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Buetow, Harold A.A History of United States Catholic Schooling: NCEAKeynote Series No. 2.National Catholic Educational Association,Washington, D.C.8588p.National Catholic Educational Association, 1077 30thStreet, NW, Suite 100, Washington, DC 20007.Historical Materials (060) -- Viewpoints (120) --Reports - Descriptive (141)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC04 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Catholic Educators; *Catholic Schools; *Educational

History; Educational Legislation; EducationalPractices; Elementary Secondary Education; Parochial.Schools; Private 2ducation; *Religious Education;Religious Organizations; State Church Separation

IDENTIFIERS Pierce v Society of Sisters; ServicemansReadjustments Act 1944

ABSTRACTRoman Catholic schools in the United States have made

significant contributions which include the first schools in manygeographic areas, the first to tbook in the United States, and thefirst dictionaries of some Indian languages. Early attempts toestablish Catholic schools led to incidents which required heroism ofthe leaders and sacrifices by the laity. The U.S. Catholic schoolshad their roots in European Catholic countries and, as a result, thefirst schools in the western hemisphere were located in Spanish andFrench territories. The growth of the 13 British colonies set thepattern for the future development of the colonies and the U.S.public school systems. At the time, Catholics were regarded as aninsignificant and powerless minority. The U.S. Constitution's FirstAmendment has led to the United States being the only country in thewestern hemisphere which prohibits religious observances in publicschools. From 1783-1828, U.S. Catholics, while facing hostility,noverty, and the frontier wilderness, established an educationalphilosophy and school organizational pattern. Because of immigrationand westward expansion, the period of 1829-1884 was one of growth andexpansion in contrast to the years 1885-1917, which werecharacterized by instability and slower growth due to the rise ofmaterialism, pragmatism, naturalism, and Darwinism. Catholic schoolsdefended their right to exist in the 1918 Code of Common Law. Thisright was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Pierce versus Societyof Sisters. Since 1957, the Catholic schools in the United Stateshave stressed education to the inner city underprivileged. Suggestedteaching formats for use of this material are included. (JHP)

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TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCO:02II INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)"., Y,7,1

A HISTORYOF

UNITEDSTATES

CATHOLICSCHOOLING

Father Harold A. Buetow, JD, Ph.D.

© 1985 National CatholicEducational Association

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TABLE OFCONTENTS

Preface1. Catholic Schools and the Common Good 1

2. European Prologue3. The Colonial Period: Transplantation 9

New Spain 9New France 10New En 12

4. Early National Period:Formative Foundations 17

5. Later National Period: Transition 236. Growth: Immigration L High Tide 317. New Maturation: Post-World War 1

to Posi-World War lI 398. Contemporary Period: Ferment

and Challenge 49Conditions 49Curricula 52Goals 53Students 53Teachers 56Secondary Agents of Education: Family,

Church, State 589. Conclusions 67Summary 71Resources 77Suggestions for Using This Booklet 81About the Author 89

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PREFACE

he NCEA Keynote Series is made possible by a grantfrom the Michael J. McGivnev Fund. This fund fornew initiatives in Catholic education came throughthe generosity of the Knights of Columbus under the

leadership of Virgil C. Dechant, Supreme Knight.The Reverend Russell M. Bleich, Superintendent of Educa-

tion in the Diocese of Dubuque, Iowa, made the originalsuggestion for preservice and inservice materials forteachers. Thanks are due the authors of this series and tothe staff of the Education Office of the Archdiocese of Dubu-que for the practical application section of each booklet.

Special thanks go to Ms. Eileen Torpey, the major editorof the series. The editorial committee consists of theReverend J. Stephen O'Brien, Executive Director of theDepartment of Chief Administrators of Catholic Education,Sister Carleen Reck, Executive Director of the ElementarySchool Department, and Michael J. Guerra, the ExecutiveDirector of the Secondary School Department

1. CATHOLICSCHOOLS ANDTHE COMMONGOOD

Catholic schooling in the United States is aphenomenon of which all can be proud: the RomanCatholic Church, its leaders, the laity whose sacrificesmade it possible, the clergy who worked for it, all

who had the vision to make it different from any other inthe world, andespeciallythose religious, lay teachers, andadministrators who worked and continue to work very hardfor it with little material remuneration. The enterprise hasa larger number of heroes and undeclared saints than anyother comparably-sized group. It seems from many pointsof view to be a miracle of U.S. society.

Catholic schools constitute not a system but a pattern, onein which all parts have elements in common, but in whicheach part, and often each school, differs from all others. Thispattern has made many contributions to our country. Forone thing, U.S. Catholic schooling is responsible for many"firsts." The first school of any kind was Roman Catholicin such areas as Louisiana, Kansas, the District of Colum-bia, North Dakota, Ohio, Kentucky, lower California, andBaltimore. The first textbook within the confines of the pre-sent U.S. was the Doctrina Breve of Juan Zumarraga, broughtfrom Mexico. The first dictionaries and formulations of In-dian languages were compiled by missionaries. The firstprinting press in Michigan was that which Father GabrielRichard, S.S., brought to his school at Spring Hill.

The first normal schools were established in the U.S. bythe Sisters of Charity under St. Elizabeth Bayley Seton andby the Sisters of Loretto in Nazareth, Ky., about a quarterof a century before the public ones. West of the Mississippi,

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the first literary magazine was Catholic (The Catholic Cabinet,1843-45), as was the first chartered university (St. Louis,1832). The first high school diploma awarded in the stateof Colorado was given by St. Mary's Academy, Denver. TheUrsulines, in addition to being the first women to take careof a military hospital within the confines of the present U.S.,were the first to establish an orphanage, to shelter and workfor the protection of girls, to give the U.S. a woman whocontributed a work of literary and historical merit(Madeleine Hachard), and to give the country a woman drug-gist (Sister Frances Xavier Hebert).

There have been many other frequently-overlooked con-tributions of Catholic schooling to our country. Therecruitments of religious-order teachers took place at a timewhen the U.S. was a cultural desert. John Quincy Adamscalled one of them, Father Simon Gabriel Brute, "the mostlearned man of his day in America." Others also had degreesfrom respected European universities. Whei. possible, theschools accommodated non-Catholics: at Nazaieth Academyin Kentucky, for example, from 1815 to 1881, fully two-thirds of the girl students were Protestant. The same sistersfor several years gave free service to schools in the miningsections of Ohio, maintained schools in poor urban and ruralareas while refusing lucrative offers elsewhere, provided freeservice to orphans in the Louisville area from 1831 to 1923,and performed innumerable other works for the needy.

The teaching religious often sacrificed to the point ofheroism. When the first Ursuline nuns, who came to NewOrleans in 1727, landed at the mouth of the Mississippi afterthree months on the turbulent Atlantic Ocean, they still hadto make a long and tedious trip through mosquito-and snake-infested bayous and swamps to the town, which then con-tained more than its share of a rough population. (Becauseof their contributions to New Orleans schooling as well asthose of other nuns, that city to this day exempts womenreligious from paying public transportation fares.) The firstcommunity of American originthe Visitaticn Nunslivedin a combination convent and school, whose walls were notplastered from 1799 to 1811, at which time a sister lathedand plastered most of thenierself. The first Sisters of Chari-

ty at Emmitsburg, Md., became sick from lack of heat andfrom hunger. For the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Ky.,the first accommodations were a log house with one roombelow and one above, with a nearby but serving as a kitchen.

The dying Father Frederic Baraga forced upon a visitingpriest all the money he had ($20) for the visitor's school.When three Sisters of Loretto and two Sisters of Charity weretraveling with others to Santa Fe in 1867, some of the partycontracted cholera and all were frequently attacked by In-dians; so disturbing was the experience that one Lorettine,Sister Mary Alphonsa Thompson, aged 18, literally died offright. On the other end of the age scale, PhilippineDuchesne was 72 years of age when she went to work amongthe Potawatomi. And Katherine Drexel, by the time of herdeath in :955, had given a financial fortune to the Catholiceducation of Indians and blacks, and her death set in mo-tion the provisions of a further fortune to Catholic school-ing through her father's will.

In addition, most of the sisters often took on such workas laundering for support. They frequently undertook longjourneys that gave second thoughts even to strong men, andallowed their dedication to carry them into the middle ofborder warfare and riots. They set up free schools for thepoorlong before such was the practice elsewherebesidetheir boarding schools, from which they derived necessaryfinancial support. In addition to eradicating religious il-literacy, they contributed to the country as well as to theirchurch a cultural enrichment and a fullness of life.

From all groups of Catholic teachersreligious, clergy, andlaycame outstanding leaders of whom any educationalsystem would be proud. Most of these were unsung. Theybrought their work to what the Bible calls the anawim thedowntrodden, outcast, powerless, poor members of socie-ty. Research indicates that schools have a much greater ef-fect upon this group than upon the better-off and those frombetter-educated parents.

It was because of the laity's ideals of sacrifice that thereligious came when they did, and it was their willingnessto undergo double taxation that financially supported theirschools for so long. Lay responsibilities in Catholic school-

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ing, sometimes considered "new" today, are really age-old.For example, from the time of the establishment of NewYork City's St. Peter's Free School (1800) until 1831, theteachers were exclusively lay, and in six of the first sevenschools founded between 1800 and 1860 in Savannah, Ga.,the teachers were all lay.

Many non-Catholics have throughout history paid tributeto the contributions of Roman Catholic schools: e.g., non;Catholics were happy to pay tuitie for their children to at-tend the early Catholic school at Goshenhoppen, Pa.; theentire citizenry of Detroit elected to Congress FatherRichard, who set up their city's school system and laid theearly foundations of the University of Michigan; VisitationAcademy in Georgetown was for many years recognized asthe best secondary school opportunity for the daughters ofgovernmental representatives of all denominations; Pro-testants went out of their way to congratulate the JesuitLeonard Neale for his schooling efforts in their behalf; amid-19th-century visitor from England, generally recogniz-ed as perceptive, wrote that the schooling of higher-echelonProtestants seemed to be entrusted to Catholic priests andnuns. When the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Ky., weresurrounded by Union forces daring the Civil War and thesisters were fearful, President Abraham Lincoln, who couldhave known the sisters only from their educational work,personally wrote and signed a safeguard to his troops. In1877, Henry Kidd le, superintendent of schools for New YorkCity, felt that the teachers in parochial schools were betterprepared and superior to teachers in government schools.'

Unfortunately, Catholic schooling has been categorizedas "private," in contrast with "public" schooling. This dif-ferentiation has pejorative connotations. The "private" isat times equated with the "personal," which in most con-texts connotes that everyone must live and die alone."Private" signifies a separation from common purposes,meaningful participation in the common weal, and interestin helping society for the better. The word "public," on theother hand, has more acceptable overtones. The OxfordEnglish Dictionary says of "public":

The varieties of sense (of the term "public") are

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numerous and pass into each other by many in-termediate shades of meaning. The exact shade oftendepends upon the substantive qualified (e.g., "thepublic ministry of Jesus," "public affairs," a "publichall"), and in some expressi ns more than one senseis vaguely present; in others the usage is traditional,and it is difficult to determine in what sense preciselythe thing in question was originally called "publit..."2

There is no such thing as a "private" school. By its nature,every school takes its students from the public and returnsthem, for good o- for ill, to the public; uses texts and othermaterials from publishers whc are public; forms its curriculain accord with its vision of public needs; abides by at leastminimum public standards set by the state; accepts teacherswho were trained in publicly-approved institutions accor-ding to publicly-certified criteria; and so on. The only waysin which Catholic schools differ from their "public" counter-parts are in their goals, their methods of funding, and theiradministration by church authorities. Catholic school goalsare consonant with the best interests of the nation: DanielV Lbster said that "whatever makes !nen good Christiansmakes them good citizens." Catholic school funding is mostlyfrom free-will donations.

It is therefore more accurate and more appropriate todesignate Catholic schools as "denominational," "church-affiliated," or "nongovernment" schools, and government-funded ones as "government" schools. This is the ter-minology we shall use. If, because of the setup in the UnitedStates, unique in the Western world in its intended omis-sion of religion from its schools, this terminology seems topoint to a startling parallel to the Soviet Union and othertotalitarian regimes, let that be a matter for further thought.

Lastly, we shall use categories based ultimately uponAristotle to encompass the areas of schooling and educt Eon.They are all-embracing, so that if one knows the contentsof all of them at any given period, one truly knows thatperiod. Alphabetically they begin with the agents of educa-tion, those responsible for getting it done. The primary agentis the student. Without one's self-activity, there is no educa-tion, no matter how good the facilities or teachers. The secon-

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dary agents are the family, the church, and the state. Thenthere are the conditions of education: the external condi-tions emanating from society, such as whether society en-courages and cooperates with schooling; and the internalconditions, such as the nature of the equipment, the ad-ministration, and the like.

Curriculum also is important, cnntaining as it does all thatthe school has to offer in the way of education. Curriculum,in turn, is guided by the school's goals. Though often ignoredor paid lip service or presented in grandiose but meaninglessterms, goals arc from some points of view the most impor-tant aspect of a school. One cannot measure the degree ofsuccess or failure of a school unless one can compare itsachievements against its goals. Aristotle said that no windis helpful to a ship without a destination. Fifth is students,for whom the school enterprise exists. And sixth is teachers,whose training, insights, and other qualities make them theinstruments of the whole enterprise.

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2. EUROPEANPROLOGUE

Most citinns of the United States recognize Europeas the main source, not only of the languages theyspeak, but also of most of their dearly-held con-victions. Most of the contexts that were shaped by

the Western European tradition dated from the years aroundand after Columbus' discovery of America in 1492. The 15thcentury was a time of expanding trade, culminating in a"Commercial Revobtion" and the discovery of new worlds.The ultimate motivations for the founding of America,however, went way beyond that. There was, for example,the vast reservoir of popular piety and the devotional lifeof the people. The popular piety of the early emigresobliterated the sharp distinctions which we make at presentbetween the sacred and the secular. Moderns who considerLuther's table-talk vulgar and Chaucer's Canterbury Talesanti-clerical fail to understand that the church was presentnot only at the great life events of birth, marriage, and death,but also in the organizations of crafts and professions, theoffices of government, and international relations. Theologyand science interpenetrated each other, and in the popularthought of the time, "the sky hung low."

The church in that ethos had a dynamic life in this world,and not just in a world to come. The church was not an alienin the world any more than the world was a stranger to thechurch. Abbots and archbishops became rulers; priestsbecame secretaries of state and administrators; canonsbecame wandering men of letters, like Erasmus: other clericsbecame physicians and scientists, like Copernicus; papalsecretaries were humanistic dilettantes, like Poggio; and apope, Julius II (1503-1513), even served as a field general.These phenomena further blurred the distinction between

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the sacred and the secular.Some factors of change, however, were in the winde.g.,

economic development, the growth of national feeling, and,most relevant here, the "new learning," that multiplex com-bination of attitudes associated with the Renaissance. Manyfactors inspired movements for church reform. Among theindividual champions of Catholic spiritual renewal, perhapsnone was deeper than St. Teresa of Avila (1515-82), whorepresented a long developing Spanish tradition, and St. Johnof the Cross(1542-91), who was virtually her s, :ritual son.While Germany was producing a Martin Luther, Spain, theland of Isabella, was producing an Ignatius of Loyola. From1534 to 1549, the papacy was occupied by Paul III, underwhom reform reached the Chair of Peter. He was responsi-ble for the initiation of the Council of Trent from 1545 to1563 The final results of the council constituted an impor-tant ecclesiastical landmark.

No less important, and in many ways more important, wasthe condition of the Protestant sections of Europe at the time.Nearly all who wound up coming to America from GreatBritain, for example, were disposed in one way or anotherto make the most of the liberties made available by England'srevolution of 1688 and America's "free air." Muchdiversityreligious, ideological, and ethniccoexisted in theimmigrations, tending ultimately to advance the practice ofreligious freedom.

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3. THE COLONIALPERIOD:TRANSPLANTATION

New Spainhe Catholic settlements in New Spain and New Francepreceded the Protezant settlements of New England.In their missions to Mexico, Central America, SouthAmerica, and the borderlands of what became the

United States Florida, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas,Arizona, and Californiathe missionaries had one chief aim:spreading the Catholic faith. But since the provisions of theroyal patronage under which the church operated alsoregarded missionaries as agents of the state,the goals ofchurch and state were fused and furthered by the systemof schooling implemented in New Spain. Although theoverall system involved measures of force and compulsion,it at least rivaled the mother country in being progressiveand Christian.

