Week by Week

...BESIDE this field-day in the northern city, the goings-on at the Paris Sorbonne fade into compara- tive paleness and insignificance...

...Yet it re-mains just as necessary as ever to warn large groups of people against thus hoping to establish communica- tion with their dead friends, or to find a subterranean proof of immortality...

...Besides which, it is a good thing for education and the social well-being that college men come together and attempt to concentrate upon what they hold in common...

...S PEAKING of offenders, youthful and otherwise, there is substantial material for thought in the public commendation just bestowed on the Catholic Charities Probation Bureau, whose design and program lies so near the heart of Cardinal Hayes, by the New York State Probation Commission...

...One at least is a large and obvious target, while it is almost too much to hope that the monocle firmly held in the orbit of another did not tempt at least a random tribute at a time when class consciousness was running high...

...THE Boston Herald's story of how Harvard psychologists investigated the deeds of Margery, the medium, and her spirit voice, Walter, ought to do quite a little towards reviving interest in what is respect- fully termed "the psychic...

...the malice of religious orders and de- vout cults...

...It does not lose in significance from the fact that his words are uttered on what many believe is the eve of a reas-sembling of the General Council prorogued in 187 o. I F the thirst for knowledge at Glasgow University bears any proportion to party feeling, there is no doubt at all-at which of the European seats of learning high-spirited youth is most faithfully carrying on the intentions of the founding fathers...

...But the really amazing thing about Walter and his ilk is their level of culture...

...It seems that this com-mon dissoluteness of conduct is the "psychic" circum- stance which is most difficult to account for...

...The political parties which have deter- mined her course of action during the past fifty years have never been groups pledged to some particular economic or social policy, but organizations which have elected men with the battle-cry of abstract ideas...

...G. K. Ches- terton as "runner-up...

...Not a little of this spirit on the part of the sects is due to a break- down in the dogmatism of earlier generations artd the substitution of live-and-let-live for a lively faith...

...Anyone who was privileged to spend the past few months in Rome must bring away an ineffaceable vision of the Church's universality and of its appeal to all nations and classes...

...If the nation permits its greatest institutions of higher learning to sink to the level of mere business colleges--and that that is the present trend these articles make plain--there will be an irreparable loss to American thought and culture...

...AMONG the most interesting archaeological dis-coveries which have been made in recent times, is that of three sites in southern China which had been oc-cupied by palaeolithic men, one of them on the Yellow River and another on a tributary of the Hoang-ho...

...Its work has been commended by the Holy Father, and many members of the American hier-archy have added their commendation...

...Boring, and take refuge in the destructive criticisms of experts like Houdini...

...M. GOYAU'S account, in the Paris Figaro, of his own visit and the rare privilege of a special audience accorded him--a privilege, it should be added, which his unwearying championship of the Catholic cause has well earned him--is a rather interesting document, if only because it proves that the cause of social jus- tice, which lay so near the heart of Leo XIII, is no less a preoccupation with his successor in the chair of Peter...

...The dean takes another view and has some hard words to say as to "the incredible ignorance" displayed by the unsuccessful majority, with a few of whom Chateaubriand and Rousseau (both dead ones) are convertible celebrities...

...and perhaps centuries of poli- tical, social and religious change must pass before one can sail down the Danube into a region of peace...

...Underneath the cliques of politicians, secret societies, dubious financiers, and bureaucrats to whom the per- petuation of their caste system is the paramount issue, lies the real strength of a worthy France--the land- owning, land-working farmers...

...I N reporting the twenty-seven ghosts which once came scratching into one of the famous Mr...

...An article by Dr...

...It matters little who follows...

...for they pulled the hostess's skirts so hard as to break the gathers...

...THOSEwho care to may see, in the type of missile chosen, a subtle recognition of a good deal that uni- versity education is coming to stand for in our day of intellectual confusion...

...Its job is not a matter for an easy half-holiday...

...France can at all times feed herself...

...Her efforts for the criminal, at least, are a convincing answer to this comment...

...In a recent interview with M. Georges Goyau, the French academician, His Holiness Plus XI, put into memorable words the impression left upon his mind by these humble visitors "ad limina...

...He has found, to begin with, that a cleft by no means imag- inary separates him from those who have been edu- cated outside the Church...

...The great and often ominous mystery of southeastern Europe remains as mysterious as ever...

...it can also enable her to look forward towards years of widening service, when sacrifice shall bring richer fruit...

...Among Anglicans there is a party which openly acknowledges that "the glorious Reformation" was a good deal of a failure and they would fain unite with the parent stem once more...

