I would like to address the subject of Catholic home schooling in the tradition of the Catholic Church, and my plan is to cover three areas of a large subject. What has the Catholic Church considered as home schooling in the Church's history? Secondly, why is home schooling necessary? And thirdly, how should home schooling be done most effectively?

2. The Art of Forming the Conscience of a Child

The single most important element in training children is to form their consciences. How can this be done effectively? To form a child's conscience is an art. This subject is immense. We will touch on four areas. 1. The meaning of art, 2. The meaning of conscience, 3. The forming of the conscience of a child, and 4. And most practically; rules and norms for forming the conscience of a human being from infancy on through one's life.

3. Moral and Spiritual Values in Public Education

Nowadays every one is talking about moral and spiritual values in public schools. The first sentence of the massive statement of the Educational Policies Commission of the National Education Association in 1951 stated that "A great and continuing purpose of education has been the development of moral and spiritual values. To fulfill this purpose, society calls upon all its institutions. Special claims are made on the home and the school because of the central role of these two institutions in the nurture of the young." In 1955 the National Council of Churches held a conference on "Religion and Public Education." Its main resolution was "Since religious truth is a part of our heritage of truth, it should be included in the child's education wherever relevant to the subject matter of education."

4. Remember When We Used to Memorize Things?

If Jesuit Father John A.Hardon has his way, Catholic children and adults will return to learning the basics of their faith by memorizing catechism questions and answers word for word, as they did until the 1950s, when the Baltimore Catechism was the standard instructional tool.

5. Rights and Responsibilities of Parents in Religious Education

As we address ourselves to the "Rights and Responsibilities of Parents in Religious Education," you will immediately notice that our focus of attention is on parents. This means that, while recognizing the rights of others, notably the Church, and within the Church, of bishops, priests and religious, we concentrate on the rights of father and mother, hence parents (plural), in the religious rearing of their offspring.

6. Sex Education - The Bottom Line

SEX EDUCATION IS CONSCIOUSLY AND DELIBERATELY SEX STIMULATING. SEX EDUCATION IS SEX AROUSING, SEX STIMULATION, WHICH IS CONTRARY TO THE NATURAL LAW.

7. Eucharistic Education Today

We are asking why Eucharistic education is important. A better question would be why Eucharistic re-education is necessary, not only to refute the widespread erroneous ideas, but to restore the true Eucharistic faith among, I dare say, millions of professed Catholics.

8. The Greatest Need in the World Today - Forming the Eucharistic Faith and Love of Children

My plan for this conference…is very simple: Briefly summarize the Church's pedagogy of the Holy Eucharist over the centuries; Explain why parents and teachers should develop the Eucharistic faith and love of children from infancy to adulthood; Provide some guidelines to children on how to grow in their faith and love of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

9. The Dewey Legend in American Education

In a feature article published in Education Digest in 1950, we read: "It is conceded on all hands that John Dewey is our outstanding educational philosopher; his influence on American education has been immense." This, in one sentence, is a summary of the Dewey legend. For, although it is true that Dewey’s influence on American education has been immense, it is only in a very qualified sense that we can call him an outstanding philosopher. Certainly a philosopher’s real greatness is not to be estimated by the mere extent of his influence, but also and especially by the effects, good or bad, which his philosophy has had on contemporary civilization and will have on subsequent civilization. Measured by this standard, Dewey’s title to fame must be balanced by the extent of the evil which his principles of social naturalism and pragmatic experimentalism have produced in the United States.

10. Memorization

I wish to speak on the subject of memorization as the key to learning the Catholic faith. Memorization, in teaching religion, has been considered an out-dated form of pedagogy. Behind this judgment about memorization being old-fashioned is the invasion of error about the Catholic faith and a mistaken understanding of Catholic education.

11. Catholicism and Home Study

My plan here is to address myself to the defense of Catholic religious education in the home. I say defense because for two centuries, Catholic Americans have practically identified Catholic schooling with institutions as the bedrock of religious instruction. Some people still do not realize that we are living in a different world. The massive breakdown of once-flourishing Catholic school system is only part of the picture.

12. A Jesuit at Western Michigan

A number of people have asked me to clarify the issues involved in my leaving Western Michigan after five years on the faculty of the university in its department of philosophy and religion. I am happy to do so, while suggesting that a more complete picture may be gained from The Hungry Generation (Religious Attitudes and Problems at a State University), which is being published early in 1967.

