duties, and fall a prey to religious indifferentism and moral ruin. How well has this been expressed in the latest "School Order for the Higher Schools" of Prussia: "Catholic religious instruction has the specific task of grounding Catholic youth in the conviction of the truth and the divine origin of Christianity and the Church, and to teach them to preserve, foster, and steadfastly profess this conviction by living in and with Christ and His Church. Only on the solid foundation of a definite religious knowledge, of deep-rooted conviction and loyalty to the Church, can religious instruction try and expect to fulfil that other, by no means last or least important, part of its task, viz., to accomplish fully and permanently the religious and the moral elevation of the pupil. According to Catholic teaching, the truly moral life rests on obedience to the Church, as the divinely attested guardian and exponent of God's ordinances, and herein is found a special protection against the false and perverse aspirations of the modern age, which endanger the moral order."[1]
For this reason, what an English Catholic said about the schools of England has also an application to our country. Dr. Windle (F. R. S.), speaking of the "Present Needs of Catholic Secondary Education," said among other things: "By the fact that we are Catholics, we are circumscribed in our choice of schools to those of our own faith. ... I should like to add one word on this subject from my own experience. Born and brought up a Protestant I was educated at a great public school, for which I still retain considerable respect, and even affection; but I
- ↑ Lehrpläne und Lehraufgaben, 1901, pp. 15-16.
