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THE COLLEGE MERGER OF THE
MARITIMES.
We publish the report set
out below because it is interesting and deals with a public question of
exalted importance. We have reason to feel the folly of not preserving
such valuable records. Consequently, we have decided to embalm the
document referred to between the covers of a new book.
The report was sent to us a
few days ago by mail unasked, and the kind sender is to us nameless and
unknown. Even the names of the committee who prepared the report are not
given. The paper does not purport to be signed by anybody; nor is it
addressed to anybody. We understand, however, that the Governors of St. F.
X. College have adopted this report, and we must, therefore, assume that
it represents the considered views of that much respected institution.
The report is lengthy. It
would not loss in force or finish by being just a bit more concise. We may
not be able to agree with all the several statements of that lengthy
memorandum; but it strikes one note with which we do agree without
hesitation or reserve. That note may be given in the following terms and
manner:
The teaching of Christ is
the greatest and best force in all this world. No school in any christian
country, from the humblest common school to the highest imaginable
University, should be blind or indifferent to that supreme force. Without
the steadying influence of this inerrant and enduring teaching of the
Master, what can all else avail? Ask the wrecks and ruins, the punished
and perpetuated pride, of the most powerful ancient empires, to which
alas! we must add some modern empires, as well!
We believe there are no
better people on earth than the majority of our own people in these lower
provinces. They have high and noble ideals which they would fain bequeath
to their descendants. They want a University worthy of themselves and
their children. They are all as one in their desire for christian
teaching; but, unhappily, they are not as one in their interpretation of
the very teaching they look for.
Then, the problem
confronting the federation of the colleges would appear to be simply this;
Can the different creeds meet and agree, not upon a compromise, for
compromise with truth is unthinkable, but upon some binding, practicable
basis, formula or concordat which would enable them to build, equip,
conduct and maintain, an up-to-date University which would be virtually
undenominational, but frankly and fearlessly christian in wish, word and
work. If there is a solution at all for this problem it does not lie in
controversy or contention. A spirit of love, of peace, of good will and
progress, must underlie every step in the movement.
THE EDITOR.
The purpose of education is
to help men to live well. This is the reason for the existence of our
common schools, high schools, colleges and universities. But men cannot
live well no matter how highly trained they are in the secular sense
unless their activities are guided by the principles of religion. Religion
is not something for Sunday alone. It should guide man in all his
activities. Now Man's activities depend to a great extent upon his ideas.
If, therefore, his activities are to be right, his ideas must be right,
they must conform to christian truths. On this account education in the
public schools, high schools and universities should not leave christian
principles out of account but should be guided by them. Probably
universities need the guidance of religion most of all. And why ? Because
their influence on life is so important and because they give us new ways
of doing things, they aim to develop hidden powers. These new ways of
doing things must conform to the christian law and for that reason they
should be taught under christian auspices. For example, many suggestions
as to how to live come from the biological departments of our
universities. Some of these suggestions are productive of much evil
because they are against christian truth. Many suggestions as to how to
live from the economic and social departments of our universities; many of
these do harm because they are pagan. The late Theodore Roosevelt is
quoted as having said that there is not a disrupting and dangerous
movement in the United States but can be traced to Harvard University. Our
mode of living, whether it be according to the ways of our fathers, or
whether it be new, depends on our education. Our educational system from
the universities down, moulds our activities, and for that reason it
should be christian from top to bottom.
The troubles of the world today are due to the divorce of religion and
education, especially in the colleges and universities. Their pagan
teachings have filtered down to the man in the street. The remedy lies not
in less religion in college and university teaching, but more.
In the life of the
individual the period of college age is considered most important. "This
period of adolescence'' says Dr. McCrimmon Chancellor of McMaster
University, "is now recognized as a most critical one in the organization
of the factors of life in the unifying of the outlook upon life, in the
choice of a life-work, in the adoption of life's ideas." Stanley Hall,
Clark University, one of America's greatest psychologists says: "The young
pubescent achieving his growth in the realms of fundamental qualities,
dimensions, functions comes up to adult size at 18 relatively limp and
unfit like an insect which has accomplished its last moult and therefore
far more in need of protection, physical care, moral and intellectual
guidance." "Now come epoch-marking physical changes, sex modifications of
far-reaching importance," says Chancellor McCrimmon of McMaster
University, "mental correlatives of revolutionary character, the storm and
stress of new emotions, the conflict of intellectual standards the varying
emfases of resolutions, the criticism of earlier religious experiences,
the age when by far the greater number of conversions take place.''
Amid all this
adolscence,vacillation and uncertainty, these varying emfases, this
struggle after foundations and ideals, that are some of the factors which
appear at once capable of steadying this adolescent life and guiding it
towards christian leadership? It is not so much the mingling with other
adolescents who, in the words of Stanley Hall, have accomplished their
last moult, helpful as that may be, but contact with strong consecrated
experienced personalities, with an atmosphere and conditions which mature
aright, and with a continuity in the influence of such personalities and
conditions. Can we do anything to guarantee the christian character of the
teacher, the religious atmosphere of the school, the conditions of the
daily and hourly round of consecutive duties? It is only the christian
college that is free to do this, the college that is avowedly christian
that insists upon evangelical church membership for its teachers, that
considers its work a mission of Christ. Notwithstanding all that christian
teachers may do wherever they may be working, no state system can
constitutionally provide such conditions.....The state schools are worthy
of all praise as they direct students to the truth but after all any truth
is unrelated truth, is truth without its meaning for life until it is
centred in Christ the Son of God, the God of truth. Each one of the
factors; personality, atmosphere, continuity of influence, is of vital
importance To furnish such factors is a most difficult task and demands
the fullest possible control."
The work of education has
been compared to the work of a sculptor. Let us imagine the case where
several sculptors work on the same statue. Let us further suppose that one
sculptor has one idea of what the work should look like when completed and
another has a different idea. In such a case the statue will be anything
but a success. The work would be ridiculous. It is just as ridiculous to
have several agencies, who disagree on fundamentals, educating our youths.
Liberal training to be successful must be a co-operative enterprise. The
teachers must have definite ideas as to the aim of a college course and as
to the best methods of attaining that end. Failure can only result where
one part of the Faculty has one set of ideas on this matter and another
part of the Faculty another set of views. One part may even (and must be
in the case of the merger) be tearing down what the other part is building
up.
The importance of
co-operation in teaching is explained by a number of writers recently in
"School & Society."
A writer in the Dublin
Review, Dec. 1851, p. 585, says on this point: "Once more and fourthly, as
a condition of success, we must name a perfect unity of thought and
purpose in the teaching body. Mixed education makes this impossible. Thus
the Bishop of Liege remarks in his valuable letters. 'What is your
secret,' an intelligent man one day asked me, 'for making your
establishment flourish?' 'It is, I replied to him, 'the homogeneousness of
the professional body. And this may easily be conceived. When all the
members of this body have but one thought and one action to inspire into
the minds of youths with the love of knowledge, that of virtue and
religion, may one not expect, with some confidence, happy results? But
what are we to expect where there does not exist this unity of views and
actions?"
Divided control,........one
set of teachers proclaiming one thing and another proclaiming the opposite
would probably lead the average plastic college student into scepticism.
Necessity and Function of
an Arts College.
The work of education is
divided between the common schools, high schools, colleges and
universities. Here we are concerned with the work of the colleges. In some
quarters there have been tendencies to destroy the colleges, in various
ways and for various reasons, some of them not altogether unselfish. Some
would split their work up between the high schools and the universities,
but on the whole the college of liberal arts is considered necessary, and
its existence is assured. Donald J. Cowling, Ph. D., LL.D., President of
Carleton College, said on the occasion of the inauguration of President
Burton of the University of Michigan, 1920, that "The aim of a college is
just as definite as that of any professional school." "That aim," he said,
"is to develop the student with respect to all his capacities into a
mature symmetrical and well-balanced person, in full possession of all his
powers, physical, social, mental, spiritual and with an intelligent
understanding of the past and a sympathetic insight into the needs and
problems of the present." The purpose of the college is to develop
leaders,........leaders who will harmonize the conflicting aims of various
classes of society. The professional schools and graduate schools of the
universities alone will not and do not produce these leaders. Their
training is too narrowing to enable their students to see things in their
proper perspective. This vision comes from the liberal arts training. On
this point, President Rush Rhees of the University of Rochester, says: "I
believe that the American College contributes to preparation for
professional studies an influence for intellectual maturity which no other
agency has to offer. By intellectual maturity I do not mean simply
developed intellectual power, for professional studies as at present
conducted have no superior in that respect. I mean by intellectual
maturity a well-balanced judgment, a sense of proportion in the estimate
of truth and ability to see facts in larger and more remote as well as in
nearer and obvious relations."........But college education offers the
most promising means for such intellectual emancipation.
But how can the college
give "this sense of proportion etc." if it leaves revealed truth out of
account in some of the college courses. The college then has a function to
perform, viz., the creation of broad-minded leaders, but it cannot do this
unless it is christian through and through.
One of the functions of
leaders is to show men how to deal with one another in their social
relations. On them depends the development of a public opinion that will
lessen disorder, unrest, economic strife and the wastes of war. On them
depends the solution of the social question which according to Pope Leo
XIII "is first of all moral and religious." Our leaders cannot do their
work without the guidance of christian truth. Hence a college education
that leaves Christianity out of consideration, is defecient and cannot
produce leaders competent to direct men in their social relations. This is
abundantly shown by the quality of the eugenic, psychological and
sociological literature that is pouring out of our non-sectarian
universities.
Elements of a Standard
College.
To do this work of creating
leaders efficiently a college must meet certain standard requirements; it
must have a certain amount of equipment and its teachers must possess
certain qualifications, but above all it must be thoroughly Christain.
