15VVTd

THE

PARISH SCHOOL

A

Convincing

Argument



IMPRIMATUR

•b JOHN FRANCIS NOLL

Bishop of Fort Wayne



TABLE OF CONTENTS

I A Dozen Reasons Why 3

II The Parish vs. The Public Schools 5

III Reasons Why The Parish School Should Excel 8

IV Pupils of Catholic Schools Excel in Contests 9

V Best Elements in America Demand Religion in Education .15

VI Comparison of Achievements Is All in Favor of the Catholic

Colleges 22

VII Demand For Week-Day Schools of Religion Is Growing 25

VIII Many Protests Against Un-American Text Books 29

IX Some Sane Comment on the Centralization of Education 32

X Refutation of a Common Charge 35

XI What Catholics Spend for Education 37



INTRODUCTION

T
HOUGH a thousand matters make urgent demands on our time and at-

tention in this busy age, they do not divert interest from .the liveliest

question of the day—Education.

About one-half of all the money raised by local and State taxation is

used for the further development and maintenance of the public schools.

Catholics contribute possibly 20% of the total budget, but less than one-half

their number receives any direct benefit therefrom. Most Catholics pay

double the amount of other people for the education of their children, since

they maintain a huge private school system while paying their full quota

to the public school fund.

*

In this little book we adduce a whole army of non-Catholic defenders

of the religious school. Not only do they not hesitate to declare with the

greatest emphasis that the principle on which the parochial school is based

is correct, and that it is consistent with the loftiest patriotism, but they warn

the general public that unless all education be soon reared on the same prin-

ciple as on a foundation, disaster will inevitably overtake the glorious Ameri-

can Republic—and they supply weighty reasons to support their convictions.
Read and see.

J. F. NOLL,

Huntington, Ind.



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 3

I

A DOZEN REASONS WHY
The all-pervading spirit of our age, in fact its most universally ac-

knowledged predominant feature is a “thirst for learning.” The liveliest in-

terest prevails in matters educational from the highest university to the

lowest kindergarten in the land. Even in newly settled territory, school

houses are within walking distance of nearly every child. Expense is not

considered by the state when there is question of ameliorating school con-

ditions, and our millionaires who are slow to open their pocketbooks to any

other public cause, vie with each other in founding schools, erecting libraries

and endowing universities.

“How,” the non-Catholic rader will ask, “is this admission reconcilable

with the dissatisfaction which Catholics manifest towards our public school

system?” Very easily, when the Catholic position is once understood. Bishop

Greer, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, tells how one can admire and

praise the public school system as far as it goes, and yet not heartily condone

what it is still lamentably deficient in:

“There never was such an appetite for knowledge in the world as

now. It is the altar and the shrine at which the world kneels. All this is

admirable. But we are beginning to discover that intellectualization of the

world has been growing in advance of its moralization. We are coming to
feel that knowledge in its secular significance is not sufficient. We must
have moral training, and that training must begin with the child. ‘The child

is father to the man,’ and the church that lives and works for the child will

contribute most to the greatness of the future.”

We could fill a huge volume with quotations from eminent Protestants
who speak like this Bishop, but for lack of space we shall limit our witnesses

to the group who have spoken boldly on the subject during the past two or

three years. Here are a dozen reasons for which Catholics build their own

schools in a country which possesses such excellent state schools:

(1) They want their children to become not only learned boys and

girls, but also good boys and girls. This necessitates the teaching of morality

and the training of the conscience.

(2) They want a more comprehensive education for their children

than the State is empowered to give. Our public schools are permitted to

teach only the intellect, and even that- only in secular knowledge; hence

they must produce a lop-sided man or lady. They ask, “Why should educa-

tion be one-sided, and why limited to the knowledge of things here below?”

(3) This is God’s world; and we are placed on earth to know, love

and serve Him; hence God possesses the first claim on the child. Therefore

both justice and logic demand that God figure most prominently in the edu-

cation of the child. Not even parents—much less the State—have the



4 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

right to deprive the child of its God-given title to know Him and its duties

towards Him.

(4) “This is eternal life that they may know Thee, the only true

God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” (John xvii:3). Christ’s com-

plaint was: “Just Father, the world has not known Thee.” (John xvii:25).

“What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss

of his own soul?” (Matt. xvi:26). “0, that they would be wise, and would

understand, and provide for their last end.” (Deut. xxxvi:29). “The Lord

hath made all things for Himself.” (Prov. xvi:4).

(5) They believe that education should produce the ideal man; if

so, it must take account of the child’s primary purpose on earth, and of its

destiny hereafter; it should fit the child both for a successful career here

and for Heaven in eternity.

(6) Not what we know counts most, but what we are. And if

character-building is more important than head-training, Christ should

not be excluded from the school room, since even the infidel confesses that

the world never had another character comparable to Christ; that He was

a model of all virtue for all time.

(7) This God-man bids “the little children to come unto Him;” He

came “to teach;” He was to be “the true light, which enlighteneth every man

that cometh into the world;” “One is your Master Christ,” He declared, yet

our legislators have found it necessary, like Bethlehem’s people, to show Him

the door, if He should attempt to enter the school room.

(8) Their motto is “God and Country;” their motto is “In God we

trust.”

(9) Sound civilization can result only from sound morality, which in

turn depends on conscience and character-training.

(10) They glory in calling theirs a “Christian country,” but it can-

not long remain that if Christian education be proscribed by law.

(11) Twenty and thirty years from now the school children of today

will direct the affairs of state, will hold the offices of trust, will be at the

head of our country’s industries, will make and administer the country’s laws.

Now, if they become merely learned men, shrewd men, sharp men, and not

also honest men, pure men, conscientious and God-fearing men, what will

become of our blessed country? During the past few years how much

have we heard of scandals in high places, of cries for reform, of investigat-

ing committees at work, of loose divorce laws, of bank presidents commit-

ting suicide, of bank cashiers going to the penitentiary? These individuals

receive a good head education at state schools and colleges, but no heart or

conscience training.

(12) It is admitted that the majority of our leading newspaper

editors are agnostics and infidels. The one-half hour Sunday school cannot

offset the influence which they wield in this great reading age. Then



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 5

nearly two-thirds of the children of the United States are not attendants at

Sunday school.

Enough has been said; the following non-Catholic witnesses will

make admissions which characterize the Catholic Church as the foremost

influence in preserving our glorious Republic by her system of education.

Catholics no longer have to apologize for or even defend the parochial

school; the leading statesmen and educators of the land are doing that for

them. Listen to these eminent gentlemen:

II

THE PARISH VS. THE PUBLIC SCHOOL.
The Catholic parish-school does not exist to be a mere

competitor of the public school in training the child in secu-

lar subjects. The Catholic school system is the logical out-

come of the Church's commission to teach “all nations”—of
course, first of all about God, the soul, the future life, the

means by which eternal happiness in that life can be

secured. No more time is devoted directly to the teaching

of religion than to the teaching of grammar, or geography,

or history, or mathematics, but the child lives in a sort of

religious atmosphere and imbibes the conviction that it

“profits a man nothing if he gain the whole world, and suf-

fers the loss of his soul.”

PARISH SCHOOL FIFTEEN HUNDRED YEARS OLD.

The Catholic Church is not an intruder into the educa-

tional field; she did not start her educational system in

opposition to a public system already established. She be-

gan to operate schools as soon as she could breathe the air

of freedom on earth—more than fifteen hundred years ago.
For many centuries hers were the only schools in most of

the European countries. After the introduction of Protes-

tantism, schools continued to be religious schools. Even

today the bulk of the European school children are in sec-

tarian schools, Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish. In our own

country practically all schools were conducted under re-

ligious auspices until eighty-five years ago, when the present

public school system was launched under the sponsorship of

Horace Mann. Without saying one disparaging thing about



6 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

the public schools, we invite people to consider the Catholic

parochial school on its own merits. It is competent to im-

part to the children whatever information of value they

could obtain in the public school, and at the same time to

teach them about the things on which eternal life depends,

to discipline the wTill, to cultivate the conscience, to plant in

the youthful heart the seeds of virtue. In other words, the

Catholic school tries to make out of its patrons not only

learned men and women so that they may have a successful

career in the business world, but also good men and women

so that they may be the pride of our country, a great benefit

to society, and so that they may enjoy the love of God while

they are passing through this life on to their eternal

destiny.

The Catholic Church believes in giving a Christian

education to a Christian child, because on becoming a Chris-

tian the child has both the right and the duty to learn all its

obligations to God, its soul, the Church, etc.

Then because the Church is the divinely commissioned

Teacher of people in the New Law, she must do what is in

her power to “make the child safe” for Christ here and for

God in Heaven hereafter by enlightening its mind concern-

ing truths of the supernatural order, by disciplining its

will, and training its conscience to follow carefully the pre-

scriptions of the natural and the revealed law of God. It is

the greatest folly to assume that the child will remain loyal

to God simply because it has become His child in Baptism.

According to the same philosophy a child would have suffi-

cient secular education by simply being enrolled in school

at the age of seven. The child of God needs a school for the

instruction and encouragement requisite for a truly Chris-

tian life more than the child of the world needs a school for

its preparation for its career here below.

Even the pagans reason better than many Americans.

They had their gods, and instruction on the deities formed

a part of the child’s school curriculum.

At this time there is a great deal of agitation in favor of



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 7

instructing even the grown-ups in citizenship, and we are

all agreed that the vast majority of the American people

needs it. Those who maintain that religious instruction

should form no part of the child’s school days should, on

the same principle, maintain that anyone born in the United

States is and will remain a good citizen on that account;

and that a foreigner would become and remain a good citi-

zen by the mere fact of his being granted his naturalization

papers.

God has such a weak hold on the average American

child that unless religion be actually planted in its life, and

watered and nurtured as it develops so that it may take deep

roots, it is likely to be completely destroyed owing to the

antagonistic atmosphere and environment in which it must

pass its days. There is no opposition on the part of the

Catholic Church to public schools as such. She would not

think of asking those who rule the destiny of the public

school to eliminate a single branch of study from its curri-

culum. Neither would she ask them to add definite religi-

ous instruction to the other studies, because it is simply not

feasible in this country. Still she would regard herself as

most recreant to her commission if she did not instruct her

youth in Christian doctrine, Christian ethics in the whole

revelation of God, while they are learning “the three R’s.”

Hence, it becomes necessary for her to conduct schools of

her own where God and His works, the soul and its destiny,

the duties of the Christian and the inculcation of the moral

virtues are taught the child along with lessons on man and

his works, the body and its needs, citizenship and its advan-

tages—schools where the child is prepared both for its brief
career here and its never-ending career hereafter.

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL NO REMEDY.

It may sound plausible to say that it is not the duty of

day school but of the Sunday School to teach the child these

things. But if fact and not theory be consulted, such rea-

soning is very faulty, because more than two-thirds of the

American children do not patronize the Sunday School.



8 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

These same children are reared in homes where Christianity

is non-existent. If two-thirds of American parents are not

members of any church, if their children are not attendants

of the Sunday School, and if they do not receive any re-

ligious instruction in the day school, where, pray, will they

receive it?

If the one-third of American children who are receiving

their education in private schools, or their religious instruc-

tion in Sunday Schools, is not leaving its Christian impress

on the life of America today it is precisely because it is in

far closer keeping with human nature that the two-thirds

be influenced by the one-third.

Ill

REASONS WHY THE PARISH SCHOOL
SHOULD EXCEL.

Lest some might surmise that the superiority of Catholic schools from

a moral standpoint must be accompanied by a proportionate inferiority in in-

tellectual training, we adduce considerable testimony to prove that Catholic

parochial schools excel even from a secular point of view. On account of

the unpreparedness of many to believe this, it might be profitable to furnish

a few reasons why all-round superiority should characterize the parochial

school.

1. Parochial school teachers take up their work as a life profession;

they never expect to change their occupation, and hence become intensely

interested in the same.

