John A. O'Brien, "Causes of Catholic Leakage" (1932)

[Much of this essay could have been written very recently.]

[412] To the Editor, The Ecclesiastical Review.

The discussion of Catholic leakage in the December issue of the Review has occasioned widespread interest and stimulated a discussion from which certain conclusions would now seem to emerge. (1) The statistics of The Official Catholic Directory, not only in regard to population but also in regard to baptisms and deaths, are apparently so "unbelievably untrustworthy" as to afford no reliable basis for the determination of the gain or loss of the Catholic population for the year 1930. (2) It follows, therefore, that the basis for the estimated loss of half a million for the year 1930, is undermined. While Dr. Ross writing in The Commonweal, 17 February, 1932, seems to contend that the essential framework of his statistical computations still stands, the evidence presented by both Dr. Shaughnessy and Fr. Bernarding is sufficient to shake the confidence of the writer in the reliability of any conclusion based on the figures of the Directory.

It is probably a matter of astonishment to most priests, as it is to the writer, to discover as a result of the excellent studies of Fr. Bernarding and Fr. Shaughnessy just how freakish, untrustworthy, and deceptive these figures really are. Fr. Bernarding puts the case in a nutshell when he reaches the following conclusion concerning the reliability of the Directory figures: "That they are faulty, most priests realize; just how faulty they are, probably very few know. It is only by tables of the returns extending over a number of years, such as the writer has kept for the past decade, that this comes to light. These tables show that out of 108 dioceses and vicariates recorded in the Directory, only thirty-eight, or about one-third, have never sent in the same population figures two years in succession. All the rest have duplicated figures repeatedly, most of them as often as five or six times, and in this some of the large dioceses are the worst offenders."

The gratitude of all the readers is due to both of these writers for the abundant evidence they have presented showing that the figures in the Directory are "unbelievably untrustworthy," and for all practical purposes either utterly meaningless or positively deceptive. Their studies raise in more acute [413] form than ever the question, "Can not some uniform system or method be worked out for the gathering of these vitally important statistics, so that they will be at least substantially reliable?" This appears to be urgently needed if we are to secure any dependable measurement of the annual gain or loss of Catholic population. As Bishop Noll points out, we can not at present determine "whether the Catholic population is growing or declining".

Before taking up the discussion of the sources of leakage, may I refer briefly and impersonally to two criticisms? Dr. Shaughnessy characterizes my presentation of the statistical groundwork published by Dr. Ross in The Commonweal as "slavish copying," and because I presented one of these computations twice, I am convicted of "absurd logic". Careful reading of my article will disclose my express acknowledgment of Dr. Ross's study as the source of the data presented, coupled with reference by name to Dr. Ross not less than six times. This shows that I made no pretense of originality and was content to play the humble role of reporter. Furthermore, I secured a more detailed statement of the statistical method used by Dr. Ross than appeared in The Commonweal, and presented it in a footnote so that it might be subjected to the most searching scrutiny. While presenting his thesis as cogently as I could, I invited refutation of the statistical groundwork by the presentation of factual evidence. Both Fr. Bernarding and Dr. Shaughnessy have presented abundant evidence and have the gratitude of the readers and of myself for so doing. In stating the above I do not wish to shift any onus to Dr. Ross. For carrying the discussion of the Review, where it would receive due attention and scrutiny, I assume sole responsibility.

It will be remembered that earlier in the year a story had appeared not only in every Catholic paper but in practically every secular newspaper in the country, stating that according to figures released by the Directory, the Catholic population of the U. S. for the year ending Dec. 31, 1930, was 20,091,593. This, the news story stated, represented a gain of but 13,391 over the preceding year in spite of the addition of 39,528 converts. On the very face of the story, there was apparently a loss in the number of born Catholics, which became disturbingly [414] large when one realized that the natural increase by excess of births over deaths, would alone mount into the hundreds of thousands. A few months later appeared Dr. Ross's article. What better place to have this disturbing problem solved than in the Review, a magazine for the discussion of problems affecting the priestly ministry? Like every other priest in the country, I am glad to learn that any story based on the Directory figures is, as Mark Twain observed of the report of his death, "slightly exaggerated".

Secondly, Fr. Shaughnessy pictures the writer as charging that the Church in America is "decadent, corrupt, and corroded to the heart," and as attacking "the good faith of bishops, priests, and people". Why? Because of the view I expressed that "we have unwittingly and unwillingly contributed vast annual quotas of born Catholics to swell the ever-growing army of the churchless around us." But this is a complete non sequitur. Even if the loss were so great as one out of every forty, it would not be a direct reflexion [sic] upon our bishops, priests, and people. The unfairness and the illogicality of such a charge can be clearly shown by a simple reductio ad absurdum. One out of twelve left Christ. Shall we say, therefore, that Judas's defection is a direct attack upon the character of Jesus Chrsit? Qui nimis probat, nihil probat.

Causes of Leakage

Let us come now to the causes of leakage. There is probably no priest in America who will question the fact that there are defections from the Church here, as there are in every country in the world. Not only now, but in every age since Judas sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver. What is the size of the annual leakage? There are apparently no reliable statistics by which this can at present be determined. But that it is too large to be ignored, is also the conviction of every priest out on the firing-line. There is probably scarcely a parish in America but has its quota of sheep "lost, strayed, or stolen". That few from our ranks are to be found in the constantly increasing army of over sixty-five millions of people, surrounding us on every side, who are unaffiliated in any active way with any church, is an illusion held by none of the bishops or priests with whom the writer has convassed [sic] the subject.

[415] In a recent address, Cardinal Mundelein pointed out that, with the streams of immigration stopped, the growth of the Church will be effected [sic] by gaining converts and stopping defections. But in order to stop defections it is necessary first to discover their causes. In order that the study might reflect something like a cross-section of the observations and experience of the bishops and priests of the country, about forty personal letters were sent in December and January to prelates, pastors, and priests engaged in education and acting as editors in various parts of the United States. In addition, about ten laymen who are distinguished for their services to the Church, and who have unusually wide contacts, were consulted. The response manifested a degree of interest on the part of bishops, prelates, members of the secular and regular clergy, as well as of laymen, that was little short of a revelation to the writer. All but about three responded. Many went out of their way to say that the investigation was most timely and that nothing but good could result from a frank and courageous facing of the causes of leakage.

1. Lack of Priests and Churches.

One of the fundamental causes for leakage has been the lack of an adequate number of priests to provide ministrations of religion for a population which in a little more than a century and a half has spread over a vast wilderness of forest and prairie stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In this incessant trek of vast migrations to the West, it was inevitable that great numbers of people would find themselves in settlements where there was neither priest nor church, and where a priest would not be seen for years. Despite the heroism of those pioneer priests and missionaries, the vast expanse of territory made it simply impossible for them to reach the myriad settlements which sprang up everywhere in the marvelous epic of the making of America.

The carving of a vast empire out of a virgin wilderness covering an expanse of over three thousand miles in a little over a century and a half, has had as its inevitable concomitant the dispersion of uncounted numbers into settlements where the ministrations of religion could not possibly be secured. The result has been that great numbers—whose magnitude we can [416] only conjecture—deprived of contact with priest, sister, or teaching brother, have been lost to the faith.

The conditions described are still to be found in some degree in the missionary diocese of the South and West. A bishop in the Southwest informs the writer of parishes in his dioceses which cover over a hundred miles before the nearest parish is reached. There are families in remote parts of these parishes, comprising a territory larger than some whole dioceses in Europe, which can be reached only a few times a year. Priests who have labored in missionary dioceses in the West and South have reported visiting out-of-the-way settlements and encountering families who had not had the ministrations of a priest either to baptize their children or bury their dead for over a decade.