...It would be unkind to press the fragile parallel too hard and surmise what an egg may be said to stand for that has chosen to addle in its nest rather than hatch out...

...and he has often been forced to concede the indifference of his own brethren to the especial stamp of cultural training which is his heritage from university life...

...Indeed, such was his zeal and his success that he was set upon by fanatical schismatics, who, with axe and bullet, cruelly put him to death on November I2, I623...

...NEARLY a quarter of a century has elapsed since the call to the wealthy man to deal justly with his poorer brother contained in the "Rerum Novarum" reached the world like a rift in the clouds of industrial menace...

...We may refuse to credit the testi- mony of such men as Dr...

...The election of a Lord Rector has just been held on the banks of the Clyde, and has resulted in the election of Mr...

...Such a one was Saint Josaphat Kuncevyc, archbishop of Polotsk in the seventeenth century...

...none ever confronted a more whimsical and baffling phenomenon than the "teleplasmic arm" which gamboled through a series of s6ances...

...Whether all this fragrant confetti was confined to the student body or whether a certain proportion came the way of the candidates, we are not told...

...For a great deal of work remains to be done...

...It will lay bare certain of the problems which the Catholic educational system is attempting to settle...

...Pride and prejudice prevent them from making full admission of the impossibility of their present position, but more and more they are coming to the realization that Rome does supply something which they sadly lack...

...But they are inter-esting none the less...

...After Caillaux...

...Hume's s~ances, Hawthorne remarked--"These ghosts must have been very improper persons in their lifetime, judging by the indecorousness of their behavior even after death, and in such dreadful circumstances...

...No human remains were found, but a number of stone implements, hearths, and the bones of many animals, including a complete skull of a rhinoceros...

...More of it is probably due also to the fact that Protestant- ism has been gradually losing its hold upon the mass of our people, and many denominations are strongly inclined to abandon older prejudices in favor of some sort of union...

...The result was not attained, so press despatches inform us, without the consump- tion of zo,ooo bad eggs, together with "truckloads" (number unspecified) of herrings in an advanced stage of disintegration...

...This convention will weld the federation into a unit...

...The words used are so emphatic that comment on them is hardly needed...

...The Pontiff," says M. Goyau, "is confident that the jubilee year will be one 'of sanctification and sanctity.' In his very voice, as he spoke, there was an intonation that rendered his words doubly significant...

...Will he be followed by a superior man, or a political make-shift ? IT is the fate of France to be living, at the moment of her severest crisis, under an experimental form of government...

...the glory of republicanism...

...It shows her conception of the much-abused term "scientific treat- ment" as applied to those who by their very failure, have become charges of the state...

...The extension of the theory to universities would not be amiss...

...THE fall of Finance Minister Caillaux comes at a time when the franc has fallen to the lowest level in post-war history...

...It will, above all else, perhaps, deepen the conviction that colleges in which religion has a home are among the best sources of supply for that moral integrity of which the nation stands so much in need...

...Its first convention, arranged by energetic officials with Mr...

...His ability lies in adroit conciliation...

...Could M. Caillaux have returned to Paris bearing substantial concessions from the United States, he might have managed to balance the budget with the aid of taxes and a consistent juggling of loans...

...It is no exaggeration to say that the best probation work for adult offenders in the United States is done by this bureau...

...but the presence of a deep-rooted psychological trait is truly mysterious and not to be pooh-poohed among spirits any more than among mor- tals...

...From among every schismatic body there has been a faithful remnant united to Rome and those who have espoused her cause have been valiant in defense of their principles...

...Food that is entirely unfit for consumption may, after all, be useful food for thought...

...The ideal of unity has never been entirely lost in the East...

...Wal-ter was, to say the least, Rabelaisian: he juggled profanity more lightly by far than the little trinkets supplied for his disporting, and his poetry was rather noticeably below the level of the contemporary Ameri- can output...

...The Catholic Church has always, of course, held firmly to the ideal of unity...

...By that time public neglect would have given him an opportunity for study of the old intensive kind...

...Youth must be served, and, with so much light to throw upon the problems, sexual and otherwise (though not very much otherwise) of their age, the tradition that delays the message of adole- scence by requiring years of study in the classical field, to say nothing of the theft of time from the cinema and jazz orchestra, is becoming an intolerable burden...

...It would be hard to put into fewer and more cogent words, the old Catholic and Christian concep...

...No one can believe that the public genuinely desires state education to become mechanical, commercialized, and sterile...

...But as things went, he was obliged to stand merely on his merits--which are a reputation for cleverness, a manifest will to accomplish as much as his party tenets will permit, and some knowledge of the world's finan- cial methods...

...The series of articles by Dr...

