points not fully brought out in the two letters of pastors that we quoted.

"Although very likely no law could be found that forbids religious teaching to those desiring it, under the roof of the schoolhouse, Superintendent Wirt prefers that the work be done in the churches for the sake of getting the children into the habit of frequenting the churches more than they now do. He urges, therefore, that within each period fifteen minutes be devoted to worship in the church auditorium before the children enter the Sunday school rooms for instruction. It is quite impossible at present to provide an hour of religious instruction for each child daily. At best, each child can be reached only once a week. There is not a sufficient force of workers.

But that one hour is bringing in a number of children who have not been coming to the Sunday school, while it gives the regular Sunday school attendants additional time for which some have so earnestly prayed. Above all, this effort, regulated as it is by the public school authorities, affords the children a right viewpoint in the matter of Christian teaching. They learn to think of it as part and parcel of their preparation for life. The attendance is voluntary, as far as the children's parents are concerned; but once the parents' consent is given and the preference to any one denomination expressed, then the pupil is bound to attend. Cards must be filled in by the parents in order to secure an excuse for absence, exactly as in the regular classes. The period, also, if not wanted by the parents for religious instruction, must be employed for other assigned work. It is called the vocational period, of which each day affords two or more hours. Electric engineers instruct boys in practical work during one of such hours; or a printer instructs boys and girls in his profession; or a carpenter directs pupils in the mastery of his art. Only experts are invited thus to guide pupils in the arts and practices of life. Quite in accordance with this rule, ministers and priests are encouraged to instruct in religious matters, and it is made more easy for the pupils to take the course than to reject it. Very naturally, the Gary churches are rising to this simple and yet unprecedented opportunity. Among the Protestant churches, the Presbyterian is in the lead. Seven years ago, with statesmanlike foresight, the Sabbath

School Board sent a man there, supplying $900 annually for his salary. The work started as a little Sunday school, but within two years the church was self-supporting. Most of the other denominations are still under the care of their boards. But every one of them has accepted the present challenge and is preparing for the year's work.

"Under the leadership of Dr. F. E. Walton, the Presbyterians started daily religious instruction in the public schools before the 191314 school year closed. Thomas Owen, just graduated from McCormick Seminary, did the teaching, and is planning to devote his time to the work this year. Teaching four hours daily and taking two or three grades at a time, enables him to reach the entire constituency. Dr. Walton of First church is taking the high school students, whose problems have already called for his instruction frequently. Mr. Krause of the Westminster church will divide the work there with Mr. Owen. There is no national, State, county, city or township law in all the country forbidding such work as is now carried on at Gary, and there are laws of human life which demand it."

Memory Verse a Day for a Year. List Suggested by Presbyterian Sabbath School Board.

Shall we not, as parents and Sunday-school teachers, encourage the movement which is taking shape in so many places, to take time to make the memorizing of the Word of God an important part of the education and training of our boys and girls? Aside from the mental discipline, it will furnish them with strong weapons in the day of temptation; conIsolation in the time of sorrow, faith and trust in the day of discouragement; and hope in the hour of apparent defeat.

Psalms i.; xix.; xxiii.; xxxii.; xxxiv.; xlvi.; lxxxiv.; xc.; ciii.; cxix., 1-8; cxix., 105-112; cxxi. Total, 147 verses.

Matt. vi., 19-34; xi., 28-30; Luke vi., 27-38; John xiv., 1-3; xiv., 13, 14; Matt. v., I-20; xxviii., 18-20; Luke xv.; John iii., 14-18; x., 1-18; XV., I-12. Total, 126 verses.

Rom., xii.; 1 Cor. xiii.; 2 Cor. v., 20, 21; Phil. ii., 3-15; James iii.; 2 Tim. iii., 14-17; 2 Peter iii., 8-14; 1 John iii., 1-6; Rev. xxi., 1-4; xxii., 1-5. Total, 93 verses. Grand total, 366.

Those who believe that it is entirely proper and practicable in what the U. S. Supreme Court has declared to be "a Christian nation" to go far beyond mere Bible reading in schools. and teach undenominationally the

meaning of the Ten Commandments, which Justinian, Charlemagne and Alfred made the cornerstone of their great codes, and the significance of many other passages of Scripture equally fundamental to personal and

social ethics, have a conclusive fact on their side in the story of a book called "Easy Lessons in Christian Doctrine," which was "prepared for the use of mixed schools," that is, of schools attended by Catholics and non-Catholics, by Father (now Bishop) Regis Canevin, of Pittsburgh, and was approved by Bishop R. Phelan, also by a school board which included Dr. Alison, editor of the "Presbyterian Banner," and has been taught, without controversy, since 1890, fifteen minutes a day, seven days in the week-on Sundays in conjunction with King James version of the Bible and the American Sunday School Union's undenominational helps for the "International Sunday School Lessons." The preface reads as follows: "The object of this book is to present a short and plain explanation of the doctrines common to all who profess belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ; leaving instructions in the doctrines peculiar to each denomination of Christians to be supplied by the authorized teachers of that church."

