p. 7 | Rome and the French Schools

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 6, 1910

Rome and the French Schools

THERE has been no lessening of the hostility on the part of the Catholic Church in France toward the government. The church is not permitted to supervise the preparation of the text-books, and is therefore waging war against the schools. A press report from the city of Nantes says:—

The Catholic clergy of the city of Nantes have refused absolution to children in the public schools who are using certain text-books upon which the church has placed its ban because of offensive statements printed therein relating to religious matters. M. Doumergue, minister of public instruction, says this is a declaration of war. In one city it is reported that mothers made a bonfire of their daughters’ text-books which were on the list interdicted by the church.

It is the policy of the Catholic Church to permit no instruction to be given to the people which it does not itself prepare. For that reason the text-books used in American public schools are as displeasing to the leaders of the Catholic Church as are those now being condemned in France, and when that church feels herself strong enough, she will take the same course here that she is now taking there.

The elimination from the great magazines of the advertisements of books displeasing to Rome, and the revision of such books as Myer’s General History at the insistence of that church, are certain indications of such a course.