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Fordham University; the Very Rev. David W. Hearn, S.J., President of St. Francis Xavier's College; the Very Rev. P. J. Hayes, D.D., President of Cathedral College; the Rev. Brother Edward, F.S.C., President of Manhattan College; the Rev. Anthony Lammel, P.R.; the Rev. Dennis J. McMahon, D.D., P.R.; the Rev. Thomas McMillan, C.S.P.; the Rev. Thomas A. Thornton; the Rev. Joseph F. Smith; the Rev. Thomas J. O'Brien, Brooklyn, N. Y.; the Right Rev. Joseph F. Mooney, D.D., V.G., Chairman.

The delegates of the Catholic Educational Association represented Parish Schools and Institutions containing over a million students. In the discussions much practical wisdom was shown and a desire to utilize the best results of modern pedagogy, particularly in teaching the secular branches of knowledge; while never ceasing to affirm the supremacy of the spiritual element in the child's life, in accordance with a recent statement by the Rev. Edmund T. Shanahan, D.D., of the Catholic University.

He spoke strongly against the materialistic tendencies of the times and the social and economic systems responsible for them, and a plea for a higher appreciation of the individual and a loftier estimate of life. He said in part:

The trend of thought and endeavor in our day is away from the spiritual and the personal and toward the material and the physical. The rapid advance of science during the past fifty years has contributed much to our ease and comfort, but has not correspondingly improved the quality of our manhood. We have learned to control the forces of nature much more effectively than to shape our own conduct. It is only natural that we should have the defects of our qualities.

Our ways of thinking and acting have been affected by the era of material prosperity in which we live, so much so that the word "honor" has an air of the counting-room about it, and the type of man who fills the pub. lic eye is he who adds to the sum of human wealth.

The cause of it all is not far to seek. The spiritual and moral value of man has been forced out of consideration in the interests of trade. We are now witnessing a crucial instance of this tendency in the factitious transfer of moral responsibility from personal individuals to impersonal corporations. A public evasion of justice upon so large a scale shows how little Christian ethics has penetrated into the structure of our civilization.

It is a high-spirited age, needing the bit and bridle much more than the whip and spur, and needs no type of man more than the organically complete and developed individual.

We have become so infatuated with the idea of progress that we have not stopped to inquire into its definition. It is this one-sided understanding of what novelty means that has cheapened our ideals, deadened our moral and spiritual sense, and made man remain stationary while the material world about him is steadily on its way to betterment.

Principal Walter B. Gunnison, of the Erasmus High School, Brooklyn, discussed one of the most important questions on the programme of the National Educational Association, which held its annual convention recently at Ocean Grove, N. J. Dr. Gunnison argued that the time and energy of principals should be given to teaching in preference to administrative work.

A certain amount must be given to parents seeking advice, and others disposed to shirk responsibility for the stern performance of duty in regard to their spoiled children. He will find many to approve this outline of a principal's duties:

First-The art of teaching involves many things, and one of these is the necessity of keeping alive one's interest in the imparting of knowledge.

Second-A man in charge of a high school must direct and adjust the working of specialists in many branches. There still remains the fact, however, that a principal should represent sound and accurate scholarship in some line.

Third-The most valuable duty of a principal is to have his pupils, not by name or number, but to know them so that there is established, however imperfectly, the kindly and friendly relation that exists between the parent and child.

Fourth-Again, closer than the intimacy between pupil and principal should be the intimacy between teacher and principal. The real success of an institution depends not on one but on all. The educational czar should understand that he is an anomaly in these days, and is beset with the same dangers in the educational world as his prototype in the political world. He may succeed for the time, but his crown is the target for every missile, and will remain in place only because of a Cossack cordon of official red tape and bureaucratic inefficiency.

Fifth-Again, the assumption of simple direction and supervision is a dangerous one, in that it too often leads to a feeling of superiority and dogmatic infallibility which is humorous to the one who knows the facts.

That we may, therefore, be in position to do our fullest service to our charges and to advance our usefulness in the honorable and commanding places we occupy, I would urge your careful consideration of this matter, and earnestly give it as my humble opinion that each principal can do no greater service than to demand that conditions shall be so changed, or, better and truer, that he should so change conditions, that his time shall not be used in the less essential matters of a clerical assistant, but that his training and ability shall be felt in the noblest part of school work, so that when he lays aside his work he may be entitled to that greatest of all titles-teacher.