It was because of the conditions such as this that Bishop Kelley established the Extension Chapel Car, to bring the comforts of religion at least periodically to thousands of scattered settlements in remote districts of our country. The erection of hundreds of little mission churches by the Extension Society and the sending of priests to minister to them occasionally have undoubtedly served to rescue many thousands who otherwise would have lapsed, due to circumstances over which they had little or no control.

The evidence of lapses due to this factor are not, however, confined to the South or West. There are scars to be found in probably the great majority of counties in our land. Take, for instance, the heart of Illinois, where the Church is vigorous and well-organized. From the church in which the writer ministers you can travel in one direction over an arterial highway thirty-five miles before you come to another Catholic church. Yet along that highway you pass through eight towns, villages, and settlements in which there is not even an out-mission. For fifteen years the writer has read in the local newspapers of marriages and burials of scores of people with distinctively Irish Catholic names—the services taking place in Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, or Disciples' churches.

According to pioneer priests they are the descendants of families which settled there in the early days when priests were very few and they have been for over half a century without [417] the ministrations of priest or church. The result is that there is scarcely a vestige of Catholicity left in the families throughout this particular territory. Priests have informed the writer of many such territories where a similar story could be told. Indeed the question might well be raised as to whether there are many counties in the country in which evidence of the ruthless operation of this factor could not be found.

Dr. Charles P. Neill, who has brought honor to the Church by the distinguished record he has achieved in the friendly settlement of disputes between capital and labor, from the administration of President Roosevelt to the present time, lays great stress upon this factor. Incidentally Dr. Neill reports that Archbishop Ireland, strongly convinced, as a result of his long ministry and his wide observations, of a tremendous leakage, urged Dr. Neill to make a thorough investigation of its extent and causes. It is a real misfortune that the pressure of many duties prevented so able a scholar in the social and economic fields from undertaking such a systematic investigation many years ago. "I think there is no doubt," says Dr. Neill, "that there has been a tremendous leakage, and some valuable studies might be made in this field. A very thorough investigation should be made." Perhaps it might still be possible to secure Dr. Neill to direct such an investigation on a nation-wide scale, if it could be properly financed. The writer knows of no one more competent. The results would be invaluable.

Stressing especially the lack of priests, Dr. Neill relates how this was driven home to him at Johns Hopkins. "At an earlier period," he writes, "I think there was a tremendous falling off due to an environment in which there was lack of opportunities for the practice of the Catholic faith. This was brought forcibly to my mind a good many years ago when I was a student at Johns Hopkins. Another Catholic student and myself who were in the graduate department decided to attempt the organization of a Catholic society from among the graduate students in the Department of Economics. We went over the list of names and found such names as Riley, Callahan, Moran, and similar names which gave us reason for believing that they might be Catholics. We approached these students, to find that none of them were Catholics. Going into [418] the matter with them we found in practically all cases, that the families had originally been Catholic a few generations back. Some of them were from southern states where in the early generations the Church was very poorly organized and where probably they did not see a priest as often as once a year. One particular case impressed me very strongly where the student's name was M . . . , from Michigan. He told me that his family had moved to Michigan in the early days and were Catholics, but that there was no church organization in the section to which his grandfather had gone and that gradually they had drifted away from the Church entirely, although the descendants of his father's brother, who had remained in the east, were all still members of our Church."

2. Lack of Religious Instruction.

In the judgment of Bishop O'Hara and of a considerable number of the contributors to this investigation, lack of religious instruction is the largest single cause of leakage at the present time. Bishop O'Hara gives the following succinct statement of the case: "We have 18,000 churches and only 8,000 schools. Consequently, there are 10,000 groups of children who, under our futile system of Sunday schools, have very little chance to know what their religion is about. Our 2,500,000 children not in Catholic schools need to be better cared for. Real religious instruction, on the intellectual plane, is of course, by necessity, a matter of adolescents and adults. A mastery of the abstract principles of religion is only possible to minds somewhat developed. Here is a great weakness. The vast majority of young folks in America get secular training in high schools and large numbers in colleges, but comparatively few Catholics have religious education beyond the eighth grade. Adult religious education must keep pace with adult secular education—or religion must suffer a loss. The large number who cannot be brought to Catholics schools, have been very largely neglected."

The importance of this factor is likewise stressed by Monsignor Joseph H. McMahon, who ranks it as one of the two most prolific causes of defection. "In regard to this factor," Monsignor McMahon writes, "we find it almost impossible to get the children attending the public schools to come for religious instruction, or even to Sunday school. Once they [419] have been graduated from the elementary grades they are lost to us as a rule unless the home be thoroughly Catholic. This is unlikely, as, if it were so, the children would not be attending public schools. Of course parishes are to blame where there are not Catholic schools. In some cases the higher authorities have all the blame . . . Unless our children go from our elementary schools to Catholic high schools, (1) they never get more than an elementary education in their religion; (2) their association in public high schools dulls their faith, weakens their hold on the religious knowledge they possessed when leaving the elementary schools; (3) kills all devotional practices; (4) destroys any idea of making sacrifices for their faith; (5) gradually eliminates the supernatural from their lives and leaves them with the secular standard of worldly success as the one object worthy of achievement."

Similar stress is placed upon lack of religious instruction as second among the causes why so many Catholics are falling away to-day, by Fr. Joseph McSorley, C.S.P., who says: "there is too little education of the sort which will fit the soul of the individual for the trials—moral and religious—of life." Our people do not know their religion. We do not equip them with a personal apologetic with which they can meet the onset of hostile criticism, or even their own difficulties arising from modern unbelief and indifferentism."

That the problem of devising more effective means of reaching with careful systematic religious instruction the 2,500,000 children not in our parish schools, is one of the most urgent facing us to-day, is becoming increasingly apparent to pastors everywhere. Until this gap is plugged, it seems inevitable that a continued leakage of large proportions will occur. Readers are probably aware of the two means which Bishop O'Hara has devised of meeting this problem, at least in part—the religious vacation school and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Dr. Matthew Smith of The Denver Register calls attention to another practice instituted by Bishop O'Hara for reaching with a religious message people who would otherwise go untouched.

"It has always been my opinion," says Dr. Smith, "that our rural churches were used too little. If a priest goes only once a month, that is no reason why the church should remain locked [420] at other times. Bishop O'Hara has the people gathered together in every mission each Sunday morning for the recitation of the Rosary, reading of the Epistle and Gospel by one of the men, and then a catechism lesson for the youngsters and a study-club session for the adults. The results have been startling. The idea is very old—it is merely an adaptation of the catechist method to our rural missions. If it had been followed a generation ago, thousands who are now Methodists, Baptists, or nothing, would be Catholics. May the movement started in Great Falls spread!"

3. Lack of Home Training

It would seem difficult to overstress the basic importance of proper home training. Church and school will labor in vain, unless the home supports and reenforces [sic] the ministry of the other two agencies. It has been the experience of priests, sisters, and teaching brothers that a bad home environment will often speedily nullify the teaching imparted in church and school. A zealous priest who has spent about a quarter of a century in the ministry states the case well. "My experience has brought me into contact with thousands of young Catholics, and I am convinced that the kind of home they come from is much more important than whether they went to a Catholic school or not. Generally speaking, neither the church nor the school can make up for home deficiencies. The home remains the most important agency for religious training and the formation of character. One reason, of course, for the failure of so many homes to give proper Catholic training is the general break-down of the home. But another reason is the emphasis placed on Catholic schools. In September our people hear sermons that seem to say they fulfill their responsibilities as parents if they send their children to a Catholic school. For every such sermon, there should be a second one to emphasize the duties of parents at home for the religious education of their children. In line with this, our schools—at least high schools and colleges—should be doing more than they are to train our young people to fulfill their parental duties later on. And our parishes should strive to develop some machinery for adult education looking in the same direction."

