THE HIGHER EDUCATION.[1]
[1] A discourse pronounced at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore,
which, being enforced by the offer of three hundred thousand dollars by
Miss Caldwell, led to the founding of the University at Washington.
The subject which I have been asked to treat is the higher education of
priests; which, I suppose, is the highest education of man, since the
ideal of the Christian priest is the most exalted, his vocation the
most sublime, his office the most holy, his duties the most spiritual,
and his mission--whether we consider its relation to morality, which is
the basis of individual and social welfare, or to religion, which is
the promise and the secret of immortal and godlike life--is the most
important and the most sacred which can be assigned to a human being.
Religion and education--like religion and morality--are nearly related.
Pure religion, indeed, is more than right education; and yet it may be
said with truth that it is but a part of the best education, for it
co-operates with other forces--with climate, custom, social conditions,
and political institutions--to develop and fashion the complete man;
and the special instruction of teachers--which is the narrow meaning of
the word--is modified, and to a great extent controlled, by these
powers which work unseen, and are the vital agents that make possible
all conscious educational efforts.
The faith we hold, the laws we obey, the domestic and social customs to
which our thoughts and loves are harmonized, the climate we live in,
mould our characters and give to our souls a deeper and more lasting
tinge than any school, though it were the best.
My subject, however, does not demand that I consider these general and
silent agencies by which life is influenced, but leads me to the
discussion of the methods by which man, with conscious purpose, seeks
to form and instruct his fellow-man; to the discussion of the special
education which brings art to the aid of nature, and becomes the
auxiliary and guide of the other forces which contribute to the
development of our being.
In this age, when all who think at all turn their thoughts to questions
of education, it is needless to call attention to the interest of the
subject, which, like hope, is immortal, and fresh as the innocent face
of laughing childhood.
Is not the school for all men a shrine to which their pilgrim thoughts
return to catch again the glow and gladness of a world wherein they
lived by faith and hope and love when round the morning sun of life the
golden purple clouds were hanging, and earth lay hidden in mist,
beneath which the soul created a new paradise? To the opening mind all
things are young and fair; and to remember the delight that accompanied
the gradual dawn of knowledge upon our mental vision, sweet and
beautiful as the upglowing of day from the bosom of night, is to be
forever thankful for the gracious power of education. And is there not
in all hearts a deep and abiding yearning for great and noble men, and
therefore an imperishable interest in the power by which they are
moulded? When fathers and mothers look upon the fair blossoming
children that cling to them as the vine wraps its tendrils round the
spreading bough, and when their great love fills them with ineffable
longing to shield these tender souls from the blighting blasts of a
cold and stormy world, and little by little to prepare them to stand
alone and breast the gales of fortune, do they not instinctively put
their trust in the power of education?
When, at the beginning of the present century, Germany lay prostrate at
the feet of Napoleon, the wise and the patriotic among her children
yielded not to despondency, but turned with confidence to truer methods
and systems of education, and assiduous teaching and patient waiting
finally brought them to Sedan.
When, in the sixteenth century, heresy and schism seemed near to final
victory over the Church, Pope Julius III. declared that the evils and
abuses of the times were the outgrowth of the shameful ignorance of the
clergy, and that the chief hope of the dawning of a brighter day lay in
general and thorough ecclesiastical education. And the Catholic
leaders who finally turned back the advancing power of Protestantism,
re-established the Church in half the countries in which it had been
overthrown, and converted more souls in America and Asia than had been
lost in Europe, belonged to the greatest educational body the world has
ever seen. What is history but examples of success through knowledge
and righteousness, and of failure through lack of understanding and of
virtue?
Wherein lies the superiority of civilized races over barbarians if not
in their greater knowledge and superior strength of character? And
what but education has placed in the hands of man the thousand natural
forces which he holds as a charioteer his well-reined steeds, bidding
the winds carry him to distant lands, making steam his tireless,
ever-ready slave, and commanding the lightning to speak his words to
the ends of the earth? What else than this has taught him to map the
boundless heavens, to read the footprints of God in the crust of the
earth ages before human beings lived, to measure the speed of light, to
weigh the imperceptible atom, to split up all natural compounds, to
create innumerable artificial products with which he transforms the
world and with a grain of powder marches like a conquering god around
the globe?
What converts the meaningless babbling of the child into the stately
march of oratoric phrase or the rhythmic flow of poetic language? What
has developed the rude stone and bronze implements of savage and
barbarous hordes into the miraculous machinery which we use? By what
power has man been taught to carve the shapeless rock into an image of
ideal beauty, or with it to build his thought into a temple of God,
where the soul instinctively prostrates itself in adoration?
Is not all this, together with whatever else is excellent in human
works, the result of education, which gives to man a second nature with
more admirable endowments? And is not religion itself a kind of
celestial education, which trains the soul to godlike life?
No progress in things divine or human is made by man except through
effort, and effort is the power and the law of education. The maxim of
the spiritual writers that not to struggle upward and onward is to be
drawn downward, applies to every phase of our life. Whence do we
derive strength of soul but from the uplifting of the mind and heart to
God which we call prayer? To pray is to think, to attend, to hold the
mind lovingly to its object; and this is what we do when we study.
Hence prayer, which is the voice of religion, is a part of
education,--nay, its very soul, breathing on all the chords of life,
till their thousand dissonances meet in rhythmic harmony. What is the
pulpit but the holiest teacher's chair that has been placed upon the
earth?
And as the presence of a noble character is a more potent influence
than words, so sacramental communion with Christ is man's chief school
of faith, of hope, and love. There are worthy persons who turn, as
from an unholy thought, from the emphatic announcement of the need of
the best human qualities for the proper defence of the cause of God in
the world. Such speech seems to them to be vain and unreal; for God is
all in all, and man is nothing. But in our day it is easier to go
astray in the direction of self-annihilation than in that of
self-assertion; since the common tendency now of all false philosophies
is pantheistic, and issues in unconscious contempt of individual life.
