The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-08-31
CHRIST ON EDUCATION.

Through influences whose workings
are quite ineligible a delusion has
taken possession of the modern mind
which would lead the world to believe
that only in our day and generation
have systems of education approached
within the sight of the heights of
perfection, says writer in the
Guardian. Because the universe has
witnessed SO many new and startling
discoveries, of which earlier days
ignorant, the temptation comes to
imagine that along the lines of human
progress the last word could not have
been spoken till the people of the
present arrived upon the scene. AS
a young nation, too, this country may
have yielded to the fiattering notion
that the Creator. called it into exist
ence to be the herald of the advanced
and fu1ly-perfected schemes of mortal
betterment for which other nations
and other times were but the prophets
and precursors. Convinced of this, and
urged on by the consciousness that a
solemn duty had been imposed to be
worthy of the commission assigned,
the jewellers in this glorious land have
pushed forward into paths which were
thought never before to have been
trodden and in all directions they have
essayed to test supposedly new
theories along every avenue of human
endeavor. Quite natural to expect,
therefore, that the plastic mind Of
childhood could not escape. AS the
future hung from the destiny of youth,
the field was too tempting to elude
trespass from those who felt them
selves foreordained to deliver wise
methods of cultivation. So it has
come to pass that the whole scheme
of scholastic management seems to
have undergone complete transforma-
ton within the memory of this gen.
GRAFTON. Because the ancient man
ners were regarded with discredit,
modern experiment must be invoked.
To listen to the advocates of prevail
ing systems one might be justified
in imagining that the newly discov-
cred world was a discoverer in turn,
since old traditions were treated with
disregard melted out to ideas that had
ended their days of useful service.
1t would not be just to our own age,
or fair to the sincere men and women
who are spending their lives in en-
beavers to promote educational prog
ress to dismiss the real advancement
they have achieved with a sighting
gesture. The world is not stationary
it must run forward or inevitably
retrograde. In all human activities
there are GIBBS and flows, ruled by {
law as memorable as that which com
| mands the tides of the ocean. We
must not be understood to imply
| then, that the teachers of today have
| not introduced improvements, or tina
| the systems of the hour have nothing
superior to boast over the schoo
training of the remote past. An,
| lack of sympathy with the earnes
efforts to find royal road to learnin,
and make easier the way of knowl
edge lays one open to the just sus
picion of unreasonable bias agains
his own day. From the beginning NJ
| institution has been so ayidous O
| helpful advice, no body of teacher
has been more prompt to accept san
plans of improvement in matters pei
tanning to the education of the young
than the Church which founded tn
first free schools and the instructor
who taught under her guidance. TIL
Catholic Church fears no innovation
which is grounded on the firm base @
the nature God fashioned at creation