The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 24, 1904, Page 13

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. TIMELY TORICS OF THE WORLD® OURARMY ITS LATEST APP T RAINING OF | INSPIRING MOT‘T'O signal States although of each United yops y a word ed smoothly a The The forced unfamiliar, eyes, un slties the men cut- £ . = ng rivers s & And as by the time the walls of d been made with the coast the American « glish or d their n explanation of the working of the Ame signa will equally describe the w wge of the Jap- orps. ¥ dying the sign ted States in r service these coun identical. Were any est necessary to prove the effi f our meth the present Japanese- war would therefore be a very g test. The success of the Japanese has been due in large meas- the fidelity with which they have copled America and to the general efi- ciency of their service. The accom- panying photographs illustrate the atest methods of our signal service as put into practice in some recent tests. Dy T7E A 7L e Change the faces and uniforms of the soldiers to those of Japanese troops an xh. same il uxlr/\ tons might serve equally well to illuetrate the methods of lhv signal service of the Japanese ¥ The last five years have witnessed an unprecedented advance in the eflicienc of the signal s ic This revolution, 1 ar reaching effects, has sible, of course, by th The importance of nication of rio s been demonstrated eommer- half a ceéntury, but it re- war to show indispensable It is scarcely necessary pater progress nas how is elec- to ad been made in the ed States signal service in perfecting these new eth- ods than in any other country. The secret of this success, incidentally, is e plan followed in America of e - ir the services in time of need ed electricians, putting them in uniforms and sending them to the front. As Von Moltke has said, “War is the only science that lays under tribute all other sciences.” The methods of warfare have been mpletely revolutionized during the last few years. The signal service has come to play a more important part than ever before, until to-day it is practically indispensable. It is neces- sary to understand something of this change to appreciate the advanced work of the signal corps in a modern a Formerly a battle consisted of ng of two great bodies of as a rule attend- eon said, the strongest 3 day all this is changed are fought by vast numbers of small commands. The marvelous effectiveness of modern ordnance and the ekill of modern rifiemen ‘render ‘t impossible for a large body of men to < CATHOLIC PLAN FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOL + GREAT deal of misunderstand- before the Jaw and that the State, ing exists among our fellow citi- under our system of government, has zens who are not of our faith as absolutely nothing to do with the re- t6 the changes which Catholics ligious education of its citizens. It is desire in the present educational sys- interested in their secular and intel- tem of the country. You hear it said, lectual development, however, and de- for instance, that they would abolish sires that they should become as pro- the public school and substitute in its ficlent as possible in the arts and place a system of denominational sciences. In other words, the State schools controlled by the church. We are told also by some of our mistaken friends that it is the desire of the Catholics to control the public schools, handling the money collected in taxes for their support, appointing the teach- ers and selecting the books used, ex- cluding the State from any voice in these matters. Then there are those who think that Catholics want a divi- sion of the school fund, giving them their per capita of the school money and allowing them to do as they please with it without any State supervision cont The fact is that none of those statements are entirely correct. Catholics do not want to abolish the public school system, but to extend it Public education has always been pro- moted by the church, which founded and maintained many of the great uni- of the world, and her religious versities and colleg: which embraces orders of both sexes many devoted to teaching What want simply that the present school system be made in practice what it,claims to be in theory—fair and equitable to all—and wet at the same time so that the State the religious forces mong we is may profit by all in it We recognize the fact that in the United States there is no State Church, that all religions are on an eguality desires that its citizens shall become, s0 far as their ability will permit, pro- ficient in mathematics, geography, writing, mining, law, medicine and whatever will fit them to become re- spectable and useful members of so- It does not seek to direct what religious creed they shall profess, or whether they $hall profess any, and leaves religious matters absolutely alone. Catholics find no fault with that programme. They are perfectly will- ing to allow all their fellow citizens en- tire religious freedom, and ask no spe- cial privileges; they ask only to be put on an eguality in all respects with all their fellow Americans in enjoyment of all that the State has to give. We know well that the public at large believe that this is provided for ciety. in the present arrangement, but that public ought to listen with respect to the ten or twelve millions of devoted citizens when they declare that as a body they cannot conscientiously avail themselves of these secular advantages offered because divorced from religious instruction; and especlally ought that public to listen to this appeal in behalf of conscience when the remedy pro- posed is not to be at the expense of other people’s conscience, but where, on the contrary, the conscientious con- victions of all others are carefully nro. LIANCES AN TS MEN WITH ITS ARTILLERY s'fi “!.‘.‘._..'.