“God, the knowledge of whom you have imparted to us so well, to whom your life of merit, hidden to men’s eyes, is manifest for your recompense.
“And OUR COUNTRY, which in the persons of these numbers of youths whom you have educated for her, and filled with your spirit, will ever bear upon her the impress of the works you have achieved, and veneration for your memory”.
We are told, that in his government of the students, he knew how to follow the via media between severity and too great indulgence. He was sometimes blamed for excess in the latter direction; but those who make this accusation seem to forget that he had to do with the direction, not of an ecclesiastical seminary, nor even of a school or college, but of an university, where young men were to be prepared, not for the service of the sanctuary, but for the busy scenes of life, and where opening manhood, freed from the restraints of boyhood, was to be gently led rather than forced, to love the beautiful paths of wisdom on account of their beauty, and to walk steadily in them, because of the goal to which they lead. If he did not hinder everything that is evil, he is not to be blamed; for no legislator can ever aim at this; and we are told by the Incarnate Wisdom Himself, that the cockle must at times be permitted to grow with the wheat, lest in plucking it up, the good grain should be injured. But that his work produced blessed fruits, and that those fruits are likely to remain, is evident to every one who compares the state of religious education among Belgian Catholics when it was founded, with its state at present. He did everything in his power to preserve and strengthen the spirit and practice of religion among the students. He established a regular course of religious instruction, at which all the students of philosophy are obliged to assist, and to which the other students are invited; twice each year he brought the most distinguished preachers to Louvain to deliver religious conferences, which might serve as a preparation for the Paschal communion; he assisted in establishing in the University branches, or conferences of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and to the utmost of his power encouraged the Sodality or Congregation of the Blessed Virgin, which was founded by the Jesuit Fathers in the chapel of their residence, and numbers over two hundred members, all lay students of the Catholic University.
What have been the results? At the beginning of this article we saw the deplorable state of educated Catholics in Belgium in 1830, with respect to Catholic feelings and principles. At that time the number of Catholic barristers and physicians who practised their religion was extremely small. Now, in Brussels, Liege, and Ghent, the greater part of the young bar, if not of the whole bar practising in the chief courts of law, which are situated in these three cities, are thoroughly devoted to the Catholic Church. Without doubt, several of these young lawyers did not study in Louvain; they owe the preservation of their faith to the good education received in the bosom of their families, in the Jesuit Colleges, and in other Catholic institutions; but a large number has studied in the Catholic University, and all of
them must be greatly confirmed in their religious feelings and principles, and must derive new strength and courage to declare them openly, from the public spirit redolent of Catholicity which proceeds from Louvain. We are told that one of the most interesting features of the great Catholic Congress of Malines in 1863, was the presence of eight hundred students of the University of Louvain, youths as distinguished for learning as for the truly Catholic spirit by which they were animated on that most interesting occasion. We are also told, that in all the great cities, and some of the smaller towns of Belgium, literary societies are springing up, which publicly proclaim the Catholic principles on which they are founded; and that the class in Belgium most devoted to the interests of religion, is precisely the educated Catholic youth of the country. What wonder, then, that the immense influence for good exercised by the University of Louvain, under the presidency of its distinguished rector, should be acknowledged in Belgium by enemies as well as friends, and that on more occasions than one the Holy See itself should have exhorted the bishops of other countries, as well as of Ireland, to imitate their brethren of Belgium by founding a Catholic University like that of Louvain!
While labouring to make the youth of the University good Christians, Mgr. de Ram laboured also with indefatigable zeal to make them learned men and good citizens. Faith, Learning, Liberty, were the words which he loved to unite in his discourses. Every one knows the results of his inculcating those principles without ceasing on the young Belgians entrusted to him by his Catholic country, which had just recovered its liberty from Protestant Holland; and the numerous and high distinctions won by the students of Louvain, in the public examinations to which the whole youth of Belgium is admissible, attest the excellence of the literary and scientific teaching of the University, while the elevated positions now occupied by many of its ancient alumni prove beyond gainsaying, that its educational fruits remain, and will be an abundant source of intellectual, social, and political blessings to Belgium.
Such is the institution which has just lost its first rector, we may say its founder. Such the work which Mgr. de Ram directed with consummate wisdom for thirty-one years. Such the Catholic University of which Belgium, nay Christendom, may well be proud. It is a great lesson to us all to see that even in these days of mere material progress, without faith, without Christian love—when men would fain persuade us that learning, to be a blessing, need not be referred to God or religion—when the apostle’s words: “Scientia inflat, charitas vero aedificat”, are held to be not over true. An University founded and
governed by a Catholic episcopacy, by the aid of their Catholic people only, established on purely Catholic principles, without any of those helps which men of the world value most, already in its infancy rivals the great seats of learning of the middle ages. And all this is due in a great measure to one man, who at thirty years of age was called by the Belgian Episcopacy to rule over it, and who, with untiring energy, consummate wisdom, and gentle perseverance, moulded every part into perfect symmetry, so that schismatical Russia came to study the model, and the Holy See could say to Ireland, as well as to any other country wishing for a Catholic University: “Inspice, et fac secundum exemplar”. With no more fitting words can we conclude this brief notice, than with those spoken by the Vice-Rector of the University at his funeral: “The Catholic University of Louvain was indebted to God and to the bishops of Belgium for her Rector: to her Rector she owes everything else”.[18]