Vignettes from Our Young People

I republish the following vignettes from the 1916 editions of Our Young People, a Catholic newspaper published for the deaf-mute students at St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wisconsin. Although it closed in the 1980s, the school became infamous when the Milwaukee Archdiocese sex abuse scandal broke out. Fr. Lawrence Murphy, who had taught at the school from 1950-1974, reportedly molested up to 200 boys.

Aside from the awful associations with the school, I'm republishing the following because of how relevant the content of these articles are for our times, and some of them even are prophetic.

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[The following are from the April 1916 edition with page numbers indicated in brackets.]

[25] Don't "Hold the Floor."

"I don't wonder nobody cares to come to see me," sighed a young woman who had been temporarily crippled by a bad fall. "I don't know anything interesting to talk about. There is nothing attractive in this stupid old room. I can't be entertaining with my knee paining me all the time. I don't wonder people stay away."

No one else wondered either, though not for the reasons so categorically set forth. Ethel's friends came frequently at the beginning of her confinement to the house, full of sympathy for her accident, and evidently anxious to do all they could to make her period of enforced seclusion pleasant. But after the first three weeks, the numbers had fallen off appreciably, and everyone but Ethel knew why.

The friends who came had been prepared to be entertaining. They had saved up funny little stories for her amusement. They were prepared to be vivacious and sparkling. But none of these kindly intentions were carried out for the reason that Ethel gave none of them a chance. She held the floor herself. Each time it was the same story, of pain, and sleepless nights and deprivation.

Where there is sweet clover, there the bees will gather. Etehl's [sic] room migh [sic] have buzzed like a hive with friendly voices. But in a very short time her callers had learned what to expect. "Poor Ethel!" they said to one another. "We really must go to see her, only—well, let's not go today. It's so depressing."

The cheery invalid is not likely to be lonely. But it requires a heroic degree of self-forgetfulness to take an hour out of a bright afternoon to listen to complaints.

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[31] Procrastination.

There's a boy at our house
And you'll sometimes find him in it,
Who, when asked a thing to do,
Says: "I will, but—wait a minute."

If his mother asks for wood
And is wanting him to bring it,
He is sure to answer her,
"Yes, I'll come, just wait a minute."

When he has a task to do,
And is wanted to begin it,
He is sure to answer first,
"Yes, I will, just wait a minute."

If an errand he's to run,
Or a race that he may win it,
He is ready with reply,
"Yes, I will, just wait a minute."

Should he reach the pearly gate
And the angel ask him in it,
Will his answer then be too:
"Yes, I'll come, just wait a minute!"?

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[The following are from the October 1916 edition with page numbers indicated in brackets.]

[18] Answering the question, "How is it that there are so many bad persons in the Church?" the Rev. H. G. Graham writes as follows in "The Missionary Gazette:"

"The holiness of the Church is shown not in proper criterion of the Church's success in this its bad members, but in its good ones. The sphere is to look at the lives of those who faithfully obey her teaching, not those who violate it. A bad Catholic is a bad man because he is neglecting his religion; a good Catholic is a good man because he is practicing it. The one is a real product of Catholicity, the other is a product of his own sin. Take those who most scrupulously adhere to the doctrines and practices of the Church, and who act them out to the smallest details, and you have holy people, saints, whether canonized or not. These are the genuine fruits of the good tree of Catholicity; these the Church recognizes as her faithful children, her legitimate offspring; the others are rotten, decaying branches, for whose rottenness the Church takes no responsibility. Obviously, she cannot claim both as being equally faithful to her teaching. To make good his argument, then, the Protestant [my addition: or any secular person for that matter] would need to prove that bad Catholics are bad people because they are taught to be bad; that their badness is the logical result of the Church's instruction which they are faithfully following out; in short, that what we call bad Catholics are really good Catholics."

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[19] Issue was taken with a statement of Dr. Charles W. Dabney, President of the University of Cincinnati, that secular education is the strong bond of union between citizens, by Archbishop Henry Moeller, Cincinnati, in the sermon at the silver jubilee of St. Joseph College, Collegeville, Ind., a short time ago.

"Dr. Dabney," said the prelate, "likened this bond to cement. His cement, however, had only two ingredients, as he stated, namely, cement and sand. But he omitted the important element in his mixture—water.