Some held that the missionaries were much more liberalthan those in the mother country, and if "free air makesfree people," they may be right. The city of Mexico becamethe central office of Spain's outposts of empire. Whereverthe priests went, a school was established for the instruc-tion of the Indians or a college for its clerics. Half a centurybefore Jamestown was founded by the English, the Univer-sity of Mexico was conferring degreeson Europeans at anyratein law and theology. The Indian schools disciplinedthe natives, introduced them to Western civilization, madethem self-supporting, and brought them the truths of Chris-tianity, all within the Spanish way of life. Frequently themissionaries' secular counterparts exploited the Indian, asituation which the missionaries deplored.

The large mission schools, sometimes managing more than

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2000 Indians, frequently contained a weaving room,blacksmith shop, tannery, wine press, and warehouses. Themissionaries introduced irrigation ditches, vegetable gardens,and grain fields, and on the ranges, thousands of horses, cat-tle, sheep, and goats. When possible and advantageous tothe natives, the missionaries taught them to read and write,but for a people moving from primitive living into a differentcivilization the missionaries considered technical trainingas the most suited schooling.

New Francehe French efforts, in contrast, were in such places asthe present states of Maine, New York, and Louisiana,and in such areas as the Great Lakes and the Illinoiscountry. The missionaries there found the Indians dif-

ficult to Christianize and educate. As one of the earliestFrench missionaries, Jean de Brebeuf, S.J., wrote in 1637:

All the fine qualities which might make you lovedand respected in France are like pearls trampled underthe feet of swine, or rather of mules, which utterlydespise you when they see that you are not as good packanimals as they are. If you go naked, and carry the loadof a horse on your back, as they do, then you wouldbe wise according to their doctrine and would berecognized as a great man. Otherwise not."3In these areas, Indian aversion to anything abstract or

spiritual, together with a nomadic way of life, made anystable school influence difficult. The French fur traders andtheir families found it practical to follow the Indian .nomadicway, so that schooling for the French settlers was practicallyas impossible as it was for the Indians.

Not all Indians can be grouped together, however. GabrielMarest, S.J., testified, for example, that "Nile Illinois aremuch less barbarous than other savages."4 At the same time,Marest expressed the opinion that a change had beenwrought in the Illinois due in part to the influence of theChristian religion. Herbert Priestley has observed that "amidwhite and red men alike, the church sought to raise the levelof civilization by educational ministrations."5 Into the

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wilderness the missionaries followed their nomad flocks and,even though the results may have been meager, the effortswere great.

Adding to the primitive Indians as sources of mission dif-ficulties were heresies that infected even some of the clergy.One was Gallicanism, a movement from France that ad-vocated administrative independence from papal control forthe Catholic Church in each country. Another wasJansenism, which emphasized theological pessimism, harsh-ness, and moral rigorism. These heresies were as strong inNew France as in the old.

In terms of lasting results, the French efforts at school-ing, education, and civilization in the North American con-tinent can perhaps be termed a failure. In spite of the factthat hundreds of priestsJesuits, Franciscans, Sulpicians,Carmelites, Capuchins, and secular priestsspent a greatpart of their lives and often their blood in behalf of Chris-tian formation and education, the authorities at home andin the colonies were frequently uncooperative. The im-morality of whites and natives, the unpredictability of theIndians, tribal warfare, and the continuous wars betweenEngland and France were a hindrance to any process of ac-culturation fan anthropological term for education).

French secular government concern for the Indians waseconomic, built upon the fur trade and political diplomacyin gaining Indian allies against the English. Although theFrench crown desired the Christianization of the natives andit was determined that New France be a Catholic colony,acculturation outside of Quebec and Montreal was fragmen-tary. The missionaries in New France could not form thenatives into well-knit communal groups as did the mis-sionaries of New Spain.

Acculturation requires a certain measure of stability, andmissionary activity in New France had to consist mainly ofblazing the trail into the unknown frontiers which the traderfollowed. It is, nevertheless, from the pens of the mis-sionaries, in shaky canoes or in dark forests or in smokywigwams, that we gain a knowledge of their endeavors inthe wilderness, which for the most part was New France.Historian William Munroe commented:

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Intellectually, the p ...vie of New France comprisedon the one hand a small elite and on the other a greatunlettered mass. There was no middle class between.Yet the population of the colony always contained,especially among its officials and clergy, a sprinklingof educated and scholarly men. These have given usa literature of travel and description which is exten-sive and of high quality. No other American colony ofthe Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries put so muchof its annals in print; the Relations of the Jesuits alonewere sufficient to fill forty-one volumes and they form-ed but a small part of the entire literary output.6There were many diverse motives for the colonization of

New Spain and New France, but they always contained thepropagation of the Catholic faith in the New World. For themissionaries, who were also the educators, the greatest singleobjective was the extension of God's kingdom on earth, andthis essentially involved the extension of Western educa-tion as well. The missionaries made American Catholics apeople with a tradition the longest tradition, apart fromthe Indians', in North America.

New Englandat was the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic coastline,however, that set the pattern for he future developmentof what became the United States. The Mayflower lefta profound mark on U.S. religious life, and the bran-

ches of Christianity, with headquarters in Geneva, Edin-burgh, and Canterbury provided a stamp deeper thanRome's on what became the public motto: Novus OrdoSeclorum (A New Order of Things).

By the beginning of the 18th century, the colonial set-tlements on the Eastern seaboard had become a prosperousextension of British society, in which the prevailing outlookon life and the world was unmistakably influenced by aPuritan ethos. The ways in which this ethos was institu-tionalized, however, were different and uneven. Most ofNew England established a regulated, ecclesiastical, andeducational system. The Middle Colonies were already an-

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ticipating the future by dealing with ethnic and religiouspluralism. The "Southern Ethic," a bit further into the cen-tury, reflected many emphases similar to those of NewEngland, with decisive marks of the expansion of slavery.All the colonies were pervaded also by an ideology whichwas increasingly secular.

Beginning about 1734, and lasting until around 1744, agreat international Protestant upheaval showed itself inAmerica as the Great Awakening. Everywhere it extendedthe range of gospel preaching and brought division, alongwith popular enthusiasm, and gave new vigor to Puritanism.In 1759, by which time these revivals had waned, the situa-tion in the colonies was changed by the British conquest ofNew France. With the French threat gone, the maturing pro-cess of the new America began to take political form, acourse of events in which patriotic heroes began to emerge.In the confrontation with England, these heroes had todecide, in Erik H. Erikson's terminology, whether to "killand survive" or "die and become." The military turmoil ofthe Revolution that put an end to this epoch did not endthis polarity.

Simultaneous with all of this was a wide, sweeping in-tellectual revolution: the rationalistic and faith-excluding"Enlightenment." Even before 1700, the Age of Reason hadbegun to create theological problems for the Puritans, leav-ing such orthodox Puritans as Jonathan Edwards to strug-gle with its religious implications as much as deists like Ben-jamin Franklin. It also provided a philosophical base for theunfolding work of the Founding Fathers. Though thedeveloping "new nation" never lost the Puritan's sense ofAmerica's special destiny as a thosen nation, the theme ofsecularistic rationalism also perdured.

Catholics in the 13 original colonies were an insignificantand powerless minority. In 1790 they numbered no morethan 35,000 in a population of over four million. In 1776,Catholics in Maryland were considered full citizens properlyso-called for the first time since 1654, when the Puritanshad abrogated Maryland's Act of Toleration of 1649. Theyshared the contemporary attitudes toward education: thatit is the responsibility of the parents and that formal school-

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ing should be church-controlled. They wanted the educa-tion of their children to be Catholic, and sacrificed towardthat end. Families who could afford it sent their childrenabroad, to such colleges as St. Omer's in Flanders and toconvent schools of Europe. To provide preparation, theJesuits offered such schools as those at Newtown Manor andBohemia, about which we know little. In November 1791,Georgetown College opened, founded by John Carroll(1735-1815) and staffed by other priests, all of whom hadbeen Jesuits until the Jesuits were suppressed by the papacyin 1773.

Of all the wonderful features of the Constitution, that greatdocument written in 1787, the one that pertains most toCatholic education is the part of the First Amendment hav-ing to do with religion: "Congress shall make no law respec-ting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free ex-ercise thereof." The interpretation of those words as appliedto schools has constituted about 95 percent of church-stateissues. Senator Robert Packwood, in the 1978 Senate sub-committee hearings on tuition tax credits, said, "Everymember of the Constitutional Convention came from a statethat, prior to the adoption of the Constitution and after,levied taxes * * * collected those taxes, and gave the taxesto churches to run primary and secondary schools for theeducation of those children who chose to go to school." In-asmuch as the document is the result of both Christian andEnlightenment influences, however, interpretations by theSupreme Court and legal scholars have differed through theages. In general, the court would interpret the "free exer-cise" clause more liberally than the "establishment" clause.

Many scholars deem it necessary to know the history ofthe times to interpret "establishment" correctly and not con-fuse it with "separation" of religion from government orfrom the people. The American Revolution differed fromthe French and other European revolutions in not beingmotivated by a militant secularism. Statements aboutdisestablishment were a practical accommodation to thepresence of many religions, guaranteeing freedom to all,rather than a doctrinaire attempt to exclude religion fromsociety or the state.

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Religion is very much a part of our country. GeorgeWashington, at his first inaugural, said, "No people can bebound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand whichconducts the affairs of men more than those of the UnitedStates." In his farewell address, he said, "Of all the disposi-tions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religionand morality are indispensable supportsreason and ex-perience both forbid us to expect that national morality canprevail in exclusion of religious principle."

Other individuals, documents, and customs have madedeclarations along the same lines: Samuel Adams, for ex-ample, and James Madison, John Adams, the Northwest Or-dinance, Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, etc. These sen-timents have led this nation right up to the present. Religion,while being a profound personal influence, inescapably hasa public influence as well, transmitting formative values andattitudes that affect what we hold dear as a nation, the moralclimate of society, and how we are governed. The citizenryhas a right to be trained in religion no less than in other sub-jects and a right to contribute to the formation of the con-sensus that motivates society. The citizen, adult and child,is not the creature of the state.

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4. EARLYNATIONALPERIOD:FORMATIVEFOUNDATIONS

During the era beginning with Thomas Jefferson's in-auguration 11800), several traditions developed inAmerican religion: religious freedom, alreadyestablished in some of the new states; a relatively

distinct separation of church and state; a growing acceptanceof denominationalism; the growth of the "voluntary prin-ciple" in matters pertaining to church membership and sup-port; and the advance of patriotic piety with its belief in thedivinely-appointed mission of the new nation. Less worthywere the attacks on Catholicism, inspired by nativism andincluding among their targets blacks and Jews as well.

Catholic schooling consisted of attempts at small formativefoundations in this period when the church was straitenedby poverty and insecurity, teacher shortage, and a scarceand scattered Catholic population. Catholic poverty wasalleviated in schools as well as elsewhere by the contribu-tions of European mission groups. It was a step forward thatafter the American Revolution, Catholics were free to buildschools, and this they began to do. Although one school dif-fered from the other in some particulars, a definite patternwas forming. And in the schools, as well as in the churchat large, Germans, Irish, and others were having to learnto get along with one another.

One of the 1110FA serious complaints about the United Statessituation at this +ime, voiced by the church's Councils ofBaltimore, pertained to the laws by which some of the statesdenied the right of the church to possess property. Becauseof these laws, lay trustees were designated to hold church

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propnly in their names. This resulted in the difficulty call-ed trusteeism, in which some lay officers at tines becamedefiant of the authority of the hierarchy. This sometimeshindered the progress of :A:hook.

Church leaders perceived that Catholics were similar tocitize Is of other religious persuasions in being inarticulate.An added difficulty for Catholics was that they were stillrecovering from Colonial legislation against Catho:ic schooling. Preeminent among the leaders who perceived that thesuccess of the church in the new republic would dependon the establishment of Catholic schools was John Carroll.From a distinguished family and the first Roman Catholicbishop in this country, he set his church on a course thatenabled it to expand, to absorb new immigrants, and toestablish schools. This was the beginning of a pattern forthis country's bishops' interest in schoolsa pattern whichwould come to be taken for granted.

When the westward movement carried Catholics alongwith others beyond the Alleghenies, the wilderness did notdecrease their efforts to provide schools, for which theysacrificed a great deal. A number of Catholic elementaryschools of the period were set up in log cabins; churchbasements, sacristies, and choir lofts; rectory and conventrooms; and abandoned buildings. The goals, determination.leadership, and perseverance of the Catholics of the timeset the Catholic pattern of schools again on firm formativefoundations.

The goals of this minority group, lost in a Protestant en-vironment were to teach Catholic doctrine, to imbue Catholicyouth with the spirit of Christ, and to instill the realizationthat man is God's: formed in God's image and to be fashion-ed to God-likeness. The schools did not forget, however, thathuman beings must live in this world. They sought also toequip students to take their place in society and to presentthe rudiments of a literary tradition. Judging by the largenumber of requests of well-to-do non-Catholics to enter someCatholic schools, the schools' emphases must have been con-sidered desirable.

The curriculum to implement this was, as in the otherschools of the time, very basic, giving prime importance to

22

religious instruction but also teaching the rudiments ofreading, writing, and ciphering. Religious instruction wasa drill "learn by heart" process, a memorization of drytheological formulae through a question-and-answer methodthat fit the catechisms then in use. Three popular catechisms,then and for some years afterward, were those of Butler andChalloner, and an American translation of The Catechism ofthe Council of Trent. American Catholic authors were a rari-ty, with pioneer attempts by Father Robert Molyneux inPhiladelphia and Father Gabriel Richard in Detroit. MathewCarey, a Philadelphia layman, published texts for theCatholic schools.

The curriculum of the secondary level was, as evidencedby school prospectuses, classical. Although too rigid aclassical curriculum was inadequate for the needs of life inthe new republic, no great change from it was evident inboys' curricula. The curricula of the girls' academies,however, had more practIcal elements. Since woman's placewas considered to be in the home, girls were prepared forduties as wives and mothers. Girls' education was firstreligious and moral, and only then intellectual and cultural.They were to develop habits of regularity, neatness, ^ndorder, with an emphasis on manners and deportment. Theearly Catholic academies had a curriculum in keeping withtheir aim of producing the ideal Christian woman.

The preparation of teachers, at least up to the time of theRevolution, had been unheard of, and teacher standards,in Catholic as well as in all other schools, were low.Throughout this period and into the next, teacher-sexton andteacher-organist combinations were not uncommon. Thepriest-teachers in the boys' schools were often learned men,educated on the Continent, and of unrivaled academic abili-ty. They were, however, few in number, and hampered byother duties. Consequently, they developed a system ofstudent-teaching whereby the better students in the moreadvanced classes taught those in the lower grades. Scarcityof teachers was a problem for all denominations. In thatrespect, Catholic schools were more fortunate than mostothers in having groups of religiousdedicated teachers liv-ing in communitywho gave themselves without considera-

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tion of much financial remuneration. The teachingsisterhoods founded during this period were trained byeducated priests during the sisters' beginning periods;thereafter they themselves trained their novices within theircongregations. The first non-Catholic normal school open-ed at Concord, Vt., in 1823, while the first state normalschool did not open until 1839, at Lexington, Mass.

One of the first communities of nuns dedicated to Catholicschooling to originate in this country was the VisitationNuns. Another was the Sisters of Charity, which carrie intobeing through the zeal of Elizabeth Bayley Seton, a convertto Catholicism and a zealous young widow, and sincedeclared a saint. At the suggestion of Father (later Bishop)Louis William Du Bourg, then president of St. Mary's Col-lege in Baltimore, in 1808 she went to a little house on PacaStreet in Baltimore which Du Bourg had prepared for herand her family of two sons and three daughters. Shortly after-wards, she established a convent boarding school for youngladies near Emmitsburg, Md. But, her primary aim was theestablishment of free common schools for the poor. Sheestablished the first at St. Joseph's Parish, Emmitsburg, onFebruary 22, 1810attended by non-Catholic as well asCatholic poor. When Seton died in 1821, in her 47th year,her sisters numbered nearly 50 and were rapidly increas-ing. Many are of the opinion that she laid the foundationfor the Catholic school pattern as it eventually evolved inthe U.S.

