Catholic Problems in Western Canada

by George Thomas Daly

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.