Means and Ends of Education

by John Lancaster Spalding

It is far from my thought, it is needless to say, that mental cultivation can be made to take the place or do the work of religion, even in the case of the very few for whom the best discipline of mind is possible. My aim is simply to show that the type of character which it tends to create is not necessarily at variance with religious principle and life, as is, for instance, that of the mere worldling; but that it conspires with Christian faith to produce, if not the same, at least similar virtues, though its ethical influence is comparatively superficial, and the moral qualities which it produces lack consistency and the power to withstand the fire of the passions. It is enough for my purpose to point out that if intellectualism is often the foe of religious truth, there is no good reason why it should not also be its ally.

No excellence, as I conceive, of whatever kind, is rejected by Catholic teaching, and the perfection of the mind is not less divine than the perfection of the heart. It is good to know, as it is good to hope, to believe, to love. A cultivated intellect, an open mind, a rich imagination, with correctness of thought, flexibility of view, and eloquent expression, are among the noblest endowments of man; and though they should serve no other purpose than to embellish life, to make it fairer and freer, they would nevertheless be possessions without price, for the most nobly useful things are those which make life good and beautiful. Like virtue they are their own reward, and like mercy they bear a double blessing. It is the fashion with many to affect contempt for men of superior culture, because they look upon education as simply a means to tangible ends, and think knowledge valuable only when it can be made to serve practical purposes. This is a narrow and a false view; for all men need the noble and the beautiful, and he who lives without an ideal is hardly a man. Our material wants are not the most real for being the most sensible and pressing, and they who create or preserve for us models of spiritual and intellectual excellence are our greatest benefactors. Which were the greater loss for England, to be without Wellington and Nelson, or to be without Shakspeare and Milton? Whatever the answer be, in the one case England would suffer, in the other the whole world would feel the loss. Though a thoroughly trained intellect is less worthy of admiration than a noble character, its power is immeasurably greater; for, example can influence but a few and for a short time, but when a truth or a sentiment has once found its best expression, it becomes a part of literature, and like a proverb is current forevermore; and so the kings of thought become immortal rulers, and without their help the godlike deeds of saints and heroes would be buried in oblivion. "Words pass," said Napoleon, "but deeds remain." The man of action exaggerates the worth of action, but the philosopher knows that to act is easy, to think, difficult; and that great deeds spring from great thoughts. There are words that never grow silent, there are words that have changed the face of the earth, and the warrior's wreath of victory is entwined by the Muse's hand. The power of Athens is gone, her temples are in ruins, the Acropolis is discrowned, and from Mars' Hill no voice thunders now; but the words of Socrates, the great deliverer of the mind, and the father of intellectual culture, still breathe in the thoughts of every cultivated man on earth. The glory of Jerusalem has departed, the broken stones of Solomon's Temple lie hard by the graves that line the brook of Kedron, and from the minaret of Mount Sion the misbeliever's melancholy call sounds like a wail over a lost world; but the songs of David still rise from the whole earth in heavenly concert, upbearing to the throne of God the faith and hope and love of countless millions. And is not the Blessed Saviour the Eternal Word? And is not the Bible God's word? And is not the Gospel the Word, which, like an electric thrill, runs to the ends of the world? "Currit verbum," says St. Paul. "Man lives not on bread alone, but on every word that cometh forth from the mouth of God." Nay, there is life in all the true and noble thoughts that have blossomed in the mind of genius and filled the earth with fragrance and with fruit.

Shall I be told that the intellectual cultivation and discipline, which gives to man control of his knowledge, the perfect use of his faculties, justness of perception with ease and grace of expression, cannot bring serviceable advocacy or defence to the cause of divine truth? What does truth need but to be known? And since to reach the mind and heart of man it must be clothed in words, what is so necessary to it as the garb and vesture, the form and color, the warmth and life, which shall so mark it that to be loved it needs but be seen? And who shall so clothe it, if not he who has the freest, the most flexible, the clearest, the best disciplined mind? In the apostolic age, when the manifestations of miraculous power accompanied the announcement of Christian doctrine, the lack of the persuasive words of human eloquence was not felt. Let him who can drink poison and touch scorpions, and not suffer harm, despise the aid of learning; but for us, who are not so assisted, no cultivation of mind or preparation of heart can be too great; and to appear in the garb of a savage were less unseemly than to speak the holiest and the highest truths in the barbarous tongue of ignorance.

Our way here cannot be doubtful. Either we must hold with certain peculiar heretics that learning is a hindrance to the efficacious teaching of religious truth, or, denying this, we must hold, since mental culture is serviceable, that the best is most serviceable.

May we not take this for a principle,—to believe that God does everything, and then to act as though He left everything for us to do? Or this: Since grace supposes nature, the growth and strength of the Church is not wholly independent of the natural endowments of her ministers?

