“It is very hard,” declared one writer on the controversy, “that a young man who teaches only what he has been taught himself, only what thousands of young men and women have been taught and are teaching, should be singled out and set aside for penalty while others go scot free.... While the Roman Catholics were weak they could not help themselves, and we went on saying what we pleased. Now they are numerous enough in some places to hold the balance of power, and they hold it with a mighty grasp....”[546]
In an effort to prevent the exclusion of the textbook from the schools, the Protestants advanced various arguments: that it had been in use ten years without protest, that “the outcry” was not “honest,” and that the agitation was “simply the opening wedge for riving our school system and dividing the public school money between Catholics and Protestants.”[547]
Other histories than Swinton’s were in like manner placed by the Catholics in the objectionable list. It was alleged that Prescott’s works “swarm[ed] with Puritan prejudice against all things Catholic” and that Macaulay’s History of England emphasized the worst traits of Catholic personages and gave little credit to the Jesuits.[548] So far as Macaulay was concerned, one Catholic objected to sending his children to school to study history from a book acknowledged by the Protestants to be “a gloriously Protestant book,” by which his children would be “gloriously indoctrinated into Protestantism and a hatred of their parents’ religion.”[549]
As a means of settling the controversy it was suggested that all history or the parts relating to the Protestant and Catholic churches be omitted from the curriculum. This could be done, one writer maintained, “without missing anything of value to our common school system or to our other cherished institutions.” Moreover, it was also held that there were “plenty of undisputed topics” to be studied in the schools which were looked upon with “entire unanimity” by “all creeds,” such as two and two make four. For “nothing should ever be taught in schools supported by common funds except that which is accepted by the common faith.”[550]
With the great expansion of the Catholic Church in the United States since the Civil War and the growth of parochial schools in all parts of the country, the particular needs of the Catholics have been met by the enterprise of publishers in supplying special textbooks for their use.[551] As a result today there are found in parochial schools such social study textbooks as McCarthy’s History of the United States, O’Hara’s A History of the United States, A History of the United States for Catholic Schools by the Franciscan Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration of St. Rose Convent, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Lawler’s Essentials of American History, Betten’s The Ancient World, Betten and Kaufman’s The Modern World, and Burke’s Political Economy.[552]
The desire to present events in American history in such a way as to show the importance of the Catholic Church has led to the preparation of textbooks like McCarthy’s History of the United States. In this book it has been “made clear that Catholics discovered, and in a large way, explored these continents, that Catholics transferred civilization hither, that they opened to the commerce of Europe the trade of the Pacific, and that they undertook the conversion of multitudes of dusky natives, of whom few had risen to the upper stages of barbarism.”[553] Although the “war for independence” was begun largely by Protestants, the author avers the help of Catholic nations like France and Spain gave “undoubted assistance to the New Republic.” Norse settlement and discovery are treated extensively, and Columbus’ missionary spirit receives considerable attention. Catholic notables like Governor Dongan, the Calverts, Captain John Barry, and Thomas Macdonough are given more space than ordinarily allotted in school histories. “The winning of the West, in which Catholics acted an important part,” the war on the sea in which are enumerated “the exploits of the O’Briens of Machias, Maine,” “the beginnings of the Catholic Church in America” and “Washington’s patriotic letter to his Catholic countrymen” are other unique features.[554]
Similar in point of view is the textbook written by the Franciscan Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration. Its contents, announces the Foreword, are not immured within the bounds of “the usually taught historical facts,” but include “the too often forgotten efforts of the Church in American History.” Not only is the story of “the venturesome explorer, the intrepid colonizer, the hardy pioneer, the noble warrior, the eloquent statesman” narrated, but there is also depicted “the quiet heroism of the loyal sons and daughters of the Catholic Church.” “Our country is justly proud of the liberty she offers to all her children,” affirm the authors, “but these children are many in faith, and diversified in race peculiarities. Common interests may seem to unite them from time to time, but there can be no true, permanent union except where the spirit and the faith are dominating forces. But where is such a bond of unity except in the Catholic Church? Mother Church folds her arms about all her children and questions not their color or their race.”[555]
To the teachers, the authors offer certain aids and directions. The importance of a “proper setting of United States history with a knowledge of the threefold chronological divisions of world history” and an insight into the “difference between Sacred history and Profane, or Secular history” are indicated. In the period of colonization, teachers are urged to make clear, among other things, “how the Catholic Church, like the mustard seed of the Gospel, has flourished and grown, as it were, into a mighty tree.” The Sisters urge, also, a thorough delineation of the growth of the educational system of the United States including an understanding of “how our cherished parochial schools grew from humble beginnings into the splendid system which now labors so zealously for the spiritual and intellectual welfare of our country.”[556]
The Betten-Kaufman histories, The Ancient World and The Modern World, are typical of Roman Catholic textbooks in the field of European history. Based upon West’s Ancient World and his Modern World, the authors have introduced changes desirable for the purpose of “promoting the great cause of Catholic education.”[557] The chief departure from the traditional European history textbook used in the public schools is in the discussion of Luther and the Reformation. Although Tetzel’s use of the theory of indulgences is criticized in the Betten and Kaufman textbook as “ill advised,”[558] Luther’s theories regarding the remission of sins are characterized as “monstrous.”[559] The Church as an agency for good and for promoting the civilization of the world is given significant attention; the “Catholic view” of social evils is set forth in opposition to other theories, and a discussion of “harmonious coöperation” between church and state is intended to disclose the influence of the Church in the solution of the world’s evils.[560]
In an allied field Father Burke has written his Political Economy designed for use in Catholic Colleges, High Schools, and Academies. Here political economy is discussed not only from the standpoint of “the merely concrete, material things that enter into the science, but also with reference to the personalities of the members of society whose activity is exercised on these concrete, material things.”[561]