“All colleges, athenaeums, or Latin schools, named in Art. 1, which at the date of this decree have not been approved as such by former decrees, shall be closed at the end of the month of September, 1825, unless sanctioned before that time”.
By the second royal decree a “Philosophical College” was established in Louvain for aspirants to the priesthood.
“Whereas some of the heads of the clergy have represented to us that the preparatory education given to young men intended for the ecclesiastical state is insufficient, and whereas we are desirous of providing means to form able ecclesiastics for the Roman Catholic Church.
“Art. 1. An establishment for the preparatory education of young Roman Catholics aspiring to the ecclesiastical state, shall be provisorily erected at one of the universities in the northern provinces of the kingdom. This establishment, under the title of ‘Philosophical College’, shall be installed in a suitable building…. The students shall be received therein, with permission to wear the ecclesiastical habit.
“Art. 14, After the space of two years, to be counted from the opening of the ‘Philosophical College’, no philosophical lectures shall be given in the episcopal seminaries…. After the same time no student shall be admitted into the seminaries who shall not have duly completed his course of studies in the ‘Philosophical College’. Each student of the same college must spend therein two years at least”.
Thus did the Protestant King of the Netherlands think he had secured the undisputed control of the education, ecclesiastical and lay, of his Belgian subjects; but a very short time sufficed to convince him of his mistake. In vain was the short delay of two years allowed by these decrees of June 14th, refused by a subsequent enactment of the 11th July, which strictly forbade any student to be received from that day forward into any episcopal seminary in Belgium, unless he had completed his preparatory studies in the Philosophical College. In vain, by another decree of the 14th of August following, the youth of Belgium were forbidden to seek abroad the free Catholic education denied to them at home, and unless educated in one of the state institutions, declared incapable of holding any public
office in the gift of the government, or exercising any ecclesiastical function within the kingdom. In vain, by a decree of the 20th November, were the superiors of the diocesan seminaries ordered to dismiss forthwith all youths received since the previous 11th of July; and the young men themselves also commanded to withdraw. On the other hand, in vain was all the influence of the government used to induce the bishops to approve, or at least tolerate, the new system. In vain was it sought to convince the Common Father of the Faithful that the Philosophical College was unexceptionable, by sending to His Holiness’ own seminary in Rome some youths of exemplary life, who might, by their good conduct, belie the condemnation pronounced against the institution where they had made their early studies. The episcopacy of Belgium continued firm in its opposition, and the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Leo XII., directed his internuncio at the Hague to explain that it was impossible for the head of the Catholic Church to assent to measures destructive to the liberties of Catholics, or even to abstain from condemning them and protesting against them. The Belgian youths would not go to the Philosophical College; the few who went would not be admitted to Holy Orders by the bishops; and four years passed slowly along in passive opposition to the inroads of the government on Catholic education.
At last, on the 20th of June, 1829, the Dutch Government had to acknowledge itself vanquished. A decree was published abrogating so much of the legislation of 1825 as rendered attendance at the Philosophical College obligatory.
But along with this concession, and perhaps as it were to neutralize it, came new attacks in other ways on the liberties of Catholic Belgium. The royal message to the States-General at the beginning of 1830, recommended measures tending to a further unification of Belgium with Holland. Event followed event, and before the end of August a revolution broke out, and five of the best men in Belgium were installed at Brussels as a provisional government, under the presidency of the Baron de Gerlache, now head of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and president also of the recent Catholic congresses at Mechlin.
When the revolution broke out in 1830, the wisest members of the clergy said, as Father de Buck tells us, “Fieri non debuit, sed factum valet”, and the whole of the priesthood made common cause with the people. But, although the great masses of the country people remained faithful to Catholic principles, and although the nobility was returning to the practices of religion; although the persecution of the clergy by the Dutch Government had aroused the spirit of the nation, and several even of the infidel party began to lay aside their prejudices, and to express