to the common welfare; for the ignorant are not only the victims of circumstances, they are the instruments which unscrupulous and designing men make use of, to taint the source of political authority and to thwart the will of the people. To protect itself the State is forced to establish schools and to see that all acquire at least the rudiments of letters. This is so plain a case that argument becomes ridiculous. They who doubt the good of knowledge are not to be reasoned with, and in America not to see that it is necessary, is to know noth. ing of our political, commercial, and social life. But the American State can give only a secular education, for it is separate from the church, and its citizens profess such various and even conflicting beliefs, that in establishing a school system, it is compelled to eliminate the question of religion. Church and State are separate institutions, and their functions are different and distinct. The church seeks to turn men from sin, that they may become pleasing to God and save their souls; the State takes no cognizance of sin, but strives to prevent crime and to secure to all its citizens the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. Americans are a Christian people. Religious zeal impelled their ancestors to the New World, and when schools were first established here, they were established by the churches, and religious instruction formed an important part of the education they gave. This was natural, and it was desirable even, in primitive times, when each colony had its own creed and worship, when society was simple and the State as yet imperfectly organized. Here, as in the Old World, the school was the daughter of the church, and she has doubtless rendered invaluable service to civilization, by fostering a love for knowledge among barbarous races and in struggling communities. But the task of maintaining a school system such as the requirements of a great and progressive nation demands, is beyond her strength. This is so, at least, when the church is split into jealous and warring sects.

To introduce the spirit of sectarianism into the class-room would destroy the harmony and good will among citizens, which it is one of the aims of the common school to cherish.

There is, besides, no reason why this should be done, since the family and the church give all the religious instruction which children are capable of receiving.

This, it seems to me, is a fair presentation of the views and ideas which go to the making of current American opinion on the question of religious instruction in State schools; and current opinion, when the subject matter is not susceptible of physical demonstration, cannot be turned suddenly in an opposite direction. When men have grown accustomed to look at things in a certain way, they have acquired a mental habit, which no mere argument, however cogent or eloquent, is able to overcome. To what extent this view of the school question prevails is readily perceived by whoever recalls to mind that not one of the States of the Union has attempted to introduce the denominational system of education, while all the political parties have bound themselves to uphold the present purely secular system. So thoroughly secular, indeed, is our whole political organization that it is found impossible to insert in the Constitution the expression of belief in God. The opinion that the prosperity of the nation depends upon the intelligence and activity of the people, and to no appreciable extent upon the influence of ecclesiastical organizations, has so far prevailed, that the general feeling has come to be that the State has no direct interest in the church, which is the concern merely of individuals. The religious denominations themselves have helped to inspire this sentiment by their jealousies and rivalries. The smaller sects feel that State aid for denominational schools would accrue to the benefit chiefly of the larger; and all the Protestant bodies are willing to forego favors which they could not receive without permitting the Catholic Church to participate also in the bounty of the government.

The Catholic view of the school question is as clearly defined as it is well known. It rests upon the general ground that man is created for a supernatural end and that the church is the divinely appointed agency to help him attain his supreme destiny. If education is a training for completeness

of life, its primary element is the religious, for complete life is life in God. Hence we may not assume an attitude toward the child, whether in the home, in the church, or in the school, which might imply that life apart from God could be anything else than broken and fragmentary. A complete man is not one whose mind only is active and enlightened; but he is a complete man who is alive in all his faculties. The truly human is found not in knowledge alone, but also in faith, in hope, in love, in pure-mindedness, in reverence, in the sense of beauty, in devoutness, in the thrill of awe, which Goethe says is the highest thing in man. If the teacher is forbidden. to touch upon religion, the source of these noble virtues and ideal moods is sealed. His work and influence become mechanical, and he will form but commonplace and vulgar men. And if an educational system is established on this narrow and material basis, the result will be deterioration of the national type and the loss of the finer qualities which make̟ men manysided and interesting, which are the safe-guards of personal purity and of unselfish conduct.

