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to the understanding of the history of education in Christian times. Spiritual interests are supreme. The poor, ignorant creature who, in the midst of trials and sufferings, gives expression to the optimistic sentiment, "What does it all matter, if one has the grace of God," is wiser than all the sages, and unknowingly sums up the whole philosophy of Christian education. Spiritual interests take precedence over the physical, the intellectual, and, if a conflict were possible, even over the moral.

Here, however, a serious misunderstanding is to be avoided. A thoughtful writer, comparing these modern times with the Ages of Faith, characterizes our era as dominated by "worldliness" and describes the Middle Ages as dominated by the spirit of "otherworldliness," that is, the spirit which puts the interests of the next life above the interests of this. Otherworldliness, if we are to retain the term, is not incompatible with the pursuit of happiness and success in this world. There are persons, some of them men of distinction in the realm of scholarship, who are so given to exaggeration of statement that they seem never to see but one side to any question. They talk as if faith were incompatible with science, forgetting that men like Pasteur managed to reconcile the highest scientific attainments with the simplest Catholic faith. They contend that the Church is subversive of national ideals, in spite of the facts in our own history and that of other nations, which go to show that a loyal son of the Catholic Church may serve his country faithfully and even make the patriot's supreme sacrifice of offering up his life in his country's cause. They say that a belief in Providence excludes effort, thrift and industry, overlooking the examples of Catholic Belgium, Catholic Rhineland and Bavaria, and our own farming or industrial settlements of Catholics, where arduous labor and patient toil are inspired by the belief that God is the giver of all good gifts. They argue that

saintliness is incompatible with sense, that belief in miraculous healing eliminates all need of a reasonable care of one's health. All these are misunderstandings or misrepresentations. Christianity, while it educates for the life to come, and makes spiritual interests to be supreme, does not withdraw from the domain of education those things which belong to culture, refinement, happiness and success in the realm of nature and humanity. Herbert Spencer defined education as "Preparation for complete living." The Christian educator accepts this description, but insists that no scheme of education is complete, or prepares for "complete living" unless it prepares for the life to come as well as for this life. Christianity, therefore, does not suppress or destroy what was of value in pre-Christian systems of education. Whatever was good and useful in the principle of imitation as we find it among savages is preserved and utilized in a higher form in Christian education, where the heroes of Christian legend and story and the sacred human nature of Christ Himself are set before us as our models, with the infinite prefection of God as the "one divine event" towards which all humanity is striving. Education for caste, social order, national tradition and religious custom had the advantage of preserving and inculcating the conservative virtues. That advantage is not discarded but retained in Christian education. Indeed, in the estimation of thoughtful men today, the greatest and the most beneficent conservative force in the modern world is the Catholic Church. Sparta and Persia educated for citizenship. Christianity, by aiming at the formation of the perfect Christian, in whom honesty, industry, thrift, sobriety and unselfish devotion to the interests of others are cardinal virtues, lays the foundation of perfect citizenship and supplies the moral support without which civil authority would be futile and its efforts for law and order weak and ineffectual. The Greeks and

Romans educated for human excellence. Christianity does not neglect, much less condemn, the cultivation of the beautiful and the pursuit of success. There is nothing in the Christian code to discourage young men, or young women either, from striving to attain beauty, strength and efficiency in the physical order. There is no conflict between Christian meekness of spirit and healthy muscular strength. Christianity does not condemn, nor does it discourage, the education of the mind, the development of the fine arts, the growth and development of man's power of thinking and feeling. It does not discourage ability or success in business or in industry, in commerce or in the useful arts. What Christianity did, and does, is to add to these educational ideals a new element, the spiritual. And this addition is not mere augment. It introduces a transforming element. For the spiritual vitalizes, unifies, and organizes the physical, intellectual and moral elements of character; it gives them that cohesiveness, that liability to rapid and thorough assimilation which is so important in educational matters. The human being to be educated is organically one. One body, one mind, one heart, one soul, above all, one personality, constitute the individual to be educated. The spiritual force of Christianity coordinates these various elements, subordinates the less important to the more important, subjects the incidental and accidental to the essential and indispensable, and thus facilitates to a wonderful degree the task of the educator.

Finally, Christianity, by means of the Counsels of Perfection, sets up a definite ideal of perfection towards which humanity is to strive. The official Church never failed to distinguish between these ideals, which, although they were to be the inspiration of all Christians, were to be actually attained by the few, and the laws of conduct, or precepts, which were to be observed by all. Her view

is that poverty, charity and obedience in their highest form of complete self abnegation are not to be imposed as obligations on all the faithful. The counsels are for the chosen few, and are a matter of individual calling, or vocation. When these counsels were institutionalized, as they were in monasticism, there was never the intention to drive all men and women into monasteries, although it was intended that the example of so great perfection in the few should diffuse its influence over all the Church and benefit sinner as well as saint. This, too, has been misunderstood. Perhaps the occasion for the misunderstanding was the inordinate zeal of some Christian writers. Some of those writers failed to see the world as it is. They pictured it as steeped in iniquity, and consequently, were led to believe and to say that no one could save his soul except in the monastic state. Such was never the belief of the official Church. We should look to the decision of competent ecclesiastical authority and not be misled by occasional exaggerations of writers who were inspired by their own fears, and though occasionally we find in the corrupt manners of the times partial justification for their opinions, should always remember that their judgment is not that of the Church.

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The counsels of perfection furnished a definite ideal towards which human nature could tend, and thus be prevented from falling below human standards, as it did in pre-Christian times. In a word, then, to the ideals based on physical, intellectual and moral values, Christianity added the spiritual, which, while it neither subverts these nor supplants what is good in them, adds to them, vitalizes them, and thus brings them up to a higher and nobler form of activity. Christianity solved the problem of education in a manner at once simple, decisive, and permanent. There was something hesitating, halting, fluctuating about pagan ideals. Christ, by instituting his Church,

which was to continue his work, gave permanency and consistency as well as authority to the Christian ideal. Ever ancient and ever new, the Christian Church has been confronted with a variety of educational problems, she has met in each age conditions entirely new, and she has met them with a resourcefulness and a wealth of expedients which could come from no human source. But, always true to her mission, her solution of every problem has been: The spiritual interests are supreme. "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?" She has paid dearly in misrepresentation and calumny for the maintenance of that principle. Her children have paid dearly for it in the temporal sacrifices they make. But the price is well paid, and will be paid, as long as it is required.

WILLIAM TURNER.

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