Take away the Church and try to draw up a course of
lessons satisfactory to the minds even of girls under eighteen, and at
every turn a thoughtful question may be critical, and the explanations
in the hands of a non-Catholic teacher scarcely less futile than the
efforts of old Kaspar to satisfy "young Peterkin" about the battle of
Blenheim.
What about Investitures?
"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for?"
What about Canossa?
"What they fought each other for,
I could not well make out.
But everybody said" quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory."
What about Mentana or Castel-Fidardo?
"What good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why that I cannot tell," said he,
"But 'twas a famous victory."
The difficulty is tacitly acknowledged by the rare appearance of
European history in the curriculum for non-Catholic girls' schools. But
in any school where the studies are set to meet the requirements of
examinations, the teaching of history is of necessity dethroned from the
place which belongs to it by right. History deserves a position that is
central and commanding, a scheme that is impressive when seen as a whole
in retrospect, it deserves to be taught from a point of view which has
not to be reconsidered in later years, and this is to be found with all
the stability possible, and with every facility for later extension in
the natural arrangement of all modern history round the history of the
Church.
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