It is claimed that Saint
Francis Xavier's college does not and cannot meet these requirements, and
it would meet them and do better work if it entered the Merger.
What are the requirements
for a standard college? Remember we are concerned with the requirements
for a standard college and not with those for a large university with
professional schools, etc. Confusion on this point would seem to be at the
root of a great deal of the agitation in favor of the Merger. It is not
claimed that at present we could run a university with its many faculties,
etc., but it is claimed on the best of authority that we can run an
efficient college. What is that authority?
A committee of the
Association of American colleges investigated for a number of years the
subject of the requirements for a standard college and submitted their
final report to the Association in 1917. They distinguish between an
Average College, a Minimum College and the Efficient College.
The Minimum College should
have 100 students, a faculty of ten including the President and Librarian,
should have an income from all sources of $32,000, should have equipment
worth $350,000, and endowment worth $432,000.
Dean Cole, President
Oberlin College, in explaining the term Minimum College said:
"By this term I understand
that we mean not to describe the smallest institution we think should be
allowed to bear the name of College, but rather an institution having such
admission, requirements curriculum, standards for graduation, teaching
staff, administrative organization, endowment and physical equipment as
render it capable of doing acceptable college work in every respect for an
arbitrarily fixed number of students."
The Average College will
have one hundred and sixty-five students distributed as shown; it will
have a faculty of sixteen, one of whom will be the president, another the
librarian, the others being instructors. It will have an income of
thirty-six thousand two hundred and fourteen dollars."............."The
total invested in the plant will be $236,877 and the total endowment will
be $265,170. To capitalize donations and deficit would require $189,840,
making a total endowment of $455,010."
The committee also drew up
standards for what they called the efficient College. There was some
objection to the use of the term "efficient." It was admitted that
colleges that are not as large as the Efficient College are doing and can
do just as good work as the Efficient College.
In the words of the Report:
"There is no implication that colleges which fail to meet the tests of
efficiency as set forth in the discussion are not good colleges." And in
the words of the Committee on the distribution of colleges; "These
statements should in no case be construed as implying that smaller
colleges adequately endowed to provide a full staff and generous equipment
for a smaller enrolment are not desirable. Wherever in the country such
small colleges are maintained, they can do superb work."
The Report says: "There is
a wide difference of opinion with regard to the desirable limit of numbers
in a student body. Probably none would contend for a number larger than a
thousand. Many would be willing to say that five hundred is the best
number. No doubt, most educators will agree that certain conditions of
unity homogeneity and intimacy should characterize a college group and
that these conditions indicate a certain limit as to numbers. Certain
personal relations between teachers and students should exist and these
also indicate some limitations as to numbers. Chiefly, however, for the
practical purpose of getting a starting point from which to develop the
efficient college, we will assume a student body of five hundred. It
should have a faculty of forty-six consisting of twenty-two professors,
sixteen assistants and eight instructors. It should have a library of
25,000 volumes. Its total income should be $166,750. Such an institution
is characterized as "Efficient", because "If the number of students should
be small the per capita cost would be high. As the numbers increased the
per capita cost diminished until at an enrolment of 400 to 500 it becomes
merely stationary and showed little or no decrease for enrolment increase
beyond this number."
A comparison of these
standards with conditions at St. Francis Xavier shows that our college has
more than is required by the standard college of our size. We have
practically the plant required for an "Efficient College." We have an
endowment practically secured of over $800,000. The Association requires
for an Efficient College, a library of 25,000 volumes". We have probably
15,000 volumes. True, many of these are not what would be called college
books, still they are valuable assets. But surely it should not be a
difficult proposition to increase our number of college books to 25,000.
It has been contended that
our constituency is too small for an Efficient College. This is not the
judgment of the best available authority on the question. A Committee of
the Association of American Colleges were at work on this question and
brought in a report in May, 1921. It may be remarked that Dr. Clyde Furst
of the Carnegie Foundation was one of its Advisory Members. They found
that there was in the United States an average of one college student per
212 population. In some places the average is much greater; 1 to 145, 1 to
147. As the high schools multiply and improve there may be 1 student in
100 population.
Let us take the average in
the whole United States, 1 in 212. The Catholic population of this diocese
is estimated at 85,000. According then to the statistics of college
attendance in the United States, we should even now have over 400 college
students in our constituency. In time, no doubt, our people will be able
to send their boys and girls to college in the same numbers that they are
sent elsewhere. And besides it is not unreasonable to expect that Cape
Breton and Eastern Nova Scotia will share some of the increase in
population and prosperity that is supposed to come to Canada in this
century. However that may be, we have even now according to the estimates
of the committee of the Association of American Colleges a constitutency
large enough for the Efficient College.
Can we hope to become an
Efficient College? The progress made during the past ten years would seem
to warrant the conclusion that we can. During the past twelve years the
college course has been lengthened by two years, the endowment has been
increased by $785,000 and the equipment by $351,000. (The Science Building
$60,000; the chapel $25,000; the library $15,000; the gymnasium $20,000;
the Rink $30,000; the Heating Plant $113,000; Mount Cameron Farm $40,000
and Mickler Hall $48,000 have been added to the Plant within the last
fourteen years.) Six of these years have been very hard on the colleges.
Surely then the history of the past twelve years warrants us in believing
that when normal times return our college may hope to attain the most
exacting requirement for a standard college. But perhaps we could do
better work if we were part of a large University. Let us examine this
argument from size.
Argument from Size.
The efficiency of a college
depends but slightly upon its size. It depends upon the relationship
between equipment, etc., and the number of students. Prof. Frank Aydelotte
of Swarthmore College writes in the Nov. 5, 1921 No. of "School & Society"
that provided the small colleges limit the number of their students and
the subjects they teach "the size of an institution need have no effect on
the quality of its work." Any efficiency that comes from bigness is had
when the number of students reaches 500. The small college of less than
200 students can do excellent work, and in the judgment of competent
authority is in many cases doing better work than the large institutions.
At a meeting of the Association of American colleges held in 1917, Dr.
Crawford made the statement that Haverford was the best college in the
State of Pennsylvania and it never had more than 176 students. From a
discussion of the relationship between the size of a college and its
efficiency, between Dr. Crawford and Dr. Cole, at this meeting as reported
in the Bulletin of the Association, the following is taken:
Dr. Crawford: Then there is
no indication whatever in your remarks that because the college grows
larger it necessarily grows better.
Dean Cole: No, that doesn't
follow. It ought to, I think, but as a matter of fact it doesn't.
Question: I think I have
read somewhere in statistics from our Government that a larger percentage
of graduates of colleges with less than 500 students had become
distinguished than from colleges of more than 500 students. Is this True?
Dean Cole: I do not know.
Question: I think that is
so. If so, is not your assumption that the larger a college is, other
things being equal, the more efficient it will be is't that assumption
wrong?
Dean Cole: That question is
quite possibly wrong, under present conditions, but it is not my
assumption.
Thorstein Veblen, by many
considered the most brilliant mind in America, and for many years the
University of Chicago's most distinguished professor discusses in his book
"The Higher Learning in America," the attempt to join college and
university together.
The value of Veblen's
authority may be judged from the following criticisms of his works: "The
Publishers' Weekly," Sept. 7, 1918, says: "The appearance of a book by
Thorstein Veblen is always one of the literary events of the year in which
it occurs. Veblen holds, in political theory, the position that Emerson
ascribed to Plato in philosophy. Very few of us read Plato, but we all owe
our education to him, for he teaches our teachers. Veblen's mind is more
like the X-ray than any other thing. When once you have looked with him
into the very centre of social and political customs, nothing can erase
the picture from your mind. Those who like to keep up to date in reading
usually do not read Veblen. He is about fifteen years ahead of date. But,
considering the present rush of events, it might be well to read him, so
as to be prepared if the present has a telescope wreck with the future in
about fifteen minutes. "Higher Learning in America." (Huebsch.)
The "London Nation" calls
Veblen, "the most original modern thinker. His contributions to Sociology
and Economics have had a profound influence, and those who seek
understanding of the origin, development and direction of our own
industrial society, must study Veblen's works." The "London Nation" is,
unquestionably, the formost literary review of our day and generation, and
"The Publishers' Weekly" is the most influential and authoritative organ
of the publishing and book-selling trade in America.
The "American Economic
Review" describes Veblen as the "pre-eminent thinker in the field of
critical thought relating to modern economic study."
"The American University,
Veblen says, has come into bearing, and the college has become an
intermediate rather than a terminal link in the conventional scheme of
education. Under the names of "undergraduate and graduate", the college
and the university are still commonly coupled together as subdivisions of
a complex whole; but this holding together of the two disparate schools,
is at the best a freak of aimless survival. At the worst, and more
commonly it is the result of a gross ambition for magnitude on the part of
the joint directorate.............The attempt to hold the college and
university together in bonds of ostensible solidarity is by no means an
advisedly concerted adjustment to the needs of scholarship as they run
today. By ill-advised or perhaps unadvised imitation, the younger
universities have blundered into encumbering themselves with an
undergraduate department to stimulate this presumptively honorable!
pedigree, to the detriment of both the university and the college so bound
up with it."
"It appears then that the
intrusion of business principles (by this he means trustification or the
grouping of colleges etc., into large units) in the universities goes to
weaken and retard the pursuit of learning, and, therefore, to defeat the
ends for which a university is maintained. This result follows, primarily,
from the substitution of impersonal mechanical relations, standards and
tests, in the place of personal conference, guidance and association
between teachers and students; as also from the imposition of a
mechanically standardized routine upon the members of the staff, whereby
any disinterested preoccupation with scholarly or scientific inquiry is
thrown into the background and falls into abeyance. Few if any who are
competent to speak in these premises will question that such has been the
outcome."
