The decrees of the Councils of Baltimore are of the same tenor, as is likewise the official action of the bishops of England.
Pius IX., in his Syllabus of Dec. 8, 1864, condemned the proposition (No. 48):
“Catholics may approve that mode of education of youth which is disjoined from the Catholic faith and the power of the church, and which concerns itself exclusively, or at least primarily, with the knowledge of natural things and the ends of earthly social life.”
In accordance with this decree, the Holy See has repeatedly sent instructions to the Irish and English bishops, directing them to oppose mixed education, and has prohibited ecclesiastics from holding any office in the Queen’s colleges of Ireland. We are warranted, therefore in reiterating the declaration made by F. O’Reilly, of whom the Dublin Review says, “hardly a theologian can be named in these islands whose name carries with it so much weight”—that the view which Catholics do take or ought to take of mixed schools is, that they are “objectionable, dangerous, ineligible.”[110] In fact, nearly all the Catholics of rank and wealth in England, the Duke of Norfolk included, have foregone the advantages of the universities in obedience to this teaching. The same is true in Ireland, and F. O’Reilly says that “the Catholics of Ireland as a body (including the upper and middle classes) repudiate and condemn mixed education as at variance with their religious principles, views, and opinions.”
We cannot carry out any further, at present, the topic we have here briefly introduced, but must confine our remarks to the duty which is devolved on the wealthy Catholics of the United States by these decisions of the rulers of the church, which, we take for granted, they most cordially desire to have fully carried out in practice. We said just now that they must bestir themselves in the work of Catholic education. This applies to education in all its various degrees, but we wish to speak more especially of colleges for the higher grades of instruction. It is not enough for the opulent parents whose sons are sent to college, to send them to a Catholic college and pay a high price for their instruction. There is a great difficulty in the way of maintaining and improving our colleges which cannot be met in this manner. If our colleges are to rely on a revenue derived from the pupils, the tuition fees must be placed so high that all but the sons of the wealthy are practically excluded from them. Officers of the army and navy, lawyers, physicians, and others in similar positions, are frequently embarrassed by the inadequacy of their incomes to meet the expenses of a mode of life suited to their social rank. The great cost of education makes it very nearly impossible for them to send even one boy, much more several, to the schools and colleges which are the most eligible. Besides, there are many other parents in still more moderate circumstances, who have sons desiring, and fitted for profiting by, the best education. The sons of the rich are not ordinarily the most eager and diligent students, and, if a college is exclusively or chiefly composed of youths of this class, they themselves will degenerate into the most superficial scholarship, and the college will fail of accomplishing the chief part of the end for which it is established. Education ought to be made cheap and accessible to boys and youths of all classes. This cannot be done without large endowments and revenues. If the task of earning the money necessary for the vast outlay which must be made, is left on the shoulders of the clergy and religious orders, they must necessarily demand a very high price for their instruction, and thus become the teachers of the sons of the rich almost exclusively. It follows from this, by strict logical sequence, that the laity must bestir themselves to active efforts, and take the burden off the shoulders of the clergy. It is unjust that a body of men who have sacrificed their lives to the good of the laity, and who give them the fruit of their talents, their learning, and their labors, for no compensation beyond their modest and single livelihood, should be forced to furnish or to beg the means of buying the grounds, erecting the buildings, and carrying on the operations of colleges and schools for the convenience of the rich and leisured classes; and paying, besides, the expenses of those youths who are without resources, that they may fill their own places when they are worn out by work. It is the interest of the laity to provide education for their children, and to provide for filling up the ranks of the priesthood. The opulent and influential laity are therefore bound to take an active part in the work. And, as things are at present, we see no way of doing this after an organized method, except by associations like that of the “Catholic Union” of New York. We trust that this respectable body will take up this matter in earnest, and we urge upon all those who care for their posterity, their country, and their religion, to co-operate generously and zealously with it in whatever enterprises it may undertake, which will certainly be under the highest ecclesiastical sanction, and managed by men of the greatest ability and worth.
The topics so briefly discussed in the series of short articles which we now bring to a close require, as we have already remarked, volumes and not pages. We are glad to see that one volume, written with the ability for which its author has already become renowned, has already been published, which handles some of these topics and others kindred to them. We allude to the Sermons of F. Harper, already briefly noticed in this magazine, and now strongly recommended once more to all who have read our remarks on “The Duties of the Rich” with interest. We trust that other writers will follow F. Harper’s example, and that some of the valuable books on the same class of subjects which exist in other languages will be translated. It is not, however, by books and essays alone that the minds and hearts of Catholics of the educated and leisured classes in society can be sufficiently imbued with Catholic principles and the Catholic spirit. It is by the living and divinely commissioned teaching of the preachers of the Word of God, in their parochial instructions, in the addresses which they have the opportunity of making on extraordinary occasions, and in the sermons and conferences of general missions and special retreats, that the higher as well as the humbler members of the fold are most efficaciously taught. Pius IX. has given the example and the model of the preaching most necessary and useful for our times to all who bear his commission, thus fulfilling in a most extraordinary way the divine commandment to St. Peter—Pasce oves meas, pasce agnos meos. By his personal teaching he has formed the élite of the Catholic laity of Europe on the model of their glorious ancestors of the ages of faith, and not a few of our own countrymen have gone to drink the pure water of life at the same fountain-head. Imbibed at the fountain-head or at the rill, it is the only water that can give health to nations or individuals. We can scarcely hope that F. Burke’s fine apostrophe,[111] “Be it thine, O Columbia! to place again the golden circlet of his temporal royalty on the brow of the Vicar of Christ!” will be literally fulfilled. But we trust that the spirit of it will not lack that accomplishment which will prove that the eloquent son of St. Dominic has a sparkle of the prophetic gift. It requires no inspiration, but only ordinary foresight, to see the prospect of a rapid and almost measureless increase of wealth, and of all that belongs to the splendor of a nation, in the next half century of the United States. The Catholic Church will largely share in it. And may those who enjoy this prosperity be as true and loyal to the church and to God as their humble and persecuted ancestors!
FAITH THE LIFE OF ART.
FROM AN ADDRESS BY CESARE CANTU BEFORE “THE ARCADIA.”
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN.
There is in man the memory of a perfection with which he was sent forth from the hands of his Creator; and, sick of the tameness, coarseness, and unseemliness which surround him, he feels a craving to fashion himself after a picture of his imagination conformable to the idea he possesses of the beautiful—a type which combines the first and last excellence of being; which it is his to enjoy, since he has a conception of it, and to which he ought to be able to arrive, since he aspires towards it. Thus from remembrance and the feeling of a hereafter is born poetry; is born art: the realization of the ideal under sensible forms, wherein intellectual beauty takes precedence over the physical beauty of nature. Both speak a language which lifts us up to the absolute beauty—God; of whom creation is an image and symbol. And, moreover, religion discloses an ideal world which is not contained under external phenomena.
Man in his fallen state built a wretched hut or scooped out a cave, wherein to shelter his wife and little ones; but, when he wished to give worship to the Deity, he erected an altar and decked it with festoons: he roofed it in, and strengthened it with beams, which he hastened to adorn, forming cupola, shaft, and capital. History bears witness that the fine arts were born in the temple, not in the hut of Vitruvius; that they owe their origin to the aspiration of a faith, not to the mere fulfilment of a want.