ample of the disciplined energy of the Catholics of Eastern France is to be found in the network of societies which now covers the extensive diocese of Nancy and Toul.... The Bishop, Mgr. Celle, has succeeded in welding together a very powerful organization. . . Already 55,000 out of 125,000 electors belong to these Catholic societies, whilst there are at least 20,000 other sympathizers who for reasons well understood are not in a position to declare themselves openly. This large body of voters, who constitute a majority of the electorate, will have something to say to the seven deputies to be returned to the next parliament, especially about some of the more iniquitous provisions of the Law of Associations."

We would again repeat what we have already affirmed: that neither in France nor in any other State could any objection lie to an appeal to any group of people within the State to express their views and sentiments at a State election, excepting when that group of people within the State is under a compulsory obedience to a sovereignty alien to the State, and is directed as to the principles that must guide them in fulfilling their civic duties by the officials representing, within the State, that alien sovereignty.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TWILIGHT ZONE OF EDUCATION

As the power over marriage controls the physical personality of the State, so the power over education controls its moral personality. The educational question today is recognized as comprehensive of all problems that confront us and, if it be solved, all other problems will be instantly advanced toward solution. But its solution seems to be far away, and our difficulties multiply rather than decrease.

The State under the medieval constitution escaped the most serious problems of social life by turning over religion, marriage and education to the Church. This was a possible delegation so long as the Church was undivided and all citizens were members of the Church. But from the blood of heretics, which it scattered as profusely as Cadmus sowed the dragon's teeth, there sprang up any number of churches. The modern State makes the equality of all churches before the law one of its fundamental principles. It cannot, without violating its constitutional order, assign jurisdiction over education or any other subject to any particular church. The alternative has been that the State should undertake education itself-a course justified by the consideration that all men are members of the State, whereas of any one church only some men are members. The course of the State thus far has been attended with many difficulties, and a sense of discouragement

might prevail throughout modern democracy in its efforts at education, if an investigation of the record demonstrated success when the Church had complete control.

It is well known that from about 750 on for some seven centuries the Church led the human mind into the historical error that the great territories and power enjoyed by the Pope were granted to him by the Emperor Constantine in gratitude for his cure of leprosy by Pope Sylvester I. The forged document evidencing the grant purported to vest in the Pope the Primacy over the four Patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, and also over all the bishops in the world; to make a present to him of the City of Rome and the provinces, districts, and towns of Italy, and "all the Western regions." With the gift went the right in the Pope to wear, like the Emperor, an imperial crown, and purple cloak and tunic; and the Donation recorded, as a precedent for the future, that it had been the custom of the Emperor to lead the horse on which the Pope rode.1 It assigned as the reason for the removal of Constantine to Constantinople a desire to leave the Pope unembarrassed in the exercise of authority by the Imperial presence in Italy. All this tissue of forgery and falsehood was sincerely and conscientiously taught as truth by the Church until the middle of the fifteenth century. Again, Pope Innocent III 2 by his solemn decree taught that the right asserted by the German Princes in electing the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was given to them by the Pope, 1 C. E., vol. v, pp. 118 d-119 a.

2 Ibid., vol. viii, p. 14 b.

although history recorded, and the Scriptures and political science alike disclosed, no possible authority in virtue of which the Pope could confer such right.3 Innocent's view became the basis of a political theory and perverted the political life of man until it was repudiated in the modern State.

5

In moral philosophy there is no current State instruction that is more reprehensible than the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Church that all heretics should be exterminated from the world by death; * or the teaching of Pope Urban II that the killing of excommunicated persons is not murder if done from religious zeal; or the teaching of St. Ignatius Loyola that white should be believed to be black if the Roman Church so rules; or the teaching of Pope Gregory XVI that the doctrine of the freedom of conscience is a mad delirium; or the teaching of Pope Leo XIII that he occupied on this earth the place of God Almighty.8

7

6

The Church blundered in science as well as in history and in moral philosophy. It put the book of Copernicus on the Index Expurgatorius until the sentences by which the heliocentric system was represented as certain were either omitted or changed." The Inquisition declared Galileo as "vehemently suspected of heresy" because he taught the certainty of the Copernican theory. It

3 Bryce, pp. 219–220.

4 Supra, p. 28.

5 Supra, p. 72.

e Supra, p. 189.

7 Supra, p. 187.

8 Supra, p. 21; G. E. L., p. 304.

9 C. E., vol. iv, p. 353 d.

condemned him to jail, and to the recitation of the Seven Penitential Psalms once a week for three years.10

If education by the State exhibits occasional vagaries, and even if State legislators prescribe textbooks in history supporting their a priori opinions, the discouraged citizen may at least find hope in the reflection that education by the Church was not without similar difficulties.

The most vital question in education at present is the nature and extent of the autonomy of private educational societies including churches: To what extent are they subject to the control of the State? The antagonism between the State and the Roman Church in respect to this question is very sharp. A concerted movement by the Methodist Church or the Presbyterian Church in education would have no more constitutional significance for the State than the educational propaganda of Harvard University. Those churches do not claim to be sovereignties, nor to assert inherent rights at any point superior to the State, nor to be the exclusive depositary of the Revelation of God, nor to have a human head who is, in intrinsic truth, the Vicegerent of God or Vicar of Christ. It is such claims that give the Church of Rome a peculiar relation in theory to the whole body of objective moral truth and hence to education which is largely the inculcation of moral truth.

We have already seen that the constitutional guarantees of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, of religious liberty and of free speech, do not, as so often claimed, grant an uncontrolled liberty in religion or in 10 Ibid., vol. vi, p. 345 b.