The Catholic World, Vol. 08, October, 1868, to March, 1869.Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 08, October, 1868, to March, 1869.
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
The author then, changing his base, argues that intellectual
education alone tends to prevent sensuality and crime, and
adduces statistics to show that the majority of convicts in our
prisons are from the uneducated class. But if he attended to
other statistics recently brought to light by Rev. Dr. Todd, Dr.
Storer, of Boston, and others, he would discover that sensuality,
_only more refined_, is permeating American society, and
that hidden crime is depopulating some of the fairest portions of
our land. It is true, perhaps, that those crimes which are taken
cognizance of by the police courts may be more numerous among the
uneducated, but it is those secret crimes against God and the
moral law that corrupt society and endanger a nation's life.
{136}
In New England, which the author holds up as the ideal of what
the common-school system can produce, physicians testify that
immorality and hidden crime prevail to such an extent that the
native American stock is literally dying out, the number of
deaths far exceeding the number of births. Intellectual culture
_alone_ will not preserve American society from corruption,
any more than it did pagan Greece and Rome.
The author seems to feel the force of this objection, which, as
he says, "is urged with seriousness by men whose purity of motive
is above question, and whose personal character gives great
weight to their opinions," and admits that "religious teaching
does not hold that prominent position in the course of study that
it should hold; but he seems forced, like many of his
fellow-educators whom we have known, to argue and apologize for
the common-school system, because they see no way of securing
universal education and at the same time providing for proper
religious training. If they turn, however, to the educational
systems of France, Austria, or Prussia, they would find the
problem solved. Even in Canada, the British Parliament has
avoided by its provisions those serious errors under which we
labor, and which are making our system daily more and more
unpopular.
By "An Act to restore to Roman Catholics in Upper Canada certain
rights in respect to Separate Schools," passed May 5th, 1863,
they provided that "the Roman Catholic separate schools shall be
entitled to a share in the fund annually granted by the
legislature of the province for the support of common-schools,
and shall be entitled also to a share in all other public grants,
investments, and allotments for common-school purposes now made
or hereafter to be made by the municipal authorities, according
to the average number of pupils attending such school as compared
with the whole average number of pupils attending schools in the
same city, town, village, or township." (Cap. 5, sec. 20.)
And also that "the Roman Catholic separate schools (with their
registers) shall be subject to such inspection as may be directed
from time to time by the chief superintendent of public
instruction." (Cap. 5, sec. 26.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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