ADDRESSES AT PATRIOTIC AND CIVIC OCCASIONS CATHOLIC SCHOOLS FOR CATHOLIC YOUTH ADDRESS TO THE DELEGATES AT THE NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA ON JUNE 29, 1915 BY THE MOST REV. JOHN IRELAND, D.D. ARCHBISHOP OF ST. PAUL "Going therefore teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.". Matt. xxviii, 19-20. I TELL, in His own words, the injunction of the Saviour to His Church, even to the consummation of the world. I tell the reason of the proclamation which to-day is that of the Catholic Church in the United States of America: Catholic schools for Catholic youth. That the Church was ever mindful of the injunction to teach all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever the Saviour had commanded, the facts in the story of her life and activities provide abundant proof. That in her obedience to the injunction she ever received the supernatural aid promised to her, "And behold I am with you all days," the no less abundant proof is had from the characteristic wisdom and courage which ever marked her march through time and space, from the clearness of vision with which she ever promptly discovered menaces of peril, from the daring of hand with which at once she set herself to conquer whatever obstacles one situation or another was wont to fling across her pathway. Such the Church in history, such the Church to-day in America. I announce one of the most meaningful acts in her entire history, one most expressive of her accurate and farpeering vision into present and future happenings, and equally so of her wondrous courage to confront existing contingencies and sweep seeming defeat into triumphant victory. I have before my eyes the Catholic schools of America, primary and secondary, so numerous and so efficient to-day, to be yet more numerous and more efficient to-morrow. The schools of the State were secularized, restricted by edict of law to the teaching of purely secular themes. Religion in every form was excluded from the prescribed curriculum. To its secularized schools the State was lavish of financial support; the entire citizenship of the land was taxed to replenish their treasury. Furthermore, were the Catholic Church to dissent from them and open other schools in better accord with her principles, she was reduced to ask from her faithful people double taxation, to maintain their own schools, while doing their part towards maintaining the schools of the State. Public opinion was resolute in its championship of the secularized school. To run counter to it in this regard was to incur, in no small measure, the suspicion of treason to the country. The secularized school, it was asserted, is the corollary of the principle, which none would deny, that universal instruction is necessary both to the welfare of the individual citizen and to that of the general commonwealth; and so in the eyes of public opinion he who refused for his children the secularized school appeared as the enemy of universal instruction, the enemy of the country itself. Meanwhile the Catholic Church was convinced that in loyalty to her mission to teach to all nations the religion of the Saviour she should not accept the secularized school as the fit nursery of childhood and of youth. Souls were at stake, religion was at stake. The battle was offered, in which she must win or lose now the little ones of the flock lose later the flock itself. What else was she to do but to have her own schools, whatever the financial cost this should entail, whatever the misunderstandings and misstatements it might awaken? This she has done, this she is doing. The influence of the school upon future manhood and womanhood cannot be overduly emphasized. The school is the nursery where mind and heart are put into enduring form. This is the rule, which exceptions only confirm. The lessons of the school, direct or indirect, are those that in coming time will dominate the intellect; impressions set there upon the soul sink into its deepest fibre, they will not depart with the passing of the years. Five days out of the seven the school holds sway; they are the days of serious labor, of serious reflection. Outside those days play and rest are urgent in their claim. To be effective the school is authoritative; the master's word is the law, the master's nod the compass of orientation. As he speaks, as he breathes, so speaks and breathes the pupil. The silent atmosphere of the school in itself is a strong formative element; it is to the mind and the heart what the air of the skies is to the material body. That the lessons, the influences of the classroom are preeminent is the open proclamation of leaders in plans and systems of pedagogies. What does not enter, one way or another, into the curriculum of the classroom, they ceaselessly repeat, will be no part, or only a minimized part, of the subsequent career of the pupil. As the pupil in the classroom, so later the man and the woman. This being the undenied fact, I put the question: Is the secularized schoolroom the place for the Catholic child? Can the Catholic Church, with loyalty to her principles and to the requirements of the faith, countenance the secularized school? I take the secularized school under its most favorable professions, such as its fair-minded advocates would have it-absolute neutrality with regard to religion, to each and every form of religion, to each and every church or religious association. I might argue in the interests of the human mind, and on this behalf protest against the secularized school. Secular knowledge itself forbids the shortcomings of the secularized school. Science is told to roam through the universe, investigate its happenings, discover its processes and laws. But to the surging interrogations Whence? and Whither? silence is interposed. The cause of the universe, the guidance of its movements, the purpose of its cravings and aspirations must not be mentioned. To speak of the ever-living God as Creator and Ruler were rank sectarianism, offensive to atheist and agnostic. Nor, on the other hand, is the limitless potency of self-existing matter to be admitted; theist and Christian would raise the cry of alarm. The annals of history are unfolded to the wondering eye. A marvellous kaleidoscopic drama it is of men and of ideas. But what is history, what the forces that fashioned it into shape, inspired and determined its developments? The Providence of the omniscient God must not be invoked, neither the blind evolution of matter. Either assertion suggests sectarianism, violates religious neutrality. Heroes, whose names spell magic influences, whose hands wrought mighty deeds, pass in review; their motives, their sources of strength, the result of their labors challenge dispute and examination. One, however, there is, the mighti |