If man is but a bubble, merging forth and re-absorbed, without past or
future, then indeed both he, and what he seems to do, sink into the
eternal flow of matter, and are undeserving of a thought. This
certainly is not the Christian view, to which man is revealed as a
lesser god, and co-worker with the Eternal, whose thought can reach the
infinite, and whose will can oppose that of the Omnipotent. In Christ,
God co-operates with man for the salvation of the world; and in the
Church, man co-operates with God to this same end. The more complete
the man, the more fit is he to work with God. Even bodily
disfigurement is looked upon as an obstacle; how much more, then, shall
lack of intelligence and want of heart render us unworthy of the divine
office? I certainly shall never deny that love, which the Apostle
exalts above faith and hope, is higher also than knowledge. The light
of the mind is as that of the moon--fair and soft and soothing, without
heat, without the power to call forth and nourish life; but the light
of the soul, which is love, is the sunlight, whose kiss, like a word of
God, makes the dead to live, and clothes the world in strength and
beauty. Character is more than intellect, love is more than knowledge,
religion is more than morality; and a great heart brings us closer to
God, nearer to all goodness, than a bright mind. Education is
essentially moral, and the intellectual qualities themselves, which we
seek to develop, derive their chief efficacy from underlying ethical
qualities upon which they rest and from which they receive their energy
and the power of self-control. Inequality of will is the great cause
of inequality of mind; and the will is strengthened by the practice of
virtue, as the body by food and exercise. If this is a general truth,
with what special force must it not apply to the ministers of a
religion the paramount and ceaseless aim of which is to make men holy,
so that at times it has almost seemed as though the Church were
indifferent as to whether they are learned or beautiful or strong? She
pronounces no man a doctor unless he be also a saint; and when I insist
that the priest shall possess the best mental culture of his age,--that
without this he fights with broken weapons, speaks with harsh voice a
language men will neither hear nor understand, teaches truths which,
having not the freshness and the glow of truth, neither kindle the
heart nor fire the imagination,--I do not forget that, without the
moral earnestness which is born of faith and purity of life, mere
cultivation of mind will not give him power to unseal the fountains of
living waters which refresh the garden of God. The universal harmony
is felt by a pure heart better than it can be perceived by a keen
intellect. To a sinless soul the darker side even of life and nature
is not wholly dark, and the mental difficulties which the existence of
evil involves in no way weaken the consciousness of the essential
goodness that lies at the heart of all things. In the religious, as in
the moral world, men trust to what we are rather than to what we say,
and the teacher of spiritual truth is never strong, unless his life and
character inspire a confidence which arguments alone do not create; for
in questions that reach beyond the sphere of sensation, we feel that
insight is better than reasons, and hence we instinctively prefer the
testimony of a god-like soul to the conclusions of a cultivated mind:
and indeed our Blessed Lord ever assumes that the obstacle to the
perception of divine truth is moral and not intellectual. The pure of
heart see God; the evil-doer loves darkness and shuns the light. St.
Paul goes even farther, and associates mental cultivation with a
tendency directly opposed to religious faith, which is humble.
"Knowledge puffeth up." But the words of the Apostle should not be
stretched beyond his purpose, which is to point to pride as a special
danger of the intellectual as sensuality is a danger of the ignorant.
For man to have aught is to run a risk, and hence to do as little as
possible is in the thought of the timid a mark of prudence. And
indeed, if fear be nearer to wisdom than courage, then should we fear
everything, for danger is everywhere. A breath may sow the seed of
death; a look may slay the soul. In knowledge, in ignorance, in
strength, in weakness, in wealth, in poverty, in genius, in stupidity,
in company, in solitude, in innocence itself, danger lurks. But God
does not abolish life that danger may cease to be; and they who put
their trust in Him will not seek to darken the mind lest knowledge lead
man astray, but will rather in a righteous cause make the venture of
all things, as St. Ignatius preferred the hope of saving others to the
certainty of his own salvation. And may we not maintain, since we hold
that there is no inappeasable conflict between God and Nature, between
the soul and matter, between revelation and science, that the apparent
antagonism lies in our apprehension, and not in things themselves, and
consequently that reconcilement is to be sought for through the help of
thoroughly trained minds? The poet speaks the truth, "A little
knowledge is a dangerous thing." They who know but little and
imperfectly, see but their knowledge, if so it may be called, and walk
in innocent unconsciousness of their infinite nescience. The narrower
the range of our mental vision, the greater the obstinacy with which we
cling to our opinions; and the half-educated, like the weak and the
incompetent, are often contentious, but whosoever is able to do his
work does it, and finds no time for dispute. He who possesses a
disciplined mind, and is familiar with the best thoughts that live in
the great literatures, will be the last to attach undue importance to
his own thinking. A sense of decency and a kind of holy shame will
keep him far from angry and unprofitable controversy; nor will he
mistake a crotchet for a panacea, nor imagine that irritation is
enlightenment. The blessings of a cultivated mind are akin to those of
religion. They are larger liberty, wider life, purer delights, and a
juster sense of the relative values of the means and ends which lie
within our reach. Knowledge, like religion, leads us away from what
appears to what is, from what passes to what remains, from what
flatters the senses to that which speaks to the soul. Wisdom and
religion converge, as love and knowledge meet in God; and to the wise
as to the religious man, no great evil can happen. Into prison they
both carry the sweet company of their thoughts, their faith and hope,
and are freer in chains than the great in palaces. In death they are
in the midst of life, for they see that what they know and love is
imperishable, nor subject even to atomic disintegration. He who lives
in the presence of truth yearns not for the company of men, but loves
retirement as a saint loves solitude; and in times like ours, when men
no longer choose the desert for a dwelling-place, the passionate desire
of intellectual excellence co-operates with religious faith to guard
them against dissipation and to lift them above the spirit of the age.
The thinker is never lonely, as he who lives with God is never unhappy.
Is not the love of excellence, which is the scholar's love, a part of
the love of goodness which makes the saint? And are not intellectual
delights akin to those religion brings? They are pure, they elevate,
they refine; time only increases their charm, and in the winter of age,
when the body is but the agent of pain, contemplation still remains
like the light of a higher world, to tinge with beauty the clouds that
gather around life's setting. How narrow and monotonous is sensation!
how wide and various is thought! They who live in the senses are
fettered and ill at ease; they who live in the soul are free and
joyful. And since the priest, unless he be a saint, must have, like
other men, some human joy, and since he dwells not in the sacred circle
of the love of wife and children, in which the multitudes find repose
and contentment, what solace, what refreshment, in the midst of cares
and labors, shall we offer him? If there be aught for him that is not
unworthy or dangerous, except the pleasures of the mind, to me it is
unknown; and though a well-trained intellect should do no more than to
enable us to take delight in pure and noble objects, it would be a
chief help to worthy life. And when the whole tendency of our social
existence is to draw men out of themselves and to make them seek the
good of life in what is external, as money, display, position, renown,
is it not a gain, if, while we open their minds to the charm of
intellectual beauty, we make them see that this eager striving for
wealth and place is a vulgar chase? And does not the spirit of
refinement in thought, in speech, in manner, add worth and fairness to
him whom it inspires, though the motive which preserves him from what
is low or gross be no higher than a fastidious delicacy and
self-respect?
To deny the moral influence of intellectual culture is as great an
error as to affirm that it alone is a sufficient safeguard of morality.