Among the Paris book notes of the Evening Post Stoddard Dewey relates some interesting reminiscences of the youngest member of the French Academy in these words:

A book of more recent history, vitally interesting to many still living, and instructive to all who wish to follow the inside story of their own times, is the Journal kept day by day by the late Comte d'Haussonville during the Siege of Paris from beginning to end. It starts from the fatal 4th September of 1870, and shows the drifting apart of Paris from Thiers and the party which had picked up authority in the street; but it does not comprise the after-explosion of the siege in the bloody civil war of the nation against Paris during the Commune. The author was a member of the French Academy, like his son, who now publishes the book; he had for his wife a Broglie, granddaughter of Madame de Staël-an instance of continuity in history and letters.

Etienne Lamy, the new Immortal, elected to the French Academy June 8, is perhaps known abroad only to the readers of the Revue des Deux Mondes. If Americans could interest themselves in his subjects, it would be well worth their while to make acquaintance with his books, with their pure, manly, crystal-clear French and upright, Liberal ideas. Of course he has been chosen by the "party of the dukes," but by a respectable majority. His only serious competitor was Maurice Barrès, who is also a Conservative, not to say Nationalist, in politics, and far more resplendent with literary glory before a vain universe. All the members of the Academy were present, including the now un-Parisian Rostand, excepting Anatole France and Henri Lavedan. The former, since the Dreyfus affair launched him on a passionate sea of anarchism, notices the Academy only to blast it with the anathema maranatha of his new religion; the latter is son of the famous editor of the Catholic review Le Correspondant, whose place M. Lamy has taken.

As far back as 1883 Taine, after reading an article of M. Lamy on the Republic, declared: "If that author presents himself at the Academy he shall have my vote." In fact, with all his Liberal Catholicism and the close relations in which he stood to Leo XIII., M. Lamy has always been a Republican, and has suffered for his political as well as for his religious faith. He is now sixty years old, and was a pupil of Lacordaire's school, which did so much to unite unavailingly, as it seems in France-the old and the new in Liberal thought and action. By the way, like Barrès, Jules Lemaître, Renan, and even Anatole France and Waldeck-Rousseau, he is an example of those masters of literary style that seem to issue from the Church schools more readily than from the science-tormented State Lycées. At the close of the fatal Franco-Prussian war he was sent up to the National Assembly, which was to try to reconstitute France, by his native department of the Jura. He believed in the Republic and against Thiers, carried through a demand for a reform of all public services. The navy was assigned him, and the present high commission is the result of his studies of several years. Against MacMahon he was one of the 363 Republican deputies returned after the dissolution of Parliament; but the Republic, now advancing on its Radical way, soon broke and banished him from political life. He had refused to accept the famous Article VII. of Jules Ferry, with its wholesale suppression of religious schools. This has given him the leisure for historical studies of the Second Empire and the National Defence, and of France in the Levant, and for the desperate effort to unite men of his own kind in consistent action for a Liberal Republic. Where the Pope failed, he could scarcely succeed; but the universal esteem in which he is held by all parties may still allow his great talent scope if the Republic begins soon enough the return swing of its pendulum.

M. Lamy was all but elected to the Academy several years ago, losing only by a single vote in favor of Paul Hervieu. His book of most importance to American readers is undoubtedly La Femme de Demain (The Coming Woman); that of most interest, his Memoirs of Aimée de Coigny-the light prisoner of the Terror, who inspired her fellow-captive, André Chenier, with a priceless ode-only the poet lost his head a second time, under the guillotine, while the lady, who had only lost her heart, lived to lose it again and again down to her death in the full peace of the Restoration.

The Seton Circle tendered a reception to the Most Reverend Archbishop Farley recently, at the Fordham club-house, which was beautifully decorated with the national flags and the Seton Circle colors and was brilliantly illuminated. The Archbishop expressed his approval of the careful study that was being made of the classics, of great movements, such as the Tractarian movement, and of history. The Archbishop especially commended the study of Scott's novels. The address of the evening was by Judge Tierney. The President of the Bronx Borough, the Hon. Louis Haffen, introduced the speakers. A fine literary and musical programme was rendered. Later in the evening supper was served. The Seton Circle is famous, not only in the Bronx but in the surrounnding boroughs, for the excellence of its literary work and for the spirit of sociability which it fosters. The society has been in existence ten years. The Moderator of the circle this year is the Rev. Daniel Burke, D.D. The President is Mrs. J. J. Barry; Mary C. Freeston, Secretary.

At the latest monthly meeting of the St. Vincent's Reading Club, South Boston, Thomas B. Fitzpatrick gave a most interesting and instructive address to the members, on The American Citizen. After .the lecture an informal reception was tendered to Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Miss Ellen A. McMahon is the efficient President of this club, which owes much to the fostering care of Father Patterson and the other priests of St. Vincent's Church. The Cathedral study club, of New York City, under the direction of the Rev. William B. Martin, has completed a very successful year.

