somewhat homely maxim which we can take to heart without any intended discourtesy towards our accusers. When, however, the facts are admitted, there remains the task of interpreting the facts. And it is in this task that every historian is more or less a partisan. If a historian could bring to ascertained facts a mind completely devoid of conviction, he might be said to interpret them impartially. What really happens is that the historian always interprets the facts in accordance with his own convictions. Hitherto, we have been on the defensive in the matter of the history of education. We have been content, when we were able, to nail a lie, as the saying is, or to point out a flagrant instance of misinterpretation. Too long, unfortunately, we have delayed to tell the story of the Church's educational career as we understand it. Meantime, the story has been told, but with what degree of impartiality our current text-books on the subject bear only too ample witness. The history of education has been written from the point of view of anti-Christian partisanship. The party prejudice has not always gone so far as to blind the historian to facts or to induce him to misstate the facts outright. But in almost every instance, so far as English literature on the subject is concerned, there is the partisanship of faulty and hostile interpretation. It is time for us to study the facts with a partisanship of the opposite kind. We have the best right to interpret the facts. We are in the position of the defendant in the suit, and our case, if, largely through our own fault, it has not been heard first, should be heard last, before sentence is pronounced. We have not only the best right in law and honesty of purpose, but the best right in scientific method. For we claim to be the heirs of the Church's educational spirit, and, as such, we may be presumed to have a better understanding of her intentions and purposes. In America, at least, this point in our favor is

admitted. We are called on to give our account of what the Church has done, and we are assured a respectful hearing.

Our point of view, therefore, as students of the history of education should be frankly and fearlessly Christian. We should have a proper respect for the stubbornness of facts. But in the interpretation of facts we claim the right, which every historian exercises, of putting them in the light in which we see them. Being loyal to our Church, we admit with regret those facts which are not to the credit of men, institutions and epochs which represent her; but we need not hesitate at the same time to read the facts-all the facts, so far as we can ascertain them-as loyal children of the Church. Ideally impartial interpretation is an unattainable dream. This much, however, is in our favor: a partial partisanship of interpretation being humanly inevitable, the partisanship of love and loyalty is surely preferable to a partisanship of jealousy and hatred, as light is to be preferred to darkness, and, in general, the positive, the constructive, the sanely conservative, to the negative, the destructive, the irresponsibly irreverent.

The Christian ideal of education is a synthesis of all the elements contained in pre-Christian ideals, with the addition of the spiritual element, which, as a center of organic unity, articulates all the others into one vital conception of the meaning of education. The Christian ideal should, consequently, be used as a test by which to judge the ideals that preceded it, as a standard of comparison by which they may be estimated in their shortcomings as well as their good qualities. It serves also as a principle of unification for the study of the events which took place in the educational world after the advent of Christianity. The supremacy of spiritual interests as enunciated in the question "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole

world and suffer the loss of his own soul?" is the principle for which the Christian Church has stood consistently throughout her career. The application of it, however, varies with the conditions of each educational epoch. The study of those conditions and of the manner in which the principle was applied to them will lead to a better understanding of the problems which confront us today and throw light on the policy by which the Church throughout the world is dealing with them.

WILLIAM TURNER.

TWENTIETH CENTURY PRAISE OF BOOKS

The wise and prudent Saint Dominick, being asked by a curious disciple in what books he had studied to lay the foundations of his great learning, answered: "My son, chiefly in the book of charity, for that teaches everything." Anecdotes such as this sometimes trouble conscientious modern readers, who are not accustomed to have the praise of books conditioned. Jealous readers take alarm at once, and feel obliged to believe either that books are not really a blessing to the world, or that holy men have talked foolishly. Yet in most cases the holy men have not really questioned the value of a good book in good time and place. Saint Dominick found the book of charity open in the quiet library as well as on the peopled highway, and his answer is but poorly understood by those who find in it nothing but a narrowing prohibition. He evaded the implied request for advice as to choosing books in order that he might rather give the warning how to read. He was not a worse but a better friend to books for recognizing their comparative insignificance. By admitting them even to a secondary importance in the order of charity, which is so much loftier than the order of intellect, he gave them an intelligible purpose, and hence a lasting value. He placed the act of reading in relation to an end so high that its importance can never be brought in question. This, and not our indiscriminate praise, is true appreciation of books.

Catholic readers in twentieth century America do not, on the whole, value their books too highly. Perhaps they do not value them highly enough; for the great books, if valued rightly, would often enable them to laugh to scorn the little books attacking faith. But all our books are not great books: matters have but grown worse since an

eccentric character in one of Disraeli's novels could complain with reason that "nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the only good books are clever refutation." And readers, Catholic as well as Protestant and infidel, care increasingly less for discrimination. They praise their books in the gross. They seldom make that definite adjustment of importance between a man and his books which is the beginning of reading. And yet a book is not a safe possession on any other terms. For books, though not immediately human, have this much of human nature about them: that they are easily spoiled for use by prosperity.

Viewing the matter in the light of a century of literary history, one perceives that much of our indiscriminate praise of books is but ancient prudery inverted. Reaction against the brutality that is said to have hastened the death of Keats, or the clamorous insular morality that published and exulted over the domestic frailties of Byron and Shelley, runs easily into another extreme. We order things differently today. The modern gentle reader, especially the modern gentle feminine reader, is apt to look with painful seriousness on books as books, and most urgently to belabor whoever dares suggest that books, unlike babies, do not justify their existence merely by being born. And yet good books are so numerous today that readers can only gain by ruthless criticism. No perfervid poet in twentieth century America need suppress his noble rage because he fears the prudes: he will have them with him. No genius born before his time need fear to be "snuffed out by an article": the present Mrs. Grundy goes to lectures on advanced thought and bends herself rather to snuff out the old fireside proprieties. The gentle reader who is fluttered by every threatened restriction on reading forgets that the world has moved. Books are not now on suffrance: in reputation, at least,