[7]
If we take the three large States of
[231] Western Europe, in which the majority of Christians are Catholics,
we see how the ideal of progress, freedom of thought, and the decline of
ecclesiastical power go together. In Spain, where the Church has
enormous power and wealth and can still dictate to the Court and the
politicians, the idea of progress, which is vital in France and Italy,
has not yet made its influence seriously felt. Liberal thought indeed is
widely spread in the small educated class, but the great majority of the
whole population are illiterate, and it is the interest of the Church to
keep them so. The education of the people, as all enlightened Spaniards
confess, is the pressing need of the country. How formidable are the
obstacles which will have to be overcome before modern education is
allowed to spread was shown four years ago by the tragedy of Francisco
Ferrer, which reminded everybody that in one corner of Western Europe
the mediaeval spirit is still vigorous. Ferrer had devoted himself to
the founding of modern schools in the province of Catalonia (since
1901). He was a rationalist, and his schools, which had a marked
success, were entirely secular. The ecclesiastical authorities execrated
him, and in the summer of 1909 chance gave them the means of destroying
him. A strike of workmen at
[232] Barcelona developed into a violent revolution, Ferrer happened to
be in Barcelona for some days at the beginning of the movement, with
which he had no connection whatever, and his enemies seized the
opportunity to make him responsible for it.
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