"A house whose walls are laid in dry cement and sand will not endure. And neither will a state bound together by physical and intellectual culture, but without the amalgamating, cohesive forces of religion."

The college President, he said, made the statement some time ago.

"The State," Archbishop Moeller declared, "usurps a right not given to it by the constitution when it monopolizes education, and tyrannically strives to compel her citizens to make use of a system of education against which they conscientiously protest.

"And when, in addition to the double burden, the children educated in Catholic schools are discriminated against, what else can you call it but persecution? There might be reason for such action in the pupils of your schools were not as proficient in knowledge as those educated by the state. This, however, is not the fact, as experience proves, wherever a fair test has been made."

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[19] It is a long time since the law of England, made by bigots, decreed that not only must the sovereign be a Protestant, but he must also marry a Protestant. The Prince of Wales is nearly 22; there are not many European courts with marriageable daughters, more particularly as the Fatherland is now closed for alliances.

It is known that the prince visited Italy recently to see more than the Italian battle line, that he met Princess Iolande, daughter of the king, that the two young people were favorably impressed, and that Prince Arthur of Connaught [alternatively spelled Connacht] has since continued negotiations for the princess' hand.

The one great obstacle is religion. Naturally and very properly the Italian monarchs decline to let their daughter apostatize even for the throne of the British Empire. It is now whispered that Rome might grant a dispensation for the marriage to the Protestant prince, provided the bride's religion was safe-guarded.

And there comes the rub. To permit a Catholic queen of England would be the thin end of the wedge to all fire-eating Protestants; but there are enough sensible people in the nation to appreciate that the time has gone by for controlling the spiritual affairs of their ruler.

[This next part is prophetic:]

According to the London Daily Express, women are allowed to speak in Anglican churches, provided they do not speak from the pulpit, lectern or chancel steps. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Bishop of London have pronounced definitely in favor of this innovation, and other bishops are expected to give their sanction.

Protests have been made, the leader of the opposition being Athelstan Riley, a high church man, who urges that to allow women to speak in churches "is the first recognized step in an unorganized movement to claim the priesthood for women."—Ex.

[My comments: The age of Prince Arthur by the time of this publishing would have been 33. Princess Iolanda of Savoy would have been 15. If Prince Arthur was 22, then the princess would have been about 4. Fortunately, the story has a happy ending: Princess Iolanda was not married to Prince Arthur, who ended up marrying his cousin Princess Alexandra.]

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[20] Too Smart.

Catherine and Alice were shopping together at a "sale," and at last drew near a counter where some goods were displayed that they wanted.

"I will take two and a half yards," said Catherine to the salesgirl.

The latter was new at the work—taken into the department store to help out on that side. The crowd confused her; she hadn't become accustomed to handling her pad of sales slips. Two and a half yards at ninety-eight cents would be—she couldn't think in such a babel of voices; she figured on the back of her slip, and then said: "One dollar forty-five, please."

Catherine tilted her head a trifle, did a bit of mental arithmetic, and spoke pleasantly and quietly: "It must be two forty-five, I think."

The girl flushed painfully. "Of course," she murmured; "thank you ever so much."

"Now what in the world did you do that for?" complained Alice just as they left the counter. "You might just as well as not have had that extra dollar. You are quick as lightning at figures, I know; but when you had figured it out in your mind why didn't you keep still? There is such a thing as being too smart."

"I don't think you can accuse me of that," laughed Catherine; "but the amount really was two forty-five, and it would be a fraud for me not to pay it when I knew it. But saying nothing about that part of it, there was the girl. If she had sent in the slip for a dollar forty-five, the examiner would have discovered the mistake, and the extra dollar would have been deducted from the girl's wages—if they amounted to as much as that."

"Well, that is her lookout. Anyway, that's how I look at it. If the conductor thinks I'm reading my paper so earnestly that I must have paid my fare, I don't run to him and beseech him to take my nickel. Last week a restaurant cashier gave me back fifty cents too much change. I didn't call out the fire department; I walked away as steady as you please. If I am smart enough to copy your examination paper without letting Miss Spectacles see me, why, she's the one to blame, not I."

Now, there's a big question that goes with this little story: Which of these girls was really the one that was "too smart"? And will it be too late when she finds out?—Girl's World.