In addition to the constant service rendered to the Hecker Reading Circle, of Everett, Mass., Mrs. F. F. Driscoll is much in demand for her rare musical gifts. She delighted her friends recently by a song recital, assisted by Mr. M. J. Dwyer, of Boston, with Mr. James T. Whelan, organist of the Boston Cathedral, as accompanist. It was given in Whittier Hall, Everett, in presence of an audience which crowded the spacious auditorium, and represented all that was best in the society of the town, without regard to religious dividing lines, while many friends of Mr. and Mrs. Driscoll came from Boston and other places. Few people are so beloved in their native place, and justly so, for noble Christian example, public spirit, and helpfulness to all, as Mr. and Mrs. Driscoll. The latter also has won high reputation in the musical circles of New England through her superb and wellcultivated voice and exquisite taste in music.

Among the audience were the Rev. J. F. Mohan, rector of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, the Mayor of Everett, the superintendent of schools, most of the membership of the Everett Club, with which Mrs. Driscoll has been long connected, and the Hecker Reading Circle, whose first president she has been.

These young ladies acted as ushers: Misses Annie G. Hill, Alice Lane, Elizabeth Herlihy, Dora Keegan, Alice Sheehan, Jeanne Breau, Daisy Hardenbrook.

As the programme proceeded many compliments were paid by the musiclovers present to the charm and freshness of the selections, and their artistic rendition. Following is the programme:

Cavatina, "Roberto tu che adoro" (Meyerbeer), Mrs. Driscoll; Aria, "Flower Song from Carmen" (Bizet), Mr. Dwyer; Songs, (a) "The Swallows" (Cowen), (b) "The Lullaby of the Night" (Brackett), Mrs. Driscoll; Duet, "A Night in Venice" (Lucontoni), Mrs. Driscoll and Mr. Dwyer; Songs, (a) "The Sweetest Flower" (Lieber), (b) "Because" (Guy D'Herdelot), Mr. Dwyer; Song, "Song of Love" (Mrs. Beach), Mrs. Driscoll; Piano, (a) "Fantaise Impromptu, C sharp minor" (Chopin), (b) “Gavotte, B minor" (Bach-St. Saëns), Mr. Whelan; Songs (a) "Still as the Night" (Bohm), (b) "Irish Lullaby" (Needham), Mrs. Driscoll; Duet, "O That We Two Were Maying" (Smith), Mrs. Driscoll, Mr. Dwyer; Waltz Song, "Voci di Primavera " (Strauss), Mrs. Driscoll.

Mrs. J. H. McDonough, of Dallas, Texas, has written a letter to The Southern Messenger, published at San Antonio, in regard to the supply of reading for the young. She has a definite plan capable of application to many places, and expressed in these words:

The intelligent, inquiring American child of to-day will read something— if not clean, moral books suitable to his age, then books of the Midnight Marriage stamp, and pastors, parents, and teachers are responsible. So the question arises how to provide proper literature for the children in the formative period of their lives, thereby cultivating a taste for the best, and making the reading of dangerous and trashy books, in after years, no temptation— simply an impossibility. Now there seem to be only two ways open to us— one is to create a demand for Catholic books in the public libraries, the other is to establish parish libraries. I have been told that books requested by a number of public library patrons would be purchased, but in the Southwest, where the Catholic population is numerically small, I fancy the number of Catholic books which reached the library shelves during a year, through this method, was rather insignificant. The more effectual plan, though involving work and sacrifice, is the establishment of parish libraries in connection with the Sunday-Schools. These being under the direct supervision of the pastor will be a great influence for good-will reach all the children alike, rich and poor, will foster a love for reading, and raise the thoughts and minds of the children to higher things. In the Cathedral parish, Dallas, a Sunday-School library was opened last year with a limited number of books, which through the donations of friends has been increased to 300 volumes. For six months the circulation was 1,542 books, and the library has been open only one hour on Sunday between the Masses. The ambition of those in charge is to furnish the room with book-cases, desk, tables, etc., to increase the number of books, and open at least twice a week. This they hope, with our Lord's help and the kindly assistance of friends, to accomplish. To see the avidity with which the children read and demand such writers as Father Finn, S.J., Father Spalding, S.J., Father John Talbot Smith, Charles W. Stoddard, Marion Ames Taggart, Maurice F. Egan, Marion J. Brunowe, and other standard Catholic writers, is to prove that they know what is good, and that every effort spent in this direction will bear fruit a hundredfold.

M. C. M.

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