Whither the Child?
Sholl, Anna McClure
December 29, 1926 T H E C O M M O N W E A L 209 administrator, Benjamin L. Lear, of Washington, evi- dently an attorney, to whom he sent a statement of Kosciuszko's estate in this country,...
...Nothing on wheels, one would think, can ever traverse that last half-kilometre stretch of rough, half-perpen- dicular road which, from the village of La Beccia, where the carriage from Bibbiena halts, leads up to the entrance to the sanctuary...
...of artistic treasures La Verna can only boast two or three Della Robbias ~admirable examples of his work, but not alone worth a journey for the general student of art...
...To what purpose the courts decided to devote all the funds of Kosciuszko's estate, or into whose hands the money finally found its way, it is difficult to de-termine...
...His final accounting, on December 7, 1838, showed the fund to have in-creased to $45,575...
...It is a method that really educates...
...The next administrator appointed was George Bumford, whose final accounting on June 7, I847, showed a balance of $47,oo...
...Our Archbishop has decided that the only possible way is to have lay volunteer teachers supplement the work of the public schools outside of school hours in our own buildings...
...The wind is a terrible lover, Old trees remember much...
...dear to Poland, and to every other nation where the highest type of gentleman and friend of liberty is revered...
...Being usually a fundamentalist and a puri-tan with an inherited distrust of the Church, he is a hostile challenge to the rural Catholic, who is all the more in need of the information which would enable him to answer Protestant charges, questions or ob-jections...
...But today conditions are very different...
...By ANNA McCLURE SHOLL T HE Church's task of training humanity for celes- tial citizenship has always had an intimate bearing --since human nature is not constructed in bulkheads --on the adaptation of men to the social life of their day, to their commercial development and international understanding and good will...
...and for the spiritual education of the children, especially the children of the foreign-born, and of those children in the public schools whose intellectual training is practically severed from religion...
...These are so complicated that no clear evidence as to the purpose to which the proceeds of Kosciuszko's estate were devoted can be obtained from them...
...The entire matter was ultimately transferred to the Orphans' Court in the District of Columbia, and the records are now preserved in the clerk's office at the Supreme Court of the district...
...It draws out the unknown from the known...
...She has a method which is as different from the old memory method we studied catechism under, as the teaching of geography today is different from that of fifty years ago...
...Kosciuszko was indeed a man of great heart and noble character, whose memory is dear, not only to his own countrymen of Lithuania, but dear, as Jefferson said, "to the people of the United States...
...The countryman from time immemorial has been a conservative...
...and the rural Protestant does not as a rule share the indifferentism of some of his city brethren...
...M O N W E A L December 29, 1926 LA VERNA OF THE STIGMATA By JOHN STAPLETON O F THE many thousands who, from all parts of the world, have been visiting Assisi in this Franciscan year, comparatively few, probably, at least among the foreign pil- grims, have gone on to La Verna, the Sanctuary of the Stig- mata...
...for the protection of the immigrant...
...But naturally, it is to Assisi that the world has looked in the past months of remembrance--and certainly to that vast host of those whom we may, without offense, call the non-Catholic philo-Francis- cans, the Poverello connotes Assisi and nowhere else...
...Upon their proper introduction to their coun- try depends much of the civic and national soundness of their social and political future...
...and following the spirit of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, one of whose admirable works is the Civics Catechism for the incoming foreigner, which is of such a high order of excellence and so impartial and detached in its state- meats that it has been adopted by several non-Catholic religious organizations in their welfare work...
...The Faith in itself can withstand the fiercest attacks of modern infidels, just as it has withstood the shock of persecution throughout the centuries...
...To make the faith of Catholics intelligent...
...We do know, however, that in I826 a school for Negroes, known as the Kosciuszko School, was established in Newark, New Jersey, at an initial cost of $13000...
...The frescoes here of episodes in the Saint's life are of the seventeenth century, far inferior in historical interest or artistic value to any work at Assisi...
...The complexities of this side of her mission have varied, of course, with the characteristics of different ages and nations...
...That is the great need of today...
...Great numbers of our children in New York, then, are not getting the Catholic training that they should, either in the home or in the school...
...The statements submitted from time to time disclose that when Lear's administration began on January x6, x 823, the estate amounted to $I7,o99...
...It has been said that La Vema is difficult of access...
...It is not only that, obvi- ously, Assisi is far more closely associated with the biography of the Saint...
...Then a question may arise how far the will can be executed compatibly with the laws of Virginia and Maryland, which regard with jeal- ousy the education of that description of persons [Negroes] to the extent provided for by the will...
...It is no reflection on the spiritual glories of the main sanctuary to say that while many motives might drive the visitor to Asslsi, La Verna is comparatively rarely visited by any except those who, without preoccupation of art-study or historical scholarship, wish to understand more of the Saint, and pierce the secret of his spirituality...
...That means we must use some other and extraordinary way of preparing them to meet the religious environment of today...
...Jefferson's predictions that the execution of the trust would take a longer time than he had to live, were more than verified...
