Catholic University of America

“ Planets are nevertheless necessary as well as a sun in a system, and so also are satellites. However ample and extensive the provisions made at Rome may be for educating a select portion of the clergy of all countries, they can never make it unnecessary to provide also in every country for the best and highest education of its own clergy. So far as we can see, every reason and consideration cries out imperatively for the speedy foundation of a Catholic University in the United States. ”

“ We feel quite sanguine that, before the close of the century, in spite of all disadvantages, a Catholic university of the very highest character will be established here; but, without it, there exist at present, in every city of importance throughout the Union, colleges which, for scholarship, will fairly compete with the chartered universities of this country, and which, in certain localities and in special departments, will surpass their older and more pretentious rivals. ”

“ The necessity for other colleges and seminaries will of itself create or continue them. The university will give them an example and model to follow, will furnish those not already amply provided for from the bosom of old and learned religious orders with professors, will give those who desire it a chance to complete their studies after leaving college by residing for a time within its walls, and will reign as a queen among lesser institutions, giving tone, character, and uniformity to the scientific and literary community of Catholic scholars throughout the country. ”

“ But the institution of a Catholic academy must be consequent upon the foundation of a Catholic university. We have some good schools, where a more scholarly knowledge of the classics can be acquired than in professedly Protestant colleges, but they surpass us in all other branches of science and intellectual culture. ”

“ What is wanted in the first instance, in order to give tone and direction to the young Catholic mind, is a Catholic national university, one on a scale comprehensive enough to include the study of all branches of secular knowledge—law, physics, medicine, languages, art, science, literature, and political economy. ”

“ The Catholic University in Washington has been created by the pope, and in its government the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church is made dominant. Already the Roman Catholics had established, especially under the charge of the Jesuit fathers and of the Sulpicians, excellent colleges for liberal education, as well as schools of theology; but the newer metropolitan university was distinctly organized on a broader plan, in closer accordance with the universities of continental Europe, and with a pronounced recognition of the importance of science. ”

“ Since higher education is the stepping stone to leadership, the question most vital to Catholics in this particular and most momentous period of our history is: "What share have we in the college and university life of the country?" "The progress of the Church in any country is attributable to the indwelling Spirit which guides the Church.—Next, to the piety, zeal and education of its priesthood,—and lastly, though in no mean degree, to the devotion, activity and education of the laity. ”

“ For it is evident that, if by a Catholic Literature were meant nothing more or less than a religious literature, its writers would be mainly ecclesiastics; just as writers on Law are mainly lawyers, and writers on Medicine are mainly physicians or surgeons. And if this be so, a Catholic Literature is no object special to a University, unless a University is to be considered identical with a Seminary or a Theological School. ”

“ Here is an offer which brings all the advantages that The Catholic University can at present afford and more right into our own homes. The Catholic Encyclopedia is a veritable Catholic Home University. It has been truly styled "a university in print". Few, if any, of our membership, are in a position to take advantage of the Catholic University foundation; scarcely one is unable to avail himself of an offer, which brings to every Catholic home the best the University can give. ”

“ Let there be then an American Catholic university, where our young men, in the atmosphere of faith and purity, of high thinking and plain living, shall become more intimately conscious of the truth of their religion and of the genius of their country ”

“ It is not uncommon, on expressing an anticipation that the Professors of a Catholic University will promote a Catholic Literature, to have to encounter a vague notion that a lecturer or writer so employed must have something polemical about him, must moralize or preach, must (in Protestant language) improve the occasion, though his subject is not at all a religious one; in short, that he must do something else besides fairly and boldly go right on, and be a Catholic speaking as a Catholic spontaneously will speak, on the Classics, or Fine Arts, or Poetry, or whatever he has taken in hand. ”

“ The great business of a university is to teach; the highest academic level should be its worthy ambition. The teachers are the real makers of a seat of higher learning, they pitch high or low the standard of learning.
This great work will demand from every Catholic a continued effort of loyal and generous support. The Canon-law, the Councils, the exhortations of the Pope insists on this support of Catholic universities. Particularly those who are blessed with the goods of this world and to whom Providence has been generous, should remember that "their wealth has a fiduciary character ”

“ To carry out the programme laid down above will require our best energies, but we must, moreover, found a new university a purely Catholic and free institution, untrammelled by state dictation, and entirely under the direction of the Church. ”

“ Though, however, these Discourses have only professed to be preliminary, being directed to the investigation of the object and nature of the Education which a University professes to impart, at the same time I do not like to conclude without making some remarks upon the duties of the Church towards it, or rather on the ground of those duties. If the Catholic Faith is true, a University cannot exist externally to the Catholic pale, for it cannot teach Universal Knowledge if it does not teach Catholic theology. ”

“ States to-day is undoubtedly the Catholic school system maintained by private individuals. The Catholic parish schools now number over 5,000, and the academies and colleges over 900, with over 1,500,000 pupils in attendance at these schools and colleges. More than 20,000 Catholic men and women unselfishly devote their lives to the work of teaching in these schools, academies and colleges. The system is crowned by a great Catholic university at Washington with an attendance of nearly 1,500. ”

