EDUCATIONAL EXTRAVAGANCE
OUR public educational system is made up of a grammar and a high school
course, the latter consisting of a four years term of studies, devoted
in part, to a more thorough grounding in the essentials of education;
the other part--by far the more considerable, according to the
consensus of opinion--is expended on educational frills and vanities.
These "trimmings" are given gratis, the public bearing the burden of
expense
For a certain class of people--the people of means--this sort of a
thing has not many disadvantages; it is in a line with the future
occupation or profession of their offspring. But for the bulk of the
children who attend our free schools and on whose parents educational
taxes are levied, it has serious inconveniences, is not in line with
their future occupation or profession, is not only superfluous, but
detrimental. It is for them so much time lost--precious time, that were
better spent learning a trade or otherwise fitting themselves for their
life work. Herein therefore we discover a double extravagance: that of
parents who provide unwisely for their children's future and that of
the municipality which offers as popular an education that is anything
but popular, since only the few can enjoy it while all must bear the
burden alike.
There is much in getting a start in life, in beginning early; a delay
is often a handicap hard to overcome. With very few exceptions, our
children gain their livelihood with their hands and eyes and ears, and
not solely with their brains; they therefore require title most
practical education imaginable. They need intellectual tools to work
with, and not a smattering of science, botany, drawing and political
philosophy to forget as soon as possible. Pure culture studies are not
a practical gain for them, while the time consumed in pursuing these is
so much taken away from a thorough training in the essentials. Lectures
on science, elementary experiments in chemistry, kindergarten
instructions in water color painting, these are as much in their place
in the education of the average child as an ivory-handled gold pen in
the hand that wields the pick-ax.
A boy is better off learning a trade than cramming his head full of
culture fads; he is then doing something useful and profitable on which
the happiness and success of his life will depend. By the time his
companions have done dabbling in science and have come to the
conclusion that they are simply being shown how ignorant they are--not
a very consoling conclusion after all--he will have already laid the
foundation of his career and be earning enough to settle down in life.
He may not be able to talk on an infinity of subjects about which he
knows nothing at all, but he will be able to earn his own living, which
is something worth while.
If the free high school were more of a business school, people would
get better returns for their money. True, some would then be obliged to
pay for the expensive fads that would be done away with; but since they
alone enjoy these things, why should others be made to pay for them who
cannot enjoy them? Why should the poor be taxed to educate the rich?
Why not give the poor full value for their share of the burden? Why not
provide them with intellectual tools that suit their condition, just as
the rich are being provided for in the present system? The parochial
high school has, in several places we know of, been made to serve as a
protest against such evils and as an example that has already been
followed in more than one instance by the public schools. Intelligent
and energetic pastors, knowing full well the conditions and needs of
their people, offer the children a course in business methods as being
more suitable, more profitable and less extravagant than four years
spent in acquiring a smattering of what they will never possess
thoroughly and never need in their callings in life. It is better to
fill young minds with the useful than with the agreeable, when it is
impossible to furnish both. Results already bespeak the wisdom of this
plan and reflect no small honor on its originators.
Parents therefore should see to it that their children get the kind of
education they need, the kind that will serve them best in after life.
They should not allow the precious time of youth to be whiled' away in
trifles and vanities. Children have a right: to be educated in a manner
in keeping with their conditions in life, and it is criminal in parents
to neglect the real needs of their children while trying: to fit them
for positions they will never occupy.
In the meantime, let them protest against the extravagance of
educational enthusiasts and excessive State paternalism. Let them ask
that the burden of culture studies be put where it belongs, that is, on
the shoulders of those who are the sole beneficiaries; and that free
popular education be made popular, that is, for all, and not for an
elite of society. The public school system was called into existence to
do one work, namely, to educate the masses: it was never intended to
furnish a college education for the benefit of the rich men's sons at
the expense of the poor. As it stands to-day, it is an unadulterated
extravagance.