Its tendency unquestionably is to make men gentle, amiable,
fair-minded, truthful, benevolent, modest, sober. It curbs ambition
and teaches resignation; chastens the imagination and mitigates
ferocity; dissuades from duelling because it is barbarous, and from war
because it is cruel, and from persecution because it trusts in the
prevalence of reason. It seeks to fit the mind and the character to
the world, to all possible circumstances, so that whatever happens we
remain ourselves,--calm, clear-seeing, able to do and to suffer. At
great heights, or in the presence of irresistible force, as of a mighty
waterfall, we grow dizzy; and in the same way, in the midst of
multitudes, in the eagerness of strife, in the whirlwind of passion,
equipoise is lost, and we cease to be ourselves, to become part of an
aggregate of forces that hurry us on, whither we know not. To be able
to stand in the presence of such power, and to feel its influence, and
yet not to lose self-possession, is to be strong; is, on proper
occasion, to be great. And the aim of the best education is to teach
us the secret and the method of this complete self-control; and in so
far it is not only moral, but also religious, though religion walks in
a more royal road, and bids us love God and trust so absolutely in Him
that life and death become equal, and all the ways and workings of men
as the storm to one who on lofty mountain peak, amid the blue heavens,
with the sunlight around him and the quiet breathing of the winds, sees
far below, as in another world, the black clouds and lurid lightning
flash and hears the roll of distant thunder.
It is far from my thought, it is needless to say, that mental
cultivation can be made to take the place or do the work of religion,
even in the case of the very few for whom the best discipline of mind
is possible. My aim is simply to show that the type of character which
it tends to create is not necessarily at variance with religious
principle and life, as is, for instance, that of the mere worldling;
but that it conspires with Christian faith to produce, if not the same,
at least similar virtues, though its ethical influence is comparatively
superficial, and the moral qualities which it produces lack consistency
and the power to withstand the fire of the passions. It is enough for
my purpose to point out that if intellectualism is often the foe of
religious truth, there is no good reason why it should not also be its
ally.
No excellence, as I conceive, of whatever kind, is rejected by Catholic
teaching, and the perfection of the mind is not less divine than the
perfection of the heart. It is good to know, as it is good to hope, to
believe, to love. A cultivated intellect, an open mind, a rich
imagination, with correctness of thought, flexibility of view, and
eloquent expression, are among the noblest endowments of man; and
though they should serve no other purpose than to embellish life, to
make it fairer and freer, they would nevertheless be possessions
without price, for the most nobly useful things are those which make
life good and beautiful. Like virtue they are their own reward, and
like mercy they bear a double blessing. It is the fashion with many to
affect contempt for men of superior culture, because they look upon
education as simply a means to tangible ends, and think knowledge
valuable only when it can be made to serve practical purposes. This is
a narrow and a false view; for all men need the noble and the
beautiful, and he who lives without an ideal is hardly a man. Our
material wants are not the most real for being the most sensible and
pressing, and they who create or preserve for us models of spiritual
and intellectual excellence are our greatest benefactors. Which were
the greater loss for England, to be without Wellington and Nelson, or
to be without Shakspeare and Milton? Whatever the answer be, in the
one case England would suffer, in the other the whole world would feel
the loss. Though a thoroughly trained intellect is less worthy of
admiration than a noble character, its power is immeasurably greater;
for, example can influence but a few and for a short time, but when a
truth or a sentiment has once found its best expression, it becomes a
part of literature, and like a proverb is current forevermore; and so
the kings of thought become immortal rulers, and without their help the
godlike deeds of saints and heroes would be buried in oblivion. "Words
pass," said Napoleon, "but deeds remain." The man of action
exaggerates the worth of action, but the philosopher knows that to act
is easy, to think, difficult; and that great deeds spring from great
thoughts. There are words that never grow silent, there are words that
have changed the face of the earth, and the warrior's wreath of victory
is entwined by the Muse's hand. The power of Athens is gone, her
temples are in ruins, the Acropolis is discrowned, and from Mars' Hill
no voice thunders now; but the words of Socrates, the great deliverer
of the mind, and the father of intellectual culture, still breathe in
the thoughts of every cultivated man on earth. The glory of Jerusalem
has departed, the broken stones of Solomon's Temple lie hard by the
graves that line the brook of Kedron, and from the minaret of Mount
Sion the misbeliever's melancholy call sounds like a wail over a lost
world; but the songs of David still rise from the whole earth in
heavenly concert, upbearing to the throne of God the faith and hope and
love of countless millions. And is not the Blessed Saviour the Eternal
Word? And is not the Bible God's word? And is not the Gospel the
Word, which, like an electric thrill, runs to the ends of the world?
"Currit verbum," says St. Paul. "Man lives not on bread alone, but on
every word that cometh forth from the mouth of God." Nay, there is
life in all the true and noble thoughts that have blossomed in the mind
of genius and filled the earth with fragrance and with fruit.
Shall I be told that the intellectual cultivation and discipline, which
gives to man control of his knowledge, the perfect use of his
faculties, justness of perception with ease and grace of expression,
cannot bring serviceable advocacy or defence to the cause of divine
truth? What does truth need but to be known? And since to reach the
mind and heart of man it must be clothed in words, what is so necessary
to it as the garb and vesture, the form and color, the warmth and life,
which shall so mark it that to be loved it needs but be seen? And who
shall so clothe it, if not he who has the freest, the most flexible,
the clearest, the best disciplined mind? In the apostolic age, when
the manifestations of miraculous power accompanied the announcement of
Christian doctrine, the lack of the persuasive words of human eloquence
was not felt. Let him who can drink poison and touch scorpions, and
not suffer harm, despise the aid of learning; but for us, who are not
so assisted, no cultivation of mind or preparation of heart can be too
great; and to appear in the garb of a savage were less unseemly than to
speak the holiest and the highest truths in the barbarous tongue of
ignorance.
Our way here cannot be doubtful. Either we must hold with certain
peculiar heretics that learning is a hindrance to the efficacious
teaching of religious truth, or, denying this, we must hold, since
mental culture is serviceable, that the best is most serviceable.
May we not take this for a principle,--to believe that God does
everything, and then to act as though He left everything for us to do?
Or this: Since grace supposes nature, the growth and strength of the
Church is not wholly independent of the natural endowments of her
ministers?