Enrollments of students were small in comparison withthe population. An educational consciousness had not yetawakened, and among the citizenry as a whole there waslittle interest in education. If a student learned to read, write,and cipher (and especially in the case of Catholics, was vers-ed in religious doctrines), one was considered educated; notto have acquired those skills, however, brought no reproach.The lack of interest was more concentratedly true of thesecondary level where, except for free schools for the poorwhich the church was anxious to establish in each diocese,and which the sisters, charitable organizations, and churchcollections supported, schooling was expensive and for thericher class. In many cases, sisters were able to conduct

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schools for the poor only because of the payment receivedfrom their academy pupils.

The principal admission requirements to Catholicacademies and colleges for both boys and girls were the abili-ty to read and write, moral integrity, and enough moneyto pay the tuition fee. Once admitted, the rules of deport-ment were strict. All schools of the time emphasized politedeportment, uniform dress, propriety, and morality; Catholicschools added religious observance. Boarders were notallowed to leave overnight, and were even encouraged toremain during summer vacations. The administration limitedvisitors, regulated letter writing, and frowned upon excesspocket money. Though parents wanted such constant watch-fulness, there is evidence that the students of that time, mak-ing allowances for the era, did not differ from the studentsof today. Father Stephen Dubuisson of Georgetown College,for example, in 1827 complained of "the want of pietyamong the boys, the love of dressing, the rage of going out,the ruinous habit of visiting confectioners' shops and thegreat liberty in reading."7

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a-

5. LATERNATIONALPERIOD:TRANSITION

topianism, revivalism, perfectionism, and holinessmade the period of Jacksonian democracy a sectarianheyday. During the decades before the Civil War,the popular Puritan hope for the Kingdom of God

on earth led to desires for reform. The historical roots ofthis humanitarian reform lay, first of all, in the Puritans'basic confidence that the world could be reformed in ac-cordance with God's will, which gave an impetus to theevangelical foundations for the social gospel. Another sourceof the idea of progress and the prevailing optimism remainedthe heritage of enlightened rationalism.

One of the areas of reform was schooling. On the princi-ple that the extension of knowledge would dissipate humanmisery and provide a better day, Enlightenment ideals andthe rationale of Harvard's Puritan founders converged.Idealists refused to be satisfied with the fact that even thenAmerica's literacy rate was probably unequaled anywhereelse in the world. The middle half of the 19th century wasthe great age of the church collegea time, in fact, whenthese church-related institutions were virtually coextensivewith American higher education.

Clearly outstanding as the age's mast effective educational,:suseder was Horace Mann 11796-1859). Despite his con-viction of the need to eliminate sectarian religion in publicschools, he was equally convinced that the schools must in-still the historic Protestant virtues. William H. McGuffey(1800 -73), whose millions of readers he'ped shape the na-tional mind, forged an even closer bond between schoolingas I Protestant virtues. The same could be said of the enor-mously popular works of instruction written by two New

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England ministers, Samuel G. Goodrich (1793-1860)knownas Peter Parleyand the prolific Jacob Abbott.

Another relevant phenomenon during this period of theRoman Catholic Councils of Baltimore, from 1829 to 1884,was insigrationa source of tremendous influence on thecountry's churches, especially the Roman Catholic, as wellas on this country's fabled diversity. In 1790, the first federalcensus had reported a population of close to four million,and 22.3 percent ^; she white population of this number hadstemmed from non-British lands, an additional 700,000slaves adding a component of African origin. During the nextthree decades, when Europe was embroiled by the FrenchRevolution and the Napoleonic wars, only 250,000 im-migrants arrived. Then the tempo began to accelerate.Troubles in Ireland occasioned the first wave, a great move-ment of Germans and Scandinavians dominated the nextphase, and the "great Atlantic migration" culminated after 1890in a vast exodus of Eastern European Jews, Southern Italians,Poles, and Balkan peoples.

Before the gates were narrowed, over 40 million im-migrants had come to these shores. The influence of thesenumbers on the churches was inevitable. At the end of thecolonial period, three large ecclesiastical blocks, all of themof British background, accounted for at least 80 percent ofAmericans affiliated with any church: the Congregationalistsof New England, the Anglicans of the South, and thePresbyterians in the Middle Colonies. At that time, RomanCatholics and Jews constituted at most 0.1 percent of thepopulation.

The Catholic Church expanded immensely through im-migration, embracing also the geographical phenomenon ofthe westward movement. It was not too long before newdioceses were established and more bishops provided. Otherexpansion took place through conversions to RomanCatholicism. These conversions were not an unmixed bless-ing, however, with the country now experiencing the mostviolent religious discord in its history. Within the RomanCatholic Church, immigration led to active ethnic tensions,particularly among the French, Irish, and Germans.

But conflicts and disagreements even more violent than

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those within Catholicism arose from without: thephenomena of American nativism and anti-Catholicism.These had peculiarly American foundations. One was a mili-tant religious tradition, stretching back to the days of QueenElizabeth I. Another was the Protestant majority view of theUnited States' special responsibility to realize its destiny asa Protestant nation. Emotional revivalism intensified suchviews. Finally, anti-Catholicism offered to many a motivefor Protestant solidarity.

Political fears exacerbated the situation. Every immigrantshir at a wharf struck fear into the hearts of insecure politi-cians. To them it seemed that the ideologically-united Irishwere dooming decency, order, justice, and sound social prin-ciples (translation: "a conservatively structured society").Finally, there were the economic pressures of those whofeared they :night lose their jobs with the influx of cheaplabor. All of these causes brought anti-Catholic agitationbeyond the original Thirteen Colonies and carried anti-Catholic legislation into the national period, the Bill of Rightsto the contrary notwithstanding.

The "Protestant Crusade" also gave birth to anti-Catholicpubations and horror literature about Roman Catholicism.And the agitation went beyond words. In Boston, after yearsof mounting tensions, on August 11, 1834, a well-organizedgroup burned the Ursuline convent in Charlestown. In thesame years, anti-Catholicism emerged as an intensely rele-vant political force, with prominent people like Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the electric telegraph and portraitpainter, playing a prominent role.

Between 1840 and 1842 in New York, the political riftwidened further with the school crisis, answered forceful-ly by the blunt and perhaps pugnacious Catholic Bishop JohnHughes"Dagger John," who served from 1842 to 1864.By 1840, the Public School Society held a virtual monopolyover funds for the common schools, as schools open to thepublic were then called. The number of Catholic childreneligible for elementary school in New York City was about10,000. The eight parish schools, including that of St.Patrick's Cathedral, all crowded to capacity, were providingfor about 5000. A few hundred Catholic pupils attended

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public schools, and about half received no schooling at all.Up to that timewell into the history of the nationpublic

funds were being given to church-affiliated schools. Hughesclaimed that in justice, the parish schools should be givena share of the common school fund, which was raised bythe taxation of Catholics as well as Protestants, or in the alter-native, that Catholics should at least be exempt from thetaxes they were paying into the common school fund. Heread a strongly-worded "An Address of the Roman Catholicsto their Fellow Citizens of the City and State of New York,"objecting to Catholics paying taxes "for the purpose ofdestroying our religion in the minds of our children." ThePublic School Society denitd all of it. The city's CommonCouncil turned Hughes down. On April 9, 1842, under theinfluence of Governor William H. Seward, the state passedthe Mac lay Bill, which extended the common school systemof the state to New York City. No school teaching anyreligious sectarian doctrine was to receive any money fromthe common school fund and government schools only wereto be provided for. The government school, church schooldichotomy deepened.

In contrast to the forceful Hughes was the peace-lovingBishop of Philadelphia, Francis Patrick Kenrick. When theNativists in his city clamored that the United States was aProtestant nation, argued that the Protestant Bible was tocontinue to be read in the common schools, and threatenedviolence, Kenrick issued an explanatory and conciliatorystatement. His quiet and dignified conduct did not preventthe fact that in May 1844, violence in Philadelphia led towild and bloody rioting. Two Roman Catholic churches anddozens of Irish homes were burned; militia fired point blankamong advancing crowds; a canon was turned against St.Philip Neri church; and for three days, mob rule prevailedin the city and its suburbs. Thirteen people were killed. Eversince, in the face of succeeding confrontations, the advisabili-ty of the Hughes or Kenrick procedures have been argued.

In 1849, Charles B. Allen of New York founded a secret"patriotic" society called the Order of the Star Spangled Ban-ner. Politically, the body came to be called the Americanparty, but because of the secretiveness and the frequent

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reliance of its members on the answer, "I don't know," theywere known popularly as the Know-Nothings. It was a par-ticularization of nativism. With earlier roots and repeatedlater outbreakings, nativism in the 1840's synthesized intoa movement of opposition to minorities on the ground oftheir being "un-American." Nativism opposed blacks,Catholics, and Jews, asserted Anglo-Saxon superiority, andsucceeded in restricting immigration. The Know-NothingParty flourished in the 1850's primarily in opposition towhatever political power immigrant groups happened to ac-quire in northern cities. By 1859 its power had waned.

Another important and relevant facet of this period wasthe many-sided movement of "Romanticism," which inAmerica gained expression under the name of Transcenden-talism. The origins of this latter word are mysterious, butthe termwhether used in ridicule or notindicated a con-cern for the higher use of reason and its objects: the good,the true, the beautiful, and the divine. The spiritualdissatisfaction, which the Enlightenment had created,motivated the quest of this theological philosophy, usuallyassociated with Unitarian circles.

One of the most influential Transcendentalists was RalphWaldo Emerson (1803-1882), whose greatness as a religiousthinker originated with his sense of the current spiritualsituation. The revolutionary quality in his unrestrained op-timism was an anti-traditional individualism. America, hesaid,"has no past: all has an onward and prospective look."He was therefore unconcerned with history. All of this madehim a new kind of romantic pagan, one who throws fromthe temple not only the money changers but also such bathwater as beliefs, creeds, and rituals. He made self-reliancethe cardinal virtue. Americans were specially "elected" tolook forward instead of backward, and they would thus befulfilling the destiny of their country. He became thetheologian of what many call "the American Religion."

Although conditions like these forced Catholics to continueto perceive their schools as necessary,such conditions at thesame :ime gave no one the right to expect much of Catholicschools. Nevertheless, Catholic schools continued to con-tribute, and as industrialization and other influences wrought

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changes, Catholic schools accommodated themselves as wellas government schools. The fact that most of the church'sgrowth took place through immigration eliminated thepossibility of the church's becoming aristocratic and of itsschools becoming elitist, as had happened elsewhere.

On schools at least (both government and nongovernment),the influence of the Enlightenment, with its dichotomy be-tween education and manual labor, its opposition to the prin-ciple of schooling for the masses, and its consequentdisinclination for the lower classes to attend school, beganto wane. As this period wore on, it became increasingly ob-vious that all youth, Catholic included, needed more school-ing. The needs of an ever more industrial society for train-ed personnel increased. Catholic schools were, however,slower than their government counterparts to makenecessary curricular changes. When the government schoolstook positions against religious instruction, though, and itbecame increasingly obvious that for the first time in historyan educational pattern was to be attempted without religion,it became equally clear that the church was going to haveto step up its schooling efforts.

The church's elementary schools therefore grew. On thesecondary level, the original strain of academies now pro-liferated as Catholics and others attempted to satisfy thedesires of the upper classes. The teaching communities ofsisters and brothers increased (each community warrantinga volume in itself). Throughout, Catholic goal emphasesseemed less and less personal formation and more and morethe transmission of culture. Nativist opposition to Catholicculture as "alien" solidified this emphasis. Catholic school-ing, along with the rest of the church, changed from a leavenmentality to one of siege.

The church's hierarchy expressed itself first at the Pro-vincial Councils of Cincinnati, conducted for the most partby and for Germans, who from the beginning, for a varietyof reasons, constantly demonstrated their favor of Catholicschools. The entire United States hierarchy at the Councilsof Baltimore then legislated encouragement and support,which they have continued to reiterate to the present. Forthe most part, they had a loyal clergy and laity behind them.

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The reasons for the hierarchy at that time assuming theleadership and the laity the followership were many. Onereason was that the road was not easy, and the church need-ed strength and unity. For another, the needs of the laity,as of most of the population, made them bread-and-butteroriented; some were divided, timid, and apathetic; and therewas opposition from some of their own. Although Catholicparents were beginning to bring legal suits against prejudice(e.g., the Donahoe v. Richards case of 1854 in Maine on Bi-ble reading in government schools, which decision, however,backed the compulsory reading of the King James versionof the Bible), they were, for the most part, dependent onthe hierarchy. And, under the bigotry of some fellowcitizens, they truly suffered. Some of the bigotry was in highplaces and awesome: even from a President of the UnitedStates, Ulysses S. Grant, in a speech in 1875, and, in 1876,in the many proposals for a hostile amendment to the FederalConstitution by Senator James Blaine. Variants of the BlaineAmendment succeeded in appearing in many stateconstitutions.

Official government, however, was generally more fair.On the federal level, the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868provided all citizens with due process of law to protect theirlife, liberty, and property. On lower levels, compromiseplans to help Catholic schooling as well as local communitieswere established in such cities as Savannah, Ga., Hartford,Conn., Lowell, Mass., and Poughkeepsie, N.Y. These plansprovided for the major part of parochial school funding,especially teacher salaries and building maintenance, to bepaid by community taxes. The institutions were calledpublic-parochial schools. Some exist to this day, to thesatisfaction and happiness of the local communities, parents,students, teachers, and others involved.

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6. GROWTH:IMMIGRATIONAT HIGH TIDE

The turn of the century (roughly from 1885 to 1917)was marked by formlessness. A partial explanationfor this may be found in the rigors to which the coun-try was subject during this time of rapid change: post-

Civil War reconstruction; the revolution in economics; theclosing of the frontier; trust regulation; the organization oflabor; the rise of the city; American imperialism; the Spanish-American war; and the Progressive Period of reform inpolitics, social action, and education. This period was acritical one for organized religion. Materialism and its cultqf success, pragmatism, naturalism, and hostile extensionsof Darwinism permeated the country. The shift in the pat-terns of inunigration which put the Protestant Establishment,already hurt by the Civil War, in a worsened position, ledto a revival of the movement to restrict immigration, to anew kind of political machinery, and to new outbreaks ofnativism.

Connected with the last phenomenon, just as the SupremeCourt reflected the mood of the time in its 1896 decisionproviding "separate but equal"treatment for blacks, so toothe court reflected the populace concerning Catholics. Mostof the cases of church-state relationships pertained to school-ing. The cases pertained to many areas, were tried in stateand federal courts, and did not evidence much consisten-cy. An 1890 Wisconsin decision, for example, contradictedprecedents by making it possibl: for Catholic children toattend government schools without having their religiousbeliefs disturbed. In 1899, in Bradfield v. Roberts, theSupreme Court sustained a federal statute authorizing con-struction grants to a Roman Catholic hospital corporation(Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C.). The court would

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not, however, grant the same latitude to nongovernmentschools.

Another matter placed before the courts was the employ-ment of Catholic sisters to teach in government schools. In1894, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that schooldistricts might employ, as teachers, sisters of a religious orderof the Roman Catholic Church and permit them whileteaching to wear the garb of their order, provided no sec-tarian instruction was given nor religious exercise engagedin. But both Pennsylvania in 1910 and New York in 1906upheld statutes forbidding teachers to wear religious garb.Some cases decided that the reading of the Bible in school,even if not compulsory, was unconstitutional as givingpreference to Christians over Jews.

In the midst of all this, the Catholic Church grew in powerand prestige, relatively speaking, from a former position ofsubjugationdue in no small measure to immigrants andtheir fecundity. In schooling, Catholicsfollowing the leadof the government sectorwere beginning the formation oforganizations to bring their educators together for discus-sions of problems and possible solutions. The CatholicEducational Association /later to add the adjective "Na-tional") was formed in 1904 from previously-existing smallergroups, and other Catholic educational associations form-ed at around the same time.