...Degrees might be bestowed on demand and their holder called up to justify them, say fifteen years later...

...This is scientific, first and foremost, because its science is, as it must be to be operative at all, based upon the things of the...

...As for the herrings, is not Charles Maurras fond of pointing out that when a fish goes bad he goes bad commencing with the head...

...His aid is daily invoked by all members of the union...

...It is only a short time ago that everything looking like combination was imme-diately suspect...

...In this a remarkable change has come over public sentiment within the past few years...

...Of all those who have made the city of the seven hills their goal, none seem to have so touched the paternal heart of the Pontiff as the pilgrims rep- resenting labor federations from the big manufactur- ing centres, and whose visit often represented sacrifices of precious money and time--that capital of the poor man...

...Austen Chamberlain by a minority vote, with Mr...

...No group of students ever proceeded with more scientific rigor...

...THERE have long been rumors from inside circles that all is not well with our state universities...

...tion of reparation as opposed to mere punitive retalia- tion which society inflicts because it is easier to punish, or even pardon unintelligently, than to "think in the heart" and "consider" the lot of the erring brother or sister...

...Saint Josaphat is the great martyr of unity and has been designated by Pope Plus XI as the patron of the Catholic Union, a society for the reunion with Rome of the separated Christians of Russia and the Near East...

...An egg is an age-old and accepted symbol of immaturity...

...Like all his brethren in "spirit-land," he seems to have been educated by Mephlsto...

...But the spirit in which the labor of organization has been undertaken lends optimism to the wish that Catholic alumni may find their rightful place in American activities, aided and fortified by those in authority...

...THE year 1925 has been a year of pilgrimage to the Eternal City from all parts of the world...

...But that would not matter a great deal at the age of forty...

...Are they to be sacrificed because the general public is too indolent to do more than pay its educational taxes without inquiring whether these taxes lead to the de- sired result...

...Honored by the presence and patronage of His Eminence, Cardinal Hayes, and afforded excel- lent opportunities for better mutual acquaintance under the leadership of important members of the clergy and laity, the delegates ought to leave knowing the greatness of the task to which their organization is pledged...

...You may finally provide a mechanical explanation for the doings of Walter and his associates, and juggle tables as well as any of them...

...This notion is still unpopular outside her fold, but sentiment in its favor is growing...

...The Catholic college man has been lonely in a very special way...

...It is very difficult to equate the implements with the classical series of Europe, but it would appear that, roughly speaking, they are of Mousterian character, and thus belong to the class connected with such skulls as that at Neanderthal and that recently discovered in Galilee...

...The federation can foster the remembrance of alma mater...

...The future is far safer for such a country than for many other industrial nations...

...Even where this is not possible it is recognized that mutual understanding and the spirit of friendliness are better than cut-throat competition...

...It will now be seen that his ministry changed nothing, bettered nothing, accomplished nothing...

...S YMPATHY in this country will go directly to the student body...

...We join the officers of the federation in hoping that as many men as possible will attend the gatherings...

...But we commend both, in passing, to a certain type of the youthful mind which has been led, by the indulgence of the public, to philos- ophize over a process that former generations used simply to term "sowing wild oats," and let it go at that...

...This holy man labored earnestly during his short life (he was only about forty at the time of his death) to bring back the Ruthenian people to the Faith...

...Cooley points out the only way in which reclamation of those who have fallen into crime through misfortune and evil environment may be accomplished...

...We believe that its plan holds out the promise of excellent achievement...

...They gave evidence of a hope that his children--that all his children--will realize how religion, in uniting them with God, unites them among themselves, and will feel stirring within them the flame of social charity to which in a recent encyclical he called attention...

...On a Thursday fixed for oral examinations, competitors for the treasured bacca-laureat arrived at the historic university to find that only three or four out of forty had satisfied the faculty in their written examinations, and in their indignation at finding ancient thorns still persisting in the path of learning, "took possession of the classrooms and raised so much din that the dean was forced to send for half a dozen policemen to clear them out...

...Whatever the cause, one no longer finds sectarianism extolled as an ideal and the spirit of union is in the air...

...spirit, and the return to God's image of the likeness the world has marred and defaced...

...This metaphor may also be safely left to take care of itself...

...Perhaps because the material response was outwardly meagre, an impression has been allowed to get abroad that it was uttered rather in the nature of a pious hope than as a delimitation of duties binding under sin...

...the works of Zola and the dreams of Jaur6s...

...Edward Dore at their head, will stage, beginning with November 6, a brilliant three-day program at the Hotel Commodore, New York City...

