Christian Schools and Scholars / or, Sketches of Education from the Christian Era to the Council of Trent

by Augusta Theodosia Drane

It will be observed that in this famous decree there is no allusion to the universities as in any way regarded as nurseries of the clergy. Canons for their reform were passed in the twenty-fifth session,[364] but not a word was said connecting them in any way with the proposed seminaries. It is not even recommended that seminaries should be established in the vicinity of universities where these already existed, though at that time universities were far more numerous than now, every province almost possessing one in its territory; but it is distinctly laid down, that they are to form a part of the cathedral establishment, and, where it can conveniently be done, that they be erected in the cathedral city of the diocese. The radical idea of the seminary is that of its being the bishop’s school,[365] formed under his eye, and subject to his control—an idea which is manifestly totally inconsistent with the plan of a university. So strictly is this the case, that where colleges have since been founded (as at Rome) for ecclesiastical students of different nations, which of course could not be placed under the jurisdiction of their own bishops, these colleges are rarely given the name of seminaries, the nature of such institutions, properly so-called, requiring them to be subject to the canonical authority of their own Ordinary. Universities were not abolished or condemned, or even discountenanced, by the Fathers of Trent: they were reformed, indeed, and laws were passed requiring all masters and doctors to engage by oath, at the beginning of each year, to explain the Catholic faith according to the canons of the Council, and obliging visitors to institute the necessary corrections of discipline. But universities, when doing their own proper work, continued to receive the same encouragement as before; and even in our own time, we have witnessed new ones established, at the express recommendation of the Sovereign Pontiff, to the end that the Catholic youth of Belgium and Ireland might enjoy the same advantages for following a course of liberal studies as were at the command of the uncatholic world around them.[366] But other schools than those of the world were to be provided for those who were to minister divine things, that they might be “wholly in them, and that their profiting might be manifest to all.”[367] Them the world was not to touch; the smell of the fire was not to pass on them; from childhood they were to be taken out of it, and fashioned after another model, signed and set apart as “holy to the Lord.” Their consecration was not to be the change of a moment, but the formation of a life; and for ever they were to be preserved from what even the heathen poet bewailed as “the intolerable calamity of yielding to what is base,” and to enjoy that which he declares should be the object of all men’s prayers,—to dwell in those sacred temples where “nature and the law of the place should both conspire to present us in innocence to the Deity.”[368]

Besides the important decrees already referred to, the reform of education was encouraged by other provisions of the Council of Trent, in which we recognise the same solicitude for restoring the Christian spirit, and abolishing the corrupt Paganism which had crept into its place. The Tridentine Fathers had something to say on the matter of art. The object of pictures and images, is, they remind us, to instruct the people, and recall to them the mysteries of the Faith; therefore everything profane and indecorous is to be avoided in the House of God, and the beauty that is represented must be that alone which savours of holiness. Nor was it to be supposed that they could be silent on the subject of that ecclesiastical chant, which from the very infancy of the Christian schools had taken its place by the side of grammar. The Gregorian chant had by this time all but disappeared in the greater number of churches, and had been replaced by orchestral music of the most profane and unsuitable description. Against this abuse, which had been growing for upwards of two centuries, Popes and Councils had uniformly protested, but with little fruit. The Fathers of Trent seriously contemplated prohibiting the use of instrumental music altogether, but at the earnest representations of the Emperor Ferdinand, they contented themselves with prescribing the abuses introduced by the musical professors,[369] and making the study of the plain-song of the Church one of the indispensable studies of the new seminaries. They number among the duties of those promoted to cathedral canonries that they should “reverently, distinctly, and devoutly praise the name of God in hymns and canticles in the choir appointed for psalmody;” and require the Provincial synods to regulate the proper way of singing and chanting the divine office. And the various Provincial councils and synods held to promulgate the Tridentine decrees, failed not to enforce the same salutary provisions, as that of Toledo, in 1566, which forbade those noisy exhibitions wherein the sense of the words is buried under the confusion of voices.[370]

The projected reforms had been very warmly urged on the Fathers by St. Charles Borromeo in his letters from Rome. The friend of Pole and of St Ignatius, he had watched with lively interest the success of the German college, and in his twenty-third year had already put his hand to the work of educational reform, by giving up the Borromeo palace at Pavia, for the purpose of a college which he founded out of his own revenues. When in the July of 1563, therefore, letters from Trent arrived in Rome notifying to the Holy Father the decree which had been passed, and soliciting his confirmation of the same, St. Charles earnestly supported the petition of the Legates, and had the happiness of conveying to them the warm approval of his Holiness, and his promise that the confirmation should be published with the least possible delay, and that he himself would be the first to carry it into execution. Accordingly, on the 18th of August following he convoked the Cardinals to deliberate with them on the subject. The foundation of seminaries in all the dioceses of the Roman State was at once determined on; 6000 scudi were assigned for the purpose by the Pope, and a Commission of Cardinals, of whom St. Charles was one, was appointed to carry the resolution into effect.