Because child labor had finally come to an end and stateswere legislating compulsory schooling laws with teeth, theschool population in both the government and nongovern-ment sectors zoomed. In Catholic elementary schools, thisfactor combined with the legislation of the Third PlenaryCouncil of Baltimore of 1884 to bring about crowdedclassrooms and inadequate equipment. The decrees of thecouncil were the culmination of Catholic legislation that hadbegun as early on as the beginnings of the Republic.

The council decreed that, wherever possible, there wasto be a parochial school near every church; priests who didnot cooperate were to be removed; laity who did notcooperate were to be reprimanded by the bishop; and, unlessother provisions for the religious education of their childrenwere possible, Catholic parents were to send their children

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to Catholic schools. The council also voted to increase thenumber of high schools and to raise the standards of allCatholic schools. It was concerned also with the establish-ment of Catholic colleges, encouraging wealthy Catholicsto give generously for this purpose. How much subsequentgrowth was due specifically to the council will probablynever be accurately determined.

On the middle level of Catholic education, as of its govern-ment counterpart, there were striking developments. Thisperiod witnessed, for example, the founding of the first Cen-tral Catholic High School. But Catholics, as well as the na-tion at large, had to wait until after World War I for mean-ingful interest in this level of schooling. In higher educa-tion, in the midst of general developments in areas like stan-dardization and supervision, The Catholic University ofAmerica came into being in 1889, after the idea had beenfought over for many years. It was conceived as not onlythe apex of Catholic schooling in the United States, but alsoas the agent to unify and guide it, to raise its standardsthrough a program of affiliation, and to prepare its teachers.

This period witnessed the growth of teacher-training in-stitutions under government auspices, which faced dif-ficulties in areas like experimentation and the problem ofquantity versus quality. Among Catholics, the growth of thisconcept was slowerdespite the 1892 plea of papal represen-tative Francesco Sato lli for Catholic teachers to acquire statecertification, the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore's legisla-tion on proper teacher training, and the public statementsof Bishop John L. Spalding, who was influential in the foun-ding of The Catholic University of America.

On the other hand, there was among Catholics, as amongothers, the inception of professionalism among teachers. Sur-prisingly, before 1900 when teachers in all schools werelimited in their preparation and horizons, there was evidencethat Catholic teachers were sometimes better prepared thantheir counterparts elsewhere. Religious communities attemp-ted teacher preparation through practices like individual in-struction, scholasticates, apprenticeships, lectures, summerschools and institutes. There was, however, evidence thatthey were less prepared for teaching older children and in

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the sciences. Girls' liberal arts colleges, like the College ofNotre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore and Trinity Collegein Washington, D. C. whose graduates were likely to teach,started at this time.

During this period, there were developments concerningstudents in both theory and practice. With regard to theformeri.e., theorygovernment schools welcomed the in-troduction from abroad of the ideas of Pestalozzi, Herbart,and Froebel, a factor that would later contribute to thegrowth of progressive education. In 'he government schools,there was interest also in the area of tests and measurementsmovement of Edward L. Thorndike, who held the princi-ple that everything that exists, exists in quantity and canbe measured. Schools' "Procrustean Bed" began its demisewith the perception of individual differences by such govern-ment school leaders as William T. Harris, Charles W. Eliot,and John Dewey. Most of these developments, however, leftCatholic educationists in an intellectual ferment. They couldnot accept the theorists completely: Pestalozzi because ofhis naturalism; Herbart because of his determinism; Froebelbecause of his pantheism; progressive education because ofwhat was considered undue permissiveness for the child anda forgetfulness of original sin; or Thorndike because of hisempiricism.

Within, there was further ferment because of the Bou-quillon controversy on the state's right to educate. In 1890,Archbishop John Ireland gave an address to the NationalEducation Association in which he granted rights in educa-tion to the state. No member of the Catholic hierarchy tothat time had ever said anything like that. There wasvociferous involvement of many people, including famousCatholic bishops, on both sides. In December 1891, FatherThomas Bouquillon, professor of moral theology at CatholicUniversity, published a pamphlet,Education: To Whom DoesIt Belong?, challenging the up-to-then church thinking thatthe state has only a substitutional right in education. Bou-quillon's position clearly substantiated that of Ireland. Hewrote that education "belongs to the individual, physicalor moral, to the family, to the state, to the Church, to noneof these solely and exclusively, but to all four combined in

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harmonious working." The state should not, however,decide the Farticular school an individual should attend.

Within a week, Rena I. Holaind, S.J., professor at the JesuitSeminary at Woodstock College, Md., published an answer-ing brochure, The Parent First. He claimed that educationis essentially the right and duty of the church and theparents. The state enters the field at the bidding of eitheror both of these. The two pamphlets promoted intense andbitter public discussion, which came to be called "The Bou-quillon Controversy." An official statement of papalrepresentative Sato lli settled nothing. Pope Leo XIII plead-ed for an end to the controversy. Bouquillon's position wasvindicated in Pope Pius XI's encyclical on education in 1929.

In the area of practice, Catholic school students compris-ed several minority groups of immigrants. Immigrants wereblamed for many of society's ills, even by governmenteducators. Catholic educators tried to overcome this pre-judice by making their students not only Catholic, but alsoAmerican. For Catholic immigrants, the parish was the unitthat was familiar from their places of origin. An integral ele-ment, especially among the Germans, was the parish school.This last, like its government school counterpart, could nothelp but divide the immigrant child's loyalties and separatehim to a certain extent from foreign-sounding and foreign-looking parents, but it made the transition slower and there-fore, in the light of subsequent research, psychologicallymore sound.

As the evils of child labor were beginning to be recogniz-ed and the extremely slow process of eliminating the prac-tice got underway, it was found that a higher percentageof immigrants' children than others among the total popula-tion were working. For them, extensive schooling was outof the question. Another minority group, blacks, did not con-tain many Catholics. Nevertheless, during this period,religious communities were started both for and of blacks.Also, the Second and Third Plenary Councils of Baltimorehad urged attention to the religion and education of blacks.

The effects of Baltimore III were more lasting, becausethe council urged the laity to participate in work for blacks,established a mandatory nationwide annual collection for

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blacks and American Indians, and established a 5peaal com-mission for both. The success of Catholic agencies amongIndians created envy and resulted in unfairness, vis-a-vis theCatholic Church's Indian schooling program, from thefederal government. Continued Catholic interest in theroughly 50 percent of Catholic children not provided for byCatholic schools brought about the adoption of such meansof instilling religion as "released-time" programs, wherebygovernment school children whose parents wanted them toattend religious instruction programs in local churches couldbe released during school hours.

Many Catholic educators theorized about goals, comingup with new and practical phrasings. Curricula were, asusual, related to goals. Out of Cle controversies about bothcame a more sophisticated philosophy of Catholic educa-tion. But because of Catholic rejection of such innovatorsas Pestalozzi and Herbal., improvements in Catholic text-books that could have resulted from accepting the good inthese theorists did not materialize, by and large. As a result,some Catholic texts wound up academically inferior to manyin government school use. Unfortunately, this samepredisposition to reject change and improvement from out-side also frequently resulted in poor quality in that area inwhich Catholic schools found a prime reason for theirexistence catechetics, the imparting of religious truths. Rotememorization (not uncommon in all schools of the time inmost subjects) of the Catechism of Baltimore III was too fre-quent. Before the end of this period, however, an awarenessof the inadequacy of this procedure grew.

At the end of this period, despite the many reasons foroptimism, there was no more unanimity among Catholicsvis-a-vis the desirability of maintaining their school systemthan before: the Irish-American, wanting a way out of theghetto, often tried the public school as the passport; manymiddle-class Catholics rationalized; many upwardly mobileCatholic immigrants became government school teachers;many good Catholics served or government school boards;and even some priests disagreed as to the desirability ofCatholic schools. Among the last, the most famous wasFather Edward McGlynn of New York City. He took the

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position, still with us, of preferring to put church resourcesin the cryingly necLirul area of social welfare rather thanin schools.

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7. NEWMATURATIONPOST-WORLD WAR 1TO POST-WORLDWAR II

@unning through the currents of the excitements ofwar, contractions of spirit in the post-world-warperiods, Red scares, and economic depressions andregressions as well as booms, was a steady accelera-

tion of growth (economic at least), population movement,and governmental expansion, which gradually brought thecountry to a state of advanced technocratic crisis. Manycame to doubt the old consensus that the "Redeemer Na-tion" was capable of redeeming anyone. The consensuscame to be a wonderment whether the country was capableof saving even itselffrom problems like urban rot, en-vironmental pollution, racial conflict, poverty, and ethnicdisaffection. Somehow, the United States had become. thevictim if individualism, exploitation, and worldpolicematiship.

As for religion in schooling, the Supreme Court continuedthe ambivalent trends of tl-te late 19th century. Its decisionsduring this period centered around two areas. The first wasgovernment aid to nongovernment schools, the bases fordecisions of which were the First and Fourteenth Amend-ments to the Federal Constitution, the "child - benefit"theory, and the state's public welfare duty. The court decid-ed that nongovernment schools have the right to exist andthat the state can legally supply nonsectarian textbooks andtransportation to their students.

There were memorable dicta in this area. In Meyer v.Nebraska in 1923, for example, Justice James C. McReynoldswrote for the majority:

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The fundamental theory of iiberty upon which allgovernments in this Union repose excludes any generalpower of the state to standardize its children by forc-ing them to accept instruction from public teachers on-ly. The child is not the mere creature of the state; thosewho nourish him and direct his destiny have the right,coupled with the high duty, to recognize and preparehim for additional obligations.9Pierce v. Society of Sisters in 1925,9 also referred to as the

Oregon School Case, has been called the Magna Carta ofparochial schools for defending their right to exist in theschool system. The briefs and oral discussion in this casecontain just about every possible argument in favor of andin opposition to riongovenunent schools. The state of Oregonclaimed that the need for any other kind of school than thatprovided by the state had ceased to exist, that the existenceof the nongovernment schools was a fatal menace to thegovernment school system, and that religious schools weredivisive and undemocratic, creating for their students acultural ghetto, and isolating them from everyday living withtheir fellow Americans. The court ruled to the contrary.

In 1930, the court upheld the constitutionality of a Loui-siana law permitting the state to supply textbooks tochildren, whether attending government or church-affiliatedschools, on the grounds that the state may act to achievea public good, even though in doing so, a private end is in-cidentally aided.") In 1936, the court agreed that to denymembers of religious orders the right to contribute theirsalaries to their religious communities would be a denial ofthe right of religious liberty guaranteed by the Constitution."In 1938, the New York State Supreme Court rejected the"child-benefit theory," saying that "the classification whichexcludes such pupils from the State's bounty is not onlyreasonable, it is commanded by the Constitution itself." 12

In a 1947 case," the issue was the constitutionality of aNew Jersey law permitting the use of public money to paythe transportation costs for pupils in nongovernment schools.The U.S. Supreme Court read into the "due process" clauseof the Fourteenth Amendment (which limited only the states)the "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amend-

40 41

ment which theretofore limited only the federal government.The case was judged in the light of the First Amendment,the Fourteenth Amendment, and the "child-benefit" theory.The court decided in favor of bus transportation.

The second area of decision was religion in governmentschools. The court refused to decide a case on Bible readingbecause the plaintiffs in the case were judged not to haveeither sufficient standing or sufficient injury to bring the suit.State courts continued to contradict one another on the legali-ty of teaching sisters wearing their religious garb in govern-ment schools. The greatest church-state cooperation inschooling came with the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of1944. Commonly called the "GI Bill of Rights," this legisla-tion enabled the government to pay tuition and other schooling expenses of "GI's" returned from World War II, andlater from the Korean conflict, in any school of their choice,even schools of theology.

An important state case resulted from a protest made in1947 by a group of 28 citizens against the teaching of religionin the government schools of Dixon, N.M. The main issuewas that members of religious communities teaching in thegovernment schools were said to be teaching reF:ion in theclassrooms through instruction, prayer, the distribution ofreligious pictures and literature, and pictures and symbolson classroom wallsall forbidden by the New Mexico stateconstitution. Plaintiffs demanded that all religious teachersbe barred from the government schools because of theirvows, that the wearing of religious garb by teachers in theclassrooms be prohibited, that buildings owned by a churchnot be used for tax-supported schools, and that parochialschool children not be given by the state such auxiliary ser-vices as free textbooks and bus transportation. The SupremeCourt of New Mexico ruled against the wearing of religiousgarb by teachers in government school classrooms, butrecognized the fact that the vows taken by religious are notinconsistent with teaching in a government school."

A 1952 state case on Bible reading in government schoolsfurther contradicted other state cases:

We consider the Old Testament and the Lord'sPrayer, pronounced without comment, are not sec-

42g;"

41

42

tarian, and that the short exercise provided by thestatute does not constitute sectarian instruction or sec-tarian worship but is a simple recognition of theSupreme Ruler of the Universe."In 1948 in McCollum,16 the Supreme Court outlawed

released-time programs for religious instruction on govern-ment school premises. In the 1952 Zorach17 case, it allowedreleased-time programs if the students desirous of religiousinstruction would leave the government school grounds togo to religious centers for religious instruction or denomina-tional exercises and there was a minimum of administrativecooperation from government schools.

The question of the garb worn by Roman Catholic sisterswhile teaching it government schools came up again beforethe Supreme Court of Kentucky in 1956. The court stated:

While the dress and the emblems worn by theseSisters proclaim them to be members of certainorganizations of the Roman Catholic Church and thatthey have taken certain religious vows, these facts donot deprive them of their right to teach in publicschools, so long as they do not inject religion or thedogma of their Church. The garb does not teach. It isthe woman within who teaches. The dress of the Sistersdenotes modesty, unworldliness and an unselfish life."Then the court went on to render its decision:

We find no provisions in the Federal Constitution orof the Kentucky Constitution which are violated by theSisters teaching while wearing religious garb andemblems, or in donating to their religious order thelion's share of their sale ries, or in the various schoolboards renting buildings from the Roman CatholicChurch in which public schools are conducted."The church's continuing to take seriously its role as an

agent of schooling led to several expressions during thisperiod. In 1918, its Code of Canon Law left no doubt aboutthe church': right to educate, and legislated responsibilitiesaccordingly. In 1919, when the National Catholic WelfareConference (later called United States Catholic Conference)was formed as an arm of the bishops, it included a Depart-ment of Education. In contradistinction to NCEA, which

43

functions as an organization related to the profession ofeducation, USCC's Department of Education serves in anadvisory capacity to the hierarchy. Several factors led to therise to a position of importance of another organization, theConfraternity of Christian Doctrine, which had started inthis country in 1902. Among these factors were considera-tion of the number of Catholic children in governmentschools, Pius XI's statement On The Teaching of ChristianDoctrine in 1923, the same pontiff's encyclical on The Chris-tian Education of Youth in 1929, his statement On the BetterCare and Promotion of Catechetical Instruction in 1935, andthe establishment of a national center for the Confraternityin 1933.

At the beginning of this era, the conditions of schools werenot encouraging. In both the government and nongovern-ment sector, there were not many students, proportionateto the total youth population, in school; one-roomschoolhouses existed in great numbers; there were manyuntrained and incompetent teachers; and student oppor-tunities for schooling were deplorably unequal. To the na-tion, the consequent illiteracy and lack of education werea poor basis for the type of democracy that the country'sleaders envisioned; the preventable physical deficiencies ofyouth were expensive in peace and resulted in unfitness formilitary service in war; and retardation rates were makingthe United States a nation of sixth graders. The situation ledto a reexamination of goals, curricula, and teaching, and toa rejection of progressive education that climaxed afterWorld War II.

In Catholic schools during this time, statistics show asteady growth. In their goals, they opposed the governmentschool search for a pragmatic kind of social efficiency.Catholic schools' declaration of the ultimate goal of educa-tion was the same as ever: the formation of the whole per-son, on a supernatural as well as on a natural plane. As theirproximate goal, they sought the formation of persons adap-table to the contingencies of Christian living in this coun-try's democracy. The U.S. hierarchy touched upGri this inits Pastoral Letter in 1919 and again in its 1950 pastoralwhich was entitled, "The Child: Citizen of Two Wo:lds."

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It was a recurring theme at NCEA meetings in the 20's. PopePius XI dealt with it in his 1929 encyclical, The ChristianEducation of Youth. After 1938, the Commission on AmericanCitizenship, formed that year, engaged in the matter anddefined a social program. And the Secondary School Depart-ment of NCEA studied it in 1939.

