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GIFT OF 
 
WAY 161^^* 
 
 The Family, the State 
 and the School 
 
 By REV. P. C. YORKE, D. D. 
 
 A PAPER READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING 
 OF THE CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIA- 
 TION, AT Pin^SBURG, PA., JUNE 24, 1912 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 THE TEXT BOOK PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 1912. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress 
 
 In the year 1912 
 
 By P. C. YOEKE 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
C^l/ CyC-^ Ti^^^iizr 
 
 The Family^ the State 
 and the School 
 
 By REV. P. C. YORKE, D. D. 
 
 A PAPER READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING 
 OF THE CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIA- 
 TION, AT PITTSBURG, PA., JUNE 24, 1912 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 THE TEXT BOOK PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 1912. 
 
Imprimatur 
 
 * P. G. RIOEDAN, D. D. 
 
 Aeps. Sti. Francisci 
 In festo Nativ. B. V. M., 1912 
 
The Family, the State 
 and the School 
 
 By REV. P. C. YORKE, D. D. 
 
 A PAPER READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING 
 OF THE CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIA- 
 TION, AT PITTSBURG, PA., JUNE 24, 1912 
 
 IT is With great reluctance that I ap- 
 proach the consideration of this sub- 
 ject. In the first place, I remember 
 the domestic controversy that raged some 
 twenty years ago over its theoretical as- 
 pect, and I should be very sorry if any 
 word of mine might lead to a revival of 
 that unhappy dispute. In the second 
 place, a consideration of the extrinsic and 
 intrinsic principles that must determine 
 our practical attitude towards present ten- 
 dencies, involves questions that are very 
 much in evidence at the moment, and it 
 might appear to the captious that our dis- 
 cussion of them in this gathering is not 
 without ulterior motives. In the third 
 
 259953 
 
Facing Conditions, Not Theories. 
 
 place, I must confess that I am not suffi- 
 ciently conversant with the literature of 
 the subject to offer you a learned paper, 
 nor have I the opportunity now for that 
 research which the importance of the mat- 
 ter and the dignity of this assembly de- 
 mand. At the same time I know your 
 kindness will make allowance for my 
 shortcomings, because I am writing, as it 
 were, under obedience, and because I do 
 not intend to enter on the thorny road of 
 rights and duties. We are, as Cleveland 
 said, facing conditions, not theories, and 
 my object is to give you a plain descrip- 
 tion of those conditions, to discover the 
 causes that produce them, and finally to 
 suggest the practical, matter-of-fact atti- 
 tude we, as Catholics and Americans, 
 should take toward the Family, the State 
 and the School. 
 
 I. THE CONDITIONS. 
 
 That our present conditions in the 
 United States are very different from 
 what they were twenty years ago, is evi- 
 
 2 
 
The Magnification of the State. 
 
 dent to the most superficial observer. In- 
 deed, it would be strange if they were not, 
 for human conditions are always chang- 
 ing, not in America alone, but the world 
 over. The very name we bestow on our 
 civil society, the State, is a witness to this 
 truth. Its significance therefore lies not 
 in the fact of the change, but in the direc- 
 tion of the change. Whither are we drift- 
 ing? or if we are pursuing a set course, 
 by what stars do we sail? 
 
 I think you will all agree with me that 
 the general trend of public opinion in 
 this country today is towards an exalta- 
 tion of the idea of civil society, an enlarge- 
 ment of its powers, and a more frequent 
 exercise of its activities — a process which, 
 for the want of a better word, I will call 
 the "magnification" of the State. By the 
 "magnification" of the State I do not 
 mean that natural political growth of the 
 central power at the expense of the local 
 units which began at the first confedera- 
 tion and was made secure by the results 
 of the Civil War; that is. I am not 
 
The Normal Trend in America. 
 
 speaking of the growth of the National or 
 Federal Government as against States' 
 Rights. I mean rather a change in the 
 idea of the State itself, whether it be rep- 
 resented by the President at Washington 
 or by the humblest trustee of a village 
 school. 
 
 It is especially significant that this 
 ^^magnification" of the State is looked 
 upon, not as something exceptional, but as 
 something natural and normal. Just as we 
 say, ^^ Inter arma silent leges/* so we 
 know that there are abnormal conditions 
 in which the State may undertake enter- 
 prises that in ordinary circumstances it 
 will leave to private initiative. In a 
 famine or a flood, in a fire or an earth- 
 quake, in a plague or a panic, the State 
 has to act, and to act quickly. In such 
 cases the individual withers and is lost in 
 the general need. Moreover, in States that 
 are composed of superior and inferior 
 races or are made up of various classes or 
 strata of differing degrees of prosperity 
 and culture, usually the results of one or 
 
Among the Freest of Peoples. 
 
 more military conquests, we expect to find 
 a modern government in its just desire to 
 benefit all classes of its citizens, adopting 
 measures that savor of paternalism. But 
 here in America we are dealing with a 
 homogeneous people that has enjoyed free- 
 dom for nearly a century and a half. We 
 are dealing with a race which (neglecting 
 the colored population) has had during 
 that time a government the most demo- 
 cratic that has ever existed. We are deal- 
 ing with a country where one man is as 
 good as another, and where popular edu- 
 cation has been worshipped as the palla- 
 dium of popular liberty. We are dealing 
 with a Constitution in which free thought 
 and free speech have been maintained as 
 in no other form of civil society. We are 
 dealing with citizens whose franchises are 
 of the broadest description and who sit in 
 their curjile chairs, not only as the kings 
 the barbarian saw in the Roman Senate, 
 but also as philosophers, the decision of 
 whose wisdom is the court of last resort. 
 Let the people rule, let the people decide, 
 
Exemplified in Family and School. 
 
 is the slogan under which our hosts are 
 marching forth to war, and it is on this 
 people, this assembly of rulers and judges, 
 in a time of peace and prosperity, that the 
 ^^magnification" of the State is invoked as 
 the only cure for the multitudinous evils 
 that afllict us. 
 
 To describe adequately the process 
 which I have called the ^'magnification" 
 of the State would require a survey of all 
 the departments of government and an ex- 
 amination of all the lines of national and 
 local development. Such a survey would 
 exceed the limits of a paper, and is of 
 course not to be thought of. I will there- 
 fore take one specimen of the process, a 
 specimen which I think will be of general 
 interest to you as citizens, and of special 
 interest to you as members of the teaching 
 profession. I mean the "magnification" 
 of the State in reference to the Family and 
 the School. 
 
 There is not one of you, I am sure, 
 that has not had forced upon him the 
 actual and pressing question oiE the in- 
 
High Cost of Living and High Taxes. 
 
 creased cost of living. No words of mine 
 could add to the discussions in the public 
 press or describe the feelings of those who 
 nowadays contemplate their monthly bills. 
 So harrowing a subject is best left 
 to silence. But we may ask, What is 
 the cause of the growing dearness of 
 the necessities of life? No doubt, 
 there are many causes. Some will fix 
 on the Tariff and some on the Trusts. 
 I notice very few call attention to an ele- 
 ment that is certainly as important as 
 Tariff or Trusts, namely, the rising rate 
 in the expenditure of the public funds. 
 
 The association of the words "publicans 
 and sinners," so striking in the Roman 
 period of Sacred History, is no longer in 
 this country an idea "not understanded of 
 the people." The taxgatherer is abroad 
 in the land with a vengeance. During the 
 past ten years, in a district where there 
 has been neither boom nor catastrophe, my 
 parish taxes have increased a hundred per 
 cent. What is the reason? The reason is 
 that the city is spending more money. 
 
The Consumer Pays the Taxes. 
 
 We want a monumental City Hall, and we 
 must pay for it. We want modern fire 
 houses, and we must pay for them. We 
 want palatial public schools, and we must 
 pay for them. The old Romans built their 
 temples and their palaces and their thea- 
 ters from the plunder of the provinces; 
 we build them from the plunder of our- 
 selves. 
 
