Foundation Doctrine
464 THE COMMONWEAL September II, 1929 The diocesan organ, as a medium for conveying the general news of the diocese, and the activities in which the ordinary wishes to interest the faithful...
...It has sometimes been pretended that the great literature of Elizabeth can be explained as a response to the success of the explorers and the admirals...
...464 THE COMMONWEAL September II, 1929 The diocesan organ, as a medium for conveying the general news of the diocese, and the activities in which the ordinary wishes to interest the faithful should be supported...
...5) Where there is need of greater school accommodation the state may, in default of other agencies, intervene to supply it...
...Whether they ever will, now, we are determined not to inquire...
...but it is almost inevitable that this movement will be resumed sooner or later...
...2) The state is entitled to see that citizens receive due education sufficient to enable them to discharge the duties of citizenship in its various degrees...
...For partly because of them we have been so busy congratulating ourselves on being the creators of a new literature that we have had no time left in which to create it...
...For the rest it was too beautifully clear that the work of the previous decade, combined with a great expansion of activity in science and industry, called for a great literature...
...Mistaking restlessness, possibly, for energy, they were satisfied that the necessary talent was at hand...
...And each day there were new scientific miracles to inspire the writer to celebrate an age so completely superior to, so satisfactorily separated from, any which had preceded it...
...There are other Catholic publications of a broader scope than these, which should also have a place in the Catholic home...
...These remarks, both in general and in particular, have application to the deep interest which the proclamation of the English bishops should have for Catholics here in America...
...Where or when that guidance and direction is weak or faltering, still more when it is ignored or anyhow neglected, both the Church and society must suffer...
...Contrariwise, when it is vigorous, timely, emphatic, and in addition has been put into effect by the clergy and the laity, the Church and society gain great goods...
...Irrespective of the question as to whether this compulsory socialized system is or is not a good thingmfor to debate that matter would be outside the knowledge of The Commonweal--it is certain that, in England as in the United States, there has been a remarkable and disturbing growth of the movement wholly to secularize education, and to "nationalize" it, in the sense of entrusting its main supervision and direction to the federal authorities...
...3) The state ought, therefore, to encourage every form of sound educational endeavor, and may take means to safeguard the efficiency of education...
...Gorham B. Munson, this is one of the reasons for the failure of his generation to live up to what was expected of it a decade back...
...So important indeed is the statement that The Commonweal believes it in order to reproduce it in full...
...Well, for twenty years at least we had been as familiar with the work of science as he could have wished...
...It was the issuance by the bishops of England and Wales of a proclamation of the principles underlying the Catholic attitude on education...
...We of The Commonweal have tried our best to chart and guide our course in relation to practically all the social topics and problems discussed by us in the light of the authoritative and inspiring doctrine laid down in that document...
...There is no more valuable medium for correcting and eradicating misbeliefs and erroneous opinions than the printed page when properly presented, but we cannot hope to see developed a strong Catholic press and literature unless we encourage it by our support...
...There never has been any proof that literature is so connected with whatever men may be doing in other fields of endeavor that its creation is inevitable whenever there are adventures afoot, battles being fought, changes in the crafts and sciences...
...Above all, in our conceit we would not be taught-after a mere year or two of prentice work...
...Half a dozen able men had prepared the general consciousness for a literature which would express our times rather than be a reflection of the literary experiences of the nineteenth century...
...We should not be fooled in that way again...
...We feel this particularly in view of the fact that the general press apparently ignored the whole matter, though the statement is one which should be known to that general public as well as to Catholics...
...4) To parents whose economic means are insufficient to pay for the education of their children, it is the duty of the state to furnish the necessary means, providing them from the common funds arising out of the taxation of the whole community...
...We feel that for the present at least our editorial duty is fulfilled by giving what wider circulation we can effect to the discussion and study of this splendidly lucid statement of fundamental principles in a matter of vital concern, and also by directing our readers' attention to the equally lucid commentary upon this remarkable document contributed by Father Vincent McNabb to the July and August numbers of Blackfriars...
...LIFE AND LETTERS IS just as well that the general enthusiasm with T which the immediate future of American letters was regarded some years ago should give place to something almost the opposite...
...7) Thus a teacher never is and never can be a civil servant, and should never regard himself or allow himself to be so regarded...
...We have in mind when we say this the pastoral letter sent forth by the American hierarchy after the close of the world war...
...For, after all, no matter what modifications or compromises or special arrangements may be entered into by Catholics in the United States or in England, or Italy, or Mexico, it remains true that nothing short of the complete application of the principles maintained by the bishops can be the ideal which Catholics aim to achieve: "(I) It is no part of the normal function of the state to teach...