The Catholic school curriculum during this period, con-sequent upon its goals, could be given a one-word synop-sis: "social." On the elementary level, because of its con-cern over the dignity and the nonmate..iality of man, theCatholic school pattern only gradually and reluctantly ac-cepted the testing and measurement movement of EdwardL. Thorndike. It opposed at first the "activity program" andthe utilitarian bases of curricular decisions in the govern-ment school, but then gradually adapted what was accep-table from the new theorists in the light of Catholic prin-ciples, urged on by Msgr. George Johnson of CatholicUniversity.

On the secondary level, financial strain hindered thebuilding of laboratories and the development of vocationaltraining, thus adding to other reasons for the retention ofcollege preparatory curricula. On this level, the introduc-tion of social emphases to the curriculum was more gradual.Common to both levels, there was an attempt to make thecatechism come to life. Assisting in this effort were theliturgical movement, psychologically-oriented catechesis,and catechism renewal through a return to the early Chris-tian narrative-historical approach, Christocentrism, the Bi-ble, the kerygmatic method, eye-catching illustrations, andthe use of aLdio-visual materials.

For teachers in general, the time after World War I usheredin a new era in preparation, salaries, admission standards,and inspections. For Catholics, the 20's added to previousprograms of teacher training some more on the diocesanlevel. At the end of the 50's, the sister formation programadded new dimensions to the making of a sister-teacher.Throughout the period, the search for a higher level of pro-fessional training of teachers in Catholic schools was fur-ther motivated by statements of Popes Pius XI and Pius XII.The Catholic school teacher increase was not only qualitative

44 . 45

but quantitative, the quantitative jump during this periodbeing more than 100 percent. Lay teachers were beingupgraded, in both numbers and position, coming into their°Wit especially after World War II.

With the growth of child psychology, the student, too, wasbecoming less the "forgotten person" of Catholic schools.While some government-school educators were opting fora consideration of the "whole child" and not just statistics,Catholic-school educators were continuing their oppositionto the current naturalism in interpreting the child. FatherThomas Shields of Catholic University, himself apsychologist trained by Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig, adaptedthe best of the growing psychological movement to Catholicschools. Catholic concern for the dignity of the person con-tinued, resulting during the 50's in the beginnings of atten-tion to exceptional children as well as continued attentionto such minorities as blacks.

Catholic attitudes toward blacks often followed theirneighbors, but Catholics are proud of the many instancesof Catholic acceptance of blacks prior to the Browndesegregation decision of 1954. Among these were theschools in Baltimore in the early National Period; the foun-ding of a relivious order of black nuns, the Oblate Sistersof St. Francis, ln Baltimore in 1825, for poor black children;the failed attempts of Father Charles Nerinckx in 1824; thefirst schools for blacks near St. Louis, Mo., by MadamePhilippine Duchesne and the Religious of the Sacred Heartin 1818; the endeavors of Bishop John England in Charleston,S.C., in the mid-1820's; the "Special Report of the Commis-sioner of Education,District of Columbia, 1868" praising theD.C. Catholic free schools for blacks.

Concern for the education of blacks was expressed by: theSecond'. Plenary Council cf baltimore in 1866 and the ThirdPlenary Council in 1884; the establishment of black religiouscommunities like the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the Sistersof the Holy Family, and the Handmaids of the Most PureHeart of Mary; the work of the Josephites and other ordersof priests among blacks, starting after the Civil War; theFranciscan Sisters from Mill Hill, London, England, the on-ly white sisterhood in 1881 devoting itself to work among

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blacks; the white Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, found-ed in 1891 by Mother Katherine Drexel for school workamong blacks; the founding of the Catholic Student MissionCrusade in 1918 to interest Catholic students in blacks; and:le founding of Xavier University of Louisiana in New

Orleans in 1918 for the education of blacks.There was also the establishment in 1920 of St. Augustine's

Seminary in Bay St. Louis, Miss., to train black candidatesfor the Society of the Divine Word; the formation of theCatholic Interracial Council by John LaFarge, S.J., in 1934;clergy conferences around the same time for the welfare ofblacks; and the 1943 statemert of the bishops of the coun-try on the need for equality. Among some individuals whodeserve special mention are Cardinal James Gibbons ofBaltimore, Archbishop Robert E. Lucey of San Antonio, Tex.,Archbishop Joseph Ritter of St. Louis, Mo., Archbishop (laterCardinal) Patrick A. O'Boyle in Washington, D.C., Ar-chbishop Joseph F. Rummel in New Orleans, Bishop Vin-cent S. Waters in North Carolina, and Cardinal Albert Meyerand Bishop Bernard J. Sheil in Chicago.

Militating against these movements were the bigotry andprejudice of some Catholics and the paucity of blackCatholics Some of the prejudice was deep-seated so that,for example, it was almost impossible for blacks to entermost white religious communities. On the other hand,burned-out schools, churches, convents, and rectories in theSouth testify to areas where Catholic leaders moved too fastfor the local population.

Concerning the education of women, there were amongCatholics, as among others, the remnants of a double stan-dard. On the college level, Catholics moved more slowlythan others in the direction of coeducation, on the moralgrounds of supposed dangers in the mixing of the sexes. Onthe middle level, they voiced such objections as that eachsex has different needs, that coeducation presents moral pro-blems to the adolescent, and that the presence of the op-posite sex distracts from study. Pope Pius XI in The Chris-tian Education of Youth opposed coeducation, and a furtherinstruction from Rome on the subject in 1957 resulted inhigh schools that were

7coinstitutional rather than

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coeducationali.e., presented separate classroom instruc-tion to each sex, but had them share some facilities suchas cafeteria, chapel, and library. On the elementary level,U. S. Catholic schools never had any difficulty in havingboys and girls together.

8. CONTEMPORARYPERIOD:FERMENT ANDCHALLENGE

Conditionshe time from about the Sputnik year of 1957 on markinteresting contrasts with the previous pc nods. Theterms "Post Puritan" and "Post Protestant" began tobe applied to the United States in the 1960's. The age

of the "WASP" and the age of the melting pot, if there everwas one, began to come to a close. Many terms began todescribe the culture of this time, like "secular," "per-missive," "the Death of God," and "the great moral revolu-tion." The country was experiencing a basic change in moraland religious attitudes. By 1970, the nation's sense of unityhad fallen to its lowest point since 1861. The reverberationsof the revolution in the Roman Catholic Church, begun withthe election of Pope John XXIII in 1958, were deeply feltin the United States.

A wave of questioning of all traditional strictures, suchas the parish church, took place. Equally seriously, laymenwere finding that they had been forced to divorce their faithfrom the modes of thought by which they dealt with theirlife and work in the world. America's "civil religion" wasalso being subjected to severe criticism. Declining growthrates and widespread budgetary problems revealed a lossto the churches of institutional vitality; in truth, this lossalso was experienced by every other institution as well.

For many reasons, youth showed an estrangement fromtraditional forms of religious nourishment. Sydney E.Ahlstiom summarized these characteristics into threethefirst metaphysical, the second moral, and the third social:

T

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1. A growing commitment to a naturalism or"secularism" and corresponding doubts about thesupernatural and the sacral;

2. A creeping (or galloping) awareness of vast con-tradictions in American life between professionand performance, the ideal and the actual;

3. Increasing doubt as to the capacity of present dayecclesiastical, political, social, and educational in-stitutions to rectify the country's deep-seatedwoes.20

The spiritual result of all this proved to be enormous.Many critics saw time-honored United States church life asirrelevant to the country's actual condition and to regardchurch-going America not as a moral leaven but as anobstacle to change. This brought widespread disillusionmenteven to church ministers, especially those strongly commit-ted to the .racial gospel. Some Catholics, even those com-mitted to the sacral aim of "saving souls," had grave pro-blems with a Catholic schooling which they saw as produc-ing an intellectual atmosphere in which the traditional faithdid not seem to flourish sufficiently.

Statistics show interesting conditions. Catholic schoolenrollments today constitute a far smaller share of thenongovernment school sector than they did at their highpoint in the 1960's. In 1965-66, Catholic school enrollmentsconstituted about 87 percent; by 1980-81, this figure hadfallen to 63 p?rcent. In 1983-84, ,.1th 7,937 Catholic elemen-tary and 1,464 secondary schools (31 fewer than in 1982-83),then- was the smallest decline since the 1960's. WhileCT-hallo schools have been closing, fundamentalist schoolshave been opening at the rate of tw,-: a day. The 1983-84enrollment in Catholic elementary and secondary schoolswas 2,963,000. The 193 i -84 full-time faculty in Cathcl'celementary and secondary schools inc, zsed by 453 teachersto 146,913. Nongovernment schools -,-ved a larger shareof elementary and secondary schooling in 1980 than theydid in 1970: 11.1 percent against 10.5 percent. The Natio,!alCenter for Education Statistics predicts that the nongovern-ment sector will grow to 11.6 percent of the total schoolenrollment by 1990.

50 50

Over 57 percent of all Catholic school pupils are in theMideast and Great Lakes regions. Ten states account foralmost 70 percent of Catholic school enrollment. The firstfive (New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, and Ohio)comprise almost half (49.9 percent) of the enrollment. Inmany ways, this simply reflects national population statistics.There are exceptions: notably Louisiana as the 19th mostpopulated state and Wisconsin as the 16th, both with highCatholic school enrollments. Louisiana, Wisconsin, NewJersey, and Massachusetts seem to indicate the influence ofearly Catholic cultures and history.21

Since 1968.69, changes have brought about more Catholicelementary schools than b-afore in urban areas (47.4 percent),about the same in suburban areas (25.2 percent), and fewerin rural areas (27.4 percent). Secondary schools have shownthe same general trends. The reason that the percentage ofrural schools is smaller is perhaps that rural schools faceproblems which do not le.:d themselves to such solutionsas consolidation, available to more populated areas.

In 1981, about 89 percent of all Catholic elementaryschools had fewer than 500 pupils. Secondary schools weremore evenly distributed over various enrollment ranges. To-day, an increasing percentage of elementary schools havefewer than 500 pupils, while an increasing percentage ofsecondary schools exceed 500 pupils. As to ownership, mostelementary schools are single-parish schools: about 85 per-cent. Others are inter-parish, diocesan, or private. Secon-dary schools are divided differently: single-parish, 14.6per-cent; inter-parish, 11.4; diocesan, 35.5; and private, 38.5.Parish elementary schools are supported mainly by parishsubsidies (46 percent) and tuition (43 percent); the remPir.dercomes from fund-raising efforts, volunteer work, contributedservices from relizious communities, and voluntarycontributions.

There has been a spate of criticism of U. S. schools, govern-ment and nongovernment, which has not let upat Lastwith regard to fulfilling completely and efficiently all theresponsibilities that society has thrust upon them. Criticismof Catholic schools began before "Sputnik" with, for exam-ple, Msgr. John Tracy Ellis' 1955 article questioning the ex-

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tent of Catholic intellectual life, a theme taken up by manyothers. Among solutions proposed have been suggestions toabandon Catholic schools and concentrate efforts solely onreligious education; to opt for a complete restructuring ofthe existing system; :o drop some levels, leaving the agoniz-ing problem of which; and to merge schools instead of clos-ing them, in order to prevent, as far as possible, student loss.

Curriculaust as New Testament times had to distinguish trueChristianity from Hellenism and other then-current op-posed modes of thought, everyone involved in theCatholic school enterprise should be able to differen-

tiate between the true teachings of their church arid thevariants, heresies, and influences that are subLy inimicalto what they stand for. Catholic schools should have the abili-ty to discern what is valuable in current curricular theoriesand incorporate it into their schools: in New Testamenttimes, the Christian curriculum reflected the best of theHebrews, Greeks, and Romans; St. Augustine later refer-red to the proverb of "spoiling the Egyptians" to mean thatthe Christian curriculum should take the best from non-Christiaa sources and leave the rest.

Catholic school curricula are in some ways similar to theirgovernment counterparts. For example, in formulating cur-ricula, both have difficulties commensurate with their pro-blems in arriving at and defining goals. Also, both perceivethe need for sex education, both have at times introducedit, and both have experienced opposition, even from parentswho do not assume their responsibilities in its regard. Manyof the textbooks in secular subjects are also the same,especially those provided by government. Studies have,however, revealed biases in some government school textswith particular reference to Jews and Catholics.

As for that which specifically makes Catholic schools dif-ferent from government schoolsreligionthere is a varietyof approaches. Some schools are of the opinion that religionshould permeate the entire curriculum. Others view parishschools as part of the entire faith community, into which

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religious curricula should be integrated. Still others preferto view the integrity of each subject, including religion, onits own merits, with its own academic criteria. Unfortunate-ly, there remain some in this last category who treat religionas a mere add-on to what government schools are doing, anadd-on whose handling they have not at times thought outsufficiently. Fortunately, though, there has been a great im-provement in religion texts. These frequently combine doc-trine, visual aids, and activities in ways that are educationallyprofessional in including good learning theory in curriculumdevelopment.

Goalsoals shoula be especially precious to the Christianschool: what had been for Greek education the mor-phosis of human personhood became for New Testa-ment times and thereafter the more profound

metamorphosis; for early Christians their religion's invitationto God-likeness was precious. For Catholics, of course, thepractical application of immutable goals to the ever-changingpresent is an ongoing search. Granting that the definitionof education involves the harmonious development of allman's potentialities, where should the goal emphasis be: in-tellectual, moral, or .;omewbere inbetween? Or should theemphasis, like Vatican II, eschew Thomistic analysis andsimply assert a list of principal aims that differentiateCatholic schooling from all others by training in a specifickind of relationship with God?

G

Studentsf there is any one area in which Catholic schools pre-

irieminently differ from the rest of the world, it is in theirattitude and conduct toward students. These reflectChristianity's elevation of the dignity of humankind and

the worth of the ii,..,ividual. They consider the person as theimage and glory of God. Some current theories other thanChristian, like all such theories throughcut history, makeman a higher type machine or animal. More often, theymake man the measure of all things and consider him to

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be autonomous and with no relevance to God. Catholicschool theories point students to Goi and make them realizethey are theonomous rather than autonomous; aspiring tobe "superman" has definite limitations.

Catholic schools admit and work with those the Bible callsthe anawim, those who are voiceless, powerless, and unac-ceptable in society: "as long as you did it for one of these,the let. 1 of my brethren, you did it for me." Catholic schoolsteach that the virtues of the good life are not the rewardof work, or even the way to salvation, but rather the fruitsof a life permeated by divine grace.

There is much evidence that the student continues ioreceive the benefit of the church's vision of the dignity ofthe person. Throughout the contemporary period, VaticanCouncil IIespecially in such documents as the Pastoral Con-stitution on the Church in the Modern Worldas well asstatements of the popes and many bishops, have broughtthis home to the modern mind. New insights are being ap-plied to the education of the handicapped. Appropriate tothe times, there are some provisions for the gifted.

And Catholic school efforts and success in inner-cityschools are beyond dispute.2 James S. Coleman and AndrewGreeley provide statistical evidence to show, for example,that Catholic high schools are more economically efficientand educationally effective than are government highschools, and that Catholic high school students acquiresuperior academic achievement. They attribute the latter toCatholic schools' academic curriculum; requirements ofmore courses in mathematics, science, and foreignlanguages; more time on homework; and fewer disciplinaryproblems.23

Some preconceptions of inner-city Catholic schools con-tain erroneous notions: e.g., families who send their childrenthere constitute an elite stratum, they are motivated solelyby sectarian concerns, they seek a white haven againstblacks; they are attracted by family tradition. None of tl esepreconceptions holds up. The data show that among themotives for sending children to Catholic schools are thedesire for a disciplined environment and the wish forchildren to secure moral and religious values. There is no

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evidence that there is any mass movement to provide havensfor whites trying to escape their social responsibilities. Cer-tainly Catholic schools that have been established for anysubstantial period have not provided such a haven.