In another place he writes:
"It is coming to be plain to university men who have to do with the
advanced instruction that, for the advanced work in science and
scholarship, the training given by a college of moderate size commonly
affords a better preparation than is had in the very large undergraduate
schools of the great universities. This holds true, in a general way
in spite of the fact that the smaller schools are handicapped by an
inadequate equipment, are working against the side-draft of a religious
bias, with a corps of under-paid and over-worked teachers in great part
selected on denominational grounds, and are under-rated by all concerned.
The proposition, however, taken in a general way and allowing for
exceptions is too manifestly true to admit of much question, particularly
in respect of preparation for sciences proper as contrasted with the
professions." Veblen: Higher Education in America, p. 126.
Prof. Veblen proposes that
these universities be broken up into independent units, and says: "Indeed
there might even be ground to hope that, on the dissolution of the trust,
the underlying academic units would return to that ancient footing of a
small-scale parcelment and personal communion between teacher and student
that once made the American college with all its handicap of poverty,
chauvinism and denominational bias, one of the most effective agencies of
scholarship in Christendom."
Any amount of testimony to
the same effect could' be brought forth. Two more will suffice.
Prof. Vernon L. Kellogg, M.
S. Secretary of the National Research Council of the United States said at
an educational conference held at the University of Michigan in Oct. 1920:
"Another familiar fact of general knowledge is that a major part of
university research in this country comes from a comparatively small
number of larger richer better-equipped, more brilliantly-staffed
institutions. But it is less familiar that the great majority of the
graduate or research students of these larger institutions come to them,
not from their own annual output of bachelors but from other smaller
colleges and universities. The dean of the graduate school of one of these
largest universities, particularly famous for its annual output of
graduate degree men, reports that ninety per cent of its graduate
students come from other smaller institutions." (Educational Problems
in College and University p. 81.)
And in the Report of the
British Educational Mission to the United States, 1919, we read:
"Colleges have the same
curricula and standards (as the university) ; and many of them possess the
advantage that their numbers being limited, the students may expect more
personal attention...........
We were frequently assured
that the best intellectual material of the graduate departments of the
universities comes from the independent colleges............And the better
colleges have by no means been injured by the growth of the
universities.''
Again, in another part of
the Report: We were constantly assured that many of the best students
in the universities come from the independent colleges, the small colleges
as well as the large."
And yet some say that Saint
Francis Xavier's College cannot hope to do good work because it is small.
Objections.
It is contended that if we
do not enter this merger, we shall be swamped. Why should we be? From all
that I have quoted it is evident that the small college can do just as
good Arts work as the large university. Against the cock sure declarations
of the merger-ites let me put the words of ex-President Harper of Chicago
University as given in "The Trend in Higher Education." He said "There
is no reason to suppose that the larger institution, however influential
it may become will supplant the smaller."
Burgess Johnson, assistant
professor of English in Vassar College speaks in the December 1920 number
of the "North American Review," of the inefficiency of the college courses
of the large universities and compares their work with that of the smaller
colleges. He writes: "No wonder the great universities seek to affiliate
with the small colleges of their neighborhood. Let us hope that the
Colleges will decline with thanks. The best passible antidote so far
discovered for the germ of educational elephantiasis, is the small
college."
2. Another argument for the
Merger is that degrees would be standardized, and also the courses leading
to degrees. If the Merger became a reality we should have higher education
dominated by one authority with probably a progressive intrusion by the
state. This is an argument against the Merger and not for it.
Progress depends not on moulding all in the same form but on allowing as
much freedom as possible in higher education.
Prof. Ross of the
University of Wisconsin, says in his Principles of Sociology: "The people
will be managed without their knowing it unless there are numerous founts
of authoritative opinion independent of one another and of any single
powerful organization. Let there be many towers from which trusty watchmen
may scan the horizon and cry to the people a warning which no official or
mob may hush." P. 436 Ύ.
"The higher means of social
control ought to emanate from many minds of divers experience and
interests." P. 433.
The case against the Merger
on this score is well put by Donald J. Cowling, Ph. D., President of
Carleton College. He says in an address: "I think we should all agree that
it is not desirable that all of the educational institutions of this
country should become of the same type or that their forms of development
should proceed along identical lines. There is room in this country for a
great variety of institutions; and educational progress and national
stability are better safeguarded by a multiplication of types than by a
standardized form which represents the views of some specialist as to what
a college or university should be. There must be ample opportunity for
variation and wide freedom for growth in different directions. The complex
needs of our one hundred five million people will be better served when
institutions grow up from the people rather than when they are imposed
from above, either officially by the government or unofficially by the
concerted action of the stronger types of institutions now holding the
field."
"There is reason to believe
that if Germany had had a greater variety in her institutions of higher
learning and particularly in the matter of their financial support, the
Prussian military regime would never have been able to secure a strangle
hold on them as it did and through them on the whole German system of
education." America is fortunate in having its higher education carried on
half by institution supported by the state and half by institutions on
private foundations, and I believe it is equally fortunate that the
undergraduate students of America are half in colleges associated with
universities and half in independent institutions with, no such university
relationship.
3. It is claimed that the
"modern requirements of good higher education," are so great that "to
perpetuate present arrangement therefore, is foregone defeat." If by good
higher education is meant university work the statement is probably true.
If college work it meant, the testimony of the best authorities goes to
show that the statement is false.
The Carnegie Report deals
with this subject under three heads, viz., (a) Cost of laboratories, (b)
Libraries,and (c) Professors' salaries.
The requirements of
laboratories in providing a good modern university education seem fabulous
no doubt when compared with the equipment of forty years ago. This is not
true of college work. According to the Report of the Association of
American Colleges, the value of equipment, outside of buildings, library
and heating plant for the minimum college should be $35,000. Surely there
is nothing fabulous about this.
The Carnegie Report
characterizes our equipment as "fair". With regard to (b) the Report says
that none of the New England Colleges already mentioned presumed to
operate with a working book collection of less than 100,000 volumes. Large
libraries are of course most desirable, but the library demanded by the
Association of American colleges for the Efficient College used not have
more than 25,000 volumes.
(c) With regard to salaries, the need for a "fabulous" increase in
salaries in the case of Catholic Colleges (and let us hope in the case of
the other christian colleges also) is not apparent.
The non-sectarian
universities must give fabulous salaries for the reason that fabulous
salaries are paid to motion picture actors, because of competition. But
Catholic colleges can get and keep their best men without resorting to the
jungle tactics of large corporations that are so characteristic of the
modern university.
No doubt the Catholic
college must pay those large salaries to laymen who are out for the most
they can get, but there should be enough zeal for christian education left
in the Catholic body to give a supply of teachers who are willing to give
their lives to the work for the love of truth itself.
Teachers surely should get
a decent living and enough to enable them to travel and to get their
sabbatical year, but experience and facts show that this salary need not
be fabulous.
On page 30 of the Carnegie
Report we read: "Yet the typical "small college" of New England, a college
such as Amherst Bowdoin or Williams, confined strictly to curricula in
Arts and Sciences, and doing comparatively little graduate work, has in
each of the cases mentioned nearly or much more than $3,000,000 of
endowment for approximately one-half of 1000 students."
Note well: The U. S. Bureau
of Education gives the following statistics for the New England
Universities and Colleges for 1918: Only 9 of the 47 institutions had
libraries of 100,000 volumes and over. Only 5 of the 47 institutions had
endowments of 3 million and over. Only 8 of the 47 had endowments of
$2,500,000. So much for the "typical small college of New England."
There are other
standardizing agencies besides the Association of American Colleges. In
our argument we have taken not the standardizing agency with the lowest
standards but one with the highest, the Association of American Colleges.
The National Conference Committee on Standards of Colleges and Secondary
Schools at its annual meeting, March 24, 1919, adopted the standard of a
productive endowment of $300,000. The North Central Association requires
an endowment of $200,000. A committee organized by the U. S. Bureau of
Education requires an endowment of $250,000. The Association of Colleges
and Secondary Schools of the Southern States requires an endowment of not
less than $300,000 and a library of at least 7,000 volumes. According to
the statistics of the U. S. Bureau of Education 400 colleges and
university libraries did not have in 1918 as many as 20,000 volumes. 77
per cent of the total number of institutions have fewer than 41,563
volumes. Only 42 of the 600 institutions have 100,000 volumes and over.
An examination of even the
state universities shows that only 16 of them have libraries of 100,000
volumes and over, while 28 of them have each fewer than 100,000 volumes.
Expensive equipment, large
libraries, and heavy endowments are necessary for the university and for
specialized work. It does not, however, follow that these are the
essentials of a college of liberal Arts. Good equipment is important but
it certainly is not so important as some would have us believe.
At a conference of the
American College held on the occasion of the anniversary of the founding
of Allegheny College, President W. P. Few of Trinity College had this to
say on this point: "The greatness of our College will depend upon the
elevation of the teaching profession does not depend upon higher salaries,
better technical training or more elaborate equipment but upon giving it
the proper dignity and importance in our life.....Hirelings can never give
the truest service."
And President William E.
Slocum of Colrado College at the same celebration said: "It was this that
Lord Bryce so strongly emphasized in his memorable address, when the
Rhodes Scholarships were established at Oxford, as he urged that there
should be the utmost possible degree of efficiency in equipment and
instruction for scientific education, but he insisted still more
strongly that to subordinate the interests of the humanities to those
of science is deliberately to dethrone the essential function of the
college. He said that there would be a scientific foundation for every
department of industry in its application to the arts of life, but said
that this is not the primary function of the college which has a much more
fundamental and essential part to play in the creation of the leadership
of the nation.