...The formal declaration of principles or teachings by the hierarchy of a country is always a momentous thing...
...We know that other Catholic journals have done the same thing and that a very considerable number of our most influential clergymen and teachers have made the bishops' joint pastoral the principal text-book of many sermons and writings and much school work...
...For the assurance of authority, we remembered the prediction of Mr...
...In a recent issue of the Saturday Review of Literature he writes: "We wished to do new things without questioning very much whether we had acquired the power to do old things...
...Munson's disappointment with the present literary output in America, and it is a disappointment the more acute because the hopes of ten years ago were so unshakable and high...
...Upon the guidance and direction of the bishops of the Catholic Church, themselves led and directed by the Bishop of Rome, the health and progress of the Faith which means also the progress and health of society in general, within and without the visible organization of the Church---depend more than upon any other human factor...
...It made no difference that the adventurous activity of England in the late sixteenth century had been approximated in many other times and places without being accompanied by any literature to speak of...
...Above all, where the people are not all of one creed, there must be no differentiation on the ground of religion...
...At the time only a few men saw that those hopes were based on signs not altogether reliable...
...The price we have paid for this early independence is to find ourselves now inadequately prepared for the next two or three decades of what should be our mature serious work...
...With this statement no one can disagree...
...As Father McNabb points out, in addition to the significance which any utterance of the episcopate of any country should possess for the citizens of that country, in this particular instance the fact that they issued their statement on the eve of the last general election in England, the result of which was to bring the Labor party--which others prefer to term the Socialist party--into power, gives the whole matter the most sensational interest...
...It was popular to suppose that since one of the characteristics of the Elizabethan age had reappeared, however changed and strangely garmented, in our own times, the rest would follow...
...but it may do so only 'in default of, and in substitution for, and to the extent of, the responsibility of the parents of the children who need this accommodation...
...It is not the intention of The Commonweal at this time to discuss the problems which would be connected with the application of these principles, either in England or in the United States...
...identifying, rather hastily, the progress of mechanics with an advance of the spirit, were sure that the environment was congenial...
...This is further increased by the fact that, according to Father McNabb, England has a system of education which is "compulsory and socialized to a degree almost without parallel in the world, even in Soviet Russia...
...It was always being said that the war had not only made the world eager for achievements of the mind and the spirit, but offered in itself the materials of art...
...And according to Mr...
...It is true that in the United States, at least, under the present administration, there seems to have set in a helpful reaction which may for some time delay the advance which had been so marked toward the setting up of a federal bureau of education...
...Therefore, what the bishops of England and Wales have said possesses its application to the American situation, because what they say is based solidly and irrefragably upon principles which are common to all Catholics in all parts of the world...
...FOUNDATION DOCTRINE HAT sturdy and salty champion of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the English Dominican friar, Vincent McNabb, has been directing attention, in articles in Blackfriars, to an event which at the time of its occurrence passed without attention or comment, but which in his view was one of the most important social happenings of this century...
...Most of us share Mr...
...Ten years ago this was a very popular explanation...
...that discovery and conquest had "enlarged the souls" of all Englishmen...
...Whatever authority he may possess to teach and control children, and to claim their respect and obedience comes to him from God, through the parents, and not through the state, except in so far as the state is acting on behalf of the parents...
...6) The teacher is always acting in loco parentis, never in ]oco civitatis, though the state to safeguard its citizenship may take reasonable care to see that teachers are efficient...
...It made no difference that Drake and Frobisher and a half a dozen other most romantic figures had gone neglected by men of letters while Shakespeare pored over Plutarch, Froissart and the chronicles of Holinshed, or while Ben Jonson, writing directly of the contemporary scene, saved his most ridiculous r61e for the soldier...
...But we also think that much more should be done to diffuse and make operative the great and helpful social and intellectual benefits of that document...
...When hopes run too high, most of us are impatient with discipline and impatient for achievement...
...We were familiarizing ourseIves with new circumstances of living, and would produce a great new literature...
...The phenomena of nature had already become more strange to many of us than the marvels of our laboratories, but these latter had not yet contributed prominently to literature...
...Wordsworth about the place of science in letters...
...What was overlooked, of course, was the example of history...
...But in so doing the state must not interfere with parental responsibility, nor hamper the reasonable liberty of parents September It, I929 THE COMMONWEAL 465 in their choice of a school for their children...
Vol. 10 • September 1929 • No. 19
