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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