2. The motive which impels the religious teacher to devote his or

her life to teaching is the highest which can actuate a human being—love
for God and a high appreciation for the sacredness of the teaching profession,

which begets boundless enthusiasm.

3. Religious teachers live away from the world, are not distracted by

its pleasures and attractions, and are not disturbed by the consideration of

money.

4. Sisters or Brothers who teach in parochial schools live on the very

school premises, dwell in a common house where school and its work enter

into their conversations, recreations and prayers. Then their very rule

obliges them to devote several hours every day to study.

5. It should be needless to declare that the preparatory training of

religious teachers is thorough. A diocesan school superintendent or a school

board establishes a high-standard curriculum, which the Sister or Brother

must be competent to handle. Then the teaching community itself has not

only a well organized system of training, but invites the country’s best edu-



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 9

cators to instruct the teachers during the summer. Now that the most

excellent of these points cannot be predicated of the public school teachers

and their work must be apparent to the most casual observer:

(a) It is the exception rather than the rule that they teach for life;

teaching is intended as a stepping-stone to something better, i. e., more re-

munerative. President Sherman, of Cornell, has said that the average dur-

ation of a public school teacher’s career is between seven and eight years.

(See “Education in the United States,” Vol. I, page 297). Pres. Stanley,

of Worcester, has since said that the average length of service is less than

four years.

(b) The motive which leads most public school teachers to their pro-

fession is the earning of a livelihood, (cf. “Educational Review,” Nov.,

1900, p. 415).

In the “Report of the Bureau of Education,” 1892-93, p. 545, we read:

“The profession of teaching seems to be a kind of waiting-room in which

the young girl awaits a congenial ulterior support, and the young man a

more advantageous position.” Observe the present country-wide agitation

for the increase of teachers’ salaries.

Now give ear to our witnesses.

IV

PUPILS OF CATHOLIC SCHOOLS EXCEL IN
CONTESTS.

Instances like those which follow are brought to the public’s attention
many times a year as pure news items in the secular press. We have culled
these as they came to our notice during the years 1924-1926.

Topeka, Kan., April 4, 1924.—Thom-
as D. Kelly, a senior in the Topeka
Catholic High School, is one of the
winners in the Constitution oratory
contests which were held throughout
Kansas, Southern Nebraska, Western
Missouri and Northern Arkansas, un-
er the auspices of the Kansas City

Star. The other winner was George
Chumos, a native of Topeka, of GreeK
ancestry, now a senior in the Topeka
High School.

John A. O’Kane from Sacred Heart
High won The Chronicle’s finals in the
national oratorical contest on the
United States Constitution yesterday
afternoon.—San Francisco Chronicle,
May 10th, 1924.

The only National Guardsman from
Maryland to pass examinations for

the United States Military Academy
at West Point, Thomas Joseph Moran,
has been notified by the War Depart-
ment that he has qualified for en-
trance.

J
MM

Educated at St. Andrew’s parochial
school and the Polytechnic Institute,
he enlisted January 5, 1920, in Com-
pany A, Fifth Regiment, Maryland
National Guard. Joining the staff of
the Southern Tariff Associatioon in
Washington, he reenlisted July 10,
1923, in Company F, First Regiment,
Maryland National Guard, with head-
quarters at Hyattsville.—Baltimore
Sun, June 9, 1924.

Chicago, III., June 29, 1924.—The
excellence of Catholic high schools of

Chicago was again demonstrated this
week, when in competition with the



10 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

pupils of all of the public and de-

nominational high schools, numbering

tens of thousands, a girl member of

the senior class at the Aquinas’ High

School (Dominican Sisters) won a

scholarship at the University of Chi-

cago.

The scholarship was offered by the

Blackhawk Post, American Legion,

for the best essay on “Why I Am
Proud I Am an American Citizen,”
and the paper was written by Estelle

Spaeth. The honor was conferred

upon the girl by Commander F. A.

Lynch, of the post, at the commence-

ment exercises, graduating a class of

sixty-five.

Washington, Ind., May 18.—Stu-
dents in the local Catholic High

School for Boys carried off all the

honors in the essay contest held as a

part of the Boys’ Week program of

the Rotary Club. Cash prizes were

offered for the best essays on Good

Citizenship and every one of the

prizes was awarded to students of

the Catholic High School.

The contest was open to all school

boys of the city and the judges were

the County Superintendent of
Schools, the District Attorney, and a

prominent attorney. Owing to the

recent activities of the Ku Klux Klan
in this section there was keen inter-

est in the contest and particularly in

the outcome.

The essay contest on the subject of
Christopher Columbus for grade
school pupils of the city and county,

conducted for a week by The Gazette,
proved a popular and instructive in-
novation and drew responses from
all the city schools, both public and

parochial and from a number of rural
schools.

First Prize—Mary Louise Braun-
berger, 548 South Ninth street, St.
John’s school. $5.00 gold piece.

Second Prize—Henrietta Haugh,
115 Summer street, West Burlington,
la., St. Mary’s school.

—Burlington (la.) Gazette, March
13 , 1924 .

Waukon, la., March 25
,
1924 .—(Spe-

cial)—Miss Alice Collins, 12 years of
age, won the highest honors in eighth
grade examination. Her average was
97 4-10 per cent, highest among the
211 pupils in Allamakee county who
wrote the examination. She is the

oldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James

Collins of this city and is a student of

St. Patrick’s Parochial school. The

examination was in reading, writing,
history, orthography, arithmetic, mu-
sic, physiology, civics and geography.

—Des Moines Register, Mar. 25 . 1924.

Johnstown, Pa., Feb. 25, 1924—Of
five winning esays in the contest on

Greater Johnstown, conducted recent-

ly by the Tribune, three came from

pupils of St. John’s school.

Lowell, Mass.—April 1
,
1925 .—The

prize of $10 in gold for the Lowell

day essay contest has been awarded

to Mary McCluskey, a pupil of St.
Michael’s school, it was announced

yesterday. The contest was the an-

nual one conducted by the Lowell

Chamber of Commerce and the an-

nouncement of the winners was made

by Secretary George F. Wells of that

organization.

Brooklyn, N. Y., June 4, 1925—In a
recent essay contest on “Tolerance,”

conducted under the auspices of the

Harry Wolkoff Association for Brook-

lyn children, the first three prizes

were won by Catholic children.

The first prize of $100 in gold was

awarded to Lora Haynes, of the Na-

tivity Parochial School, Monday

night. The second prize, $50, was

won by Rita McCoy, of St. Anthony

School, and the third prize, $25, by

Henry Drachbar of Our Lady of

Lourdes School.



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 11

Omaha, Neb., July 3, 1925— An-
toinette Lococo of the Cathedral

High School of Lincoln was awarded

first prize on her essay, “The Federal

Constitution and the Courts,” by the

committee of judges appointed for the

third judicial district. This is a part

of the contest being conducted through

the schools of the state by the Ne-

braska State Bar Association. The

local judges were Judge Mason

Wheeler of the district court, Clar-

ence Miles, president-elect of the

Lancaster County Bar Association,

and Prof. Roy E. Cochran of the

State University.

Alice Reardon was awarded second

place and Earl Haberlin was awarded

third place. Both are students of the

Cathedral High School of Lincoln.

Miss Lococo’s essay has been en-

tered in the state contest. She will

receive a gold medal for winning in

the judicial district contest.

The judges in the above contest

were all men eminent in their profes-
sion and non-Catholic in religion.

Rochester, N. Y.—Miss Helen M.
Ritz, a graduate from Nazareth Aca-

demy here last June, heads the list of

university scholarship winners an-

nounced by the state department of

education. She won her college en-

trance diploma with an average of

97.57. Miss Ritz intends to prepare

for teaching at Nazareth College,

Rochester.

Nazareth Academy pupils won

twelve out of the twenty-five scholar-

ships awarded in Monroe county and

three out of the ten highest in the

state.

Detroit, Mich., Dec. 26, 1924.—In
an essay contest on “Home Lighting”

conducted here by the Electrical Ex-

tension Bureau, fifteen of the thirty

Detroit winners of prizes were pupils

pi parochial schools. The contest is

international, including all the school

children of the United States and

Canada, and the best essays written

here have been forwarded to New
York to be entered in a final judging

for international honors. The first

prize is a model electrical home.

Catholic pupils won the first eight

places, the tenth, eleventh, twelfth,

and fifteenth in the high school sec-

tion. In the elementary section they

took second, eleventh and fifteenth.

Key West, Fla., May 21, 1924—Miss
Mildred Brown, a student of the Con-

vent of Mary Immaculate, has been

awarded first prize in the American

Legion contest for the best essay on

“The Man Without a Country,” ac-

cording to an announcement made by

a committee of five judges who ex-

amined the sixteen papers submitted

for final decision.

There are more than 2,000 students

registered in the white public schools

of Key West, and seven hundred in

the schools for colored children. There

are three Catholic schools with about

700 pupils, including the Convent of

Mary Immaculate, with 550 pupils,

the Catholic school for boys, with 200

pupils, and a colored school with

about 100 pupils. The schools are

conducted by the Sisters of the Holy

Name.

Palmer Werner, 11, of St. Anthony’s

orphanage has been notified that his

drawing has been awarded one of the

prizes in the National Poster contest

conducted by The Drawing Master

Club of Cleveland.

The boy’s sketch, a western scene,

will be sent to Oakland, Calif., this

summer, where with other winners *t

will be exhibited before 30,000 school

teachers at the National Educational

Association convention. — Toledo
Blade, May 23, 1924,



12 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

St. Agnes’ School, of Rockville

Centre, again won the the spelling

championship of Nassau County at

the annual contest, held at Mineola

High School last Monday. This is

the fourth time this school has won

the banner, having held it since 1919.

Jacob A. Koehler, 12 years old, of

Forest avenue, is the boy who upheld

the reputation of St. Agnes, being

credited with 99 per cent for 100

words, a trivial technicality prevent-

ed him from getting a perfect score.

He was tied for first honors with

Muriel Wilkins, of Manhasset, and

they were given fifty words more to

decide the winner, and the St. Agnes

scholar came through with an easy

w.n with 49 against 45.—Brooklyn
Tablet.

In an essay contest between St. Ce-

cilia’s parochial school, Woodbum,
Oregon, and the two public schools of

that town, conducted by the Wood-

burn Community Club, the parochial

school students carried off all three

prizes, first, second and third.—The
Tablet, March 15. 1924.

Pupils of four schools of Greater

Cleveland were rejoicing Saturday

over laurels that came to them as the

result of the third annual Music

Memory Contest in Masonic Hall Fri-

day.

Names of their schools are to be

engraved on a bronze tablet that will

be on display at Masonic Hall when-

ever the Cleveland Symphony Or-

chestra plays there.

The schools are Lourdes Academy

Senior, Dawning School, Prospect

School of East Cleveland and Central

High School. In this order, they fin-

ished in the contest for which children

of 56 schools have been studying for

months.

Lourdes senior’s team was also vic-

tor in last year’s contest, when the

school tied for first place with the

Girls’ Catholic High School, and drew

the lucky chance.—The Cleveland
Press, April 14, 1924.

Cleveland, 0., May 1, 1925—Miss
Monica Durkin of Notre Dame Col-

lege and Miss Catherine Cullitan of

Notre Dame High School were prize

winners in the recent national poetry

and short story contests conducted by

the Central Interscholastic Press

Association.

Detroit, April 6, 1925—Miss Mary
McGillivary, who was graduated last

June from St. Mary’s Academy, con-

ducted by the Sisters Servants of the

Immaculate Heart of Mary at Mon-

roe, Mich., was this week awarded

first prize by the American Legion

for the best essay from the State of

Michigan on “Why Communism Is a
Menace to Americanism.”

The contest was announced at the

school last spring. At the suggestion

of her history teacher, Miss McGilli-

vary began the writing of the essay,

but did not finish it until the summer

vacation. The prize awarded was a

silver medal. Her essay will be en-

tered in the National contest.