 As is known to everybody, this in- 
 crease in taxes has to be met ultimately by 
 the consumer. When the landlord has to 
 pay more on his property, he makes the 
 tenant pay more on the rent. When the 
 tenant has to pay more on the rent, hfl 
 makes the purchaser pay more on the 
 commodities he needs. The baker in- 
 creases the cost of the loaf or lessens its 
 size. The butcher announces that meat 
 has gone up, and in the raise recoups him- 
 self for his tribute to the landlord. So, 
 while it is not the only factor in the in- 
 creased cost of living, still the (increase of 
 taxation caused by the lavish expenditure 
 of public money^is one which the student 
 
 8 
 
High Taxes from High Expenses. 
 
 of economics cannot afford to neglect. 
 
 Now, if the swollen rate of taxation 
 were caused only by the installation of 
 permanent improvements, there would be 
 some hope of abatement as the bonds are 
 redeemed. But, unfortunately, the an- 
 nual expenses of civic administration are 
 also rising. This is especially true in 
 Public Education. In California the cost 
 of the public schools has climbed from a 
 low proportion of the general expenditure 
 until now it equals that of all the other 
 departments put together. Of every hun- 
 dred dollars raised by this State to pay 
 its way, the State system of education ab- 
 sorbs fifty. And the end is not yet. There 
 is now before the people a Free Text Book 
 proposition, the adoption of which will 
 materially increase our burdens, for adopt- 
 ed it will be unless all the signs of the 
 times are at fault. 
 
 The steady rise of the school appropria- 
 tion in proportion to the appropriation 
 required to carry out the other functions 
 of the State, is not due to expenditure for 
 
Caused by New State Activities. 
 
 purely school purposes or for the better- 
 ment of teachers' salaries. If such were 
 the case, there would not be so much room 
 for complaint, because there would be a 
 natural limit in view. But the increase is 
 caused by the development of new activi- 
 ties undertaken in connection with the 
 schools proper, and to this development 
 there appears to be no horizon. It is a 
 form of the "magnification" of the State 
 which costs money and multiplies with the 
 fearsome fecundity of a microbe in a 
 favorable culture medium. 
 
 One needs not to be so very old to re- 
 member a time when the American com- 
 mon school was an agency for the diffusion 
 of the elements of education. It taught 
 the youth of the land how to read, write 
 and figure, and was content if its gradu- 
 ates could perform those operations with 
 accuracy and facility. The college was 
 frankly for such as sought a liberal edu- 
 cation in order to pursue what are known 
 as the learned professions. Now, how- 
 ever, the common schools are so crammed 
 
 lO 
 
The Old School and the New. 
 
 with subjects that the mastery of the ele- 
 ments of education is a most uncommon 
 achievement among its graduates. Be- 
 tween the college and the common school 
 the high school has arisen, and at one end 
 of its development it proclaims itself the 
 University of the People, and at the other 
 end it proposes to absorb two grades of 
 the elementary course in order to produce 
 that scholastic mermaid '^known as the 
 intermediate school. In revenge the com- 
 mon school is reaching back to ravage the 
 nursery; and the kindergarten dignifies 
 with the name of scholastic education the 
 processes of infantile alimentation, and the 
 sub-conscious suggestion of somnolence 
 produced by the oscillatory movement of 
 the cradle and the crooning of that pre- 
 historic and catastrophical epic, "Rock-a- 
 Bye, Baby, on the Tree Top." The college 
 is submerged in the university, which no 
 longer demands of its alumni the disci- 
 pline of an organic course of instruction, 
 but has become an immense intellectual 
 department store offering information on 
 
 II 
 
Leading Up to State Socialism. 
 
 every subject under the sun; and its cus- 
 tomers wander from counter to counter in- 
 specting and sampling the wares usually 
 at their own sweet will. Moreover, the 
 extension of the domain of knowledge or 
 the search for new truth tends more and 
 more to absorb university energies, so that 
 the degree formerly the hall mark of a 
 university course satisfactorily absolved 
 has now become the sign of matriculation 
 into the post-graduate departments, as if 
 men were to be always learning and never 
 arriving at the knowledge of the truth. 
 
 Years ago, when the advocates of paren- 
 tal rights in the matter of education were 
 arguing against the incipient encroach- 
 ments of the State, they prophesied that the 
 processes then begun would infallibly lead 
 to Communism or Socialism. They were 
 laughed at for their pains. Such conse- 
 quences might be feared in the effete 
 Latin nations of Europe, but the sturdy 
 individualism of America could not be 
 corrupted by free public schools. We 
 have passed far beyond the forebodings 
 
 12 
 
Of rM£ 
 
 School Socialism in Practice. 
 
 of those timid Cassandras. Not only have 
 we free schools, but free books, free lunch, 
 free clothes and free transportation. Not 
 universally as yet, but more and more 
 widely adopted every day. In the schools 
 the State inoculates the children against 
 smallpox, insures them against toothache, 
 examines them for eye strain, searches 
 their inward parts for adenoids, and if 
 their little interiors escape the State sur- 
 geon's knife it is because the unfortunate 
 infants are void and empty. Then there 
 are trained nurses to inspect their food, to 
 supervise their digestion, to feel their pulse, 
 to test their sputum, to label their bugs. 
 Nay, the commonest of domestic opera- 
 tions cannot escape the catholic care of the 
 School Board, and there is a maid to comb 
 the children's hair, to wash their face, to 
 clean their teeth, to pare their nails, to 
 button their frocks and to tie their shoes. 
 Formerly play was considered the very 
 antithesis of school. Its natural sponta- 
 neity was contrasted with the artificial rou- 
 tine of the class room. The old saw had 
 
 13 
 
Not Even Play Hours Exempt. 
 
 it: '^AU work and no play makes Jack 
 a dull boy." But now tKe long hand of 
 the all-compelling pedagogue has reached 
 out into the playground, not only during 
 school time, but in the once inviolable 
 hours after school. No longer may the 
 youth of the nation gambol on the green, 
 or play ball in the vacant lot, or even do 
 chores for mother. They are herded into 
 so-called playgrounds, tagged, measured, 
 weighed and card-catalogued. All the 
 natural spontaneity of play has disappear- 
 ed. The children are automata, the cor- 
 pora vilia for the experiments of scien- 
 tists, whose researches have never been 
 equalled since Gulliver in his travels hap- 
 pened upon the philosophers of Laputa. 
 With rings on their fingers and bells on 
 their toes, pedometers on their ankles and 
 resistance coils on their elbows, they are 
 put through the predigested motions that 
 make the formal exercises of the gymna- 
 sium a torture to every normal and 
 healthy child. 
 
 But that is not all. You remember the 
 
Nor Any Sort or Condition of Men. 
 
 Old Man of the Sea in the veracious 
 history of Sinbad the Sailor. The school, 
 having once got on the neck of the com- 
 munity, bids fair to stay there forever. 
 Having completely subdued the children, 
 and having taught them that their time 
 and their powers no longer belong to 
 themselves or their parents, but to the 
 State, as represented by the school authori- 
 ties, the latest development aims to hold 
 them in tutelage all the days of their life. 
 Lest you may think I am trying to raise a 
 cheap laugh by indulging in burlesque, I 
 hasten to quote my authority for what 
 follows. In the Saturday Evening Post of 
 June I, 191 2, you will find an article en- 
 titled, "The Discovery of the School- 
 house," by Frederick C. Howe, in which 
 is given a sympathetic synopsis of a con- 
 ference held at Madison, Wisconsin, on 
 the new uses of the public school. That 
 conference was no mere convention of 
 cranks, but was attended by such men as 
 Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jer- 
 sey, Governor Stubbs of Kansas, Governor 
 
 15 
 
All at the Charge of the People. 
 
