Higher Education in Western Canada—Duty of the Hour—University Training Condition of Genuine Leadership—For Catholics Higher Education means Higher Catholic Education—The Concerted Action of all Catholics in Western Canada can make a Western Catholic University a Reality.
Never has the world manifested a keener and more general interest in higher education. The facilities which Governments offer to place within the reach of the mass of the people; the benefits of university education; the enormous sums left by wealthy individuals for the endowment of chairs and the foundation of scholarships; the eagerness with which these offers are grasped by men of all classes; the extraordinary success of the Overseas University in the American Army, which had a student body of 10,000—these are, without doubt, manifest signs of public opinion on the matter of higher education. The world-struggle, we all feel, has shifted to another battlefield, and the future in every realm of human activity rests on the mastery of ideas. In that intellectual conflict, the primary school rooms are the trenches on the first line of defence; the college and university lecture halls stand out as the strategic heights from which the heavy artillery of ideas smashes the way to victory. Hold the college and university heights to-day, and the hinterland of industry, commerce, science, art and politics will be yours to-morrow.
Catholics throughout our Dominion begin to realize that higher education is the price of leadership. "Of the many points of contact between the Church and the modern world, education is the point where Catholicism has most to gain by energetic thought and action, and most to lose by an atmosphere of indifference." We are waking up from our deep lethargy and beginning to understand that we shall not have our share in the shaping of the destinies of our own Country until our leaders, particularly among the laity, impose themselves upon the nation by their number and their value. The magnificent campaign of the "Antigonish Casket" in favour of higher education and the exchange of views this point at issue brought from various correspondents, the successful drive in favour of Loyola College of Montreal, the growing influence of the Catholic student bodies in the various universities, the creation of Laval, in Montreal, as a distinct unit from Quebec; the tremendous success this newly born organization met with in its drive for $5,000,000; all these facts indicate concentration of forces in the direction of higher education. The national Catholic conscience is awakened into action. "One of the most pressing needs of the Church at the present time, is to have a well-connected body of university-trained Catholics." This statement of Father Plater, S.J., is true also for Canada and more particularly for Western Canada. And indeed, this pressing need of higher education has come home of late to our western Catholics as is evidenced by the great efforts made to establish colleges in the various Provinces. As this move is of the greatest importance for the welfare of the Church in that promising part of our country, we thought to be of some service to the Western Church in drawing the attention of Catholics to this important issue and bringing to a focus certain indefinite, hazy views on the subject.
Higher Education—Duty of the Hour for Western Catholics.
"When a reflective man of middle life walks along the embowered paths of Oxford and Cambridge or through their quadrangles whose walls have echoed to the footsteps of so many brainy men of England, he realizes what these institutions have been and still are to Great Britain and the Empire." From the lecture halls of these seats of learning have gone, generation after generation, the men who framed and directed the course of studies of other universities, the legislators and statesmen that have shaped the destinies of the British Empire. "There is not a feature or a point in the national character which has made England great among the nations of the world, that is not strongly developed and plainly traceable in our universities. For eight hundred or a thousand years they have been intimately associated with everything that has concerned the highest interest of the country." (W. E. Gladstone.) This example of the power of Oxford and Cambridge is so typical that one immediately grasps its meaning and appreciates its full value. On that immense background of the Empire they stand out indeed in bold relief as the embodiment of higher education, as the great portals that open on the highway of true leadership. Is not the affiliation, that subtle intellectual bond which units our universities of Canada to those two great seats of learning, a permanent and living proof of this fact?
A university is the vital centre of a nation's life. Around it, by a gradual process of elimination and a natural force of gravitation, centre the master minds; from it, as from a fountain-head, flow with true leadership in every branch of human society, progress, wealth and prosperity. On the force of this centripetal and centrifugal movement of a university depends its value in the community. "The increase in number and efficiency of universities," said Bishop Spalding, "is the healthy proof of the vitality and energy of a nation."
In the educational system of a country the university stands out as the apex, the culminating and crowning point of its intellectual life. For, as the college course develops the studious and acquisitive powers of the mind, the university course has in view its creative and formative powers. "Glorious to most are the days of life in a great school," says Morley, "but it is at college that aspiring talents enter into their own inheritance." "It is the function of education in the highest sense, to teach man that there are latent in him possibilities beyond what he has dreamed of, and to develop in him capacities of which without contact with the highest learning, he had never become aware." (Haldane.) We may well call the university "the brains of a nation." It equips the student with standards and tests of objective truth. . . . It makes him dig down to the bed-rock on which truth in its various manifestations rests. . . . Universities are indeed the nurseries of the higher life, the living sources from which knowledge and culture flow in abundant streams. They do the thinking for the teeming masses who have neither the leisure nor the opportunity to think for themselves and who live on that mental atmosphere we call "public opinion." From the heights of our universities, ideas and principles gradually filter down into the lower strata of the nation. The novel, the Sunday supplement, the stage, the cinema screen—these post-graduate courses of the working man—are popularizing to-day the theories and ideals that were yesterday honoured in our secular institutions of higher education. It may take time, perhaps centuries, for this process of intellectual filtration; but ideas, like the stream, are bound to follow the incline of the water-shed.
