The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1914-07-25

ago, which undertook to demon
strate that IF the present figures go
on. then in 1925 the Roman Catholic
school population of Prussia will be
greater than the Protestant" What
this means can be seen from the
fact that for fully a hundred years
the Protestant contingnt in Prussia
has been about twice as large as the
Caholic. The Volkszeitung, which
is, next to the Berlin Germania, the
leading Roman Catholic journal of
the country, points to the fact that
in 1901 here were 1,434,lO1 more
Protestant children in the schools of
Prussia than Catholic; in 1906 there
were only 1.3S2,733. Accordingly,
in the five years from 1901 the Cath.
olic contingent has gained 49,O65 on
the Protestant, and from 1906 to
1911 has gained 1O2,2O3.
Official government statistics are
even more favorable to the Roman
Catholic claims, as those of the gath
of May, 1911, report 3,871,444 Prot
estant pupils and 2,647,417 Roman
Catholic.
The same problem has been ap-
preached from different standpoint
but with similar results by DR.. Ewald
Fruh, in the Christliche Freiheit,
who shows that the Roman Catholics,
especial of Prussia, are increasing at
a much more rapid rate than are the
Protestants. He goes back to the
year 1886 and shows that down to
1911 the Roman Catholic school pop
ulation has increased 53.2 per cent.
but the Protestant only 26.4. and he
reaches the conclusion that at the
present rate the Roman Catholics
will be in the majority in Prussia in
1861, or SO years later than the cal
culations of the Volkzeitung. Jo-
hannes Kubel, leading Protestant
Church statistician, concludes in the
Chronik of Tubingen that there are
better grounds for believing that the
Roman Catholic figures are correct
than for believing in the correctness
of those of the Protestant Fruh. He
maintains that by the end of he pres
ent century Germany will be over
whelmingiy Catholic.
Other scholars. also Protestant
writer's, believe that these pessimistic
fears are fully justified by the pres
ent birth rates of the country. Jo-
hannes Forberger has devoted a spe-
cial pamphlet to this subject en-
titled Decrease of Birth-rate and
Confession" in which he shows that
while there has been a decrease In
the birth-rates of Catholic Germany
in recent years as compared with ear
lier decades this decrease has been
much smaller than among the Prot
estants. Some of the leading sta
tistics in the case are the following:
Out of 1000 births in Prussia, not
counting those from Jewish parent
age and "mixed marriages." i. e..
marriages between Protestants and
Roman Catholics, in 1875 there were
339 Roman Catholic children; in
1890 the figures were 585 and 345;
in 1900, 553 and 376; in 1905. $50
and 800; in 1910. 523 and 404; in
1911, 514 and 4O8. In ten years 1t
is predicted even by Protestant writ
ers, there will be more Roman Cath
olic children born than Protestant in
the homeland of the Reformation.
Kubel says, "these figures teach a
hard lesson"
Hermann Mulert, in the Christ
liche Welt in an article entitled us
Prussia Becoming Catholic?" does
not deny the lessons Of these sta
tistics, but believes there are facts
which make them less alarming. In
the first place, he shows that there
has been even retrogression of the
Roman Catholic percentage between
1871 and 1910, namely from 40.25
per cent to 1926, while the in
crease of Professionalism in these sec
tions has been from 58.49 per cent
to GLIB. Then he claims that the
period covered by the statistics of
the Kolnische Kolkzeitung is too
short to afford trustworthy conclu-
sions. Further, the claim that By
1861 the Catholic school contingent
in Prussia will be greater than the
Protestant is too hasty, as other fac
tors may arise that would modify the
present tendency. Twelve years ago
Naumann predicted that by 1925
Germany would have eighty million
inhabitants; but the present decrease
| In hirth.rofa shnws that these Calcu-