"9. The teachers of these schools will be expected to attend the meetings of the normal class, the same as teachers of other public schools. They will give respectful attention to the suggestions and instructions of the superintendent, and are expected to exert themselves to carry out his views in the management and instruction of their schools. "10. The holidays shall be such as are usually given in Catholic Schools." The superintendent of public instruction, Hon. W. H. Baker, says: "This arrangement was made just after the war, when it was absolutely necessary to have unity of action to preserve our public school system. It has worked very harmoniously and to the satisfaction of all parties.' Mr. Mooney thinks, and boldly says, that Archbishop Ireland is not in harmony with the decrees of the Church in the United States. The gentleman has gone beyond his province, and is treading ground which he does not know. It might suffice to answer that the ecclesiastical superiors of the archbishop are the judges in the premises; let us calmly await their decision. It shows ignorance on the part of Mr. Mooney to quote against the archbishop, the following statute of the late Cardinal McCloskey: "It has been clearly decided by the Supreme Pontiff that no Catholic, of whatever rank or condition he may be, can approve of any system of public instruction from which religion is totally excluded." Religion is not totally excluded from the system of instruction which Archbishop Ireland seeks to bring about. But to everyone interested in Catholic education, the question arises whether the system of parochial schools, after the lapse of years, with all the sacrifices Catholics have made, has gathered in and trained the larger number of Catholic children in the United States? The answer is to be found in the following contrast. We have two millions two hundred thousand Catholic children, at the very least, to instruct; we have in our Catholic schools to-day seven hundred and twenty-five thousand children. What becomes of the one million and a half that are growing up outside of the Catholic schools?" "The parochial school is the The Northwestern Chronicle (Saint Paul, Minn.) of last month had an article showing (1) that Catholics have at the very least 2,000,000 children to educate, and (2) that there were actually in Catholic schools of all kinds only 725,000 children. ideal Catholic school," I grant. But how far we are from our ideal! The Archdiocese of New York with its Catholic population of 800,000 souls has over 150,000 Catholic children to educate; yet it has only 41,000 children in its parochial schools. These considerations will show Mr. Mooney the wisdom of the statute of the Sixth Diocesan Synod of New York that he quotes against Archbishop Ireland: "All parrents are required to send their children to parochial schools, unless a proper education be given the children at home, or in other Catholic schools, or unless the archbishop allow an exception, for a sufficient cause." The italicized words leave the whole matter in the hands where it properly belongs. One hundred and fifty thousand children to educate, and only room for forty-one thousand! Is not that sufficient reason why the archbishop should have power to dispense parents from obedience to the statute of the synod? All the legislation on the matter that Mr. Mooney might gather and bring against the action of Archbishop Ireland, and that seemingly puts him in the wrong, does explicitly or implicitly make each bishop the judge-saving always the Holy See in the matter of education as far as his diocese is concerned. But finally, it may be asked, what is Archbishop Ireland driving at in his plan? At a very important result. It must This was so startling that I sent the article to Dr. W. T. Harris, the Commissioner of Education. The following was his answer under date of March 26, 1892 : "Your letter of inquiry, dated February 16, came during my absence from the Bureau to attend the National meeting of the Superintendents. I have not been able to give it careful attention till to-day. The newspaper article which you inclosed estimates 26 per cent. of the total Catholic population as the proper proportion of children between the ages of 6 and 16. By the Census tables for 1880, which give us the percentage basis, I find that in the total population of the United States the percentage of persons between the ages of 6 and 16 (and including both numbers) is 25.40 per cent. This confirms the estimate in the newspaper article. The figures in the newspaper article showing the actual number in attendance at school, for each 100 of the population of the United States, as 22.25 per cent. is correct. Under Item 5 in the article it is estimated that 725,000 children are in the private and parochial schools of the Catholics. I suppose that to be accurate. He further estimates that a balance of 1,495,000 are not attending Catholic schools. I suppose, too, that that item is correct, and that at least one million and a half of the pupils attending public schools of the country are from Catholic families." be a very important one, that he should expose himself to the misrepresentations, not to say insults, of the very press that should sustain him-Catholic journalists and writers. He wants to bring somehow under religious instruction that one million and a half of Catholic children, or rather the proportion of them in his own