With all this it must be confessed that, as far as human knowledge is concerned, the Catholics of the United States are as a body behind their non-Catholic fellow-citizens. We acknowledge this inferiority, and can satisfactorily account for it. Under the peculiar difficulties of our position it became a matter of primary necessity that our co-religionists should first have churches wherein to worship God, asylums and hospitals to shelter and succor the weak and afflicted, and free schools for the training of the children of the poor, whose faith and morals were endangered by the plan of instruction pursued in the schools of the state. But now that all these wants have been supplied as far as practicable, and that we may safely confide to posterity the task of completing the work already so far advanced, our next duty plainly is to provide for the generation growing up around us facilities for a higher and more thorough system of education than has yet been attempted in our colleges and academies, equal in all respects, if not superior,
to that so liberally afforded by the sectarian and secular seats of learning which so plentifully besprinkle the land.
Remembering what has been already wrought by the zeal and unswerving perseverance of the Catholic body in other directions in the past, we should look forward with undiminished courage and confidence to the future. If with a disorganized, unsettled people like ours, generally poor in the world’s goods, and with never-ending personal demands on their limited resources, we have been able to build and maintain so many churches, institutions, convents, and schools in so short a time, what may not be expected from the same class, now that they are regularly domiciled, and a portion, at least, of the wealth that ever rewards industry and application is fast becoming theirs?
What is wanted in the first instance, in order to give tone and direction to the young Catholic mind, is a Catholic national university, one on a scale comprehensive enough to include the study of all branches of secular knowledge—law, physics, medicine, languages, art, science, literature, and political economy. Such an institution, properly founded and conducted, would find no lack of public patronage. We are satisfied that American parents, whether the descendants of the old Catholic settlers or those who have embraced the faith in later years, instead of sending their sons to Yale or Harvard, to France or Germany, would much prefer to have them educated at home in a university where their religion would be neither a scoff nor an obstacle in the way of their preferment, and where they would grow up American citizens, in fact as well as in name. The German element,
also, which constitutes so large a portion of the Catholics of the West, would find in it an adequate substitute for those celebrated homes of learning they left behind in Fatherland, and, under its fostering care, would continue to develop that spirit of profound thought and critical investigation so characteristic of the Teutonic genius.
But the Irish and their descendants, who will long continue to form the majority of the Catholic population of this republic, would derive most benefit from such an establishment. That subtle Celtic intellect, so acute yet so versatile; fully capable of grappling with the most difficult problems of human existence and social responsibility, yet so replete with poetry, romance, and enthusiasm; so long repressed, yet never dimmed, would, we feel assured, spring into life and activity beyond the conception of most men, were such an opportunity presented. In the three centuries following the conversion of the Irish their schools were unsurpassed throughout Christendom in extent, numbers, and attendance. The whole island, in fact, seemed to be turned into one vast reservoir of learning, from which flowed perennial streams of Christian knowledge over the then sterile wastes of semi-civilized Europe. The number of missionaries and teachers which Ireland produced in that most brilliant epoch of her history is almost incredible, and her zeal and energy in the dissemination of Catholic doctrine, even in the most remote parts of the Continent, became proverbial.
Civil wars, long, bloody, and desolating, destroyed her institutions and scattered her libraries, while penal laws of preternatural ingenuity and cruelty completed the work of desolation
by denying her even the commonest rudiments of instruction. But as she kept the faith pure and undefiled throughout the long night of slavery, so she has preserved the moral tone and vigor of thought which ever follow a strict observance of the divine code. One generation alone, removed from the barriers and devices of the oppressor, has been enough to show that, in mind as well as in body, the Irish race is at least the equal of even the most favored nations of the globe. In the strength of pure religious conviction lies the greatness of a people.
Perhaps now is the most fitting time for the beginning of a work such as we have endeavored briefly to intimate. From all appearances the flood of immigration which, for twenty or thirty years, has flowed so steadily yet strongly, is fast receding into its former narrow channels. We shall have still, we trust, many foreign Catholics coming among us each year to help to develop the resources of our immense country, and to find peace and freedom under our Constitution; but we need not expect, during this century at least, such an influx as was precipitated upon us by the dreadful Irish famine. The Catholic population henceforth will present a more stable and homogeneous character, and will have more leisure to devote a portion of its wealth and energy to purposes other than erecting buildings and providing for the necessities of homeless and churchless millions. Churches and charitable institutions will, of course, continue to be built to meet the wants of our ever-increasing numbers, but their augmentation, being the result of a normal growth, will be more gradual and natural. We will, in other words, have more time to devote
to education and the cultivation of the refinements and accomplishments of life, without in any wise neglecting the primary duties of Christians.