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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
5
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
(Written for The Bulletin by a Layman.)
Christian Education is the development of the whole
nature of man, his spiritual as well as his material
faculties, his moral as well as his mental traits. It is
the building of human character to correspond with
human nature and human destiny, along the lines of
everlasting happiness and truth. It begins with the
simple and obvious truth that there are two distinct
orders in the universe, the natural and the supernat
ural, and to correspond with these man is created
with a body and a soul.
To the unbeliever to all who deny or doubt the
existence of the supernatural, Christian education
must seem superfluous; but to the believer, and espe
cially to the Christian, it is clearly necessary in order
to fit man for his true destiny in Heaven. The con
sistent Christian would sooner think of blinding one
of his eyes, or of paralyzing one of his arms, than
he would think of hindering or neglecting the devel
opment of the spiritual and moral faculties of his
being.
Having denied the existence of God and the human
soul, the unbeliever consistently decries Christian edu
cation, and on the basis of his dark unbelief he is
justified. But he is without justification who believes
in the existence of the human soul and yet neglects
or refuses to attend to its harmonious development
and training.
Christian education does not oppose secular edu
cation, but complements it. Secular education teaches
many branches of knowledge touching material things,
but it does not teach so much as the name of God.
It teaches biology, embryology, physiology, psychol
ogy all about the body; but not so much as the ex
istence of the soul. It develops the material side of
human nature, but neglects the spiritual side. It
teaches the mind and draws out the mentality, but
does not train the heart or discipline the will or culti
vate the moral traits of men and women. If good
men and women come forth from this schooling, as
all will admit, it is not because of the neglect of these
things, but in spite of this neglect. Not language, or
mathematics, or commercialism which secular schools
teach make men good, but the fear and love of God
and the hope of Heaven, which secular schools can
not teach.
Christian education is not opposed to public schools
or to free schools, but it does not consider as suffi
cient, or as truly rational and human, any system of
education that is devoted wholly to developing one
side of human nature, while it leaves the other side
dwarfed and neglected. Christian education stands
for the human development of the whole nature of
man.
We are told that the first and greatest duty of man
is to love God with his whole heart and his whole
soul and all his strength and all his mind, and it is
plain that to do this requires the faculties of man’s
whole nature; and to do it well requires the training
of those faculties.
Christian education is necessary not only to the
true development of the individual, but also to the
orderly constitution of society. No government can
long survive the neglect of Christian training among
its citizens; family ties will be broken and moral
habits abandoned, law and order will die, liberty will
be crushed, and civilization buried by the destructive
onslaught of passions unrestrained. For Christian
education is religion and without religion man lives
an aimless and unworthy life like a rudderless and
dismantled ship in the night—drifting! till some wild
scurry strikes it and the tumbling waves beat it
down.
Christian education does not begin or end with the
school room; it begins before the child is born and it
never ends. Nor is it all contained in a book of in
structions; it is in everything that touches the life
of humanity from its dullest needs to its brightest
hopes. The sum and substance of Christian educa
tion is the training of children to associate all things
in their growing lives with a thought of God and
Heaven. To do this is the plain duty of all who have
been crowned with the blessing of parenthood. There
is no duty of man more holy, there, is none more
imperious or lasting, there is none that calls for more
effort or more prayer, than the duty of parents to
teach the child to know God and to strive for Heaven.
This is not sermonizing. A layman may speak out
the truth as well as another, and it may be written
here as well as elsewhere. Nor is this a plea for re
ligious vocations, but for something that will stamp
Christians with a character distinctively their own
and set them apart like the early Christians, an ex
ample for unbelievers. Such a character is proper
to us. Our holy Faith, with its sublime mysteries,
its sanctifying sacraments, its inspiring liturgy, its
grand symbolism, not to speak of its divine mission
and its infallible authority, is a wonderful institution,
with a magnificent spirit and a marvelous history.
It incomparably excels any other institution in the
world;—why does not the conduct of our people re
flect more of this singular greatness than it does? A
chief reason is that either in the school or out of
the school the spirit of Christianity has been allowed
to languish, and the spirit of infidelity where it has
not crept into our lives, has come to surround them.
We need to create a new atmosphere in our coun
try, and all signs indicate that the time to set about it
is now with us. Here lies the work of all organiza
tions of Christians. It appeals in a singular way to
Catholics, and most urgently to Catholic laymen. The
world is looking to us for the fruit of the Church’s
mission. “Show me your work!’’ cries America, and
it is for us to answer the cry. We can answer only
by good example and God-fearing lives, in patience,
courage and strength. We can acquire these virtues