As a matter of fact we Catholics are constantly speaking and acting upon principles of this kind. We maintain that without a proper education our children must lose the faith; and that without careful moral and mental training no man is likely to become a good priest; and all that I further insist upon is that if he is to do the best work, he must have the best intellectual discipline. In an intellectual age, at least, he cannot be the worthy minister of worship, unless he is also the accomplished teacher of truth. In vain shall we clothe him in rich symbolic vestments, place him in majestic temples, before marble altars, in the midst of solemn music, in the dim sober-tinted light, with the great and noble looking out upon him, as from a spirit world,—in vain shall all this be, if when he himself speaks, his words are felt to be but the echo of a coarse and empty mind. And hence our enemies would gladly leave us the poetry of our worship, would even enter our churches to be comforted, to be soothed, to seek the elevation and enlargement of thought and sentiment which comes upon us in the presence of what is vast, mysterious, and sublime, if we would but confess that it is only poetry, good and beautiful only as art is good and beautiful. The spirit of the time, in fact, it seems to me, is more and more disposed to grant us everything except the possession of intellectual truth. That the Catholic Church is a marvellous power; that her triumphs have been so enduring and so unexpected that only the foolish or the ignorant will predict her downfall; that she overcame paganism; that she saved Christianity when Rome fell; that she restrained the ferocity of the barbarians, protected the weak, encouraged labor, preserved the classics, maintained the unity and sanctity of marriage, defended the purity and dignity of woman, espoused the cause of the oppressed, and in a lawless and ignorant age proclaimed the supremacy of right and the worth of learning; that to these signal services must be added her power to give ease and pleasantness to the social relations of men, keeping them equally remote from Puritan severity and pagan license; her eye for beauty and grace, which has made her the foster-mother of all the arts; her love of the excellent and the noble, which has enabled her to create types of character that are immortal; her practical wisdom, giving her the secret of dealing with every phase of life, so that her saints are doctors, apostles, mystics, philanthropists, artists, poets, kings, beggars, warriors, peasants, barbarians, philosophers,—all this, if I mistake not, unbelievers even are more and more willing to concede. Nor are they slow to express their admiration of the strength and majesty of this single power amid the Christian nations, which reaches back to the great civilizations that have perished, which has preserved its organic unity intact amid the social revolutions of two thousand years, and which is acknowledged still to be the greatest moral force in the world. But, underlying all they say and think, is the assumption that the foundations of this noble structure are crumbling; that the world of faith and thought in which it was upbuilt is become a desert where no flower blooms, no living soul is found; that the temple is beautiful only as a ruin is beautiful, where owls hoot and bats flit to and fro. "There is not a creed, we are told, which is not shaken, nor an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable; not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve."

The conquests of the human mind in the realms of nature have produced a world-wide ferment of thought, an intellectual activity which is without a parallel. They have increased the power of man to an almost incredible degree, have given him control of the earth and the seas, have placed within his grasp undreamed-of forces, have opened to his view unsuspected mysteries; they have placed him on a new earth and under new heavens, and thrown a light never seen before upon the history of his race. As a part of this vast development new questions have risen, new theories have been broached, new doubts have suggested themselves; and because we have changed, all else seems to have changed also. And since, underlying all questions, there is found a question of religion, the discussion of religious and philosophic problems has, in our day, become a social necessity, and the science of criticism, together with the physical sciences, has driven the disputants upon new and difficult ground, where the battle must be fought, and where retreat is not possible.

As well imagine that society will again take on the form of feudalism, as that the human mind will return to the point of view from which our ancestors looked on nature.

And this world-view shapes and colors all our thinking, in theology as in other sciences, so that truths which were latent have come to light, and principles which have long been held find new and wider application.

Never has the defence of religion required so many and such excellent qualities of intellect as in the present day. The early apologists who contrasted the sublimity and purity of Christian faith with a corrupt paganism had not a difficult task. In the Middle Age the intellect of the world was on the side of Christ. The controversy which sprang up with the advent of Protestantism was biblical and historical, and its criticism was superficial. The anti-Christian schools of thought of the eighteenth century were literary rather than philosophical, and the objections they urged were founded chiefly upon political and social considerations. In all these discussions the territory in dispute was well defined and relatively small. But into what a different world are not we thrown! These earlier explorers sailed upon rivers whose banks were lined by firm-set rocky cliffs, by the overshadowing boughs of primeval forests, with here and there pleasant slopes of green where they might lie at rest amid the fragrance of wild flowers; but from our Peter's bark we look out upon the dark unfathomed seas towards an unknown world whose margin ever fades and recedes as we seem to draw near the haven of our desire.