South Bend, Ind., May 28, 1925

—

Mary Coddens, an eighth-grade pupil

in Sacred Heart ' Convent, conducted

by the Dominican Sisters here, has

won the St. Joseph County Spelling

Contest, in competition with pupils of

all the public, private, and parochial

schools of the county.

As a result of her victory, the

parochial school girl will represent

the county, which includes the city

of South Bend, in the National Spell-

ing Contest to be held at Washington

the week of June 15.

Washington, May 1, 1925.—Of
twelve awards just announced in the



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 13

American Chemical Society’s essay

contest in the District of Columbia,

seven were captured by pupils of

parochial schools here.

Parochial school contestants won

three of the six first class awards,

which carry with them gold prizes

and entitle the winners to compete in

the national contest for scholarships

to leading universities of the country.

In the second division, the Catholic

pupils won four of the six awards.

Frostburg, Md., Nov. 27, 1924

—

Mary McGraw, fifteen years old, a

student at St. Michael’s High School,

won first place in the high school de-

partment in the essay contest held

for the students of this town by a

national advertising agency. The

prize was $15. Mary Anna Lyons,

fourteen years old, of St. Michael’s

High, won one of the three third-

place prizes.

Cincinnati, O., June 9, 1925—Don-
ald Leahy, student at St. Xavier’s

High School, Louisville, Ky., won the

inter-high school English essay con-

test conducted by St. Xavier College

here. Announcement of the result has

been made by Rev. Daniel M. O’Con-

nell, S. J., dean of the local college.

The winner will receive a prize set

of books.

Students in Catholic high schools

in the dioceses of Cincinnati, Coving-

ton, Ky., Louisville, Indianapolis, Co-

lumbus, Wheeling and Nashville were

eligible for the competition held an-

nually at St. Xaxier College. Rev.

F. J. Finn, S. J., a member of the
Board of Trustees at St. Xavier and

widely known author, headed the
committee of judges.

Catholic School Girl Is Victor Over

500,000 Entries.

Following the announcement that

Fiances B. French, a Catholic school

pupil of Elizabeth, New Jersey, had
won the third National Safety Cam-

paign Essay Contest over some 400,-

000 entries, word now comes of an-

other Catholic school winner in a

memorable contest.

Miss Adelaide Rose Cahill, of 580

West 161st St., New York, on Tues-
day received an announcement that a

short essay on home lighting she had

written months ago, in competition

with 500,000 school children, had been

awarded first prize for the New York,
Long Island and Westchester section

in the Lighting Educational Commit-

tee’s National Essay Contest.

Cleveland, O., Mar. 6, 1925—Catho-
lic school students carried off the

majority of the prizes offered in the

Flag Story Contest conducted here by

the Western Reserve Chapter of the

Daughters of the American Revolu-

tion. All of the sixteen prizes offer-

ed in the eleventh and twelfth grade

group were won by children from
Catholic schools and the winner of the

first prize in the fifth and sixth grade

group was also a pupil from a Cath-

olic school. In each group the prizes

were: first, $25.00; second, $10.00, and

$1.00 for each of the next fourteen.

Commenting on the results of the

contest, the Rev. John R. Hagan,

Diocesan Superintendent of Schools,

said:

“Our teachers have always tried to

inculcate reverence for the Flag and

are unremitting in their effort to

raise the standards of spoken and

written language in our schools. No
prize contest is absolutely indicative

of the relative standings of different

schools. However, insofar as this

contest is indicative of the achieve-

ment in the teaching of patriotism
and good English, the results are

naturally very gratifying.”



14 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

Louisville Parochial School Boy Is

Winner of National Prize.

Louisville, Ky., June 22, 1925

—

Strangers at the Union station today

thought that some foreign potentate,

illustrious statesman or conquering

hero had arrived at noon, when they

heard the cheers and huzzas which

greeted the appearance of eleven-

year-old Frank Neuhauser on the in-

bound train. Frank is truly a con-

quering hero, as, at Washington, D.

C., he was acclaimed the champion

junior speller of the forty-eight

States of the Union.

He is but eleven years of age, but,

in a nation-wide contest, participated

in by two million public and parochial

school children, he won first place,

together with a gold medal and $500

in gold. This money, he says, he will

bank, with the purpose of adding to

it, in order to pay his way through

college, after he has been graduated

from high school.

FIRST AMONG TEN THOUSAND
Helen B. Wocher, of St. John the

Baptist School, a seventh grade girl,

has been judged first prize winner out

of approximately 10,000 contestants

in the essay contest on Immigration,

held in Brooklyn schools of the Tenth

Congressional District, February 26,

1924. Seventh and eigth year pupils

of the public and Catholic elementary

schools and first year high school pu-

pils were enrolled in the contest,

which was held under the auspices of

he Board of Education and Diocese of

Brooklyn.

Congressman Emanuel Celler will

give the winner a trip to Washington

and defray the expenses of an adult

escort over the holiday. The Congress-

man will award Dorothy Carlson, sec-
ond prize winner, of P. S. No. 137,

eighth year, a gold medal. Charlotte

McCormack, of first year, Holy Ro-

sary High School, third prize winner,

will receive a silver medal from Mr.

Celler.—The Brooklyn Tablet, March
22, 1924.

WINS VISIT TO WHITE HOUSE.

Yesterday afternoon at Town Hall,
where Washington’s Birthday was cel-
ebrated by American Legionaries and
an audience of 1,000 or more, Col.

Julius Conrad, representing Major
General Bullard, presented Cecilia

Gill, a little girl w?uft golden curls,

a parchment telling her she had won
over hundreds of other school children

in ar essay contest on the Federal

Government and its functions.

Cecilia is thirteen, lives at No. 509

East Seventy-seventh Street, and at-

tends St. Monica’s school. The award

gives her a trip to Washington and a
special audience with President Cool-

idge, the details of which will be ar-

ranged later. The contest was under
the auspices of the committee on

Americanization of the American Le-

gion, of which R. E. Condon is chair-

man. Gol. E. M. House was chairman

of the jury of award.—New York
Evening World, February 23, 1924.

MRS. COOLIDGE GIVES PRIZE TO
CATHOLIC SCHOOL ESSAYIST
Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, wife of. the

President, at a great Flag Day cere-
mony on the Ellipse back of the White
House, presented $100 to Miss Adele

Daniel, a seventeen-year-old Catholic

girl of Vicksburg, Miss., as first prize

in the national patriotic essay contest

conducted by the Women’s Overseas
League. Miss Daniel won the national
award in competition with thousands

of contestants throughout the country.

Her essay was successively given first
place in the state contest, corps area

contest and final judging of group

winners at Washington.

In addition to the $100 prize, the

winner received a free trip to Wash-

ington and return, with a liberal al-

lowance for the journey and her stay

there, and other minor prizes.—West-
ern American, June 21, 1924.

CATHOLIC STUDENTS TAKE
FOUR OUT OF FIVE.

Spelling down the best spellers in
the schools of Ramsey county takes



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 15

some little time, as various school the national chemical prize essay con-
officials will explain, after their ex- test of New York City,
perience Saturday morning at Me- The national prize winner receives
chanic Arts. “Morning” is merely a a four-year scholarship at Yale Uni-
term, as a matter of fact, for the thir- versity plus $500 annually.

teenth annual spelling contest of the

Ramsey county public and parochial WINS IN ML’SIC FEST.
schools, began at 10 a. m. and did not Master James Mendler, in the final
finish until after 1 p. m. competition of the Music Week Asso-

“ft- V
& Pioneer

ciation contests held at Steinway Hall
Press, April 18, 19-6. last Friday night, won the gold medal,

first prize, for the Junior vocal class
CATHOLIC STUDENTS WIN STATE boys’ section.
HONORS IN ANNUAL NA- James Mendler finished first, Arthur

TIONAL CHEMICAL Cowan second and James Gallagher
CONTEST. fourth. All three boys received their

St. Leo, Fla., April 9, 1926.—Five entire vocal training with the Dio-
students of St. Leo’s Academy, com- cesan choir. Master Mendler will be
peting in the annual chemical prize presented with the gold medal at Car-

essay contest, have been adjudged negie Hall, Tuesday evening, June 22,
Florida state winners in their respec- when the other prize winners will
tive subjects, according to information also be rewarded.—The Tablet, June
received here from the committee of 19, 1926.

v
THE BEST ELEMENTS IN AMERICA DEMAND

RELIGION IN EDUCATION.
THE WORLD SUNDAY SCHOOL ASSOCIATION.

(The Literary Digest, August 16, 1924)

The WORLD SUNDAY-SCHOOL ASSOCIATION developed into a
league of nations to promote the spiritual welfare of the child at its

recent convention in Glasgow, and, so far as press notices say to the

contrary, there was agreement upon material needs and methods,
whether the child in mind was a native of Abyssinia or of Kansas. In

a convention of such size and complexity as was this, whose members

were drawn from hither and yon, even from 13,000 miles away, much
was done and said that could not be set down in detail except in volum-
inous reports. But some things emerge which are regarded as funda-

mental and which may be told in a few sentences. This duty is per-
.ormed by The Universalist Leader. The old system of mass instruction

used the world around has gone by the board, we are told, to give place
to indivi lual instruction and recognition of particular needs. The pro-

portion of workers to pupils is increasing. "Where it was one in twenty

or thirty, it is now one in five or six. Training of leaders and picking

out of future teachers, missionaries, preachers, social workers is a new

phase of the work. More than one hour a week, it is agreed, must be

given over to religious instruction, and daily vacation Bible schools

must be able to reach congested city areas, remote country districts

and into the masses of foreign-speaking inhabitants. It is agreed further,

as the subject matter is boiled down by The Universalist Leader:

“That Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and similar organizations are of en-
ormous value in holding on to boys -nd girls at the age when they drift

away and drop out.



16 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

“That the teacher who is to succeed must give more than the hour
on Sunday to a class, and that the one who is with the pupil in week-day
activities, social, educational or recreational, ought to be the one to teach

them on Sundays.
“That in an increasing number of countries time is being found for

one or more periods of week-day religious instruction.

“That the Bible is the basis of instruction, but that extra Bible ma-

terial is being brought in for special grades and special needs.

“That uniform lessons in the sense of providing the same Bible pas-

sages for all grades have had their day, and uniform lessons in the

sense of providing the same courses to the whole world together are com-

ing in.

“That Christian, Buddhist and other religious leaders recognize that

religious education is a task of first importance, that hours of worship,

buildings, and other machinery must be changed to put this first thing

first, that in even conservative groups teaching the children has been placed

on the level of preaching the word.

“That parents of every race, black, brown, red, yellow, white, seem

equally anxious to get the best available for their children however in-

different they may be as to what they get for themselves.
“That tho racial differences are striking, the psychology of the ado-

lescent is the same everywhere.

“That the World’s Sunday School Association is a great missionary

organization to “influence the child life, not of a single empire or race,

but of the world.”

“That it is determined itself to be a League of Nations and has de-

cided to work for international peace by direct attack in Sunday-school
lessons on race hatred and prejudice.”

PRESIDENT COOLIDGE’S ATTITUDE
Washington, July 25, 1924—Speaking to the Convention of the National

Education Association yesterday President Coolidge made the following

significant statement in reference to the crying need of moral and religious

training for the youth of the nation:

“Another element must be secured in the training of citizenship, or

all else will be in vain. All our learning and science, our culture and our

arts, will be of little avail unless they are supported by high character;

unless there be honor, truth and justice, unless our material resources are

supported by moral and spiritual resources, there is no foundation for

progress. A trained intelligence can do much, but there is no substitute for
morality, character and religious convictions. Unless these abide, American

citizenship will be found unequal to its task.”

MOVEMENT FOR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION GROWING
Washington, D. C., June 26, 1924—The movement looking toward the

establishment of some sort of religious training to supplement the instruc-

tion given in secular schools appears to be gaining impetus, according

to facts gathered by the Bureau of Education. It has announced that

nine States now require that the Bible be read at stated times in the
public schools. These are: Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine,

Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Three States,
Maine, Delaware and Kentucky, have passed Bible reading laws within the

past year.