Thanks to the exertions of St. Charles, the solemn confirmation of the Canons of Trent was not long delayed. In a consistory held on the 30th of December, Pius IV, addressed a moving discourse to the assembled Cardinals, including several who had recently returned from the Council, in which, while declaring his firm resolve to enforce every one of the reforms which had been therein recommended, he took special notice of the decree on seminaries, which he praised as having been suggested by the “special inspiration of God,”[371] declaring again that he desired to be the first who should put his hand to so blessed a work. The confirmation of the Tridentine Canons followed on the 26th of January 1564, and on the 15th of April the same year, in a consistory which met in the Hall of Constantine, plans were proposed for the foundation of the Roman Seminary, the care of which was committed to the Fathers of the Society of Jesus.

Nor was it at Rome alone that the decree of the Council was thus eagerly and promptly carried out. The first act of Bartholomew of the Martyrs, on returning to his diocese, was to institute measures for the establishment of a seminary, in precise conformity to the prescribed canons. He accordingly summoned his chapter and laid before them the urgency of the business; giving them a noble example by his own munificent contribution to the necessary expenses. As it was an undertaking involving a question of finances, there were not wanting those who murmured at the idea of a compulsory taxation, but the prudence and moderation of the archbishop prevailed over every difficulty, and at the end of six months he had the satisfaction of seeing accommodation provided for sixty students, and of opening the first seminary founded in Portugal. This appears to have been in the year 1565. In the same year Daniel, the worthy successor of St. Boniface in the See of Mentz, commenced the foundation of the first episcopal seminary of Germany, which he appropriately dedicated to our great English apostle, and placed under the direction of the Jesuits. The Provincial Councils, held at Salzburg and Toledo in 1569, decreed the establishment of provincial seminaries, and, not to multiply examples, we have but to turn to the correspondence of St. Pius V. to see how rapidly this great work was taken up throughout every part of Christendom, and how energetically it was encouraged by the Sovereign Pontiff himself.