If the change that takes place in the mind and conscience of the individual is a slow and subtle process, what should we not expect when there is question of a nation? Yes, the process is slow but it is sure. The permeation of evolutionism into every domain of human thought is a recent and most striking illustration of it. This fact stands out conspicuously on the pages of history. "Lord Acton's view of history," said Shane Leslie, "was that ideas, not men or events, made the differences between one era and the next." The mind is always the storm centre of revolutions, the breeding ground of the most conflicting theories. The great storms that sweep over humanity always gather on the high summits of religion and philosophy, blackening the mental horizon; sooner or later, they break out on the lower plains of the economic social and political world, spreading everywhere revolution and destruction. The blasphemous Proudhon gave utterance to a great truth when he wrote: "It is surprising how at the bottom of every political problem we always find some theology involved." We lay stress upon this aspect of universities, for, in our mind, from a catholic view-point, it is of the greatest importance in the discussion of the present issue.
The university is not only the focus of the intellectual life of a country; by its research work, by its applied science it becomes also the very fountain head of all national progress and prosperity. The natural resources lie dormant, the soil—that perennial source of wealth, is stagnant, the export-trade of manufactured goods and agricultural products is at its lowest ebb, until touched by the magic wand of the university expert. It is he who discovers, develops and shows how to make use of with profit, the hidden wealth of the land. The research bureaus instituted by the Government of Canada and the United States, co-operating with the various universities, are now considered as the most important factors of national prosperity. The Reclamation Service of the U.S. by irrigation, drainage and the pulling of stumps will reclaim nearly 300 million acres for colonization. To bring the economic value of a university nearer home to us, who does not know the beneficial influences of Saskatoon University on the agricultural pursuits of Saskatchewan? This relation of the university and the material prosperity of a country is so marked that the Mosely Educational Commission sent by England to the United States, most strongly emphasized that living connection and necessary correlation between the universities and the industrial and manufacturing prosperity of the United States.
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." This vision was before the eyes of Cecil Rhodes who founded scholarships throughout the British Empire. These scholarships glean every year in the wide fields of the Empire the brightest minds and throw them as a beautiful sheaf at the foot of the great English Alma Mater, Oxford. Millions and millions have been left for the same purpose to the American Universities.
The university may well then be called the Alma Mater—the nursing mother, of the leaders of a nation. From its halls "emerge those who have that power of command which is born of penetrating insight. Such a power generally carries in its train the gift of organization, and organization is one of the foundations of national strength." (Lord Haldane.) The belief that the self-made men were the real successful men is a thing of the past. A careful investigation has proved that ninety per cent of the men who stood at the head of large financial, political, philanthropic, economic, industrial and commercial institutions of the world were graduates of universities.[2] The self-made man as a leader is the exception and has necessarily his limitations which he is the first to feel and acknowledge. Munsterberg in his book "The Americans" has a page which is very much to the point. "The most important factor of the aristocratic differentiation of America is higher Education and culture and this becomes more important every day. The social importance ascribed to a college graduate is all the time growing. It was kept back for a long time by unfortunate prejudices. Because other than intellectual forces had made the nation strong, and everywhere in the foreground of public activity there were vigorous and influential men who had not continued their education beyond the public grammar school, so the masses instinctively believed that insight, real energy and enterprise were better developed in the school of life than in the world of books. The college student was thought a weakling, in a way, who might have fine theories, but who would never help to solve the great national problems—a sort of academic "mug-wump," but not a leader. The banking house, factory, farm, the mine, law office and the political position were thought better places for the young (American) man than the college lecture halls. . . . This has profoundly changed now, and changes more, with every year. . . . The change has taken place in regard to what is expected of the college student; distrust has vanished and people realize that the intellectual discipline which he has had until his twenty-second year in the artificial and ideal world is after all the best training, less by its subject-matter than by its methods, is the best possible preparation for practical activity. . . . The leading positions are almost entirely in the hands of men of academic training and the mistrust of the theorizing college spirit has given place to a situation in which university presidents and professors have much to say on all practical questions of public life, and the college graduates are the real supporters of every movement toward reform and civilization." (Munsterberg—"The Americans" 600-602.)
The true leaders in society are like the snow-capped heights of a mountain range: they are the first that the new light of a breaking dawn, of a coming period, is wont to strike with its rays, to be then reflected on the silent and sleeping valleys. The men who hold to-day the pen or draughting pencil in the university are the men who will handle the levers of the world's intricate machinery. There they grapple with the various problems of the scientifical, economic and political world and their views, later on, will gradually influence the whole mental attitude of the masses, who, in their daily life, are confronted with these same problems.
This leadership of thought and action is no more the privilege of a few; in our democratic country every one can aspire to it. The days when primary education was for the masses, secondary or college education for the middle classes and university training for "the quality," have passed away and gradually the benefits of higher education are being extended to all. The equality of opportunity, not that of wealth and position, is the test of true democracy. This condition has created the aristocracy of brains and character before which the aristocracy of wealth, of blood and lineage fade into insignificance.
The predominance of the "vocational feature" over the "cultural" in the scope of our modern universities, the vast "extension work" [3] carried on in the various fields, the multiplicity of "free scholarships" open to the competition of the brainy and ambitious boy, are other proofs of this democratic trait of our modern higher education.