The bureau also calls attention to the fact that “with the assistance of

the Boston University School of Religious Education, a weekday religious

school has been established at Malden, Mass. Classes meet four afternoons

for sessions one hour in length.”



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 17

MORE INTEREST ASKED

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, March 10, 1924

“Education in matters of religion cannot be undertaken by the public

schools, for reasons already touched upon, at least for the present genera-

tion. Despite our certain broad knowledge that this education can best

be given during the very years in which our children are enrolled in the

schools, it is utterly useless to think of the public schools as agents in re-

ligious education, except in the most informal way. Some other agency

must carry on this highly necessary phase of education; and this agency is,

of course, the church-school, which for .11 but a small fraction of our chil-

dren, means the Sunday school.

“The future of the church, the good of society demands that religious

education shall not fall below secular education in quality nor in inspira-

tion. People instinctively measure opportunity by a cost standard. Do

we wonder at the overcrowding of the engineering schools and the schools

of commerce and the neglect of the theological schools? Have we not

emphasized from the kindergarten through the university that phase of

education which involves the material, by expending millions of dollars

there to hundreds upon education in things of the spirit? We have failed
utterly in dignifying the importance of our religious education, and we are.

reaping the harvest of indifference, if not of contempt, for the eternal veri-

ties of life.

“Let us try to acquire a new point of view. Let us as Christian people

realize that our greatest duty is to our boys and girls.

UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION.

By Dr. John J. Tigert, the United bilities;’ if religion be a universal

States Commissioner of Education phenomenon among men, and if great

at Harvard University. thinkers find God indispensable to the

“Those few who have not required
explanation of reality, then education

the Deity for an explanation of the
" hlch >acks the religious element is

universe do not loom up among the
certa,nl >' seriously defective,

great figures in the history of phil- Ethical Teaching Insufficient,

osophy. We have atheists among the “How shall we direct the will and
Greek philosophers in Democritus train the heart as we enlighten the
and Leucippus, but they sink into in- . intellect ? Naught but religious
significance as compared to such feeling, the inspiration of the soul,
theists as Pythagoras, Socrates, Aris- and faith in God can accomplish this.
“We do not recall an outstanding Even ethical teaching and morality,

atheist to match against the cloud of though helpful, will not suffice. Mor-
theologians and School-men of the al philosophy may be similar to other
middle ages.’- knowledge, the product of man’s

“If education consists in the evo- mind, but not a force which controls
lution of the man’s inherent capaci- his acts. There are abundant ex-
ties or untying ‘the bundle of possi- amples of the failure of ethical teach-



18
THE PARISH SCHOOL.

ing to affect life. France has
given

non-religious moral training a more

thorough trial perhaps than any. oth-

er nation. And yet, says an eminent

authority, ‘In fifty years criminality

has increased three-fold, though there

was scarcely any increase in popula-

tion. This statement was made be-

fore the war and does not compre-

hend the violent increase of crime

since the war. One French professor

complained, ‘My prize pupil in morals

is the biggest knave of the lot.’

“But this moral instruction requires

the reinforcement of religious teach-

ing and feeling.

“Morality is indeed the worthy help-

mate of religion, but history and ex-

perience reveal over and over again

that it can not be substituted for it.

Ethical societies have failed to sup-

plant the Church.

Truths That Are Not Popular.

“I am well aware that the position

that I am taking is not popular today

among educators, but I reiterate the

words of a chancellor of one of our

colleges uttered in his inaugural ad-

dress more than a decade ago, ‘Power-

ful as is the force of opinion today in

the direction of secularized education,

mighty as are the millions devoted to

that purpose, earnest and numerous

as are the advocates of education

without religion . . . yet I am undis-

mayed. For there is a power greater

than the opinion of men; there are

resources vaster than the millions

of earth. Let us not ‘trust in uncer-

tain riches, but in the living God.’
”

PROTESTANTS NEED PAROCHI-
AL SCHOOLS.

Dr. Cadman Says Time Is Opportune

to Follow Catholic Plan.

“The Tablet,” January 24, 1925.

—

On Tuesday afternoon Rev. Dr. S.

Parks Cadman ip afl address before

a gathering of the teachers, members

and friends of the New York Kinder-
garten Association, held in the ball-

room of the Park Lane Hotel, Park

avenue and Fifty-first street, Man-

hattan, recommended religious

schools for Protestants.

Dr. Cadman told the society that

the training of the child is one of

the utmost importance. He regards

the child as supreme, and finds each

one more fascinating than the adult.

The child presents immense possibili-

ties, which the Protestant sects have

been wont to neglect, he asserted.

The Brooklyn divine declared that

the money spent on evangelists and

revivals might well be devoted with

fuller ultimate return to the training

of children, and he expressed admir-

ation and appreciation of the atten-

tion and care which the Roman

Catholic Church gives to its children.

The Church realizes that the forma-

tive stage of the child’s character is

between the ages of six and nine,

and it utilizes this knowledge by

giving the children the necessary

moral training in the parochial

schools. A similar practice should
be adopted by the Protestant

churches, in the opinion of Dr. Cad-

man.

The Brooklyn clergyman declared
that parents are inclined to be too

lax in rearing their offspring; and

if he were wealthy enough he would

erect a building to “bring up” par-

ents. The teachers must bear the
burden of this loose parental discip-

line, and this feature is one of the

most difficult of the kindergarten

work, he said.

In the course of his talk Dr. Cad-

man deplored the feeling of “100 per-
cent. Americanism” which preaches

intolerance and race superiority. The

kindergarten takes in children of all

races and creeds and inculcates in

them the proper American spirit, he

stated.



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 19

FOLLOW CATHOLIC LEAD, SAYS
PROTESTANT MINISTER

Protestant churches must follow

the basic principle laid down by the

Catholic church in a definite develop-

ment of a program of religious and

moral education if they are to func-

tion efficiently in the future, declared

Dr. Edward S. Boyer of Chicago, an

instructor of the Chicago Training

school, in his sermon last night at the

Roberts Park M. E. Church on “A
New Demand in the New Age.”
“The world has never been in need

of Christian leadership as it is today,”

said Dr. Boyer.

“There are two conflicting cur-

rents of our day injuring the church

morale. There is the element stress-

ing religious education, while there

is the other element that insists sole-

ly upon an evangelistic program. The

Catholic church is leagues ahead of

us in the Protestant churches in the

matter of religious education. I say

all honor to the Catholics for the

principle they have laid down in re-
gard to religious education. I am in
favor of a program worked out to

give our boys and girls a better

chance to know God.”—Indianapolis
Star, July 23, 1923.

CAUSE OF WORLD’S UNREST

The preaching and teaching of lib-
eralism in religion must assume a
share of the burden for the lawless-

ness and unrest in the land, said Dr.

Joseph Taylor Britain, pastor of the

Columbus (0.) Central Presbyterian
church, in a sermon on “Religious
Foundations of National Life” at the

Irvington Presbyterian church Sun-

day evening.

“The spirit of lawlessness,” he said,
“is attempting to organize the forces
of evil for a massed attack on the
Christian religion, the rights of prop-

erty and free government and the
irontal attack is being directed
igainst the word of God.”
A number of so-called scholars have

’or years had as their chief purpose
he taking away of everything super-
ntural from the Bible, he said. “Can

men lay other foundations than Jesus
Christ and His word?” he asked.

—

Indianapolis News, May 21, 1923.

RELIGIOUS TRAINING IS URGED
IN SCHOOLS

Pueblo Rotarians Advocate Moral

Education to Prevent Crime.

Pueblo, May 18, 1925.—The Pueblo
Rotary club today unanimously

passed a resolution indorsing and ad-
vocating a better system of religious

and moral education for the rising
generation. The several hundred
members of graduating classes of
Pueblo’s high schools were guests of
the Rotarians when the following res-
olution was passed:

“Whereas, There has been brought
to the attention of the Pueblo Rotary
club the increasing prevalence of

crime, particularly among the
younger people of the state and na-
tion, and in evident connection there-
with, the lack of suitable religious

instruction in the schools and else-
where; now therefore,

“Menace to State”
“Be It Resolved, By the Pueblo

Rotary club, that we deplore the lack
of adequate moral and religious

standards as a serious menace to the
welfare of the state and nation.

“Resolved, That the lack of re-
ligious education is largely respon-

sible for the ignorance as well as

the waywardness of many of the ris-
ing generation.

Safeguards Home.

“Resolved, That education remains,

as it always has been, the best safe-

guard for the preservation of the

American home, as well as the Amer-
ican city, state and nation.

“Resolved, That nonsectarian edu-

cation in the fundamental religious

principles, accepted and approved by

men of all creeds, is a necessary ele-
ment of American citizenship.

“Resolved, Tlfat we urge that moral
training be stressed in all grades of

public education from the lowest to

the highest, and we recommend to
the serious attention of all educators

here and elsewhere, the pressing im-



20 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

portance of an active interest and

participation in religious education.”

Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colo.

MINISTERIAL UNION URGES RE-
LIGIOUS TRAINING SCHOOLS

Pittsburgh Telegraph, Dec. 1, 1924.

Establishment of schools for relig-

ious instruction throughout Pittsburgh

and Allegheny county, was urged to-
day at a meeting of the members of
the Ministerial Union, held in the

Smithfield Street Methodist Episcopal

Church.

Such schools are now being con-
ducted in Wilkinsburg, Bellevue, Ava-

lon and Ben Avon, where the children

are excused from the public schools

and attend church one hour a week

for religious instruction. In the

churches, they are instructed by

teachers selected and paid by the

churches of these communities. The

instruction is entirely non-sectarian

and is not compulsory.

Ministers Speak

Addresses on the subject were made
by the Rev. W. K. Anderson, pastor
of the Manchester Methodist Episco-

pal Church, chairman of the commit-

tee presenting the matter to the min-

isterial body; the Rev. C. C. Brainsby,

pastor of the Homewood Presbyter-
ian Church; H. E. Carmack, of Wil-

kinsburg, who presented the resolu-

tion adopted on the subject; T. E. Gar-

ber, superintendent of schools of Belle-

vue, who told of the progress of re-

ligious instruction in that community,

and Mrs. H. C. Renton, director of re-

ligious education in Wilkinsburg.

It was explained that Dormont is

getting ready to introduce religious

instruction in that community. In

New Brighton, special religious train-
ing is now being given under a special
teacher appointed and paid by the

churches of the borough, one teacher

doing the work done by many teach-
ers in the other communities named.

18 Churches Participate

Attorney Carmack explained that in

Wilkinsburg the plan of giving the

children religious training is now in

its third year. When it was taken up,

18 churches representing 11 denomin-

ations participated. The finance com-
mittee provided a budget of $5,000 for
the first year. He said that nearly
everywhere school boards and princi-

pals are in sympathy with the move-
ment.

He showed that in Wilkinsburg the
children are met by trained teachers
with public and religious training. He
said it was desired to put on a broad
program of such instruction in the
city of Pittsburgh. The tendency was
towards that direction in all of the

large cities of the country.

STUDENTS’ MORALS SHOCK
BOARD

Brooklyn (New York City) Tablet,
April 11, 1925.

The imperative need of character
education in the high schools of the

j

city is stressed in a report submitted I

to the Board of Education last week <

by the Committee on Character Edu-

cation, which for the last year has
i

been making a survey of moral con-

ditions in the high schools. Pointing

out that the character of the student ji

body has radically changed in the

last twenty years, the report recom-

mends a comprehensive scheme of
j

moral instruction to cope with the jl

undesirable element in the public
j

schools.

“A cosmopolitan high school is a
cross-section of the great city itself,”

;

the report says, ‘‘including every ele-

ment of society, every race, every

color, every creed. As a result the i'
school disciplinarian has to deal with !

almost every conceivable kind of

crime. He must frequently call on
the police for help. To maintain law

and order he needs the training of i

a detective; he often wishes he was

a fingerprint expert, a psychologist j

and a psychiatrist.