The Catholic bishop's letter to the publisher, approving of its use, is as follows:

"Allegheny City, Dec. 20, 1890. “Mr. J. A. Quay,

"Dear Sir: The book 'Easy Lessons in Christian Doctrine' is the only book of religious instruction that has come under my notice, which claims to keep within the lines of belief common to all who profess faith in Jesus Christ. It It is, therefore, well suited for a text-book in public institutions where Catholics and Protestants cannot, at all times, receive separate religious instructions. Catholics can accept all that the book contains, and the important truths of the Catholic religion which it does not contain can readily be supplied by the priest who conducts the special services

for the Catholic inmates of the institution in which your book is used. "Respectfully yours, "R. Phelan,

"Bishop of Pittsburg."

The "special services" in which the denominational teaching was imparted by Father Canevin to his own pupils separately were held on Monday evenings. Father Canevin told me that there had been no trouble whatever, and that he made no objection to the mingling of the American Sunday School Union's version of the "common

Christianity" with his own, nor to the teaching of his catechism daily by lay Protestant teachers. There was no question of dividing the school fund at issue to complicate what in this case was a clear-cut issue, namely: Can common Christianity be taught in mixed schools impartially and successfully? And the answer is that through a quarter of a century just that has been done in the case before us, with cordial co-operation of Catholics and non-Catholics, at Morganza, Pennsylvania.

The fact that this harmonious cooperation of Protestants and Catholics. in teaching Christian morals is found in a reform school does not in any way affect the argument. The school is a public school, supported and controlled by the State, and there is not one word in the text-book that makes it any less appropriate for other public schools. Indeed, it is avowedly prepared for "mixed schools" wherever found. The bishop's letter, and this long experiment, prove that there is a "common Christianity," which can be taught to Protestant and Catholic children in unison, and that "the important truths of the Catholic religion," not included in this "common Christianity," can be supplied in "special services" on one day of each week.

My own examination of this signifi

cant text-book shows that it is a faithful expression of the common beliefs of those who severally claim to be "Catholic" and "orthodox," and who, with their families, make up seven-tenths at least of our population.

I am not advocating the use of this particular text-book, although I have seen no better catechism anywhere. But this book, and its use, do prove that so far as Catholics and evangelical Protestants are concerned, there is no "school problem," only a case worked up for the sake of argument and appropriations.

Let us see how some selections from this text-book would sound as a part of the public school training of the future citizens of New York, Chicago and other cities:

"Q. To obtain eternal salvation is it enough to know what God teaches?

"A. No; we must also keep his commandments.

"Q. Why are we bound to love God above all things?

"A. Because he is our Creator, our Redeemer, and our supreme happiness, for time and eternity.

"Q. How are we to love our neighbor as ourselves?

"A. 'As you would,' says Christ, 'that men should do to you, do you also to them.'

"Q. Who is our neighbor?

"A. All men are our neighbors; even those who injure us, or differ from us in religion.

"Q. Where is our duty to God and our neighbor most fully stated?

"A. In the Ten Commandments. "Q. Who gave the Ten Commandments?

"A. God gave the Ten Commandments, written on two tables of stone, to Moses, and Christ confirmed them in the New Law.

"Q. Say the Ten Commandments. (See Ex. xx.)

"Q. What are we commanded to do

by the words: 'I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before me'?

"A. We are commanded to know and serve the one true and living God, and adore but him alone.

"Q. What is forbidden by the words: "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image'?

"A. By these words we are forbidden to make images and pictures of any kind, to adore and serve them, as the idolaters did.

"Q. Is it lawful to pray to images and pictures?

"A. By no means; for they have. neither life, nor sense, nor power to hear or help us.

"Q. What is forbidden by the words: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain'?

"These words forbid all profanation of the holy name of God.

"Q. What are we commanded by the words: 'Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy'?

"A. We are commanded to keep holy the Lord's day.

"Q. How is the Lord's Day profaned?

"A. The Lord's Day is profaned by unnecessary worldly business, dissipation, drinking, dancing, and whatever else tends to make it a day of revelry and scandal, rather than of rest and prayer.

"Q. What are commanded by the words: 'Honor thy father and thy mother'?

"A. We are commanded to love, honor and obey our parents and superiors in all that is not sinful.

"Q. What are we commanded by the Commandment: "Thou shalt not kill'? "A. We are commanded by this Commandment to live in peace and union with our neighbor, to respect his rights, to seek his spiritual and bodily welfare, and to take proper care of our own life and health,

"Q. What is forbidden by the Commandment: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery'?

"A. This Commandment forbids all unchaste freedom with another's wife or husband; also all external acts of impurity, with ourselves or others, in looks, words or actions, and everything that leads to impurity.

"Q. What is forbidden by the Commandment: "Thou shalt not steal'?

"A. All unjust taking or keeping what belongs to another.

"Q. What else is forbidden by this Commandment?