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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. Where these three features combine, then the Church is writing the brightest pages of Her history." (Archbishop Glennon.)
I will not repeat here what "Catholic" in the Antigonish Casket, and Henry Somerville in his pamphlet, "Higher education and Catholic Leadership in Canada"—have been writing on for the past year or so. With them we conclude that outside of the Province of Quebec, the Catholics of the Dominion have not the influence they should wield. Naturally there are many reasons to explain this fact. But we will say with the Editor of the North West Review, "facts cannot be ignored with impunity, the sooner they are admitted and faced with courage the more readily shall difficulties be overcome. And the necessity for an awakening to the demand for higher education is very real."
In the firing line of the world's gigantic struggle we shall never hold the strategic points to which our number gives us a right in our Canadian Democracy, unless our leaders are strong in number, and in power. Catholic leadership will give us the occasion to present, explain and promote "our solution" to various problems confronting the world. During this period of universal upheaval and momentous crisis, when all the ingredients, we would say of the social and economic fabric are in a state of flux,—like bronze in fusion,—Catholic leaders should be to the front to supply the casts of Christian civilization. If in the public press, the legislative assemblies, the labor meetings, public gatherings, where mind meets mind, ideal clashes with ideal, knowledge with knowledge, where facts are being examined and weighed, where ideas are thrown into the melting pot of public debate, if then and there, there is no one to stand for Catholic views in the various matters under discussion, can we be astonished that we are absolutely ignored, and our views not considered? "We believe that an attitude of merely destructive criticism, of aloofness, scepticism, pessimism, is a deplorable mistake. It is not by standing aloof from the movements of our day, but by going fearlessly into them with the message of truth entrusted to our charge, shall we best fulfil our high mission towards our fellow countrymen. We must seize these opportunities in the spirit of high confidence and dauntless zeal which befits those who have the Truth, know they have the Truth, and are assured that the Truth is great and shall prevail." (Universe—June 13, 1919.)
Never has a greater opportunity challenged the Church and her leaders than at this great turning of the tide in the history of the world. Canada itself is on the threshold of the most eventful and decisive period of her national life. "The war has brought our country into the broad stream of internationalism . . . and a new national consciousness is being born and is sweeping over the land." In the future, as in the past, our Dominion will remain divided by race and creed. But let us not forget that the various religious and ethnical groups will have only the influence that gives true leadership. The value and the measure of higher education among Catholics will therefore give the value and the measure of their participation in the remodelling of their great country.
If such is the case of Catholics throughout Canada, what would we not say of Catholics in our Western Provinces. In this reconstruction of our Dominion the prairie Provinces are without doubt to play a preponderant part. One has only to open his eyes to see the trend of our national policies, and immediately grasp the growing importance of our Western Provinces. The West is gradually passing from the pioneer conditions and becoming conscious of its importance. With the beautiful qualities and unlimited resources of youth, it has also its dangerous shortcomings. Daring, venturous, over confident, the western mind is easily and frequently hasty and radical in its conclusions. Intoxicated with wealth and success, inspired and aroused by the great possibilities of his new home, the Westerner is ever tempted to experiment in legislation, make extreme views prevail and believe the newest is always the best. He will boast of broadmindedness, of love of freedom and at the same time will, under the deceiving tyranny of number, suppress the most sacred rights. Nowhere we claim in our Dominion, is Catholic leadership and therefore higher education, more needed at the present hour than in the West. Our Catholics there need indeed higher education, for, at this hour particularly, the nation's business is our business; they cannot remain an isolated factor in presence of the tremendous issues that stare the world and our country in the face. But if we wish to make our influence as Catholics felt, let our leadership come from "Higher Catholic Education" as from its fountain head.
Higher Catholic Education for Catholics in Western Canada.
There is a decided distinction between higher education for Catholics and higher Catholic education. This leads us to place before the reader the principles upon which rests the catholic ideal in matters of higher education and to suggest means of its speedy realization in Western Canada. A friendly exchange of ideas on this most important and very interesting topic will be profitable to all at this juncture, and help, we hope, to clear up hazy notions and cloudy conceptions which some may entertain on the subject.
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In matters of Catholic education, the most weighty argument is that of the authority of the Church. Her views and practices, particularly on questions of education, should be the views and practices of every good Catholic. In the New Canon-Law, in the Councils and Letters of the Popes, is to be found the only authoritative direction in this momentous problem. The Church is most emphatic and most precise in its pronouncements on the matter of higher education. The Canon 1379, paragraph 2, of the new Canon-Law, is very explicit on the subject. "If the public universities are not imbued with Catholic doctrine and surrounded with a Catholic atmosphere, it is most desirable to found in that country or region a Catholic University." The Plenary Councils of Baltimore and of Quebec (Tit, VI-C, VII) command in the most pressing manner the Catholic youth to frequent only Catholic universities. When circumstances necessitate attendance at non-Catholic universities, safeguards are exacted to minimize the danger. These recent dispositions of the Church's legislation reflect the stand the Church has always taken on this ground of higher education. Is She not "Mater universitatum?" Modern civilization owes its universities to the Catholic Church, as the very stones of Cambridge and Oxford still proclaim . . . lapides clamabunt! And in these days of religious indifference, after heroic efforts and great sacrifices, in spite of the allurement of our wealthy state and independent institutions, the Church counts in every country seats of higher learning, where her children may receive the benefit of university training without danger for their conscience or their faith.