Catholic schools have been enrolling an increasing numberof non-Catholic students.24 The percentage of non-Catholicsincreased from 2.7 percent in 1969-70 to 10.6 percent in1982-83; the 1982-83 percentage in secondary schools in-creased to 11.2 percent. Much of this is the church's con-tributions to blacks. Also, a small "new immigration," im..st-ly to cities, has comprised such mostly Catholic minoritiesas Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. With American lndia-ls,there is evidence that, whereas much of the U. S. hasseparated them from family, culture, and self, Catholicschools have provided some schools and catechetical centerswith more success.

A typification of the best in Catholic inner-city schoolscould perhaps be the K-through-8 St. Francis de Saleselementary school in Roxbury, Mass., a predominantly blackand poor section of Boston. Its 160 pupils are black and 90percent are non-Catholic. The school, surrounded by hous-ing projects and vacant lots, is a model of correct deport-ment. The school's annual per-put,2. cost is $1200, only one-fifth that of Boston's government schools.25

In these urban schools, the larger dioceses have, withoutstanding effort, kept the schools open for minorities. Theability to continue has been complicated by the explosionof many factors within the system, e.g., the large declinesin the number of religious community members, inflation,the increase in lay teacher salaries, the movement of manypeople to the suburbs. Also, Christian doctrine turns off someethnic groups and is culturally acceptable to others, e.g., theblack, Indian and Oriental races have not historically em-braced the Catholic religion, while the Spanish have. Evenwith these factors, the percentage of ethnic minority studentsin Catholic schools increased from 10.8 percent in 1970-71to 18.4 percent in 1980-81, and to 20.4 percent in 1982-83.

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Teachersatholic school teachers, including the non-Catholicsamong them, historically have had a respect for thechurch and its teachings. They have been leaders withimagination and courage in applying Christian prin-

ciples to current socio-economic and other problems, andhave to a preeminent degree possessed such importantteacher virtues as charity, patience, and commitment. In themodern period, Vatican II and the recent popes convey anawareness of the importance of teachers. John Paul II, forexample, referring in part to scripture and Vatican II, saidthat teachers

carry out one of the most important tasks of the churchand of society...have accepted a special resprnsibilitygiven by parents...create the future and give it direc-tion by offering...a set of values...(make their students)ever more conscious of the gift of faith...that (students)may be prepared to live their personal lives accordingto a new nature in justice and holiness in truth so thatthey may reach perfect maturity, the measure of thefullness of Christ.26In 1984, NCEA sent a 7A-item questionnaire to 1062 full-

time teachers in 45 Catholic high schools that constituteda representative sample of all U.S. Catholic high schools.Of the total, 56 percent was Catholic lay; 19 percent non-Catholic lay; 3 percent priests; 18 percent women religious;and 4 percent men religious. The majority held positionson most social issues which would be consistent with thepublic positions of the American Catholic hierarchy. Theywere more likely than Catholics in general to support thenuclear freeze, favor the Equal Rights Amendment, andfavor a ban on abortion. They did not give the issues of peaceand social/economic justice priority in their lives (perhapsexplaining why only about one out of four teachers claim-ed to be succeeding in helping students become more sen-sitive to the claims of social justice). In most value areas,lay teachers were not dramatically different from religiousteachers, and all were more religiously committed than theaver: Catholic.27

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Unfortunately, the short supply of teachers for both thegovernment and nongovernment sectors has at some timesand in some places led to the acceptance of substandardqualifications. There has been the relatively newphenomenon of strikes. It would be heartening if one couldsay that all Catholic school teacher strikes were for betterparental cooperation or other conditions that benefited theirpupils more than or as much as themselves, but such hasnot been the case. Modern nurses, confronted with con-troversial issues, frustrating working conditions, and pro-fessional paradoxes, have protested for better patient caremuch more publicly than teachers for students. And Catholicschool teachers have sometimes absorbed, at times fromsecular training, the very posithms and attitudes whichhistorically inspired sacrifices for establishing and maintain-ing Catholic schools: empiricism, for example, andrelativism, form over substance and process over content,a predilection for "methods" courses, solipsism, naturalism,materialism, and positivism. In turn, they have at times un-wittingly reflected some of these positions in their teaching.

The situation has been complicated by such problems aslow salaries and good opportunities in business. Some pro-blems seem more applicable to government schools thanCatholic, like the difficulty of innovation and experimenta-tion in the bureaucracy. Others are specifically Catholic,e.g.,shortage of teaching religious personnel because of lackof vocations, the numbers leaving religious communities,communities entering such other work as social service asan apostolate in preference to teaching, and the financialburdens of the higher salaries required by the increased pro-portion of lay teachers.

The lay staff now has come to hold almost the same ma-jority that religious sisters, brothers, and priests held in the1960's: in fall 1983, on the elementary level, the lay teachingstaff was 78.8 percent; on the secondary level, 74.3 percent.Overall, this has not resulted in any less Catholicity, despitethe misgivings of some parents. Effectiveness in that regardis measured by the nature of the goals and the extent towhich they are successfully implemented. And teacher ef-fectiveness has been facilitated by improved teacher-student

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ratios: on the elementary level, in 1968-69 it was 31.3 to one;in 1983-84, it was 22.1; on the secondary level, the ratiosfor the same years were 19.2 and 16.3 respectively.

Secondary Agents of Education:Family, Church, State

atholic schools are called upon by their New Testa-ment witness to the Holy Family to give special at-tention to the role of the parents, home, and family.In a long line of reminders of Catholic adherence to

that principle, Vatican II declared that parents are "the firstand foremost educators of their children." But modern timeshave brought problems. The retreat from the home causedby two working parents and broken marriages has unfor-tunately applied to Catholics as well as to others. Other cur-rent family trends lessen parental involvement in educationand schooling, such as decreasing parental self-confidenceregarding child-rearing, suburban family problems like in-creasing violence within the family, and an increased varietyof family structures.

Vatican Council II, bringing the 2500 bishops of the worldtogether in Rome from 1962 to 1965, addressed the church'sagency in education through such documents as its Declara-tion on Christian Education and the Pastoral Constitution onthe Church in the Modern World.28 Characteristic of thechurch's post-Vatican II attitudes are openness to the con-temporary scene and modern culture, less rigidity, and moredialogue with the world. The U. S. bishops' statement onCatholic education on November 16, 1967, contained ap-plications of Vatican II as well as words of encouragementto hard-pressed Catholic educators.

The difficulties of both government and nongovernmentschools have become so overpowering as to make necessarysome requests for further financial assistance from the mostpowerful of the agents of education, the state. On the federallevel, the legislative branch seems more in touch with thegrass rots of the country than some local levels. The Na-tional Defense Education Act of 1958 unprecedentedly gaveloans (not grants) to fulfill its provisions in church-related

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middle level schools. It was renewed in 1961 and broaden-ed in 1964. The Elementary and Secondary Ede ration Actof 1965 was the first to include nongovernment as well asgovernment school children in its massive aid program,which consisted of $1.3 billion to start.

This "Johnson Act," as it was called after President Lyn-don B. Johnson who steered it through, cleverly met the twomost frequent traditional objections to government aid tochurch-related schools: violation of the First Amendmentand undercutting of the prestige of the government school.The bill gave aid only for secular subjects and enhanced theprestige of government schools by making them the sole reci-pients of the funds to be distributed through them to otherswho merited them. The beneficiaries of the act are children,not schools, and the act was intended for those who are inone way or another underprivileged. Catholic schools fulfillcompulsory state schooling requirements, and most stateshave minimal legislation on admission, expulsion, cur-riculum, teachers, buildings, and equipment. Some statesare currently providing more financial assistance than in thepast.

In the judicial branch of the federal government, there hasbeen an increase in court cases. This has been, for one,because cf growth in Catholic sophistication resulting in therefusal to take lying down what Catholics used to. Therealso has been a continuance of subtle hostile prejudice frompressure groups, but less prejudice from the total popula-tion. In fact, polls show that the general population moreand more favors Catholic schooling, though not understan-ding completely what it is aboutperhaps indicating a needfor Catholic school public relations campaigns.

The Supreme Court's hard-to-understand confusions andself-contradiction continue. Despite its 1930 decision per-mitting the state to grant textbooks to parochial schoolstudents, the court reversed itself in 1961.29 Intertwinedthroughout its decision was the argument that in a sectarianschool, religion permeates the teaching of every subject, in-cluding the secular. Paradoxically, in the same year, thecourt seemed to ignore the permeation argument in findingconstitutional the concept of Sunday as a day of rest.30 Even

4,559

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though the Sunday legislation satisfied the religious needsof a portion ui the cc. .1unity as well as providing a secularpurpose in a uniform day of rest, the court's refusal tocharacterize the existing Sunday laws of Maryland,Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania as establishments of theChristian religion veered from absolute separation of churchand state a realistic attitude.

The court also declared unconstitutional a New York stateregents' recommendation that at the beginning of eachschool day, government school students recite anondenominational prayer which said, "Almighty God, weacknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thyblessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our coun-try."31 For the court, Justice Hugo Black held that the mat-ter was a violation of the First Amendment's establishmentclause because the prayer was composed by government of-ficials. Neither the nondenominational nature of the prayernor the fact that a pupil could refrain from reciting it changedthe decision of unconstitutionality. To a heatedly opposedcitizenry, it seemed that the court was preferring non-beliefover belief.

Nevertheless, the court continued to declare unconstitu-tional any officially sponsored reading of the Bible and/orrecitation of the Lord's Prayer at the beginning of the govern-ment school day.32 Justice Tom Clark characterizedAmericans as a religious people, but asserted the absoluteequality before the law of belief and non-belief. BecauseClark seemed to confine religion exclusively to the in-dividual, the home, and the church, many citizens objectedthat this decision did not adequately take into considerationthe social nature of religion or the educational rights ofparents, which rights are by nature to cume before thoseof the state and of the church.

The court acknowledged that the government may "notestablish 'a religion of secularism' in the sense of affirmative-ly opposing or showing hostility to religion, 'thus preferr-ing those who believe in no religion over those who dobelieve'."33 It further indicated that the Bible could bestudied for its literary and historical benefits in the govern-ment schools "when presented objectively as a part of a

60

secular program of education." Among the violent reactionsfollowing these d... sions were movements to amend theConstitution, suggestions of substitute programs involvingteaching about religion rather than teaching religion itself,and the out-and-out refusal of many to obey the court'sruling.

The Supreme Court has overturned itself in hundreds ofcases in all areas of law." Its 1968 Flast v. Gardner35 deci-sion, for example, overturned the 1923 Frothingham v.Mellon36 decision. Frothingham had declared that . the in-dividual taxpayer lacks standing in court to challenge howfederal funds are spent, but Flast granted that right. Alsoin 1968, in the "New York Textbook Case,"37 the U. S.Supreme Court ruled constitutional a New York state lawgranting a loan of textbooks to private school pupils. In 1971,the court disapproved the "purchase" of certain "seculareducational services" from nongovernment schools in Penn-sylvania and Rhode Island.38 As a result of the decision, adrastic rearrangement of Catholic and other parochialschools had to begin. For one thing, tuitions had to go up,and poorer parents were simply unable to afford it.Evangelist Billy Graham urged government aid tounsegregated "religious-oriented" schools to help counter-balance the "materialistic, atheistic teaching" in governmentschools. Some Jewish groups adopted similar stands.

The Wisconsin v. Yoder case of 1972 was different.39 Amishdaily life and religious practice are in response to their literalinterpretation of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans: "Benot conformed to this world." They object to higher educa-tion generally as a "wcridly" influence and believe that highschool endangers their salvation by tending to emphasizeaccomplishments, self-distinction, competitiveness, worldlysuccess, and social life.

Amish society emphasizes a life of "goodness" rather thana life of intellect, wisdom rather than technical knowledge,community welfare rather than competition, and separationfrom rather than in4-egration with worldly society. Theybelieve all this to be particularly crucial in the high schooladolescent period of religious development, so they keeptheir children out of traditional high schools. Jonas Yoder

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the use of tax money for a Christmas nativity scene was per-

more lower schools by Catholics. In any case, the court hasconsistently declared the constitutionality of federal findsfor church-related colleges.42

of an "accommodation principle" to religion. Strict separa-tion of church and state has given way to the accommoda-tion of religion in both legislatures and courtsthe SupremeCourt rendered the surprising decision, for example, that

stan-dards in assessing the "religious effect" of the creche. In

The Constitution, the court saw,

per -missible.43 This decision refused to use strict scrutiny stan-

its important 1983 accommodation decision as applied toschooling, Mueller v. Allen, the court came to see that the

metaphor, but is not an accurate description of the reality.

and other Old-Order Amish were convicted of violatingWisconsin's compulsory school attendance law by declin-ing

from the eighth grade. The court sustained theirclaim that applying to them the Compulsory School Atten-dance

to send their children to any school after they had

dance Law violated their rights under the free exercise clauseof the First Amendment. (It will be interesting to see if thisdecision holds up in the long run.)

as unconstitutional.0 In the complicated case Meek v. Pit-tenger

nongovernment schools authorized by Pennsylvania law

"wall" of separation between church and state is a useful

in-structional materials and equipment other than textbooks

the schools benefiting from the act.

secon-dary schools. The court has explained that this is becauseof the increased maturity of students in colleges and the con-sequent

of 1975,41 the court found that the direct loan of in-

had the unconstitutional primary effect of establishingreligion because of the predominately religious character of

have differed from those applied to elementary and secon-

sequent decreased danger of indoctrination. Others have saidit is because more colleges were founded by Protestants,

Current tendencies, however, seem to be in the direction

In 1973, the court outlawed New York tuition tax credits

The principles applied by the courts to higher education

does not require complete separation of church andstate; it affirmatively mandates accommmodation, not

62

merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostilitytoward any. Anything less would require the "callousindifference"...that was never intended by theEstablishment Clause."In Mueller, the court for the first time explicitly recogniz-

ed that states may "conclude that there is a strong publicinterest in assuring the continued financial health of privateschools, both sectarian and nonsectarian." Consequently,the court declared constitutional the plan which permittedparents of Minnesota school children to deduct from theirtaxes expenses incurred in providing "tuition, textbooks, andtransportation" for their children. The statute applied onlyto Minnesota, and involved only a relatively small amountof money.

Legislators in Wisconsin and New Jersey have introduc-ed tax-deduction legislation similar to the Minnesota plan.If less effort has been expended in other states with highchurch school enrollments, it is perhaps because interestedparties have been concentrating on the tuition tax-credit io-posal of Presit nt Ronald Reagan and because of variationsin the economy. Such aid schemes as the tuition tax creditproposals now before the federal legislature may be un-constitutional because they benefit only parents ofnongovernment school children. (The NCEA has proposeda modification of the Reagf.:n tuition tax-credit bill to per-mit parents of government school children to benefit.)Broader-based schemes like vouchers, on the other hand,may be constitutional, because their benefits extend to allschool children.

In another case, the court has recognized that nongovern-ment schools which violate "fundamental public policy,"such as segregation, cannot receive government largesse. 45Though on its face that seems to represent common sense,it does raise questions about the state regulation ofnongovernment schools: how much government in-terference would be tolerable? Some of the areas in whichnongovernment schools want to retain control are the deter-mination of their own philosophy, the design of their cur-riculum, the choice of teaching materials, and the admis-sion and deportment of students. These questions become

63 63

urgent in light of the current pressure of Christian fundamen-talists to have state regulations governing their schoolsdeclared unconstitutional c grounds of religious liberty.

In Mueller, the court refused to consider the actual effectcf the Minnesota program on government and nongovern-ment schools as a whole. They justified this refusal by notingthat government school parents as well as nongovernmentschool parents could take advantage of the tax-deduction pro-gram. The court's apparent shift set ort in Mueller is perhapsattributable to the court adopting two new perspectives onthe state's relationship to nongovernment schools. First, theysaw the danger of political divisions along religious lines asremote, "and when viewed against the positive contribu-tions of sectarian schools" seems an "entirely tolerable" risk.Instead of viewing the relationship of church and state asnecessarily divisive, the court sensibly noted that "(a)t thispoint in the 20th century we are quite far removed fromthe dangers that prompted the framers to include theEstablishment Clause in the Bill of Rights."

