A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT OF A COLLEGE.
[We have received and publish the following letter with great pleasure, and it is to be hoped that others will take up the same subject, and express their views upon it. Perhaps we may even venture to suggest the project of a convention or congress of heads of colleges under the auspices of the prelates, in order to discuss and resolve on useful measures connected with Catholic education.]
Dear Mr. World:
You have a talent for evoking thought. The excellent paper on higher education, which you published in your issue for March, has set me a-thinking; and as I hold you to be a wise counsellor, I hope you will allow me to communicate my poor thoughts to you. I want to talk to you about some of the difficulties of Catholic education in the United States.
By the way, the subject of your article was working at the same time in several minds. I read in the Galaxy for March a long dissertation, full of idolatry for Germany, on higher education; and the students of St. John's College, Fordham, New York, celebrated Washington's birthday by a series of splendid speeches on the same theme. Would you, Mr. World, feel complimented if I should exclaim, "Les beaux esprits se rencontrent"?
Well, then, in the matter of college education—for that is what I have been thinking on—as in a multitude of other matters, Catholics in this country owe eternal gratitude to their clergy. If we have any colleges at all, to whom do we owe them? To the zeal and self-sacrifice of our Christian Brothers, of our priests and our bishops. I think that all our colleges were established by churchmen, whether secular or regular. It were, perhaps, invidious to mention names—but we ought not to withhold a deserved and willing tribute of praise from the heroic men who gave us our colleges. We say heroic, for these men were truly such. Lengthy reflection is not necessary in order to justify the epithet. What a mountain of obstacles had to be cleared away to purchase the site of these colleges, to build them, to man them, to govern and carry them on! Education is a noble and fertile subject to speak about. It is an immense blessing to be really educated. But what an amount of toil and anxiety does not this delicious fruit cost those who seek to bestow it on our children! How many harassing days and nights have not the faithful superior, professors, and prefects of a college to spend in the exercise of their several functions! All the world knows that boys are not a very inviting material to work on. They are unreasoning, ungrateful, thoughtless, inconstant; often weak, lazy, perverse, and incorrigible. Many of them act in college as though they went there to torment everybody—or, at most, for the benefit of the officers, and not at all for their own good. Of course, if boys were merely to be taught lessons, much of the trouble connected with their education could be avoided. But Catholic colleges mast make moral men and Christians—and that, as we all know, is a difficult task, for the young heart is very wayward. Then, too, what heartburns with fathers and mothers and guardians! How little pecuniary compensation for the educator! Yet our clergy, be it said to their undying honor, have nobly braved, outfaced, all these privations and humiliations. They are doing so even at this day. Let them refuse to sacrifice their time, talents, health, and temporal weal, and we ask whether there is in the United States a single Catholic college which would not have to suspend operation to-morrow? We must remember that our colleges are not endowed. In a financial point of view, they depend almost entirely on the fees of their students. Commonly, too, they have more or less of standing debts, for which yearly interest must be paid. Were the presidents, professors, and prefects of such houses to exact fat salaries in return for their sublime abnegation, what, Catholic Americans, would be the fate of all your colleges? Do you often think of this when, amid the ease and luxury of your drawing-rooms and dinner-tables, you run down this college, sneer at that other, and wonder why a third does not do this, that, and the other thing in the shape of improvement? You have colleges because your clergy are willing to sacrifice their time and tastes, to submit to drudgery, to wear out their very lives, and live and die in poverty. All praise to you, Catholic priests and bishops, to you religious orders of these United States.
These remarks go to prove that our first difficulty in the walks of higher education is the slender means of our colleges.
In the next place, it appears to your unworthy correspondent that very little is done to put an end to this precarious and from-hand-to-mouth existence. What generosity does the laity show to our colleges? People contribute munificently to convents, asylums, churches, etc.; but how many make donations to colleges; how many found prizes, medals, or scholarships in them? Very few, at least so far as my knowledge goes. Colleges, like poor bears in winter, are supposed to live on their own fat. No one asks them whether they are in debt, in need of money, would not accept of a collection of books, minerals, philosophical apparatus, or anything of that kind. No one says: Wouldn't you allow me to build you a good gymnasium, an exhibition hall, give you an organ for your chapel, or transfer to you some of my shares in this or that lucrative business? No, dear colleges, be comforted. Live on as best you can. The result is that these institutions can never fully shake off their debt, they can make but little material improvement, or, if they attempt improvements, it must be at a snail's pace. Even graduates will forget the wants of Alma Mater, and despise her for her blameless penury, just as some gross-natured upstarts scorn their poor parents and friends. What a different spectacle we should soon witness in our colleges were gentlemen of means to show their zeal for education, and follow the wholesome example of Protestants by bestowing upon our seats of learning a portion of their wealth! Progress would then be possible, college bills could be lightened entirely or at least partially, gratuitous education might be granted to deserving young men. As things now stand, charity is out of the question for most of our colleges. We must endeavor to beget and promote in our people this enlightened and patriotic spirit toward our colleges.
