Public School Education Part 11

Guided by this principle, our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., has declared that Catholics cannot "_approve of a system of educating youth unconnected with the Catholic Faith and the power of the Church, and which regards the knowledge of merely natural things, and only, or at least primarily, the ends of earthly social life_."[H] Catholic parents cannot approve of an education which fits their children only for this life, and ignores that life in which the soul is to live forever. As faith is the foundation of all our hopes for eternity, and as faith without good works is dead, we cannot choose for our children an education which would endanger their faith and morals, and consequently imperil their eternal welfare.

_Teaching of Pope Pius VII._

This is no novel doctrine, as some a.s.sert. In the beginning of the century, the ill.u.s.trious Pius VII., in an Encyclical letter addressed to the Bishops of the Catholic world, July 10th, 1800, thus writes:--

"It is your duty to take care of the whole flock over which the Holy Ghost has placed you as Bishops, but in particular to watch over children and young men. They ought to be the special object of your paternal love, of your vigilant solicitude, of your zeal, of all your care. They who have tried to subvert society and families, to destroy authority, divine and human, have spared no pains to infect and corrupt youth, hoping thus the more easily to execute their infamous projects.

They know that the mind and heart of young persons, like soft wax, to which one may give what form he pleases, are very susceptible of every sort of impression; that they keep tenaciously, when age has now hardened them, those which they had early received, and reject others.

Thence the well-known proverb taken from the Scripture, 'A young man according to his way, even when he is old he will not depart from it.'

Suffer not, then, venerable brethren, the children of this world to be more prudent in this respect than the children of light. Examine, therefore, with the greatest attention, to what manner of persons is confided the education of children, and of young men in the colleges and seminaries; of what sort are the instructions given them; what sort of schools exist among you; of what sort are the teachers in the lyceums.

Examine into all this with the greatest care, sound everything, let nothing escape your vigilant eye; keep off, repulse the ravening wolves that seek to devour these innocent lambs; drive out of the sheepfold those which have gotten in; remove them as soon as can be, for such is the power which has been given to you by the Lord for the edification of your sheep."

_Rescripts of His Present Holiness Condemning the Queen's Colleges of England._

Our Holy Father Pope Pius IX., consulting for the special wants of the Catholics of Ireland, has not ceased, almost from the very beginning of his glorious pontificate, to repeat similar instructions in his apostolic letters to the Irish Bishops. Hence, by his rescripts of October 1847, and October 1848, he condemned, from their first inst.i.tution, the Queen's Colleges, on account of their "grievous and intrinsic dangers to faith and morals"; and since then he has frequently repeated his sacred admonitions, warning the bishops and the faithful people to beware of evil systems of public instruction; and to secure, by every means in their power, the blessings of Catholic education for the rising generation.

_Resolutions of Irish Bishops in 1824 and 1826._

Nor have the Irish prelates been unmindful of their duty in this respect. In 1824, that is to say, five years before Catholic emanc.i.p.ation, and in the midst of the struggle for that recognition of the existence of their people as citizens, they presented to Parliament a pet.i.tion, from which I make the following extract, which clearly shows their conviction of the necessity of religious education:

"That in the Roman Catholic Church the literary and religious instruction of youth are universally combined, and that no system of education which separates them can be acceptable to the members of her communion; that the religious instruction of youth in Catholic schools is always conveyed by means of catachetical instruction, daily prayer, and the reading of religious books, wherein the Gospel morality is explained and inculcated; that Roman Catholics have ever considered the reading of the Sacred Scriptures by children as an inadequate means of imparting to them religious instruction, as a usage whereby the Word of G.o.d is made liable to irreverence, youth exposed to misunderstand its meaning, and thereby not unfrequently to receive in early life impressions which may afterwards prove injurious to their own best interests, as well as to those of the society which they are destined to form. That schools whereof the master professes a religion different from that of his pupils, or from which such religious instruction as the Catholic Church prescribes for youth is excluded, or in which books and tracts not sanctioned by it are read or commented on, cannot be resorted to by the children of Roman Catholics; and that threats and rewards have been found equally unavailing as a means of inducing Catholic parents to procure education for their children from such persons or in such schools; that any system of education incompatible with the discipline of the Catholic Church, or superintended exclusively by persons professing a religion different from that of the vast majority of the poor of Ireland, cannot possibly be acceptable to the latter, and must, in its progress, be slow and embarra.s.sed, generating often distrust and discord as well as a want of that mutual good faith and perfect confidence which should prevail between those who receive benefits and those who dispense them."