........It is not so much
what it (the college) teaches and how many subjects; but something it must
teach so that its graduates shall be strong to serve, and powerful enough
to battle the evil of the world, and construct virtue in the characters of
men and women.....If the American College loses sight of this sacred duty,
it becomes false to its trust, recreant and faithless before the most
essential of all the ends for which an educational movement can exist. All
attacking upon its function, all would-be modifications of its range and
scope, and of its four years of opportunity for study and spiritual growth
are the outcome of a misconception of the end which led to its
foundation."
"Lord Bryce's position is
the true one. There should be the utmost possible degree of efficiency in
scientific education; but to subordinate purely intellectual and moral
discipline to the interests of science is not only to dethrone the
essential interest of the college, but to miss the pre-eminent function of
education."
Attempts have been made to
befog the issue by quoting statistics with regard to the large endowments
and incomes of the American Universities. Since the testimony with regard
to the worth of the "small colleges" is so damaging, an attempt has been
made to make it appear that the small colleges of the United States have
endowments of millions, etc. What are the facts?
According to the latest
available statistics as given in the World Almanac for 1922 there are over
600 colleges and universities in the United States, and not 349 as was
stated in the Halifax Chronicle of Oct. 2. Of these 600 institutions only
109 have endowments over a million. 317 of the 600 institutions have each
fewer than 500 students, and of these 317 institutions with 500 and fewer
students only 16 of them have endowments of a million and over.
Notwithstanding the fact that there are in all the States heavily endowed
institutions there are hundreds of small colleges with a small number of
students and with small endowments. Philander P. Claxton says in The
American College, that in 1914 there were 328 colleges having working
incomes less than 50,000 dollars a year. How explain the existence of
these small colleges alongside so many large institutions? If the small
college is as inefficient as the Federationists claim it is in comparison
with the State Universities and the heavily endowed institutions, the
American people must lack ordinary intelligence.
A final bit of testimony
with regard to the advantages that the small college has over the large
university and we have finished with this phase of the subject. The late
Prof. Alexander Smith of Columbia University whose name is a household
word to all college students, wrote in Science, N. S., May 5, 1910: "In
respect to loss of time by overlapping, the university, with its numerous
instructors, is at a disadvantage when compared with the college. In the
latter, three or four years of chemistry are all given under the immediate
direction of one man, and continuous work and rapid progress by the pupil
are more likely to be secured."
From an educational point
of view, then, entering the merger would be a mistake. It would be
detrimental to the well-being of the country as a whole and especially to
the cause of Catholic education.
Education needs all the
resources it can command. Entering the merger would dry up many Catholic
sources of revenue. The same appeal for Catholic education could never be
made again. And with the disappearance of that appeal would go a great
opportunity to arouse Catholics and to unify them. Going into the merger
would mean practically the giving up of control of Catholic College
education. When the tail begins to wag the dog then will be ready to
believe that we can still control Catholic College work and enter the
merger. The social welfare of the country demands that our main source of
right principles and of christian leaders be kept intact and allowed to do
its work freely.
Religion and the Merger.
If the pedagogical and
social objections to the merger are serious the religious objections are
still more serious. True, many good Catholics see no objection in it, and
since Rome has not spoken in this particular case, the advisibility or
inadvisibility of entering the scheme must be judged on its merits.
It may be premised that the
fact that similar schemes are in operation elsewhere throws no light on
the subject. If the ideal cannot be obtained then the next best thing must
be tolerated. Now the ideal for Catholics is an efficient Arts course
carried on under Catholic auspices. If some people cannot themselves carry
on an efficient Catholic college then they must be satisfied with the next
best thing partial control of Catholic college work as obtains in
Toronto. And Rome at best only tolerates this when the most ample
safeguards are assured. The existence of tolerated plans of education
though should be no reason for trying to frustrate the attempts of others
to attain the ideal.
Now it is probable that the
education carried on at the Maritime University will be anything but
acceptable to Catholics.
According to the tentative
proposals put forward the greater and most important part of the work is
to be done by University Professors. It is reasonable to suppose that if
this consolidated university is to be a "Modern University" its teachers
will be somewhat like the professors of the modern university.
Consequently it is reasonable to suppose that much of the teaching done
will be of such a character as to be dangerous to faith and morals. Those
who advocate the merger either do not think that this teaching is morally
unsound, or, if they do believe that it is morally unsound, they must
believe that no harm can come to the students from having it given them.
If the first is the case, they know nothing about the social and
philosophical teaching of these professors. If the second, they are
putting themselves directly against the teaching of experience and of the
Church.
With regard to the first,
anybody who knows anything about non-sectarian university teaching knows
that it is saturated through and through with materialism. It is safe to
say that it is impossible to find a textbook in sociology or any of the
social sciences or in philosophy by a professor of a modern secular
university that is not built up on a materialistic foundation.
Here are one or two
examples of their teaching: "Man is not born human," says Prof. R. E. Park
of the University of Chicago, "it is only slowly and laboriously, in
fruitful contact, cooperation, and conflict with his fellows, that he
attains the distinctive qualities of human nature."
1. Prof.Conklin of
Princeton University says in Hereditary and Environment: "Intelligence
develops from trial and error." P. 48. "The phenomena of mental
development in man and other animals, etc. Page 55.
Profs. Park and Burgess of
the University of Chicago in their Introduction to the Science of
Sociology says: "There is no fundamental difference between intelligent
and instinctive behavior." Page. 80. Prof. Giddings of Columbia University
writes in Studies in the Theory of Human Society: "Man consciously has
ideas, and the higher animals perhaps have a few simple ones." P. 155.
2. Prof. Edman Irwin in his
work Human Traits and Their Significance says: "Given another environment,
his moral revulsion and approvals might be diametrically
reversed..........standards of good and evil depend on the accidents of
time, space, and circumstance." P. 425. Moral laws are not regarded as
arbitary and eternal, but as good in so far as they produce good." P. 431.
And Prof. Conklin of Princeton in Heredity and Environment page 322 says:
"We once thought that men were free to do right or wrong and that they
were responsible for their deeds; now we learn that our reactions are
predetermined by heredity, and that we can no more control them than we
can our heart beats."
"Conscience Codes" writes
Prof. Ellwood in his Introduction to the Study of Sociology, "are as
typical and characteristic products of social evolution as languages or
political systems.....A moral code instead of being a universal
requirement applicable to the treatment of all mankind, was first the
requirement devised by a group and inculcated and enforced, by a group for
the benefit of that group and its members. No man is born with a
conscience any more than he is born with a language." The freedom of will
is generally denied. "The balance of probabilities however, seems to favor
the opposite interpretation determinism." writes H. L. Warren, Princeton
University, in Human Psychology.
"They teach young men and
women plainly that an immoral act is merely one contrary to the prevailing
conceptions of society; and that the daring who defy the code do not
offend any Deity, but simply arouse the venom of the majority." (Bolce.)
And the reason is because they believe (to quote Profs. Park and Burgess
again); "Conscience is a manifestation in the individual consciousness of
the collective mind and the group will." P. 33.
"Religion is a social
product" Prof. Todd in Theories of Social Progress. "Religion had its
origin in the choral dance." P. 87, E. L. Earp of Syracuse University an
ex-minister is quoted as having said: "It is unscientific and absurd to
imagine that God ever turned stone-mason and chiseled commandments on a
rock.' Or, more generally, Religion is merely a human invention that
"assists control, and reinforces by a supernatural sanction those modes of
behavior which by experience have been determined to be moral i.e.
socially advantageous. Thomas, Source Book of Social Origins.
Dr. W. McDougall, Professor
of Psychology in Harvard University says in Body and Mind: "I am aware
that to many minds, it must appear nothing short of scandal that any one
occupying a position in an academy of learning other than a Roman Catholic
seminary, should in this twentieth century defend the old-world notion of
the soul of man.' (P. XI, ed 1920). Dr. McDougall is "the least prejudiced
of living psychologists" yet he has written of the freedom of the will:
"The fuller becomes our insight into the springs of human conduct the more
impossible does it become to maintain this antiquated doctrine," (Social
Psychology, p. 14.)
Prof. Todd has nine pages
on the disservice of religion. Here is a sample: "The clerical influence
in politics has almost invariably proved nefarious. In education even
worse. Dogmatic teaching is good discipline, but it seals up, nay, it
kills the mind. Speaking generally, in proportion as the mental influence
of a religion is wide, the outlook for individual advance is poor.....Such
schools (religious schools) are backward because they usually assume
religion to be the fundamental fact of life; whereas it is only one of the
elements which make up that indissoluble unity. They frequently represent
an antiquated notion of the family life. The family was held superior to
the state.' They tend to stultify the mind by holding to revelation
instead of to free inquiry."
.......'Andrew T. White, he
says, "demonstrates beyond cavil that theology has sought to block every
field of scientific advance.'
'With regard to marriage,
Prof. Giddings of Columbia University, the Dean of American sociologists,
teaches that "It is not right to set up a technical legal
relationship....as morally superior to the spontaneous preference of a man
and a woman."
Prof. Charles Zueblin of
Chicago University is quoted as having said "There can be and are holier
alliances without the marriage bond than within it.....Like politics and
religion we have taken it for granted that the marriage relationship is
right and have not questioned it." "The notion" Prof. Charles Sumner of
Yale says, "that there is anything fundamentally correct implies the
existence of a standard outside and above usage, and no such standard
exists." "Marriage secures better provision and training to children than
promiscuity"
says Prof. Thomas in his
Source Book of Social Origins. "The major prophet among them all, whose
name they speak with awed reverence, John Dewey, never misses an
opportunity to speak slightly of supernatural religion. His influence has
made Pragmatism the generally accepted basis of American educational
philosophy." (The Catholic Educational Review, Oct. 1922.)