 McGovern of Wisconsin, Senators Clapp 
 and Pomerene, and university presidents, 
 editors, educators, architects, from all 
 over the country. The general thesis to 
 which all subscribed was that it is a mis- 
 take to restrict the use of the school house 
 to the seven hours of the school day. It 
 belongs to the people and should be at 
 the disposal of the people. It is down- 
 right waste not to use it after school hours 
 for all kinds of social and civic activities. 
 The American public school house should 
 be the expression of popular fervor, like 
 the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, the 
 center of popular life, like the Forum of 
 ancient Rome. 
 
 The new uses to which the schools are 
 to be put are many and various, but they 
 all have the common characteristic that 
 they call for an immense expenditure of 
 public money. In Rochester certain peo- 
 ple, in order to avoid the waste of closed 
 school houses, induced the Board of Edu- 
 cation to appropriate $5,000 to keep them 
 open fourteen hours in the day, instead of 
 
 16 
 
Ruled by Beneficent Pedagogues. 
 
 seven, as if a man owning a $30 auto- 
 mobile duster should invest $3,000 in a 
 car lest the $30 be unused. Chicago has 
 spent $11,000,000 in the cause, and New 
 York distributes annually $228,000 for 
 school lectures and neighborhood gather- 
 ings alone. 
 
 In future the school house is to harbor 
 a town meeting in perpetual session. Thi- 
 ther shall come the Mayor, the Council- 
 men, and even the majestic Congressmen, 
 to give an account of their stewardship. 
 The dull scholastic atmosphere shall be 
 brightened by discussions on taxes, roads 
 and candidates, and the stagnant air of 
 authority made to vibrate to miniature 
 cyclones of referendums and recalls. 
 There, too, under the guidance of the 
 beneficent Pedagogue, the citizenry is to 
 be organized for the overthrow of the 
 wicked boss and the destruction of the 
 political machine. One of the most pa- 
 thetic sights of the conference was the 
 look of pained astonishment that over- 
 spread the assembly as the beneficent Peda- 
 
 17 
 
Forum, Village Green, and Church. 
 
 gogue reported how the wicked boss afore- 
 said had smitten him hip and thigh and 
 distributed his spoils. 
 
 The school is to be not only an everlast- 
 ing town meeting, but it is to be a never- 
 fading village green with an eternal May- 
 pole. "Rings, bars, and tumbling mats" 
 oust the stiff and antiquated desks. "Box- 
 ing and wrestling matches" replace the 
 caligraphic exercises at the blackboard. 
 "Basket ball games" teach an accuracy un- 
 known to the multiplication table. In 
 part return for its quarter of a million 
 expenditure, a school official of New York 
 "visited one of the schools last fall and 
 found 300 young people dancing under 
 wholesome surroundings." 
 
 Moreover, the school-center is to be the 
 church of the people — not a futile dog- 
 matic church, but a modern church that 
 brings results. Libraries, lectures, mov- 
 ing pictures, minstrel shows, music, ice 
 cream and spelling bees — these arc 
 the seven sacraments of the new dis- 
 pensation, and they work ex opere oper- 
 
 18 
 
Social Center and Reformatory. 
 
 ato. "Mr. Clarence A. Perry, en- 
 gaged by the Russell Sage foundation of 
 New York to make a study of school cen- 
 ters, says, after an investigation of condi- 
 tions in large cities: ^The girl without a 
 social center is the mother of the woman 
 on the street.' " Nay, more, the social 
 center is the "one thing necessary" for, he 
 continues: "If the city has to choose be- 
 tween the schools and the play centers, it 
 could, I believe, give up the schools more 
 safely than it could go without the play 
 centers." Before their benign influence 
 the "gangs of toughs" that infest our cities 
 will disappear. Instances are given of 
 how they have been metamorphosed into 
 "debating clubs," to the great admiration 
 of the merchants of the place. Surely, 
 admiration in its original sense is the only 
 feeling that could be aroused by the pale- 
 livered doctrine that the superabounding 
 vitality of red-blooded youth could find 
 sufficient outlet for its energies in "speak- 
 ing pieces." 
 
 The new school house is to be the seat 
 
 19 
 
A Life Long Popular University, 
 
 of a popular university. There is to be 
 the natural habitat of the Free Lecturer. 
 The winter before last 700 of the species 
 were turned loose on the inoffensive peo- 
 ple of New York City alone. If the lec- 
 tures were anything like those evolved in 
 this vicinity, I have a deep and abiding 
 sympathy for the 5,400 audiences that at- 
 tended them. My experience of such lec- 
 tures is that, considered as a means of edu- 
 cation, their value is nil, and that consid- 
 ered as a form of entertainment their cost 
 is exorbitant. 
 
 And this university is never to let go its 
 grip of the people "until death doth them 
 part." One of the apostles of the new dis- 
 covery spoke of a "life-long university," 
 and from the experience of Wisconsin was 
 drawn the hope that "Some day we shall 
 be able to go to college all our lives — and 
 without leaving our own ward or county." 
 Only a sublimated university professor 
 could conceive the summum bonum of 
 human existence as going to school for- 
 ever. 
 
 20 
 
The School House of the Future. 
 
 It would tire your patience if I were to 
 describe in detail all the proposals for us- 
 ing tlie school house. It is to be an Agri- 
 cultural Experiment Station, a Co-opera- 
 tive Store, a Town Hall, a People's Club, 
 a Theater, a Branch Library, a Public 
 Employment Bureau, a Health Office, a 
 Dental Dispensary, a Headquarters for 
 School Nurses, a Pure Milk Depot, an 
 Art Gallery, a Voting Booth, a Concert 
 Hall, a Billiard Room and a Restaurant. 
 I will sum up this description of our pres- 
 ent conditions by quoting the closing para- 
 graphs of the article referred to above. It 
 is true that the whole program has no- 
 where been realized, but a real program 
 It is, and if enthusiasm and sincerity can 
 bring it into effect, its promoters are rich 
 in both qualities. Here is Mr. Howe's 
 conclusion: ^The school house is waiting 
 for democracy — for the democracy that 
 is fast finding its voice all over America. 
 It will be the new town hall — the town 
 hall that bred the spirit of the Revolu- 
 tion prior to the Battle of Leyineton. In 
 
 21 
 
How the Conditions Are Produced. 
 
 the school house we shall breed the orators, 
 statesmen and politicians of the future. 
 From them will issue the musician and 
 the artist. Out of it a new drama will 
 spring. 
 
 ^The school house will make culture, 
 education and companionship life-long 
 things. In the revivified old red school 
 house democracy has possibilities that no 
 one has fully dreamed of. It will be 
 democracy's Acropolis I About it the life 
 of the community will center as it cen- 
 tered about the Forum in ancient Rome." 
 
 11. THE CAUSES. 
 
 The foregoing rapid survey of actual 
 conditions in American school life shows 
 how great a hold the civic authority has 
 obtained on the processes of education — 
 how far the ^^magnification" of the State 
 has advanced in this direction alone. The 
 description of the proposed uses of the 
 school house measures the extent to which 
 the new thought hopes to go. In this 
 latter department there is much said about 
 
 22 
 
They Call for a New Bureaucracy. 
 
 the people using the school house for this, 
 that and the other purpose; there is noth- 
 ing said about the manner in which they 
 are to use it. After all, no matter how 
 democratic the organization of a com- 
 munity may be, the people must act 
 through officials. At the Madison confer- 
 ence no one seems to have thought of the 
 number of hands necessary to do the many- 
 sided work centered in the new school 
 house. The janitor would be compelled to 
 abdicate his "ancient solitary reign," and 
 every school center would be a miniature 
 State capitol and Washington combined. 
 A horde of officials as industrious as the 
 aphides on a rose bush would draw susten- 
 ance from the treasury of every school dis- 
 trict. A band of experts would dominate 
 the daily life of the people down to its 
 minutest details. It would be a standing 
 army before which the battalions of Ger- 
 many would fade into insignificance; it 
 would be a bureaucracy before which the 
 multitudinous officials of France would 
 hide their diminished heads. 
 
 23 
 
Difficulty of Finding Causes. 
 
 Naturally the question arises at this 
 point, How does it come to pass that peo- 
 ple so individualistic as the Americans and 
 so attached to personal liberty, permit such 
 interference with their elementary rights, 
 and what is it that moves men of educa- 
 tion, and experience in public business, to 
 desire to push to such extremes the "mag- 
 nification" of the State? 
 
 As in every other great movement aflfect- 
 ing the national life, it is impossible to fix 
 on one cause as an adequate explanation 
 of all the phenomena. The forces behind the 
 tendencies are for the most part obscure, 
 or rather, we are too close to them to ap- 
 preciate their nature. There are, how- 
 ever, certain facts, some of universal oc- 
 currence, and some peculiar to American 
 conditions, which may throw light on the 
 receptivity of the public to the new aposto- 
 late; while I am inclined to believe that 
 the apostolate itself is motived by a false 
 philosophy concerning the nature of the 
 State and a false theory concerning the de- 
 velopment of the human race. 
 
 24 
 
Getting Something for Nothing. 
 
 The first fact to which I would call 
 your attention as explanatory of the readi- 
 ness of the people to barter their rights 
 and liberties, is the desire to get something 
 for nothing. This appetite is universal, 
 and manifests itself in such familiar forms 
 as the bargain sale, the trading stamp, the 
 coupon and the premium. Now, you will 
 find that it is practically impossible to 
 convince the ordinary citizen, who is taxed 
 only indirectly, that he pays, and pays 
 dearly, for the education his children re- 
 ceive in the public schools. He is firmly 
 convinced that he is getting something for 
 nothing — that the State is giving his little 
 ones a gratuitous gift out of its own re- 
 sources. Hence, when it is proposed to 
 extend the scope of the State's generosity 
 and to present the pupils with free text 
 books, he grows enthusiastic over the pros- 
 pect of sharing more largely in the public 
 beneficence, never thinking that the State 
 has nothing except what it gets from the 
 people, and that he is "paying the piper" 
 
 25 
 
Getting a Return for Taxes. 
 
 without having the privilege of "calling 
 the tune." 
 
 When the ordinary citizen is a property 
 owner and a direct taxpayer, he argues in 
 some such fashion as this: I am paying 
 taxes for the support of the public schools ; 
 therefore it is economy for me to use them. 
 The more use I make of them, the larger 
 return I receive from my contribution to 
 the State. In fact, I get back more than I 
 pay, especially if I can avail myself of 
 free text books, free lunch and free trans- 
 portation. So far I am getting something 
 for nothing. But he does not realize the 
 "wear and tear" on his taxes caused by the 
 numerous middlemen who handle them 
 from the time they leave his hands until 
 they are brought back by his children, and 
 particularly he does not realize that the 
 time of his children's schooling is only a 
 short period of his taxpaying existence — 
 children come and children go, but taxes 
 go on forever. 
 
 Another fact of universal experience is 
 human selfishness. It is not a pleasant 
 
 26 
 
Fact of Human Selfishness. 
 
 trait to consider, but we must acknowledge 
 the existence among men of the tendency 
 to shift their burdens to other people's 
 shoulders. Those who have to do with in- 
 stitutions for the care of dependent chil- 
 dren, the sick or the aged, know how ready 
 certain persons are to turn their charges 
 over to charity, public or private. A 
 man, for instance, is left a widower 
 with a number of children. He is in good 
 health, is earning good wages, and prom- 
 ises the institution to pay for the rearing 
 of his offspring. For a while he keeps his 
 promise, but how often it happens that the 
 payments become irregular and finally 
 cease. He has married again, and moved 
 away, and left his children to be cared 
 for by the Church or State. Those of you 
 who have had experience in orphan asy- 
 lums know what measures you are com- 
 pelled to adopt in order to protect the 
 rights of children whose parents abandon 
 them to the institution in their helpless in- 
 fancy, but who wish to reclaim them the 
 minute they are able to earn a dollar. 
 
 27 
 
Our Special Predisposition. 
 
 These, it is true, are extreme cases, but 
 they bear witness to a widespread tendency 
 to shift burdens to other shoulders. All I 
 have seen of settlement work leads me to 
 believe that, while beneficial in many re- 
 spects, its great drawback lies in develop- 
 ing in the children the belief that they are 
 entitled to something for nothing, and in 
 emphasizing in the parents the tendency 
 to allow other people do for their young 
 what they themselves are bound to do. 
 Hence, if the public school undertakes the 
 ordinary domestic operations I have de- 
 scribed above — operations which naturally 
 belong to the home and the parent — espe- 
 cially if it offers free nursing and free 
 medical attendance, things which cost 
 money, we will find people ready enough 
 to acquiesce, though deep down in their 
 hearts they know they are sacrificing their 
 self-respect and are pauperizing them- 
 selves and their children. 
 
 There is in America a special cause pre- 
 disposing us to State interference. It is the 
 correlative of the Puritan passion for med- 
 
 28 
 
Heirs of the Meddlesome Puritans. 
 
 dling in other peoples' business. When 
 the revolt of the sixteenth century sepa- 
 rated the northern nations from the Church 
 the organization of the new religions took 
 two different paths. Protestantism is in 
 its essence a protest against the separate 
 natures of Church and State. It denies the 
 existence of two distinct societies, each in- 
 dependent and supreme in its own sphere, 
 and having between them charge of the 
 destinies of mankind. In England and 
 Germany the State absorbed the Church: 
 in Geneva and Scotland the Church ab- 
 sorbed the State. New England was peo- 
 pled by the spiritual children of Geneva 
 and Scotland. The Puritans believed that 
 the State was merely a department of the 
 Church and should be ruled despotically 
 in the interests of the Church. Hence 
 came, in the halcyon days of Massachu- 
 setts, the banishment of heretics, the clip- 
 ping of Quakers' ears, the persecution of 
 witches and the minute and vexatious regu- 
 lations known as the Blue Laws. Hence 
 come, even in our own time, though the 
 
 29 
 
Patrons of Patent Medicines. 
 
 State has long since emancipated itself, the 
 continuous ingerence of the preachers in 
 civic affairs, the steady pressure of the 
 churches on the public schools, and espe- 
 cially the numerous political movements 
 for regulating, antagonizing, suppressing 
 every thing in the heavens above and the 
 earth beneath and the waters under the 
 earth. Never was a nation so afflicted as 
 this with crusades, armies, phalanxes, 
 leagues, bands, movements, ribbons white, 
 blue and red, pledges total, partial, and 
 for a while, reforms, abolitions, insurgen- 
 cies, uplifts, fads, fancies and fanaticisms — 
 all the spawn of the Puritan policy — • 
 
 "To compound for sins that they're in- 
 clined to 
 By damning those they have no mind to." 
 
 America is the native home of the 
 patent medicine, and our patent medicine 
 is designed, not only for the body, but also 
 for the mind. Just as we believe in a 
 cure-all for the ills of the flesh, so we be- 
 lieve in a cure-all for the ills of the soul. 
 
 30 
 
Education the Great Cure-Ail. 
 
 When anything goes wrong with the body 
 politic, our first thought is : Let us make 
 a law; and we have enough of fool pro- 
 visions on our statute books for legislating 
 people into morality to furnish material for 
 the collective hallucinations of a dozen in- 
 sane asylums. 
 
 During the nineteenth century the great 
 sovereign, universal and efficacious Amer- 
 ican patent medicine was education. Edu- 
 cation would not only deliver us from 
 Popery, brass money and wooden shoes, 
 but the three R's were proclaimed as an 
 infallible specific for the elimination of 
 crime and the production of good citizen- 
 ship. Indeed, if we have the courage to 
 sample the arguments for our public 
 school system published sixty years ago, 
 we shall find that they all taste of the 
 soothing syrups whose alluring advertise- 
 ments delighted our grandmothers. 
 