Proper home training is of supreme importance. It must be made focal in our thinking. There has been apparently [421] too much reliance upon other agencies, too great a tendency to shift the unescapable duties of parents to the shoulders of sisters and priests. There is need of driving home to parents the stern realization that upon the fidelity with which they discharge their divinely appointed duties of training their children in the knowledge, love, and practice of their holy religion, the continued growth of God's Church in America will largely hinge.

While the above is only the scratching of the surface of the causes of leakage, and only a fragmentary reflexion of the convictions expressed in over a hundred pages of letters on the writer's desk, it may suffice as the first study of the causes of leakage and of methods of stemming them. Loyalty to Christ and His holy Church does not require that we ignore defections, but that we search for them with eager and open eyes, and upon finding them that we strive by might and main to lessen and eliminate them.

Seated at Jacob's well, the Master pointed toward the Samaritans thronging toward Him, and addressed to His apostles the message that comes to us to-day with peculiar urgency: "Behold! I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the countries: for they are white already to harvest." Until the last sheaf of human souls is gathered unto the eternal hills, and placed at the feet of the Divine Master, the priests of America will struggle and labor and pray, conscious that the stars in their courses are fighting for us. No matter how the tide of victory ebbs and flows, we know that God, and everlasting truth and the "victory which overcometh the world, our faith" are on our side.

John A. O'Brien.

Champaign, Illinois.

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Source: John A. O'Brien, "Causes of Catholic Leakage," Ecclesiastical Review 86 (April 1932): 412–421.

John Featherstone, "The Development of Character in the Catholic Atmosphere" (1929)

[500] No matter from what source it arises, no matter how theories of education may vary, all rise up before us and before our minds, and tell us that character, no matter how education may help to mould [sic] it, has its birth, its continuance, and its permanence in something without which education is as nothing, and that something, the everything, is religion. Thus, with our foundation laid in God, we may proceed to consider the other important requisites in the formation of the character of our children, that it may reflect credit upon its sources and obtain for its possessor the reward. And these requisites I would name as the following: the environment of a good home, with its ennobling influences; the education of the school which embraces religion; a prescribed course of studies, and a limitation of the number of students to give a teacher. Given faith, a good home, religious instruction, education in the fine arts prescribed by men of mature years, not selected by children of immature years, a class not so large that the personal and individual attentions so necessary to education will be deprived and a teacher well chosen, and a character will be the fellow and concomitant of this kind of education.

And this is the education which the Catholic Church fosters, the character education. Its first exercise is one of devotion to the living God. Its adherence to a prescribed course of studies brings more converts every day from the ranks of men who have seen the abuses of elective systems, the latter admirable for men of maturity, but too tempting for gay-hearted, thoughtless youth.

All education is a preparation for complete living and no life is complete, no education worthwhile that has not God for its [501] first source and its last end. What Archbishop Spaulding says on this point might be introduced here as very pertinent:

"If education is a training for completeness of life, its primary element is the religious, for complete life is life in God. Hence, we may not assume an attitude towards the child, whether in the home, in the church, or in the school, which might imply that life apart from God could be anything else than broken and fragmentary. A complete man is not one whose mind only is active and intelligent and enlightened; but he is a complete man who is alive in all his faculties. The truly human is found not in knowledge alone, but also in faith, in hope, in love, in pure-mindedness, in reverence, in the sense of beauty, in devoutness, in the thrill of awe, which Goethe says is the highest thing in man. If the teacher is forbidden to touch upon religion, the source of these noble virtues and ideal mood is sealed. His work and influence become mechanical and he will form but commonplace and vulgar men. And if any educational system is established on this narrow and material basis, the result will be deterioration of the national type, and the loss of the finer qualities which make men many-sided and interesting, which are the safeguards of personal purity and of unselfish conduct."

What society expects and what the Church demands from its teachers are the following: Character, teaching ability, scholarship and culture, and of these, character stands first. James E. Russell, Dean of the Teachers' College, Columbia University, tells us that as a result of many years, his experience in preparing teachers for the proper discharge of their office, is the following:

"The first qualification for professional service, therefore, is a good character, the conscious striving for high ideals. The professional worker looks to the future and is pledged by his vocation to make the future better than the present. Such an aim implies in these days the possession of two other qualifications, each potent and indispensable. One of these is specialized knowledge and technical skill. These three—an ethical aim, specialized knowledge and technical skill—are the trinity upon which professional knowledge rests."

What the child expects and has a right to demand to meet life's purposes and fit him for complete living are as Nicholas Murray [502] Butler points out, the following: Religion, literature, art, science and institutions; these are often spoken of as "man's fivefold spiritual inheritances". What society particularly asks of both teacher and pupil, what it demands as a result of the educative process, is social efficiency. This has been defined as "the ability to enter into a progressive social process and to do one's part towards advancing the interests of the whole, while at the same time attaining the highest realization of the self". And so it comes to pass that the Catholic teacher must nourish his soul and give soul; because in the measure in which he gives out his life, must he renew his vigor.

What culture should the teacher acquire? All that may be for him, a principle of life and a principle of action; his faith, his virtue, his knowledge. "As the heart makes the home, the teacher makes the school". . [sic] In brief, the soul of every teacher should be a model for the imitation of others, only in this way can character be influenced and eventually be formed. For soul can act upon soul and only in the development of the character of the teacher can we look for development in the character of the pupil. 

In phrasing the title of this paper I have used the term, a contributing factor in the development of character in relation to the school in a qualified sense and advisedly. For, after all, right conduct is the result of many factors, many trials, and experiences. But of these experiences, the school plays a very important part, but only a part.

To meet life's purposes the student must be able to meet every situation in which he finds himself. Now the school may prepare him but it is only a preparation; the home, his everyday environment, the playground, his associates, his very indifferent actions all tend to the building of character, whether that building up in the nature of development of will depends upon the nature of the influences, and this is what I have insisted upon from the very beginning.

Of the various influences that have a tendency to develop character, I might cite the following with relation to the school: Discipline, a recognition and fulfillment of duty; it is more than [503] instruction, drill or order. I tis more than the teacher's influence over the children; it embodies rules of government, and claims subjection to those rules. "The most perfect are those who have their passions in the best discipline." It means more than chastisement or correction, though it is often used in the sense. Its chief characteristic is that it is a force for moral training. The next is acquisition, that is the possession of fundamental facts that approximates truth. The next is assimilation, the realization of these truths in their relation to right conduct, for after all, conduct is three-fourths of life. 

Appreciation follows, for here implies an approach to the good, the beautiful and the true. The next is aspiration, or the motivation for nobler purposes, and worthy ideals. The last is expression, or the human will in operation from the kindergarten to the university. The aim of elementary education is to govern instinct into habit; that of the secondary school to direct habit into character; that of the college and the normal school is to guide character into destiny or life's purposes.

But what is the purpose of life? No word has been more variously defined than the word "life". Let us take from the book of life three instances of life as recorded there. When our Divine Lord spoke of life He stated the term in this fashion, "I am come that you may have life and life more abundantly"; now there are three significant instances in the Bible that illustrate its meaning in a rather definite way. The first, that of the Prodigal Son, who spent his substance in riotous living and in the end found nothing; the next, that of the Rich Young Man, who wished for Eternal Life, but would not part with his riches; of his ultimate fate, the Scripture does not tell us; and the last, that of St. Paul, who tells us, "I live, no, not I, but Christ who liveth in me". This is life as the Church teaches and this is the meaning and end of all true Catholic Education and the only motive the Church has for its children to meet life's purposes. "Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added on to you."

