still vital influences in modern life, Christianity had to assert its even juster claims to the same distinction.' Christianity is closely connected with antiquity as well as with the modern nations: by its beginnings it belongs to antiquity, and it is bound up in what is best and deepest in the modern nations. The history of the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages moved upon Christianity as upon a pivot. Christianity was the soul of the Middle Ages and the controlling factor in the movements that initiated modern history; and by present-day leaders it is regarded either as the mainstay of society or as the chief reactionary force. The characters of classical antiquity are justly celebrated for their greatness and typical intelligibility, but the Christian characters are no less sublime and vastly superior by their unselfishness. The public spirit of the heroes of Faith is superior in motives and aims to that of the patriots of Greece and Rome. The stars of the heroes of antiquity appear isolated or, at most, in clusters, but do not revolve around a central sun, as do the stars of those Christian heroes whose memory is preserved by the Church. Historical science has in its whole field no greater subject than the Christian Church. Compared with her, the oldest governments are of yesterday. She has witnessed revolutions and onslaughts that threatened her very existence; but they did no more than destroy, perhaps, a few outworks. She is the ancient Church, but not antiquated; she is the Church of the ages, but young with the vigor of eternal youth; and she has within her the God-given forces that will continue to renew her strength while the centuries roll by. Her influence is felt in all fields of human endeavour and enterprise; her teaching is raised to the rank of a science; and her forms of worship represent some of the noblest efforts of the arts. Her long and glorious history has been embodied in forms and practices that have remained with her as she passed down the ages. There are but few, if any, Christian antiquities that are not living on in some form in the worship or in the customs of Christian communities. There is not any period of history, nor any Christian nation. that has not made some contribution to her art and worship. The voices of the nations and of the ages join in the liturgy of the Church, and thus represent the devotion of peoples and of generations. 1 Cf. Vol. I, p. 331. The exposition of these phenomena and relationships-or more definitely the analysis and presentation of the structure and function of the body of the Church constitute the educative value of Church History. But to be satisfied with this element would be tantamount to viewing the outside of the Church. without entering into a study of the informing principle of her body. We can not understand the beginning and activity of even the State without taking into consideration an ideal factor: political principles and traditions, national traditions, evaluations of many kinds, i. e., an intellectual content, though this need not necessarily be formulated to wield great power over the minds of men. How much more true must this be of the Church, who takes her beginning from a spiritual content and whose mission it is to preserve and transmit this content! Faith and commandment, dogma and moral law, are the vital principles that must be our viewpoint in estimating the development of the life of the Church. Catechism imparts directly a knowledge of dogma and the moral law. But the higher course. in Christian Doctrine must go over the same ground, with this difference, however, that it should demonstrate how the "words of eternal life" are embodied in national life and history. 4. The position of theology among the sciences offers a further reason why a popular course of theology must be introduced into the course of general education. Theology is based neither on experience nor on speculation, but on authority. It is to be expected that an age which is remarkable for intellectual restlessness and scientific experimenting, will regard a science of authority as opposed to real research. Speculation will attempt to supersede it and will undertake to deduce dialectically the content of revelation, whereupon the latter will necessarily evaporate. Man, now feeling himself unfettered, will be given to the boldest speculations, and these will grow the more subjective the more the distance grows between the mind and the truths of revelation. Experience will then be called in to restore a content for the play of the fancy: empiricism will soon lord it over metaphysics and bring upon it the same contempt which metaphysics brought upon theology; metaphysics will be scorned as but an appendix of theology, and both will be voted things of the past and the creations of madbrains. Nature alone will be recognized as an object of science. The ideal world, which appeared to the thinkers of former ages to be the basis of the sensuous world and the key to its understanding, will be ridiculed as being a castle in the air. Abandon the supernatural, and the supersensuous, both in theory and practice, will be untenable. The sensuous perception will require as its practical complement the sensitive appetite; egoism and the struggle for existence will be expected to explain the moral world: to this pitiable plight must che world-view be ultimately reduced. And actually men have succumbed to the very fate which they were striving with might and main to escape: naturalism must, if sincere, likewise establish an authority and must, by internal necessity, establish itself as a dogma. Thus the sense of truth, in whose name the original harmony was destroyed, will lead men back to the true. The surrendering of the supersensuous principles will be recognized as a surrendering of the whole truth. Those principles, however, are not merely dialectical; the Archimedean point of speculation can not be found. in speculation itself, much less in the field of experience, for it exists only in the supersensuous field opened up by Faith. Experience, speculation, and revelation must remain connected, if the mind would at all enjoy the boon of knowledge, which is itself but a part of a world of higher things. The science of authority and of revelation is a corner stone in the structure of the sciences. It must, therefore, occupy a place in every course of study that aims to prepare the student for the pursuit of the sciences. The youth would miss a valuable element of general education, if he were to be denied an acquaintance with a science that represents, by its content and methods, a form of research of such unique importance.1 Theology is like the stone pillars in our observatories, which, resting on bedrock, extend up into the building and thus assure the instruments a firm support that is free from the vibrations to which the rest of the structure is subject. That such pillars be erected, is necessary for the full development of the mind, and, in this respect, it matters not whether they be used for obtaining a broader and clearer outlook, or whether they remain standing without being used or even understood. The cultural course of theology must include; not only the historical and the dogmatic and moral elements, but also the liturgical. Piety appears as a creative force in the various forms of public and private worship: stones, colors, movements, 1 Cf. Newman, Idea of a University, pp. 19-98. sounds, language all must assist to give expression to piety and devotion. The subject-matter of the science of theology is here made the object of the arts, and, though appearing under different shapes and forms, it ever remains the same. To bring out this harmony and unity in the various forms of expression, is the function of liturgics, which is supplemented by symbolics, i.e., the study of the symbols of religion. These two sciences connect theology with poetry and the arts. IV. THE ACCESSORY ELEMENTS OF EDUCATION. CHAPTER XXVI. History. 1. If the course of general education admitted only the basic subjects, the pupil would still acquire a considerable amount of historical knowledge. Some of the Greek and Roman historians are read in the classical course, and the poets and orators read also contain historical materials. The same may be said of the classics of modern literatures, and a suitable selection from the national literature might almost take the place of national history. Furthermore, the history of literature treats in chronological order such subjects as are often closely connected with general history, while Bible history and Church history are the historical disciplines of the religious instruction. But these branches are not the only ones that embody historical materials, for all our educational instruments have a historical character, and it will require but little effort on the part of the teacher to bring out their historical content. The instruction in history should correlate these historical materials, and if it did so, there would be more unity in our curricula. The primary function of the instruction in history-considered in reference to the whole curriculum is to order, to elaborate, to supplement the historical elements embodied in the course of study. But history has, besides, its own educative value. It acquaints us with the deeds and the events of the past, and thus widens the mental horizon. It describes human actions, relations, types, and characters, and thereby imparts a knowledge of men and of life and awakens an interest which, in many cases, grows to sympathy and partly to devotion. If properly co-ordinated with the other educational instruments, it may lead to the state of mind described in Terence's line "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto." Poetry is, indeed, in one respect, more effective than history; and Aristotle contended that it is more serious and more philosophical than history, because it |