The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-05-09
.PADRIAC PEARSE i,
 !. POET AND. PATRIOT
Leader of the Fight for The dependence in Ireland
 in l016
FAMOUS EDUCATOR

fore firing SquaoS aIter the IaAlure
 of the effort to win independence for their country in the uprising or |1916. It shows Pearse and those who were associated with him were no idle dreamers. and that the cause for which they died has more merit in it than some are willing to believe. The editorial will be read with much interest by those who believe that the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence issued over there in 1916 embodied the only real adjustment of the long standing feud between Great Britain and ireland, and that they will have to be recognized before the masses in Ireland will be willing to admit that they have come into possession of their own.
 The editorial is as follows:
 Last Sunday, May Sd, as the Rev George A. King, S.J., reminds us Tn America, was the anniversary of an Irish patriot. On that date in 1916,
 Padraic Pearse, poet, educator. com-
 mander in chief of the Irish republi-
 can forces and president of the Irish
 provisional government. fell before the bullets of an English firing squad.
 Not as a patriot alone. as Father King tells us, is Padraic Pearse
 memorable. AS an educator he gave to the. world an ideal which may never be realized, the educational
 ideal of the ancient Irish, of those Celtic men lost in the mist of years who were agents of civilization to
 half a continent. The legendary Boy Corps of Eamhain embodied his vision of teachers who were called, men and women who looked upon their work not as job, but as a vo-
 cation.
 !! The tale of the Boy Corps tells of children, wards of an ancient
 Irish king. sons of his friends and kinsmen. Gathered about him In his, court they learned their way of life not from time servers but from
 those who loved them. Heroes taught them chivalry, skilled ar-
 tists taught them art and the wisest men of the land did not disdain to instruct them in philosophy. The
 king himself was one of their mas- ters and woe betide the man who interrupted him when he was with his rfoster. children. y ea..9. 'sWe constantly speak and write as if a philosophy of education were
 first formulated in our own time"
 says Padriac Pearse in his little
 book, "The Story of a Success. But all the wise peoples of old faced and solved that problem for themselves, and most of their solu- I ftions were better than ours. Pro- lessor CnNerwell thinks that the Jews gave 1t the best solution. For my part, I salute the old Irish". We preach and prate much to- day of the philosophy of education, perhaps even more than in the de- cades during which Pearse lived land worked. But the ancient Gaels 1 did more than that. They practiced Etheir philosophy. Their very names for education and teacher and 'pupiP." says Pearse, "show that
 they had gripped the heart of the problem. The word for education
 among the old Gael was the same
 as the word for fostering; the teacher was a 'fosterer' and the pupil was a tfoster-child'. Now to foster is exactly the function. of a teacher: not primarily to lead up. to guide, to conduct through a course of studies, and still less to indoctrinate,' to inform, to pre- pare for exams. but primarily to foster the elements of character already present"
 Pearse tried to put his theories ! into practice at St Enda's college in Ireland. His whole life became wrapped up in the demonstration of a type of education which was
 to make the relations of pupil and teacher those of apostle and dis ciple. In his school every child was to be, not. a unit of attendance. a piece of material upon which to work, hut a living human being re- lated intimately and personally to men who were not rulers and dt- rectors but inspirers of an enthus- iasm that would help the child him.
 self to develop his best and truest Before Padraic Pearse could we'll I finish his work he was called away to a higher destiny. Bullets ended
 his career but not in failure. Even
 as an educator his inspiration re-
 mains. Father King quotes a dis
 ciple to show his power and to H.
 lustrate his success as great teach
 "It would be possible to exhaust
 all the tricks of rhetoric of the I HourlSheS or selOQuence, ana not SX-
 press what his headmaster came.
 almost from the first day. to mean
 to his pupils. He won our sympa-
 thies and affections. He clothed
 earth and sea. above all Irish earth
 and sea. for a thousand years with
 8 new light for us. He made Irish
 a living language, and Ireland a
 noble land for us. He kindled new
 purposes and. gave new meanings
 to our lives. In the fire of his per-
 sonality. he could make platitudes
 live again. Never be mediocre, he would tell us, do your best.
 Faith without words Is dead.' And | these things as he said and lived 1 them, set us aflame." | As a teacher 1t may be possible that Pearse was a genius travelling ] a lonely way. Ordinary men may not be able to follow him. Yet his
 ideals of the functions of a school
 and the office of a teacher are 50 fine that, they may be studied with
 profit by anyone entrusted with the
 education of the young. We do not
 know if "The Story of Success is
 still in print Or not. Maunsel and I Company of Dublin and London | published the copy at hand in 1920.