profit by the ex-
perience of thoes who have gone before, unless we
know of their experience. And there is no place
get that experience save in the history of
the world and its people. In matters politcal-and
sometimes in matters religious, sorry to say
we are governed by prejudicies unfounded as
anything may well be. We accept the assertion of
some one being the experience of the human
family, when in fact the assertion is based ON no
more stable ground than the imagining of the pro-
FOUNDER. We have conceived great liking for
men who 'do things" and we excuse mistakes with
the specious idea that the action was prompted by
the purest motives. Yet, if the policy had been diff
ferent, great deal of suffering might have been
avoided If the policy had been to await the light
as shown in the history of the world probably the
disaster which the precipitate action brought upon
society could have been avoided.
1t is true that most of the written history of the
world is recount of the wars which have been
fought but besides the wars; throughout the pages
can be read the struggles which man had with
man, and theories had with theories. The prob
ems which are today presented to be decided at
the POLISH the people are not new problems. They
are old every one of them. They have been dressed
lp in new form by the conditions which have arisen
in modern social life. And the practical things
which the practical people of the age advocate as
he only essential to education in no way solve
American government was founded that the answer
o all the problems of government which arise can
,e settled absolutely right by appeal to the peo-
be But if the people have not the experience of
he past to guide them surely the decision of the
people, based only their own experience and rea-