The Irish Bishops again expressed the like sentiments in 1826.

_Address of the National Synod of Thurles._

A National Synod met in Thurles in August, 1860, and again the Prelates spoke words of instruction, of which recent sad events in France have furnished a new and most melancholy confirmation.

"As rulers of the Church of Christ, chief pastors of His flock, religiously responsible to the Prince of Pastors for every soul committed to our charge, it forms, as is obvious, our first and paramount duty to attend to the pastures in which they feed--the doctrines with which they are nourished. And surely if ever there was a period which called for the unsleeping vigilance, the prudent foresight, the intrepid and self-sacrificing zeal of our august ministry--that period is the present. The alarming spectacle which the Christian world exhibits at the present day, the novel but formidable forms in which error presents itself, and the manifold evils and perils by which the Church is encompa.s.sed, must be evident to the most superficial observer.

It is no longer a single heresy or an eccentric fanaticism, the denial of some revealed truth, or the excesses of some extravagant error, but a comprehensive, all-pervading, well-digested system of unbelief, suited to every capacity and reaching every intellect, that corrupts and desolates the moral world. Is not such the calamitous spectacle which the continent of Europe offers to us at this moment? Education, the source of all intellectual life, by which the mind of man is nurtured and disciplined, his principles determined, his feelings regulated, his judgments fixed, his character formed, has been forcibly dissevered from every connection with religion, and made the vehicle of that cold scepticism and heartless indifferentism which have seduced and corrupted youth, and by a necessary consequence shaken to its centre the whole fabric of social life. Separated from her heavenly monitor, learning is no longer the organ of that wisdom which cometh from above, which, according to St. James, is 'chaste, peaceable, modest, easy to be persuaded, consenting to the good, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, without dissimulation,' but rather of that wisdom which he describes as 'earthly, sensual, and devilish.'--(James iii. 15-17.)

"It is, we feel a.s.sured, unnecessary to observe to you, that of all modes of propagating error, education is the most subtle and dangerous, furnishing, as it does, the aliment by which the social body is sustained, which circulates through every vein, and reaches every member; and that if this aliment should prove to be corrupt or deleterious, it will not fail to carry moral disease and death to the entire system. Hence the awful obligations we are under, at the peril of our souls, of watching over the education of the people whom G.o.d has intrusted to our charge.

"Listen to the emphatic words in which the present ill.u.s.trious Pontiff sets forth the dangers to which youth is exposed at the present time, and the duties which are placed upon the pastors of the people in this regard. 'It is inc.u.mbent upon you,' he says, 'and upon ourselves, to labor with all diligence and energy, and with great firmness of purpose, and to be vigilant in everything that regards schools, and the instruction and education of children and youths of both s.e.xes. For you well know that the modern enemies of religion and human society, with a most diabolical spirit, direct all their artifices to pervert the minds and hearts of youth from their earliest years. Wherefore, they leave nothing untried; they shrink from no attempt to withdraw schools, and every inst.i.tution destined for the education of youth, from the authority of the Church and the vigilance of her holy pastors.'--_Encycl. Letter of Pius IX., eighth December, 1849._

"Such are the words of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, which show the responsibility under which we are placed, and point out our duty to protect from the insidious snares laid for their destruction the lambs of the fold--that most helpless but precious portion of the flock of Jesus Christ which the prophet represents as carried in His bosom."

_Mixed System again Condemned._

Again, in 1859, 1862, 1863, 1867, and 1869, the Irish Bishops renewed their condemnation of the G.o.dless system, and demanded for their children the advantage of truly Catholic education.