Can this life be taught as a matter of habit and eventually have an influence as development of character? Can religion be [504] taught? Let me quote here a passage from an eminent educator who spent all his life in the classroom when not at his religious exercises, the lamented Brother Azarias:

"Not that religion can be imparted as knowledge of history or grammar is taught. The repetition of the Catechism or the reading of the Gospel is not religion. Religion is something more subtle, more intimate, more all-pervading. It speaks to head and heart. It is an ever-living presence in the classroom. It is nourished by the prayers with which one's daily exercises are opened and closed. It is reflected from the pages of one's reading books. It controls the affections; it keeps watch over the imagination; it permits the mind only useful and holy and innocent thoughts; in enables the soul to resist temptations; it guides the conscience; it inspires a horror for sin and a love for virtue;—it should be and should form an essential portion of our life. It should be the very atmosphere of our breathing. it should be the soul of every action. We should live under its influence, act out its precepts, think and speak according to its laws as unconsciously as we breathe. It should be so intimate a portion of ourselves that we could not, even if we would, ever get rid of. this is religion as the Church understands religion. Therefore does the Church foster the religious spirit in every soul confided to her at all times, under all circumstances, without rest, without break, from the cradle to the grave."

We may safely make this assertion, that it is only in the religious atmosphere that character can be developed. Years ago, the famous Munsterberg laid it down as a principle in education that the child, not the subject of study, is the guide to the teacher's efforts; what the child was and would become is the real test. Not what he knows. It is true that we want our children to cope with life's material interests and in the struggle for existence we want them to receive the better things in life; but the chief concern is first that they be real, sincere Catholics. In America to-day where the chief concern is for social preeminence, wealth, power, this striving for higher ideals should be more stressed in our schools and your Catholic men and women of character should show these qualities that reflect the Catholic spirit and tradition. Character rightly developed will bring about all this, [505]

"The term character has been variously defined. It is the great word introduced into the theory of the aim of education by Herbart, who himself received it from his predecessor, the Sage of Konigsberg, Immanuel Kant.

"It is Kant who says that the only absolutely good thing in the world is a good will. The great German idealists, Fichte and Hegel, take up the strain that the end of education is the formation of character, of moral character. The great common sense of mankind always held that the head must not be educated at the expense of the heart. The feelings of worth attaching to the life devoted to goodness demand that character form a permanent constituent of the educational ideal."

Character, says an eminent Catholic writer, is the human will in operation in which life is dominated by principle. In other words, it is the established will. We all know the meaning of conduct, human conduct, but how variously that term can be defined. After all, conduct is the result of our habits and might be defined as the moral average of that total. The essential ingredient in character is, as Sully observes, the fixity of disposition in the right directions. In its earliest form, character is but little more than the sum of all the hereditary instincts of the child; as the intellect and will develop, the meaning attached to character becomes more specialized and it is made to refer to those acquisitions like independence and finesse, which are the product of voluntary exertion. 

What we mean by character is a good or virtuous disposition of the feelings and the will; hence the reason for stating that it is established; established in the truth, the realization of which enters into our lives, and shows in our conduct. Now character is known by conduct and conduct is the result of habit. But character in fact, is less the sum of our habits and tastes than the possession of a will that is strong, enlightened, just, good, capable of coping with events; and a character thus constituted is the ideal of moral education. And what is the will? By many writers it has often been confounded with desire and this is wrong. Desire is blind and fatal. The will is reasonable and controllable. It concerns itself with that which seems can be attained, for this reason the will is not always in proportion to [506] our desires. In several in incompatible alternates, only one can be willed.

Many of the impulses of young children and moral weaklings never get beyond the stage of desire. Action is often arrested from fear of consequences. A number of impulses arise and maintain a state of conflict, which paralyzes action. To overcome this a painful effort is necessary. And we all know that it is only the grace of God that can cope with a situation like this. Hence it is, that the only atmosphere conducive for a complete and real development of character is the religious atmosphere.

A very close relation exists between motive and intention. The motive of an act is that which induces us to perform it. It denotes the impulse that precedes volition; in short, it is the final cause which moves the will, and here again, we repeat, no matter how education may help to mould character, it has its birth, its continuance and its permanence in something without which education is as nothing and that something, the everything, is religion.

In conclusion let me add, never in the history of the United States have we more need for men of character, Catholic men, than we have to-day. Michael Williams in his recent work, Catholicism and the Modern Mind, has brought out this fact with special emphasis. If as we have stated, character is less the sum of our habits and tastes than the possession of a will that is strong, enlightened, just and good—capable of coping with events and these events and situations are arising every day, so that we have need of men of character, Catholic trained men to cope with these events and it is only the man of character that can emerge from battle without being tainted. Governor Smith's answer to Mr. Marshall is a case in point, and the final utterance of Marshal Foch illustrates the matter in a manner truly sublime.

The deep realization of the truths of Catholic faith translated into terms of conduct leads to the full and complete development of character, for if it be true that character is life dominated by principles, such a life will react on those with whom we come in contact; man's self, apart from his mere physical body, consists in his peculiar organization of instincts and habits, in common [507] language this constitutes his personality. We can infer from it what he will, as we say, characteristically do in any given situation. And a particular organization of instincts and habits is depended very largely on the individual's social experience, on the types and varieties of contact with other people that he has established. Give such a man a training in a religious atmosphere, in terms as I have quoted from Brother Azarias, and he cannot, will not go wrong. That some have done wrong and gone the way of all flesh only proves the rule. And where one falls, a hundred are daily in the market place, waiting, because no one has hired them.

The following authors and their works were freely consulted in the preparation of this paper:

Educational Psychology . . . Thorndike

Human Traits . . . Erdman

Introduction to Philosophy . . . Dubray

Psychology for Teachers . . . Benson, Lough, West

Psychology in Education . . . Roark

Means and Ends of Education . . . Spaulding

Development of Personality . . . Bro. Chrysostom

Character Building . . . C. S. Coles

Essays Miscellaneous . . . Bro. Azarias

Educational Psychology . . . Titchenor

Psychology and the Teacher . . . Munsterberg

Psychology Without a Soul  . . . Gruender

C. E. A. Bulletin (1914) . . . Development of Character

C. E. A. Bulletin (1919) . . . Development of Character

C. E. A. Bulletin (1921) . . . Development of Character

Educational Psychology . . . Starch

Readings in the History of Education . . . Cubberly

The Formation of Character . . . Hull, S. J.

Psychology in the Class Room . . . Horne

Character Education . . . N. E. A. Bulletin (1926)

Character and Conduct . . . School Publication, Los Angeles School District, No. 80

Foundation of Personality . . . A. Meyerson

Human Conduct . . . C. C. Peters

Formative Factors in Character . . . Herbert

Character in the Making . . . H. P. Schauffler

 

 

 

 

 

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Source: Rev. John J. Featherstone, "The Development of Character in the Catholic Atmosphere," National Catholic Educational Association Bulletin 26, no. 1 (Nov. 1929): 500–507.

Francis Bredestege, "Relative Position of the School and the Other Agencies Affecting Character Development" (1929)

[455] We proceed in this chapter from the hypothesis that though the school is the first instrument that occurs to the mind when education is mentioned, it is not the first, neither in time nor in the sum of its effects nor effectiveness.

Historically, as well as to-day, the family is anterior to the school, and education in the general sense, begins in the home. The relation between parents and children is the most primitive form of learning, and also the first in which there is a union of intellectual and moral education. The first gift of the grown generation to the new, viz., the mother tongue, is named after the mother, and the next two vital intellectual gifts and most intelligible units of life, viz., the father's house and the fatherland, are named after the father.