As a matter of fact we Catholics are constantly speaking and acting
upon principles of this kind. We maintain that without a proper
education our children must lose the faith; and that without careful
moral and mental training no man is likely to become a good priest; and
all that I further insist upon is that if he is to do the best work, he
must have the best intellectual discipline. In an intellectual age, at
least, he cannot be the worthy minister of worship, unless he is also
the accomplished teacher of truth. In vain shall we clothe him in rich
symbolic vestments, place him in majestic temples, before marble
altars, in the midst of solemn music, in the dim sober-tinted light,
with the great and noble looking out upon him, as from a spirit
world,--in vain shall all this be, if when he himself speaks, his words
are felt to be but the echo of a coarse and empty mind. And hence our
enemies would gladly leave us the poetry of our worship, would even
enter our churches to be comforted, to be soothed, to seek the
elevation and enlargement of thought and sentiment which comes upon us
in the presence of what is vast, mysterious, and sublime, if we would
but confess that it is only poetry, good and beautiful only as art is
good and beautiful. The spirit of the time, in fact, it seems to me,
is more and more disposed to grant us everything except the possession
of intellectual truth. That the Catholic Church is a marvellous power;
that her triumphs have been so enduring and so unexpected that only the
foolish or the ignorant will predict her downfall; that she overcame
paganism; that she saved Christianity when Rome fell; that she
restrained the ferocity of the barbarians, protected the weak,
encouraged labor, preserved the classics, maintained the unity and
sanctity of marriage, defended the purity and dignity of woman,
espoused the cause of the oppressed, and in a lawless and ignorant age
proclaimed the supremacy of right and the worth of learning; that to
these signal services must be added her power to give ease and
pleasantness to the social relations of men, keeping them equally
remote from Puritan severity and pagan license; her eye for beauty and
grace, which has made her the foster-mother of all the arts; her love
of the excellent and the noble, which has enabled her to create types
of character that are immortal; her practical wisdom, giving her the
secret of dealing with every phase of life, so that her saints are
doctors, apostles, mystics, philanthropists, artists, poets, kings,
beggars, warriors, peasants, barbarians, philosophers,--all this, if I
mistake not, unbelievers even are more and more willing to concede.
Nor are they slow to express their admiration of the strength and
majesty of this single power amid the Christian nations, which reaches
back to the great civilizations that have perished, which has preserved
its organic unity intact amid the social revolutions of two thousand
years, and which is acknowledged still to be the greatest moral force
in the world. But, underlying all they say and think, is the
assumption that the foundations of this noble structure are crumbling;
that the world of faith and thought in which it was upbuilt is become a
desert where no flower blooms, no living soul is found; that the temple
is beautiful only as a ruin is beautiful, where owls hoot and bats flit
to and fro. "There is not a creed, we are told, which is not shaken,
nor an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable; not a
received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve."
The conquests of the human mind in the realms of nature have produced a
world-wide ferment of thought, an intellectual activity which is
without a parallel. They have increased the power of man to an almost
incredible degree, have given him control of the earth and the seas,
have placed within his grasp undreamed-of forces, have opened to his
view unsuspected mysteries; they have placed him on a new earth and
under new heavens, and thrown a light never seen before upon the
history of his race. As a part of this vast development new questions
have risen, new theories have been broached, new doubts have suggested
themselves; and because we have changed, all else seems to have changed
also. And since, underlying all questions, there is found a question
of religion, the discussion of religious and philosophic problems has,
in our day, become a social necessity, and the science of criticism,
together with the physical sciences, has driven the disputants upon new
and difficult ground, where the battle must be fought, and where
retreat is not possible.
As well imagine that society will again take on the form of feudalism,
as that the human mind will return to the point of view from which our
ancestors looked on nature.
And this world-view shapes and colors all our thinking, in theology as
in other sciences, so that truths which were latent have come to light,
and principles which have long been held find new and wider application.
Never has the defence of religion required so many and such excellent
qualities of intellect as in the present day. The early apologists who
contrasted the sublimity and purity of Christian faith with a corrupt
paganism had not a difficult task. In the Middle Age the intellect of
the world was on the side of Christ. The controversy which sprang up
with the advent of Protestantism was biblical and historical, and its
criticism was superficial. The anti-Christian schools of thought of
the eighteenth century were literary rather than philosophical, and the
objections they urged were founded chiefly upon political and social
considerations. In all these discussions the territory in dispute was
well defined and relatively small. But into what a different world are
not we thrown! These earlier explorers sailed upon rivers whose banks
were lined by firm-set rocky cliffs, by the overshadowing boughs of
primeval forests, with here and there pleasant slopes of green where
they might lie at rest amid the fragrance of wild flowers; but from our
Peter's bark we look out upon the dark unfathomed seas towards an
unknown world whose margin ever fades and recedes as we seem to draw
near the haven of our desire.
As in the beginning of the twelfth century the cry, "God wills it!"
rang through Europe, and from all her lands armies of mailed knights
sprang into battle-array and turned their faces towards the Holy City,
resolved to wrench from infidel hands the Sacred Tomb of Christ, so
now, from her thousand watch-towers, science sounds her clarion note
with quite other intent, urging on to the attack of the citadel of God
in the heart of man, renewing upon lower fields the war in which
immortal spirits contended with the Almighty "in dubious battle on the
plains of heaven, and shook his throne." As "he jests at scars that
never felt a wound," so here the lesser knowledge makes the bolder man.
Not that difficulties should create doubts, or that objections may not
be answered, or that it is necessary to refute each hypothesis that
appears and fades like a dissolving view, or to notice each
unwarrantable inference from unquestioned facts, or that it is worth
while to address ourselves to minds whose nebulous and shifting
opinions make it impossible that they should receive correct
impressions; but the field upon which attacks upon religion are now
made is so vast, the confusion of thought into which new discoveries
and speculations have thrown the minds of even educated men is so
bewildering, the methods for the ascertainment of truth are so tangled
and misapplied, the rushing on of multitudes to discuss problems which
have hitherto been left to philosophers, and which they alone can
rightly enunciate, is so stupefying, that those who have the clearest
perception of the mental state of the modern world, and who are able to
take the finest and most comprehensive view of the religious,
philosophic, and scientific controversies of the day, seem loath to
enter into a struggle where the ground continually changes, and where
victory at the best is only partial, and but leads to further contest.
It is well to remember, also, that in the intellectual arena to attack
is easier than to defend, and any shallow, incoherent talker or writer
can propose difficulties which the keenest thinker will find great
trouble to explain. Since we and our works fall to ruin and pass away,
we seem instinctively to take the side of those who seek to undermine
and overthrow systems of thought and belief which claim to be
indestructible, and the human heart is half a traitor to the Church
which declares that she is indefectible and infallible. Is there not
indeed, however we account for it, in all nature a kind of dread and
horror of the supernatural, such as one who hides within his bosom a
secret of dark guilt feels in the presence of the conscience of
mankind? And does not this make the world lean to the side of those
who would eliminate God from nature?