 Moreover, as, when one bottle of the 
 patent medicine does not cure, you arc 
 strongly recommended to try a second, and 
 it is impressed upon you that to obtain re- 
 
 31 
 
Motive Power of Petty Graft. 
 
 suits the treatment must be kept up, so, 
 when the splendid results that were to 
 come from the public schools did not ma- 
 terialize, the cry went forth for more pub- 
 lic schools. Hence it has come to pass 
 that in the welter of public opinion on 
 matters scholastic there are only two things 
 on which all agree, namely, that the schools 
 have not produced the results predicted, 
 and therefore it is necessary to spend more 
 money upon them, to enlarge their scope, 
 to multiply their activities, for this kind 
 of a kingdom of heaven also suffereth vio- 
 lence, and we must bankrupt ourselves, if 
 necessary, in order to bear it away. 
 
 Such are a few of what I may call the 
 passive causes that favor the ^^magnifica- 
 tion" of the State in education. Let us now 
 consider some of the active causes — the 
 motives that impel men to become apostles 
 of the new movement. Here I will briefly 
 allude to what may be called the motive 
 power of graft. For instance, a church or 
 a sectarian society establishjes a kindergar- 
 ten, a wood yard or a social settlement 
 
 32 
 
The Two Great Impelling Causes. 
 
 Everything goes on swimmingly until the 
 novelty wears off and the subscriptions be- 
 gin to fail. The next step is to proclaim 
 the work non-sectarian and to appeal to a 
 larger circle of subscribers. For a while 
 this measure brings some relief, but again 
 the difficulty of making ends meet raises 
 its ugly head. Then — nobody can tell how 
 it is done — but the first thing you know is 
 that the kindergarten has been incorporated 
 into the public school system, the wood 
 yard has become a municipal enterprise, 
 and the social settlement is subsidized by 
 the city department of charities, and, most 
 beautiful arrangement of all! the original 
 staff remain to carry on the work, now, of 
 course at the expense of the public funds. 
 Proceedings such as this, however, are 
 overshadowed by the two great impelling 
 causes of the "magnification" of the State, 
 which appeal not only to the practical poli- 
 tician, but to the educated man, the enthu- 
 siast, the humanitarian, for it is from the 
 ranks of such as these are drawn its most 
 effective protagonists. 
 
 33 
 
Protestantism Intellectually Dead. 
 
 Here it may be well to clear the ground 
 by calling to your mind the complete dis- 
 appearance of Protestantism in America 
 as an intellectual or moral motive power. 
 The organizations, indeed, exist, but the 
 soul is dead within them. The antagonism 
 to the Mother Church is still there, but 
 it energizes only in silly paroxysms of 
 bigotry — beating its head against a stone 
 wall. The old dogmas, false as they 
 were, or rather half truths as they were, 
 had a certain force, but you might search 
 Protestantism with lamps and find no 
 trace of those old dogmas now. Modern- 
 ism has eaten out the marrow of the min- 
 istry, agnosticism is the very breath on 
 which the laity lives. Hence the Protest- 
 ant churches are seeking on every side for 
 some living thing on which they may 
 fasten themselves, and the pulpits are 
 busy proclaiming the beauties of social 
 service and civic worth, the value of 
 the institutional church and the necessity 
 of business methods in religion, and such 
 like patent substitutes for the one thing 
 
 34 
 
Theory of the Social Contract. 
 
 the Apostle chose to know — Jesus Christ 
 and Him Crucified. 
 
 Hence it is that when public men face 
 the problems of the day they have no in- 
 spiration in the religion of their fathers, 
 and it is an article of faith with them 
 that the Catholic Church has nothing, at 
 least in the province of intellect, that an 
 enlightened man need consider. Conse- 
 quently, they are thrown back on the 
 premises of mere materialism, and their 
 philosophy deals with a humanity whose 
 destinies are bounded by the cradle and 
 the grave. 
 
 Among the tenets of modern philosophy 
 perhaps the most universal is that concern- 
 ing the. nature of the State. Nothing is 
 more common nowadays than to hear that 
 the people are the State, and that the 
 people must rule. No doubt, there is a 
 sense in which these statements are true, 
 but there is a sense also in which they are 
 . false, and unfortunately it is in the false 
 sense they obtain currency amongst us. 
 The theory of the social contract is the 
 
 35 
 
Consequent Omnipotence of State. 
 
 theory on which all our modern Ameri- 
 can policies are founded. The individuals 
 of a country create the State by agreeing 
 to give certain powers to the government. 
 The only limit to the power of the State 
 is the will of the people. No matter what 
 the voters authorize the State to do, that 
 the State has a right to do. 
 
 Hence it follows that there is nothing 
 in human life, nothing in human society, 
 that is not within the jurisdiction of the 
 State. Therefore every human organiza- 
 tion derives not only its powers, but its 
 very existence from the State. Therefore 
 every individual is completely at the mercy 
 of the State. If the family exists, it is 
 because the State has made it and en- 
 dowed it with certain rights and privi- 
 leges, which rights and privileges the 
 State can alter or take away. If the 
 Church exists, it is because the State in- 
 corporates or tolerates it. It has no powers 
 of its own, it can enjoy only those granted 
 by law, assumed by custom, and allowed 
 by indifference. If the individual has any 
 
 36 
 
The Superstition of Evolution. 
 
 rights, It is because the omnipotent State, 
 that is to say, the will of the people, has 
 not taken them from him; if he has any 
 privileges, it is because the State, that is 
 to say, the majority, ha$ in its beneficence 
 enfranchised him. 
 
 This is the first principle of modern 
 philosophy, and the second is the popular 
 conception of the theory of evolution. In 
 these two tenets we have sufficient explana- 
 tion of the new apostolate of the "magnifi- 
 cation" of the State, for on them hangeth 
 the Law and the Prophets. I do not 
 intend here to enter on a scientific exami- 
 nation of the doctrines of evolution or 
 of the various schools into which its sup- 
 porters are divided. Tt is sufficient to 
 know evolution as the masses understand 
 it, and this sort of evolution is in reality a 
 religion, or rather a superstition. Of the 
 millions of men who give their adhesion 
 to the tenets of evolution there are very 
 few who are competent to render a reason 
 for the faith that is in them, and these 
 few usually adopt an attitude of philo- 
 
 37 
 
The Two Dogmas of Darwinism. 
 
 sophic doubt. But this does not prevent 
 the so-called popular philosophers from 
 presenting evolution, not as a working 
 hypothesis in the study of nature, but as 
 a demonstrated scientific fact — the great 
 achievement of modern research. So from 
 newspaper and magazine, from text book 
 and plptform, goes up the cry with more 
 than Mahometan insistency, "Great is evo- 
 lution, and Darwin is its prophet." 
 
 The popular religion of evolution may 
 be summed up in two dogmas: First, we 
 are in a condition of constant develop- 
 ment, and, secondl)'', development is caused 
 and directed by external agencies, that 
 is to say, by the environment or the condi- 
 tions in which we live, and move, and 
 have our being. Hence it follows that 
 if we are to develop along favorable lines, 
 we must exist in a favorable environment. 
 But as we are now intelligent beings we 
 must no longer leave our environment to 
 the haphazard methods of nature; we 
 must, on the contrary, bend our intelli- 
 gence to the task of so regulating the con- 
 
 38 
 
Well Suited for the Puritan Temper. 
 
 ditions surrounding the race that human- 
 ity will be raised to higher and higher 
 planes. 
 
 You see at once how this theory of the 
 molding power of external circumstances 
 dovetails into the Puritan system of Blue 
 Laws and inquisitorial regulations, and 
 you can understand why the religion of 
 evolution has made so complete a con- 
 quest of the non-Catholic American mind. 
 The Christian teaching that the king- 
 dom of heaven is within us is utterly re- 
 jected. With the calm pity of superior 
 culture they correct the Christ who bids us 
 to seek first the kingdom of heaven and 
 its justice, and all material needs shall be 
 satisfied, and they proclaim that we must 
 first be anxious as to what we shall eat, 
 and what we shall drink, and wherewithal 
 we shall be clothed, and then they say 
 the kingdom of heaven shall be added 
 to us. 
 