...A COMMON charge against the Church is that its public utterances, undxceptionable as they may be, are rather in the nature of pious homilies than practical schemes for carrying the Sermon on the Mount into our modern life...

...If there is something in this trait, humanity has nothing to gain from association with it...

...Robert F. Keegan which The Commonweal is publishing in this number treats the matter in greater detail than space in this section allows...

...After his canonization, which followed in due course, his feast was ordered celebrated on Novem-ber I4...

...The stern likelihood is this--France will follow her slow, steady progress towards the posi- tion of a minor nation unless she can solve, in one way or another, the temperamental tangle which has dis- integrated her tradition and squandered her vitality...

...This has slightly muffled the urgency of the message...

...Yet such an unwelcome conclusion would seem to be in sight unless immediate consideration is given to the subject...

...What Pope Plus did not add, remarks M. Goyau, is that, owing to his determination to see each group separately and to send none away without at least a few words from his lips, nearly a thousand speeches have been made by him since Christmas...

...T HE National Catholic Alumni Federation means to be considerably more than a respectable title for something dead...

...Our "anti-trust" laws, orders of the courts dissolving great corporations, the strenuous re- sistance offered to suggestions of railroad mergers and the like all bore witness to the feeling of the country in that regard...

...Our colleges will always be handicapped by inadequate re- sources and prestige if graduation at the end of four years means goodbye forever...

...Other institutions would in time arise to perform the neglected duties, but meanwhile what of the present generation of students in the state universities...

...While calling for more speedy and drastic treatment of "known criminals," Mr...

...The undemocratic control of state educa-tion by small groups of business men who are out of touch with the needs of faculty and students presents a problem which demands careful attention within and without the universities...

...Events follow one another so rapidly that it is impossible to assert what remedial measures, if any, will now be adopted by the French government...

...We do not know how much the newly formed fed- eration can accomplish...

...The world which neglects its saints is more than willing to explore its satanisms...

...The proof that the cause of the poor man lies quite as near the heart of Plus as of Leo, is~ comforting amid our present discontents...

...There has been a great deal of loose talk about "leadership" and the duties of the educated citizen---loose because it has never taken into account the isolation which graduates soon tumble into when their degrees have been framed, and which reduces their intellectual in- terests to a wabbly minimum...

...The complaint of those who see their sheepskin "deferred for another intolerable term is the natural one that the papers were "too stiff...

...and we feel that it rightly regards the educated life as a form of that chivalry which, as Burke said, "without confounding ranks has produced a noble equality, and handed it down through all the gradations of social life...

...A recent editorial in the New York Times suggested that, in fairness to the high spirits natural to youth, no court should impose a sentence upon any culprit below the age of forty-five...

...Therefore, in this time, they are incapable of seeing the nation's ,problems a~s so many concrete pledges of weal or woe which must be dealt with effi- ciently and firmly...

...Religion, too, has felt the impact of this new idea UNITED COLLEGE MEN and apart from the fact that unity is God's will for His followers, men are beginning to feel that some measure of corperation among those who profess Christianity is the only possible method...

...The Orthodox churches of the East, confronted as they are with the d~b~cle of Russian Christianity and the utter failure of a too great dependence upon state support, are beginning to entertain a considerable degree of reunion sentiment...

...Edwin J. Cooley, shows how far are its practice or aims from the loose paroling justly held responsible for so much of our swollen crime figures...

...And even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has not produced a spirit that would receive a fair mark in deportment at even a very lax boarding school...

...A point of considerable interest is that these dis-coveries have been made by two Catholic priests, Fathers L. and T. de Chardin...

...The description of the aim of the bureau by its chief, Mr...

...His belated studies, it is true, might convince him that he had been all wrong...

...It boldly declares that the Church is essentially one--makes unity a mark by which the true Church is distinguished, and further de- clares that such unity can be had only by communion with the see of Rome...

...It is "through the channels of spiritual development, family, health, education, thrift, recreation, employment, and the long look ahead...

...They have discussed the form of government...

...Ernest Sutherland Bates, be- ginning in the present issue, reveal a situation that is profoundly serious and fraught with dangerous pos- sibilities...

...I love to see these long processions of manual workers, whose calloused hands are eloquent of the dignity of labor...

...Now all this is changed and we are inclined to welcome as signs of a greater efficiency efforts on the part of those engaged in the same line to get together...

...There are now councils held by those who are business rivals while many inter-business organizations thrive...

...They cannot but realize how far flung still is the net that once broke under the miraculous draught...

...EAST AND WEST T HAT this is the day of consolidation and union is evidenced in all departments of life...

...They share an attitude towards virtue and even refinement of manner which assuredly has little in common with the ideals of Harvard...