So far as concerns his native language, the Scottish Gael of to-day is illiterate. Educational policy has not been too sympathetic with the Gaelic.

This accounts for the fact that, in spite of the tenacity with which Catholics in the Highlands have kept the Faith, there is but one book of devotion, printed in Scottish Gaelic, procurable to-day.

A study of Lochran an Anama, “The Soul's Lantern,” gives us a glimpse into the mind and soul of the Gael. Here we find, in addition to Gaelic translations of Latin and other prayers familiar to all Catholics, devotions peculiar to Celtic temperament. Here we are with Patrick and Columba and the other saints of Gaeldom, praying in the forms they used.

Redolent of the daily life of the inhabitants of the Highlands and Isles in those far-off times, these prayers are still appropriate to the needs of their descendants. In the Outer Hebrides the Gael's manner of life, his hopes and fears, even his natural surroundings, have altered less in 1,200 years than those of his neighbours in the course of a century.

The sea and the mountains still provide the chief perils, whilst tilling the soil, herding the cattle, and fishing from small craft in stormy seas constitute the principal means of existence.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Be the Three-in-One with us by day and night,

In the trough of the sea, or on mountain-side

Be our Mother with us, and her arm about our head.

“The Consecration of the Three Narrows” (Wrists, Waist and Ankles), a prayer to St. Columba for the sanctification of every bodily act, is probably one of the oldest Celtic prayers we have.

The denominationalist claim to equality of treatment in education is still regarded by most people as a claim to special privileges and subsidies, to be granted, if at all, on traditional and sentimental grounds and on the grounds that denominationalism derives some vague rights from the fact that it is still ‘in possession’ in the legal sense. This confusion may be due in part to the fact that only one denomination, the Church, has stated with clarity the case for equal treatment, and that the statements have nearly all been made by clergy, who are naturally supposed to be arguing in their own interests. The following paragraphs contain a statement of the case for denominational education based solely on first principles and in such a form as to be valid for any denomination.

Education is for the sake of the child; but since the child is irresponsible, the first of all educational principles derives from the right to control the child and to control those things which exist for the sake of the child. Now the child belongs by nature to its parents first of all. By natural right the parents have control of the child until it is able to control itself. It is true that men are born citizens, and to that extent belong to the State, but parental ownership is anterior to, and takes precedence of, civil ownership. This follows necessarily from the fact that, before being a citizen, a child must exist; and existence comes not from the State, but from the parents.

Consequently the parents hold directly from Nature the right ana duty of educating their off spring, and this right is anterior to any right whatever of civil society or of the State. From this it follows that any system whereby parents are compelled to submit their children for education wholly to some authority not of their own free choice, is an unwarrantable interference with one of those fundamental liberties the protection of which is the first reason for the existence of the State and of cvil society.

Between the philosopher who returns thanks “to nature for the incompatibility, for the envious emulating vanity, for the insatiable appetite to acquire, or even to rule, (for) without them all the excellent natural predispositions in mankind would slumber to all eternity without being developed,” and the General who proclaims that “war is not merely a necessary element in the life of nations, but an indispensable factor of culture,"* for “without war, inferior or decaying races would easily choke the growth of healthy budding elements, and a universal decadence would follow,” there is a striking “air de famille.”

We may well wonder how the old man of Konigsberg, who saw in human struggles “the direction of a wise Creator,” could write an essay on “Perpetual Peace,” and can easily understand how the controversy as to whether Kant were pacifist or imperialist arose.

It can be affirmed without doubt that Kant was at heart a pacifist, his treaty on “Perpetual Peace” being sufficient proof of that. But had he written this essay alone, he would never have gained his present authority among philosophers; he would rapidly have been relegated to the little comer reserved for an Abbé de St. Pierre, a de Tattel, and other utopists.

Kant’s works may be divided into two parts:

(1) his destructive work, which culminates in the Critique of Pure Reason;

(2) his constructive work, with his Critique of Practical Reason, his writings on Morals and Right, and his study on Universal and Perpetual Peace, which “constitutes not merely a part, but whole final purpose and end of the Science of Right.”

Some people seem to be a little alarmed by the phrase “consumer-credit,” as if it involved some vast and dangerous experiment along untried paths.

Don't be frightened at a word. “Consumer-credit” simply means “credit which is not producer-credit.”

Producer-credit consists of bank-overdrafts allowed to industry for production, or to Governments and Municipalities to carry on their work. Loans bearing interest, loans issued upon securities which will become the property of the lender if the loan is not repaid. That is producer-credit as it exists to-day. There is nothing specially Catholic or traditional about it. On the contrary, it is (or would be, if the lender were lending real money, which he isn’t) precisely what was always called sinful Usury in the old days; it is a modem kind of “money” which bears upon it the guilt and stain of debt from the first moment of its existence.

Of course, this producer-credit could be and ought to be controlled in the public welfare and issued free of interest; but even so it would still provide incomes only for those at work, not for the ever-increasing army of the dispossessed unemployed and their dependents, nor for the aged and incapacitated. These would still have to be supported grudgingly out of taxation levied on the working population.

Hence the idea of introducing credits into industry from the consumption-end of the process also. We affirm the possibility of “consumer-credit,” which would be nothing but ordinary sane means-of-exchange money, based upon the community’s credit or power of production and put into circulation by the Ruler. As its name indicates, it would be issued direct to consumers as such, and would give them a means of setting the producers as such to work. It might be issued to all consumers (national dividend) or only to some (old age pensions, children’s allowances, etc.).