Secondly, the court stressed the positive role that non-government schools play:

Parochial schools...ha ye provided an educationalalternative for millions of young Americans;...affordwholesome competition with our publicschools; ...relieve substantially the tax burden...TheState has, moreover, a legitimate interest in facilitatingeducation of the highest quality for all children withinits boundaries, whatever school their parents choosefor them."This recognition of the positive secular role of nongovern-

ment schools rebuts much of the "pervasively sectarian"doctrine of taint that was the basis of the previous invalida-tions of state efforts to provide materials or services tonongovernment schools.

At the present time, three values underlie the First Amend-ment's establishment clause: neutrality, religious accom-modation, and separation. Neutrality means that the govern-ment must treat all religions in a similar manner. Accom-modation recognizes the inevitability of some contacts be-tween government and religion, as well as the propriety of

64 64

some of these contacts. Separation seeks to prohibit govern-ment from favoring religion over irreligion or vice-versa, thusensuring the integrity of both church and state.

To determine whether a particular statute is constitutional,the court has developed three-pronged test: "First, thestatute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, itsprincipal or primary effect must be one that neither a...,varicesnor inhibits religion; /and) finally, the statute must not fosteran excessive government entanglement with religk.n."47 Ifany of these elements is not satisfied, the court will find thestatute unconstitutional. Either as part of its mystifying in-consistency in interpreting this tripartite standard or as partof its new tendency toward the accommodation of religion,the court has come to note that "the wall of separation thatmust be maintained between church and state is a blurred,indistinct, and variable barrier depending on all thecumstances of a particular relationship'."48 The tripartitetest in particular cases therefore seems to resemble morea merely helpful signpost than a set formula. The seculareffect and entanglement prongs are especially difficult.

Just where the court will go in the future is not certain.Much will depend on replacements of justices now agingor ailing. It is no longer mere legal principles and precedentsthat determine decisions, but the social sciences introduc-ed by legal "realists," who argue that an understanding ofdecisions can be enhanced by disciplines like psychologyand sociology. Some theorists like Judge Richard Posner addeconomics to the sciences needed for legal decisions. He,together with such social science-minded scholars as formerChicago Law School Professor and now D. C. Circuit Courtof Appeals Judge Antonin Scalia, Yale's Ralph Winter, jr.,and former Solicitor General Robert Bork, are among cur-rent candidates being mentioned for the Supreme Court.

As this is being written, the Supreme Court has agreedto consider other key church-state issues that pertain toschools. One case will put to another test the court's apparenttrend of loosening "establishment clause" standards. Thiscase raises the significant issue of whether it constitutes aper se violation of the establishment clause for Grand Rapids,Mich., to provide secular, supplementary instructional ser-

65 65

vices to church school students on premises leased fromchurch-affiliated schools under conditions of governmentschool control. The issue is, in other words, whether agovernment school system can assist parochial schools bysending teachers into the church-affiliated schools to teachenrichment and remedial classes. The "shared-time" pro-gram in Grand Rapids is similar to parochial aid programsthe court has struck down in the past.

Another case will decide the constitutionality of anAlabama law that permits a moment of silence each govern-ment school day for "meditation or voluntary prayer."so Stillanother will decide the constitutionality of a Connecticutlaw that requires employers to give their religiously-observant employ' es a day off on the Sab, lath. The StateSupreme Court declared the law unconstitutional on thegrounds that it impermissibly elevated religious reasonsabove all other reasons.51 And another Christmas creche casewill decide whether Scarsdale, N.Y., can be required to per-mit a local group to erect a nativity scene in a public park.52

6666

9. CONCLUSIONS

From many points of view, education is essentiallyreligious. It :...5 to do with defing the goodthe goodperson, the good life, the good societyand 30 is moralin character. Also. both religion and education deal

with the underlying nature of reality. And Catholicism isan historically-proven counterbalance to self-centered pride,self-serving ideologies, materialism, and excesssive ra-tionalism. Putting Catholicism and education together inCatholic schools is therefore an enterprise eminently worthfighting for.

But there are potholes cn that glory road. From within,the uniformity of the pattern of Catholic schools is todaymore dissipated than before. It is necessary to determinethe degree of Catholicity of each "Catholic" school. One canno longer take for granted that schools called St. John's crSt. Mary's are Catholic, but must ask, "which school, andwhen?" While it is true that government schools need thenongovernment sector to challenge them, it is also true thatCatholic schools need government and other schools for thesame reason. Both remain necessary for the good of the coun-try. In view of their glorious history, Catholic schoolstudents, parents, contributors, and workers, along with thegeneral public, today deserve a measure of effort in behalfof Catholic schools comparable to that of the past.

In the fray, some Catholics seem still to want to rely upontheir hierarchy as in the past, but that historical situation,for a variety of reasons, an no longer exist, and should not.Interested laity must recognize the need, in the U.S. politicalprocess, that they create a proper climate for action. Oneneed is for scientific research studies on a national level.Two massive studies were Catholic Schools in Action, by the

67

I

67

68

University of Notre Dame, and The Education of CatholicAmericans, under the auspices of the National OpinionResearch Center at Chicago." Among other studies were theNCEA symposium in 1967, "Blueprint for the Future," andthose done by Notre Dame's Office of Educational Researchon some dioceses. NCEA has put together such otherresearch projects as its 1984 study of a national sample of8,000 adolescents and 10,000 of their parents from 13organizations. A prohibiting factor for the kinds of nationalstudies that are needed is high ..- ,ost.

A good model of what they should do next is connectedwith the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown desegration decision.This declared that separate facilities hr blacks are inherentlyunequal, thus providing for blacks de jidre equality and over-turning the 1896 Plessy decision declaring the propriety of"separate but equal" facilities for blacks. Before that hap-py result could be brought about, the National Associationfor the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and otherastute organizations diligently saw to it that other, careful-ly selected cases had worked their way up through the courtsand set proper precedents to make the Brown decisionpossible.

Other countries that have borrowed the exact wording ofthe U.S. Constitution have interpreted the "no establish-ment" and "free exercise" of religion clauses more in favorof equal treatment of church-affiliated schools than the U.S.Supreme Court has. In Australia, for example, whose 1898Constitution copied that of the United States almost ver-batim, the High Court in a critical 1981 decision had no dif-ficulty whatsoever in forthrightly deciding that equal treat-ment, financial and otherwise, for church-affiliated schoolsis constitutional. It noted that "establishing a religion in-volves the entrenchment of a religion as a feature of andidentified with the body politic," and prudently observedthat "a law which establishes a religion will inevitably doso expressly and directly and not, as it were, constructive-ly."54 Even an authoritarian country like Liberia, which alsoadopted many of the features of the U.S. Constitution, hasno d:ffictilty in interpreting its provisions to provide substan-tial benefits to church-affiliated schools. In the United States,

68

Ague historical backgrounds and different cultural foun-`:itions are obviously present.

hi ':once, where the socialist Mitterand government triedto decrease government financial aid to nongovernment(principally Catholic) schools, one million peopledemonstrated against itsuccessfullyin Paris. When thesocialist government of Spain tried to do the same, about750,000 marchers braved cold wintery showers todemonstrate forcefully their protest.55

Catholics, and citizens in general, have the option offollowing either of the two roads exemplified in the histo,of our country. One is the high road of developing the Pledgeof Allegiance's "one nation under God," of living up to theircoins' declaration that "In God We Trust," and of celebratingthe brotherhood of humankind under the fatherhood of God.The other is the low road of bigotry and prejudice. We can-not follow the high road unless we make true parental choicein schooling realistically possible and introduce youth at thetime of their intellectual development to God our Father.

Many of those who choose the high road sometimes ap-pear, in the face of seemingly real opportunities for a govern-ment funding of church-affiliated schools based upon justice,to fall short of the courage of their ancestors. In the faceof stro,,g lobbying opposition from the government schoolestablishment, they lose nerve and momentum, usually atthe last moment, up to which time the polls and legislativevotes are overwhelmingly in their favor.

Why bother? Why not relegate the religious aspect ofeducation to the home and church rather than include theschool? Why not rather have everybody get behind thegovernment schools and improve them? Because that kindof dichotomy between religion and the rest of life does notharmonize with the nature of the person. Because the com-partmentalization of life is not possible from any academical-ly respectable anthropological, sociological, p-ychological,or other point of '''ew. Because the child comes away fromthat kind of situation thinking that religion is a solely privateand personal affair, with no social consequences orsignificance.

Further, religion should not be relegated to the home andr

i969

70

`'''lL,,,..

church and omitted from the school because that gives thechild the impression that religion is unimportantall the im-portant items being covered by the school curriculum,because that kind of education is superficial and gives shortshrift to providing insights into the meaning of life, becausethat procedure would in the long run be harmful to the coun-try at large, and because that kind of procedure lacks thechallenge and friendly competitionas well as cooperationand interactionthat any large enterprises like the govern-ment school establishment and the church-affiliated schoolpattern need for their betterment.

The fact of history remains that educationally, the UnitedStates is unique. Much of that uniqueness, like universaland free education, is extremely praiseworthy. Some is not.Among the latter is the phenomenon that the U.S. remainsthe only country in the Western world that intentionally pro-hibits the presence of any religion other than the secularin its government schools and at the same time makes it dif-ficult to the point of impossibility to establish and maintainon an equal financial footing nongovernment schools whichaverage parents can freely choose for their offspring and inwhich the average student can receive religion in school-ing. C. S. Lewis' statement on another matter could havebet..n written of this predicament:

Such is the tragi-comedy of our situationwe con-tinue to clamor for those very qualities we are render-ing impossible...We laugh at honour and are shockedto find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid thegeldings be fruitful.56

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1. Catholic schooling in the United States is a phenomenonof which all can be proud. It has made tremendous con-tributions to the country as well as to the church, includingthe heroism of religious, the sacrifices of laity, many "firsts,"and unsung leaders.

2. The beginnings of United States Catholic schools had theirprologue in Europe. Immigrants brought not only a desirefor religious liberty, but also a popular piety and devotionallife that obliterated many of today's distinctions betweenthe sacred and the secular; for them "the sky hung low"and the church had a dynamic life in this world and notjust in a world to come.

3. In the colonial period of transplantation, Catholic efforts atschooling, education, and civilization began in New Spainand in New France long before there were any schools inNew England.

4. It was, however, the 13 British colonies along the Atlanticcoastline that set the pattern for the future development ofwhat became the United States. Their outlook on life wasunmistakably influenced by a Puritan ethos, to whichmovements like the Great Awakening gave vigor. The Ageof Reason's faith-excluding "Enlightenment" providedanother base for the unfolding country. In this milieu,Catholics were an insignificant and powerless minority.

5. The end of the Colonial Period provided the legacy of theingenious United States Constitution, the results of bothChristian ane Enlightenment influences. The interpretationof its First Amendment as applied to schools has constitutedabout 95 percent of church-state issues. It reads: "Congressshall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,or prohibiting the iree exercise, thereof."

71

6. The Early National Period (about 1783 to about 1828) gaverise to traditions that were formative of the country: religiousfreedom; a relatively distinct separation of church and state;the "voluntary principle" of church membership and sup-port; and the advance of patriotic piety. Less worthy wereattacks on Catholicism. But despite hostility, poverty,trusteeism, the wilderness of the frontier, and other dif-ficulties, Catholics began schools that constituted, if not asystem, a pattern. Bishop John Carroll and his successorstook an interest in schools that would continue and cometo be taken for granted. Teachers were few and often aspoorly prepared as their government school counterparts.Religious communities like St. Elizabeth Seton's Sisters ofCharity dedicated themselves to teaching in Catholic schools.Curriculum was basic. The goal was to imbue Catholic youthwith the spirit of Christ and fashion them to God-likeness.

7. The Later National period (about 1829 to about 1884) wasone of transition. It gave rise to humanitarian reform forthe nation, one aspect of which was government schools.For the church, it was the period of the Councils ofBaltimore, further growth +;-.rough great immigration, andgeographical expansion c4- ....aceses through the westwardmovement. It also saw increases in anti-Catholicism, applica-tions of which to Catholic schools were fought forcefullyby Bishop John Hughes of New York and more peacefullyby Bishop Francis Patrick Kenrick of Philadelphia. Theseconditions prevented Catholic schools from becoming elitistas had happened elsewhere. Catholics, perceiving that forthe first time in history a government-sponsored educationalpattern was to be attempted without religion, redoubled theirefforts at their own schools. Some public-parochial schoolswere established, in which the major part of parochial schoolcosts were paid by community taxes.

8. The period from roughly 1885 to 1917 was critical fororganized religion because of such phenomena asmaterialism and its cult of success, pragmatism, naturalism,and hostile extensions of Darwinism. The high tide of im-migration caused not only new outbreaks of nativism, butgrowth in the number of Catholics and their schools. Decreesof the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 helped

72

the growth. Associations to bring educators together werebegun; the Catholic Educational Association (later to add theadjective "National") was formed in 1904.

In 1889, The Catholic University of America came intobeing as the apex of Catholic schooling and as the agencyto unify and guide it, raise its standards through a programof affiliation, and prepare its teachers. But Catholics couldnot completely accept new theorists who were lifting schoolsfrom their "Procrustean Bed": Pestaloz!i I cause of hisnaturalism; Herbart because of his determinism; Froebelbecause of his pantheism; progressivism because of whatthey considered undue student permissiveness and a forget-fulness of original sin; and Thomdike because of his em-piricism. Archbishop John Ireland's address of 1890 to theNational Education Association began the Bouquillon con-troversy on the state's right to educate. Some Catholics re-mained opposed to the establishment and maintenance ofCatholic schools; Father Edward McGlynn of New York Citypreferred that church resources be put into cryingly need-ful social welfare programs.

9. The period from World War I to post-World War II sawa new maturation. Ecclesiastically, the church's 1918 Codeof Canon Law left no doubt about the church's right toeducate. In 1919, when the National Catholic Welfare Con-ference (later called United States Catholic Conference) wasformed as an arm of the bishops, it included a Departmentof Education. The year 1919 also witnessed an importantPastoral Letter of the bishops on education.

Civilly, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Pierce v.Society of Sisters of 1925 has been called the Magna Cartaof parochial schools, because it defended their right to ex-ist. The court rendered other (at times inconsistent) deci-sions on matters like supplying textbooks to parochial schoolchildren, the right of religious teachers to contribute theirsalaries to their religious communities, bus transportationcosts of parochial school pupils, Bible reading in govern-ment schools, released-time p* ograms, the legality or religir isteachers in government sch ids, and teaching sisters wear-ing religious garb in government schools. The greatestchurch-state cooperation in schooling came in 1944 with the

73 '7,5

74

Servicemen's Readjustment Act, also called the "GI Bill ofRights."

10. The contemporary period, beginning with about the Sput-nik year of 1957, is a period of ferment and challenge. Inthe country at large, it marks the end of the "WASP" andthe beginning of a period that has been called secular, per-missive, the Death of God, Post-Puritan, and a great moralrevolution. In the church, the reverberations of the revolu-tion begun by the election of Pope Paul XXIII in 1958 andhis Vatican Council II arrived at these shores, causing wavesof questioning of all traditional structures.

The FO's questioning, estrangement of youth, and criticismof schools eventually leveled off. Statistics show Catholic_schools to be faithful to their Christian heritage andacademically more successful than many of their govern-ment school counterparts. Catholic schools have continuedto uplift all students, Iv -t especially such underprivileged asthose in the inner city. There has been a decrease in thenumber of religious teachers and a corresponding increasein the number of laity. Among the secondary agents ofeducation, the family's important role has been hinderedby modern marriage problems. Even in the face of over-powering financial difficulties, the church has continued toshow commitment. And, the government's interest, especial-ly that of the Supreme Court, has been confusing and con-tradictory. As for the last, there is hope in the new princi-ple of the accommodation of religion.

11. History shows Catholic schooling in the U.S. to be eminentlyworth fighting for. It requires the same measure of sacrificeand heroism as those of the heroes of the past. Interestedparties should contribute to much-needed studies of Catholicschools, see to it that carefully selected cases work their waythrough the courts to create a proper climate and set pro-per precedents for just and favorable decisions, and becomefamiliar with and instruct others on the benefits of Catholicschools to the public weal as well as to individuals. For theindividual, religion is the best formative influence in theworld. For the public weal, Daniel Webster said, "Whatevermakes men good Christians makes them good citizens."