And yet, since man's heart is the home of contradictions, is it not
also true to say that he is naturally religious? His faith in God is
as deep and unwavering as his faith in the testimony of the senses; and
if there are atheists there are also men who hold that all things are
unreal and only appear to be; that the world is but a myriad-formed, a
myriad-tinted idea, the dream of a substanceless dreamer. Not only do
we believe in God and in the soul, but all that we love, all that we
hope for, all that gives to life charm, dignity, and sacredness, is
interpenetrated, perfumed, and illumined by this faith. If men could
be persuaded that the unconscious is the beginning and the end of all
things, what good would have been gained? The light of heaven would
fade away, and the soul's high faith be made a lie; the poor would have
no friend, and the rich no heart; the wicked would be without fear, and
the good without hope; success would be consecrated, and death alone
would remain as the refuge of the unfortunate. Even animal indulgence,
in sinking out of the moral order, would lose its human charm. If then
in our day there is wide-spread scepticism, a sort of vague feeling
that science is undermining religion and that the most sacred beliefs
are dissolving, the cause of this lies not so much in the natural
tendencies of the mind and heart, as in social conditions, in passing
phases of thought, in the shifting of the point of view from which men
have hitherto been accustomed to look on nature; and the continuance
and the progress of doubt, and consequently of indifference, is, to
some extent at least, to be ascribed also to the fact that the most
earnest believers in God and in Christianity have, for now more than a
century, been less eager to acquire the best philosophic and literary
cultivation of mind than others who, having lost faith in the
supernatural, seek for compensation in a wider and deeper knowledge of
nature, and in the mental culture which enables them to enjoy more
keenly the high thoughts and fair images which live in literature and
art. As a well-trained intellect, in argument with the unskilful,
easily makes the worse appear the better cause, so in an age or a
country where the best discipline of mind is found chiefly among those
who are not Christians, or at least not Catholics, public opinion will
drift away from the Church, until the view finally becomes general
that, whatever she may have been in other times, her day is past. Nor
will aught external, however fair or glorious, secure her against this
danger. How often in the history of nations and of religions is not
outward splendor the mark of inward decay? When Rome was free, a
simple life sufficed; but when liberty fled, marble palaces arose. The
monarch who built Versailles made the scaffold on which French royalty
perished; and so a dying faith, like the setting sun, may drape itself
in glory. The Kingdom of God is within; there is the source of life
and strength, without which nor numbers nor wealth, nor stately
edifices nor solemn rites, avail. Nor can we be certain of men's love
when we cease to have influence over their thoughts. The proper appeal
is to the heart through the mind; and even a mother loses half her
power when she ceases to be the intellectual superior of her children.
How then shall the heavenly Mother of the soul keep her place in the
world, if those who speak in her name mar by imperfect and ignorant
utterance the celestial harmony of her doctrines?
Ah! let us learn to see things as they are. In face of the modern
world, that which the Catholic priest most needs, after virtue, is the
best cultivation of mind, which issues in comprehensiveness of view, in
exactness of perception, in the clear discernment of the relations of
truths and of the limitations of scientific knowledge, in fairness and
flexibility of thought, in ease and grace of expression, in candor, in
reasonableness; the intellectual culture which brings the mind into
form gives it the control of its faculties, creates the habit of
attention, and develops firmness of grasp. The education of which I
speak is expansion and discipline of mind rather than learning; and its
tendency is not so much to form profound dogmatists, or erudite
canonists, or acute casuists, as to cultivate a habit of mind, which,
for want of a better word, may be called philosophical; to enlarge the
intellect, to strengthen and supple its faculties, to enable it to take
connected views of things and their relations, and to see clear amid
the mazes of human error and through the mists of human passion. I
speak of that perfection of the intellect, which, to use the words of
Cardinal Newman, "is the clear, calm, accurate vision and comprehension
of all things as far as the finite mind can embrace them, each in its
place and with its own characteristics upon it. It is almost prophetic
from its knowledge of history; it is almost heart-searching from its
knowledge of human nature; it has almost supernatural charity from its
freedom from littleness and prejudice; it has almost the repose of
faith because nothing can startle it; it has almost the beauty and
harmony of heavenly contemplation, so intimate is it with the eternal
order of things and the music of the spheres." This is, indeed, ideal;
but they who believe not in ideals were not born to know the real worth
of things:
"Spite of proudest boast
Reason, best reason is to imperfect man
An effort only and a noble aim,--
A crown, an attribute of sovereign power,
Still to be courted, never to be won."
It is plain that education of this kind aims at something quite
different from the mere imparting of useful knowledge. It takes the
view that it is good to know, even though knowledge should not be a
means to wealth or power or any other common aim of life. It regards
the mind as the organ of truth, and trains it for its own sake, without
reference to the exercise of a profession. Hence its distinguishing
characteristic is that it is liberal and not professional. It holds
cultivated faculties in higher esteem than learning, and it makes use
of knowledge to improve the intellect, rather than of the intellect to
acquire knowledge. Hence, one may be a skilful physician, a judicious
lawyer, a learned theologian, and yet be greatly lacking in mental
culture. It is a common experience to find that professional men are
apt to be narrow and one-sided. Their mind, like the dyer's hand, is
subdued to what it works in. They want comprehensiveness of view,
flexibility of thought, openness to light, and freedom of mental play.
They think in grooves, make the rules of their art the measure of
truth, and their own methods of inquiry the only valid laws of
reasoning. These same defects may be observed in those who are given
exclusively to the study of physical science. When they sweep the
heavens with the telescope and do not find God, they conclude that
there is no God. When the soul does not reveal itself under the
microscope, they argue it does not exist; and since there is no thought
without nervous movement, they claim that the brain thinks.
Now, if it is desirable that those who are charged with the teaching
and defence of divine truth should be free from this narrowness and
one-sidedness, this lack of openness to light and freedom of mental
play, the education of the priest must be more than a professional
education; and he must be sent to a school higher and broader than the
ecclesiastical seminary, which is simply a training college for the
practical work of the ministry. The purpose for which it was
instituted is to prepare young men for the worthy exercise of the
general functions of the priestly office, and the good it has done is
too great and too manifest to need commendation. But the
ecclesiastical seminary is not a school of intellectual culture, either
here in America or elsewhere, and to imagine that it can become the
instrument of intellectual culture is to cherish a delusion. It must
impart a certain amount of professional knowledge, fit its students to
become more or less expert catechists, rubricists, and casuists, and
its aim is to do this; and whatever mental improvement, if any, thence
results, is accidental. Hence its methods are not such as one would
choose who desires to open the mind, to give it breadth, flexibility,
strength, refinement, and grace. Its text-books are written often in a
barbarous style, the subjects are discussed in a dry and mechanical
way, and the professor, wholly intent upon giving instruction, is
frequently indifferent as to the manner in which it is imparted; or
else not possessing himself a really cultivated intellect, he holds in
slight esteem expansion and refinement of mind, looking upon it as at
the best a mere ornament. I am not offering a criticism upon the
ecclesiastical seminary, but am simply pointing to the plain fact that
it is not a school of intellectual culture, and consequently, if its
course were lengthened to five, to six, to eight, to ten years, its
students would go forth to their work with a more thorough professional
training, but not with more really cultivated minds. The test of
intellect is not so much what we know as the manner in which it is
known; just as in the moral world, the important consideration is not
what virtues we possess, but the completeness with which they are ours.