 Hence in the domain of education the 
 philosophy of evolution rejects the idea 
 that teaching is the awakening and guid- 
 
 39 
 
Education an External Element. 
 
 ing of a vital process in the mind of the 
 pupil by which his internal and native en- 
 ergies are exercised and developed until 
 he is able to employ them as a free agent 
 on a universe over which he has been 
 given dominion. Rather the mind of 
 child is a plastic mass, to be molded 
 by the forces that surround it, and 
 to take on the image and likeness of its 
 environment. Wherefore the necessity of 
 one great supervising intelligence to deal 
 with the circumstances in which the na- 
 tion's youth is spent. No longer must 
 their shaping be left to accident, to nature 
 or to the family, but the authority of the 
 State must be exercised and the finances 
 of the State must be spent, that the child 
 of the State shall be fashioned as the 
 highest intelligence of the State directs. 
 
 Surely it is a magnificent vision that 
 has dawned on the proud eyes of the phil- 
 osophers of our day, as magnificent as the 
 vision that shone before the Son of the 
 Morning what time his ambitious feet 
 ascended the sides of the North and 
 
 40 
 
Dream and Fact, Titanic and Wright. 
 
 aspired to the throne of the Most High. 
 They sit in serene majesty in their seats 
 of learning, and on their knees lie the for- 
 tunes of men as on the knees of the gods. 
 On their shoulders is the key of knowledge, 
 in their hands the rod of power, on their 
 lips the creative word. Before the bright- 
 ness of their rising the other-world picture 
 of the pale and thorn-crowned Galilean 
 fades away and Man has come into his 
 own at last. No longer shall he lift lame 
 hands to a heaven that hears not and to a 
 God that answers not. Heaven is here 
 upon earth and humanity is god — a god 
 not only conscious of his own needs, but 
 omnipotent in supplying them. No more 
 is he to be named less than the angels — he 
 is the Demiurge who lords it over the 
 powers of nature and bends them to his 
 will. And lo! as a butterfly on a sum- 
 mer's day brushes against the cheek of a 
 child, the frozen mass glides by the steel 
 sides of man's mightiest achievement, and 
 in a moment the gorgeous palace with its 
 human freight is 
 
 41 
 
What the Future May Contain. 
 
 "Shot, precipitated 
 Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears." 
 
 A microscopic germ begotten in the cor- 
 ruption of earth drags through the un- 
 timely gates of death him who taught 
 men to spurn the earth, to walk on the 
 wings of the wind and to sail with the 
 eagle's steadfast eye into the splendors of 
 the sun. Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vani- 
 tas. 
 
 III. THE OUTLOOK. 
 
 Having considered American condi- 
 tions in as far as they refer to the School, 
 the Family and the State, and having tried 
 to find out what are the causes that have 
 produced those conditions, it is now in 
 order to ask ourselves what should be our 
 practical attitude as Catholics and Ameri- 
 cans towards this state of things. 
 
 While I do not wish to pose as a pessi- 
 mist or to minimize in any way our rights 
 and our duties as citizens or to disparage 
 the talent for public affairs and the devo- 
 
 42 
 
Our Ruling Thought Secularist. 
 
 tion to principle that undoubtedly exist 
 amongst us, still I am convinced that we 
 can do nothing by direct action to arrest 
 the "magnification" of the State, the abase- 
 ment of the family and the elimination 
 of the individual in the province of edu- 
 cation. My reasons for this belief I will 
 give briefly. In the first place, the ruling 
 thought of this country is now secularist. 
 The public schools have done their work 
 well. They have atrophied the religious 
 sense in the vast majority of their gradu- 
 ates. The universities are substituting the 
 superstition of evolution for the cast-off 
 clouts of Christianity. Thus all over the 
 country today we have in full blast innu- 
 merable factories, not indeed for the mak- 
 ing of infidels, but for the production of 
 devotees to the cult of humanity. In their 
 opinion, revealed religion is a delusion 
 and a snare, and, having acuteness enough 
 to recognize that Catholicism is the only 
 logical form of revealed religion extant, 
 they look upon it as the most indefensible. 
 Therefore, any direct proposal coming 
 
 43 
 
Deep-Seated Suspicion of Catholics. 
 
 from us would not even be examined. 
 The mere fact that it emanates from Cath- 
 olics ensures its immediate and unanimous 
 rejection. 
 
 In the second place, the great body of 
 American non-Catholics have it in their 
 bones that we want to destroy the public 
 schools. As long as we pay our taxes 
 and say nothirlg, the feeling is quiescent, 
 but let us make the most innocent pro- 
 posal about the schools, which, after all, 
 are our schools as much as theirs, and 
 immediately the red flag is thrown to the 
 wind, the big drum is beaten, and the 
 country is stirred to guard its liberties 
 against the Pope. There is absolutely 
 nothing we can do to remove this preju- 
 dice. We may admit the practical neces- 
 sity of public schools such as we have in 
 the States, we may pay for their upkeep, 
 we may serve on School Boards, we may 
 teach in their halls, we may send our 
 children to their classes, but there is one 
 thing we cannot do, and that is give our 
 approval to the theory that mere secular 
 
 44 
 
Because We Stand for Jesus Christ. 
 
 education can take the place of the grace 
 of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 That flag we nail to the mast. As long 
 as we keep it flying we must be objects 
 of suspicion to those who make secularism 
 their idol. They have lifted up their im- 
 age of silver and gold, and they com- 
 mand all, under pain of high treason, to 
 fall down and adore it. But we — much 
 as we dislike to stand apart from our 
 fellow citizens — ^we must worship toward 
 Jerusalem. We know there is but one 
 way for man to be born again, and that 
 is of water and the Holy Ghost. We 
 know there is but one way for man to 
 attain the full possibilities of human life, 
 and that is by denying himself and taking 
 up his cross, and following in the narrow 
 way that is marked by tears and blood. 
 We know there is but one way for man to 
 reach the destiny for which he was cre- 
 ated, and that is by persevering to the 
 end in faith and hope and charity. In 
 the face of this knowledge and of these 
 tremendous mysteries, how puny are the 
 
 45 
 
False Principles Working Out. 
 
 devices of human wisdom, how contempt- 
 ible the threat of human anger, how high 
 the commission laid upon every one of 
 us, "Wc must obey God rather than man." 
 In the third place, even in the rare 
 cases when our arguments are considered 
 and their force is felt, the result is not 
 to draw the upholders of secular educa- 
 tion to our position, but to force them 
 further along their own lines. For in- 
 stance, one permanent result of nearly a 
 century's argumentation on the part of 
 Catholics is the establishment of the truth 
 that the training of the intellect does not 
 involve the training of the will. Mere 
 knowledge does not make character. The 
 most ardent supporters of secular educa- 
 tion now admit this as a first principle; 
 but it does not bring them a whit nearer 
 to the Catholic contention that the only 
 sure and efficacious way for training the 
 will is through religion. On the contrary, 
 their dislike for religion is only inten- 
 sified, and they would banish it from 
 home life and from public life as they 
 
 46 
 
Antichrist the Ape of Christ. 
 
 have banished it from school life. The 
 original position of the secularists in 
 America, as elsewhere, was that religion 
 is a detriment in education. In the early 
 days they carefully masked that position, 
 because religion was in possession. They 
 gracefully set religion in a niche apart^ 
 and insinuated that knowledge was not 
 only power, but morality. Now that logic 
 and experience have shown the folly of 
 their principle, their remedy is not to 
 bring back religion, but to expel it from 
 the balance of the citizen's life and sub- 
 stitute therefor external influences under 
 State control. In fact, as Anti-Christ is 
 the ape of Christ, they parallel the Chris- 
 tian teaching that an unlettered man of 
 good morals is a better citizen than a 
 learned man of bad morals, as we have 
 seen in the report of the investigator of 
 the Sage Foundation, who said that the 
 city could better afford to give up the 
 schools than the social centers. 
 
