New Publications.
Life of Anne Catharine Emmerich.By Helen Ram. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
Many of our readers must have read that part of the record of Catharine Emmerich's visions by Clement Brentano which has been translated into English. Those who have been pleased and edified by them will be delighted with this life of the holy and highly favored ecstatic virgin. It is a charming and wonderful [pg 143] life, especially that portion which relates the history of Anne Catharine's miraculous infancy and childhood. The volume makes one of F. Coleridge's series, which we have frequently had occasion to praise. We have been surprised to see in the pages of a book issued under the supervision of so accurate and careful an editor a number of inaccuracies in style and typographical errors.
Bric-a-Brac Series—No. 2: Anecdote Biographies of Thackeray and Dickens.New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.
These recollections and anecdotes of the two favorite English writers of fiction are very readable, and those which relate to Thackeray especially interesting.
The Young Catholic's Illustrated School Series, comprising: The Young Catholic's Illustrated Primer, Speller, First Reader, Second Reader, Third Reader, and Fourth Reader. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren St. 1874.
Every effort which is likely, in any way, to help on the great work of Catholic education, has of course our entire sympathy. Humanly speaking, the destiny of the church in the United States is to be determined by the education which we give to our children, and the almost universal recognition of this truth by the Catholics of America is, we are persuaded, the most certain evidence that we have really made progress. It is only within a comparatively recent time that we have come to fully realize the inevitable and fatal results of allowing our children to frequent the public schools, and to thoroughly understand that the common-school system of education, based, as it is, upon the implied assumption of the untruth of positive religion, logically and in fact leads to infidelity or to what is scarcely less an evil—religious indifference. The church without the school-house is incomplete, and can at best do but half work; and we consequently find that almost all of our bishops are now beginning to demand that every parish shall have its parochial school.
We have been at some pains to examine the returns made by the different diocesan authorities to the publishers of the Catholic Almanac, and we find that last year there were in the whole country about three hundred and eighty thousand children attending our Catholic schools. This is probably less than half the number of Catholic children of school age in the United States; still, we are already doing enough to show that Catholic primary education must be recognized as one of the institutions of the country, and that those who have control of it should set to work without delay to give it a thorough organization. It is well to teach our people that the public schools are dangerous to the faith and morals of their children; it is far better to render them useless by bringing our own up to the standard of excellence which the more abundant means and opportunities of the state have enabled it to give to its educational establishments. There are, we know, many parochial schools which are in every respect equal to those of the state; but under the present system everything is left to the zeal and energy of the pastor. What we want is a system which will cause every parochial school to come up to the requirements of a prescribed standard of excellence. In a word, the necessity of the times demands the organization of Catholic education.
Each diocese should have its school boards and its official examiners and visitors. Annual diocesan school reports should be published, accompanied by remarks on the defects observed in the practical management of the schools and in the methods of teaching.
Out of these diocesan school boards and school reports in due time a national Catholic school system would grow into vigorous life. More of this another time; at present we are glad to take note of the greater desire for excellence in our elementary schools, shown by the demand for improved class-books.
As our system of education is distinctively Catholic, it of course requires Catholic text-books—books composed with a special view to the principles which underlie the Catholic theory of pedagogy.
This truth has been recognized by the bishops of the United States, who, both in the First and Second Plenary Councils of Baltimore, made this one of the subjects of their thought.
That The Catholic Publication Society, which has done so much to elevate the tone of our literature, has felt authorized to begin the issue of a complete series of such works, is undoubtedly an indication of the general feeling among Catholics of [pg 144] the want of improved class-books, especially for our elementary schools, which are by far the most important, since they more directly concern the welfare of the masses of our people.
Whilst we are grateful for what has been done in this matter, we cannot shut our eyes to the many defects of most of the text-books now in use. We have before us the Young Catholic's Illustrated Primer, Speller, First, Second, Third, and Fourth Readers; and we have read and examined them with conscientious care, and we have at the same time compared them with similar publications of other houses, and we therefore feel competent to speak of their merits, if not with authority, at least with knowledge. That they should be superior to any other books of the kind is only what we had the right both to expect and to demand, and that they are has already been generally recognized by the Catholic press of the country.
In the choice and arrangement of the matter we discern admirable good sense and tact; in the illustrations, which are very numerous and nearly all original, being explanatory of the text, excellent taste; whilst in the mechanical execution we perceive the skilful workmanship that usually characterizes the books of The Catholic Publication Society.
The series is graded in strict accordance with scientific principles of education, and combines all that is important in the word and phonic methods of teaching, without, however, excluding the a, b, c drill. Books must always remain the indispensable instruments for imparting instruction in school, and hence it is of the greatest moment that the pupil should from the very start be attracted to them. Most children enter school eager to learn; the craving for knowledge is a divine instinct implanted in their hearts by the Author of their being, which they have already in a thousand ways sought to satisfy by their fruitless efforts to penetrate the mystery of beauty with which Nature surrounds them. When they enter school this intellectual activity should be stimulated, not repressed. The books first placed in their hands should be simple, offering many attractions and few difficulties, presenting to their minds under new forms the objects with which observation has already rendered them familiar, and which they now first learn to associate with printed words. These truths have been felt and acted upon by the compilers of the “Young Catholic's Series,” which, in simplicity, in correct gradation, in beauty and attractiveness, far surpasses anything of the kind that has yet been offered to the Catholic English-speaking public.
Another truth which can never be lost sight of in Catholic education is that religion should be the vital element of the whole process of instruction.
“Give me a lesson in geography,” said Mr. Arnold, “and I will make it religious.” This is what Catholics desire: that the light of religion should burnish as with fine gold all human knowledge. Indeed, in primary education religion is almost the only subject of real thought, the only power able to touch the heart, to raise the mind, and to evoke from brutish apathy the elements of humanity, and more especially the reason. As religion is the widest and deepest of all the elements of civilization, it ought to be the substratum and groundwork of all popular education.
“Popular education,” says Guizot, “to be truly good and socially useful, must be fundamentally religious.”
In the compilation of text-books this is precisely the point which demands the greatest amount of good sense and the most consummate tact. Religion must run through the whole fabric like a thread of gold. It must form the atmosphere in which the pupil breathes; it must give coloring to everything, and everything must in one way or another be made to prove and explain its dogmas, and yet there must be no cant, no attempt at preaching, no dull moralizing, and above all no stupidity.
To accomplish all this, our readers will readily believe, is not an easy task, and yet we have no hesitation in saying that if they will take the trouble to examine thoroughly the “Young Catholic's Series,” they will agree with us in the opinion that it can stand the test of even this standard of excellence.
We learn that the Holy Father has sent a letter of commendation to the writer of “Italian Confiscation Laws” in The Catholic World for Oct., 1873, and ordered a translation of the article.