He who really believes in God, serves Him, loves Him, is a hero, a
saint; whereas he who half believes may have a thousand good qualities,
but not a great character. Knowledge is not education any more than
food is nutrition; and as one may eat voraciously, and yet remain
without bodily health or strength, so one may have great learning, and
yet be almost wholly lacking in intellectual cultivation. His learning
may only oppress and confuse him, be felt as a load, and not as a vital
principle, which upraises, illumines, and beautifies the mind; mentally
he may still be a boy, in whom memory predominates, and whose intellect
is only a receptacle of facts. Memory is the least noble of the
intellectual faculties, and the nearest to animal intelligence; and to
know well is, in the eyes of a true educator, of quite other importance
than to know much. But a memory, more or less well-stored, is nearly
all a youth carries with him from the college to the seminary, and here
he enters, as I have already pointed out, upon a course not of
intellectual discipline, but of professional studies, whose object is
not "to open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to
know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it
power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method,
critical exactness, sagacity, resource, eloquent expression," but
simply to impart the requisite skill for the ordinary exercise of the
holy ministry. Hence it is not surprising that priests who are
zealous, earnest, self-sacrificing, who to piety join discretion and
good sense, rarely possess the intellectual culture of which I am
speaking, for the simple reason that a university and not a seminary is
the school in which this kind of education is received. That the
absence of such trained intellects is a most serious obstacle to the
progress of the Catholic faith, no thoughtful man will doubt or deny.
Since the mind is a power, in religion, as in every sphere of thought
and life, the discipline which best develops and perfects its faculties
will fit it to do its work, whatever it may be, in the most effective
manner. Hence, though the education of which I speak does not directly
aim at being useful, it is in fact the most useful, and prepares better
than any other for the business of life. It enables a man to master a
subject with ease, to fill an office with honor; and whatever he does,
the mark of completeness and finish will be found upon his work. He
sees more clearly, judges more calmly, reasons more pertinently, speaks
more seasonably than other men. The free and full possession of his
faculties gives him power to turn himself to whatever may be demanded
of him, whether it be to govern wisely, or to counsel judiciously, or
to write gracefully, or to plead eloquently. Whatever course in life
he may take, whatever line of thought or investigation he may pursue,
his intellectual culture will give him superiority over men who, with
equal or greater talents, lack his education; and he possesses withal
resources within himself, which in a measure make him independent of
fortune, and which, when failure comes and the world abandons him,
remain, like faith, or hope, or a friend, to make him forget his
misfortunes.
Of the English universities, with all their shortcomings, Cardinal
Newman says: "At least they can boast of a succession of heroes and
statesmen, of literary men and philosophers, of men conspicuous for
great natural virtues, for habits of business, for knowledge of life,
for practical judgment, for cultivated tastes, for accomplishments, who
have made England what it is,--able to subdue the earth, able to
domineer over Catholics." It is only in a university that all the
sciences are brought together, their relations adjusted, their
provinces assigned. There natural science is limited by metaphysics;
morality is studied in the light of history; language and literature
are viewed from the standpoint of ethnology; the criticism which seeks
beauty and not deformity, which in the gardens of the mind takes the
honey and leaves the poison, is applied to the study of eloquence and
poetry; and over all religion throws the warmth and life of faith and
hope, like a ray from heaven. The mind thus lives in an atmosphere in
which the comparison of ideas and truths with one an other is
inevitable; and so it grows, is strengthened, enlarged, refined, made
pliant, candid, open, equitable.
When numbers of priests will be able to bring this cultivation of
intellect to the treatment of religious subjects, then will Catholic
theology again come forth from its isolation in the modern world; then
will Catholic truth again irradiate and perfume the thoughts and
opinions of men; then will Catholic doctrines again sink into their
hearts, and not remain loose in the mind to be thrown aside, as one
casts away the outworn vesture of the body; then will it be felt that
the fascination of Christian faith is still fresh, supreme, as far
above the charm of science as the joy of a poet's soul is above the
pleasures of sense. The religious view of life must forever remain the
true view, since no other explains our longings and aspirations, or
justifies hope and enthusiasm; and the worship of God in spirit and in
truth, which Christ has revealed to the world, the religion not of an
age or a people, but of all time and of the human race, must eternally
prevail when brought home to us in a language which we understand; for
we place the testimony of reason above that of the senses. To the eye
the sun rises and sets, to the mind it is stationary; and we accept,
not what is seen, but what is known. Is there need of stronger
evidence that the power within, which is our real self, is spiritual?
And is it not enough to see clearly, to perceive that in the struggle
of mind with matter, which is the essential form of the conflict of
spiritualism with materialism, of religion with science, the soul, in
the end, will be victorious, and rest in the real world of faith and
intuition, and not in the pictured world of the senses?
Religion, indeed, like morality, is in the nature of things, and
Catholic faith is Una's Red Cross Knight, on whose shield are old dints
of deep wounds and cruel marks of many a bloody field, who is assailed
by all the powers of earth and of the nether world, armed with whatever
weapons may hurt the mind or corrupt the heart, but whom heavenly
Providence rescues from the jaws of monsters and leads on to victory.
But what true believer thinks himself excused from effort, because
Christ has declared that the gates of hell shall not prevail against
His Church? Does he not know that though, when we consider her whole
course through the world, she has triumphed, so as to have become the
miracle of history, yet has she at many points suffered disastrous
defeat? Hence, those who love her must be vigilant, and stand prepared
for battle. And in an age when persecution has either died away or
lost its harshness, when crying abuses have disappeared, when heresy
has run its course, and the struggle of the world with the Church has
become almost wholly intellectual, it is not possible, assuredly, that
her ministers should have too great power of intellect. And
consequently it is not possible that the bishops, in whose hands the
education of priests is placed, should have too great a care that they
receive the best mental culture. And if this is a general truth, with
what pertinency does it not come home to us here in America, who are
the descendants of men who, on account of their faith, have for
centuries been oppressed and thrust back from opportunities of
education, and who, when persecution and robbery had reduced them to
ignorance and poverty, were forced to hear their religion reproached
with the crimes of her foes? And now, when at length a fairer day has
dawned for us in this new world, what can be more natural than our
eager desire to move out from the valleys of darkness towards the hills
and mountain tops that are bathed in sunlight? What more praiseworthy
than the fixed resolve to prove that not our faith, but our misfortunes
made and kept us inferior. And, since we live in the midst of millions
who have indeed good will towards us, but who still bear the yoke of
inherited prejudices, and who, because for three hundred years real
cultivation of mind was denied to Catholics who spoke English, conclude
that Protestantism is the source of enlightenment, and the Church the
mother of ignorance, do not all generous impulses urge us to make this
reproach henceforth meaningless? And in what way shall we best
accomplish this task? Surely not by writing or speaking about what the
influence of the Church is, or by pointing to what she has done in
other ages, but by becoming what we claim her spirit tends to make us.