This stand of the Church in primary, secondary and higher education is the logical conclusion of her doctrine. "The theory of life," said Father Little, S.J., "and the theory of education go hand in hand." As the Church has a definite teaching on life, its value and its purpose, She has necessarily fundamental principles upon which education must rest if it wishes to be in harmony with Christian life and Catholic belief. In her eyes education, in all its degrees, must be primarily and profoundly religious. "If indeed, the Catholic Faith which makes such tremendous and such confident statements about God and His ways with men, is true, then obviously it takes the central place in human knowledge, and all other knowledge groups itself round and is coloured by Faith." Therefore, the principle, "every Catholic boy and girl in a Catholic college or university" should be to us as sacred as is "every Catholic child in a Catholic school." One is the consequence of the other; both are the practical conclusions of our faith. This close connection between theories of education and the attitude towards problem of life is evident in history.
The Pope, Benedict XV, in his recent letter to the American Hierarchy (March, 1919), writes: "The future of the Church and State absolutely depends on the condition and organization of the schools; there will be no other Christians than those whom you will have formed by instruction and education. . . . We have followed with joy," he adds, "the marvellous progress of the Catholic University at Washington, progress so closely united to the highest hopes of your churches. We have no doubt that henceforth you will continue even more actively, to support an institution of such great usefulness and promise as is the University."
The Most Reverend Dr. O'Dwyer, Bishop of Limerick, in 1904, vindicated for the Irish people not the privilege, but the right to a Catholic University. "For us Catholics," he wrote, "the Gospel as taught by our Holy Church, is our philosophy of life and we hold that any attempt to educate a youth in what we call secularism is a retrogression to a lower level than that of pre-Christian culture. For this reason we have withstood every attempt to force secularism on this country and we shall resist it to the last. We have equally withstood mixed education, which, false as it is in itself and pernicious, is in this country a specious pretext for Protestant educational ascendancy." (University education in Ireland.)
If such is the case with Catholic Ireland, what should we not conclude as regards our Western Provinces? Here, more than anywhere else in Canada, does the Church need staunch, genuine, Catholic leadership. In it the future of Catholicity beyond the Great Lakes is involved. Reason and experience prove that the training which makes for genuine Catholic influence is plainly out of question unless it be received in a college and university whose atmosphere, teachings, aspirations and ideals are thoroughly Catholic. The recent foundations of a Catholic University in Milan and in Nimeguen, Holland, justify this claim.
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Conditions existing in our modern neutral universities vindicate our stand and strengthen our position. The tendency in these universities is, without doubt, towards infidelity or to say the least, towards diluted Christianity.—"The transformation from the old denominational education to the new undenominational education was in point of fact due to an antitheological—and even in some of its manifestations—anti-religious movement. If it included a sense of the justice of equal treatment for all creeds and a sense of the liberty necessary for science, it also included some of the anti-Christian spirit of Continental liberalism. The undenominational movement was the practical expression of the liberal and scientific movement." (Life of Newman—L 306.)
A few years ago there appeared in the "Cosmopolitan Review," under the glaring title "Blasting at the Rock of Ages," an article which startled the intellectual world. It was a crude and biting exposure of the intellectual license and unhealthy moral atmosphere of the great American universities. To follow the author of this powerful indictment in the proof of his facts and statements would be beyond the scope of this paper. Only we would advise some of our near-sighted Catholics who through that snobbishness which money often gives them, have a sort of worship for non-Catholic universities, to read this indictment. In giving them a glance of the "inside of the cup" it may change their opinion.
Dr. James Henry Leuba, professor of psychology at the Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, gave out to the public the answers he received from sociologists, biologists, psychologists and teachers of universities and other institutions in the United States, as regards their belief in the existence of God. More than fifty per cent. admitted that they had no belief whatever in the existence of God; forty per cent. denied the immortality of the soul. The great majority, said Dr. Leuba, were university teachers and none could compare with them in influence over the rising generation. (Cfr. Archeological Report 1917—published by Ontario Government.)
When subversive theories based on an absolute materialistic conception of life, and from which God, Divine Providence, Christ, Christianity are systematically excluded and ridiculed as myths of by-gone days; when, we say, such theories are rampant in the halls of our modern universities, should we be astonished to see outright infidelity, political socialism, religious anarchy, stalk the length and breadth of the land? "Impurity, obscenity, moral corruption in many forms, with the ever consequent cynicism and pessimism, forerunners of moral decadence, destruction of the original, creative, shaping, joyous, confident energies of society, come daily more boldly to the front of the stage and defy criticism or mock at the archaic sanctions of yesterday. One does not need to peruse the great modern historians of Roman morals to foresee the results of such an educational debauch, when allowed time enough and the working of its own, unholy but intimate and inexorable logic." (Mgr. Shahan—at the Catholic Educational Convention, U.S., 1919.) Sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.
