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.