...In a long letter to Jefferson, Lear wrote : I shall place the funds far enough out of my own reach to avoid the embarrassment above mentioned, and what is scarcely less dangerous, in these peculiar days of im- moral influences, the temptation which no one ought to encounter unnecessarily, since we have seen how many strong men have yielded...
...and in this era, and in the United States especially, she is dealing with problems of citizenship foreshadowed, indeed, in other commonweals and centuries, but never on such a scale or with such world-wide implications...
...If the will should be defeated on such ground, the funds would probably be subject to a law Of Maryland which provides that all funds remaining in the hands of executors or administra- tors and which cannot be appropriated legally to any other purpose, shall go . . for the support of schools...
...WHITHER THE CHILD...
...And so may it always be...
...Among the units of the National Council, the New York Archdiocese has peculiar problems to deal with upon whose successful solution may depend much of the city's future strength and prosperity...
...The importance of this work is obvious, particularly in its bearing on the relations of Protestants and Catholics in the rural districts, where religious tolera- 21o T H E C O M tlon is not a shining characteristic of the inhabitants...
...Even with both motor-road and hotel, however, the final stage of the pilgrim's journey is steep and difficult enough to impress the mind with that sense of devotion that comes from remoteness...
...But the faith of individual Catholics may easily fall, because they have really misunderstood their faith, have not grasped it intelligently...
...Only slow, heavy oxen, dragging timber on sleds, or donkeys with panniers of bricks, or firewood, or food, were to be seen on this side of the rock...
...But in a municipality so dominated by the common effort to overcome the physi- cal conditions peculiar to that city, there is not much time left for the religious suspicion of the neighbor...
...There are thousands of non-Catholic and even anti-Catholic educative forces beating upon our people...
...BORGHILD LUNDBERG LEE...
...That is due principally, I think, to the lack of Catholic schools rather than to the preference of Catholic parents for other schools...
...Hitherto, he has been severely discouraged...
...It is true that the king of Italy, prominently associated with every important stage of the Franciscan celebrations, went to La Verna last September, and that many thousands, chiefly Italians, visited the place during that month...
...For this reason, a training class is necessary for those who can teach, and we have been fortunate in securing Mother Bolton of the Cenacle to take charge of this...
...At the meet- ing of the Archdiocesan Council at the Hotel Plaza on December 6, the fact was brought sharply into prominence that in New York City the Catholic immi- grants necessarily form the pivot of welfare work...
...But the work for the child is still more important than that for the adult...
...it is also partly due to the fact that ba V~ema is much more difficult of access and has figured far less in art than the Umbrian city...
...The reports of the county directors at this meeting wthere are seven counties in the diocese, besides the three which cover .New York City--bear witness to the widening Catholic interest here and in the rural districts in the study clubs for the better education of the laity in Church history and doctrine...
...In New York, the gulf between the Catholic and the Protestant is just as wide, and their essential diverg- ence remains unchanged...
...His successor, the time of whose appointment is not clear from the records, was Louis Johnson, who submitted a final accounting in t853, showing a balance of $5,6oI...
...When one pays a visit to La Verna, the reasons for this comparative obscurity become dear...
...The new road which the king of Italy opened at the time of hi~ visit, will make the journey easier, and there was, indeed, some anxiety among the friars (it is the Friars Minor who have sole charge here) that this would attract the mere tourist...
...The National Council of Catholic Women has as-sumed as its foremost task the training of good Amer- ican citizens, fashioning them largely from the immi- grants and their children...
...This year there is a hotel, admittedly a facility for the excursionist, but also an assistance for those pilgrims who cannot make the journey in those few weeks of dement weather which, in all the year, are vouchsafed to this lofty, bleak spot...
...There has been no Giotto to carry the image of La Vema into millions of minds...
...Arriving daily at the port, they must be guided and protected until they have found their parish home, and have learned to clothe their ancient traditions in new American forms without loss of faith or of religious fervor...
...December 29, 1926 T H E C O M M O N W E A L 209 administrator, Benjamin L. Lear, of Washington, evi- dently an attorney, to whom he sent a statement of Kosciuszko's estate in this country, amounting to $I7,- o99...
...The mind of exceptional concentration or spiritual receptive...
...And he has laid this heavy responsibility upon the Council of Catholic Women...
...His Eminence Cardinal Hayes, who honored the meeting with his presence, was attending what has been the direct outgrowth of his singular zeal for the relief of the poor and unfortunate...
...For the country as a whole, we have about half our children in our own schools...
...Father J. Elliot Ross, speak- ing on this subject at the Archdiocesan Council meet- ing, said : "There was ~t time when nearly the whole of life was Catholic...
...Comparing one diocese with another, New York has approximately a third as many children in Catholic schools in proportion to the Catholic population, as the diocese having the highest proportion...
...The tr The wind is a tender lover, Young trees quiver under its touch...
...That hallowed spot had its time of intensest devotion two years ago, the seven hundredth anniversary of the date, September I4, I224, when the Saint, in the oft-quoted words of Dante, "on the harsh rock between Tiber and Arno, from Christ did receive that final seal which his limbs two years bore...
...Until recently there was no accommodation near the sanctuary---only a small unpretentious inn in the village half a mile below...
Vol. 5 • December 1926 • No. 8
