The Illusion of Mr. Shearer
572 THE COMMONWEAL October 9, I929 their closets are trembling with fear. And when it seemed as if the United States and Great Britain might reach an agreement tending to alter the character...
...The introductory lecture will be by Professor Edward Kennard Rand, of Harvard University, one of the guiding lights of the Mediaeval Academy of America...
...The subject of liturgical drama will be dealt with by another eminent authority, Professor Karl Young, of Yale University...
...It is likely enough that, sniffing a patriotic danger in the talk-laden air, he merely set out to provide himself with ways and means calculated to dissuade humanity from walking over the edge of (to his mind) a diff...
...A course of public lectures in the history of sacred art has now been announced, to begin on October 25, and to continue thereafter with two lectures monthly until April 25...
...Ralph Adams Cram will speak in January on architecture and Mr...
...This question needs to be weighed in conformity with facts...
...Not only will they be open to the general public, but a special effort is, in fact, being made to bring them to the attention of the general public...
...Facts dissolve in the presence of ridiculous spectres...
...In April Mrs...
...Obviously here is a realm in which every assertion sounds credible, in which any kind of rumor looks like fact...
...Shearer...
...And it is with genuine dismay that one beholds sober gentlemen, accustomed to business enterprise on a grand scale, placing their interests ahead of the destinies of the nation and their minds in the thrall of tomfoolery...
...Meanwhile, waiting for the dawn to illumine (as it may eventually) the dark alleys which appear to make the nation's capital the most gigantic and fancy-full speakeasy on record, one may be grateful for the airing which the Shearer matter is receiving...
...It is conceivable that Connecticut might rival Belgium in activity and resources...
...The Reverend T. Lawrason Riggs, chaplain of the Catholic Club of Yale University, will give the December lectures on rubrics, Mr...
...Bancel La Farge in February on sacred paintings...
...We cannot recall any other course of lectures which more happily combines fundamental importance and a high degree of popular interest...
...The list of speakers is in itself the best guarantee of this...
...But hard though it be to accept such a declaration, the fact remains that the prevalent image of our government has very much in common with an old and horror-laden romance...
...Shall it be conceded that the day of progressive inner development is over, and that the future lies in the conquest of imperial dominion...
...And so it is eminently necessary to reckon with future relations between Connecticut and California, as symbols for all the sovereign states...
...California may house a people more numerous than the population of Germany...
...Mysterious agents whisper to each other in the dark, "super-salesmen" loom majestic with power over the representatives of the people, and (for all we know) the least of our senators has bartered his soul to Satan at a handsome figure...
...Under conditions such as have been revealed through the Shearer inquiry, all careful concern with such plain truths is impossible...
...572 THE COMMONWEAL October 9, I929 their closets are trembling with fear...
...Centralized as our governmental and financial agencies have become, the citizen too frequently identifies them with the whole country, forgetting that the mere geographic outlines of America point the way to a totally different future...
...People happen to be vitally interested in a program which will curtail the chances of a new war on a gigantic scale, They have been convinced that competitive ship-building, like competitive armament of any kind, would tend to make the United States a party to aggression in world affairs...
...In March there will be two lectures on sacred literature by the Reverend Cornelius Clifford, whose competence to deal with this subject is thoroughly established...
...The Commonweal will deal with this important matter in more detail in a subsequent issue...
...WEEK BY WEEK I NTRINSIC importance and a high degree of popular interest do not always combine harmoniously in the treatment of art and letters by writers and teachers and when religion also enters into the Of the combination, the general public is apt to Highest pass by on the other sid~ of the way...
...THE lectures will be given in the Pius X Hall at i3oth Street and Convent Avenue...
...Shearer appealed to interested parties as just the right thing...
...The lecture hall, while admirably adapted to such a purpose, is not large, and it is very probable that only those who at once make application for season tickets will secure accommodations...
...And when it seemed as if the United States and Great Britain might reach an agreement tending to alter the character of ships to be built in local navy yards, the ineffably mysterious program of Mr...
...Justine B. Ward, to whose initiative the Plus X School of Liturgical Music owes its origin and much of its high success, will bring the course to its conclusion with two lectures on liturgical music...
...Not every fighter goes to battle so handsomely attired, so eager-and so unperturbed...
...Really, one cannot greatly blame the very imaginative Mr...
...Meanwhile, we have no hesitancy in requesting all our readers who are in or near New York to communicate with the Director of the Pius X School of Liturgical Music, Convent Avenue and West I33 d Street, New York, N.Y...
...In a measure, none of us finds the narrative quite credible...
...Importance Nevertheless, such a happy combination is precisely what has been effected by the Plus X School of Liturgical Music, of the College of the Sacred Heart...
...Underneath the pacifism which this attitude sometimes implies, one discerns a popular struggle Over the shaping of a definitive national policy...
...In noting the circumstance that no fewer than three of the distinguished speakers are not members of the Catholic Church, no further proof need be adduced in support of the statement that the sacred arts, even when brought as these lectures will bring them, within the limits of Catholic Christianity, are the precise reverse of sectarian in their subject-matter and in their appeal to the interest of the cultured public...
Vol. 10 • October 1929 • No. 23