-' FTERVYICT Coadjutor Archb: BY GEORGE MONTGOMERY. hop of San Francisco. vided for. Those who are satisfied with the present system unamended would find it absolutely the same so far as affecting themselves. Catholics consclentiously believe, and thousands of their non-Catholic fellow citizens agree with them, that religious training should go hand in hand with secular education, and they therefore have established and maintained schools where that principle is carried out, and they believe that the person who wants a religious education for his children should have exactly the same facilities and help from the State to carry out their ideas .s those receive who want no religion in the schoolroom at all. It is just as much a belief that secular education should not be com- bined with religious training as that it should be united. Agnosticism is as much a sect as Methodism. Agnosti- cism for the Agnostic is his special be- lief about religion, just as much as Methodism or Catholicity, or Judaism, or Mohammedanism is the belief about religion of the Methodist, the Catholic, tha Jew ar the “fohammadan. And sinaa —p the intent of the school system in order to be fair to all is theoretically based on the idea that it will pay for the teaching of no man's belief, but practically without intending it, does, as a matter of fact, foster most ten- derly the Agnostic’s religious views by the very exclusion from the schools of all instruction on supernatural religion. Why shouid ‘not the Methodist or the Catholic or the Jew consistently find fault with the system that carefully provides for one sect—the Agnostic— and excludes like privjleges to all othérs? . Those who believe in the Christian ,religion are quite willing that the Agnostic should be protected in his political and natural right of following Agnosticism for himself, but is it not a little too much to ask them to sup- port willingly and without a murmur a system of education whose practical working is so utterly unfair, furnishing to the Agnostic the teaching of the Agnostic religion for his .children and discriminating against the Christian relizion and even taxine the teaching h | (o) fight in mass. The rapid fire machine guns would with such a target to work upon annihilate such a body. The gen- eral principle of modern tactics con- sists in placing in action at the most important points of attack a stronger force than that of the enemy. The commander, who by the rapidity of his movements can place in action at the same time and at the principal points the greatest amount of physical force will necessarily win the victory. The new tactics render it necessary for a commander to have positive and instantaneous means of communicating with every part of his forces, and hence the importance of the signal sepvice. The distribution of an army in a battle may be compared to a great wheel, with the riml representing the firing line, the spokes the lines of communi- cation and the hub the position of the commanding general. Previous to 1898 the United States Signal Corps was on what may be termed a ‘wigwag” basis. Wigwagging is a very old sys- tem, and is still the emblem of the ser- vice, as represented by the crossed flags. The signal corps itself grew cut of the experience of the civil war, when electricity first established a place for itself as a factor in warfare. Both armies used a crude system of telegra- phy with such good results that all foreign powers have taken lessons from America in this respect. The wigwag, or flag telegraph, has been used successfully for distances of twelve miles. This, however, is the ex- treme range and can only be accom- < JAPS COF plished with powerrul telescopes and with perfect atmospheric conditions. Under ordinary conditions the range is scarcely more than half as far. The use of a torch by night with the wig- wag code, which was found so effective during the civil war, is now obsolete, a powerful flash lantern being used in- stead. The effective range of the torch or lantern is about that of the flag. The heliograph, or sun telegraph, as it is popularly called, made possible a great advance in visual communica- tion. It is an instrument of great range and consists of mirrors so ar- ranged that rays of sunlight may be projected in any direction, a shutter being used to intercept ard control the flash. Under good weather conditions the heliograph has a range of fifty miles and has been used for twice that distance. While all these visual sys- tems have the advantage of simplicity and mobility and require little skill to operate, they are all at the mercy of the weather. So trifling an interrup- tion, for instance, as the passing of a cloud might destroy all communication with digastrous results. The efficiency of the United States Signal Corps to-day is due to a provi- sion of the act of Congress in 1898. This act specified that one-third of the signal corps should consist of trained electricians. As a result the corps at once began to draw men from all de- partments of electrical work through- out the cotintry, and the army gained the advantage of years of training in the schools and in commercial life. N LiNEMAN TARNING CBSERNATION Ly TELESCOPE The work these men were callea upon to do resembled closely what they had been in the habit of doing in civil life. The difficulties were, of course, greatly increased, but since the best electri- clans In the country were engaged, no obstacle was found unsurmountable. The principal instrument of the sig- nal corps to-day for fleld work is the telephone. The rapidity with which such systems of communication may be installed s marvelous, especially as compared with the work of foreign armies, except the Japanese. In many tests the signal corps has actually ad- vanced faster, completing their line as they traveled, than have the troops, even under forced march. If the coun- try and conditions permit, the wires and batteries are carried in wagons. If this be impossible the electricians, with colls of wire slung over their shoulders, cover the distance on foot. It is de- sirable that the wires be strung along poles or on trees, but often they are simply lald upon the ground, with the expectation of being abandoned at any moment and not recovered. As in the advance on Peking, all kinds of ex- pedients were resorted to. When the conditions make it impossible