A necessity is defined as something that cannot not be; and in approaching Catholic Action study is a necessity. As a recent writer in Blackfriars expressed it: ‘The first stages of Catholic Action tend more to the study than to the street.’

The question which immediately suggests itself is whether there is adequate provision made for the Catholic layman to encourage and help him to ‘get down to’ this study. It is in the belief that there is not, and that some facilities should be forthcoming, that this scheme is suggested. But first let us be satisfied that not enough is being done. There exist two (National) societies for the purpose of promoting study, namely the Catholic Evidence Guild and the Catholic Social Guild. The avowed object of the former is to train apostolic men and women to expound the truths of the Faith from public platforms. This inevitably restricts their numbers, as but few are fitted for such work. The other society’s aim and object is the study and dissemination of Catholic social principles. In the manner of the Schools we feel that we must add a third—a society, or better (in view of Occam’s razor), some organization subject to the various diocesan Catholic Action Boards, whose object would be to provide classes in the fundamentals of the Catholic religion.

The scheme is best outlined under the divisions of the seven ‘circumstances’ of human action: