  Slowly, but with unmistakable certainty, the logic of the Catholic teaching regarding true education is forcing itself upon non-Catholic minds. Day by day some prominent Protestant comes boldly to the front and declares his belief that education must be based upon religion. One of the latest accessions to this correct theory is President Eliot, of Harvard College, who declared at a recent meeting of Boston schoolteachers that,— "The great problem is that of combining religions with secular education. This was no problem sixty or seventy years ago, for then our people were homogeneous. Now, the population is heterogeneous. Religious teaching can best be combined with secular teaching and followed in countries of heterogeneous population, like Germany, Austria, France and Belgium, where the government pays for the instruction, and the religious teachers belonging to different denominations are admitted to the public schools at fixed times. That is the only way out of the difficulty.... I see, growing up on every side, parochial schools—that is, Catholic schools—which take large numbers of children out of the public schools of the city. That is a great misfortune, and the remedy is to admit religious instructors to teach these children in the public schools. This is what is done in Europe. And all those who are strongly interested in the successful maintenance of our public school system will urge the adoption of the method I have described for religious education." These are strong words, and coming from such a source cannot fail to have their legitimate result. The fearlessness and sincerity of President Eliot in thus stating his position on this most important subject merits the appreciation of every American, Catholic or Protestant. We add in connection with the above, the remarks of the Christian Advocate, a Protestant paper published at San Francisco, Cal.:— "The course which the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, in this country, are taking in regard to the education of children is, from their standpoint, worthy of praise. They see that in order to keep their children under the rule of the Church, they must |
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