Here is the experience that
one of the St. F. X. Professors had at Columbia University, New York. It
was in a graduate course on Value, a course in Economics, not in Ethics or
Philosophy. The Professor conducting the class was Dr. B. Anderson, who
later became professor of Economics Harvard and is now connected with one
of the large banking institutions of New York City. He said in substance:
All institutions, customs, and laws are human inventions derived for the
welfare of the group or society. Our matrimonial institutions, our laws,
ideas and customs with regard to the relationship that should exist
between the sexes are human inventions. They were derived at a time when
nothing was known about prevention of conception and the spread of
venereal disease. Our commandments and institutions were invented to
prevent the spread of disease and to safeguard the offspring. At present
conditions are different. Through the great advances that science has made
we know how to prevent the spread of these social diseases, and we know
how to prevent conception. The conditions that brought about our present
ideas and regulations with regard to the relationship that should exist
between the sexes have disappeared. He then asked the class: Seeing that
the reasons for our present views on those relationships no longer exist
how long will these views themselves last? The conditions that brought
about our present views on modesty, marriage, etc., have disappeared, when
will our present old-fashioned views go too? There were about twenty in
the class the majority of them teachers of Economics in colleges and
high schools. Not one of them disputed his assumptions with regard to the
origin of our present views on marriage, etc. Some of them said our
present ideas on these relationships, etc., are so old and so thoroughly
ingrained in us that it would take a long time to change them.
This professor merely
carried to its logical conclusion the ethical teaching that is given in
every non-sectarian university and a good many non-Catholic colleges in
the country. No wonder that Rev. Dr. George E. Hunt, Pastor of Christ
Presbyterian Church, Madison, Wis., is quoted by Dr. Crayne in his work
the Demoralization of College Life as having said: "If I did not live in
Madison, I never would send a young girl to the University of Wisconsin
or any other State University for that matter."
Clarence F. Birdseye in his
book "The Reorganization of our Colleges" says: "In many of our larger
colleges and universities, and too many of our smaller ones, a very
considerable part of the college home life is morally rotten terribly
so."
It is little wonder too
that proportionate to number there are more college men in the
penitentiaries of Ohio, Indiana and Illonois than there are of any other
class. There should be fewer because of their ability to get round the
law, pull, etc., but there are more according to an investigation made by
Prof. Murchison of Miami University and reported in School and Society for
June 4, 1921. He found 72 college men in these penitentiaries, while
according to the Law of Chance no more than 25 should be there. That is to
say, if college men were no worse than those of other classes, according
to their numbers there should be but 25 of them in the penitentiaries of
these states. Pro!. Murchison comments on these statistics as follows:
"The inference is very strong that college experiences are directly
responsible for the percentile increase in sex-crimes and crimes of deceit
and robbery.....This implies a lack of habitual thinking concerning the
inexorable laws of existence and development, etc."
The great danger of this
teaching is its insidiousness; bit by bit, through innuendo, raising of
doubts questionings, etc., faith is undermined. Their attacks are usually
not frontal ones. They may take the following form: "A desire for rain may
induce man to wave willow branches and to sprinkle water" P. 26. (Dewey,
Professor of Philosophy, Columbus University in Human Nature and Conduct).
Or as in Human Traits already referred to P. 455: "Those ascetics who have
denied the flesh may have displayed a certain degree of heroism, but they
displayed an equal lack of insight."
And Prof. Ross of the
University of Wisconsin says in his Principles of Sociology: "The Spanish
mind bears deep traces of the long emasculating servitude to which it was
subjected by its blind and bigoted loyalty to throne and altar." P. 518.
Again, "rigid ecclesiastical dogmas as to interest, almsgiving, marriage
and propagation simply cannot survive the light of social science. P. 508.
A writer in the "Catholic
Mind," for Aug. 22, 1916, who spent four years in a state university,
says: "As I view the matter the young man who expects to go through a
secular university with faith unshaken and morals unimpaired must possess
the courage of a saint, and the mental training of a Catholic Doctor of
Philosophy. He has enemies within and without the classroom and the
lecture-hall. He is surrounded by pagan servants, learned theorists,
superficial thinkers, men to whom tradition is a joke, the soul a myth,
and the spirit of reverence, which Carlyle sets down as a prime requisite
in a student, a mental and moral weakness."
Dr .Edward S. Young said
quite recently at the Bedford Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn: "What the
times demand is not fewer college men but fewer colleges that take the
religious convictions out of the youth who enter them. Practically all
your leading institutions of learning such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
Wellseley, etc., began as religious educational enterprises but many of
them have politely bowed the Almighty out."
And Right Rev. Bishop
Shahan, Rector of the Catholic University, says: "And in general, is it
not the professors of our modern secular universities who are responsible
for the vulgar materialism, the cheap hollow rationalism, the frivolous
pleasure philosophy, the irreligious and soon anti-religious hearts of
multitudes of modern men and women."
The quotations given
represent the views of the non-Catholic professors on the nature of man,
of economics, of religion and of morality. These views come to expression
not only in such classes as Philosophy and Sociology, but also in History
and the other sciences, even in Economics as has been said. They consider
their view of life the right one the Catholic one is mediaeval and
superstitious and they feel that they have a mission to enlighten the
benighted.
Another danger that would
result from the merger is the danger of an increase in mixed marriages
against which the Third Council of Baltimore issued a warning. That there
is a real danger here, cannot be questioned. Prof. Conklin, in his book,
"Heredity and Environment" says: "The President of a large co-educational
institution once said that if marriages were made in Heaven, he was sure
that the Lord had a branch office in His university." "I had occasion a
few years ago," Prof. Corklin writes, "to investigate the eugenical record
of a co-educational institution, which is not unknown in the world of
scholarship, and I found that about thirty-three per cent of the recent
graduates had married fellow-students, that there had been no divorces and
that there were many children. There is no doubt that co-education
promotes early marriages and that it is not necessarily inimical to good
scholarship, even though it violates the spirit of medieval monasticism."
Objections.
Much has been made of the
Toronto University situation. Father Carr, Rector of St. Michael's says:
"That our participation in the University will reduce teaching that
conflicts with Catholic views to a minimum, and that this alone is a big
reason for joining."
The modern professor looks
upon Catholicism as superstitious and as a relic of the Dark Ages. Do the
mergerites believe that these professors will be unscrupulous and cowardly
enough to keep their views to themselves because they will be afraid of
hurting the feelings of superstitious people? If the professors of
philosophy and of social science are not to say anything that conflicts
with Catholic teaching then they must give the antiquated Catholic
viewpoint or be false to their trust. These men have a mission to teach,
to enlighten, and it is reasonable to suppose that they will be faithful
to their obligations. If they are then they must say things that are
dangerous to faith and morals. The contention of the mergerites makes
cowards of them.
The President of St.
Michael's says that it is possible that bad teaching may be offered but
that so far they have had no reason for complaining.
It seemed strange that
Toronto should be so orthodox. To settle any doubts on the matter we
looked up the only Toronto University publication at hand, Prof. Mclvor's
Elements of Social Science, and we find there the same false teaching.
After giving the customary materialistic explanation of the history of the
family he writes: "Let us next observe the similar process which created
the Church.....The awakening ideals of the tribe creates gods of beauty,
like Apollo or Balder, and of the imperious attraction of sex, like
Aphrodite, As-tarte, Venus, and of motherhood like Isis and Demeter and
later of the Virgin Mother Mary."
How reconcile this ignorant
statement with Fr. Carr's statement? It is probable that the students of
St. Michael's being immature like most college students do not recognize
materialistic teaching when they hear it. This is a further reason for
keeping them from such places. Students in these universities
unconsciously imbibe false teaching without knowing it.
"The only thing we can do"
he writes, "is judge from our own experience and that of others, and from
our knowledge of men."
What does the man mean? You
cannot take a textbook treating of a philosophical or social topic and to
a great extent of many other topics whose whole philosophy is not
materialistic. Does he mean to imply that they write one thing in books
and teach something different in class? Sometimes they do, but in that
case what they give in class is usually much worse than what they write in
books. In such matters we cannot be guided by the experience of one or two
but by more general experience and by a knowledge of human tendencies.
It may not happen that
those professors will try to indoctrinate their disciples with their pagan
light and learning, but it is probable that it will happen. "Almost
anything is possible" writes Fr. Carr. What we should be concerned with is
not what is possible or here or there but with the tendencies that are
existent in human nature, and with what probably will happen. Now it
probably will happen that these professors will want the unenlightened to
partake of their enlightnment. "Bonum est diffusivum sui." It should not
be necessary to substantiate this with any authority other than common
sense, but it seems that it is.
Prof. Ross in his
Principles of Sociology speaks of social processes or tendencies and has a
whole chapter on one called Expansion "Throughout the social organization
of an enterprising people," he writes, "there is a marked tendency to
expansion. Officials press for more authority, etc."
"But there is another force
for expansion which may be called the proselyting spirit. This willingness
to take trouble to spread one's convictions and ideals, or to support
those who do it for one is praiseworthy because it is disinterested.
Furthermore it helps the valuable new thing to displace the sooner that
which is antiquated and affected............"
"Revolutionary
propagandists believe they have a Gospel to preach.....In their sense of a
mission to the suffering the great social artists resemble the founders of
the redemptive religions."
Mathew Arnold writes in
Culture and Anarchy, "Culture has one great passion, the passion for
sweetness and light. It has one even yet greater: the passion for making
them prevail.....The great men of culture are those who have had a passion
for diffusing, for making pervail, for carrying from one end of society to
the other the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time, etc."