Should not such atmosphere of infidelity or diluted Christianity in non-Catholic universities be for Catholic students a source of danger to the vigour and even to the integrity of their faith, to their constancy, in the full and faithful observance of their practical religious duties? Familiarity with error, at the age of youth principally, breeds contempt of truth and jeopardizes faith. The suppression of truth in its various forms, the concealment of religious profession and observance, necessarily lead to religious indifference. How many sad examples could we not give to back this statement? This danger which Catholic youth meets with in the very atmosphere of our neutral universities is still greater when we consider the method of teaching now in honour in these schools of higher learning. The tutorial method, still in vogue at Oxford, has given place to the professorial. The systematic lecture has replaced the exposition of texts. The professor, with his frame of mind, his views on facts and ideas, is the living book from which our youth read their daily lesson. His personality dominates the mind of the pupil. We all know what fascination the science, reputation and eloquence of a professor have on the unarmed and impressionable minds of youth. The "Magister dixit" is very often the supreme law, the last criterion of truth. President Garfield's ideal of a college, "Mark Hopkins on the other end of the log," recognizes the educative value of the contact with a master-mind.
Authority and reason militate in favor of higher Catholic education for Catholics in Western Canada, this is the logical conclusion of our statements.
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Yes, nice theories, some may say; but we are facing facts. How are we to contend with these well equipped, richly endowed, neutral institutions of higher education? Where shall we find the resources to pay efficient teachers, to establish the various faculties that go to form a university worthy of its name? Have we not a state-university marvellously well equipped and for which our Provinces are yearly spending fabulous sums? Why not take advantage of our own money that goes in taxes for the support of these institutions?
To argue along these lines is to concede to our enemies our position on the Separate School question. All these objections have been met with in other countries and other provinces, and the answer to them was the creation of Catholic colleges and universities.
The great fallacy of the age, and particularly in this part of the country, is State Monopoly in educational matters. This is looked upon as the great triumph of modern democracy and the palladium of liberty. The monopoly over the human mind by this monopoly of education is the most dangerous of all state-monopolies. It is the resurrection of the pagan ideal, the magnification of the state to the detriment and absorption of the individual and the family. Germany has given us an example of where "the standardization of thought and outlook" by the State education leads to. The Prussian ideal, in its last analysis, is nothing else but the pagan ideal.
But no country in the British Empire has pushed the policy of monopolisation of education so far as our Western Provinces. Under the specious plea of efficiency and absurd reason of uniformity, they will not even grant charters to independent institutions of higher learning. This policy surely does not reflect true statesmanship and makes British liberty a misnomer on the lips of many of our ultra-loyal Westerners. We would ask our Western Governments to take lessons in this matter from England. When some few years ago the question of converting the university colleges into Universities was before the English public there was much talk of the danger of Lilliputian universities and of low standards of teaching and examination. But this question was brought to trial by the State before a high tribunal and a firm decision was given in favour of the principle. A special committee of the Privy Council conducted a semi-judicial enquiry and gave sentence on Febr., 1903. The result of this decision was that the colleges of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Bristol, Durham, blossomed out into teaching universities. This is the real British way of doing things.
The United States[4] have granted university charters to the various Catholic institutions of higher learning which dot that land of Liberty from coast to coast. And let us not forget,—facts and figures will bear us out,—the independent universities in the United States, in England and in Belgium, only to mention some, have been in many Faculties more efficient and more successful than the state institutions. The remarkable record of St. Louis University, a Jesuit institution, is illustrative of this point. A comparison of the respective medical and dental records of this institution with perhaps two of the greatest professional schools of the United States, John Hopkins and Harvard, gives proof of higher efficiency to St. Louis University. 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. Let us blaze the trail and to-morrow, it will be the great highway of Catholic education for the coming generation in Western Canada.
But instead of this policy of "isolation" which in school matters is the ordinary policy of the Church, some Catholics, in view of circumstances, rather advocate that of "permeation." The presence of Catholics in State Universities will, they claim, create a better atmosphere, abate or soften prejudice, beget a better feeling among the future leaders of the community. In England, it is true, Catholics are allowed to attend Oxford and Cambridge; in Germany, they attend State Universities. The Catholics of Australia have since 1916 also a College in conjunction with the Melbourne State University. Student societies have been formed, Catholic halls opened, courses of apologetics are given to help the Catholic youth in the "steady daily pressure working against them in a non-Catholic university," and to influence religious thought in those centres of higher learning.
Has this "modus vivendi" brought about by various circumstances which it would be too long to analyze here, produced the desired results? In Germany it has not created a Catholic atmosphere in one single university. Have not, on the contrary, the German universities been the hot-beds of Modernism and many a young cleric has come from their halls inoculated with this virus.
