contact with any sort of temptation to evil from those with whom they associated. I have known some who at the end of their school course were as innocent of moral evil as on the day they entered, and were utterly shocked and disgusted when they were thrown into the vortex of the world outside, and had to listen to the kind of talk that too often forms the common staple of conversation among those who have had a Protestant education. ... I do not say that the Church is always successful in her endeavors. It is quite possible that, even in a Catholic school, evil may for a time run riot. One sinner may destroy much good. But the evil never lasts long, and the Catholic system brings about a speedy recovery. What I do assert is that the moral perils, to which a boy is exposed in a Catholic school, are infinitesimal as compared with those which will surround him in any of the Protestant public schools and colleges.
"In all this the chief engine for the good work is the confessional. There are, of course, many others. There is the personal influence and the keen sense of responsibility of those who are in authority; there is the close and intimate friendship existing between the teacher and the taught, which is something utterly different from the comparatively cold relations and official reserve which make the Protestant master far more of a stranger to his boys. But it is the weekly or fortnightly confession that is the real safeguard. It is in the confessor that he has his trusted friend, to whom he freely talks of all his dangers and temptations; it is confession that keeps the moral atmosphere healthy and pure; it is confession that maintains the high standard of life and conversation prevailing,
