Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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nwrnntpnt Olnntrnl of Eburatinn. Harry Casea ' , ’21. If anyone has conceived the idea that immediate protest against government control of education is not in order, let him read the pro- ceedings of the National Education Association, lately in convention at Cleveland. This very active association, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch aptly remarks, “Will render ours the most obnoxious bm ' eaucratic government on earth.’’ In the passage by the Senate of the so-called “Americanization Bill,” the Association feels that the first difficult step has been taken. The right to educate is a moral power to impart to others those things which one is fit to impart licitly and usefully to the end of pre- serving and developing the body, perfecting the mind and evolving both the intellectual and moral powers of man. Representing the temporal order, the State, whether Pagan or Christian, has the right to look after the material wants and interests of society, not after men’s minds, ideas, intelligences, motives and consciences. The end of conjugal society is the education no less than the pro- creation of chikh ' en. Parents are called by God not only to generate children to bodily life, hut also to form their minds; therefore they are entitled to be the first instructors of their children, themselves, or through teachers of their own choosing. This right is universal and is not in any way altered because popular vote would have it otherwise. The State is vested with no authority to trample on the inalienable right of i arents to educate their own offspring as their conscience may dictate. No authority can absorb a power which had a prior existence, and which rests more immediately on nature. Hence Leo XHI tells us that the pai ' ental authority can neither be absorbed by the State nor abolished by it, for it has the same origin as human life itself. If the State, contrary to the wishes of the parents, takes into its own hands the education of youth, it commits a two-fold violation of right — ■ one natural, the other positive. “Lirst — A violation of the rights of parents; for to them and not to the State, God has confided the children to be educated; of them and not of the State, God will one day demand an account for the souls of the children.” 31

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This, at kast, is in the power of all: every Catholic can send his individual protest, and every Catholic Society can send its collective protest against the bill to their Congressmen and Senators. Tell them that you are one of many who are opposed to the Prussianizing of our schools by Federalization, to needless additional taxation, and to the weakening or destruction of those mighty bulwarks of our country — the religious school. ‘‘©mil Ipr0lip0t?” O boast not to me of your wealth and your beauty — True riches are found in the service of duty; And the peace and contentment of acting aright Are worth all your riches, whatever their might. What are mansions and lands to the heart that’s untrue? Like leaves of the autumn that lone highways strew — Then away with the treasure that time will consume And seek ye the riches that know not the tomb. George R. Gibson, ’ 23 . 30

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“Second — A violation of that positive right established by Christ; for the Church and not the State has received from Christ the power to educate children and adults to Christian life.” In the best period of Roman society we are told that the State pre- sumed not to pass the threshhold of the Roman house with any educa- tional code in hand, though it did at a later and worse period, attempt to enforce the tyrannous and destructive system imported from captive Greece, which gradually “changed and disfigured the fair face of Roman life.” Rut hostile as was the Roman Empire before its conversion to Christianity, it did not seek to educate the children of Catholics in Paganism or to prevent Catholic parents from bringing up their chil- dren in their own religion. Even when Julian, the Apostate, closed the imperial schools to Christian teachers and forbade Christians to study the Pagan classics and philosophy, he never encouraged the kidnapping of Christian children and the educating of them in the religion of the State. This is a refinement which exclusively belongs to modern secu- larism, uttcrl} ' at variance both with Christian tradition and with the sacredness and inviolability of parental authority. It cannot be repeated too frequently, that morality is the major part of education. “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure,” says Washington, “reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” If, then, morality cannot be maintained without religion, how is it possible lor the teacher to inculcate the principles of morality without inculcating the principles of religion? Rut the principles of religion are understood by the Jews differently than by Christians, and by Roman Catholics dift’erently than by Prot- estants, by Episcopalians differently than by Lutherans, and so on tliroughout the various religious sects. Therefore, the State cannot require the teaching of morals in the public schools without requiring as the basis of such teaching the incul- cation ol religious principles, necessarily antagonistic to the conscien- tious convictions of the parents of at least a portion of the children attending these schools. We want no State standard for either morality or religion. To force any religion on anyone would be out of accord with the principles ol our constitution; to take religion from our schools, is to take from the children the only true standards of correct living. 32