diocese, who are receiving their education in the public schools, and who now never, perhaps even on Sunday, come in contact with the catechism and the Catholic priest. He aims to bring them for one half hour daily, or occasionally in the week, under religious instruction outside of school hours, if he cannot within school hours. Moreover, he aims at relieving his Catholic people from the burden of building and maintaining schools. He sees that after fifty years of heroic effort, of sacrifices strained to the point almost of the unbearable, the result is comparatively small in view of what remains to be done. Let no man give way to the fear that the illustrious prelate of St. Paul will sacrifice one iota of religious principle, or jeopardize the faith of a single child for the attainment of his aim. The country knows him. He is a man of principle. Too much principle, in fact, in certain lines, is what has made him enemies; and his admirers love him, if for no other reason, for the enemies he has made. The Archbishop of St. Paul would secure, with the secular, the religious instruction of the children of his diocese; if the compromise he has attempted does not fulfill this expectation, be sure that he will be the very first to repudiate and break it. CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, THOMAS O'GORMAN. VI. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL CURRICULUM. Four years ago, in a notable address on studies and methods in grammar school work, delivered before the National Department of Superintendence, President Eliot, of Harvard University, coined a phrase that has since become one of the watchwords of educational progress "Shortening and enriching the grammar school course." In his address before the same department, in Brooklyn a few weeks ago, he returned to the attack and was able to point with justifiable pride to what had been accomplished in the interval. Not only had the New England Association of Colleges endorsed his position, but many large villages and smaller cities have adopted and are carrying out his theory with great success. Even in the large cities where, on account of the unwieldiness of the school machinery and the lack of adequate authority in the central power, the inception of reform is necessarily slow, signs are not wanting that changes are gradually taking place by which the grammar school course is being both shortened and enriched. In reply to an over-zealous temporis acti laudator, President Eliot remarked that the progress of a reform is marked by two stages: in the first stage, it is received with open hostility as a malignant innovation; in the second, those who at first were most pronounced in their opposition, are loudest in claiming that the reform is nothing new, and that they themselves had long ago adopted or suggested its provisions. This pregnant statement is only another way of stating the very obvious fact that advanced thinkers among public school men are becoming heartily ashamed of the grammar school course of study. The dreariness and tedium of the primary schoolroom have been relieved by lessons in language, on plants and animals, and on form study and drawing-influences that have come upward from the kinder garten; the high school has been re-vivified by forces that have extended downward from the college and the university; the grammar school course alone remains practically where it was twenty-five years ago. It is still, for the most part, in the hands of the Philistines. There is one sign, however, of the shortening, if not of the enriching, of the grammar school course that was not mentioned either in President Eliot's paper, or in the discussion which it elicited-namely, the growing tendency to abolish stated examinations for promotion, and to substitute for that antiquated method, the judgment of the teacher as to the fidelity with which the pupils have done prescribed work. The theory is that the teacher, who has been in daily and hourly contact with the minds of her pupils, knows better than any other person, be he principal, superintendent, or member of a board of education, whether or not they are ready to take the next step. Other important consequences-such as diminution of cramming, greater freedom in teaching, less nervous prostration among children following the ordeal of the stated examination-have resulted; but the effect with which I am more immediately concerned is the shortening of the course. Officially, a course may be six years, or eight years, or what you please; but, under the stated examination system of promotion, a principal may extend it almost indefinitely. If, through selfish reasons, or a mistaken notion of duty, a principal desires, consciously or unconsciously, to retard the upward progress of pupils, he has no difficulty in doing so, by simply increasing the difficulty of his questions. If, even by a fraction of one per cent., a pupil falls below the required standard, he is compelled to remain another year, or another half-year, as the case may be, in the same grade-to thresh over again the old straw. It is little wonder that, under such a system, so many pupils leave the grammar school without finishing the course. It is altogether probable that one-half the children who so leave, take their departure because of the excessive delays. Had Shakspere lived in these days, he would have added the delays of the schools to those of the law in |