“Fortunately this element consti-
j

tutes but a small fractional part of ,!

our high school population. The rest

are interesting young people to know

and to work with, full of enthusiasm

and energy and responsive to leader-

ship. It is true that some of them



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 21

are loud, ill-mannered and over-con-

fident. Others are of the flapper type,

with the bobbed locks and everready

mirror, rouge and powder puff. But

this is only the exterior representa-

tion of their environment. They are

in reality, warm-hearted, generous-

minded boys and girls, full of initia-

tive surprisingly free from prejudices

and remarkably loyal in their devo-

tion to an ideal to which they are

pledged.

“CATHOLICS LEAD IN FAITH
MOVE”

“Protestant Youth on Trail Leading

to Crime,” Says Hargett.

“The Bible has been thrown out of

the schools; it is being left out of

homes; how can we expect it to in-
fluence our national life?” the Rev.

I. M. Hargett asked last night in a

sermon in the Grand Avenue temple.

“Criminals and degenerates are

home products,” the pastor declared.

“Robbers, killers, bootleggers and

prostitutes come from homes where

law violation is flaunted before the

eyes of children. It is there they

learn to disregard some of the laws

and thereby lose their respect for all

law.

“Persons who violate the law are
cutting away the foundation of the

society in which they live.

“Protestants are being left far be-

hind by the Roman Catholics. They
are inculcating their young men and
women with a loyalty to the faith
and with the teachings of Christ

while ours are starting on the trail

which leads to crime.”—Kansas City
Journal, Monday, Jan. 26, 1925.

Dayton (O.) Journal, Feb. 1, 1925.

Moral training of the present-day

youth, brought about by religious

teaching in the public schools, is

sponsored by Paul J. Wortman and

Rolla M. Gallaway, assistant county

prosecuting attorneys, who say that

more than ninety per cent of the

youthful criminals coming under their

notice have never received spiritual

instruction.

“It is not sectarian religious teach-

ing which I favor, but just honest-to-

goodness, everyday righteousness and

religion,” asserted Wortman. “Every

parent, whether he be Catholic, Jew

or Protestant, is interested in having

honest and God-fearing sons and

daughters.”

The assistant prosecuting attorney

declared it to be their observation

that crime is rapidly increasing

among youth who have not had and
are not now receiving the advantages

of religious training.

Religion the Base

of Education

By David Kinley, LL.D.

President of the University of Illinois

The Instinctive Belief in God.

There is no complete education

without religious training. The most
important phase of education is the

development of character. Character

cannot be developed in the best sense

without belief in, faith in, God. For
I do not agree with those people who,

under the specious presentation of al-

leged scientific facts in anthropology

and archeology, allege that our

morals are wholly the result of ha-

bits established by the influence of

our environment. I believe that there

is in the hearts of men a primordial,
instinctive belief in a Diety; that that

belief is the basis of standards of

conduct; that those standards of con-

duct determine in large measure, at

least, the relation of the individual

not only to the God in whom he be-
lieves, but to his fellow men, children

of the same God. I know that this
is an old-fashioned point of view.

I know that many enthusiastic young
students of anthropology, psychology,

and sociology, think they have found

in the study of these sciences truths

that will enable them to do without



22 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

God because, forsooth, these facts

may be used in such a way as to ex-
plain away some particular concep-
tion of the Deity which they may
have had. Therefore, some of them

tell us that our God, your God and
mine, is the creation of our imagin-

ation, the result of habits adopted

long ago by our forefathers and per-

petuated and strengthened through

environment and the hereditary in-

fluences of succeeding generations.

They undertake to explain the won-

ders of the universe as merely psy-

chological or physical or chemical

phenomena, and, therefore, are able

to separate morals and standards of

morals from the idea of God. I do

not myself so believe. It is, indeed,

possible to describe God and the un-

iverse, if you please, in the terms of

any one of the different sciences; but

descriptions of that kind are not ex-

planations of the causes and, there-

fore, do not do away with the nec-
essity for a great original cause. Ad-
mitting the existence of a great ori-

ginal cause, we must necessarily ad-
mit, it seems to me, that our con-

duct, that is, our morals, our idea of

duty not only to God but to one an-
other, must be based largely, if not
wholly, upon our conceptions of what

God is and what He requires of us.
From my point of view, therefore,
morals depend largely upon religion.

Since education, up to a certain point,

at any rate, is primarily the develop-

ment of character, and since charac-

ter is, after all, the training in moral

standards, and since training in

moral standards depends upon relig-

ious belief, it follows that religious

training is a necessary part of a com-

plete education.

VI

COMPARISON OF ACHIEVEMENT IS ALL IN

FAVOR OF THE CATHOLIC COLLEGES.

ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY SETS A

NEW RECORD.

The sum total of the graduates of

the St. Louis University classes who

took the various State Board examin-

ations for license to practice medicine

during the last ten years (1915 to

1924 inclusive) was 576 men. Three

young physicians of this 576 failed to

pass on their first encounter with the

State Board; in other words, one gra-

duate of St. Louis University in every

192 failed.

Harvard did nearly as well. The

sum total of Harvard’s graduates in

medicine who took these examinations

during the ten years was 593, of whom
all but 4 passed; in other words, one

graduate of Harvard in every 149

failed.

Johns Hopkins Medical school, pre-

sented 446 graduates to the examin-

ing boards during these ten years. Of

this number eleven were not success-

ful; in other words, one graduate in

every 41 of Johns Hopkins failed.

These figures are obtained from the

ten volumes of the Journal of the

American Medical Association, which

annually—about May 1st—publishes
all the findings of the examinations

of the various State Boards of the

United States. In the issue of May
2nd, this year, it may be seen that the
St. Louis University class of 1924

went before the various examining

boards 91 strong, and that all passed.

This is a new event for the school in

so far as it is the largest class that

has a 100 per cent record of successes.

—Rev. L. J. Kenny S. J.



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 23

MARQUETTE LEADS ALL COL-
LEGES IN COMPLETE HOS-

PITAL TRAINING.

Milwaukee, Wis. April 3, 1925.

—

Marquette excels all other univer-

sities in the United States and Can-

ada in the thoroughness of its course

in hospital training and administra-

tion, according to Dr. Malcolm T.

MacEachern, Chicago, director of hos-

pital activities for the American Col-

lege of Surgeons. Dr. MacEachern

made this statement in a lecture here

before hospital workers, doctors and

Marquette medical students.

The speaker paid high tribute to

the Rev. Charles B. Moulinier, S.J.,

of Marquette, president of the Cath

olic Hospital Association of the Uni-

ted States and Canada, whose efforts,

he said, were responsible for the gen-

eral hospital standardization r jve-

ment.

Thousands of lives are beiry ^aved

annually, he said, which under obso-

lete hospital methods would have been

sacrificed needlessly, and it was large-

ly through the untiring work of

Father Moulinier that the hospitals of

the United States are now recognized

as the greatest in the world.

The nation-wide oratorical contests

held this last spring in practically

every state of the Union, brought out

the interesting fact that the Catholic

schools have almost a monopoly of

this important art. While the na-

tional winner was a non-Catholic,

many of the local and state cham-
pions were products of the Parochial

School, the list being too long to re-

print.

McELMELL OF LOYOLA COLLEGE
IS ORATORICAL PRIZE

WINNER.

Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1925.

In the midst of the tumultuous ap-

plause and cheers o / the largest audi-

ence ever gathered at a high school

event in Southern California, Eugene

F. McElmell of Loyola College, Los

Angeles, was awarded first place at

The Times Grand Finals in the Na-

tional Oratorical Contest on the Con-

stitution, conducted at the Los

Angeles High School auditorium last

night. The award carried with it a

cash prize of $1,000 and the high

honor of a place in the National

Grand Finals in the contest, to be

staged in Washington, May 8.

STILL ANOTHER.

Topeka, Kan., May 9, 1925—Robert
Fox won the state high school ora-

torical contest held in Manhattan,

Kan., last Friday. The winner is a

senior in the Topeka Catholic High

School, and has been very active in

dramatics and musical endeavors dur-

ing his four years.

FORDHAM STUDENT WINS THE
ORATORICAL CONTEST.

Brooklyn, N. Y., May 7, 1925—
Charles F. Murphy, of the class of ’26

at Fordham University, won first

prize in the first Intercollegiate Ex-

tempore Speaking Contest. He spoke
on “The Selection by the President of

His Own Cabinet Members Without
Consent of Congress.” Second and

third prize were won by students of

Dartmouth and Pennsylvania Col-

leges, respectively.

CATHOLIC STUDENT WINS ORA-
TORY CONTEST.

Brooklyn, N. Y., May 1, 1925

—

Mathew P. Kelly, a student in the

High School Department of the Col-

lege of the Immaculate Conception

here, was the winner of the contest

of the South Brooklyn district of the

National Oratorical Contest on the

Constitution. Students from six pub-

lic high schools took part in the con-

test.



24 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

BUFFALO CATHOLIC BOY IN
FINALS OF NATIONAL ORA-

TORICAL CONTEST.

Buffalo, N. Y., April 25, 1925—

Francis B. Schlageter of Canisius

High School won first place in “The

Express” grand finale for western

New York in the National Oratorical

Contest, held last evening in the audi-

torium of the Hutchinson Central

High School.

By virtue of his victory last night,

Mr. Schlageter will represent west-

ern New York in the central zone
finals, which will be held in Indian-

apolis on May 1. In that competition
there will be five speakers and the

one chosen in first place will go to

Washington on May 8 to speak in the
national finals before President Cool-

idge, in which prizes totalling $5,000

will be divided among the speakers.

CHICAGO BOY IS ORATORY VIC-
TOR IN CENTRAL ZONE.

Indianapolis, Ind., May 3, 1925

—

George Stansell of Chicago today held

first place for the central zone in the

national high school oratorical con-

test on the Constitution.

Stansell will represent the district

in the finals of the contest to be held

at Washington, D. C., on May 8.
Francis Schlageter, Buffalo, N. Y.,

was chosen as alternate.

Other contestants in the district

contest here last night who had won

first honors in their respective states

were: Helen Willis, Louisville, Ky.;

Dallas Doort, Flint, Mich., and Fran-

cis Corbett, Fort Wayne, Ind.

MT. ST. CHARLES WINS ORA-
TORY CONTEST FOR THIRD

YEAR RUNNING.
Helena, Mont., May 19, 1925—For

the third consecutive year, Mount St.

Charles College, Helena, Mont., has

been placed first in the annual Inter-

collegiate Oratorical Contest in the

State of Montana. The Montana

State College, Montana State School

of Mines, Intermountain Union Col-

lege, Mount St. Charles College, Bil-

lings Polytechnic Institute, and the

Montana State University constitute

the Montana State Intercollegiate

Oratorical Association.

The latest victory came on May 12
when Richard J. Lally, a Junior in

an A. B. course, won the first place

by the unanimous decision of the

judges. The judges were Associate

Justice John A. Matthews, of the Su-

preme Court of the State of Mon-

tana; the Hon. Lester H. Loble, Demo-

cratic floor leader in the Montana

Assembly, and Mr. John G. Brown,

former member of the Helena Board

of Education.

CATHOLIC STUDENT THE BEST

JUDGE OF LIVE STOCK

IN UNIVERSITY.

Champaign, 111., May 8, 1925—Ed-
ward J. Bales, a junior in the College

of Agriculture at the University of

Illinois here and a member of Phi

Kappa, national Catholic fraternity,

won first place in the fifth annual

stock judging contest at the Univer-

sity. He made the highest score in

the advanced, all-round division of the

contest and the best score in the

special, cattle judging contest. He

also scored highest in the judging of

both cattle and sheep in the regular

classes.

