classes and conditions and a mutual love will be established. Therefore, by stimulating the revival of parish life in our country these bulletins will become powerful agents in bringing about the Christian renaissance.

III.

When the parish bulletin finds its way into the homes of parents who are ignorant of the ways of the Church, it convinces them of the necessity of sending their children to Sundayschool. Of late France has devoted much attention to the Sunday-school question and publications such as those of M. l'Abbé Brousolle, editor of La Semaine Religieuse de Paris, shows great progress in this direction. It is certain that, for a quarter of a century, the zeal expended by Sunday-school teachers priests of the parish and well-disposed laymen-has not been prolific of the deserved results and this is partly due to the anti-religious atmosphere pervading many of the primary institutions, an atmosphere that stifles all Sunday-school impressions in the child mind. Nor is this all. Unfortunately we are too strongly inclined to hold the hostility of others responsible for what is brought about by our own weaknesses and shortcomings and it is perhaps because we have too often said: "The lay school is to blame," that we have deferred the unpleasant task of correcting and improving ourselves. Now, however, there is no more time to be lost as the closing of the congréganiste schools, which alas! have been inadequately replaced by free schools conducted by lay instructors, leaves the youth of France daily more exposed to the baneful influence of the official lay school.

It is no longer fashionable for anti-religious pedagogues to attack Christian dogma but rather Christian morality which they condemn as being egotistical and totally absorbed in the idea of individual salvation. They accuse Christian asceticism of restricting human energies and quenching all enthusiasm for social life and to our morality they arrogantly oppose that of solidarity which, they say, inculcates the spirit of social devotedness. "Christian morality," they claim, " is purely nega

tive, purely prohibitive: it consists only of interdictions and contracts instead of expanding the human being, etc."

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Now you know, as well as I, that for the successful refutation of these charges, it suffices to have read and meditated upon the Sermon on the Mount which is pre-eminently an invitation to social action and a stimulus to all the energies of the soul. Today our Catechism teachers are aware that the formulae known "Commandments of God" and "Commandments of the Church," while indispensable for establishing and properly directing Christian morality, are not sufficient for the child leaving the lay school and that to prevent him from becoming the dupe of a certain anti-Christian philanthropy which is but plagiarized from the Scriptures, some of the Gospel pages must at once be interpreted for him. The "Commandments of God" embody the moral code of Sinai; the "Commandments of the Church" represent the disciplinary part, while the Sermon on the Mount, annotated for Sunday-school pupils, will vindicate Christian morality against all the attacks to which it is subject and reveal the social side of their religion and all that the Scriptures indicate for the alleviation of human misery and the ennobling of human intercourse. The circulation of popular editions of the Gospels published by La Croix and the Abbé Garnier, show that the Gospel propaganda is being recog nized as an absolutely necessary complement to catechetical instruction.

The multiplying of places of worship, thereby facilitating the access of the multitude to God; the increase, in small parishes, of periodicals that prudently carry the word of the priest into the bosom of the family; the organization of the propaganda of the Gospel as a means of defending Christian morality and awakening in souls a certain Christian social sense; behold the late phenomena witnessed within parish boundaries. and thanks to which there has already been laid a sub-structure for the building of Christian society.

In a future letter I shall entertain you with another series of no less striking phenomena which I shall call social Catholic action.

GEORGES GOYAU.

EDUCATION IN IRELAND.

I. THE PRIMARY SCHOOL SYSTEM.

i. CLASSES OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

The population of Ireland in 1901, according to the Census of that year, was 4,458,775, of whom 910,490 were from 5 to 15 years old. The latter figure about 20.5 per cent. of the entire population-may be taken as the number of children of primary school age. The same authority gives the number of primary schools in Ireland in 1901 as 9,157; this, however, does not comprise establishments in which a foreign language was taught to an appreciable extent. Of these "superior" schools there were in 1901 490, the total of primary schools being thereby brought up to 9,647.

The primary schools of Ireland may be divided into two great classes: (1) National schools, endowed by the State, of which there were in 1901 8,569; and (2) other schools, which have no State endowment. These latter may be again divided into six sub-classes: (a) (Protestant Episcopalian) Church Education Society and Parochial Schools (130); (b) schools under the Christian Brothers and other Catholic religious communities (97); (c) school under other Societies or Boards (250); (d) orphanages (26); (e) private schools (85); (f) superior schools (490).1 These superior schools I should say, are almost all Intermediate Colleges, in which about one-third of the students are over 15 years of age.

