The World's War revealed Belgium's Primate not only as a great lucid
thinker who shattered the subtilities with which the philosophy of might
tried to confuse the mind of the world, but also as an undaunted leader
who could not be frightened or defeated by all the forces of militarism.
To my mind the secret of the dominating influence working upon Cardinal
Mercier's character and making him a world-hero came from his training
in scholastic philosophy and from his having assimilated the spirit of
the thirteenth century.
That period indeed not only trained its people to a high spiritual ideal
but gave them golden opportunities to express themselves and to put
forth, under the inspiration of religion, the best that was in them.
The medium was the guild system which, working from a self-protecting
alliance of traders, extended itself to every existing form of industry
and commerce and gave "the workman a position of self-respect and
independence such as he had never held before and has failed to achieve
since" (Cram).
A remarkable thing about the guild system was that it established and
maintained what we, today, call technical schools for the training of
apprentices. But more remarkable was the spirit which animated the
system.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46