"A. All cheating in buying or selling; or any other injury done our neighbor in his property.

"Q. What is commanded by this Commandment?

"A. To pay our lawful debts and to give everyone his own.

"Q. What is forbidden by the Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor'?

"A. This Commandment forbids all false testimonies, rash judgments, slanders and lies.

"Q. What do the words: 'Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbors,' forbid?

"A. They forbid all wilful unjust desires of our neighbor's goods.

"Q. Why does God forbid evil de

sires?

"A. Because it is sinful to desire what it is sinful to do; because sinful thoughts and desires lead to sinful actions.

"Q. Is it necessary to keep every one of the Ten Commandments?

"A. Yes; if a man offend in one, the observance of the others will not save him.

"Q. What does Christ say of the observance of the Commandments?

"A. Christ says: 'If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments.'

"Q. Of what life does Christ speak? "A. Of everlasting life in the king

dom of his glory, where the just shall see and enjoy God forever."

Who will say that our future citizens would not be as profitably employed in studying such lessons as in studying Greek mythology and Roman wars and French phrases? Why may not the school children of a Christian nation study the life and work of Christ as well as those of lesser men? In the words of Archbishop Ryan at the "Catholic Congress": "Are chastity and honesty and obedience to law less. important than arithmetic and grammar?" In that reform school, which provides for but half a State, I heard these lessons in morals recited by a kindergarten class of seventy-seven, all of them sentenced there at eight or nine years of age, or less, as "incorrigible." If we would stay the appalling growth of reform schools we must reform our common schools by introducing moral teaching, in which prevention is far better than cure.

Whatever may be thought of moral text-books, the facts we have cited prove that there can be no reasonable objection made by Catholics or in their behalf to the reading of the Bible in our American public schools.

Protestants and Catholics have cooperated in our great national conflicts with slavery, intemperance, divorce, impurity, gambling and Sabbath-breaking.

Let Roman Catholics also cooperate with us to restore and increase the teaching of Christian morality in our public schools. That some of them, both of the clergy and of the laity, will do so is foretokened by the following words from one of their ablest papers, the New York "Tablet" (quoted in "The Congregationalist," February 16, 1893): "The pretence of the enemies of our public schools that the school-room is a point of attack against the faith of Catholic children is preposterous, and is calculated to excite the indignation. and resentment of non-Catholics who

know it to be untrue. Neither is it true, as pretended, that there is any attempt made in the public schocĺs to lead the young into indifference with regard to all religion, which is sure to end in infidelity. The separate education of the youth of the country tends to destroy the principle of homogeneity in our population, creates suspicion and distrust in its ranks, which is often perpetuated after the youth attains to manhood, to the injury of the individual and the community."

A Plea for a Text-Book of Morals for the Public Schools of the National Capital

(It will be seen that this story logically lies between the Morganza and Australian Plans, in both of which were realized what has not yet been granted in the National Capital.)

In March, 1905, the following petition was circulated in Washington, D. C., the aim being to get influential rather than numerous endorsements:

FOR IMPROVED MORAL TEACHING IN THE SCHOOLS

This is not a proposal to do something new, but to do in a more effective manner what is now required by law. Teachers of the District of Columbia are required by Rule 46 to "inculcate truthfulness, self-control, temperance, frugality, industry, obedience to parents and obedience to the Laws of God," and it is also required that the Bible shall be read and the Lord's Prayer repeated in the public schools. Those who sign this petition only ask that this moral teaching shall be carefully prepared by the Board of Education, instead of leaving the details of selection and explanation to to each teacher. Manifestly, the new plan diminishes the opportunity for any teacher to inject his personal views.

PETITION

To the Board of Education:

We, the subscribers, citizens of the District of Columbia, beg leave most respectfully to petition your Honorable Body, in the interests of good citizenSchools under your control the followship, to introduce into the Public ing studies, to wit:

The Ten Commandments.

Their recognized summary: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself."

The systematic study of ethics, as applied to conduct approved by the Board of Education.

And we beg further respectfully to suggest that your Board take steps to provide a Course of Readings taken from the Bible, the use of which shall be optional with the teachers.

These suggestions are made with the proviso that there should be no sectarian religious teaching in the shools, and that any parent who may desire to withdraw a child from the instruction above suggested should have liberty so to do.

The proposals of this petition received the expressed approval of, among others, the following eminent citizens: Hon. John W. Foster, Hon. John Hay, Hon. Wayne MacVeigh, Hon. Wm. H. Taft, Mr. John Joy Edson, Hon. H. B. F. Macfarland, Hon. Theodore Lyman, Hon. Hilary Herbert, President Needham, ex-President Merrill E. Gates, Gen. H. V. Boynton.

The argument for the petition is contained in a report, signed by many of the most eminent ministers and laymen then living in Washington, which is in part as follows:

"The American principle of the entire separation of Church and State, we believe to be right. It should be carefully maintained. We advocate nothing that will in any wise compromise it; and nothing which shall interfere with