The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1915-07-03

ones schools that vow their name to
silence and oblivion.
The secuIarized School Cause Of Wide.
Spread Effacement Of Religion
From America.
Were to argue further as to the
effect of the secularized school upon
religion, should invite you to remark
it's too visible results in the country
at large outside the Catholic Church
Time was, not so long ago, when the
masses of Americans held firmly to
one form or to another of Christian
faith, when to stay away from religious
service on Sunday was to invoke upon
oneself serious public criticism. To.
day, among the masses, only tattered
and shattered shreds of Christianity
subsist, when it is at all anything more
than memory, or mere wave of so
called human brotherhood or social
uplift. Today Protestant temples gath
or into their pews on Sunday the
handfuls of worshirpers, and the thin
ming of the ranks grows yearly apace.
The fatal day seems near when outside
the Catholic Church Christ and His
Gospel shall be accepted as nought
else than ordinary natural incidents on
the pages of humanity's history. To
the effacement of the supernatural
there may be auxiliary causes; the
chief cause, it cannot be denied, is
, that religion is barred from the school
and that, consequently, childhood and
and of their duties to Him. Thoughtful
Professionals, for whom the word of
God has still meaning, for whom God
and Christ remain the vital factor of
salvation in time and in eternity, de-
plore the secularism of the school
room and are of one mind with Catho-
lies as to it's dire results. Witness the
oft-repeated clamorings, in themselves
well-intentioned, however pathetic to
their futility, to have a few words of
prayer recited in the school-room, to-
gether with a reading of the Bible or
of some peculiarly chosen extracts
from it. Unfortunately even that small
pittance of religion is a violation of
the neutrality of the school-room, and
meets with popular repulse. That pit
lance is opposed on the one hand by
such as will allow no religion to them
selves or to their children, and on the
other by such as see in it, because of
its littleness, an utterly insufficient
training in religion, harmful and for
hidden mutilation of the faith once de.
livered to the saints. Witness, too,
the consistent and courageous deter
mination of some few of the Protestant
churches, who do as Catholics do,
building up their own schools where
the fullness Of what they believe is
given out in daily lessons without OBJ
struction from law or custom The Sec
ularized school-room has its logical ad-
vocates and defenders; they are those
whose religion is agnosticism or ma
terialism, the avowed foes of God and
of Christ. Other advocates there are,
those who still retain memories of
the Christian faith of their fathers and
mothers-who, however, are so weak
in their adhesion to those memories,
as to be unmindful of the perils to
which they expose the faith of their
children, or are unwilling to make sac
rifices on its behalf. Others still we
know Of, from whom in time better
things may be expected. They are
those-and today they are not very
few-who, though earnest in their re-
ligious belief, and sincere in their ef-
forts to transmit it unimpaired to their
children, have not been brought to un-
derstand the deadly effects of the un-
religious school-room. Further expert
ences of those effects, soon to be un-
mistakable, WILL let us hope, open their
minds to the error of their present
manner of thought.
One Course Open to the Catholic
church-to Establish Her
Own Schools.
Impossible to the Catholic Church to
lend approval, or countenance to the
secularized school, or by inaction on
her part to authorize Catholics to con.
fide to it the education of their little
ones. To have done SO, were to have
renowned her allegiance to the com.
mission-"Teach all nations. 3.
teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever l have commanded YOU"
What then was the Church to do?
What else could she have dared to do
than what she resolutely set herself
to do. however heavy the cost, how
ever heroic the sacrifice? She estab-
lished her own schools. The Church
essayed what foes and many timid
friends declared to be utterly beyond
her power to execute. Her courage
has been rewarded with triumphs that
are marvellous, little short of the
miraculous, If at all short of 1t we
may say them to be. The figures in
the Catholic Directory tell the wonder
as 1t is today: Parish schools in the
United States, five thousand four hun.
Il II