“ The great argument for secluding young ecclesiastics in seminaries entirely separate from secular colleges is, that their morals, their piety, their vocation, are otherwise endangered. We reply to this by a suggestion intended to do away with the objection to a university life, and at the same time to show how its advantages may be secured. Let both systems be combined. Let there be a college exclusively intended for young ecclesiastics, in which they shall be kept under the discipline of the Little Seminary, at the university. ”

“ In its working it has wedded together interests which the sophistry of the day makes it fashionable to represent as antagonistic. It is eminently national, eminently scientific, eminently Catholic. It cultivates literature with a zeal which does not interfere with its devotion to theology and other sacred studies, and pursues even the highest investigations of science in such a way as to prove that nowhere can freedom of scientific research find a more congenial home than in a Catholic university. These sentiments were eloquently expressed by one of the students of the university. ”

“ We conceive that too great attention and zeal cannot be expended in the correction of these defects. Corrected they can be, and they must be, if we wish to take and keep our proper standing. We cannot have a university for the present, and therefore it is all important that the one essential thing a university can give—a higher mental training—should be given to our young Catholic men. ”

“ The university should be gradually formed as a sequence of the improved collegiate system, and should consist of the college proper, together with post-graduate courses of higher studies in all the branches of science. The necessity of religious instruction is unanswerably proved, and the especial fitness of clergymen for the work of education well defended and advocated. The necessity of having every college under the religious care of some one denomination is also satisfactorily shown. ”

“ In the first place, then, it is congruous certainly that youths who are prepared in a Catholic University for the general duties of a secular life, or for the secular professions, should not leave it without some knowledge of their religion; and, on the other hand, it does, in matter of fact, act to the disadvantage of a Christian place of education, in the world and in the judgment of men of the world, and is a reproach to its conductors, and even a scandal, if it sends out its pupils accomplished in all knowledge except Christian knowledge ”

“ We trust those Catholics who are disposed to think that we can make use of Harvard University as a place of education for our youth, will take note of this sample of the language they may expect to hear in that and similar institutions, and open their eyes to the necessity of providing some better instruction for their sons than can be had at such sources. ”

“ Our topic in the present article has led us to present almost exclusively and in strong light the advantages to be derived from a university and from university education, in relation both to the ecclesiastical state and secular professions. To prevent mistake, we add in conclusion, that we do not desire or anticipate the suppression or merging into one institution of all our colleges and seminaries. It is scarcely possible that all the students of this vast country should be educated in one place. ”

“ An University founded and governed by a Catholic episcopacy, by the aid of their Catholic people only, established on purely Catholic principles, without any of those helps which men of the world value most, already in its infancy rivals the great seats of learning of the middle ages. ”

“ The foundation of the American College at Louvain was almost entirely his work. The American College at Rome found in him a firm and active friend. In the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore he proposed the establishment of a Catholic university in this country; and we certainly can never forget the affectionate interest which he manifested in the Catholic Publication Society, aiding it by his advice, his encouragement, and his earnest recommendation to the bishops and pastors of the country, and writing the first tract which appeared from its press. ”

“ Then there is the project of a CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. Every day we read of wealthy gentlemen leaving donations of thousands of dollars to educational establishments belonging to the state or to religious denominations other than Catholic. In Europe this is also a common custom. We have read of Mr. Peabody's donation to Yale College. Girard, an infidel, founded the institution in Philadelphia which bears his name. Our Catholic millionaires of New York and other cities, we are sure, only need to be asked to show their generosity in the founding of a Catholic university. ”

“ One of the gravest obstacles in the way of higher education arises, I think, from our colleges themselves. It is this: our colleges are too numerous. With the exception of some boys from Spanish America, we receive no pupils from other countries. At home, the number of Catholics who can afford a college education for their children is limited. Supposing, then, all our colleges patronized, it is impossible that any of them should reach a respectable figure in the number of its attending pupils. ”

“ The official bulletins of the Medical Dental Associations give the statistics.
The right of Catholics to their own schools—primary, secondary, university, is a birthright we must always fight for. It is the elementary right of a civilized people to educate her sons as she sees fit. In the battle for this right the best strategy is to offer the accomplished fact of a college and a university which by their efficiency, their intellectual and moral value, impose themselves upon the community and win their way to acceptance. ”

“ Oxford, Cambridge and Glasgow Universities were established and fostered by the church to educate more fully the clergy. The founders of Harvard College thus described their motive: "Dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our ministers shall lie in the dust." Yale College was founded by preachers for a like purpose. Princeton College was founded "toPage 250 supply the church with learned and able preachers of the Word." The fact is that prior to the eighteenth century there was no university founded save those established for the glory of God and the good of the church. ”

“ The design of the university is to supply the means of a liberal education to all orders and denominations, without any distinction whatever. An act for the purpose of facilitating the erection of colleges in connexion with different religious bodies was, however, passed by the legislature during the session of 1884, and since that time colleges representing the Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic Churches have been founded. ”