Concerning the Catholic student’s

achievement, the Chicago Tribune

says: “Though only a junior in the

school, he has the distinction of being

the best student judge of live stock in

the entire university.”



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 25

NUN FIRST OF THIRTY COM- pital. Her home is in Meadville, Pa.
PETITORS IN STATE TEST

OF PHARMACISTS. NUN CREATES THE BEST
Cleveland, Jan. 29, 1925.—Sister SLOGAN.

Mary Paul Johnston, of St. Vincent’s A Franciscan nun, Sister M. Aquin,
Charity hospital this city, led a class Superior of Mount Alverna Convent

of thirty in a test held recently by in Denver, Col., won the first prize

the State Board of Pharmacy. Sister in the News-Times slogan contest held

Paul’s grade was 91.6. Forty-two for the beautification of Denver,

took the examination and thirty were “Denver’s beauty—our civic duty,”
successful. was her slogan. Inasmuch as she

Winning high honors has become signed her world name, Louise

a habit with Sister Paul and the pres- Glockner, it was not known until after

ent instance is one of several in her she won the contest that she was a

career of less than ten years as a nun.—Catholic News, May, 9, 1925.
Sister of Charity. Berlin, May 30, 1925—Cologne Uni-

Sister Paul was graduated with versity has conferred an unusual

highest honors from the school of honor on an unusual person. Sister

pharmacy of Western Reserve Uni- Ignatia of the Holy Order of Saint

versity, Cleveland, in 1923. By leading Francis has been elected an honorary
her class she received three prizes: citizen of the university “in grateful

an alumni award, the valedictorian recognition of her services for the

honor and a prize offered by a local welfare of the student body.” These

drug firm. While making her studies services consisted chiefly of organizing

in pharmacy, Sister Paul continued and managing the student kitchen for

her work as a nurse in Charity Hos- indigent college girls and young men.

VII

DEMAND FOR WEEK-DAY SCHOOLS OF
RELIGION IS GROWING

Another evidence of the general concurrence in the correctness of the

parochial school idea is the introduction of religious instruction into the

public schools, or to classes conducted in other buildings on week days, during

school hours. Ministers, and teachers, and Christian people generally, are

feeling the need of the religious element in education. They know that, as

the public schools are now constituted, definite religion cannot be taught

therein; they also know that the majority of children are not regular at-

tendants at Sunday school; and that even if they were, the short half hour

once a week is not sufficient. You may be interested in reading what is

being done in the direction of introducing the week-day religious instruc-

tion for school children; hence we append several items culled during this

year from the secular press:

URGES RELIGION FOR STUDENTS

Maxwell Hall of Marietta, administration superintendent of the Ohio

Sunday School Council for Religious Training

“It is dangerous to educate a man unless you give him a conscience.



26 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

Unless we give children a religious training, the crime epidemic among

children will grow worse. We must give religion to our children even if
we give nothing else.

“Religion cannot be rightly taught in tax-supported schools. It is not

the business of the state to teach religion. It is the business of the church.

Let’s not pass it on to someone else.”

Hall urged that each county establish week-day church schools where

children are taught religion by special teachers.

The establishment of week-day church schools and the organization

of county Sunday school councils were the two-fold purposes of the con-

ference of county council leaders held all day.—The Toledo News-Bee, March
29, 1924.

CATHOLICS WANT OTHERS TO HAVE THE SAME CHANCE
For the first time in New York a religious meeting was held yesterday

afternoon in which Catholics, Jews and Protestants participated, with cler-

gymen of each faith among the speakers. The meeting was held at the

Waldorf-Astoria and it was for teachers in the public schools, more than

3,000 of whom packed the grand ballroom of the hotel.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss religious instruction to

children who attend the public schools. It was made plain that this in-

struction would be outside of school buildings and outside of school hours,

and that each pupil would be taught the faith of his parents.

Dr. Pool delivered an address, and the Rev. Dr. Walter M. Howlett, in

charge of the Daily Vacation Bible School Association, represented the Fed-

eration of Churches and spoke for the Protestants. The Archbishop and

Msgr. Lavelle spoke for the Catholics. Supreme Court Justice Thomas C. T.

Crain, an Episcopalian, and Judge Alfred J. Talley, a Catholic, also spoke.

Judge Aaron S. Levy was to have spoken for the Jews, but he was unable

to be present. Edward W. Stitt, Assistant Superintendent of Public Schools,

sat on the platform, with four District Superintendents.—New York Times,
Feb. 18, 1924.

WEEK-DAY SCHOOLS FOR TEACHING OF RELIGION

It is recognized that the giving of information of a religious character

is necessary to form the basis of religious education, but that it is only

the basis. The object of the weekday schools of religion is not merely to

supply information. But at all times the teachers have before them the

objective of making such an impression on the hearts and minds of the

pupils that they will secure for themselves vital religious experience.

The leaders of the weekday school movement in Dayton hope to give

every child in the city the opportunity to get that training which will make

it possible for him to follow the hard right and to avoid the easy wrong.

Approximately one-half of the $33,000 fund now being sought in Dayton

for religious education will be used for these weekday schools.—The Dayton
Journal, April 13, 1924.



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 27

FOR MILWAUKEE PUPILS

Religious instruction for the children in the Milwaukee public schools is

provided in a resolution passed by the school board here. On request of

parent or guardian a child will be dismissed one hour a week, beginning

next school year; for extra-curricular instructions. The second grade pupils

will be excused at 2:30 p. m. on Monday, the third grade on Tuesday, the

fourth grade on Wednesday, the fifth grade on Thursday and the sixth on

Friday.

“Religion is necessary in education

and our young people today show the

results of an educational system

from which religion is barred,” says

Charles M. Brunson, superintendent

of week-day Bible schools of Toledo.

“Many people have no religious

contacts. Young people haven’t the

great motive in life which religion

gives them. They lack a purpose,”

he says.

Professor Brunson, through his

connection with week-day Bible
schools, as well as through 25 years

experience as a teacher in public

schools, understands the educational

problems of Toledo.

“More than 50 per cent of the chil-

dren of Toledo didn’t have any reli-

gious training until week-day Bible

schools were started,” he says. “I

had some theories and when the op-

portunity came to me to direct de-
velopment of week-day religious

schools I undertook it because it gave

me a chance to put some of my
tb* ries into practice.” — Toledo
Blade, Feb. 17, 1923.

TO USE 300 CHURCHES FOR VA-
CATION SCHOOLS DURING

SUMMER.

The Rev. Walter M. Howlett, secre-

tary of the Metropolitan Federation

of Daily Bible Schools, speaking yes-

terday in the Kent Street Reformed

Church, Brooklyn, said that there are

1,511 churches, with a property value

of $221,757,730, which are not taxed

by the State and are idle and empty

the greater part of the summer. He
said that 300 churches would be used

this summer as vacation schools.

“Children who might otherwise be

on the streets learning the beginning

of crime,” he said, “as well as running

the risk of accidents, will be brought

into our churches during the sum-

mer. There will be teaching, the

dramatizing of stories, and excur-

sions. The children will be taught

to make many useful things.”—N. Y.
Herald.

WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS IN-
STRUCTION

is the most important need of the

country at the present time, Dr. Jas.

Thompson told the annual meeting of
the Young People’s and the week-day
School Department of the Board of

Sunday Schools of the Methodist

Episcopal Church, held in Chicago re-

cently. Dr. Thompson stated that in
the United States two out of every

three boys and girls of school age,

Hebrew, Catholic or Protestant, have

no religious education of any kind.

URGE ABANDONMENT OF SUN-
DAY SCHOOLS

Omaha, Neb., April 13.—Proposals
to abandon Sunday school for chil-

dren and substitute instead a week-

day school, that staggered the dele-

gates at the fourth educational con-

ference of the Episcopal church here,

today were in the hands of a special



28 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

committee, whose report Monday is

awaited with considerable interest.

The Rev. Dr. William E. Gardner,

secretary of the religious education

body of the national council who yes-

terday proposed the change, was up-

held by the Right Rev. Ernest V.

Shaylor, bishop of Nebraska, who

added to the furore by asserting that

the church was ready for radical in-

novations. He likened the Sunday

school work to attempts to make a

livmg tree out of a dead stump.

SCHOOL OF RELIGION TO
SUMMER STUDENTS

In order to link up modern religious

problems with those in the education-

al field, a Summer School of Religion

is being offered at the university of

Wisconsin, conducted under the joint

auspices of the University Commis-

sion of the Episcopal church and the

Wesley Foundation of the Methodist

church.—The Capital Times, Madison,
Wis., July 1, 1924.

RELIGIOUS SCHOOL URGED
IN KNOXVILLE, PA.

First steps in the establishment of

a school for religious education in

Knoxville were taken yesterday,

when teachers from the Wilkinsburg

Daily School for Religious Education

addressed congregations in most of

the borough churches, explaining the

need for such a school and its possi-

ble accomplishments. As a result of

the work by the Wilkinsburg instruc-

tors yesterday it is expected the

churches will establish such a school

in Knoxville before the next fall.

Churches which joined in the field

day for religious education were the

Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Metho-

dist Protestant, United Presbyterian

and Christian churches. Speakers

were Mrs. H. C. Renton, Mrs. N. B.

Firestone, Mrs. A. C. Gross and Mrs.

Herbert Russell.

At the Knoxville Presbyterian
Church on April 6 H. E. Carneck, as-

sistant director of religious education

for the Allegheny County Sabbath

School Association will explain the

proposed school.

The need for religious education,

the speakers yesterday pointed out,

derives from the fact that owing to

the American principle of keeping

churches separate from state, the pub-

lic schools give no religious instruc-

tion. It becomes necessary for the

churches themselves to supply this

lack and to show the success of such

efforts. Speakers told of the work

done by the school at Wilkinsburg.

Operated daily, the school has an

enrollment of 2,000, or more than 90

per cent of the enrollment of the Wil-

kinsburg public schools. It is graded

and operated efficiently, speakers said.

—Pittsburgh Post, March 24, 1924.

A model school of religious educa-

tion which will include a grade school

and junior h'gh school, is to be estab-

lished in connection with Boston Uni-

versity School of Religious Education

and Social Service. Saturday and

late afternoon courses for religious

workers who are employed during

the day also will be given for the first

time next fall.—Boston Transcript,
June, 2, 1923.

RELIGIOUS SCHOOL FOR ALL

DENOMINATIONS.

Ann Arbor, Mich., July 12.—

A

school of religion is projected by the

National Council of Schools of Reli-

gion, to be financed by volunteer con-

tributions and supported alike by

Protestants, Roman Catholics and

Jews. It is proposed to establish

similar schools in all State univer-

sities where State laws do not permit

religious instruction as a part of the

State school curriculum. The school

here will open next fall.



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 29

Alexis C. Angell of Detroit, tem-

porary president of the Michigan

school said: “The plan is a result of

the growing belief that there is a

serious gap in our modern educational

system. Our forefathers, perhaps

wisely, placed a constitutional bar, in

nearly all the States, against the

teaching of religion in tax-supported

schools. But education has become

too much utilitarian and materialistic.

Our graduates are becoming neither

religious nor irreligious, but simply

non-religious. It is proposed now to

give instruction in the history, litera-

ture and philosophy of religion and

in the fundamental principles under-

lying all religion. No tax money will

be used to support these schools and

they are to be free from sectarianism

and denominationalism. ,,— Cincinnati
Times-Star, July 12, 1923.

PRESBYTERIANS WANT BUDGET
OF $2,200,000 FOR SCHOOLS

Atlantic City, N. J. Nov. 17—De-
claring that “the hope of the church

and the nation is based on the Chris-

tian education of the young,” Dr. P.

M. Robinson of Philadelphia, request-

ed the general council of the Presby-

terian church Friday to make a $2,-

200,000 allotment under the benevo-

lent budget for the board of Christian

education, representing an increase

of approximately $300,000 over last

year.—Toledo Blade, Nov. 17, 1923.

VIII

MANY PROTESTS AGAINST UN-AMERICAN
TEXT BOOKS.