Even now, however, we are not at the beginning of the chain. If science, and specifically psychology and biology are correct, we are far from the beginning in taking only the immediate family of the educand [sic; i.e. one to be educated] as the beginning point of the process of education. We must go far back beyond the formation of each individual unit of our social fabric. Even Emerson was only partially correct by claiming that we must begin with the child's grandfather. For a complete list of the complex array of the material we are to deal with antedates the bride and groom by several centuries. We need only point to the large amount of matter recently written on the relative importance of heredity and environment to stress the point, for this angle of the question will be brought out in extenso, before we separate after this meeting. Suffice it to say then, actually man begins his education centuries before as an individual [456] he begins his existence and his training in moral and social life. The psychological factors, the bodily conditions he will inherit, and the environment into which he will be born, these really make up agency number one.

Already conditioned then, the child meets his mother and his father, who then constitute agency number two. He steps into family life, and in the ordinary course of events, he will not be free from it, in one form or another, till he closes his eyes in his last long sleep. During at least the most malleable first six years his education is directed almost entirely either for good or for evil by this agency. Family life, then, in its widest sense, though in point of time not the first, is admittedly the most important and lasting educational instrument because as soon as life begins, and before the child has even the barest conceptions of responsibility, or an inkling of morality, there come into play the assimilations on which moral training is based, those subconscious factors of thought, desire, interest, suggestion and imitation, that arise from the intimate contacts established by the common life of the family group.

This is no place to enter into a rhapsody extolling what we carry into life from home. Sentiment has invested the home with a sanctity which under normal conditions amply justifies the verdict. Mother love and fatherly sacrifice are the miraculous commonplaces not only of all literature but equally of the savage too mentally poor to have a literature. The ties of family life are reckoned too sacred to bear rupture, "to love like a brother" is a banality in every language under the sun. In the family circles are planted and nurtured the seeds of those homely virtues that make up the warp and woof of every ordered life, reverence, love, sacrifice, faith. No matter what may be the final definition here of character, we are safe in saying that it will not depart far from this paraphrase of Bishop Ullathorne's: "Character is the natural temperament completely fashioned by the home; God makes our nature, our own home makes our character".

And still, like all things human, home can fail of its destiny. The school itself is but an extension, a corrective of the home; as such it has won its unchallenged place in our social economy. It [457] is possibly significant that equally universal with the failure of the home proclaimed by every sociological amateur and professional, is the cry regarding the failure of the school. That the home has failed must possibly be admitted. Just consider in addition to the school, the day nursery and kindergarten, the public playground and juvenile court placement, industrial home and reformatory, big brother and big sister leagues, vocational guidance movement and amusement park, the whole long list of twentieth century substitutes for the home that has failed. And the verdict of failure is supported by the attitude of the Church. In spite of the fact that she had schools of high efficiency long before the present-day omnipresent state began its career, and before the sociological meddler was abroad in the land, the Church is now the one middle-of-the-road organization, that is protesting against the continual spoliation of the home, of its sanctity, of its authority and of its place as the sun of our social solar system.

The spoliation does exist. Much of it may be due to causes with which no one can quarrel. The complexity of modern life and the scientific age in which we live have made necessary a division of labor, even in our relaxations. We presuppose that the average child spends a large part of his life in the home and we are probably correct. Still, it seems an anomaly that the modifications of family life in our complex modern civilization are such that he is not entirely a pessimist who declares that when the child is ready for school, he is already too spoiled to have the school do its best work with him. For as he begins to approach school age the child makes contacts with the corner butcher and grocer, with the movies; he has possibly been taken to see or rather endure, the local counterparts of adult interests like the Lindbergh reception, floods, possibly even murder trials; he has cultivated the acquaintance of his relatives and his parents' friends, and has even been in church on occasion; his play time with his toys and neighbor children or kindergarten group really making up the routine of his waking hours. According to Bird T. Baldwin, roughly fifty per cent of his time is taken up with sleep and about ten per cent goes for meals and other bodily necessities. From twenty-seven per cent the first year to about [458] eight per cent the sixth year, or an average of twenty per cent of his time is spent alone in physical or imaginative play. Of the balance, about fifteen per cent more goes into family and non-family play and mental contacts, and about four is taken up with the rudimentary business and social contacts that introduce him to the outside world. Supposing then, that one-half or three-fourths of the time spent alone or in personal contacts is contact with the home and the family group, and is given to mental absorptions and exercise of his growing faculties, his instincts, habits and will, we still can recognize that foreign interests, so to speak, have used up from twelve to twenty per cent of his life, or one-fourth of his waking hours. What he got from these domestic and foreign influences we shall see later. For the present it is enough to recall that they are all attributed to the home. He knows love and quarreling, selfishness and sacrifice, sickness and health, he has his code of ethics and his standards of values; in spite of his simplicity and candor, he is a calculating worldling, in spite of his baptismal innocence an adept in all the capital sins but lust and sloth. So stands the home indicted.

After school life begins, the child's use of time does not change much. Allowing ten to eleven hours of sleep at the age of seven, and eight hours at the age of sixteen, we find that thirty-eight per cent of his time is given over to sleep, and approximately ten per cent to meals and other necessities.

Of the remainder of his day, we imagine school to be the big interest. But as a matter of fact, the statistics say that between the ages of seven and sixteen, the average child spends only 186 days of the year in school and the average number of hours per day is only four and a fraction, or approximately sixteen per cent. In the case of our Catholic schools, this fraction may, perhaps, be raised to the next higher integer, in view of the close connection between church and school, through daily and Sunday Mass, first Holy Communion and Confirmation preparation, confessions, serving Mass, and in the other activities where the church character of our schools manifests itself. Supposing then that the formal aspects of his character training by the school last till sixteen years of age, it still remains that the "ten years of schooling" [459] become a small fraction of all his interests and activities from birth till the day he goes out into the world. To be exact, the school has him for sixteen per cent of ten years out of the total, and allowing another hour a day for "home study", we find that he is in school only nineteen per cent of his school life, and only twenty-two per cent of all his waking hours from infancy till his seventeenth birthday. In fairness, we may raise these figures a trifle by adding the growing office of the vacation school, the gymnasium class, the children's hour in the public library, and the reading of books from the school's circulating library. But even then, the percentage is still startlingly small.

The relative disposal of his time when he has reached the age of sixteen can be seen from the following article from the press (Cincinnati Times-Star, Mar. 19, 1929), and shows how his habits have "set" by then:

"The Industrial Education Bureau of the New York State Department of Education has been trying to find out (how boys spend their evenings), and to this end has questionnaired [sic] 75,000 boys attending the continuation schools. Of this number 12 per cent must have concluded that it was nobody's affair but their own, for they sent in no reply. Sixteen per cent said they were never at home in the evening, nine per cent said they were always at home, and 40 per cent said they remained at home for two, three or four evenings a week; night classes accounted for ten per cent.

"While Cincinnati boys have not been official quizzed, one can get a pretty fair picture of their nocturnal activities. After dinner every night the average lad leaves home for a space to foregather with other lads. At least twice a week he sees a picture in what is called the 'naborhood' movie house. Once a week he goes down town. One evening a week is spent with some group or club. When he returns late, he may turn on the radio for an interval, and then study, or at least, go through the motions thereof for a little while. He reads much more than you might think, glancing over the morning paper before he breakfasts, scanning the evening paper before the nocturnal exit, and somehow contriving to get through a novel or so a week. He is not much of a hand at cards.

"Obviously the modern lad is accumulating a far greater store of experiences, observations and social contacts than the lad of [460] a generation ago. Whether he ever mulls over this mass of raw material we shall not attempt to say."

But what we can say is that the home represents a small fraction of the average youth's guidance and character formation. Arbitrarily assuming that one-half of his play, non-theatrical recreation and other interests are in the home or its immediate environment, we have only an average of three and three-fourths hours of his waking day under home influence ,including newspaper reading, parental conversation, social and business visits, etc. We have already seen that the school gives very little more.

