AN AMERICAN CATHOLIC'S VIEW OF 

 THE FERRER CASE 



IT has been said that the execution of Francisco Ferrer 

 at Barcelona in October, 1909, was due to the fact that 

 he instituted for the first time in Spain a system of edu- 

 cation, and that clerical prejudice and clerical hostility exer- 

 cised through the religious orders had encompassed his death. 

 This view of the case tends to become the common one, and 

 has caused a feeling of indignation and hostility not only 

 against the Church in Spain, but against the Catholic Church 

 in general. If the story of his trial and execution had re- 

 flected merely on the military or judicial authorities of Spain, 

 it might have been a matter for them to right; but the story 

 also arraigned the Catholic Church — one of the factors in our 

 every day American life — and it is but proper that the facts 

 surrounding the case should he given. In its last analysis, it 

 is the case of an anarchist who was tried for his participation 

 in rebellion and riot. 



From the story as generally told, one would naturally sup- 

 pose that there had never been any schools of any consequence 

 in Barcelona except the Ferrer schools. But the statistics of 

 Barcelona for the year 1909 show the following results : pub- 

 lic schools, 860 ; private church schools conducted by religious 

 communities, 268; private schools conducted by Catholic lay- 

 men, 564; Protestant schools, 22; Ferrer "laic" schools, 43. 

 This does very well for the city and province of Barcelona, 

 containing a total population of 1,052,977. 



It has been said that the schools of Spain still leave 75 per 

 cent of the people illiterate. Those are the statistics of i860 — 

 fifty years ago. According to the census of 1900 (before 

 Ferrer ever began his schools), Spain had 25,340 public 

 schools, with 1,617,314 pupils, and 6,181 private schools with 

 344,380 pupils, making a total of 31,521 schools with 1,961,- 

 694 pupils, out of a population then of 18,618,086 — some- 



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