POISON HISTORY TEXTS

“Now we have to contend with the

curse of propaganda in the text books

used in our schools. The Sons of the

Revolution have bills pending before

the legislatures of Washington, Idaho,

Colorado and California. These bills

aim to exclude from the public schools

text books ‘which defame the found-

ers of the nation, belittle their

achievements err misrepresent the

principles upon which our Republic

was founded/

“Think of such laws being neces-

sary!

' “Of course, if some half-baked poli-

tical philosopher, talking from a soap

box, attacked the constitution and de-

famed the founders of the Republic

we would throw him into jail.

“On the other hand, we actually pay
out thousands of dollars from the

treasury of the state of California

each year for alleged American his-

tories, which are designed to under-

mine gradually the intense love of

country once taught in our schools.

These are the text books from which

our grammar and high school stu-

dents are learning the history of the

United States.

“One history in use in the California

schools declares ‘it was a debatable

question whether the abuses of the

king’s ministers justified armed re-

sistance.’ In other words, the Revo-

lutionary War may have been a grave
mistake.

“Bunker Hill, Lexington and York-

town battles are dismissed with a

line or two.
“
‘The English colonial system had

guided and guarded the colonies

while they needed help and protection.

It was not tyrannical.’

“In other words, American students

are being taught in California that

the Declaration of Independence,



30 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

which recited the grievances of the

colonists, was a lie.

“The American generals are sneer-

ed at and belittled.

“These alleged American historians

evidently are so pro-British that they

refuse even to believe the British

statesmen who denounced in the

Houses of Commons the tyrannical

treatment of the colonists by King

George’s government.

“Furthermore, only a few of the

colonists may have favored war, and

maybe Washington and his generals

were not all Napoleons. The fact re-

mains, however, that this ragged,

poorly trained army, led by Washing-

ton, Leked the British regulars com-

manded by their brilliant professional

soldiers.

“It is about time the Sons of the

American Revolution got busy.”-—San
Francisco Bulletin, June, 1923.

PENNSYLVANIA CENSORS
SCHOOL TEXT BOOKS

Harrisburg, Pa., July 2, 1923.—Gov.
Pinchot signed today the resolution

recently passed by the Legislature

providing for an immediate investi-

gation by the Department of Public

Instruction of all text books on his-

tory used in the public schools of the

State.

The department is asked to request

the discontinuance of any book found

to ignore, belittle or falsify events

leading up to the signing of the

Declaration of Independence or con-

nected with the American Revolution.

ROUTING THE POISON HISTORY

TEXTS.

“History text-books containing

statements derogatory of the aims

and accomplishments of Revolution-

ary war leaders, and of leaders in

the war of 1812, generally used in the

schools throughout the country will

be barred from Wisconsin.

“All that remains before the Cash-

man measure becomes law is the sig-
nature of Governor Blaine which is

certain.

“The proposal concurred in by the

assembly provides that ‘no history

or other text book shall be adopted

for use or used in any school, which

falsifies the facts regarding the War
of Independence or the War of 1812,
or which defames the nation’s foun-

ders or misrepresents the ideals and

causes for which they struggled and

sacrificed, or which contains propa-

ganda favorable to any foreign

government.’ ”—La Follette’s Maga-
zine, March, 1923.

SONS OF REVOLUTION CON-

DEMN POISON HISTORY TEXTS
A report approved and adopted by

the Empire State Society of the Sons

of the American Revolution, in which

West’s “History of the American Peo-

ple,” Hart’s “History” and Muzzey’s

'‘American History” are denounced

because of the manner in which they

treat important events in the Amer-

ican Colonial and revolutionary per-

iods, has been sent to State Senator

James A. Higgins, who introduced the

history bill now pending in the Legis-

lature.

“It is most evident,” the report says,

“that there is urgent need for censor-

ship of the history text books used in

the schools of not only this State but

every State in the Union and it is of

vital importance that teachers should

be properly equipped to instruct by

temperament, character and knowl-

edge of real facts and their true sig-

nificance, as well as truthful history

text books which present the histor-

ical facts in their proper relation to



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 31

each other and in their true propor-

tions.”

The report says that West’s History

is constantly finding defense for the

course of action of the British Gov-

ernment prior to the Revolution and

ignores the American side of the

argument.

“No crown advocate,” says the re-

port, “could plead the British cause

in a more bitterly partisan spirit than

West has done.”

It is charged in the report that

Muzzey’s History entirely omits men-

tion of Nathan Hale, Anthony Wayne,

Putnam, Sumter, Pickens, Light

Horse Harry Lee, Molly Pitcher, Bet-

sy Ross, the birth of the flag, the

battles of Bennington and Stony

Point and many other heroic names
and events “that have thrilled and in-

spired us in the past.”

The report urges the passage of the

Higgins bill, and says that there is

not a single clause in it that can be

opposed by any loyal, patriotic cit-
izen, “because its sincerity and good

intentions, indeed, it is one of the

most important measures that has

ever been introduced in this or any

other State.” The report recom-
mends that the Empire State Society

extends its compliments to Senator

Higgins for introducing the bill, and

recommends that a representative of

the Society be authorized to attend

hearings on the measure.—N. Y. Her-
ald, May 24, 1923.

Hirschfield Condemns Eight Histories

And Many Societies and Eminent
Men as Being Un-American

New York, June 3.—David Hirsch-
field, Commissioner of Accounts, who
was delegated by Mayor Hylan in

December, 1921, to investigate
charges that American history text

books used in the public schools con-

tained anti-American propaganda and

besmirched American traditions, to-

night made public his report in which

he specifically condemns eight his-

tories selected by the Superintendent

of Schools and took to task a number

of well-known persons and societies.

“It would seem,” said the Commis-

sioner, “as if these authors wanted

to convey the impression that our

history, our government and every-

thing else American is all wrong and

that the sole hope for American pro-

gress lies in our renouncing our

American traditions, surrendering

our American spirit and becoming

again an integral part of the British

Empire, as Cecil Rhodes directed in

the first draft of his “will.”

He recommended that “any history
which, after 150 years, attempts to

teach our children that the war of

independence was an unnecessary

war and that it is still a problem as

to who was right and who was
wrong should be fed to the furnaces

and those responsible for those books

be branded as un-American.”

Individuals and societies criticized

by the Commissioner “for fostering

propaganda” include Andrew Carne-
gie, Elihu Root, Chairman of the

Carnegie Council; the American His-

tory Teachers’ Association, Sir Gil-

bert Parker, Lord Northcliffe, Owen
Wister, George Haven Putnam, the
English-speaking Union, the Sons of

St. George, John W. Davis, “a law-
yer for J. P. Morgan and the inter-

national banking interests,” George

W. W*ickersham, another Morgan law-

yer; Professor Matthew Page An-

drews of Baltimore, the Sulgrave In-

stitute, “another ‘hands-across-the-

sea’ organization composed of British

and pro-British,” the Pilgrim Society,

the Church Peace Union, the World

Alliance for Promoting International

Friendship Through the Churches,

Bishop James Cannon, Dr. Harry



32 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

Emerson Fosdick, Dr. Sidney L. Gu-

lick, Hamilton Holt, the American

Association for International Co-

operation, the Magna Charta Day As-

sociation, Lady Astor and the Nation-

al Security League.

The Commissioner said he found,

during his lengthy investigation, that

school children were being taught

such misrepresentations as the fol-

lowing:

“That the American Revolution

was merely a civil war between the

English on both sides of the sea and

their German King.

“That the Magna Charta is the
real source of our liberties, while the

Declaration of Independence exerted

no vital force.

“That such patriots as Samuel

Adams, John Hancock and Patrick

Henry were mere disreputable char-

acters.

"That Thomas Jefferson deserved

a halter.

“That Alexander Hamilton de-

nounced the people as ‘a great beast.’

“That the United States Constitu-

tion and most of our free institutions

were borrowed from England.

“That the War of 1812 was ‘a mis-
take,’ ‘disgraceful’ and ‘unfortunate.’

“That the Mexican War was a grab
of territory.

“That the North saved the Union

only through England’s ‘heroic sup-

port.’

“That our war with Spain was won

because England prevented Germany

and all Europe from taking sides

against us.”

Faneuil Hall, “The Cradle of Liber-

ty,” is of no consequence in the his-

tories condemned, nor is the Mutiny

Act, the Stamp Act or the Boston

Massacre.

IX

SOME SANE COMMENT ON THE CENTRALI-
ZATION OF EDUCATION
NO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Nicholas Murray Butler, head of Columbia University, is against a Sec

retary of Education in the Cabinet. He says, “standardization, govern-

ment made uniformity, bureaucratic regulations are not the allies of edu-

cation, but its mortal enemies.” He might have added that a Department

of Education would add an army of tax eaters to the Federal service and

further weaken the constitutional reservations of self-government for the

states. Even the grant of Federal aid to state or private schools would be

a dangerous innovation, discouraging the states in the work of maintaining

their own educational institutions and encouraging them to look to Wash-

ington for educational guidance.

And in thus depending upon Washington for advice and aid for the

schools, we should be in danger of falling into the condition of Germany

before the war, when the central government held the schools and educators

in the hollow of its hands, dictated what was to be taught, and made the

schools a political branch of the Potsdam bureaucracy. In the interest of

such freedom as we have left, let us defeat the attempt to centralize and

bureaucratize education.—St. Louis Post, Jan. 6, 1924.



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 33

A TIMELY WARNING

(Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University)

“A widespread illusion as to education is that the more elaborate, the

more complicated and the more costly the machinery of school organization,

the better will be the product. The reverse is the fact. Standardization,

Government made uniformity, and bureaucratic regulation are not the

allies of education but its mortal enemies.

“In particular, it is vital if the American school system is to survive,

that the Federal Government keep its hands off the schools. Imagine our

diverse and diversified population, living under widely varying conditions, as

the people of Prussia once were, by the authority and edicts of a central

office at the national capital. I should regard any such development as

the beginning of the end of the America which our fathers knew and of

that American school system in which our generation has been brought up.”

DESPOTISM AND DISASTER

Judge €. D. Rivers, of the Summerville (Ga.) city court, calls attention

to the centralizing tendencies of the times and points out the menace of

constant infringements being made by the federal government on the rights

of the states as a result of the failure of our political leaders to stand for

and maintain the fundamental principles on which the government is

founded.

Judge Rivers makes especial reference to the slow, but apparently

sure, drift of government toward the control of children througjh schools.

“Already,” he says, “the states have taken the schools from the people,

and we hear the rising cry that they be passed on to Washington. We
have organizations that take the babe until the school can take it, and

other corporations that take the boys and girls at vacation time. At the

foundation the parents surrender their ancient duties, and, so, the burden

of training children is passed on to teachers, chosen by governmetal bureau-

crats, the agents of great corporations. Soon all parental cares, except

those of the first days of infancy, must develop upon a great, paternal

government, which will ultimately dictate what the child shall be taught.”

—Sunday Times (Chatanooga) February 17, 1924.
“The real danger to the public school comes from those who are un-

doubtedly its friends. We refer, of course, to those who are pressing for

centralization, federal subsidies and federal control. Washington can hard-

ly be said to be a center from which sound influences emanate. It woulid

be a great mistake to bring education within the sphere of cabinet politics

•—and possibly intrigue—and to hook it up with Washington bureaus. Nor
is there any need whatever for a subsidy from the national government, the

effect of which would be to weaken the sense of local responsibility, and

to develop to a still more dangerous extent the feeling of dependence on the

national government, of which there is far too much now.



34 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

“There are no states that can not afford to support their own schools,

no states that are not the stronger for so doing—as are the schools them-
selves. Much can—and should—be done to improve the schools, but fed-
eralization would not be an improvement.—The Indianapolis News, Feb.
15, 1924.

STATE CONTROL OF EDUCATION A HANDICAP

A prominent London educator, writing in the Christian Science Monitor
for January 21, 1924, has the following to say with regard to state control

of education:

“Education, though in the deepest sense a question of the highest poli-

tics, is not and should never be a shuttlecock for political parties . . .