As for Oxford and Cambridge, we all know the controversy which divided the Catholics for so many years. As Catholics have been allowed to follow the courses there for only a few decades, we are not yet, we believe, in a position to judge of the influence of these universities on the Catholic body of England as a whole. Time only will tell. But one thing is certain, no comparison can be established between our state universities and these colleges. Although in the halls of Oxford, Christianity "is often attuned to the outlook and temper of the age" as the book "Foundations" (a statement of Christian belief in terms of modern thought, by seven Oxford men) sadly reveals it, nevertheless, there is not to be found in the English Colleges that atmosphere which the absence of religion has created in our state universities. The presence of various denominational colleges on the grounds of our Provincial Universities only gives them a tint of Christianity. The teaching of history and philosophy will tell the tale. "It must be remembered that an Oxford scheme was never Newman's ideal. It was a concession to necessities of the hour. His ideal scheme, alike for education of the young and for the necessary intellectual defence of Christianity, had consistently been the erection of a large Catholic University like Louvain. This he had tried to set up in Ireland. In such an institution, research and discussion of the questions of the day would be combined as in the middle ages with a Catholic atmosphere, the personal ascendancy of able Christian professors and directly religious influence for the young men." (Life of Newman)—by Ward.
Were there question only of postgraduate work, of some special course in agriculture, domestic science, there would be no difficulty, we believe, to see Catholic students take advantage of the marvellous facilities our state universities offer. The matter, the short term of these courses or the advanced age of the pupil would be in themselves sufficient guarantee. But what we strongly object to is the Arts Course, and particularly undergraduate work, even were the contentious subjects, such as philosophy and history, be given by Catholic teachers to Catholic students separately. The Arts Course, we must remember, is the real dominating factor in higher education. For we maintain with Cardinal Newman that a University is a place of teaching universal knowledge and that its object is primarily intellectual. It has in view the diffusion and extension of knowledge, rather than its advancement, which is reserved to Academies. It is the Arts Course of a University, particularly its Philosophy, that gives this general knowledge and enlargement of the mind. Its influence is most telling in the various Faculties where students specialize for their future career. For Philosophy plays such a large part in human life, the movement of opinions and the direction of minds. The Catholic student in those most plastic years, in that critical period of receptivity, wherein ideas are analyzed and synthesized for life time, cannot help but imbibe ideas and doctrines opposed to his belief. The elite alone, we believe, can resist in the long run the influence of that indefinable quality called atmosphere, and maintain among so many cross-currents, the right course. The ordinary and inexperienced mind will be, if not contaminated, at least weakened and this alone is disastrous in a leader. Many changes, many transformations, we know, take place in the mind of youth as it emerges "from collegiate visions into the rough path of real life." As Morley wrote, "We know after the event, the tremendous changes of thought . . . of conception of life, that coming years and new historic forces were waiting to unfold before the undergraduate when he had once floated out beyond the college bar." Yet, the solid teachings of Catholic Philosophy will remain to him as the charter and compass when his ship has taken to the high sea. This is the principal reason why we vindicate the right to our own higher education. To push the argument further, we would ask why should we be obliged to pay taxes to have doctrines opposed to our conscience propounded from the professorial chairs of our State University? The granting of a Charter by the State is but the minimum of our rights.
Dream or Reality?
A Catholic University for Western Canada! Is this but the dream of a far off future or can it be a reality within a few years?—There is the problem which now faces the Catholic Church of our Western Provinces and upon which, in our estimation, rests the influence the Church is to have in the formation of the new and most promising part of our Dominion beyond the Great Lakes. A high conception of the duty of the present hour and the whole-hearted co-operation of every Catholic unit in the West, will without doubt bring its happy solution and make our dream a reality. To act on ideal principles with little or no attempt to forecast accurately what is practicable would be to court failure. We are gradually passing the mile-stone of pioneer life in the West, and the Church is slowly but surely being organized and entering into full possession of her normal life. The duties which Catholic solidarity imposes upon us as regards the Church and the community at large are growing apace with the status of the Church in these new Provinces. Among these duties none, we believe, are more important than that we owe to the cause of Catholic education. Naturally, the burden of the responsibility falls here upon parents whose bounden duty it is to see that the school, college, university, be, as much as possible but the extension of their Catholic home. The rising generation in the West has a right to the benefits of a higher education; to this right corresponds in the community a duty imposed upon its members by Catholic solidarity. For in the growing youth we see the Country and the Church, with whose future welfare it is necessarily united. A true Catholic must have his vision of what the Church ought to be in his Country and must work to make that vision come true.
Through a Catholic University, and through it only, will the Church give its full contribution to the national life of Western Canada by creating as we said, Catholic leadership. We have as Catholics, ideas to give to the nation, to its up-building, and to its prosperity. The sun of Canadian liberty is shining for our doctrines as it does for other ideals. And, strange to say, the most subversive theories seem to take the greatest and most frequent advantage of this freedom. We have no apology to make for our ideas. They stand on their own merit and have been vindicated by the acid-test of time. 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. Catholic higher education is the only antidote and remedy to this evil. Its principles are a vigorous protest against materialistic philosophy. We believe in the mastery of ideas and in the final victory of truth.