Greater than home and school, then, are the forces that make up agency number three, the greater group life. We have already seen that the growing child has thrust upon him fringes of social contacts, parts neither of home nor school, and ranging form his neighborhood playmate to the distant cities he visits with his vacationing parents. As he grows, there increase in number and power the common associations and forces of our institutional life, educational, religious, legal, political and economic, such as divorce, selfish individualism of public characters, the zeit-geist, organized philanthropy, organized sport, big business, etc.

Now there is still to be brought into the picture educational agency number four. We might call this group the non-professional educating agencies, to denote their indirect but formal participation in the school's function of giving information, health habits, economic training and a moral outlook on life. Specifically it is only necessary to mention as examples, the press with its variations, the lending and public library as avowedly educational, and the still more informally educational organizations like the boy scouts and girl scouts, and the large variety of well-intentioned and often well-endowed adult activities and leagues for the young, such as civic leagues, park and playground associations, civic theatres, etc. Besides them, potent for good or evil, stands the theatre, and its illegitimate half-brother, the movie.

In last place we shall mention the Church, not because its influence, at least with us is smallest, but because unfortunately its [461] influence is last with perhaps eighty-five per cent of our total population, and with a proportionate percentage of the school boys and girls of the land. With the total school population of our country (1926) in excess of 26,900,000, and with only 2,300,000 of them in private schools, we see the comparative place of the Church in its contacts on the growing mind of America. To the Church must then be added the growing influence of the weekday religious school, and of summer and vacation catechism classes. The temptation to disparage their importance as an adjunct of the Church is worth pointing out, as possibly half of our Catholic children are in public schools.

Thus then, do we group the character-building forces that surround the child: home, school, economic society, sociological agencies, and the Church. Now the chief fundamental in character-building is impression. Constancy and intensity of impression become the dominant factors in the formation of habits and ideals. Consider the stresses, the pushing and the pulling, the attractions and repulsions of this assembly of agencies all working for good or for evil in the development of the child's character. What a storm of impressions, what a crowd of examples, what a hurricane of correct and distorted attitudes, of genuine and sorry ideals rain down into the unanalyzing mind from these sources. We hear so much of the socially unfit, of the wave of youthful crime, of the bleak outlook for the future, and of the hopeless helplessness of the home, and the impotence of school and Church.

Are we justified in adopting pessimism? As Churchmen, we cannot consent to the proposition that the family, founded by nature and sanctified by God, has failed, much as individual families may fail. When we see the large number of young people passing into an efficiently and even heroically moral manhood and womanhood, we can see a new meaning in the trite proverb: There's a special Providence that watches over children.

And as school men we repudiate the statement that the school has failed. We must perhaps revise our estimate of the degree of influence the school may exercise in fact, but we must keep in mind, in the case of the school as well as of the home, that the [462] time element is not indicative of the relative weight of that influence. Home and school are still the first agencies that receive the child, and first impressions still are deepest. Much though encroachments on the past monopoly of these two educational agencies may be true, it should also be true that the power for good represented by home and school is first in possession of the child's soul, and should be able, with honest exertion, to hold it to its first conscious allegiance. Knowledge is power, and both these agencies must use their power with the knowledge that perhaps a majority of the educational instruments we enumerated above, are all but unfavorable to the work of character building and its conservation in the individual.

Another point that must be remembered is the fact, that even granted the handicap of relatively less time, the school is but the extension of the home, and that the alliance between the two is productive of a strength that is not the sum, but the product of the two. But an effective "union between the two is the first requisite for enduring success. There should be a continuous friendly understanding and cooperation, sanctified by the spirit of Christian faith and charity, and the earnest conviction of a common responsibility to God", says Monsignor Oechtering. However, when we come to analyze this union concretely, we find that there has in general not been an understanding of these reciprocal possibilities. We need only mention the Parent-Teacher movement as a belated recognition of the fact that teamwork could be improved. But in this alliance nothing will be gained by the pot calling the kettle black. The home admittedly has its faults to answer for. We have already seen the general nature of the indictment against it, namely, a surrender of its functions and prerogatives in general, and an inclination to "pass the buck" to the school in particular. And as education becomes more technical, the parent feels justified in a continuation of this policy on the score of inability to assist intelligently. Any one of our Sisters, to keep the question within our own system, can tell how much contact she has with parents in the course of the year, and how much of this precious little is due to parental wrath only. And on the other hand we know, too, how little [463] the average Sister knows the economic problems and domestic worries that result from our indoor sport of keeping up with the Joneses.

The school then, may in justice excuse itself from a great deal of the responsibility for the imperfect character building of the past, since it was handicapped by receiving no help from the home in trying to educate the already spoiled child deposited with a sigh of relief at its door. But the school, also, in its shortsightedness made a tactical error so to speak, and to this extent it cannot excuse itself. the error lay in the fact, that when the school saw that the home was not accomplishing its task in the dual work of character building, and perhaps was often not even appearing to attempt it, the school forgot its own limitations and volunteered to take over the major portion of the work, even that which was formerly the fully recognized work of the home. The nursery, the kindergarten, and the other infant interests that supplement the home, are in reality an independent unit, an ally if you will, but certainly not a legitimate part of the educational machinery as we knew it from tradition. But the school tried to make them an integral part of itself. The same thing is occurring at the other end of the elementary ladder even now. The matter of vocational guidance, and even vocational training is also an usurpation on the part of the school. These are really a successor of the apprentice system, also a character forming agency if you will, but even then a rather limited one, and an oblique one. With it the school ought to live in peace, of course, but not to make a part of the school system. Apprenticeship was originally in the home, and the advent of the factory system took it out of the home to give it to the factory master and the foreman. Nor does the fact that its original home form gave it some opportunity for character training become a reason for the school to annex it as soon as it leaves the home environment.

Now it is has only been in the very recent past that a cautious word of warning has been taken up here and there, that the school was attempting too much. Nor was the school very anxious to listen to that word, because of the implication that its over-ambition was foreordaining it to failure in its narrower and more [464] legitimate sphere, collective educational activity in the nobler sense. In that narrower sphere the school has a special opportunity of aiding the home by inculcating the domestic virtues. "It should ever strive to foster reverence, love and obedience by religious instruction and respectful deference to parental authority." But how can it inculcate for the home it has despoiled? As long as the skeleton of the home even remained, the whole process is but lost motion, if the inculcation is not based on a mutual understanding with the home as to complementary duties of inculcation and practice. So it would seem that perhaps the school as well as the home, did not understand its task in the alliance. Its ambitions outran its abilities, and in its vanity it saw not that the failures of its ally were being imputed to itself.

Another point that must be kept in mind is that it took the work of character building with woefully unfit tools. Historically, character building is not the first connotation of school life as we know it. The pedagogue of ancient Greece, and the educator of pagan Rome were but slaves who accompanied the pupil to a place where he was expected to acquire nothing more than literacy. And to-day to the man in the street, school means an intellectual relationship between a teacher and an ignorant person for the imparting of knowledge and skills. The relation between an educator and his pupil is a much later derivative, and is founded on the realization of a power for good in the educator that comes only by implication and in virtue of his personal contacts. Originally children were sent to school to learn arbitrary but necessary skills, the three R's, and it was not till the advent of Christianity, and in proportion to its vigor that the fourth R, religion, gave proof that the school also was baptized, and learned its higher destiny from the Church. Hear the average educational theorist outside of the fold to-day, and his theme will still be the same as the old pagan idea, social efficiency, not for the sake of the individual but for society, and if he mentions character at all, it is only the lubricant in the social friction. From this it follows then, that education, as a quantity production job, is possible only in so far as it is an intellectual job; as soon as you attack the moral angle you must descend to the individual. It is the scholastic [465] parallel to the pulpit supplemented by the confessional, and the blackboard supplemented by drill pad.