 At this point, in order to guard against 
 misunderstanding, let me say a word about 
 
 47 
 
Catholics and Social Action. 
 
 our attitude toward free schools, free text 
 books, free lunches, playgrounds, social 
 centers and the like. As far as I know, 
 there is nothing in Catholic teaching or in 
 Catholic practice antagonistic to those 
 devices considered in themselves. In- 
 deed, I do not think I am wrong in 
 saying that the ideal Catholic school is 
 a free school. Such, at least, is my read- 
 ing of Church legislation, not only in 
 modern times, but in the dim ages when 
 Christian schools were first organized. It 
 is true that in many places it is undesir- 
 able to realize that ideal under our cir- 
 cumstances, and that in other places it is 
 impossible — nevertheless, the ideal is 
 there. I know of many schools — in Ire- 
 land, for instance — where the Brothers 
 and Sisters not only gave their pupils a 
 free breakfast, but also free clothes. As 
 to playgrounds, gymnasiums, social cen- 
 ters and the like, I don't suppose there is 
 any priest who at some time in his career 
 has not tried to help and interest the young 
 people in his charge by some such attrac- 
 
 48 
 
Real Remedies, Not Makeshifts. 
 
 tions, and often with considerable success. 
 Far be it from us to object to any meas- 
 ure that would alleviate the burden of the 
 poor and brighten their lives. We recog- 
 nize that if in a great city the vacant lot 
 has disappeared, we must institute the 
 municipal playground to keep the chil- 
 dren off the streets. We know too well 
 the manifold temptations that encompass 
 the young not to be glad to see centers 
 multiplied where they may find decent 
 amusement in honest surroundings. What 
 we object to is, in the first place, the 
 attempt to make the conditions of a con- 
 gested city the rule and law for the 
 whole nation and the exaltation of the 
 means to meet the consequences of con- 
 gestion as an end in itself to be sought 
 for, regardless of consequences. In the 
 second place, we object to the adoption of 
 palliatives when the source of the evil 
 continues active. What is the use of a 
 porous plaster on a broken leg? How 
 can a playground abate the tenement nui- 
 sance? The real remedy is to regulate 
 
 49 
 
Property Has Duties as Well as Rights. 
 
 or, if necessary, destroy the greedy land- 
 lordism that houses human beings in rab- 
 bit hutches. It often comes to me when 
 I hear our distinguished Catholic pub- 
 licists thundering against Socialism that 
 they would be doing far better work for 
 our Church and our people if they thun- 
 dered against the evils that have produced 
 Socialism. After all, the people in our 
 care are they who have most to gain 
 spiritually and materially from a better- 
 ment of economic conditions. 1 will con- 
 fess it gets on my nerves as I see Cath- 
 olics swell up with complacency when 
 they are patronizingly told that the 
 Church is the great bulwark of property 
 by some millionaire against whom the de- 
 frauded wages of his workmen are crying 
 to heaven for vengeance. It is true we 
 defend the right of private property; but 
 we also proclaim the duties of private 
 property, and I say with a full sense of 
 responsibility and a knowledge of what 
 the people are thinking that the times de- 
 mand that we put the emphasis of our 
 
 50 
 
The Undermining of the Family. 
 
 teaching not so much on the absolute 
 rights of property as on its fiduciary char- 
 acter, a character that entails duties to- 
 wards the community not the less obliga- 
 tory because they are rooted in the virtue 
 of charity instead of in the virtue of jus- 
 tice. 
 
 In the third place, our objection to 
 those devices is founded in the use made 
 of them to destroy the independence of 
 the individual and the authority of the 
 family and to exalt unduly the powers of 
 the State. In the course of this paper I 
 have given sufficient examples of this ten- 
 dency to absolve me from the obligation 
 of enlarging on the subject now. I will 
 therefore hasten to the conclusion by ex- 
 plaining what I mean by indirect action 
 in meeting the "magnification" of the 
 State, especially in the province of educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Inasmuch as wc cannot expect to influ- 
 ence those who are without, we must en- 
 deavor to confirm those who are within. 
 Our mission now does not lead us into 
 
 51 
 
Let Us Hearten Our Own People. 
 
 the way of the Gentiles or the cities of the 
 Samaritans, but to the sheep that perish of 
 the House of Israel. If the Catholic com- 
 munity is the salt of the earth, what will 
 happen if the salt lose its savor? While 
 the Church as Church is indefectible, any 
 local church may fade and die. Is the 
 spirit of the American Church such that 
 we need have no fear? How stands it 
 with the laity who have to bear the 
 brunt of the battle? Are they clad in the 
 whole armor of God? Are they girt with 
 truth and shod with the Gospel, and 
 shielded with faith, and helmeted with sal- 
 vation, and armed with the sword of the 
 Spirit which is the word of God? 
 
 That is the question we must put to our- 
 selves, and if there be the slightest hesi- 
 tation in the reply there is the weak spot 
 we must at once repair. It is not enough 
 in these days that Catholics — especially 
 Catholics who are in public life — should 
 know only the truths necessary to their 
 personal salvation. On them is the solici- 
 tude of Church and State, and if they 
 
 52 
 
Let Us Have Men of Light and Leading* 
 
 would do their duty they must know the 
 Catholic attitude toward the great funda- 
 mental problems of society that are now 
 occupying the popular mind. We have 
 a philosophy which is the outcome of the 
 noblest efforts of human reason, enlight- 
 ened by divine revelation and controlled 
 by the experience of all the ages. To 
 know that philosophy and to apply its 
 principles to the questions of the day is 
 the by no means easy task for which our 
 educated Catholics should be fitted. Then, 
 indeed, will they be men of light and 
 leading. Then, indeed, will their conclu- 
 sions stand the test of time, of facts and 
 of argument. Then, indeed, will they be 
 not only the champions of the Church, 
 but also the benefactors af the State, for 
 righteousness, and righteousness alone, ex- 
 alteth a nation. 
 
 And as the main movement we have to 
 meet is the undue extension of the powers 
 of the State, so it is necessary for us to 
 have exact and clear-cut ideas of the na- 
 ture of the State. This is a wide subject 
 
 53 
 
Correct Teaching About the State* 
 
 which I cannot touch now; but it is fully 
 elaborated in the immortal encyclicals of 
 Leo XIII and in the numerous text books 
 of Catholic philosophy. In view, how- 
 ever, of our special circumstances, there 
 is one point we cannot emphasize too 
 strongly or too often, and that is that the 
 State is not an artificial creation of man's 
 good pleasure. The State exists indepen- 
 dently of the will of man, and its essence 
 and its properties are determined by na- 
 ture. It is therefore a natural entity, and 
 though, like most natural entities, it is im- 
 proved by art, there is a limit to the appli- 
 cation of art beyond which there is decay 
 and death. The State, too, is not omnip- 
 otent; its powers are restricted, and no 
 amount of legislation, direct or indirect, 
 can give the State authority beyond its 
 sphere. 
 
 Then the family is not a product of 
 man's devising. It also is a natural society 
 and derives its rights, not from the State, 
 but from nature. It is true it is subordi- 
 nate to the State, but, as the State did not 
 
 54 
 
A True Idea of the Nature of the Church. 
 
 make it, the State cannot destroy it. It is 
 the Ark of the Covenant, and if any man 
 lay profane hands upon it his generation 
 is cut off from the face of the earth. 
 
 Neither is God's Church an artificial 
 creation of human wisdom, nor yet is it a 
 natural society. It is a supernatural or- 
 ganization founded by Christ and set in 
 this world, not as subordinate to the State 
 or drawing its power from the State, but 
 as supreme and independent in its own 
 sphere. It is indeed ready to co-operate 
 with the State in all that pertains to 
 human welfare. It is most scrupulous of 
 the rights of the State and most generous 
 in its concessions in mixed matters as long 
 as principle is not touched. But when it 
 comes to its divine authority and its es- 
 sential attributes, then it is ready to suffer 
 all things, even to the effusion of blood, 
 rather than betray the trust committed to 
 it by Christ. 
 