The Church also for her own benefit needs true Catholic leaders. Leaders in a Catholic Community, who are not thoroughly Catholic in their training, who have false notions, warped views, biassed conceptions of vital questions, are most detrimental to the cause of Catholicity. Distorted and confused ideas, in religious matters particularly, always lead to a compromise. After school days they fail to find their Catholic faith correlated with the problems and experiences which never troubled them before, and which now, lack of higher education will not allow them to solve and to face. Have we not indeed in Western Canada to guard ourselves against latitudinarianism in our Catholic life? Material prosperity, success in business or in farming, associations with men and women who have practically no belief whatever, erroneous conceptions of broadmindedness in religious matters, absence of traditions, lack of Catholic education, all these causes and many others have created especially in our cities, where such a large floating population is to be found, and in our country places where there is no resident priest, a compromising Catholicism, apologetic Catholics. How many Catholics in the West are always ready to cringe in presence of those who are not of our belief and to apologize for their faith. To react against this abiding danger we need all through the country well instructed and thoroughly educated Catholic leaders who will be in our world of agnosticism and irreligion, the protagonists and apologists of Catholicism. The fearless proclamation of the truth combined with a good moral public life is in itself a tremendous power. 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.
Love of Church and country will therefore inspire us with a high sense of duty in relation to the establishment of a seat of higher education in this promising part of our great Dominion. And this duty, let us not forget it, is urgent. Every decade means a new generation that should have passed from the halls of our university to the commanding heights of the country's leadership. Our hesitancy means a further postponement of the triumph of the Catholic Cause.
This high conception of an urgent duty gives the vision. From the clearness, breadth and depth of that vision will spring the conquering spirit of co-operation. Co-operation to be efficient and persevering demands a united plan of action and an authoritative leadership.
The Catholic population of Western Canada is yet very limited. We cannot afford to scatter our forces and multiply our institutions. One university for all Western Canada would be sufficient to meet the present requirements. The multiplication of inefficient universities is a calamity for genuine higher education. This has been the contention of "Catholic" in a recent series of brilliant articles in the "Casket." The policy would therefore be for all to agree on one college as the non-Catholics have done in the different Western Provinces. This naturally requires the sacrifice of parochialism and provincialism. But if the Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists have each agreed on the establishment of one educational centre for their students, surely the Catholics can also sacrifice local interests to the welfare of the cause. How many efforts our bigoted provincialism has neutralized in the past!
Authoritative leadership only can unite our efforts on this unity of plan of action. Nothing in this matter can be done without the direction and support of the Hierarchy of the West. The division among Bishops was, according to Newman, one of the main causes that made the Dublin Catholic University scheme a failure. Naturally this problem of higher education is one that overflows diocesan boundaries and remains common to all. "Boundaries of jurisdiction, as wrote so advisedly, Archbishop McNeil, of Toronto, are conveniences and means to an end." Beyond the responsibilities of each separate diocese there are other responsibilities which affect the Church of Canada as a whole. Let one man with vision, judgment, energy, and action, make the creation of the Catholic University in the West the work and ambition of his life, let him have the sincere approbation and efficient co-operation of all the Hierarchy . . . that man, we claim, will rally the Catholic forces around him and will give to the West and its rising generation the blessing so much needed of Catholic university training. Newman was fond of repeating that it is only individuals who do great things.
And what will, this Catholic university mean to Catholic life in Western Canada? Well established upon the highest academic level by its success in the competitive field of learning, it will stand out as the embodiment of Catholic intellectual life and the centre of Catholic activities. It will be the counter-ideal to the ideal of agnosticism and materialism so fostered and so prevalent in our neutral universities. Just as the cathedrals are the expression of the Catholic faith in Christ's abiding presence in the Sacrament of His love, so is a Catholic university the embodiment and accomplishment of the Church's ideal in education. By its extension work, summer courses, circulating libraries, correspondence courses, lectures, etc., the university would unite our activities, eliminate waste of energy and direct our combined efforts. Cardinal Newman believed that a Catholic university was essential for thorough health and efficiency in the Catholic body at large. To realize all that a Catholic university would mean one has only to know what Washington stands for in the life of the Church in the United States. In his beautiful letter to the American Hierarchy, Benedict XV said of it: "The University, we trust, will be the attractive centre about which will gather all who love the teachings of Catholicism."
What is the Conclusion?
We may summarize our argumentation in favour of our contention in the following statements:
1.—THE INTERESTS OF CHURCH AND COUNTRY, PARTICULARLY IN THE WEST, DEMAND CATHOLIC LEADERSHIP;
2.—NO GENUINE LEADERSHIP WITHOUT UNIVERSITY TRAINING;
3.—FOR CATHOLICS HIGHER EDUCATION MEANS HIGHER CATHOLIC EDUCATION.
Now, Patient reader, allow us to conclude these already too lengthy pages, by this pointed question: "Is a Catholic university for Western Canada within the possibilities of the near future?"
Our answer will be simple, direct, conclusive, and, we hope, convincing. If all Catholics in the Western Provinces, under the direction and with the continued support of the Hierarchy, unite in one sublime and persistent effort, we have the utmost confidence in its immediate realization. Some Catholics, we know, will distrust its expediency, despair of its success or even feel an obligation to oppose it. Difficulties, most undoubtedly, we will have numerous and great. With time, patience, perseverance and self-sacrifice we will overcome them. Nothing succeeds like success. The establishment of a work of that kind is the work of years and even of centuries. There must be some day a start, a foundation to build on. The policy of nihilism leads nowhere. The frequentation of our State universities would indefinitely postpone all efforts for the Catholic ideal, and be a surrender of the whole situation. But let us not be carried away with the modern fallacy of materialistic grandeur. Spacious and beautiful buildings, nice grounds and attractive surroundings are not to be despised when the finances are good. But all these things are secondary; they do not give the intrinsic value to a university, they are not "the pulse of the machine." 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; a character that entails duties towards the Catholic community at large, none less obligatory because they are rooted in the virtue of charity, instead of the virtue of justice."
