The university should also be the seat of the principal Grand Seminary, and of a school of Higher Theology. The reasons for locating the place of education for ecclesiastics at a university apply to all the grades of their distinct schools above that of the grammar-school with nearly equal force, and they are very weighty in their nature. They concern in part the professors and in part the students. So far as the former are concerned, it is evident that they would derive the greatest advantage from the facilities for study and intercourse with learned men afforded by the university, and would exercise the most salutary influence over the professors in the departments of philosophy and secular science. One great end of the university is to collect together a great body of learned men devoted to the pursuit of universal science; and it is obvious that this cannot be successfully accomplished unless the ecclesiastical colleges are included within the corporation.
In regard to the students, it seems plain enough that all that part of their course which precedes theology can be much more thoroughly carried on at a university of the highest class than at a Little Seminary, especially if these seminaries are numerous and therefore necessarily limited in numbers and all kinds of means for improvement. A concentration of the endowments, the instructors, and the pupils in one grand institution, makes it possible to give a much better and higher kind of education, and saves a great deal of labor besides. It is especially, however, in relation to the lectures on physical science, and the cultivation of other general branches distinct from the routine of class recitations, that the university has the advantage over the seminary. The students of theology, moreover, can receive great benefit from lectures of this kind, and from the libraries, museums, cabinets, etc., which a great university will possess, as well as from the greater ability and learning which men chosen to fill the chairs of sacred science in such an institution are likely to have, in comparison with those who can be made available for giving instruction in many of the smaller seminaries. Over and above all these advantages for actually gaining a greater amount of knowledge, there is the immense advantage to be gained of bringing up together and binding into one intellectual brotherhood our most highly educated Catholic youth. There is something in the atmosphere and the surroundings of a great university which quickens and enlarges the intellectual life; brightens the faculties; trains the mind for its future career, and fits it to act in society and upon men. The alma mater is a centre of influences and associations lasting through life. The learned men residing there, and their pupils in all professions, are bound together by sacred ties, which are not only a cause of pleasure to them in future years, but of great power for good in the community. Such a university as we have described would in twenty-five years produce a body of alumni who would intellectually exert a great influence over the Catholic community throughout the United States, and make themselves respected by all classes of educated men. The clergy ought to retain the first place and a commanding influence among this body of educated Catholics. For this purpose, it seems to us that they ought to be educated with them, and look to the same university as their alma mater.
We see no reason, moreover, why the religious orders and congregations should not share and co-operate in the labors and advantages of this great enterprise. The smaller congregations find the suitable education of their postulants a difficult task. One or more colleges at a university, where these students could reside by themselves, under their own rule and superior, but receiving their instruction from the university professors, would solve this difficulty. The older and more numerous religious societies have greater facilities for educating their students, and are governed by their own old and peculiar traditions. We will not presume so far as to give them any suggestions from our modern brain in regard to matters in which they have the experience of from one to six centuries. It strikes us, however, as a very pleasing and quite mediæval idea, that our proposed grand university, which we may as well make as splendid as possible while it remains purely ideal, should have its Dominican, Jesuit, Sulpician, and Lazarist colleges. There is no reason why such colleges should not make constituent parts of the university, each one having its own laws and regulating its own internal affairs according to its own standards.
We will say nothing about the law, medical, scientific, and artistic schools which a university ought to have to make it complete.
We have only attempted to show how a university might be started on its career. Once really alive and in motion, the rest would be more easily provided for. Undoubtedly, a vast sum of money would be requisite for such an undertaking. Our wealthy Catholics would have to exercise a princely liberality, and the whole mass of the people would be obliged to contribute generously for many years in succession. We must admire the remarkable instances of princely liberality in the cause of general education recently given by Mr. Peabody, Mr. Cornell, and a considerable number of other wealthy gentlemen in the United States, whose benefactions to colleges and schools have been frequent and munificent. Let us have one-twentieth part of the money expended on education by other religious or learned societies, and we will show again what we did in former ages, when we founded Oxford, Cambridge, St. Gall, Bec, Paris, Salamanca, Fulda, Louvain, Cologne, Pavia, Padua, Bologna, and the other famous schools of the middle ages. What more important or more glorious work can be proposed to the Catholics of the United States than this? We know what our Catholic youth are, for we have spent much time in giving them both scholastic and religious instruction. What can be more ingenuous, bright, and promising than their character—more capable of being moulded and formed to everything that is virtuous and noble? They contain the material which only needs the proper formation to produce a new and better age, which we fervently hope is already beginning to dawn. As the Alcuins, Lanfrancs, and other illustrious fathers of education in former times were among the principal agents in producing epochs of new life, so those who take up their work now in our own country, and throughout Christendom, will be among the principal benefactors of the church and the human race, and deserve for themselves a most honorable crown.
Our topic in the present article has led us to present almost exclusively and in strong light the advantages to be derived from a university and from university education, in relation both to the ecclesiastical state and secular professions. To prevent mistake, we add in conclusion, that we do not desire or anticipate the suppression or merging into one institution of all our colleges and seminaries. It is scarcely possible that all the students of this vast country should be educated in one place. The necessity for other colleges and seminaries will of itself create or continue them. The university will give them an example and model to follow, will furnish those not already amply provided for from the bosom of old and learned religious orders with professors, will give those who desire it a chance to complete their studies after leaving college by residing for a time within its walls, and will reign as a queen among lesser institutions, giving tone, character, and uniformity to the scientific and literary community of Catholic scholars throughout the country. There are doubtless certain respects in which the universities of Europe must always have an advantage over any institution we can hope to found in this new country. Some, or even many, will always have a longing for a residence abroad in these ancient seats of learning, which they may and ought to gratify, when it lies in their power to do so. Above all other places, Rome must ever draw to her those who desire to drink faith, piety, and knowledge from their fountain-head. And, if a better age is really coming, not only will the Pope necessarily be secured in a more tranquil and firm possession of his temporal kingdom in all the extent which he justly claims, that he may govern the church with all the plenitude of his supremacy, but also that the wealth and prosperity of the Roman Church may give to her institutions of learning an amplitude and splendor which they have never yet attained. Planets are nevertheless necessary as well as a sun in a system, and so also are satellites. However ample and extensive the provisions made at Rome may be for educating a select portion of the clergy of all countries, they can never make it unnecessary to provide also in every country for the best and highest education of its own clergy. So far as we can see, every reason and consideration cries out imperatively for the speedy foundation of a Catholic University in the United States.
THE WARNING.
Ye nations of earth, give ear, give ear,
From Holy Writ comes the warning true,
The voice of the ancient captive seer
Through the dim-aisled centuries reaches you.