One Saint, however, and one diocese, stands out pre-eminent in the history of Church seminaries. St. Charles Borromeo had protected the design in its infancy, and he lived to give the Church a perfect model of its practical realisation. Appointed to the archbishopric of Milan when only in his twenty-second year, St. Charles found it impossible for several years to obtain leave from Pope Pius IV. to withdraw from Rome and devote himself to his pastoral cares. Nevertheless, he never ceased to occupy himself with plans for its benefit, and sought the counsel of every one whom he deemed best able to instruct him in the duties of government. One of the friends whose advice he most highly esteemed was Bartholomew of the Martyrs; another was one whose name, if less famous than that of the great Archbishop of Braga, has a peculiar interest to the English reader—it was the good priest, Nicholas Ormanetti. This saintly ecclesiastic had acted as Vicar-General to Matthew Ghiberti, and assisted in the reforms which that zealous prelate had instituted in his diocese. He had afterwards been appointed first Datary under Cardinal Pole to the English Legation, and as we have seen, had been named by him visitor of the English universities. He continued to act as confidential adviser to our last Archbishop of Canterbury up to the time of his death, when he left England and attended several sessions of the Council of Trent.[372] After this he retired to a humble country parish in the diocese of Verona, where he busied himself with his parochial duties as quietly and happily as if he had never exercised a more weighty charge. From this obscurity he was drawn by St. Charles, who conjured Navagerio, now Bishop of Verona, to send Ormanetti to him at Rome, that he might enjoy the benefit of his counsels. He received the humble Curé with extraordinary respect, and for weeks, to the amazement of the Roman courtiers, he was closeted day after day with a man whom nobody knew, and nobody thought worth knowing, and whose exterior was altogether poor and unpretending. In these long conferences every point of pastoral discipline was gravely and deliberately discussed, and the whole plan of the future government of Milan moulded, as it were, into shape. St. Charles listened eagerly to the account which Ormanetti gave of the views and methods of government which had been adopted by the two men whose example and maxims he most venerated, Ghiberti and Reginald Pole. They consulted together on the fittest method of executing the Tridentine decrees, and specially on the formation of seminaries, and the holding of diocesan synods. And these measures being thus concerted, Ormanetti was despatched to Milan to discharge the office of Vicar-General until St. Charles should himself be able to assume the government of his diocese. Poor Ormanetti, however, found his new dignity beset with thorns, and the contradictions he had to endure from the clergy who would not endure the name of reform, moved St. Charles to make such renewed entreaties that he might repair himself to his diocese, that he at last obtained from the Pope the desired permission, and set out for Milan in 1565, where he almost immediately held his first Provincial Synod. He commenced the visitation of his diocese in the following year, and in spite of the overwhelming labour which was thus imposed on him, found time to begin a series of educational establishments such as never before, we may confidently affirm, owed their existence to any single founder. “Reform education,” said the sagacious Leibnitz, “and you will have reformed the world.” And it was on this principle that St. Charles applied himself to the task of reforming, not the world indeed, but a vast province, in which doctrine and discipline had alike fallen into decay. To begin with his foundations for seculars, which were very numerous, the Borromeo College, dedicated to St. Justina, of which mention has been already made, had been planned by him while a student at Pavia, where his own observation of the disorders prevalent there moved him to make larger provision for the protection of his fellow-students. In 1572 he founded at Milan the College of St. Fidelis, in which Humane Literature and all the higher branches of study were taught, and which was more particularly intended for the benefit of poor scholars. A second college was in the following year attached to the church of St. John the Evangelist, for the education of noble youths. It was under the care of the Oblates of St. Ambrose, and was commonly known as the College of Nobles. St. Charles himself drew up the rules both for the masters and scholars. He marked the time to be assigned to prayer, reading, and study, and established such a discipline as was calculated to form a character of solid piety in the most influential classes of the laity. Next to virtue and learning he desired to see his noble scholars trained in habits of Christian courtesy, and was accustomed to insist much on the importance of good manners. He often visited the school in person, examined the boys at their tasks, and addressed them some brief religious instructions. Every year, at the close of the studies, he attended their public literary exercises, and distributed prizes with his own hand; and so solicitous was he to perfect this establishment, that he engaged Cardinal Sylvius Antonianus, his former secretary and a man of rare learning, to write a work on the education of the higher classes, for the guidance of those who taught in his College of Nobles. Besides these colleges, he founded others at Arona, Lucerne, and Fribourg, as well as the admirable Swiss college established at Milan, for the education of young Swiss ecclesiastics, which became afterwards the great means of upholding religion in the Catholic cantons.

For the clergy of his own province he founded no fewer than six seminaries—three in his cathedral city, and three in other parts of the diocese. It must be remembered that the giant evil with which St. Charles had to struggle was a slothful and corrupt clergy: the salt had lost its savour, and had to be salted anew. The whole face of the diocese had to be changed; and such a change demanded a body of skilful workmen. To create these was his first care, and with the sagacity of a mind illuminated with something higher than mere human prudence, he perceived at once that an undertaking so vast as the creation of a new body of clergy, and the reform of the old one, could only be grasped by division. He had to classify his work in order to master it, and in this lay the secret of his success.

His first and principal seminary was attached to his cathedral church, and was intended to receive 150 of the most promising candidates for the ecclesiastical state. In this greater seminary dedicated to St. John the Baptist, the students went through a regular course of philosophy, theology, and canon law.[373] But the second seminary, called the Canonica, which was intended for youths of less ability, who from their good dispositions, nevertheless promised to make useful parish priests, nothing more was required than a course of instruction on moral theology, Scripture, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, and the rubrics and ceremonies of the Church. A third seminary in the city was set apart to receive such priests as, either from ignorance or negligence, were found unfit to discharge their sacred duties, and were placed here for a time to renew their ecclesiastical spirit, and acquire the learning necessary for their state. These city seminaries received altogether about 300 students—a number quite inadequate to supply the wants of the diocese. Three others were, therefore, added in the different deaneries, and these were intended as nurseries to those at Milan. In them were received youths of all ages and ranks of society, principally those of the poorer classes, who, when properly prepared, were passed on into the higher schools, all being dependent on the great seminary of St. John the Baptist as their head.

At first the archbishop supported these establishments at his private charge, but he was at length obliged to have recourse to the plan of taxation laid down by the Council of Trent, though this was only continued until a permanent endowment had been secured. The rules for their government he drew up himself, placing the care of their temporal affairs in the hands of four of his clergy, chosen by himself.