The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1954-04-30
Just Among Ourselves
Passing Comment consid.r.s or lneon.idsr.t.


of Eden, he has the unchanging tendency to
tinue in rebellion. Using his injured natural powers
and proudly rejecting the aid of the supernatural he
has constantly been learning the hard way" except
for the fact that he has not learned He has multi
piled his hsrdshps but has failed TO profit by ex
perience
Man is aware of his ills and is always trying
to get rid of them Against the hardshipS of sickness
and death, he sets up his drive for longer life and
healthier living-good aims, but inconclusive In
themselves. Against the hardship of poverty,
strives constantly, by wise and unWise economies,
to insure the uncertain future well as TO supply
the demanding present.
In the social order has striven for peace
and plenty in the prosperous commerce of nations,
and for the establishing of free and benevolent JUS
tice in his nation He has sought when COM
PEELED to right wrongs by force Of arms, and to
establish peace by solemn congresses and councils.
In none of these endeavoTS has man been a shin
ing success. He has indeed, made surprising advan-
ces in technical and mechanical skis, and has IN
creased the bodily comforts and conyeniences of his
earthly existence. But triumph of mechanics
of plastics wonderwork of comfort. convenience
pleasure OF pastime has satisfied the heart OF
increased his happiness. Despite the justified
claims of physical science and all the gadeetrles
that and complicate existence, the world
is still full OF unrest OF diSconented and sury men
of general and fundamental disappointment with
life
And this is because man took over the world
in Eden and insists still making it his world and
of shaping it nearer to the hearts desire" regard
less of what the Owner and Creator would have
him do with it. The primal pride is still blndIy at
work in the affairs Of mankind.
less than century ago the mild Quaker poet
Whittier envisoned world won to sanity and peace
ful endeNor through the simple and somewhat
simpe-mnded efforts of educators" 1t the
School-masiers large Drained clear eyed who
would bring the world out of its slough. In special
they would cure prejudice; they would pro-
mote 'lsbors free and unresentfu rivalry" they
would scatter before their swift advance the pride
the lust the squalid soth that nurtmed tressons
monstrous growth"
How would this come about? Through "a school
house set every hill" These saving institutions
would be the centers of "radiate nerve lines
of intelligence TO bring together in a common
thought genial brotherhood, sane and reason
able social existence in which every lingering
wrong would be assaed and conquered Education
that was the cure-all the end-all the be-aG of
human endeavor!
But the multiplied schoolhouses have not proved
10 be the pleasing and potent pills that human NAL
aides submit to, Something seems TO have happened
TO the radate nerve lines of intelligence Or per
haps intelligence of this nervous sort is incapable
OF producing the effect Whittier confidently pre-
dicted We have the schoolhouse on every hill.
And We still have prejudice; still have, in
vastly increased measure, the evil of juvenile de-
nquency; We still have injustice the broken home,
the crowded divorce court the pride, the lust the
squalid sloth that nurtureS treasons monstrous
growth
The education that will cure human ills is the
education which teaches what manner of thing
he is, what plan formed and established; and
which shows him the way TO recover. and not mere
ly to discoUer. IL is the education which will make
man understand that he Is east in the image of
God, and that his business is to conform himself
to that image. Not by cold science, not by human
wisdom not by proud pedantrieS of schools. but by
prayerful submission of the human will to the Di-
vine Plan which even our added reason Is still able
10 discern in the universe can find his peace,
his perfection, his happiness his full liberty of soul
In a word man needs the education which ndi-
Gates TO him the Natural Law, that, through OBJ
serving it, he may tend towards the supernatural end
for which he is made. The Natural Law is Gods
plan and programme for human conduct in this
world II is the law written in our hearts, il is
the law discerned by sane reason acting as moral
conscience. In itself this Natural Law Finely ex-
pressed in the Ten Commandments is not suffic-
lent for man. But IT points the way. And newt
ably the man who strives to know and observe ii.
will be moved To ask and to the supernatural
aids which God has prepared for ALL and has made
available for all through the works and merits of
Christ.
The education here is the education essential
to But this education is especially derded and
opposed by the education OF most of our schools
These schools teach to keep his pride; TO re
main self-sufficient; TO ignore deny God and the
Natural Law; TO regard religion as the parorprac-
tice of nice people who have none of the cosmic
urges of campus tngods the other prideful
pygmies who feed and control what is regarded as
scientific thought"
More and more the modern educators have had
their way More and recedes from the
goal to which his whole being asplres More and
the forces of materialsm, of mechanical social
regimentaton of bitterness and unrest of disrupted
domestic peace of civic disloyalty and harsh gov
ernmental pressures, are at work IN the world. II
the kind and serene Whittier were to do his poem
over again to-day, he would likely strike despair
ing pencil through the lines about the quick wires
of intelligence and the "one electric thought that
to come so surely from "a schoolhouse set on