Difficulty number three: Many persons take a narrow view of education. Some act upon what may be called the system of the three R's, that is readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmetic. They fancy their sons educated when they can read, write, and cast up accounts. Others may raise their eyes a little higher, but in the end, like the old Romans laughed at by Horace, they value education only in so far forth as it is a money-making machine. Few are broad-minded enough to see in education a development of the entire man, and, as a necessary inference, a slow and gradual process. In consequence of the errors afloat on this head, parents will not allow time sufficient for the education of their children. They force colleges to crowd an immense circle of studies into a short space. The consequences are not flattering. The mind cannot be thoroughly developed, and education degenerates into ill-digested instruction. Depth is lost. Your paper, which led me to think upon all these topics, speaks very sensibly about philosophy. But how, I ask, can anything like a deep, serious, thorough course of philosophy be taught in one year? Still, that is all our young men get, and that is all the generality of parents will concede. Look at our colleges—how many graduates of the first year return to study a second? Were it not better to give no degree until the close of the second year? The diploma once obtained, though it is only a cowardly sheep-skin, fills our young graduates with valor, and makes them fancy that they are fit to play roaring lion all the country over. Every college should devote at least two years of its course to the study of philosophy. Education without a sound philosophy must always be a mere broken shaft, a truncate cone, an abortion. We ought to organize a crusade for the welfare of philosophy in our colleges. I was right glad, Mr. World, to hear you advocating the study of this crowning branch of education, and insisting, I think, upon sound scholasticism. Scholastic philosophy, that is the philosophy.
My next difficulty shall be proposed in the form of a question: Could not our Catholic colleges come to an understanding, so as to have in all of them about the same programme and the same text-books? At present, there is a very great divergence on these points. For instance, what a multitude of grammars we have, and what wretched things for boys some of these grammars are! They lack method and logic, they dive too deep into philosophy, and are too learned and philosophical. Banish philosophy and philology to their proper spheres. When grammars of the dead languages were much more modest and unpretending, Latin and Greek were better known, better written, if not also better spoken. What I say of grammars applies with equal force to many other books now used in our colleges. A convention of our college authorities for the discussion of these topics might do as much good as many other conventions, if not far more.
Parents and guardians have a great share in the troubles experienced by colleges. Nowadays, boys decide almost everything with respect to their education. It is they who make choice of their college, determine whether they shall study, how long and what they shall study. All that parents seem to have to say or do in the matter is to obey their whimsical offspring. I can understand that there is no use in forcing a lad to study what he reasonably cannot learn; but I cannot see why the management of his education should be given over to him in fee-simple. This violation of the fourth commandment throws honest colleges into a dilemma. On the one hand, they would like to keep their students, and, on the other, they feel bound to make those students work. But the young lord of his destinies often does not wish to study, and, if he is urged to do so, he grows dissatisfied, says the officers are too cross, and leaves the institution. Should he not be urged, he will idle away his time, annoy everybody, learn nothing, and finally, by his ignorance and bad conduct, injure the reputation of his college. Parents, when they send their sons to college, should not forget that these sons are not immaculately perfect. They need a strong dose of discipline. They must be taught by word and deed that they have to study and to obey. The word of college authorities should weigh more in the balance than that of weak, lazy, and roystering young lads. If these ideas prevailed somewhat more than they do, and were acted up to, colleges would have an easier task to perform, their task would be better performed, and the education given to boys would be more vigorous. There is too much womanish fondness, too much indulgence, shown to boys in these days. We live in an age of feeling, of likes and dislikes. Energetic, self-controlling, strong manhood is on the wane. Magnificent men could be made out of our American boys. I love them dearly. Their character is full of fine traits. They are clever, generous, open, and manly. Why should they be emasculated by false kindness and compliance?
Once in college, let us subject these boys to solid and stiff examinations. Those who fail, if they are in the graduating class, should not graduate that year, no matter what great man or great woman may intercede, scold, or shed tears in their behalf. No prædeterminatio physica should settle on the gentlemen of the graduating class. Because they happen to be in that class, their graduation must not become a fated necessity. No doubt, it is a very nice sight at the close of the year, on the annual commencement day, to behold a large number of young gentlemen receiving their diplomas. The heart of Alma Mater throbs with gladness at the beautiful spectacle. But it is a much nicer thing for Alma Mater to have to say that her diploma is deserved, and that she tells no lie to the public when she asserts that her graduate is bonæ spei et rite probatus. Then the diploma is a testimony to worth: it is an honor to possess it. If undergraduates miss their examination, put them down mercilessly into the class below that in which they fail. By this process you will lose a few boys, but you need not regret them. For, first, they were either idlers or stupid fellows. In the next place, you can raise the standard of your classes, you will make your pupils work seriously, get a good name for your college, and end by having more students. Sensible people will always send their children to institutions that insist upon hard study and rid themselves of idlers.
Another difficulty which I must notice regards the action, or rather inaction, of the state. It is a pity that our government, with all its fuss about education, does so little real honor to higher education. What is the necessity or emolument of a diploma from a college? I think that, without a diploma, I can occupy any position in the gift of the country, save perhaps that of officer in the regular army or navy. In one way, the state is too much of a busybody; in another, it does not fulfil its office in regard to education. But I do not wish to open the question, to-day, on the office of the state in education.
One of the gravest obstacles in the way of higher education arises, I think, from our colleges themselves. It is this: our colleges are too numerous. With the exception of some boys from Spanish America, we receive no pupils from other countries. At home, the number of Catholics who can afford a college education for their children is limited. Supposing, then, all our colleges patronized, it is impossible that any of them should reach a respectable figure in the number of its attending pupils. Besides, it must be no easy task to find competent professors and directors for so many colleges. If we had fewer colleges, each one would have a larger number of pupils, and be more fully provided with all that is necessary for education. Yet there appears to be a stronger desire to open new colleges than to perfect those actually in existence. Why do we thus weaken and scatter our forces? Why do we render success and large, grand centres of learning next to impossible? Grammar-schools, or schools in which boys are prepared for college, should be multiplied, but not colleges. Then our colleges would resemble a university more than they do to-day. It is a great plague for them to be obliged to do at once the work of the grammar-school and of the college properly so-called. They are burdened with a crowd of children, who are no companions for young men, and lessen the dignity of a college. And now, Mr. World, let me end these remarks by asking: When shall we see each diocese in the Union possessing a petit séminaire? When shall we see arise in our midst a noble Catholic university?
Yours, etc.