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A HELPING HAND
THE moralist is usually severe, and the quality of his censure is merciless, when he attempts to treat the unwholesome theme of moral deformity; and all his efforts are mere attempts, for no human language can do full justice to such a theme, or ful... AN OFT EXPLOITED, BUT SPECIOUS PLEA
IT is not an infrequent occurrence for persons given to the habit of petty thefts and fraud, to seek to justify their irregular conduct by a pretense of justice which they call secret compensation. They stand arraigned before the bar of their consci... ANGER
NEVER say, when you are angry, that you are mad; it makes you appear much worse than you really are, for only dogs get mad. The rabies in a human being is a most unnatural and ignoble thing. Yet common parlance likens anger to it. It is safe to s... AUTHORITY AND OBEDIENCE
AUTHORITY means the right to command; to command is to exact obedience, and obedience is submission of one's will to that of another, will is a faculty that adores its own independence, is ambitious of rule and dominion, and can hardly bear to serve... BELIEVING AND DOING
MORALS pertain to right living, to the things we do, in relation to God and His law, as opposed to right thinking, to what we believe, to dogma. Dogma directs our faith or belief, morals shape our lives. By faith we know God, by moral living we serv... BLASPHEMY
TO blaspheme is to speak ill of God; blasphemy is an utterance derogatory to the respect and honor due to God. Primarily, it is a sin of the tongue; but, like all other sins, it draws its malice from the heart. Thus, a thought may be blasphemous, ev... CALUMNY
TO the malice of detraction calumny adds that of falsehood. It is a lie, which is bad; it is a report prejudicial to the character of another, which is worse; it is both combined, out of which combination springs a third malice, which is abominable.... CAPITAL SINS
YOU can never cure a disease till you get at the seat or root of the evil. It will not do to attack the several manifestations that appear on the surface, the aches and pains and attendant disorders. You must attack the affected organ, cut out the r... CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
THE Catholic school system all over this land has been erected and stands dedicated to the principle that no child can be properly, thoroughly and profitably--for itself--educated, whose soul is not fed with religion and morality while its intellige... CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
A RECENTLY discovered sin against the First Commandment is the worship of Mrs. Eddy, and it is commonly called Christian Science. This sacrilegious humbug was conceived in the brain of an old woman up in New Hampshire and, like the little demon of e... COMMON WORKS
THERE is a third sort of works to be considered in relation to Sunday observance, which, being of their nature neither liberal nor servile, go by the specific name of common works. This class embraces works of two kinds, viz., those which enter into... CONCEALING THE TRUTH
THE duty always to tell the truth does not imply the obligation always to tell all you know; and falsehood does not always follow as a result of not revealing your mind to the first inquisitive person that chooses to put embarrassing questions. Alon... CONSCIENCE
THE will of God, announced to the world at large, is known as the Law of God; manifested to each individual soul, it is called conscience. These are not two different rules of morality, but one and the same rule. The latter is a form or copy of the ... CONTUMELY
THE Eighth Commandment concerns itself with the good name of the neighbor; in a general way, it reproves all sins of the tongue, apart from those already condemned by the Second and Sixth commandments, that is to say, blasphemous and impure speech. ... CORRECTION
AMONG the many things that are good for children and that parents are in duty bound to supply is--the rod! This may sound old-fashioned, and it unfortunately is; there is a new school of home discipline in vogue nowadays. Slippers have outgrown t... COVETOUSNESS
"WHAT is a miser?" asked the teacher of her pupils, and the bright boy spoke up and answered: one who has a greed for gold. But he and all the class were embarrassed as to how this greed for gold should be qualified. The boy at the foot of the class... CURSING
TO bless one is not merely to wish that one well, but also to invoke good fortune upon his head, to recommend him to the Giver of all goods. So, too, cursing, damning, imprecation, malediction--synonymous terms-- is stronger than evil wishing and de... DEFAMATION
DEFAMATION differs from contumely in that the one supposes the absence, the other, the presence, of the person vilified; and again, in that the former asperses the reputation of the victim while the latter attacks the honor due or paid to said reput... DETRACTION
TO absolve oneself of the sin of detraction on the ground that nothing but the truth was spoken is, as we have seen, one way of getting around a difficulty that is no way at all. Some excuses are better than none, others are not. It is precisely the... DEVOTIONS