Parallel to this is the point that as the character training idea has been added to the function of the school, extra curricular activity has risen in the estimation of those responsible for educational practice. The inference is easy that the imparting of information, as an educational function was not able to enlist the individual as an individual, so the school has ben forced to take the educand out of the classroom into the football field, the office of the school paper, or the school traffic squad to give him the opportunity for moral training, because there he could really act as an individual and develop his character. Of a piece with this fact is also the increased emphasis on individual attention and needs in the classroom exercises themselves; as their training value was better perceived, these subjects were more and more given over to the pupil and taken away from the teacher.

What we need then is a restatement of the real place of the school in this work of character building, and a more humble recognition of its limitations. The limitation is first due to the fact that the school is primarily intellectual. And this must be borne in mind in spite of the fact that the school, just as any other agency that gives men the opportunity of thought and conduct, gives opportunity for the exercise and development of character, but it does so incidentally. Even the parochial school is only a tool in the hands of the teaching Church, and must not try to claim credit for what grace and the Church are accomplishing.

As an arbitrary institution with intellectual ends it follows that Dewey's famous statement that the school is society is only partially true, and to add to the difficulty the child coming to school is only a limited social being, both his objectives and his vision being still very narrow. Consequently the school can fulfill only partially Charter's demand to "require practice with satisfaction", because as an arbitrary and specialized agency it stops short of "generalized practice". It can go part of the way with the pupil, but the time comes when it must stop and allow the youngster to go farther in the company of the other agencies [466] we have listed above. It can instruct and warn what is to be awaited of them, but it cannot be there when the crisis of actual conduct occurs. In fact, even in school the teacher is limited by its narrow arc; as Lommen says, it can "secure an inventory of the positive conduct qualities", but only a fraction of them will be given sustained and healthy exercise in the school atmosphere; it an "build up a positive program of activities", but can oversee their realization only in a small fraction of the total opportunities; it can fall back on "an intensive reading program", "but already we are trespassing on the vicarious", and are actually calling a non-school agency to take our charge in hand. This vicarious nature of the school is then the central weakness of the school's position in the entire process of character building. 

On the other hand, the very formal character of school work is one of the factors for its power in the task. As an instructor, it gives man his moral vocabulary; it gives him an exact appreciation of moral worth and its gradations; it holds up to his gaze the great successes in moral development in the heroes of religion and history; it defines the canons of good conduct and sharpens his conscience for their better evaluation and supplies the motives for their prompt appearance in action at the fitting moment. It furnishes in this way the fundamental attitudes towards "such acts as spring from habits of diligence, frugality, economy, simplicity, contentment, punctuality, order, cleanliness and loyalty to the family circle". (Msgr. Oechtering, 1919) To these it adds very clear ideals as part of the mental equipment that will insure such action.

"The ideals fostered by Catholic Education", says the Hon. Pierce Butler in St. Paul in 1915, "elevate the importance of the individual, develop consciousness of the duty and the power of choice between right and wrong. Character, that is, morality based on religion, must be maintained and strengthened from generation to generation, respect for authority of government and for the teachings of religion, subordination of self in the interests of fellow men and loyalty to the laws, traditions and ideals of our country must continue to be inculcated as to become part of the life of every rising generation".

In second place, we must fashion a clearer idea of just what the school must put together as the constituents of the ideal character. [467] This has so far not been done, neither for nor by the school, nor has the next step, the careful grading of what is possible and desirable of the child both in his age relations, in his classroom relations and the out-of-school contacts. We can see the hodge-podge of alleged virtues and socially desirable qualities from a random selection of almost any standard volume. Witmer, for instance, (Psychological Clinic, Oct. 1922, p. 129) speaks glibly of the "six universal categories of behavior", and names "attendance and promptness, general attitude, initiative, cooperation, self-improvement, esthetic appreciation and rating in other moral qualities". Note this last pair in particular, and then try to follow the mental process by which the entire list is lumped as "citizenship qualities" under deportment, and required as a school mark on his ideal report card. Touton and Struthers, in Junior High School Procedure list as objectives of the guidance program a list which defies rational unity, namely, common sense, imagination, information, initiative, planning, reasoning, thoroughness, ambition, cheerfulness, helpfulness, honesty, industry, perseverance, self-control, self-reliance, loyalty, reliability, etc. Charters himself took a fling at the game (Journal of Education, May 29, 1924, p. 607) with a small list of cleanliness, leadership, democracy, honor, and independence.

But why continue? The one characteristic is vagueness of definition, and the lack of a reference back to a central controlling factor, what we theologians would term a cardinal or principal virtue. As a consequence, the parochial school, leaning on the infallible authority of the Church, ought to be able to blaze a clear trail here, and I understand that a beginning has already been made.

There is however still another angle to this question. After the list is made, it must be rearranged to meet the mental development of the child and his opportunities for practice as well as of appreciation. Patriotism, for instance, for him can be little more than a laying of foundations for his later life, and a building out of indefinite ideals, which can come to definiteness and fruition only as circumstances dictate, as when he has assumed the responsibilities of cheerful tax-paying, of choosing between two [468] dubious candidates for office, and of giving equal attention to the Volstead Act and the traffic laws, and of the other homely virtues that are being disguised as patriotism in our civic texts. A beginning has also been made in this. Parker, for instance (Types of Elementary Teaching and Learning, p [sic] 502) to mention only one, clearly indicates that some civic-moral training may be through actual behavior, and some that can be only through discussion. Coupled with a frank religious tie-up, such as is possible in our parochial schools, results based on an understanding of the limitations of school procedure ought to be genuine, granted a real teacher. Outside our own system, the real difficulty has always been, to make religious instruction an integral part of the subject-matter, a blessing we do not always advert to. The lack of a dogmatic foundation and an adamant sanction can have no substitutes, for "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". (Ps. 112)

In conclusion then, it would seem that with home and school separated there is not hope for final success, between them they ought to dominate the field, if not in time at least in effectiveness. But they must be a unit, in their outlook, in their cooperation, and in a candid acknowledgment of the forces that are allied against them, because the mathematical factors make them a minority. The exact mathematical proportions cannot be given in decimals, of course, probably never will be, for it is in another guise the old problem of heredity and environment. The final results between home and school on the one side and the non-school agencies on the other, are a problem of the sum result of concomitant factors. Suffice it to say then, that ,granted the best possible contribution by the school, the number of exponents of the highest type of character must increase, because the average is affected by the individual items, and the school as the ex professo determiner of the knowledge element of character composition and development can give us the truth regarding virtue, and the "truth shall make you free" to exemplify it and realize it in life and in action.

[469] Bibliography

School and Society, May 9, '25, p. 543: School not the cause of the Present Immorality.

School and Society, June 13, '25, p. 695: Importance of Attention to Character Development in Pre-School Children.

Educational Review, Nov. '26, p. 180: Faults of Children are Due to their parents.

Mental Hygiene, Oct. '26, p. 735: Effect of Home Environment on Children's Conduct.

School Review, Oct. '26, p. 594: Data on Extent to which Vocational Schools Prepare for Vocations.

Religious Education, Feb. '27, p. 148: Correlating Church and Home.

Religious Education, p. 176: Defects of Character Education in the Public Schools.

Religious Education, May. '27, p. 477: Religious Education and Catholic Schools.

Journal of Educational Method, Mar. '27, p. 291: Educating for Desirable Attitudes in Conduct (Lommen).

Bird T. Baldwin: The Pre-School Child. Riverside Press.

Baldwin and Wallace: The Nursery School. Ibid.

Elementary School Journal, Dec. '24, p. 264; [sic] Two Factors in the Teaching of Ideals. (W. W. Charters)

W. W. Charters: The Teaching of Ideals.

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Source: Francis J. Bredestege, "Relative Position of the School and the Other Agencies Affecting Character Development," National Catholic Educational Association Bulletin 26, no. 1 (Nov. 1929): 455–469.