_Unanimity of Catholic Bishops throughout the World on this Point._

The Bishops of Prussia, of Austria, of Belgium, of Holland, of Canada, and of the United States, in their pastorals, their synodical addresses, and in their other publications, condemn with one accord the mixed system, and declare that education based upon our holy religion is alone suitable for Catholic children. Not to multiply quotations, it will suffice to cite the following extract from the address of the Plenary Synod of the Church of the United States, held at Baltimore, in the year 1866. That Council was one of the most numerous a.s.semblies held after the Council of Trent, until the meeting of the General Council of the Vatican. Its decrees were signed by seven Archbishops, thirty-seven Bishops, two procurators of absent Bishops, and two Abbots.

"ADDRESS OF THE PLENARY SYNOD OF BALTIMORE, UNITED STATES.

"The experience of every day shows more and more plainly what serious evils and great dangers are entailed upon Catholic youth by their frequentation of Public Schools in this country. Such is the nature of the system of teaching therein employed, that it is not possible to prevent young Catholics from incurring, through its influence, danger to their faith and morals; nor can we ascribe to any other cause that destructive spirit of indifferentism which has made, and is now making, such rapid strides in this country, and that corruption of morals which we have to deplore in those of tender years. Familiar intercourse with those of false religions, or of no religion; the daily use of authors who a.s.sail with calumny and sarcasm our holy religion, its practices, and even its saints--these gradually impair, in the minds of Catholic children, the vigor and influence of the true religion. Besides, the morals and examples of their fellow-scholars are generally so corrupt, and so great their license in word and deed, that through continual contact with them the modesty and piety of our children, even of those who have been best trained at home, disappear like wax before the fire.

These evils and dangers did not escape the knowledge of our predecessors, as we learn from the following decrees:

"'(_a_) Whereas many Catholic children, especially those born of poor parents, have been, and are still, exposed in several places of this province, to great danger of losing their faith and morals, owing to the want of good masters to whom their education may safely be intrusted, we consider it absolutely necessary that schools should be established in which the young may be imbued with the principles of faith and morality, and at the same receive instruction in letters.'"--_Council of Baltimore, No. 33._

_Teachings of the Supreme Pontiff, Pius IX._

In fine, to show the union of the Bishops throughout the world with the Apostolic See in their teaching respecting education, I add the words of the Supreme Pontiff Pope Pius IX., in which, replying to the Archbishop of Freiburg, in Germany, His Holiness clearly expounds, as the Infallible Teacher of the faithful, the truth I am now developing for the instruction of Catholics:

"It is not wonderful that these unhappy efforts (to spread irreligious and revolutionary principles) should be directed chiefly to corrupt the training and education of youth; and there is no doubt that the greatest injury is inflicted on society, when the directing authority and salutary power of the Church are withdrawn from public and private education, on which the happiness of the Church and of the Commonwealth depends so much. For thus society is, little by little, deprived of that truly Christian spirit which alone can permanently secure the foundation of peace and public order, and promote and direct the true and useful progress of civilization, and give man those helps which are necessary for him in order to attain, after this life, his last end hereafter--eternal happiness. And in truth a system of teaching, which not only is limited to the knowledge of natural things, and does not pa.s.s beyond the bounds of our life on earth, but also departs from the truth revealed by G.o.d, must necessarily be guided by the spirit of error and lies; and education, which, without the aid of the Christian doctrine and of its salutary moral precepts, instructs the minds and moulds the tender heart of youth, which is so p.r.o.ne to evil, must infallibly produce a generation which will have no guide but its own wicked pa.s.sions and wild conceits, and which will be a source of the greatest misfortunes to the Commonwealth and their own families.

"But if this detestable system of education, so far removed from Catholic faith and ecclesiastical authority, becomes a source of evils, both to individuals and to society, when it is employed in the higher teaching, and in schools frequented by the better cla.s.s, who does not see that the same system will give rise to still greater evils, if it be introduced into primary schools? For it is in these schools, above all, that the children of the people ought to be carefully taught from their tender years the mysteries and precepts of our holy religion, and to be trained with diligence to piety, good morals, religion and civilization.

