Catholic university

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As the Rhenish Westphalian nobility have demanded the restoration of the old Catholic university of Münster, so in Bavaria, where there is a purely Protestant university, the Catholics should urge the establishment of a Catholic one, for it is our first duty, as was remarked by Schulte at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1862, and by Moufang at Würzburg in 1864, to insist that universities which were founded by Catholics should retain their original character. In mixed universities, the Catholic professors will, henceforth, strain every nerve to secure true equality. ”

“ As our means increase and other advantages offer, we hope to improve them; Catholicism is no stagnant pool, but a field for every good private initiative that respects right and truth. In the Catholic University of America, founded in the last decade of the century by Pope Leo XIII. and the Catholic hierarchy, after due and lengthy deliberation, and made possible by the magnificent generosity of a Catholic woman, we have centred our hopes of a system of higher education that shall embody the best traditions of our ancient Church and the approved gains of our own times. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The learned men residing there, and their pupils in all professions, are bound together by sacred ties, which are not only a cause of pleasure to them in future years, but of great power for good in the community. Such a university as we have described would in twenty-five years produce a body of alumni who would intellectually exert a great influence over the Catholic community throughout the United States, and make themselves respected by all classes of educated men. The clergy ought to retain the first place and a commanding influence among this body of educated Catholics. ”

“ To bring our message to the country, to spread its beneficial influence is the mission of our Catholic leaders. Only a large number of truly educated Catholic men are able to make their influence felt on the life and thought of a country.
This identification of a Catholic university with our Western Provinces will be an asset to our public life and beneficial to the people at large, notwithstanding their aloofness and unreasoned opposition to our principles and methods. The evils of the times are the direct result of the secularization of education. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As long as Trinity maintained tests, so long did the Catholics demand as of right a purely Catholic University on the grounds of civic equity, but in these days of open doors they have again and again expressed their demand for a college or university open to men of all creeds—Catholic in the sense that Oxford and Cambridge are Protestant, and are in consequence thronged with young Englishmen; Catholic in the way that the Scottish Universities are Presbyterian and that Trinity, Dublin, is Episcopalian. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Besides the Catholic university, with its ample staff of professors, there are in the diocese six colleges, seven superior schools for boys, fourteen superior schools for ladies, twelve monastic primary schools, forty convent schools, and 200 lay schools, without including those which are under the National Board of Education. The Christian Brothers have 7000 pupils under their instruction, while the schools connected with the convents in the diocese contain 15,000. ”

“ We must found a new university, a purely Catholic and free institution, untrammelled by state dictation, and entirely under the direction of the church. To do this, the bishops, the nobles, and the clergy must use their best endeavors; but the professors, too, must do their share, and not look on with cool indifference, as is the case with most of them. ... There is neither truce nor rest for us until we are not only equal, but superior to our opponents in every branch of science. ”

“ The matriculation examination as it obtains at the London University embraces a hodge-podge of study, a great part of which is of no absolute service to the clerical student in his career. All the subjects are touched upon more or less in his college course; but he naturally devotes his attention particularly to those which relate more especially to his vocation. And when the state forces a man who is studying to be a priest to attend a university course of three years, it steps out of its province, and commits a useless and tyrannical act. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The latter, furthermore, has an eminent, historical right; no one has done more for the foundation and promotion of the European universities than the Church.
A remarkable and at the same time characteristic attitude towards free, particularly Catholic, universities is assumed by Liberalism. The stereotyped objection to Catholic universities is known; it can be reduced to this formula: At a Catholic university there can be no freedom in research nor freedom in teaching; but without them there can be no science; consequently, a Catholic university is a contradiction. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Indeed, we need in all the avenues of life men whose university training will give them influence in public life. But let it never be forgotten those captains of industry, those brilliant and successful professional men, those progressive farmers—valuable as they all may be—must count more as leaders of Catholic thought than as money-makers. If not, they will be found wanting when the Church needs them the most. We emphasize this point, for in the plea for higher education very often our attention seems to be more on the successful business man than on the Catholic thinker. ”

“ It is a great plague for them to be obliged to do at once the work of the grammar-school and of the college properly so-called. They are burdened with a crowd of children, who are no companions for young men, and lessen the dignity of a college. And now, Mr. World, let me end these remarks by asking: When shall we see each diocese in the Union possessing a petit séminaire? When shall we see arise in our midst a noble Catholic university? ”

“ 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 ”

“ It strikes us, however, as a very pleasing and quite mediæval idea, that our proposed grand university, which we may as well make as splendid as possible while it remains purely ideal, should have its Dominican, Jesuit, Sulpician, and Lazarist colleges. There is no reason why such colleges should not make constituent parts of the university, each one having its own laws and regulating its own internal affairs according to its own standards. ”

“ If one might use words that must seem a paradox, Oxford, once made and fashioned by the church, has in our days herself influenced the church. We mean that the university has given to the Catholics of England that unrivalled body of priests who stand alone in Europe for their indomitable energy, their self-sacrificing earnestness, and their gentle and truly Christian refinement. ”

“ A university is therefore not a mere luxury, but rather a necessary asset in a nation's life. "The development of the true spirit of the University among a people is a good measure of the development of its soul, and consequently of its civilization" (Haldane) . "No country," we will conclude with "Catholic" in the Antigonish Casket, "ever attained to any degree of political influence, nor have any people ever risen from a lower to a higher level of intellectual and social culture, without the light and inspiration that flow from a genuine university." ”

“ The Bulgarians, Anatolians, Chinese, and Indians are better off than many of them are. The priests alone have any sympathy with their sufferings, and naturally alone have a hold over them. In these days, in common justice, if we endow a Protestant University, why should we not endow a Catholic University in a Catholic country? ”

“ In the nineteenth century, in a country which looks out upon a new world, and anticipates a coming age, we have been engaged in opening the Schools dedicated to the studies of polite literature and liberal science, or what are called the Arts, as a first step towards the establishment on Catholic ground of a Catholic University. ”