 Here it seems to me that it is absolutely 
 necessary for us to indoctrinate the minds 
 of the rising generation with the history 
 
 55 
 
A Remembrance of What We Suffered. 
 
 of the Church's long struggle for liberty, 
 the achievements of the confessors and 
 the glorious testimony of the martyrs. 
 Americans have grown so used to free- 
 dom that they have ceased to appreciate it. 
 The generation that came to this country 
 from over seas knew what persecution 
 meant. Few of their children that have 
 been born here know what it is to suffer 
 for the faith. 
 
 Hence it is necessary for us to implant 
 deep in their minds the truth that Christ 
 is a sign to be spoken against and that His 
 Church is a walled city beleaguered by 
 the Gates of Hell. In every age the State 
 has striven to bring her into bondage and 
 to do violence to the conscience of her 
 children. We hope and pray that our 
 times may be peaceful and that we may 
 not see the destruction of that toleration 
 that has been our country's noblest boast. 
 But we know not the day or the hour. 
 We must be always ready, for the trial 
 may come sooner than we imagine. It is 
 Impossible for the pagan State not to per- 
 
 56 
 
Emphasized by Daily Practice. 
 
 secute, and for many a long day all our 
 national forces have been making the State 
 pagan. 
 
 To impress those ideas upon our people 
 so that they may become, as it were, a 
 second nature to them, we must have re- 
 course to the ancient practice of the 
 Church. When heresies arise, as they must 
 arise, the ecclesiastical authority examines 
 them, discusses them, states their tenets 
 in precise language, condemns them, and 
 publishes the form of sound words that 
 enshrines the true teaching. In this pro- 
 cess her most learned men arc engaged, 
 and every resource of sacred and even 
 profane science is invoked. But the 
 Church is not content with this purely in- 
 tellectual procedure. She casts about for 
 some pious practice, some sacramental, 
 some popular devotion, and she makes it, 
 as it were, the symbol of the dogma she 
 has defined. For instance, the doctrine of 
 our redemption by the death of Christ 
 was a stumbling block to the Jews and a 
 folly to the Gentiles. To emphasize her 
 
 57 
 
And by Concrete Examples in Life. 
 
 teaching the Church adopted the Cross as 
 the exponent of that mystery. The Chris- 
 tians signed it on their bodies, wore it on 
 their clothes, impressed it on their domes- 
 tic utensils, placed it on their churches, 
 imposed it on the very crown of empire, 
 and after two thousand years we still 
 proudly call it the sign of salvation. In 
 the same way, when the single personality 
 of Christ was denied by the Nestorians, 
 the Church was not satisfied with learned 
 definitions of the dogma in council, but, 
 commanding the people to invoke the 
 Blessed Virgin as the Mother of God, she 
 brought home to the rudest the truth that 
 the same Person who is the Son of God 
 IS also Son of the Virgin Mary. 
 
 Now, while it is necessary for educated 
 Catholics to know the great principles 
 and conclusions of Catholic philosophy, 
 it IS also necessary to put those princi- 
 ples and conclusions into some concrete 
 form that will impress upon every mind 
 the rights of the family, of the individ- 
 ual and of the Church against the unregu- 
 
 58 
 
The Symbol Being the Parochial School. 
 
 lated ambition of the State. For such a 
 purpose I know of nothing more fitting, 
 nothing more available, nothing more effi- 
 cacious, than the Parochial School. 
 
 The Parochial School stands as a monu- 
 ment to the conviction of Catholic parents 
 that on them God has laid the primary 
 obligation of educating their children. It 
 stands as the fortress of the family — a 
 testimony to the fact that nature has in- 
 stituted the domestic society as the proper 
 means for raising citizens, not only for the 
 commonwealths of earth, but also for the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. It stands as the bul- 
 wark of individual rights and individual 
 dignity, teaching its pupils that they are 
 not mere cogs in the wheels of State, but 
 that they are free and responsible beings 
 placed on this earth to work out their sal- 
 vation and that in the tremendous day 
 when the Lord of the living and the dead 
 shall enter into judgment with His ser- 
 vants, it will profit little if they have 
 gained the whole world and lost their own 
 soul. 
 
 59 
 
Even in an Unpretentious Form. 
 
 The Parochial School 1 Humble and 
 unpretentious though it may be, how many- 
 sacrifices does it not represent — sacrifices 
 of priest and people and the daily sacrifice 
 of the noble men and women who, under 
 the vows of religion, spend themselves and 
 are spent that Holy Mother Church may 
 have a cavern in the rock and a cleft in 
 the wall to raise her little children un- 
 spotted from the world. It is worthy of 
 our admiration and of our support, not 
 only for the work it does, but for the prin- 
 ciples it stands for. To these principles 
 let us bind ourselves with links of steel. 
 Let us not be dazzled by the pomp and 
 circumstance of secular schools that lay 
 tribute on public funds and private gener- 
 osity — the figure of this world passeth 
 away. How gloriously the house of Ti- 
 berius shone from the Palatine, how 
 shameful the cross on which slaves were 
 hanged! The palace of Tiberius has long 
 been a shapeless mound — a quarry for the 
 marbles that decorate the cross-crowned 
 
 60 
 
Secularism Is the Chief Enemy. 
 
 tomb of the Fisherman. Stat crux dum 
 volvitur or bis. 
 
 In season and out of season let us 
 hearten ourselves to self-confidence and 
 loyalty to our own traditions. I know the 
 temptation is almost irresistible to follow 
 in the line of what is called modern im- 
 provements. Let us remember that it is 
 a temptation, and our greatest danger is 
 from the seepage of secularism. Far be it 
 from me to advocate obscurantism or to 
 turn away from the light, but let us be 
 sure that it is the light, and not the decep- 
 tive glimmer of the false dawn. Our 
 children have a right to the best, but 
 what is newest is seldom best. Our schools 
 should be open to every inspiration of 
 the free spirit, but then they must be as 
 rock-built towers secure on adamantine 
 foundations, standing four square to every 
 breeze that blows, and not slight and rud- 
 derless skiffs that every wind of doctrine 
 tosses to and fro. 
 
 This, then, in conclusion, I conceive to 
 be the practical attitude demanded from 
 
 6i 
 
Let Us Stand by Our Own Traditions. 
 
 American Catholics to resist the unlawful 
 encroachments of the State, namely, to con- 
 tinue as we have begun in the strengthen- 
 ing and extending of our own system of 
 education in accordance with our own prin- 
 ciples and ideals. Parish School and Col- 
 lege and University — let them be our con- 
 crete protest against secularism and State 
 omnipotence. Those who are outside may 
 choose to feast of the flesh pots in the 
 land of bondage, but, as for us and our 
 house, we will serve the Lord through 
 whom kings reign and princes decree jus- 
 tice. Neither let us lose heart, though the 
 task is hard and the outlook dark. What 
 if the Gentiles rage and the people medi- 
 tate vain things? After all, we are not of 
 ignoble blood; we are the children of the 
 martyrs, and the God of our fathers, who 
 led them with a mighty hand and an out- 
 stretched arm, will not deny us the shadow 
 of His wings. The sky may lower and the 
 tempest break and the ocean chafe against 
 its accustomed bounds, but God shall fold 
 the clouds as sheep and rebuke the winds, 
 
 62 
 
And Trust to God for the Result. 
 
 and they shall be still and the sea shall 
 abate its swelling waves. Then from the 
 midst of our tribulation we shall lift up 
 our eyes and behold the cross still shining 
 on the eternal hills, and the world shall 
 know that the Lord Omnipotent reigneth. 
 
 ^ 
 
 63 
 
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 57 
 
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