Our Library Table:- The Duke of Argyll on Primeval Man Dr. Greith on the Early Irish Church Cassandra and other Poems. By Mr. Baddeley A Defence of Mary Queen of Scots The Portrait in my Uncle's Dining-room. (From the French.) Lives of the Princes of Condé. By the Duc d'Aumale History of Hereditary Dignities, in connection with the Earl- The Propagation and Prevention of Epidemics The Spaniards in the Philippine Islands Count von Tilly. Part the First . The Shield of Achilles. (Imitated from the Anthology) The Dialogues of Lydney. No. 1.-A Council on the Council.- Part I. Chapter I.-The Kingshills of Lydney. Chapter II. - Mr. Lloyd and his Difficulties. Chapter III.-" Will they Tractarianism and its Successors Monseigneur Plantier's Les Conciles Generaux Lord Carnarvon's Reminiscences of Athens and the Morea. R. J. Littledale's Commentary on the Song of Songs CONTENTS OF THE DECEMBER NUMBER. The Dialogues of Lydney. No. 1.-A Council on the Council.- Chapter IV.-Don Venanzio. Chapter V.-What the Council may do. Chapter VI.-Infallibility. The Ecumenical Council and the Infallibility of the Roman The Prospects of Catholic Education. WHATEVER may be the immediate issue of the present manifestation of interest in the question of higher Education for the youth of the Catholic body in England, it can hardly be feared that the discussion to which it has given birth will be one of those which do more harm than good— which aggravate prejudices and irritate animosities without producing either clearer convictions or more determinate counsels. Education, with all its train of solid and moral advantages, is one of those boons which are not appreciated by those who have them not. Physical and material benefits can be understood as soon as they are mentioned. But as intellectual advantages, even in the broadest sense, are, after all, secondary though most valuable means to the great end of life, it is possible that sincerely good and pious minds may require to be aroused and enlarged before they can fully awake to their importance. Again, under certain circumstances, there may be a greater and more special work to be performed by men of education than at others; and thus what is at all times all but essential becomes an urgent necessity for a community. which is emerging from a condition of oppression and consequent forced inactivity into the possession of new opportunities and the consciousness of imperative but unusual duties. Under such circumstances, it is highly desirable that all possible means should be used to arouse attention and stimulate energetic activity, in order to secure any progress on those points as to which the members of such a body are more or less behindhand. In such cases, we are naturally disposed to welcome and value discussion on account of its secondary effects, just as it is often extremely serviceable to have a subject debated in Parliament, not for the value of any practical suggestion VOL. XI. JULY, 1869. that may be made, or on account of the novelty of the views that may be set forth, or, again, for the purpose of immediate legislation, so much as because the discussion gives the opportunity for a declaration of opinion on the part of the leaders of thought and action in the nation, and hastens on the adoption of the policy which succeeds in winning general approval, and the attainment of the end to which that policy points. In the case before us, we can even bear patiently with a good deal of theorising. In these days of bicycles and tricycles, it would be hard if "the hobby-horse" were altogether "forgotten," whatever Shakespeare may say. People will, no doubt, endow imaginary Universities with ideal attributes, and sketch out courses of study which no practical person will ever think of adopting. Out of all this play of speculation, good may issue-the good of keeping before the public mind the necessity of immediate exertion. When once it is determined to do something, there is not much fear but that what is to be done will fall into hands which will be guided by experience and Christian tradition rather than by novel speculations. Education is not a fresh discovery in the Catholic Church, and it no more requires to be reformed on new principles than her philosophy or her doctrines. As the Catholics of these countries find themselves, happily, in the position of a party rising daily in power, influence, and numbers, rather than in a state of tranquil monotony or of stagnant decay, it follows as a natural result of their condition that they are called on for an amount of intelligent and judicious activity for which, until lately, they have had but little scope. We are not fond of dreams of rapid conquest, or of sanguine speculations as to the approaching dissolution of Protestantism, and of the absorption of all the more Catholic elements at present imprisoned within it into the visible unity of the Church. We may well hope great things in this way from the mercy of God upon this nation, but, above all, the Catholic body has to organise and develope itself from within, and it is in danger, moreover, of losing opportunities which may never occur again for obtaining its fair position and its |