13. Parochial Schools Under Fire

Catholics are used to attacks on their school systems from professional critics like the editors of "The New Age" or "Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State".…Things are different when the services of a respected organization like the Fund for the Republic are used for the same purpose. Supported by the Ford Foundation, the Fund is officially a non-profit educational corporation, established to promote the principles of individual liberty expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In practice, however, it has more than once been the unwitting tool for projecting a highly doctrinaire concept of libertarianism and state control that even persons with no sympathy for the Catholic Church have criticized.

14. John Dewey - Radical Social Educator

In 1894 John Dewey was invited to the newly founded University of Chicago to become head of its department of philosophy and psychology. He replied that he would accept the appointment if the department would include the subject of pedagogy. His proposal was approved, and Dewey became dean of the department of philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy. Two years later he organized his first laboratory school, in Chicago, where he put into practice his radical theories of education. In 1904 he went to Columbia University as professor of educational philosophy, and since then has so revolutionized American education that "almost every public U.S. school has become Deweyized."

15. Heart of Home Education: Teaching the Catholic Faith

Surely one of the great developments of our day has been the rise and growth of what is popularly called home schooling, and what I prefer to describe as home education. Behind this development is far more than a reaction to the inadequacy of so many organized schools in North America. In fact, it is more an act of divine providence than a result of merely human factors. In my judgment, it is nothing less than a gift from God which I hope to help all of us appreciate and put to use for the greater glory of God.

16. John Dewey: Prophet of American Naturalism

When John Dewey celebrated his ninetieth birthday on October 20, 1949, fifteen hundred guests crowded a huge ballroom in New York City to do him honor. Messages of congratulation poured in from President Harry Truman, Prime Minister Atlee, Pandit Nehru, and from a hundred United States colleges and universities. A dozen foreign nations had planned celebrations. Friends were raising $90,000 for an educational Dewey Birthday Fund. And all because in the eyes of millions of admirers no one in the history of America "has so profoundly and in so many areas of human endeavor influenced and determined his own age as…America's dean of Philosophers: John Dewey." In striking contrast with this adulation, American Catholics regard Dewey as a modern prophet of error whose philosophy of education is "socialistic naturalism without God, without Christ, without religion, without immortality. Every single strain in it, from the influence of Hegel to the inspiration of Darwin, finds its place within his system."

17. American Secular Higher Education: The Experience Evaluated

Secularism, as distinct from mere secularity, so concentrates on this-worldly values and this-worldly objects of space and time that the things of God—or of man’s seeking to please God now and reach God in eternity—are ignored or considered irrelevant to the task at hand. At best, religious values are humored as a concession to human weakness and the issues of faith are treated as interesting but frankly unimportant by comparison with the real values of life which are accessible to human reason and do not depend on some supposed communication from the gods.

18. Catholics in College: A Reflection

I could not do justice to the depth of spiritual hunger among the students, which is not being satisfied in the present system of university education. Each contact with the undergraduates gives further evidence that they want to learn desperately about man’s relations with God.

19. Catholics and Religion in Public Schools

In a recent issue of the American Mercury, under the title of "Fund for Whose Republic?" one of the editors critically examines the seven years’ record of the Fund for the Republic and finds it seriously wanting. He describes it as "the non-respectable left-wing of the wide-ranging Ford Foundation family."

20. The Classics, the Incarnation and Christianity

For our basis of integration we shall take a body of religious facts which are frequently met in Latin and Greek. These will be evaluated with a view to profiting the student both academically and spiritually, and doing this by drawing upon the very essence of the pagan and Christian religions. As the subject of integration we shall use the transformation of gods into men and men into gods, which run as a theme through all the ancient classics.

21. Homeschooling in the Heart of the Church

We are speaking about home education at the heart of the Church. At the heart of the Church is the family…Our plan is to ask three questions: What is home education? Why is home education necessary for the survival of the Catholic family? How is home education to be provided not only for the survival but for the progress of the Catholic family as we enter the third millennium?

22. Mother Teresa, a Model for the Home Educating Family

"He has chosen us; we have not first chosen Him. But we must respond by making our society something beautiful for God—something very beautiful. For this we must give all—our utmost. We must cling to Jesus, grasp Him, have a grip on Him, and never let go for anything. We must fall in love with Jesus." I would change only one word from this quotation of Mother Teresa. Change the word "society" to "family." That is what home education is all about. Your purpose as homeschooling parents is to make your families something beautiful for God. But the price you must pay is high. Like Mother Teresa, you must see the infinite God in Jesus Christ. You must cling to Him, grasp Him, have a grip on Him and never let go for anything. You will be only as effective home educators as you and your children fall deeply in love with Jesus, our God who became man and died on the cross out of love for us.