William Lawlor, "The School in Society" (1929)

[450] The services of financial experts need not be requisitioned to have us realize that society has spent fabulous sums in an honest effort to educate her citizens. In her endeavors to provide suitably for the physical, mental, aesthetic and moral wants of youth she erects and maintains at tremendous expense, schools not only for normal children but for the sub-normal and the abnormal ones—the physically handicapped: the blind, the deaf, the under-nourished, the mal-nourished, the crippled and the speech defectives. It is interesting to recall that many hundreds of years ago Plato, in his famous work, The Republic, wrote: "It is by education that ideal society once established is to be maintained"—a sentiment practically re-echoed by H. G. Wells' recent declaration that, "Education is the one instrument by which civilization can forestall catastrophe". Modern society feels strongly that her preservation and advancement will be effectively accomplished if the schools will but succeed in inculcating in their human charges not only a vivid appreciation of society's needs but also the definite realization of the obligation which rests upon adolescents of appropriately equipping themselves to the end that these needs may be adequately fulfilled. There is nothing new in this philosophy. Man has ever tried to adapt himself to the problems arising out [451] of the peculiar circumstances of his environment. The difficulty, however, is and always has been to determine precisely what it is that constitutes society's greatest needs. The varied conclusions which have been arrived at on this point by the peoples of all nations and through all ages have been the direct resultants of the diversified ideas and ideals which peoples have entertained concerning life's values. Primitive man acutely feeling the need of self-preservation concerned himself primarily with securing food and personal protection. His training was simple and individualistic. To the Spartan military prowess was supreme—hence Spartan boys were trained solely for the state. The Athenian held that culture and beauty were the great desiderata of life; and he educated his progeny accordingly. The epicurean with his hedonic [sic] notions of things and the stoic clinging to an entirely different philosophy sought, each in his own way, to accomplish his pet objectives. Were you to-day to ask a mechanic, a merchant, a professional man and a scholar to indicate present society's greatest needs, each being dominated by his personal appreciation of life's real meaning would undoubtedly proffer an answer quite at variance with those submitted by other members of the group. Secular educators to-day, however, appear to be in perfect agreement that man's greatest need is "social adaptation". In up-to-the-minute educational books and periodicals, the much used expressions: "Trained for social efficiency", "Educate children for social service", "Education seeks the harmonious adjustment between the individual and society", "Socialize the individual", plainly show that present-day school leaders believe that the chief objective in the educative process is the felicitous adjustment of man to his social environment. Irving E. Miller in his book, Education for the Needs of Life, very categorically states that: "It is the function of education to assist pupils in the attainment of right judgment, appreciation and control of social values".

As Catholics we cannot but disagree with the dictum that social functioning is the chief purpose of the educative process. Though in no sense underestimating the important part which social values play in the scheme of things human, nevertheless, [452] we know that man's greatest need in life is that which vitally concerns his immortal soul, namely, the attainment of eternal salvation. For this was man created; for this was he redeemed. Now it is the duty of the Church, and especially through the instrumentality of her Catholic school to assist the human soul, in every way possible, to realize its destiny. It is well to note, however, that this soul-saving educative scheme of ours very specifically embraces other objectives—social, cultural and vocational. In training a child to love God and his neighbor, to be honest, chaste, and obedient to lawfully constituted authority, we feel that we are contributing to society a service than which there is no greater. Realizing that "Knowledge is power", we aim to impart solid intellectuality, not by attempting to stock youthful minds with a host of cold and unrelated facts, but by presenting to children a well-organized curriculum of fundamental subjects on which alone it is possible to erect the superstructure of genuine culture. Our educational intent, vocationally, is not to fit pupils for specific trades or professions, but rather to awaken an appreciation for vocational activities and to train children so that they may be prepared to make speedy and efficacious adjustment to whatever occupation they may choose to make their lifework. Our general method of approach to the maintaining of pupil discipline in the classroom is along traditionally rigid and straight-laced lines.

But a world preponderatingly [sic] non-Catholic cares little about our educational philosophy and still less about our pedagogical methods of exemplifying it. Being in no way constrained to concern themselves with professedly moral or spiritual considerations in their teaching work, secular educators distinctly visualize the existence of an ever-increasing materially-minded civilization and simply do what they can to meet its urgent demands. Nor is it an easy task which besets them. We live in a country as plastic as it is mobile. New factors are constantly arising and functioning, while old ones recede, disintegrate or disappear. Nothing has contributed so much to the growing complexities of our social order as has industrialism. The home, at one time, was the industrial center. When  machine power was introduced, however, the industrial center shifted from the home to small mills. Nor [453] has power machinery confined itself to the factory—it has found its way into practically every avenue of business, and is accomplishing with marvelous accuracy the work of brawn and brain alike. Increased land, sea and air facilities of transportation became necessary to handle the ever expanding volume of machine products, and almost over night, have these agencies sprung into being. By reason of these available means of quick communication peoples from all quarters of the globe have been brought into close relationship with one another; and a higher standard of living has made what was considered a luxury yesterday a necessity to-day. To keep abreast with such dynamic conditions, Kilpatrick, in his Education for a Changing Civilization makes a strong plea for such an educational policy as will correct what he terms "The intellectual-moral lag behind material advance". And the school, he maintains, must grapple with the problem alone; because the home and the community have ceased to be contributing elements. In other words we are told that the only possible solution of this vexing problem is to work on the principle that "the school is life and not a preparation for it. And as such it is our solemn duty to have children live actual life experiences in the process of which there will be formed habits, attitudes and skills which are essential to adult life in a forward looking nation." To this end there is recommended a rather flexible curriculum; and it is almost needless to say, that ardent advocates of some phase or other of the "life experience" idea have succeeded in somewhat crowding, if not confusing the scholastic program. Subjects formerly regarded as ideal for sharpening the intellect and the memory are often taboo now—the argument being that mere faculty training gained in one subject too frequently is incapable of being carried over into other fields or experiences. The watchword of the moment, therefore, is "nothing in the curriculum that holds forth no actual life value". Pupil passivity, as it is commonly referred to, is no longer in good form. Seething activity on the part of school children is the thing that is now called for. The newer notions of things educational demand that pupils walk about, talk, whisper, etc.—the inference being that [454] when children are noisy they are profitably busy, and that when they are huddled together in whispered conversation they are de facto discussing vital subjects. Perhaps they are. The teacher, on the other hand, is supposed to play a far less conspicuous part in classroom affairs than was her wont in times gone by. The children are not expected to take her "say so", nor for that matter, any one else's; they are to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions. The suggestion sounds well enough but the plan is not without its difficulties especially when we consider that adolescent minds are involved. Kilpatrick says that authoritarianism or the practice of yielding submission to traditional authority, has been steadily on the wane, and that consequently, educational changes are positively demanded. It is recommended that pupils govern themselves without the aid of magisterial direction. But is there not danger that this business of self-activity and self-efficiency may produce self-centered creatures—children feeling that they are a law unto themselves—and thus defeat the purpose of our experiment to socialize the individual? To sum up then, let it be stated that there is and always will be honest differences of opinion as to the best manner in which schools may discharge their obligations to society. That there is room for improvement in present policies and management of schools nobody with even a slight acquaintanceship with the matter will attempt to deny. Of course, we Catholics, if for no other reasons than financial ones, are absolutely constrained from adopting educational practices which the State may deem expedient to put into use. But what about other things which, to many, may appear to be merely matters more or less fantastic? How far can we or should we go with them? Perhaps a middle course would be best to follow.

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Source: William F. Lawlor, "The School in Society," National Catholic Educational Association Bulletin 26, no. 1 (Nov. 1929): 450–454.