In a recent essay on education in a Catholic review, the writer was concerned to show how “vocational education” (i.e., school training in manual work for particular occupations) might be accompanied by “cultural and religious” training so that pupils should have the advantages of all three. He was anxious that clerical attainments should not make for contempt of manual work, but thought that all would be well if teachers would “blend but not confuse” in those whom they taught the “three streams of education, the religious, the cultural and the economic.” So taught (he concluded hopefully) “the individual will be content to earn his living at the job, whatever it may be, that he is best fitted to perform.”

The writer was a man of great experience in education, but it is to be regretted that words like “culture” and “vocation” should have been used without apology as they are used by secular sentimental thought; that almost no reference should have been made to Christian principles and tradition; and that any idea of integration should, seemingly, have been dismissed from the writer’s mind. Doubtless he thought some truths too plain to need repeating; I differ, and shall repeat them here.