If the professors of this
university are to be men of culture they will try to make prevail the
ideas that they believe. If they will not do this then they are
time-servers and craven, and even in that case are not fit to guide the
students under them.
But it is said that
colleges will counteract this teaching and have antidotes for it. How will
they counteract it? Will the professors of the colleges take each student
individually every day in the evening and go over the whole field of
history, psychology, and the social sciences and give the right answer to
the assertions of these material-isic professors? Hardly. Will they hold
classes corresponding to the university classes for the purpose of
combating errors given them? This does not seem very practicable. This
means a duplication of professors qualified to answer all the objections
of the University professors. How are the teachers going to keep track of
what is taught in the University classes? The students cannot always tell
them when wrong teaching is given. They know when we are called ugly names
but they cannot distinguish wrong philosophical teaching from correct.
This is no reflection on the student. It takes long training in Philosophy
and Theology to equip one with sufficient knowledge to distinguish between
what is true and what is false in university work. Even theologians have
been known to disagree as to what is heresy and what is not.
The students of a
university may be receiving instruction that is false and that will in the
long run undermine their faith without their realizing it. Any statements
made then about the absence of false teaching in any university must be
taken with a grain of salt. The probability is that a modern university
gives the philosophical and sociological opinions of the specialists in
these subjects and this teaching is materialistic through and through.
Even if the Toronto scheme
was the best for Toronto Catholics, it does not follow that it would be
the best everywhere else. We can cite an instance in which an experiment
was made similar to that of Toronto, and the results were so
unsatisfactory that the arrangement was abandoned.
Were we to enter the merger
the college would become little more than a residential hall. It would
have little control over the teaching of the last two years of the Arts
course, and these are the most important years of the course.
Dr. Cowling at the
inauguration of President Burton of Michigan University said:
"Furthermore, I think it may be justly maintained that is in the last two
years, and not in the first two, that a college accomplishes its purpose
with a student, and creates within him its distinctive ideal. It is not in
connection with the freshman mathematics, or beginning languages or
elementary sciences, that the college finds its real opportunity. The work
of these first years is largely a preparation for what the college has to
offer in the years to follow. It is only when the student begins to delve
into philosophy and economics and the social sciences, and when he begins
to understand the natural sciences in their implications and has developed
a real taste for literature and something of perspective in history, it
is only then that his personal philosophy of life begins intelligently to
take on final form." Two quotations along this line about the junior
college movement may not be out of place here.
President Rush Rhees of the
University of Rochester, says: "I believe that the American College
contributes to preparation for professional study an influence for
intellectual activity which no other agency has to offer. This service
cannot be so well rendered by an extension of the secondary school, after
the pattern of the German or French practice." (American College,
Crawford, p. 88, 89.)
President Slocum says of
the junior movement: "To yield to this new attack is but a step in the
path which leads ultimately to its (the college) obliteration and thus to
lose sight of the most important element in the educational movement in
America."
The most important years
then of the college course are the last two and these it is proposed to
give over largely to the University. It is in the last two years that
fruit begins to be seen, that the student begins to get interested and
show signs of progress. One result of the merger by the way would be that
the student would begin to contrast university work with college work and
to the disadvantage of the Catholic College.
It would be preferable as
far as Catholics are concerned to have the first two years done by the
university and the last two by the college.
According to the Carnegie
Report "The sophomore year would furnish a natural transition from this
largely intra-mural collegiate regime of the first year to the largely
extra-mural organization of the later years." The plan submitted by
Dalhousie for discussion reduces teaching by the colleges to very
insignificant proportions indeed. This memo for discussion is significant
of what we may expect if we put our heads in the merger noose.
According to the Dalhousie
plan the colleges will not be allowed to control the teaching in any
subject. They cannot teach even English and philosophy for more than two
years. They would not have complete control of the teaching of philosophy
for even two years as the professors of the subjects must be approved by
the University. The very sciences that should be under the complete
control of the colleges (at least of those few who believe in the validity
of their christian principles) are to be taken away from them altogether.
Education, psychology and the social sciences "must not be taught by the
college at all." Anyone with even the most meagre knowledge of these
sciences knows that they are bound up with ethics and religion. Pope Leo
XIII said that the social question is largely a religious question. And
still we are asked to hand over instruction in these sciences absolutely
to the university!
It may be said that the
proposals of Dalhousie may not be accepted. Perhaps not. But even the
proposals made show the trend of opinion in a very prominent quarter and
the lack of appreciation of the Catholic view point.
It makes little difference
whether a few subjects or many subjects are taught by the University as
far as the validity of this argument against the merger is concerned. If
teaching will be apportioned according to the memo submitted by Dalhousie
then we give up control of the most important part of the curriculum. If
on the other hand the colleges retain control over those subjects then we
do not get the supposed advantages of consolidation, and may as well stay
as we are. The more teaching we give up the greater the reason why we
should stay out. The more teaching we control, the less reason for going
into the merger. In either case whether we teach little or much the
argument against the merger is strong.
Some Catholics see no
danger in the merger. More important than the opinion of individual
Catholics is the mind of the Church on this question. But the teaching of
the Church as expressed in the decrees of popes and councils is against
non-sectarian teaching of this kind and consequently we should not give up
control of that part of higher education that we now control.
On Oct. 9, 1847, a letter
approved by Pius IX, was sent to the bishops of Ireland by the
congregation of the Propaganda with regard to attendance at secular
universities. Propaganda condemned the scheme although some bishops
favored it. "Monitos provide vomit Archie piscopos et episcopos Hiberniae
ne ullam in ejusdem excutione partem habeant........
Certerum S. C. probe noscit
quanti intersit adolescentium, civilioris praesertim coetus scientificae
instructioni consulere; provide Amplitudinem Tuam et suffraganeos simul
Episcopos hortatur ut media omnia legitinia quae in vestra sunt potestate
ad eamdem prom-ovendam abhibeatis. Curandum erit ut collegia catholica
quae jam constituata reperiuntur magis magisque floriant.
With regard to these three
colleges that were banned, Prof. Bertram Windle writes in the February
number, 1909, of the Catholic World "Even as it was, it was much less
non-sectarian or non religious, to speak more accurately, than university
institutions have since become; indeed in some respects, it permitted more
recognition of religion than is contemplated by the measure which has just
passed through Parliament. (Birrel's Scheme.")
The Congregation advised
the establishment of a university similar to Louvain. New representations
were made to the congregation by the supporters of the English scheme (and
some of the objectionable statues had in the meantime been removed) but
the Congregation reaffirmed its former condemnation.
True, this did not prosper,
but the reasons of this are known to all: As, E. A. D'Alton writes in the
Catholic Encyclopedia: "This want of harmony was conducive to enthusiasm
or efficiency." The Congregation of propaganda sent an encyclical letter
to the English bishops in which it was forbidden Catholics to attend
Cambridge and Oxford.
Pope Leo XIII in the
Encyclical Militantis Ecclesiae says: "We must take care that what is
essential, that is to say the practice of Christian piety be not relegated
to a second place; that while the teachers are laboriously communicating
the elements of some difficult science, the young students have no regard
for that true wisdom of which the beginning is the fear of God, and to the
precepts of which (wisdom) they must conform every instant of their
lives."
Leo XIII in this same
Encyclical expressly states, "that all the branches of teaching should be
saturated and dominated by religion and that religion by its majesty and
its gentle force leave in the souls of youth the most salutary
impressions."
Pope Leo XIII in his
Encyclical Constanti Hungarorium to the bishops of Hungary, 1893 writes:
"In the secondary and superior schools you must watch carefully lest the
good seed sown earlier perish miserably in the souls of the grown up
youths."
And in an encyclical to the
bishops of Poland, 1897, he renews the same advice. "Those to whom we
teach letters and arts should at the same time with no less care be
instructed in things divine. The advancement of the age and in education
in young people is no reason to pause in this task; on the contrary we
must apply ourselves to it with the more ardor because youth in that state
of its studies feels each day urged by the desire of knowing and because
more formidable dangers threaten his faith."
As far as America is concerned the mind of the Church is expressed in the
decrees of the Council of Quebec and of the Third Council of Baltimore.
In title VII, chapter II,
page 256 of the Acts and Decrees of the Council of Quebec we read:
"Non-sectarian schools are by the Church condemned." "Scholae neutrae ab
ecclesia damnatae;" and in chapter VII, p. 274, Students are to be
disuaded from going to non-Catholic professional schools, and they are to
be permitted to attend them only in exceptional cases and on account of
grave reasons. "Ii autem juvenes a frequentandia Universitatibus
heterodoxis prorsu arceantur, neaue id sine gravi motivo, de sententia
Ordinarii ipsis per exceptionen permitatur."
The Third Council of
Baltimore urges Catholics to establish their own colleges and universities
because of the danger to faith and morals for students attending
non-catholic institutions.
"Only too frequently it
happens that dutiful and innocent boys and girls pass from the security of
christian family life and from the protection of the Catholic school into
non-Catholic institutions of learning and return, proud indeed of their
knowledge but deprived of their charity, faith and christian morals."
"We therefore admonish our
faithful people by all that is sacred in the Lord and we entreat them that
they may hasten by united actions towards these blessed conditions wherein
high schools, colleges and Catholic universities will be so numerous and
so highly reputed that every Catholic boy and girl may be able to find
under Catholic auspices all desirable knowledge, whether sought for by
their parents or selected by themselves." (Title 6, Chap. II, P. III.)
