The principle that has created the British Empire is the only principle that will keep it on the map of the world.  This is history, philosophy, and common sense.

And when we see England recognizing the Catholic elementary schools and subsidizing to a certain extent our secondary schools, when Scotland has just brought the Catholic schools of several cities into its system, is it not painful, to say the least, to hear our ultra-loyalists ever up in arms against our separate schools?  To them we feel like saying, “Go back to England and Scotland, from whence you or your forefathers came and learn from the Home Country the lesson of tolerance, of sane political government.”

VI.—­A Historical Reason

In the discussion of many problems we are liable, particularly in the West, to limit our vision to conditions as they present themselves to the observer.  This is more noticeable in the educational field.  This frame of mind may be traced to various causes.  But there is one cause which, we believe, is more responsible than others.

Unconsciously our age is “evolutionist.”  “The intellectual movement of ‘evolution,’” said Glenn Frank, “was not the private plaything of biologists in sequestered laboratories, but a force that altered men’s conceptions in every field of affairs.” ("Century,” Sept., 1920.) The theory of evolution has such a grasp on the modern mind that its concepts of government, of economics, of education are looked upon as the last and improved effort of man in his eternal struggle to express an unknown and always receding ideal.  This has accustomed the mind to look upon the past but as a rudiment, an outline, a preparation of the future.

Without entering into the discussion of the objective evidence of the theory of evolution we may say that as far as education is concerned its premises are false.  The human soul remains substantially the same and the process of its education has not varied very much with centuries.  Those therefore who look upon our modern Educational system as the apex, the summing up of all past phases, are greatly mistaken.  “The lessons of past history,” writes Dr. Walsh, “are extremely precious not only because they show us where others made mistakes but also because they show us the successes of the past.  The better we know these, the deeper our admiration for them, the better the outlook for ourselves and our accomplishment.”

The State-school is an institution comparatively of very recent date and has no right to be heralded as the final expression of an educational system in a democracy.  The history of education shows a lineage of men who can be more than favorably compared with the sons of our common schools.  The mass of the people have indeed more instruction but, at times, we doubt if they are better educated.  Results are the best judges of educational values.  History and experience prove that success in education