The schools which receive no State endowment 2 do not call for special notice: like the private schools in other countries they are conducted by the owners or trustees as they think fit,

The figures in parentheses represent the numbers of the different classes of schools, as given in the Census returns for 1901.

'That is, they do not receive any part of the annual grant for National Primary Education; the Intermediate schools and the orphanages are almost all in receipt of public funds from other appropriations.

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without any public interference or supervision. In 1901 they were attended by 69,874 pupils, as against 602,209 being educated in the National schools.

ii. THE NATIONAL SCHOOL SYSTEM.

The National System of Education was started in 1831 "to afford combined literary and moral, and separate religious instruction, to children of all persuasions, as far as possible, in the same school, upon the fundamental principle that no attempt shall be made to interfere with the peculiar religious tenets of any description of Christian pupils." "It is the earnest wish of His Majesty's Government, and of the Commissioners, that the clergy and the laity of the different religious denominations should co-operate in conducting National schools." In these sentences, from the opening Chapter of the Rules and Regulations of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, will be found two principles which, by interacting on and checking each other, have contributed very largely to make the system what it is-nominally secular or at least undenominational, but really almost as denominationally religious as the schools of the (Protestant) Church Association or the Christian Brothers.

The first principle is that of combined literary and moral instruction. In Ireland, as in America, it has been the policy of the State to have children of the different religious bodies educated in the same school, in the hope that this close association in early years might result in a spirit of mutual toleration, diminishing the religious and race animosities by which the nation was distracted and its progress impeded in the past. But how safeguard the children from proselytism and undue

This remark does not apply to orphanages in receipt of public funds; I hope to deal with the Intermediate Schools in a special Article. 'This document, which may be had from any Irish book-seller, supplies almost all the information one needs about the Irish National School system. I shall refer to it in future as R. and R. Statistics are supplied by the Reports of the Commissioners, which are published annually and may be had from any Irish book-seller.

influence of teachers of a different religious persuasion? A possible safeguard might be found in confining the education given in the schools to matters purely secular, leaving moral and religious instruction to the home, the churches, or places provided for that purpose by the different religious bodies. This did not at any time commend itself to the Government of Ireland, who wished rather that moral as well as literary instruction should be given in the schools by the teachers, the moral lessons to be based on the Holy Scriptures. The Government deemed it possible to confine this Scriptural teaching to principles admitted by all denominations of Christians; not only the clergy of the different denominations, however,

5 "The principles of the following lesson, or of a lesson of a similar import (if approved by the Commissioners), should be strictly inculcated during the time of united instruction, and a copy of the lesson itself should be hung up in each school :-Christians should endeavor, as the Apostle Paul commands them, to live peaceably with all men (Rom. xii, 18), even with those of a different religious persuasion.-Our Saviour, Christ, commanded His disciples to love one another. He taught them to love even their enemies, to bless those that cursed them, and to pray for those who persecuted them. He Himself prayed for His murderers.-Many men hold erroneous doctrines, but we ought not to hate or persecute them. We ought to hold fast what we are convinced is the truth; but not to treat harshly those who are in error. Jesus Christ did not intend His religion to be forced on men by violent means. He would not allow His disciples to fight for Him.-If any persons treat us unkindly, we must not do the same to them; for Christ and His apostles have taught us not to return evil for evil. If we would obey Christ, we must do to others, not as they do to us, but as we would wish them to do to us.Quarrelling with our neighbors and abusing them, is not the way to convince them that we are in the right, and they in the wrong. It is more likely to convince them that we have not a Christian spirit. We ought, by behaving gently and kindly to every one, to show ourselves followers of Christ, who, when He was reviled, reviled not again (1 Pet. ii, 23).”— R. and R., n. 19.

Admirable sentiments, no doubt, though some of them might logically result in the disbanding of armies and navies. If I do not mistake, some Irishmen were fined or imprisoned recently for distributing literature advising young men not to enlist in the army, the only raison d'être of which is to return evil for evil. The inner meaning of the Commissioners' Lesson is, of course, that the mere Papist Irish, who have received so much evil treatment, do wrong to hit back. It is so like the Saxon, who smites his enemy, or tries to do so, vigorously enough, whenever he himself is hit or what is not the same thing-thinks he is.