Pope Leo XIII in the
Encyclical Affari Vos to the Bishops of Canada says: "In like manner one
must at all costs avoid as most pernicious those schools wherein every
form of belief is indifferently admitted and placed on an equal
footing.....You well know Venerable Brothers, that all schools of this
kind have been condemned by the Church because there can be nothing more
pernicious or more fitted to injure the integrity of faith and to turn
away from the truth the tender minds of the young."
The American bishops in
their recent Pastoral Letter say: "The Church in our country is obliged
for the sake of principle to maintain a system of education distinct and
separate from other systems. It is supported by. the voluntary
contributions of Catholics, who at the same time, contributed as required
by law to the maintenance of the public schools."........
Our system is based on
certain convictions that grow stronger as we observe the testing of all
education, not simply by calm thear-etic discussion, but by the crucial
experience of recent events."
With regard to the movement
to take away the control of education from the Church and give it to the
State, Monsignor Paquet says in his work, L'Eglise et l'education, p. 199,
"What astonishes us is that certain Catholics, even priests, deliberately
shut their eyes to the perils of this manouvre; that others through
prejudice, or interest, or passion directly lend their support to it, and
thereby more or less consciously make common cause with the worst enemies
of the christian faith and of the Catholic school."
The ardent advocates of the
merger, who see in it no danger to faith or religious training would do
well to consider a principle condemned in the syllabus of Pius IX. The
following proposition No. 48 is condemned by the Church.
"That system of instructing
youth, which consists in separating it from the Catholic faith, and from
the power of the Church, and in teaching exclusively, or at least
primarily, the knowledge of natural things and the earthly ends of social
life alone may be approved by Catholics."
The only country, it may be
said where a scheme similar to the proposed merger obtains is Ireland. But
the present scheme for higher education in Ireland is radically different
from what would obtain in the Maritime Provinces. In the constituent
colleges of the National University the governing bodies ae largely
National and Catholic." (Cath. Encyc.) And Prof. Bertram Windle writes in
the Feb. 1909 issue of the Catholic World: "The University of the South
and West and the three colleges attached to it, will each of them have
nominated governing bodies which will hold office for the first few years,
and on each of these Catholics have a substantial majority. It may be
concluded that the great majority of these representatives will be
Catholic as long as Ireland is Catholic, and by this means the problem of
providing the bodies in question with a management at least not hostile to
Catholic ideas, seems to have been solved."
Summing up, then, common
sense, the natural law and the mind of the Church declare that all
education from the lowest to the highest must be guided by christian
truth. Any education that leaves it out of account is imperfect and
dangerous to faith and morals.
But the teaching given by
any but Catholic teachers is more or less dangerous, therefore Catholics
are forbidden to encourage the sending of young people to non-Catholics
colleges and universities.
This is only tolerated when
the proper safeguards are taken, and when it is impossible or difficult
for Catholics to get higher education in Catholic colleges or
universities. But there are no grave difficulties in the way of Catholics
getting a liberal arts training in the Maritime Provinces. (This is proved
by the testimony of the Report of the Carnegie Foundation, and of the
American Association of Colleges). Therefore the Catholics of the Maritime
Provinces are forbidden by common sense and the natural law to give up
their distinctively Catholic liberal arts work for a diluted,
semi-Catholic, semi-pagan course of instruction in this proposed
non-sectarian university.
It is claimed that many
conversions to Catholicism would result from the mingling of Catholics and
Protestants in this university.
There, undoubtedly might be
a few, but the probability is that there would be more conversions to
infidelity than to Catholicism. The reason for this is that the
non-Catholic party would be in the position of advantage. Controlling as
they will the university work, they will derive a good deal of pulling
power fro m the prestige of their position. Moreover, it is much easier to
doubt, deny, question and pull down than to build up.
A writer in the Dublin
Review of Jan. 1865, who made his college course at Oxford, sums up the
argument against the scheme similar to the proposed merger as follows: "If
the proposal in question were carried out, the few highly intellectual
students of the Catholic College would suffer detriment to the purity,
simplicity, and humility of their faith from the circumambient,
anti-Catholic and unbelieving atmosphere. They would, in their turn,
communicate the infection to their Catholic brethern; the college would
become a permanent and traditional home of unsound and disloyal
Catholicism; and the plague of indifferentism would possess the whole
rising generation of English Catholics."
A part of the development
of his argument is as follows: "Take, then, some youth of active
intellect, who has hitherto been thus Catholically trained, but whose
principles are not yet firmly rooted (as is evident from the very fact
that his education is still in progress) and who is now more open to new
impressions than at any other time of his life. Consider further, that
(human nature being what it is) his intrinsic bias, apart from divine
grace is intensely opposed to intellectual submission of every kind. If,
then, in every other instance, fearful injury is done to the workings of
grace by free social intercourse with those oppositely minded, what is to
make this particular case an exception? Just as a man, habitually tempted
to profligacy will most certainly yield to the temptation, if he freely
and eagerly associates with profligates; so a man habitually tempted to
intellectual pride (and all intellectual men are greviously tempted to it)
associates with those who make intellectual independence their very boast.
But intellectual pride irreconcilably conflicts with docility to the Holy
See, and is the direct road to apostasy. We do not understand then how any
thinkers can doubt that such students reverence for Rome, and deference to
its teachings, would be indefinitely impaired by habits of familiarity
with youths of powerful and energetic mind, who are unanimous in regarding
"the maxims of the Papacy, theological, social and political, as a synonym
for everything which is narrow, retrograde and imbecile."
The Bishops of Ireland in
their Address on the Catholic University, 1851, say: "A sort of moral
electric fluid is continually passing from all teachers to their pupils;
if this be not positively Catholic, it is certain to be positively
uncatholic. The supposed neutrality is unreal. All gain is on the side of
Protestantism and infidelity. The real concession is to them and private
judgment sits enthroned in the very penetralia of education."
Much is made of the
statement that there are 40,000 Catholic students in the state
universities and normal schools while there are only 19,000 in all the
Catholic colleges for men and women in the United States. Consequently
they conclude we should hitch up our Catholic college with the state
university.
First of all let it be said
that their statistics are wrong, The Directory of Catholic colleges and
schools published by the Department of Education N. C. W. C. gives 19,802
as the number of students in the Catholic universities and 13,996 as the
number of students in the Catholic colleges of the United States. This
makes a total of over 33,000 students in the Catholic universities and
colleges of the United States. How many Catholic students there are in the
state universities we do not know. Dr. O'Brien, chaplain of Illinois
University says there are approximately 40,000 in state universities and
normal schools. We know that the number of Catholic girls attending the
normal schools to qualify for the teaching profession is very large. The
difference between this number and 40,000 would be the number of Catholics
attending the state universities.
Why are these attending the
state universities? Is it because of the inefficiency of the Catholic
college? Some of the federationists would seem to imply this. But such is
not the case. True a small number of parents send their sons to these
universities because like Mrs. Jiggs they want to be in "sassiety", but,
thank God, their number is exceedingly small.
Dr. J. A. O'Brien, Catholic
chaplain, University of Illinois gives the main cause. He says: "From an
intimate acquaintance with the many hundreds of Catholic students who have
attended the University of Illinois during the past three years, and as
the result of statistical study extending over that period, the writer is
in a position to say that unquestionably the chief cause of the Catholic
attendance is the offering of technical courses which few, if any,
Catholic colleges have the means to offer. From a study of the actual
courses pursued by the Catholic students at the university the writer
ventures to say that more than 97 percent of the Catholic students are
following some courses at the University which are obtainable at no
Catholic institution in the State. There is not one percent of the
students who are taking the straight Liberal Arts Course which constitutes
the back-bone of the curriculum in the majority of our Catholic colleges."
In a widely circulated
letter of Fr. Carr, St. Michael's College, Toronto, we find the following:
"There are in the United States 17,-000 Catholics in Catholic educational
institutions of university grade and 40,000 Catholics in secular
universities. Would it be better to have things as they are or to have the
57,000 in Catholic colleges federated with the big universities? It seems
too that the development of this is the thing in a nutshell."
The federationist who sees
an argument for federation here can see an argument for federation in
anything. We fail to see that inability to provide all educational
opportunities possible for our young men is a reason for giving up
supplying the opportunities that we can give. The ideal state would be to
have all instruction, from that of the university to the common schools,
given by Catholic teachers. We have not the means and the numbers to
conduct a modern university but we can conduct our own colleges. Surely it
is better to have 33,000 in Catholic universities and colleges than to
have not 40,000 but 73,000 attending non-sectarian universities and
subject to all the dangers enumerated above.
But it may be said that by
entering the federation we do not give up control of our Catholic
colleges. In reply we would say that in the proposed federation our
Catholic college would exist in name but not in reality. It would be
little better than a boarding house. At present there are courses given in
Catholic Philosophy and courses taught by Catholic teachers in Harvard and
other universities of the United States but that does not make Harvard a
Catholic university. No one would say that the influence of the secular
universities on the Catholic school system of the United States is very
great, yet there are educators who think that even that influence and
connection s too strong. Dr. George Johnson writing in the Catholic
Educational Review for October 1922, says of these tendencies: "If such
tendencies are operative in secular education, it is surely high time for
us to become more self-conscious and to divest ourselves of the girdle of
blind leadership.....Instead of attempting to conform to secular standards
derived from a secular philosophy of education, let our leaders work out a
system of standards that are inherently Catholic, and then present it to
the state as evidence of what we are doing."
"Again, there is grave
cause for concern in the spirit of compromise that some of our people are
cultivating as a means of disarming hostility to our schools. As a
prominent Catholic educator once remarked pity he did not write it "It
is a question as to whether it is better to perish miserably in compromise
or to die fighting gloriously." The result would be the same in the end,
but the second method savors more of Calvary. We may take the road of
state certification, of state certification, of state supervision and
inspection, but we are likely to find ourselves with a school system that
is Catholic only in the sense that it is supported by Catholic money. The
question is: Would a system such as that be worth supporting? They might
allow us to teach religion after we have devoted as much time as they
indicate for the teaching of the other subjects out of the texts that they
prescribe. The teachers might be allowed to retain their religious garb.
