The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-01-07
FERRER AS AN "EDUCATOR"

In the second Of his two articles on
the Ferrer case in 'McClures Maga-
zine" (Oct., 1910, p. 241, col. p Mr..
William Archer declares that the no.
torious Spanish anarchist was mot the
least among the victims of obscurant-
ism, the martyrs of progress" When
read this amazing assertion, / was
Immediately reminded of the we'll
known eXhortation Of Samuel Johnson,
'endeavor to clear your minds of cant"
And I could not help thinking that
Carlyle exaggerated less than usual
when he called cant "a double dis
titled lie; the second power of a lie.'
Of all the canting catchwords of to-
day, progress" is probably the most
superficial and the most deadly. It is
Mr.. Chesterton who observes that the
cry of the modern man for progress is
usually equivalent to: "Let us not set
| tie what is good; but let us settle
whether we are getting more of it,
Among other meanings progress de-
notes movement; but it is too often
loosely taken to mean movement away
from what we have to an indefinite
something that we have never taken
the trouble to conceive clearly, much
less to define precisely. The import
ant thing seems to be movement; what
the end may be does not seem to
matter
In all seriousness ask, how can Mr..
Archer, who is not of the unthinking
crowd that plays with shibboleths, call
Ferrer a victim of obscurantism,
martyr of progress?" Obscurantism
means opposition to enlightenment,
while progress is not progress unless
it denotes Improvement Assume that
the Indignantly stupid" Spanish
judges condemned Ferrer not so much
because they believed him guilty of
the offence with which he was charged,
as because they hated and feared his
ideas and his teaching. Did that teach
ing make for true enlightenment, and
genuine Improvement? Let us con-
slider it for moment in it's main as
poets and tendencies, meantime en-
deavoring "to clear our minds of can't
What may call the ''Ferrer tradition"
represents him as mainly if not mere
| ly schOOlmaster, provider of
schools for a people so per cent of
whom, says Mr.. Archer, are illiterate.
Had Mr.. Archer consulted a recent
authority, for example, LA Estadistica
! Escolar &c Espana, the official report
on this subject for 1908, he would
have found that the percentage of
illiteracy is now only 80. That is,
indeed, exceptionally high among en-
llghtened nations; moreover, the
schools in Spain are badly equipped,
the teachers poorly paid, and the in
struction considerably below a desira-
BILE degree of efficiency. A partial ex-
planation of these conditions is to be
found in the fact that so large a pro-
portion of the Spanish population is in
country districts, and comparatively
Indifferent to education. If any part
of the responsibility rests with the
directing classes, who may have acted
upon the theory that the masses of
the people are better off in a state of
innocent ignorance" the former are
now apparently reaping the whirlwind.
1t is neither wise nor just to neglect
giving all the people certain mini
mum of elementary education, at least.
How much more than this should be
provided will depend upon individual
and national resources. If it is a good
thing to be man rather than a brute,
to have mind rather than to have no
mind, then, it is better thing to have
And the better a mind is trained. the
more nearly does it become the image
and likeness of it's Creator, and the
more capable does it become of doing
the Creators will in the world. Ignor-
ant contentment with remediable in
| justice may be satisfactory condi-
tion temporarily and exceptionally, but
it is always dangerous condition, and
/ n hn rNf
necessary injustice More wise and
more just is the policy which would
fit the minds of the people to recog-
guish between the true and the false
in doctrines of reform.
But there is true and false educa-
ton, and the latter may be worse
than no education at ALL With the
truth that it imparts it may combine
so much untruth as to leave the last
state of the man, or the child, worse
than the first. Now this is precisely
the kind of instruction that Ferrer in
tended to give and did give in his
schools. According to Mr.. Archer him
self: 'There are very few countries
in which teaching so openly hostile
to the existing form of government
duu ~ LuC WuOl6 SOCldl OTu0F WOulu
be endured. One can scarcely imagine
what would happen if such school
were established, and found numer-
GUS imitators, in America or England;
but assuredly the principle Of toler-
alton would be stretched to its limit"
(48,D. If the most enlightened and
tolerant nations would have taken this
A view of Ferrer's teachings, we are
i S,xr+ G@I $,n ,1T, = -
that bad kind which is worse than
none. Moreover, these general state
ments of Mr.. Archer do not exhibit
with sufficient definiteness the utter
virulence and depravity of the senti-
ments which Ferrer diffused in his
schools and text books. Here are a
few specimens The first is from his
Compendio de Historic UNIVERSAL. !.
"This sweet Savior is devoid Of filial
sentiment, and lets pass no oppor-
j, tunity to repulse His mother" (p. 43).