In such schools religious teaching ought to have so leading a place in all that concerns education and instruction, that whatever else the children may learn should appear subsidiary to it. The young, therefore, are exposed to the greatest perils whenever, in the schools, education is not closely united with religious teaching. Wherefore, since primary schools are established chiefly to give the people a religious education, and to lead them to piety and Christian morality, they have justly attracted to themselves, in a greater degree than other educational inst.i.tutions, all the care, solicitude, and vigilance of the Church. The design of withdrawing primary schools from the control of the Church, and the exertions made to carry this design into effect, are therefore inspired by a spirit of hostility towards her, and by the desire of extinguishing among the people the divine light of our holy faith. The Church, which has founded these schools, has ever regarded them with the greatest care and interest, and looked upon them as the chief object of her ecclesiastical authority and government; and whatsoever removed them from her, inflicted serious injury both on her and on the schools. Those who pretend that the Church ought to abdicate or suspend her control and her salutary action upon the primary schools, in reality ask her to disobey the commands of her Divine Author, and to be false to the charge she has received from G.o.d, of guiding all men to salvation; and in whatever country this pernicious design of removing the schools from the ecclesiastical authority should be entertained and carried into execution, and the young thereby exposed to the danger of losing their faith, there the Church would be in duty bound not only to use her best efforts, and to employ every means to secure for them the necessary Christian education and instruction, but, moreover, would feel herself obliged to warn all the faithful, and to declare that no one can in conscience frequent such schools, as being adverse to the Catholic Church."

I exclaim with the great St. Augustine: "Securus judicat orbis terrarum." The Bishops of the universal world, united to the Vicar of Christ, speak with authority; their judgment cannot be gainsaid. Peter has spoken through Pius; the question is settled; would that the error, too, were at an end!

_Testimonies of Enemies of the Catholic Church._

However, it is not from the Bishops alone that we learn the dangers of bad education. Our opponents, too, the enemies of our holy religion, deem no other means more efficacious for alienating our children from our mother, the Catholic Church.

One of the greatest enemies of the Catholic faith in the first half of the last century, Primate Boulter, who took a chief part in founding the notorious "Charter Schools," writing to the Bishop of London on the fifteenth of May, 1730, said:

"I can a.s.sure you the Papists here are so numerous, that it highly concerns us in point of interest, as well as out of concern for the salvation of these poor creatures who are our fellow-subjects, to try all possible means to bring them and theirs to the true religion; and one of the most likely methods we can think of is, if possible, _instructing and converting the young generation_; for instead of converting these that are adults, we are daily losing many of our meaner people, who go off to Popery."

And with respect to mixed education in particular, we have the opinion of another Anglican prelate, who, in despite of his professions of liberality, may be fittingly cla.s.sed with Primate Boulter in his contempt for our people, and desire to subvert our holy religion by the means of education--the late Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Dr.

Whately. We are informed by his daughter, that on one occasion he said: "The education supplied by the National Board is gradually undermining the vast fabric of the Irish Roman Catholic Church.". (_Life of Dr.

Whately_, pp. 244, first edition.) Again: "I believe, as I said the other day, that _mixed education_ is gradually enlightening the ma.s.s of the people, and that if we give it up, we give the only hope of weaning the Irish from the abuses of Popery. But I cannot venture openly to profess this opinion, I cannot openly support the Educational Board as an instrument of conversion. I have to fight its battles with one hand, and that my best, tied behind me." (p. 246.)

The language of the Church, then, and even that of the enemies of our religion, is quite plain on the subject of G.o.dless education. The good Catholic understands this language of his spiritual mother; he listens to it; he repeats it to himself and others, and he goes by it. Not long ago the Catholics of Ireland presented a requisition to the English Government to show their unanimity, and their determination to secure a Catholic education for Catholic children. What a glorious array of signatures is attached to it! There we find the honored names of the only Catholic lords that the operation of penal laws has left in that land ever faithful to the Church. There we read the names of the Lord Mayor, and the aldermen and town councillors of the great City of Dublin, of many baronets and deputy lieutenants, of several members of Parliament, magistrates, high sheriffs, clergymen, wealthy merchants, and land-owners; of men distinguished in the various scientific and literary professions or pursuits; of country gentlemen, traders, artisans, and of all the cla.s.ses that const.i.tute the bone and sinew of the country. In a word, the requisition is signed by more than 30,000 Catholics of every degree. May it not be considered as a great plebiscite? Is it not a proof that the laity and clergy are all of one mind? Is it not a solid refutation of the foolish a.s.sertion of some Presbyterians, that the Catholic laity take no interest in the education question, and that, were it not for the priests, the laity would be perfectly satisfied to accept G.o.dless instruction for their children? Those who attribute this baneful indifference to the laity, misrepresent and calumniate them, and show their ignorance of their real feelings, and of the efforts which Catholics in Ireland, in Belgium, in Germany, and in other countries, have made to have and to preserve a good Christian education for their children. The princ.i.p.al Catholic gentlemen in Ireland some time ago published an important declaration, presented afterwards to Parliament, in which they proclaimed their adhesion to the principles held by the true Church in regard to education.