to talk over such lines, a ‘“‘buzzer” system of telegraphy is brought into play. A hood is placed over the head of the operator and communication is main- tained by means of the code. Any ex- pedient may be used, but the line must be got through at all costs. The chain of communication is divid- ed, into three parts—the permanent, semi-permanent and the temporary or flying lines. For the permanent lines the familiar practice of the telegraph and telephone companies is followed as far as possible. Semi-permanent lines are used to conmect the different com- manders with the base of supplies lo- cated behind the zone of active opera- tions. The temporary or fiying lines, used In the zome of active operatioms, are intended to enable the commander to be in instant communication with every division of his command. The flying line is only a temporary affair, likely to be broke at any time. Why Religious Trainihg‘ Should Go Hand in Hand With Secular Education o of Christianity because it practically requitres those who believe in Christian- ity {o pay for two school systems, and al] this while claiming that it is done in an absolute spirit of fairness to all. As the public school system is now managed, the only person who is en- tirely satisfied with it is the Agnostic, for nearly all the Protestant denomin- ations are demanding more religion in the schools; but there cannot be more religion in the schools as now organized without a gross violation of law. But the State is not hostile to reli- gion, it is simply neutral as between the several religious bodies, and those who have no religious views. If, there- fore, there are two schools giving ex- actly the same secular education, why should not both receive State aid, even though one eliminates religious train- ing and the other couples it with secu- lar studies? Is it not as much an in- justice for the unbeliever to force the believer to conform to his ideas about education as if would be if vice versa, but no such vice versa policy is con- templated. We must not lose sight ot the fact that no religion and equality of all religious beliefs are very differ- ent things. I beliéve that this manifest injustice can be obviated, that every school of the land can be made a part of the public school system, that the State can carry out its programme of giving eyery child a thorough secular educa- tion without teaching it any religious system, and yet at the same time no injustice need be done any one, neither the agnostic nor the believer, and those that desire 4o have their children taught under religious auspices need not be forced to bear the double burden of supporting schools they cannot patronize, and at the same time main- taining those they can. Let the State pay for the secular edu- cation of every child, rezardless of what school it attends. Let the State treat the private or parochial school exactly as it does the public school. Let it prescribe the curriculum, ex- amine the teachers; examine the work done, ascertain through its own inspec- tors that the work it pays to have per- formed has really been done, and that the pupils at what are now private and parochial schools rank with the chil- dren attending the other'schools in all those branches which go to make up a secular education. The State, by this plan, would control secular education as absolutely as it does now, and it would bring under its control and extend the public school system to all the children of the State. The schools in which no religion of any kind is tapght would still remain for those parents who prefer them. But if the State would agree to pay for secular education, no matter where or by whom given, those who want re- ligious and secular education com- bined would build schools and offer to the Board of School Examiners a body of teachers that the board itself could pass upon. This would once for all do away with the everlasting question of sectarianism and non-sectarianism, of reading and of not reading the Bible in the schools and by no other means will that issuie ever disappear. You will notice that the plan I pro- pose does not ask the State to pay out $1 for religious education or religious purposes. It pays for secular education and nothing else or more. It pays for 80 many hours' instruction in gram- mar, in geography, in history, and it need not pay a cent if what it agrees to pay for is not given. The grades in all the schools can be made the same, the requirements for passing from one grade to another being identical and the examinations for all the pupils held together or at least by the same exam- iners, This idea is only applying ’to the schools the principle now recognized by the State in the expenditure of money for the care of orphans and haif-or- phans. It pays for their board, their care, their clothes, regardless of who gives it to them, or the religious views of their teachers or the system of the Institutions. It is the only perfectly fair and equit- able arrangement and will make the public school system of the country in fact what it is now only in name—a means of affording a free secular edu- cation to every child in the common- wealth, without in any way, direetly or indirectly, controlling or influencing religious views. We have amended the fundamental law of our land, the Federal constitu- tion, not fewer than fifteen or sixteen times. Is it treason to attempt to amend our school system? The amend- ment proposed is of the simplest na- ture, leaving the State with as com- plete and absolute control in secular education as it has now. Those wish- ing secular training to go along with religious training would offer to the State as teachers in what are now known as private or parochial schools persons whose qualifications as secular teachers the State itself would be asked to pass upon, and whose work would be tested from time to time by the ex- amination of the pupils and paid for then, and only then. The State would prescribe still the curriculum of stud- fes, and if desired, the books also in purely secular branches. This, briefly, is the sum total of the change asked.