But for all the outward seeming the voice would be the voice of Dewey, or
Snedden, or Strayer, or Judd."
What would they say about
the proposed surrender to the federation scheme?
It should be remembered
that the Carnegie Report is only the recommendations of two men or at most
a few. One could pick another group of equally qualified men to recommend
to us staying as we are. Veblen and Burgess Johnson, or Cowling and Dr.
Cranford may be as good batteries as Learned and Sills, and they would
have us "decline with thanks" the invitation to get gobbled up.
Dr. Veblen says that the
eagerness for consolidations comes from the glamor that goes with big
things, and not from any intrinsic merit of consolidation. He writes: It
will be objected and with much reason, that these underlying "school
units" that go to make up the composite American University habitually see
no great evil in so being absorbed into the trust. They bend themselves
readily if not eagerly, to schemes of coalition; they are in fact prone to
draw in under the aegis of the university corporation by annexation,
"affiliation", "absorption," etc. Any one who cares to take stock of that
matter and is in a position to know what is going on can easily assure
himself that the reasons which decide in such a case are not advisedly
accepted reasons intrinsic to the needs of efficiency for the work in
hand, but rather reasons of competitive expendiency, of competitive
advantage and prestige; except in so far as it may alt be as perhaps it
commonly is mere unreflecting conformity to the current fashion. (The
Higher Learning, P. 285.)
Many a bad cause on the one
hand has been camouflaged and made to appear good by shibboleths such as
patriotism, efficiency, etc. This has happened to such an extent that even
patriotism has been described as "the last refuge of a scoundrel." And on
the other hand many a good cause has been damaged by mud splashing. Many a
movement for social betterment has been branded with the stamp of
socialism and killed. These tactics have been used freely in this
campaign. Scarcely a week goes by but the federationists crown themselves
with "Vision" "Intelligence" "Broad mindedness", "Patriotism", etc. It has
been done to such an extent as to deceive even the very elect. Such
arrogance! Patriotism indeed! If patriotism consists in lessening Catholic
teaching; if it consists in lessening the strength of the only secure
foundation of society; if it consists in minimizing the only force that
can bring peace to a distracted economic world; if it consists in
substituting modern pagan and materialistic teaching for Christianity,
then surely the federationists are the very quintessence of patriotism.
If, on the other hand, true patriotism consists in emphasizing the things
that alone can check the headlong rush to perdition that obtains today:
(President Farrand of Cornell University said recently in his inaugural
address: "Our civilization is not only under indictment, it is fighting
for very existence") if patriotism consists in giving society that which
it needs most, the cementing force of Christianity; if patriotism consists
in opposing the partial substitution of pagan and materialistic teaching,
then the anti-federationists, the defenders of the college that is
Catholic through and through are the real patriots, are the truly
broad-minded and the ones "with vision."
It may be objected that the
federation will not lessen the influence of the Catholic college. But how
can this be reasonably maintained? The federation will lessen the number
of College subjects taught by Catholic professors and the contention of
the federationists looks like trying to prove that the part is equal or
greater than the whole. We find it impossible to believe that descending
from complete control of college work to running a dormitory and teaching
a few subjects in the lower years will mean the same influence or an
increased Catholic influence on the thoughts of our students.
From these considerations
pedagogical and religious it would appear that the arts course given in
the proposed university would be less desirable for our Catholic young men
than the distinctively Catholic course now offered.
But what about the
professional schools and scientific research? It is said that a large
federated university would develop our resources, etc.
Is it necessary or
advisable for us to give up our control of the arts work in order that
this great imaginary university may materialize? Neither are we, nor are
any of the other colleges keeping water from the mills of the professional
schools of Dalhousie University.
Surely our staying out of
the federation need not prevent the Carnegie Foundation endowing the
professional schools and research departments of Dalhousie. It would seem
that the best plan would be to endow Dalhousie and preserve its present
system of administration. In the federation scheme the administration
would not be so homogeneous and consequently there would be, probably,
some inefficiency and loss from friction. Dalhousie has already shown its
ability to manage its affairs well, and it is doubtful that the
heterogeneous administration that would obtain under federation would be
nearly so successful.
After our students have had
a course in a thoroughly Catholic college then will they be better
prepared to meet the dangers of secular teaching.
Again we say that the best
way we can contribute to the social development of our country is to
remain as we are.
Economic prosperity for the
masses cannot be had without a public opinion that is christian, without a
public opinion that gives to the many a fair share of the product of
industry. Now this public opinion we have not today. And hence we believe
that the greatest contribution Catholics can make to the economic
prosperity of our country is to stand four square against the
secularization of education and to develop our Catholic college as much as
possible. We must not overemphasize any factor in life. We must give
everything its due importance. There is little danger of research or
science languishing from want of support, but there is grave danger of
overemphasizing the material and underrating the spiritual. What the world
needs most today is not efficiency, but fewer knockers and more boosters
of Catholic education.
Our Catholic young men are
entitled to the best. And the best is an independent St. F. X. We have
seen that the "Efficient" college is not outside our reach in a number
of respects we already have the requirements. Even the Carnegie Report
with its side draft towards merger, secularization, etc. characterizes St.
F. X. as "a very genuine institution. Its courses appear sound, and its
aims well defined and of high standard, etc." (Surely one might expect its
own children not to call it any harsher names, than are given it by the
stranger who is not in sympathy with its fundamental aims.)
Discontent may be divine;
criticism is helpful but there is a difference between criticism and
assassination. The fact that there are effects in any institution is not
always sufficient warrant for doing away with that institution. The
attitude of some people towards our Catholic colleges reminds one of the
Reformation; because of the defects of some churchmen they started to kill
the Church itself in their respective countries. It may be just as
dangerous to do away with the distinctively Catholic college the main
prop of the Church.
The existence of defects in
an institution is not always a justification for killing the institution
itself. For every criticism that is made of the Catholic college,
criticism just as strong can be cited about the big university.
Here is a sample by F. M.
Padleford of the University of Washington in School and Society for June
28, 1919: "It is mere truism to observe that during the last thirty years
there has been a deplorable absence of intellectual enthusiasm among the
undergraduates and nonprofessional students in our colleges and
universities." Yet no reasonable person, with the exception of a few
unbalanced people, advocate the assassination of our colleges and
universities.
Our Catholic young men are
entitled to the best: The best is an education that is scientific and
christian. The best would be good common schools that are christian, good
high schools that are christian, good liberal arts that are christian,
good professional schools that are christian and good graduate schools
that are christian. In Canada we cannot give the two latter at present, so
we must be satisfied with the next best thing. But the authorities quoted
and the facts as known to all prudent people, show that we can give a
liberal arts course that is "sound". Moreover, it is unreasonable to
assume that St. F. X. will not improve in the years to-come as it has done
in the past. Would not then the giving up control of our college work be a
step backwards, and away from the ideal? Surely we should not be faint
hearted at the difficulties confronting us and give up some of the
territory conquered. It would be treason to the past and to the future. If
we do not hold on to what was given us and gotten at much sacrifice,
future generations may arise to curse over our graves at our cowardice.
The welfare of the country
demands that we defend one of the main sources of the truth that saves and
that will bring peace and harmony into a distracted world the college
that is Catholic through and through.
Were not this Report
already too long much might be said about the problems of discipline, of
vocations to the priesthood, of the importance of homogeneity and harmony
in the governing body of an institution of learning; and of the increased
cost of education in the federation scheme; but these and many other
disadvantages that would result from the federation are obvious to all.
Let us not forget the words
of Bishop Shahan: "Shall we therefore abandon this field to the
adversaries of religion of Jesus Christ, of the Catholic Church? Certainly
not, no more than we have abandoned our Catholic faith to Henry VIII and
John Knox, or primary education to our adversaries........."
........"You will go on
enlarging your excellent Catholic school of higher studies, perfecting it
in every useful way as time or opportunity, pressing need or noble
generosity compel you. You will cherish it in your hearts as the best and
most useful work to which you have yet put your hands........."
"Let no one say that the
tide of modern thought, the impact of modern institutions, are against us,
that we react in vain against all the world forces of evil and the
tremendous drift of public opinion, saturated, so to speak, with ignorance
of religion, with satanic malice in regard to it, or with an ineradicable
temper of injustice where its interests are concerned. Even did we have no
assurance of success, we should still struggle on, satisfied that we were
doing logically and obediently the work God had set us in this time and
place. We should be in the good company of our fathers and our fathers
fathers, whose hearts could not forecast the present felicitous conditions
of our holy religion as compared with the hopeless outlook of the early
decades of the nineteenth century."
"One word on the two other
important phases of the grave question before us, the necessity of higher
education under Catholic auspices. Good leadership, sane and reliable, in
our Catholic life is the crying need of the hour. How shall you obtain it
in all parts of your beloved country without earnest and profound and
sustained study, without a broad and solid grasp of history, a sure hold
on right philosophy, a thorough understanding of the nature and uses of
good government, of the false, but specious makeshifts daily put forth to
deceive the ignorant and unsuspecting........."
"Do not say that we are a
small people, remote from the great centres of New World population and
activities. The history of education abounds with precedents of powerful
schools established in places that seemed unpromising, but where in
reality happily adapted to the views of Divine Providence. The peace, good
order, simplicity, and regularity of smaller communities are no mean
advantages, not to speak of the independence and self-respect which
develop gradually in such schools and lend them a dignity all their own." |