As for the Catholic laity of Ireland in general, feeling, as they do in a special manner, the signal blessing they enjoy in possessing the true faith, and knowing that it is a priceless treasure with which, far more precious than worldly substance, they can enrich their children, their love for Catholic education is proved to evidence by the mult.i.tudes of their sons and daughters who throng every Catholic school, and especially every school in which the presence of Christian Brothers or of Nuns gives a guarantee that religion shall have the first place, and shall impregnate the whole atmosphere which their little ones are to breathe for so many hours of the day. They have proved, also, their dislike and fear of mixed education, by turning their faces away from schools in which no expense had been spared, on which thousands of pounds of the public money had been squandered, but against which their Bishops deemed it their duty to warn them. Hence, in several Model Schools erected in populous cities and towns, where the great majority of the inhabitants are Catholics, sometimes not ten, sometimes not two of their children are found within the unhallowed precincts of those mixed inst.i.tutions.

In fine, the opinion of all the Irish Catholics on this subject of education is so well known, that nearly all of the Liberal candidates who sought their votes at the last elections for the House of Commons, declared in their electioneering addresses their adhesion to the principle of denominational education, and their determination to uphold it, and push it forward in Parliament.

And with good reason are they steadfast in those principles, for they know the necessary connection between good education and the maintenance of religion in their country. And they are determined to struggle for the establishment, in Ireland, of a sound Catholic system of public education, and never to relax their efforts till they obtain the recognition of this, their own and their children's right, even as they wrung Catholic emanc.i.p.ation from a hostile Parliament.

Thus the Catholic laity practise what their pastors teach; and in Ireland and other countries, both pastors and people are united in holding that nothing so effectually destroys religion in a country as a G.o.dless system of instruction, whilst they believe, at the same time, that a good Christian education contributes to preserve true religion, and to spread the practice of every virtue and of good works through the land.

Though the Catholic Church and her children are so anxious for the progress of knowledge, and have made such sacrifices for the civilization and enlightenment of the world, yet they do not indiscriminately approve of every system of education. Every one knows how much is done in our days, by the enemies of religion, to poison the sources of knowledge, and to undermine religion, under the pretext of promoting the liberal arts and sciences. In order to give a proper impulse to study, by securing protection for it, some insist that the full control of public instruction should be given to the government of each country, to be carried on by Ministers of State, or public boards; others attach so much importance to the development of the intellectual faculties, that they call for compulsory and gratuitous education, in order to give a great degree of culture to all cla.s.ses; and others, in fine, demand an unsectarian education, pretending that G.o.d should be banished from the school, and children brought up without being subjected to any religious influences. The Catholic Church and her pastors, being charged to feed the flock of Christ with the food of truth and life, and to preserve the lambs of the fold from the contagion of error, cannot approve such systems, which seem to have been invented by the fashion of the day, a desire of innovation, or a spirit of hostility to religion.

It was to His Church, and not to the State, that Jesus Christ gave the command, "Go and teach all nations."--(Matt. xxviii.) "As the Father hath sent Me, so do I send you also."--(John xx.) "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep."--(John xxi.)

The office of the Church is to teach and sanctify all men. She receives the child on its first entrance into the world, and, by means of holy baptism, makes it a child of G.o.d. Like her Divine Bridegroom, she says: "Suffer the little children to come to me."