SCHOOLS
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SCHOOLS
matter, and it was left to the conscience and judg-
ment of the bishop to decide in each case. This "In-
struction" led up to the educational legislation of the
Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884. The
need was generally felt by Catholics for more precise
and specific legislation in reference to the schools, both
parochial and pubhc. In some dioceses, it meant ex-
clusion from the sacraments for parents to send their
children to the public schools; in others, it appeared
to be made a matter of little or no account. The leg-
islation enacted by the Council fully answered the
general expectation. It defined the obligations im-
posed by the moral law upon parents in the matter of
the rehgious education of their children. It pro-
vided for the case in which children were practically
compelled by circumstances to attend the public
schools. At the same time, it sought to give more
specific application to its own legislation as well as
that of previous Councils by the following decree: —
" (1) Near each church, a parochial school if it does
not yet exist, is to be erected within two years from
the promulgation of this Council, and is to be main-
tained in ■perpctuum, unless the bishop, on account of
grave difficulties, judge that a postponement be al-
lowed.
(2) A priest who, by his grave negligence, prevents the erection of a school within this time or its main- tenance, or who, after repeated admonitions of the bishop, does not attend to the matter, deserves re- moval from that church.
(3) A mission or a parish which so neglects to assist a priest in erecting or maintaining a school, that by reason of this supine negligence the school is rendered impossible, should be reprehended by the bishop and, by the most efficacious and prudent means possible, induced to contribute the necessary support.
(4) All Cathohc parents are bound to send their children to the parochial schools, unless either at home or in other Catholic schools they may sufficiently and evidently provide for the Christian education of their children, or unless it be lawful to send them to other schools on account of a sufficient cause, ap- proved by the bishop, and with opportune cautions and remedies. As to what is a Catholic school, it is left to the judgment of the Ordinarj' to define".
Other decrees of the Council dealt with the ques- tion of the improvement of the schools. The more important of these will be referred to in the course of this article.
Attendance. — The total number of parish schools in the United States, according to the "Catholic Di- rectory" of 1910, was 4845, with an attendance of 1,237,251. The total number of pupils in Cathohc educational institutions of all kinds the same year, in- cluding colleges, academies, industrial, reformatory, and eleemosynary schools, was 1,450,488.
Teachers. — On the basis of an average of forty pu- pils to a teacher, the above figures imply that there are about 31,000 teachers engaged in the parish schools of the United States. Fully nine-tenths of these belong to religious institutes. The proportion of lay teachers to rehgious varies greatly with locality. In certain districts the lay teachers are very numer- ous; in most of the dioceses, however, they constitute but a small fraction of the whole number. The num- ber of male teachers is also relatively small, amounting to not more than one-fifteenth of the total. The re- ligious teachers are divided among two hundred and seventy-five distinct teaching bodies, including inde- pendent convents as well as congregations or orders. There are eleven teaching brotherhoods. Many of the religious organizations have less than one hundred members, others have several thousand. The largest, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, has nearly four thousand religious. The work of some is limited to a single diocese, while others have schools and branch egtablishments scattered through a large number of
states. As a rule, the teaching orders have extended
their work wherever opportunity offered, regardless of
state or diocesan boundaries. The result of this has
been to make parish school education remarkably
homogeneous, as compared with the pubhc school
system.
Many of these teaching bodies, although at present entirely independent of each other, have sprung from a common parent organization. Thus, there are twenty-four independent establishments of the Bene- dictine Sisters, twenty of the Dominicans, twenty-two of the Franciscans, twenty-two of the Sisters of St. Joseph, forty-six of the Sisters of Mercy, eighteen of the Ursulines, and twenty of the Visitation Sisters. The mother-houses or central establishments of these communities are generally located in the United States. Religious communities in Canada have re- sponded generously to the demand for teachers in the States, especially in New England, where the French- Canadian imniigration has been so large, and eighteen of the Canadian teaching congregations now have branch establishments in this country. Eleven com- munities look to mother-houses in France. Besides these, seven communities have their mother-houses in Belgium, six in Germany, four in Italy, and one each in Holland, Switzerland, and England.
Candidates for admission to the religious life are re- quired to spend at least one year in the novitiate. In the case of the teaching orders, the novitiate may be regarded as a normal school in which pedagogical training goes hand in hand with instruction in the principles of the religious life. Before entrance into the novitiate, the candidate has to pass through a pre- liminary course of instruction in the secular branches, and this course covers not less than two years. The rules of all the teaching orders thus provide for a nor- mal training lasting for at least three years. Previous to the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, however, owing to the demand for teachers, the pre-novitiate course was frequently abbreviated, and sometimes even omitted altogether. The consequence was that teachers were often insufficiently trained for their work, and the instruction in the schools suffered ac- cordingly. The legislation of the Third Plenary Council went far towards remedying this evil, by pro- viding that regular normal schools should be estab- lished by the communities where they did not already exist, and that candidates should be allowed to re- main in these schools until they had satisfactorily completed the prescribed work : —
" In order that there may be always ready a suffi- cient number of Cathohc teachers, each thoroughly equipped for the holy and subUme work of educa- tion of youth, we would have the bishops concerned confer with the superiors of congregations dedicated to the work of teaching in the schools, either directly on their own authority or, if need be, invoking the a,uthority of the Sacred Congregation, for the estab- lishment of normal schools where they do not yet ex- ist and there is need for them. These are to be in suitable estabhshments, in which the young may be trained by skilful and capable teachers, during a sufficient period of time and with a truly religious diligence, in the various studies and sciences, in method and pedagogy, and other branches pertaining to a sound training for teaching".
In order to give effect to this legislation, the Council decreed the establishment of school boards in each diocese for the examination of teachers, and made it unlawful to engage a teacher for a school who had not obtained a diploma from the diocesan examiners: —
' ' Within a year from the promulgation of the Council, the bishops shall name one or more priests who are most conversant with school affairs, to constitute a diocesan board of examination. It shall be the office of this board to examine all teachers, whether they are religious belonging to a diocesan congregation or secu-