So universally is it seen that education is too important a matter not to be

almost the chief concern of the State too intimately occupied with its

direction. We talk loosely of the State, but in effect what can state-con-
trol mean but government by officials? It is there that the trouble may

come, from what may be called the regimentation of education. ... Of
course a certain definite number of subjects must be taught. Reading,

writing, and a little arithmetic are instruments without which education in

the modern world is impossible. But beyond those subjects, and possibly a

few others such as drawing and elementary history and geography, the field

of education is so wide that for a state to issue precise rules and universal

syllabuses is to defeat the very ends it has in view. For education in the

best sense is an attitute toward life and learning that cannot be imposed by

rules. It is a mental illumination, an initiation into a deeper purpose, a

voyage of which the pilot star is truth.

“Now such a process is no matter for State officials. They can and do

issue formulae and regulations and call it education. But this is to

worship the form and kill the spirit. Allow education’s fundamentals and

methods to be dictated from above and it becomes a thing of custom and

routine. The fact is that the State official acts, and by virtue of his

position must act, as if he were legislating for a dead universe—a condition
of society fixed and fossilized. And in his eyes education is an organized

march to a predetermined goal. But unless education is inspired by the

spirit of adventure it is naught.”—Catholic News, April 5, 1924.
SCHOOLS BELONG TO THE PEOPLE

The schools of the United States should remain in the hands of the

people. The appropriation of $100,000,000 for the creation of a Federal

Department of Education is a move to take the schools out of the hands of

the people. When this is done—although it is hardly conceivable that the
American people, once they understand, will ever permit it to be done

—

almost our last vestige of true popular government will have vanished.

The Towner-Sterling Bill proposes to do nothing that is not already being

better done by cities and states; so that the Bill becomes an attempt to

Federalize (it would be permissible to say Prussianize) the public school



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 35

system. Every one knows the potency of that word “Federal,” and how

Federal bureaus gradually usurp control of matters belonging to the local

community. We have only to note the vast misuse of “Federal” in the
title of the Federal Reserve System, to learn what it leads to.

The religious arguments for and against the Towner-Sterling Bill have

no place here. There is a strong religious argument against it. The ar-

gument for it is frankly anti-religious. Just at a time when good citizens

everywhere are proposing to put the American Public School back on the

sound basis of religious and moral instruction which originally made it

great, other forces—anti-religious to the core—arrive with a proposition
to take the school out of the hands of the local community and place it in

the hands of bureaucrats at Washington.—Dearnborn Independent, January
26, 1924.

x

REFUTATION OF A COMMON CIIARGE.
After a careful perusal of the preceding pages the most critical would

scarcely accuse the Catholic Church of “fostering ignorance” at the present

day.

And whilst this Church is believed to have behaved as a real “foe ol

learning” in centuries past, the following list of universities founded by

Catholics before the Reformation, compared with the list of such institutions

founded by Protestants since the Reformation, will serve as a succinct refu-

tation of the prevalent notion.

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES.

A. D. Before Reformation. 1339 Grenoble, France

433 Bologna, Italy 1343 Pisa, Italy

630 Cambridge, England 1346 Valladolid, Spain

700 Cracrow, Poland 1348 Prague, Austria

729 Paris, France 1349 Perpignan, France

802 Oxford, England 1360 Pavia, Italy
830 Lyons, France 1364 Angers, France

926 Louvain, in Belgium 1364 Anjou, France

968 Cordova, Spain 1365 Vienna, Austria

1145 Rheims, France 1365 Orange, France

1209 Valencia, Spain 1368 Geneva, Switzerland

1224 Naples, Italy 1380 Siena, Italy

1228 Padua, Italy 1385 Cologne, Germany
1229 Toulouse, France 1386 Heidelberg, Germany
1233 Salerno, Italy 1390 Erfurt, Germany
1239 Salamanca, Spain 1394 Palermo, Italy

1245 Rome, Italy 1403 Wurzburg, Germany
1253 Sorbonne, France 1405 Turin, Italy
1264 Ferrara, Italy 1409 Leipsic, Germany
1289 Montpelier, France 1409 Aix, France
1305 Montpelier, France 1411 St. Andrew’s, Scotland
1305 Orleans, France 1419 Rostock, Germany
1307 Perugia, Italy 1422 Dole, France

1308 Coimbra, Portugal 1431 Poitiers, France



36 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

1436 Caen, France
1439 Florence, Italy

1440 Mechlin, Germany
1445 Catania, Italy

1450 Glasgow, Scotland

1450 Barcelona, Spain

1454 Valence, France

1456 Griefswalde, Germany
1460 Nantes, France

1460 Basel, Switzerland

1460 Friburg, Germany
1465 Bourges, France

1465 Budapest, Hungary
1472 Bordeaux, France

1473 Treves, Germany
1473 Saragossa, Spain

1470 Copenhagen, Denmark
1476 Upsala, Sweden
1477 Tubingen, Germany
1477 Mentz, Germany
1477 Innspruck, Germany
1482 Parma, Italy
1491 Munster, Germany
1494 Aberdeen, Scotland

1498 Madrid, Spain

1499 Toledo, Spain

1502 Wittemberg, Germany
1504 Seville, Spain

1506 Frankfort, Germany
1506 Breslau, Germany
1517 Compostella, Spain

1517 Siguenza, Spain

A. D. Since Reformation.

1532 Santiago, Spain

1533 Evora, Portugal

1533 Granada, Spain

1540 Macerata, Italy

1548 Messina, Italy

1562 Sassari, Italy

1564 Besancon, France

1565 Dillengen, Germany
1568 Braunsberg, Germany
1572 Nancy, France

1518 Wilna, Russia

1580 Klausenberg, Germany

1580 Orviedo, Spain

1585 Gratz, Austria

1592 Venice, Italy

1603 Cagliara, Italy

1606 Parma, Italy

1614 Paderborn, Germany
1621 Strasburg, Germany
1623 Salzsburg, Germany
1665 Bruges, France

1671 Urbino, Italy

1722 Dijon, France

1722 Pau, France

1727 Camerino, Italy

1743 Erlangen, Germany
1780 Grosswardein, Germany
1784 Lemberg, Austria

1808 Clermont, France

1808 Rennes, France

1816 Liege, Belgium

1816 Ghent, Belgium

1826 Munich, Germany
1834 Brussels, Belgium

1862 Drumconda, (C), Ireland

1874 Agram, Hungary
1875 Czernowitz, Austria

1882 Prague, Austria

1888 Lille, France

PROTESTANT UNIVERSITIES.

A. D.

1527 Marburg, Germany
1544 Konigsberg, Germany
1558 Jena, Germany
1565 Helmstadt, Germany (exinct)
1575 Leyden, Germany
1583 Edinburgh, Scotland

1585 Franeker, Holland (extinct)
1591 Dublin, Ireland

1604 Groninger, Holland

1607 Giessen, Germany
1632 Amsterdam, Holland
1632 Dorpat, Russia (German)
1636 Utrecht, Holland

1640 Abo, Finland

1665 Kiel, Germany

1666 Lund, Sweden

1694 Halle, Germany
1694 Dresden, Germany
1735 Gottingen, Germany
1737 Christiana, Norway
1809 Berlin, Germany
1818 Bonn, Germany
1826 London, England

1832 Zurich, Switzerland

1832 Durham, England

1824 Berne, Switzerland

183- Geneva, Switzerland

1878 Stockholm, Sweden

1880 Dundee, Scotland

1880 Victoria, England

1891 Lausanne, Switzerland



THE PARISH SCHOOL. 3?

Summary of Catholic
trance

fealy

Germany
Spain

Austria

Scotland

Switzerland

England

Porugal

Poland *

Belgium

Hungary
Sweden

Denmark

Universities. Belgium 3

20 Alsace 2

15 Porugal 1

14 Germany 9

Ireland 1

Polish Russia 1

Total -~-46

Total of all Universities founded in

Europe by Catholics 116

Summary of Protestant Universities.
Germany 12

Switzerland 4

Holland

England

— Sweden
Total Universities before Reform __ 70 Scotland

Catholic Universities Since Reform. Ireland

France 8 Norway
Italy 8 Finland

Spain 6

Austria

Hungary
4

3

Total of Protestant Universities

founded in Europe 31

Some of Europe’s largest Protestant universities today are of Catholic

origin, e. g., Oxford and Cambridge, which recently conferred degrees on our

ex-President, Roosevelt; the Sorbonne, of Paris, where the same distin-

guished gentleman delivered a lecture; Copenhagen, where Dr. Cook’s North

Pole records were examined.

XI

WHAT CATHOLICS SPEND FOR EDUCATION
We are accustomed to hear the public school called the FREE school.

Free? It is by far the most expensive institution the state conducts. And

who pays for it if not the people ? It amounts to the same thing if the $60.00

or more which it costs to educate a single child be paid indirectly by taxa-

tion or directly by tuition. And whilst Catholics are sometimes charged

with fostering ignorance and opposing the great public school system, they

are doing more for the maintenance of the same than other people. Each

year they pay $80,000,000 more than their share for the support of the FREE
school. 2,000,000 Catholic children do not patronize the public school, but

their parents are required to pay just the same, and thus whilst they pay

twice for education, the burden of non-Catholics is proportionately lightened.

The enormity of the contribution of Catholics to the education of

children not their own will be more apparent if we present figures for some

of the larger cities Catholics constitute from one-third to one-half of the pop-

ulation. Not only, therefore, are the running expenses of the public school

reduced to one-third or one-half, but think of the diminution of expenditure



38 THE PARISH SCHOOL.

for the erection of buildings! In Chicago, for example, 170,000 children attend

parochial schools. Were these schools closed, the city would be compelled to

erect at least 170 new buildings and the people would have to contribute

over $6,000,000 additional each year for teachers’ salraies and other running

expenses. Even in moderately large cities, such as Cleveland and Pittsburgh,

over 80,000 children attend Catholic schools, which means a saving to the

taxpayers in each of the cities of $3,000,000 annually.

In Indiana the Catholics constitute only one-eighth of the population,

yet they support 235 schools and educate at their own expense over 60,000

children, saving over $2,000,000 a year to the state.

“Taxation without representation is tyranny,” said our forefathers in

blessed America 135 years ago, and their refusal to endure the same led to

a war which resulted in the independence of the colonies and the establish-

ment of our glorious Republic. In that day the patriotism and valor of the

Catholic soldier and general won the cause of the Catholic soldier and general

won the cause for America, and now Catholics are the victims of a like

injustice under a government whose slogan is Equality and Justice. It is a

case of TAXATION for WITHOUT REPRESENTATION in the public
schools. And Catholics are not rebelling, not even complaining, because they

know that this singular act of unfairness at the hands of a proverbially fair

people results from irreflection rather than from malice. The injustice in

this particular will appear more flagrant and the forbearance of Catholics

more admirable when it is considered that there is hardly a large city

which has sufficient accommodations for the children who knock at the public

schools for admission. In New York City and Chicago there are thousands

of children whose attendance must of necessity be restricted to half time.

Though taxes are extremely high, the funds available for the present ar-

rangement are not adequate. New schools are needed, teachers are clamor-

ing for higher wages, etc., etc. Now what if the Catholics, say of Chicago,

tired of paying twice for education, and threw their 150,000 children on the

city for instruction? It would be a blow dealt to the general public from

which recovery would be slow and immensely costly; yet would not Catholics

have a perfect right to take such a step?

Another country-wide injustice is this: A school enumeration is taken

each year in the cities in which all Catholic children of school age are in-

cluded. Then for every child a per capita allowance is collected from the

State, but Catholic schools do not get a cent of it. In most states this per

capita collection amounts to $2, hence in each of the cities of Buffalo, Cleve-

land and Pittsburgh over $70,000 are fradulently taken from Catholics and

used for the public schools.