Here, if anywhere, the proverb is applicable--_verba movent, exempla
trahunt_. As the devotion of American Catholics to this country and
its free institutions, as shown not on battle-fields alone, but in our
whole bearing and conduct, convinces all but the unreasonable of the
depth and sincerity of our patriotism, so when our zeal for
intellectual excellence shall have raised up men who will take place
among the first writers and thinkers of their day their very presence
will become the most persuasive of arguments to teach the world that no
best gift is at war with the spirit of Catholic faith, and that, while
the humblest mind may feel its force, the lofty genius of Augustine, of
Dante, and of Bossuet is upborne and strengthened by the splendor of
its truth. But if we are to be intellectually the equals of others, we
must have with them equal advantages of education; and so long as we
look rather to the multiplying of schools and seminaries than to the
creation of a real university, our progress will be slow and uncertain,
because a university is the great ordinary means to the best
cultivation of mind. The fact that the growth of the Church here, like
that of the country itself, is chiefly external, a growth in wealth and
in numbers, makes it the more necessary that we bring the most
strenuous efforts to improve the gifts of the soul. The whole tendency
of our social life insures the increase of churches, convents, schools,
hospitals, and asylums; our advance in population and in wealth will be
counted from decade to decade by millions, and our worship will
approach more and more to the pomp and splendor of the full ritual; but
this very growth makes such demands upon our energies, that we are in
danger of forgetting higher things, or at least of thinking them less
urgent. Few men are at once thoughtful and active. The man of deeds
dwells in the world around him; the thinker lives within his mind.
Contemplation, in widening the view, makes us feel that what even the
strongest can do is lost in the limitless expanse of space and time;
and the soul is tempted to fall back upon itself and to gaze passively
upon the course of the world, as though the general stream of human
events were as little subject to man's control as the procession of the
seasons. Busy workers, on the other hand, having little taste or time
for reflection, see but the present and what lies close to them, and
the energy of their doing circumscribes their thinking.
But the Church needs both the men who act and the men who think; and
since with us everything pushes to action, wisdom demands that we
cultivate rather the powers of reflection. And this is the duty alike
of true patriots and of faithful Catholics. All are working to develop
our boundless material resources; let a few at least labor to develop
man. The millions are building cities, reclaiming wildernesses, and
bringing forth from the earth its buried treasures; let at least a
remnant cherish the ideal, cultivate the beautiful, and seek to inspire
the love of moral and intellectual excellence. And since we believe
that the Church which points to heaven is able also to lead the nations
in the way of civilization and of progress, why should we not desire to
see her become a beneficent and ennobling influence in the public life
of our country? She can have no higher temporal mission than to be the
friend of this great republic, which is God's best earthly gift to His
children. If, as English critics complain, our style is inflated, it
is because we feel the promise of a destiny which transcends our powers
of expression. Whatever fault men may find with us, let them not doubt
the world-wide significance of our life. If we keep ourselves strong
and pure, all the peoples of the earth shall yet be free; if we fulfil
our providential mission, national hatred shall give place to the
spirit of generous rivalry, the people shall become wiser and stronger,
society shall grow more merciful and just, and the cry of distress
shall be felt, like the throb of a brother's heart, to the ends of the
world. Where is the man who does not feel a kind of religious
gratitude as he looks upon the rise and progress of this nation? Above
all, where is the Catholic whose heart is not enlarged by such
contemplation? Here, almost for the first time in her history, the
Church is really free. Her worldly position does not overshadow her
spiritual office, and the State recognizes her autonomy. The monuments
of her past glory, wrenched from her control, stand not here to point,
like mocking fingers, to what she has lost. She renews her youth, and
lifts her brow, as one who, not unmindful of the solemn mighty past,
yet looks with undimmed eye and unfaltering heart to a still more
glorious future. Who in such a presence, can abate hope, or give heed
to despondent counsel, or send regretful thoughts to other days and
lands? Whoever at any time, in any place, might have been sage, saint,
or hero, may be so here and now; and though he had the heart of
Francis, and the mind of Augustine, and the courage of Hildebrand, here
is work for him to do.
In whatsoever direction we turn our thoughts, arguments rush in to show
the pressing need for us of a centre of life and light such as a
Catholic university would be. Without this we can have no hope of
entering as a determining force into the living controversies of the
age; without this it must be an accident if we are represented at all
in the literature of our country; without this we shall lack a point of
union to gather up, harmonize, and intensify our scattered forces;
without this our bishops must remain separated, and continue to work in
random ways; without this the noblest souls will look in vain for
something larger and broader than a local charity to make appeal to
their generous hearts; without this we shall be able to offer but
feeble resistance to the false theories and systems of education which
deny to the Church a place in the school; without this the sons of
wealthy Catholics will, in ever increasing numbers, be sent to
institutions where their faith is undermined; without this we shall
vainly hope for such treatment of religious questions and their
relations to the issues and needs of the day, as shall arrest public
attention and induce Catholics themselves to take at least some little
notice of the writings of Catholics; without this in struggles for
reform and contests for rights we shall lack the wisdom of best counsel
and the courage which skilful leaders inspire. We are a small minority
in the presence of a vast majority; we still bear the disfigurements
and weaknesses of centuries of persecution and suffering; we cling to
an ancient faith in an age when new sciences, discoveries, and theories
fascinate the minds of men, and turn their thoughts away from the past
to the future; we preach a spiritual religion to a people whose
prodigious wealth and rapid triumphs over nature have caused them to
exaggerate the value of material progress; we teach the duty of
self-denial to a refined and intellectual generation, who regard
whatever is painful as evil, whatever is difficult as omissible; we
insist upon religious obedience to the Church in face of a society
where children are ceasing to reverence and obey even their
parents;--if in spite of all this we are to hold our own, not to speak
of larger hopes, it is plain that we may neglect nothing which will
help us to put forth our full strength.