THERE is in the Church an abundance and a rich variety of what we call devotions--practices that express our respect, affection and veneration for the chosen friends of God. These devotions we should be careful not to confound with a thing very diff... DISINTERESTED LOVE IN PARENTS
LOVE seems to resume all the obligations of parents toward their offspring; certainly, it directs all their actions, and they fulfil these obligations ill or well according to the quality of that love. But love is not sufficient; love is of two kind... DRINK
INTEMPERANCE is the immoderate use of anything, good or bad; here the word is used to imply an excessive use of alcoholic beverages, which excess, when it reaches the dignity of a habit or vice, makes a man a drunkard. A drunkard who indulges in "hi... EDUCATE THE CHILDREN
BEFORE reaching the age of reason, the child's needs are purely animal; it requires to be fed, clothed and provided with the general necessities of life. Every child has a natural right that its young life be fostered and protected; the giver must p... EDUCATIONAL EXTRAVAGANCE
OUR public educational system is made up of a grammar and a high school course, the latter consisting of a four years term of studies, devoted in part, to a more thorough grounding in the essentials of education; the other part--by far the more cons... ENMITY
KILLING is not the only thing forbidden by the Fifth Commandment: thereby are prescribed all forms of enmity, of which killing is one, that attack either directly or indirectly, in thought or desire, as well as in deed, the life, limbs or health of ... FAITH AND ERROR
INTOLERANCE is a harsh term. It is stern, rigid, brutal, almost. It makes no compromise, combats a outrance and exacts blind and absolute obedience. Among individuals tolerance should prevail, man, should be liberal with man, the Law of Charity dema... FILIAL LOVE
HE who has a heart, and has it properly located, will not fail to love that which is good; he will have no difficulty in so doing, it will require neither command nor persuasion to make him do so. If he proves refractory to this law of nature, it is... FILIAL RESPECT
WORTHY of honor are they whom the Lord sees fit to honor. In the exalted station to which they have been called and in the express command made by the Lord to honor them, we see evidence of the dignity of parents; and the honor we owe them for this ... GETTING RID OF ILL-GOTTEN GOODS
IT may happen that a person discover among his legitimately acquired possessions something that does not in reality belong to him. He may have come by it through purchase, donation, etc.; he kept it in good faith, thinking that he had a clear title ... GLUTTONY
SELF-PRESERVATION is nature's first law, and the first and essential means of preserving one's existence is the taking of food and drink sufficient to nourish the body, sustain its strength and repair the forces thereof weakened by labor, fatigue or... GODLESS EDUCATION
THE other defect, respecting education as found in the public schools of the land, is that it leaves the soul out of all consideration and relegates the idea of God to a background of silent contempt. On this subject we can do no better than quote w... HEARTS
THE heart, the seat of the affections, is, after the mind whose authority and direction it is made to obey, man's noblest faculty; but it may, in the event of its contemning reason's dictates, become the source and fountain-head of inordinate lust a... HOMICIDE
TO kill is to take life, human or animal. It was once thought by a sect of crazy fanatics, that the Fifth Commandment applied to the killing of animals as well as of men. When a man slays a man, he slays an equal; when he kills an animal, he kills a... HOW FAITH MAY BE LOST
IT is part of our belief that no man can lose his faith without mortal sin. The conscious rejection of all or any religious truth once embraced and forming a part of Christian belief, or the deliberate questioning of a single article thereof, is a s... HOW TO COUNT SINS
THE number of sins a person may commit is well-nigh incalculable, which is only one way of saying that the malice of man has invented innumerable means of offending the Almighty--a compliment to our ingenuity and the refinement of our natural perver... HOW WE BELIEVE
FAITH is the edifice of a Christian life. It is, of itself, a mere shell, so to speak, for unless good works sustain and adorn it, it will crumble, and the Almighty in His day will reduce it to ashes; faith without works is of no avail. The corner s... IDOLATRY AND SUPERSTITION
THE first and greatest sinner against religion is the idolater, who offers God-worship to others than God. There are certain attributes that belong to God alone, certain titles that He alone has a right to bear, certain marks of veneration that are ... IMMORALITY
THE natural order of things brings us to a consideration of the Sixth Commandment, and at the same time, of the Ninth, as treating of the same matter--a matter so highly immoral as to deserve the specific appellation of immorality. People, as a r... IS SUICIDE A SIN?