Religion is the vital element in character, and to treat it as though it were but an incidental phase of man's life is to blunder in a matter of the highest and most serious import. Man is born to act, and thought is valuable mainly as a guide to action. Now, the chief inspiration to action, and above all to right action, is found in faith, hope, and love, the virtues of religion, and not in knowledge, the virtue of the intellect. Knowledge, indeed, is effectual only when it is loved, believed in, and held to be a ground for hope. Man does not live on bread alone, and if he is brought up to look to material things, as to the chief good, his higher faculties will be stunted. If to do rightly rather than to think keenly is man's chief business here on earth, then the virtues of religion are more important than those of the intellect; for to think is to be unresolved, whereas to believe is to be impelled in the direction of one's faith. In epochs of doubt things fall to decay; in epochs of faith the powers which make for full and vigorous life, hold sway. The education which forms character is indis

pensable, that which trains the mind is desirable. The essential element in human life is conduct, and conduct springs from what we believe, cling to, love, and yearn for, vastly more than from what we know. The decadence and ruin of individuals and of societies come from lack of virtue, not from lack of knowledge. "The hard and valuable part of education," says Locke, "is virtue; this is the solid and substantial good, which the teacher should never cease to inculcate till the young man places his strength, his glory, and his pleasure in it." We may, of course, distinguish between morality and religion, between ethics and theology. As a matter of fact, however, moral laws have everywhere reposed upon the basis of religion and their sanction has been sought in the principles of faith. As an immoral religion is false, so, if there is no God, moral law is meaningless.

Theorists may be able to construct a system of ethics upon a foundation of materialism, but their mechanical and utilitarian doctrines have not the power to exalt the imagination or to confirm the will. Their educational value is feeble. Here in America we have already passed the stage of social development in which we might hold out to the young, as an ideal, the hope of becoming President of the Republic, or the possessor of millions of money. We know what sorry men presidents and millionaires may be. We cannot look upon our country, simply as a wide race-course with well-filled purses hanging at the goal for the prize-winners. We clearly perceive that a man's possessions are not himself, and that he is or ought to be more than anything which can belong to him. Ideals of excellence, therefore, must be substituted for those of success. Opinion governs the world, but ideals draw souls and stimulate to noble action. The more we transform with the aid of machinery the world of matter, the more necessary does it become that we make plain to all that man's true home is the world of thought and love, of hope and aspiration. The ideals of utilitarianism and secularism are unsatisfactory. They make no appeal to the infinite in man, to that in him which makes pursuit better than possession, and which, could

he believe there is no absolute truth, love, and beauty, would lead him to despair. To-day, as of old, the soul is born of God and for God, and finds no peace unless it rest in him. Theology, assuredly, is not religion, but religion implies theology, and a church without a creed is a body without articulation. The virtues of religion are indispensable. Without them, it is not well either with individuals or with nations; but these virtues cannot be inculcated by those who, standing aloof from ecclesiastical organizations, are thereby cut off from the thought and work of all who in every age have most loved God, and whose faith in the soul has been most living. Religious men have wrought for God in the church, as patriots have wrought for liberty and justice in the nation, and to exclude the representatives of the churches from the school is practically to exclude religion, the power which more than all others makes for righteousness, which inspires hope and confidence, which makes possible faith in the whole human brotherhood, in the face even of the political and social wrongs which are still everywhere tolerated. To exclude religion is to exclude the spirit of reverence, of gentleness and obedience, of modesty and purity; it is to exclude the spirit by which the barbarians. have been civilized, by which woman has been uplifted and ennobled, and the child made sacred. From many sides the demand is made that the State schools exercise a greater moral influence, that they be made efficient in forming character as well as in training the mind. It is recognized that knowing how to read and write does not insure good behavior. Since the State assumes the office of teacher, there is a disposition among parents to make the school responsible for their children's morals as well as for their minds, and thus the influence of the home is weakened. Whatever the causes may be, there seems to be a tendency, both in private and in public life, to lower ethical standards. The moral influence of the secular school is necessarily feeble, since our ideas of right and wrong are so interfused with the principles of Christianity that to ignore our religious convictions is practically to put aside the question of conscience. If the State may take no