"Would that our fellow citizens of other faiths knew the ruin that they court by relinquishing to a material power control over the minds and hearts of their children.
"In every country the public school is bringing young minds under the spell of worldliness. The result is selfishness, jingoism, narrow nationalism—an unthinking, a gullible generation to become the easy prey of exploiters and the docile slaves of commerce.
"No man who has drunk into his heart and mind in youth the truths of religious education can readily become the willing dupe of a materialistic state.
"Commerce to-day is the God of nations. It makes wars, compels peace and tramples upon morality and justice. Surely then Catholics should study in a particular way the only safeguard left them against such a fate—the sound philosophy of a religious education."
[2] America, Aug. 21, 1920.
[3] Cfr. Article by Father Vaughan, S.J., on this subject—America, Feb. 21, 1920.
CHAPTER IX.
A WINDOW IN THE WEST[1]
A Crusade for Better Schools in Saskatchewan—Its Lessons: an Invitation and a Warning.
"A Window in the West!"—This was the suggestive title given to a course of pedagogical studies instituted in a Folk High-School of Denmark. The object of this course was to promote the study of these English and American educational ideals which Denmark may assimilate with profit. They looked to the West for light!