MOST people no doubt remember how, a short time previous to his death, Col. Robert Ingersoli, the agnostic lecturer, gave out a thesis with the above title, offering a negative conclusion. Some discussion ensued in public print; the question was deb... JUSTICE AND RIGHTS
JUSTICE is a virtue by which we render unto every man that which to him is due. Among equals, it is called commutative justice, the which alone is here in question. It protects us in the enjoyment of our own rights, and imposes upon us the obligatio... KEEPING THE LORD'S DAY HOLY
THE Third Commandment bids us sanctify the Lord's day; but in what that sanctification shall consist, it does not say. It is certain, however, that it is only by worship, of one kind or another, that the day can be properly kept holy to the Lord; an... LAXITY AND SCRUPLES
IN every question of conscience there are two opposing factors: Liberty, which is agreeable to our nature, which allows us to do as we list; and Law which binds us unto the observance of what is unpleasant. Liberty and law are mutually antagonistic.... LOVE OF GOD
ONCE upon a time, there lived people who pretended that nothing had existence outside the mind, that objects were merely fictions of the brain; thus, when they gave a name to those objects, it was like sticking a label in the air where they seemed t... LOVE OF NEIGHBOR
THE precept, written in our hearts, as well as in the law, to love God, commands us, at the same time, to love the neighbor. When you go to confession, you are told to be sorry for your sins and to make a firm purpose of amendment. These appear to b... MENDACITY
TO lie is to utter an untruth, with full knowledge that it is an untruth. The untruth may be expressed by any conventional sign, by word, deed, gesture, or even by silence. Its malice and disorder consists in the opposition that exists between our i... MURDER OFTEN SANCTIONED
ALL injury done to another in order to repair an insult is criminal, and if said injury result in death, it is murder. Here we consider an insult as an attack on one's reputation or character, a charge or accusation, a slurring remark, etc., witho... NOT GOOD TO BE ALONE
A MAN may come to discover that the state in which he finds himself placed, is not the one for which he was evidently intended by the Maker. We do not all receive the same gifts because our callings are different; each of us is endowed in accordance... OATHS
THE first quality of an oath is that it be true. It is evident that every statement we make, whether simple or sworn, must be true. If we affirm what we know to be false we lie, if we swear to what we know to be false, we perjure ourselves. Perjury ... OCCASIONS
OCCASIONS of sin are persons, places or things that may easily lead us into sin: this definition of the little catechism is simple and clear and requires no comment. It is not necessary that said places or things, or even said persons, be evil in th... OCCULTISM
SPIRITISM as a theory, a science, a practice, a religion, or--I might add--a profitable business venture, is considered an evil thing by the Church, and by her is condemned as superstition, that is, as a false and unworthy homage to God, belittling ... ON THE ETHICS OF WAR
IN these days, since we have evolved into a fighting nation, our young men feel within them the instinct of battle, which, like Job's steed, "when it heareth the trumpet, saith: 'ha, ha'; that smelleth the battle afar off, the encouraging of the cap... OUR ENEMIES
WHAT is an enemy? A personal, an individual enemy is he who has done us a personal injury. The enemy, in a general or collective sense, are they--a people, a class or party--who are opposed to our interests, whose presence, doings or sayings are obn... PARENTAL DIGNITY
WE have done with the three commandments that refer directly to God. The second Table of the Law contains seven precepts that concern themselves with our relations to God, indirectly, through the creature; they treat of our duties and obligations to... PAYING BACK
A MAN who has stolen, has nothing more urgent and imperative to perform, on this side of eternity, than the duty of refunding the money or goods unjustly acquired, or the value thereof. He may possibly consider something else more important; but if ... PETITIONS
FOR all spiritual needs, therefore, prayer is the one thing necessary. I am in the state of sin. I desire to be forgiven. To obtain pardon is a supernatural act. Alone I can no more do it than fly. I pray then for the grace of a good confession--I p... PETTY THEFTS
A QUESTION may arise as to petty thefts, venial in themselves, but oft repeated and aggregating in the long run a sum of considerable value: how are we to deal with such cases? Should peculations of this sort be taken singly, and their individual ma... PRAYER
NO word so common and familiar among Christians as prayer. Religion itself is nothing more than a vast, mighty, universal, never ceasing prayer. Our churches are monuments of prayer and houses of prayer. Our worship, our devotions, our ceremonies ar... PRIDE
EXCELLENCE is a quality that raises a man above the common level and distinguishes him among his fellow-beings. The term is relative. The quality may exist in any degree or measure. 'Tis only the few that excel eminently; but anyone may be said to e... PROFANITY
PROFANITY is not a specific sin. Under this general head come all blasphemy, false, rash, unjust and unnecessary oaths, rash and violated vows, and cursing:--called profanity, because in each case the name of God is profaned, that is to say, is made...