I do not, of course, pretend that this higher education is all that we
need, or that, of itself, it is sufficient; but what I claim is that it
would be a source of strength for us who are in want of help. God
works in many ways, through many agencies, and I bow in homage to the
humblest effort in a righteous cause of the lowliest human being.
There are diversities of graces, but the same spirit; diversities of
ministries, but the same Lord. _Numquid omnes doctores?_ asks St.
Paul. But since he places teachers by the side of apostles and
prophets, surely they will teach to best purpose who to the humility of
faith add the luminousness of knowledge. To those who reject the idea
of human co-operation in things divine I speak not; but we who believe
that we are co-operators with Christ cannot think that it is possible
to bring to this godlike work either too great preparation of heart or
too great cultivation of mind. Nor must we think lightly even of
refinement of thought and speech and behavior, for we know that manners
come of morals, and that morals in turn are born of manners, as the
ocean breathes forth the clouds and the clouds fill the ocean.
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; where they shall learn the
repose and dignity which belong to their ancient Catholic descent, and
yet not lose the fire which glows in the blood of a new people; to
which from every part of the land our eyes may turn for guidance and
encouragement, seeking light and self-confidence from men in whom
intellectual power is not separate from moral purpose, who look to God
and His universe from bending knees of prayer, who uphold--
"The cause of Christ and civil liberty
As one, and moving to one glorious end."
Should such an intellectual centre serve no other purpose than to bring
together a number of eager-hearted, truth-loving youths, what light and
heat would not leap forth from the shock of mind with mind; what
generous rivalries would not spring up; what intellectual sympathies,
resting on the breast of faith, would not become manifest, grouping
souls like atoms, to form the substance and beauty of a world?
O solemn groves that lie close to Louvain and to Freiburg, whose air is
balm and whose murmuring winds sound like the voices of saints and
sages whispering down the galleries of time, what words have ye not
heard bursting forth from the strong hearts of keen-witted youths, who,
Titan-like, believed they might storm the citadel of God's truth! How
many a one, heavy and despondent, in the narrow, lonesome path of duty,
has remembered you, and moved again in unseen worlds, upheld by faith
and hope! Who has listened to the words of your teachers and not felt
the truth of the saying of Pope Pius II.,--that the world holds nothing
more precious or more beautiful than a cultivated intellect? The
presence of such men invigorates like mountain air, and their speech is
as refreshing as clear-flowing fountains. To know them is to be
forever their debtor. The company of a saint is the school of saints;
a strong character develops strength in others, and a noble mind makes
all around him luminous.
Why may not eight million Catholics upbuild a home for great teachers,
for men who, to real learning and cultivation of mind, shall add the
persuasiveness of easy and eloquent diction; whose manifest and
indisputable superiority shall put to shame the self-conceit of
American young men, our most familiar intellectual bane, and an
insuperable obstacle to all improvement,--self-conceit, which is the
beatitude of vulgar characters and shallow minds? If our students
should find in such an institution but one man, who, like Socrates,
with ironic questioning might make for them the discovery of the new
world of their own ignorance, the gain would be great enough.
Why may we not have a centre of light and truth which will raise up
before us standards of intellectual excellence; which will enable us to
see that our so-called educated men are as far from being scholars as
the makers of our horrible show-bills are from being artists; which
will teach us that it is not only false but vulgar to call things by
pretentious names,--as, for instance, to call a politician a statesman,
a declaimer an orator, or a Latin school a university.
Ah! surely as to whether an American Catholic university is desirable
there cannot be two opinions among enlightened men. But is it
feasible? A true university is one of the noblest foundations of the
great Catholic ages, when faith rose almost to the height of creative
power, and it were folly in me to maintain that such an undertaking is
not surrounded by many and great difficulties. To begin with the
material for foundation, money is necessary, and this, I am persuaded,
we may have. A noble cause will find or make generous hearts. Men
above all we need, for every kind of existence propagates itself only
by itself. But let us bear in mind that the best teacher is not
necessarily or often he who knows the most, but he who has most power
to determine the student to self-activity; for in the end the mind
educates itself. As distrust is the mark of a narrow intellect or a
bad heart, so a readiness to believe in the ability of others is not
only a characteristic of able men, but it is also the secret charm
which calls around them helpers and followers. Hence, a strong man who
loves his work is a better educator than a half-hearted professor who
carries whole libraries in his head.
To bring together in familiar and daily life a number of young men,
chosen for the brightness of their minds and an eager yearning for
knowledge, is to create an atmosphere of intellectual warmth and light,
which invigorates and inspires the master, while it stimulates his
disciples. In such company it will not be difficult to form teachers.
But will it be possible to find young men who will consent, when after
years of study they have finally reached the priesthood, to continue in
a higher institution the arduous and confining labors to the end of
which they have looked as to the beginning of a new life? In other
lands such students are found, and if with us there is a tendency to
rush with precipitancy and insufficient preparation to whatever work we
may have chosen, this is but a proof of the need of special efforts to
restrain an ardor which springs from weakness and not from strength.
Haste is a mark of immaturity. He who is certain of himself and master
of his tools, knows that he is able, and neither hurries nor worries,
but works and waits. The rank weed shoots up in a day and as quickly
dies; but the long-growing olive-tree stands from century to century,
and drops from its gently waving boughs ripe fruit through the quiet
autumn air. The Church endures forever; and we American Catholics, in
the midst of our rapidly-moving and ever-changing society, should be
the first to learn to temper energy with the patient strength which
gives the courage to toil and wait through a long life, if so we make
ourselves worthy to speak some fit word or do some needful deed. And
to whom shall this lesson first be taught if not to the clerics, whose
natural endowments single them out as future leaders of Catholic
thought and enterprise; and where can this lesson so well be learned as
in a school whose standard of intellectual excellence shall be the
highest?
While we look, therefore, to the founding of a true university, we will
begin, as the university of Paris began in the twelfth century, and as
the present university of Louvain began fifty years ago, with a
national school of philosophy and theology, which will form the central
faculty of a complete educational organism. Around this, the other
faculties will take their places, in due course of time; and so the
beginning which we make will grow, until like the seed planted in the
earth, it shall wear the bloomy crown of its own development.
And though the event be less than our hope, though even failure be the
outcome, is it not better to fail than not to attempt a worthy work
which might be ours? Only they who do nothing derive comfort from the
mistakes of others; and the saying that a blunder is worse than a crime
is doubtless true for those who have no other measure of worth and
success than the conventional standards of a superficial public
opinion. We at least know--
"There lives a Judge
To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim
Faithfully kept is as a noble deed;
In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed."
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Means and Ends of Education, by J. L. Spalding