But experience tells us that our Catholic institutions are founded and supported more by the "widow's mite" than by the millionaires' donations. The support will come from the Catholic communities of Western Canada; it will indeed come with most gratifying results if the appeal is lofty in its motive and proposal, concerted and systematic in its action.
We are not to go to the Catholics of the West with an appeal in one hand and an apology in the other. A straightforward, self-respecting presentation of our cause will bring a no less straightforward and self-respecting response. To make this appeal an unqualified success there must be also concerted action. Intensive efforts alone bring results. This means the canvass of the West for this single purpose, at a stated time. But any canvass of this kind, to be effective, must be prepared by an educational campaign. Give the Catholics, we maintain, the vision of their duty, sound the call . . . and they will respond. For indifference, profound and widespread,—fruit of ignorance more than of ill-will,—would be the greatest obstacle to overcome. Arousing interest will be the initial task. In Australia, Archbishop Mannix organized a campaign, in co-operation with his suffragan bishops, for the purpose of the Catholic College of Melbourne and from June to December, 1916, half a million of dollars was collected. The Catholics of Western Canada are just as ready, we claim, to furnish such annual payment as would be wanted: if only they are properly called upon. But this proper calling involves first a systematic and periodical recommendation of its claims by the clergy and influential laymen.
System will avoid a conflict of claims for other great causes equally worthy of our generous support. The war has in this matter taught us at home a great lesson. There were appeals for the Patriotic Fund, the Red Cross, the Belgium Relief, the French Aid, etc., etc. They all came to us in rotation. No apology was made, every one felt in duty and honor bound, and the money was always there with an extraordinary readiness. Organization is the first element of success.
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Who will be the promoters of this great work? Naturally the Hierarchy of the West will be its inspiring and moving spirit. But, should not the Knights of Columbus, that body-guard of Catholic laity, be called to the honour of "seeing it through." This great undertaking would be a most appropriate background for all the activities of our valiant Knights in Western Canada.
A society, Catholic in principle and membership, must, to last, and be an asset to the Church, have a definite programme of action in harmony with its aim and constitution. If it keeps its energies pent up behind the walls of the council-chambers and only finds them an outlet in social functions and friendly gatherings, it will soon go to seed or die of dry rot. When on the contrary an organization, such as the Knights of Columbus, throws the full weight of its energies in the forwarding of a great cause, the possibilities of its influence are limitless. The war activities of the Knights and their splendid results for the Church and the nation are a tangible proof of it.
Could there be a work more in harmony with the aims of the great Catholic organization than that of higher education. At the national convention of 1912, held at Colorado Springs, the committee on Catholic Higher Education ends its report by saying: "In the newer impetus that will come to Catholic education as the result of better understanding (its necessity and value), the Knights of Columbus must make themselves an important factor. We owe it to ourselves and to that special loyalty to both Church and State which we pride to claim as the special note of the order. It is often asked what are the Knights of Columbus doing that they should be so proud of their organization, and the best possible answer would be for all of us to be able to point to benefits that were conferred by Knights individually and in bodies upon our Catholic education. There can be no mistake about the benefit to be conferred on Church and State by progress in Catholic education."
The active and persevering co-operation of the Knights in the forwarding of the great cause of a Catholic University for Western Canada, would be their contribution to the great period of reconstruction which the world is now facing.
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On one of those beautiful mellow autumn evenings, of which the Prairie alone has the secret, the traveller, as his train steams into one of our Western Cities, will behold a stately cupola tipped with a golden cross.—"What is that new building, yonder on the outskirts of the city?" will he inquire. The answer will be: "That is the Catholic University of Western Canada."
[1] This chapter appeared as a series of articles, in the North West Review of Winnipeg,—under the signature of "Miles Christi."
[2] "Less than one per cent. of American men are college graduates Yet this one per cent. of college graduates has furnished: 55% of our Presidents, 36% of our Members of Congress, 47% of the Speakers of the House, 54% of our Vice-Presidents, 62% of our Secretaries of State, 50% of the Secretaries of the Treasury, 67% of the Attorney Generals, 69% of the Justices of the Supreme Court."—Dr. Jones, of the University of Missouri.
[3] Lord Haldane addressing the Co-operative Educational Association (May, 1920) made this statement: "The universities of England must be made able, as national institutions, with a larger range of activity than at present, to undertake extra-mural work on a scale so great that it will be of general application throughout the land, and they must be put in a position to be fitted to bring this about."
[4] Speaking of Publicly and privately supported institutions of learning in the U.S., Dr. Cappen, assistant commissioner of the United States Bureau of Education stated that there are 93 of the former in the U.S. and 477 of the latter. About 62 per cent. of the college students in the country attend voluntarily supported colleges, and the private schools have about 68 per cent. of the educational funds of the country at their disposal. This includes of course such very wealthy endowed institutions as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell and Stanford.