The United States remains the only country in the Western

74

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FOOTNOTES

1. Much of the above, and some subsequent material, is taken fromHarold A. Buetow, Of Singular Benefit (New York: Macmiilan, 1970)

2. The Oxford English Dictionary (Glasgow, etc.: Oxford University Press,1971), p. 1158.

3. Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers,1896-1901), Vol. 12, p. 123.

4. Ibid., Chapter 66, p. 231.5. Herbert Ingram Priestley, The Coming of the White Man, 1492-1848

(New York: The Macmillan Co., 1950), p. 246.6. William Bennet Munroe, Crusaders of New France (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1920), pp. 131-132.7. Lettr * of Father Stephen Dubuisson, S.J., to Father A. Young, S.J.,

March 3, 1827. Quoted in John M. Daley, S.J., Georgetown University:Origin and Early Years (Washington, D.C.: GeoraPtown University Press,1957), p. 249.

8. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923).9. Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070

(1925).10, Cochran v. Board of Education, 281 U.S. 370, 74 L.Ed. 913 (1930).11. Gerhard v. Heid, 66 N.D. 447, 267 N.W. 127 (1936).12. Judd v. Board of Education, 278 N.Y. 200 (1938).13. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947).14. Zellers v. Huff, 55 N.M. 501, 236 Pac. 2d 949 (1951).15. Doremus v. Board of Education, 253 U.S. 487, 405 S.Ct. 483, 262 Fed.

849 (1920).16. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948).17. Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952).18. Rawlings v. Butler, 290 S.W. 2d 801 (1956).19. Ibid.20. Sidaey E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New

Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972), p. 1087.21. These and other statistics in this section are from Frank H. Bredeweg

and Bruno V. Manno, eds., United States Catholic Elementary and Secon-dary Schools 1983-1984: A Statistical Report on Schools, Enrollment, and Staf-fing (Washington, D.C.: National Catholic Educational Association, 1984).

22. There are, for example, studies by James S. Coleman, Thomas Hofer,and Sally Kilgore; also those of Andrew Greeley. See Andrew Greeley,"Catholic High Schools: An Effective Inner-City Ministry," NationalCatholic Reporter. (August 31, 1984), pp. 11-12.

ti

76 77

78

23. Cincy Currence. "A 'Catholic School's Effect' Is Reaffirmed by ItsChampions, Coleman and Greeley," Education Week. Vol. IV, No. 11,/November 14, 19841. pp. 2, 11.

24. The New York Times, September 6, 1984, p. B3.25. Ibid., May 17, 1984, p. A20.26. NC News Service, September 14, 1984.27. NCEA Notes, Secondary Department. Vol. 17, No. 1 (September 19£41,

pp. 3-5. At this writing, NCEA promises additional findings in theFebruary 1985 issue of Momentum and at the April 1985 NCEAconvention.

28. Walter M. Abbot and Joseph Gallagher, eds., The Documents ofVatican II (New York: American Press, 1966).

29. Dickman v. School District 62-C, 366 P.2d 533 (1961).30. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420 (1961).31. Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 481 (1962).32. School District of Abington Township v. Shempp, 377 U.S. 203 (1963).33. Ibid.34. One quick about-face (in three years) was the government school

flag-salute cases: Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940);West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnett, 635 S. Ct. 437 (1943).

35. East v. Gardner, 390 U.S. 977 (1908).36. Frothingham v. Mellon, 43 Sp. Ct. 597 (1923).37. Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 88 S.Ct. 1923, 20 L.Ed.11

1060 (1968).38. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971).39. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972).40. Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413

U.S. 756 (19"'3).41. Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. 349 (1975).42. Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 372, 29 L.Ed.2d 790 (1971).43. Lynch v. Donnelly, 52 Law Week 4317 (March 6984). This was

a controversial 5-4 decision, and the court has agreed to hear Board ofTrustees v. McCreary, from the heavily Jewish suburb of Scarsdale, N.Y.,a case that involves a privately owned Christmas display on a small publicpark, Bonifac' Circle. It asks whether a local government opposed to us-ing public land for that purpose may be forced to do so. The lower courtsaid that the park was a public forum and that its use could not be deniedto any group solely because of the content of the group's "speech." TheWashington Post, October 16, 1984, p. A4.

44. Mueller v. Allen, 103 S.Ct. )62 (1983). See also Neal Devins. "TheSupreme Court and Private Schools: An Update," This World. 8 (Spring-Summer 1984), pp. 13-26

45. Bob Jones University United States, 103 S. Ct. 2017 (1983).46. Mueller v. Allen, op. cit.47. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), at 612-613.48. Wolman et al. v. Walter et al., 433 U.S. 229 (1977), citing Lemon v.

Kurtzman at 614.49. School District of Grand Rapids v. Ball, Phyllis, et al., 104. S.Ct. 3506

(1984); No. 83-990. A tandem suit will be Secretary of Education v. Felton,84-238.

50. Wallace v. Jaffrey, No. 83-812.51. Thornton v. Calder,Inc. , No. 83-1158.

77

-77

52. Board of Trustees v. McCreary, Nc. 84-277.53. Andrew M. Greeley and Peter H. Rossi, The Education of Catholic

Americans /Chick ): Aldine Publishing Co., 1966); Reginale A. Neuwien,ed., Catholic Schools in Action (Notre Dame and London: University ofNotre Dame Press, 1966).

54. State of Victoria v. Commonwealth of Australia, February 10, 1981,slip opinion.

55. The Washington Post, November 19, 1984, p. A16.56. C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York. Macmillan Publishing

Co., 19' ), p. 35.

7879

SUGGESTEDREADING

Ahlstrom, Sydney E. A Rebglous History of the Amencan People. NewHaven and London: Yale University Press, 1972. Pp. x + 1158.

A full-scale non-parochial history of American religion within the con-text of the social, political, and intellectual development of the UnitedStates.

Buetow Harold A. Of Singular Benefit: the Story of U.S. Catholic Educa-tion. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1970. Pp. xvii + 526.

An in-depth appraisal of the history of Catholic schools in the UnitedStates to its date of publication.

Kraushaar, Otto. American Nonpublic Schools: Patterns of Diversity.Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972. Pp.xv + 387.

An overview of nongovernment schooling: historical perspective; theworld of these schools from the viewpoint of students, teachers, leader-ship, finance, and goals; and, in the context of their relation to the publicinterest, the pros and cons of state aid and state regulation.

Ravitch, Diane. The Troubled Crusade: American Education 1945-1980.New York: Basic Books, 1983. Pp. xiii + 384.

A comprehensive historical account of the controversies that have besetschools and universities since World War II: fads, fashions, changes, andconflicts. Treats government schools from an "establishment" point ofview, and touches upon nongovernment schools.

79

T

SUGGESTIONSFOR USINGTHIS BOOKLET

here are many uses for this series of booklets on theCatholic school. Colleges will find them a valuableresource in preservice formation programs forCatholic school teachers. Graduate schools will find

them helpful in the preparation of Catholic school ad-ministrators. Principals will find in them a rich resource forinservice of teachers and boards of education. IndividualCatholic educators will find in them a unique and challeng-ing help to their own personal and professional growth.

Plans that differ in length and format are offered to thosewho will be using these booklets. These plans are arrangedfor easy adaptation by users according to their purpose andneeds.

Extended Format: This plan is for the college teacher,the principal or group leader who can spend two or moresessions on the material.

Mix and Match: This format gives users a choice of open.ings, of middles and of endings. It invites users to designtheir own model, choosing suggested components accordingto the interests and readiness of participants and the timeavailable.

Planned FormatSingle Session: The single session for-mat is arranged for on 60-90 minute session. It provick:sa step-by-step plan fo' the busy leader, even estimated timeallotments.

Independent Study: Educators motivated to explore thebooklet and/or teachers assigned to study it will find sug-gestions in this plan for interacting with the content, forreflecting on its meaning and for internalizing its message.

It is hoped that Catholic leaders will find the planning for-mats a beginningan incentive to go beyond in their search

80 81

82

for ways to help Catholic school teachers grasp the distinc-tiveness of their school and of their ministry.

OrientationEln the suggestions below, the first two formats presumeeach participant has read the booklet before the sessionsbegin. In introducing the booklet, you might distributethem with the directive to read the first paragraph and

then list three ways Catholic schools are a phenomenon ofwhich ali can be proud. Then proceed to finish reading thebooklet. The third format (Planned Format) includes readingof the booklet within the meeting itself.

EXTENDED FORMATS

OPTION A(Format for three or more sessions):Session 1: Leader summarizes content by completing the

following chart with the participants. After each period,participants discuss: What growth has taken place inCatholic schools? What obstacles have been faced?

Period People Events

Session 2: Choose from Mix and Match activities listedbelow. Before the closing prayer, assign the following toindividuals or small groups:a. Interview three people (teachers in another Catholic

81

school, parents, clergy...) about their perceptions of thehistory of Catholic schools in your area.

b. Research the history of your particular school, focus-ing especially on the role of each of the following: faith;immigrants; religious and laity; parish life; economics.

Session 3: Share the research done since the previous ses-sion. Discuss the following:Our school is historically the same as most other Catholicschools because...Our school is unique in its development as a Catholicschool because...Then have each respond to the following:What from these sessions makes me prize our Catholicschool?

OPTION B(F ormat for two-three sessions):Use various combinations of Mix and Match activities listedbelow for two or three sessions or for one extended session.

MIX AND MATCH

Step 1: PrayerStep 2: Openings (10 minutes)choose one of the following:

a. Invite someone to share a prepared timeline ofany specific Catholic school, noting its strugglesand successes.

b. In groups of three-four, share your personalhistory with Catholic educati Ai (howeve briefor long that history may be), as well as the effectCatholic education has had on you.

c. In si-nall groups, list three challenges Catholicschool.: face as they move forward. Share thesewith tl- e large group. Note whether these can beclassified1.ategorized.

d. List all the obstacles/factors that Catholic schoolshave struggled with throughout their history.When finished, star those which still face Catholicschools.

e. List the successes/contributions that Catholic

82 83

84

schools have made throughout their history. Res-pond with any observations you have about thelist.

Step 3: Middles (40 minute choose one or more of thefollowing:a. Choose several of the following and discuss the

role that each played in the historical develop-ment of Catholic schools: the poor; religious com-munities; laity; clergy; faith; prejudice; parish;NCEA; missionaries; economics; courts; parents;First Amendment; separation of church and state;immigration; politics; secularism.

b. List the above items on the board (or a chart).,Discuss their interrelatedness as they affectedCatholic schools.

c. Discuss the statement, "One person can make adifference" in light of the specific contributionsto Catholic schools of each of the following: JohnCarroll; Elizabeth Bayley Seton; Katherine Drex-el; Robert Packwood; Thomas Bouquillon.

d. Choose from among the following statements/quotes. Read them in context, then respond to thefollowing questions:What does this say to us about Catholic schools?What implications does it have for us today?p. 1: It seems from...U.S. society."p. 3: "From all groups...better-educated persons."p. 5: "It is therefore...for further thought."p. 28: "The fact that...have happened here."p. 28: "When the government...its schooling ef-forts."p. 64: "Parochial schools...choose for them."p. 70: "The fact of...geldings be fruitful."

Step 4: Endings (10 minutes)choose one of the following:a. In small groups or as individuals, develop a pic-

torial timeline which depicts the majordevelopments of each time period. Use pic-tures/drawings to ports, each majordevelopment.

b. List the five n' -'st important factors in the

83

historical development of Catholic schools and de-fend your choice of these particular five.

c. In small groups, design a slogan to represent thequality and history of Catholic schools.

d. Using as many of tl e words from the list in "Mid-dle t71" as you can, arrange them in a diagramto show their interrelatedness.

e. Each respond to the following statements andshare in groups of threes:Because of this session, I appreciate...I wonder...I would like to...

Step 5: Closing Prayer

PLANNED FORMATSINGLE SESSION

MinutesStep 1: Opening Prayer:

SongFaith of Our Fathers.Step 2: Leader reads or paraphrases the first

paragraph on page 1.10 Step 3: Have participants list one-two points of

view from which Catholic school; area miracle of U.S. society.

Step 4: Share these with the total group, notingcommonality and uniqueness ofobservations.

15 Step 5: Diviae content into the following sec-tions. Assign each to an individual orsmall group to read and to list one ortwo summary statements of Liie content.Catholic Schools and the CommonGood pp. 1-6European Prologue and ColonialPeriod 7-16Early National Period 17-22Later National Period 23-30

64 85

Growth 31-3?New Maturation 39-47Contemporary (part 1) 49-58

(part 2) 58.66

25 Step 6: Share these statements with the groupin chronological order. (Possibly listthe statements on board or chart.)

15 Step 7: Discuss the following question: Whatcontributions have Catholic schoolsmade in our country?

Step 8: All read the Conclusions (pp. 67-70).Step 9: Each respond to ibe following

statements and share in groups ofthrees:

10 Because of this session, I learnedthat ...I was surprised that .

I feel...Step 10: C'osing Prayer

Sing refrain of "Glory and Praise"(Glory & Praise, Vol 1, #17).

INDEPENDENT STUDY

Step 1. Read the Conclusion (pp. 67-70). List three questionsyou hope are answered in the text.

Ster 2. As you read the text, complete the followingoutline!timeline:

85

86

Major factors affecting the development ofCatholic Schools

Colonial1600

Early National1800

Later National1850

Growth1900

NewMaturation1920

Contemporary1957

Step 3. Were your initial questions answered? Were youpleased with the content?

Step 4. Reflect on the following questions:What new knowledge did I gain from reading this?What new feelings/values do I now have for Catholicschools?What difference will this make in my ministry inthe Catholic schools?

Step 5. Commit yourself to a mini-action plan to cause theabove to make a difference in your work.

8687

ABOUTTHE AUTHOR

Father Harold A. Buetow, J.D., Ph.D. is a full professorat The Catholic University of America, Washington,D.C. He teaches courses and individual classes in theInstitute of Adult Education at Catholic University.

Since 1967, Buetow has been deeply involved in ad-ministrative activities at Catholic University, most recent-ly serving on the Academic Policy and Curriculum Com-mittee of the School of Education, on the Senate Commit-tee on Procedures for the Appeal of Failing Grades, and aschairman of the Academic Policy Committee of the Schoolof Education.

He has published five books, including Of Singular Benefit:The Story of U.S. Catholic Education, winner of the NationalCatholic Book Award, and has written a number of articlesfor a variety of periodicals.

Buetow chairs concluding erai doctoral defenses in variousdepartments of Catholic University and provides disserta-tion guidance on both "Taster's and Doctor's levels. In 1981,he testified on Tuition Tax Credits before the U.S. SenateCommittee on Finance, Subcommittee on Taxation and DebtManagement. He lectures throughout the U.S. and abroad,at colleges, on radio and television and to learned societies.

He received his J.D. in 1980 from the Columbus Schoolof Law at Catholic University. He holds a Ph.D, fromCatholic University in the History and Philosophy of Educa-tion, and an M.A. in the Psychology of Education, also fromCatholic University.

8789

NCEA

KEYNOTESERIES1.

DistinctiveQualitiesofthe

CatholicSchool

FatherEdwin J.

McDermott, S.J.

2. AHistoryof

CatholicSchooling in the

UnitedStates

FatherHarold A.

Buetow

3.Developmentand

PublicRelationsfor the

CatholicSchool

JerryA.krc4.Governanceand

Administration in theCatholic

School

BrotherTheodore

Drahmann,F.S.C.

5.Catholic

SchoolFinanceand

Church-StateRelations

BrotherTerence

McLaughlin,F.S.C.

6.Student

Moral

Development in theCatholic

School

SisterMary

PeterTraviss,

O.P.

7.The

Parent, theParish, and the

CatholicSchool

Dr. EdWeisse

8.The

Teacher in theCatholic

School

SisterFrancis

Raftely,S.C.

9.Curriculumin the

CatholicSchool

BrotherRobertJ.

Kealey,F.S.C.

10.Catechetics in the

CatholicSchool

FatherJamesF.

Hawker

1 1 .

MethodsofTeachingin the

CatholicSchool

SisterMary

LeanneWelch,

PBVM

TITLESIN

PREPARATION

Total

LicvelopmentoftheStudent in the

CatholicSchool

Researchand theCatholic

School

46° NationalCatholic

-Educational

Association

Mir107730th

StreetNW,

Suite 100

Washington,D.C.

20007-3852

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