23. Motivational Factor for Home-Schooling

The problems to address are manifold and require almost superhuman strength, and certainly God’s grace to apply solutions. These problems include finding ways to protect children from indoctrination to mold their attitudes and beliefs along lines that are frequently at variance with the moral values and beliefs of their parents.…[P]arents are obliged either to devise their own schooling for their young or submit their children to the idea that, morally speaking, there are only opinions, none of which can be considered superior to any others. Aside from ideological manipulation of students, there is also in conventional schools the lowering of academic standards and expectations and the obvious result of lowered test scores. Finally, there is the lack of a disciplined environment with emphasis on reverence and respect for God and His Church, the family, and our country. The result, in a milieu of permissiveness and secularization, is not the formation of Christian souls but unruly behavior, the loss of belief, and poor character development.

24. The Need for Religious Instruction in America Today

Most people do not realize how secularized our nation has become. By secularized, I mean a society in which practical atheism is rapidly determining our national culture.…In order to appreciate how deeply our country has been dechristianized, we have only to look at the widespread legalization of every major sin against Christian morality.

25. New Challenges to Catholic Home Education

Catholic parents are now being faced with new challenges to the home-schooling of their children. These challenges arise especially from four sources: the increased pressure from Planned Parenthood for sex education; the acknowledgement by many American bishops of the poor quality of religious instruction in catechetical programs; the mandating by many dioceses of stringent conditions for Catholic home instruction; and the growing pressure of homosexuals to impose their sodomistic philosophy on our country.

26. The Price of Home Education, Carrying the Cross

Immediately we must distinguish between Catholic home education as such, and the education which Catholic parents are to give their children at home. While our focus here is on the first understanding of Catholic home education, we dare not ignore what is of the essence of our faith, namely, that parents must, the imperative is a revealed truth, must give their children a thorough Catholic education at home.

27. The Principle of Analogy in Teaching the Incarnation and the Eucharist

The purpose here is more theoretical, namely, to review just two aspects of the Incarnation - the hypostatic union and the Holy Eucharist - to see how this transcendent mystery can become more intelligible to students, who need to know a great deal about the doctrine if they are ever to become the supernatural men of character envisioned by Pius XI as the fruit of Catholic education.

28. The Teaching of the Catholic Church on Home Schooling - Parents for Eternal Life

The key word that stands out in the Church’s teaching on home schooling is the word "primary". Parents’ responsibility to educate their children is primary. This means, it is their first responsibility. It is primordial; it is inalienable; it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.

29. Religion in the Public Schools

American public education is undergoing the most serious crisis in the history of the country. The issue at stake is the character of tax-supported schools in a democratic society. Opposing sides are both appealing to the Constitution to promote their own concept of education. Religionists argue that every citizen has a right to the knowledge of God and the moral law, which the schools along with the churches and the home should supply. Secularists appeal to liberty of conscience, which they claim is violated whenever religion is taught under civil authority. The conflict runs deep into the national culture and goes back to the early history of America. It has currently reached a stage of development that deserves to be better known by Catholic teachers and educators.

30. The Role of the Family in Education

The role of the family in education is an ocean. We could begin by saying that the family is indispensable for education. We could also say the family is the most important source of education. We could even say there is no real education without the family. What we need to do, therefore, is to be more specific as to how the family and education are related. To do that we must first explain what we mean by the "family," and what we mean by "education."

31. Spiritual Potential at State U.

It was not coincidental that a full-blown Department of Religion came into being at Western Michigan or that it grew over a thousand per cent in enrollment within less than 10 years. These results were the fruit of coordinated work on the part of believers from different religious traditions, who recognize the spiritual potential of a state university. What happened at Western can be done elsewhere to make people aware that a scientific study of religion answers to the students’ needs, which their parents and society at large are paying millions in tax revenue to supply.

32. The True Purpose of Education

The true purpose of education is to teach people the purpose of their lives here on earth. This purpose is to use the creatures that enter their lives as a means of reaching their eternal destiny in the life to come. That destiny is nothing less than entering heaven and possessing God in the perfect satisfaction of all human desires.