Catholic Problems in Western Canada Part 9

NOTE. 2. SCHOOL LAW OF QUEBEC PROVINCE IN THE MATTER. No. 2892.

"When immovable property of such corporations and companies is within a territory, placed under the administration of two corporations of school commissioners of different religious beliefs, established in virtue of Article 2590, the corporation which comprises the greatest number of rate-payers entered on the valuation roll, shall be bound to levy the taxes affecting such property and to divide the same proportionately to the number of children from five to sixteen years of age residing in each munic.i.p.ality."-62 V. c. 28, s. 399.

[1] This memoir was presented to the Premier of Saskatchewan at a time when this problem was widely discussed in the Press. As the legislation, then enacted, did not bring a satisfactory solution we thought that the argument as presented would be of service for a future date.

CHAPTER XI.

DREAM OR REALITY[1]

Higher Education in Western Canada-Duty of the Hour-University Training Condition of Genuine Leaders.h.i.+p-For Catholics Higher Education means Higher Catholic Education-The Concerted Action of all Catholics in Western Canada can make a Western Catholic University a Reality.

Never has the world manifested a keener and more general interest in higher education. The facilities which Governments offer to place within the reach of the ma.s.s of the people; the benefits of university education; the enormous sums left by wealthy individuals for the endowment of chairs and the foundation of scholars.h.i.+ps; the eagerness with which these offers are grasped by men of all cla.s.ses; the extraordinary success of the Overseas University in the American Army, which had a student body of 10,000-these are, without doubt, manifest signs of public opinion on the matter of higher education. The world-struggle, we all feel, has s.h.i.+fted to another battlefield, and the future in every realm of human activity rests on the mastery of ideas. In that intellectual conflict, the primary school rooms are the trenches on the first line of defence; the college and university lecture halls stand out as the strategic heights from which the heavy artillery of ideas smashes the way to victory. Hold the college and university heights to-day, and the hinterland of industry, commerce, science, art and politics will be yours to-morrow.

Catholics throughout our Dominion begin to realize that higher education is the price of leaders.h.i.+p. "Of the many points of contact between the Church and the modern world, education is the point where Catholicism has most to gain by energetic thought and action, and most to lose by an atmosphere of indifference." We are waking up from our deep lethargy and beginning to understand that we shall not have our share in the shaping of the destinies of our own Country until our leaders, particularly among the laity, impose themselves upon the nation by their number and their value. The magnificent campaign of the "Antigonish Casket" in favour of higher education and the exchange of views this point at issue brought from various correspondents, the successful drive in favour of Loyola College of Montreal, the growing influence of the Catholic student bodies in the various universities, the creation of Laval, in Montreal, as a distinct unit from Quebec; the tremendous success this newly born organization met with in its drive for $5,000,000; all these facts indicate concentration of forces in the direction of higher education. The national Catholic conscience is awakened into action. "One of the most pressing needs of the Church at the present time, is to have a well-connected body of university-trained Catholics." This statement of Father Plater, S.J., is true also for Canada and more particularly for Western Canada. And indeed, this pressing need of higher education has come home of late to our western Catholics as is evidenced by the great efforts made to establish colleges in the various Provinces. As this move is of the greatest importance for the welfare of the Church in that promising part of our country, we thought to be of some service to the Western Church in drawing the attention of Catholics to this important issue and bringing to a focus certain indefinite, hazy views on the subject.

Higher Education-Duty of the Hour for Western Catholics.

"When a reflective man of middle life walks along the embowered paths of Oxford and Cambridge or through their quadrangles whose walls have echoed to the footsteps of so many brainy men of England, he realizes what these inst.i.tutions have been and still are to Great Britain and the Empire." From the lecture halls of these seats of learning have gone, generation after generation, the men who framed and directed the course of studies of other universities, the legislators and statesmen that have shaped the destinies of the British Empire. "There is not a feature or a point in the national character which has made England great among the nations of the world, that is not strongly developed and plainly traceable in our universities. For eight hundred or a thousand years they have been intimately a.s.sociated with everything that has concerned the highest interest of the country." (W. E. Gladstone.) This example of the power of Oxford and Cambridge is so typical that one immediately grasps its meaning and appreciates its full value. On that immense background of the Empire they stand out indeed in bold relief as the embodiment of higher education, as the great portals that open on the highway of true leaders.h.i.+p. Is not the affiliation, that subtle intellectual bond which units our universities of Canada to those two great seats of learning, a permanent and living proof of this fact?

A university is the vital centre of a nation's life. Around it, by a gradual process of elimination and a natural force of gravitation, centre the master minds; from it, as from a fountain-head, flow with true leaders.h.i.+p in every branch of human society, progress, wealth and prosperity. On the force of this centripetal and centrifugal movement of a university depends its value in the community. "The increase in number and efficiency of universities," said Bishop Spalding, "is the healthy proof of the vitality and energy of a nation."

In the educational system of a country the university stands out as the apex, the culminating and crowning point of its intellectual life. For, as the college course develops the studious and acquisitive powers of the mind, the university course has in view its creative and formative powers. "Glorious to most are the days of life in a great school," says Morley, "but it is at college that aspiring talents enter into their own inheritance." "It is the function of education in the highest sense, to teach man that there are latent in him possibilities beyond what he has dreamed of, and to develop in him capacities of which without contact with the highest learning, he had never become aware." (Haldane.) We may well call the university "the brains of a nation." It equips the student with standards and tests of objective truth... . It makes him dig down to the bed-rock on which truth in its various manifestations rests... . Universities are indeed the nurseries of the higher life, the living sources from which knowledge and culture flow in abundant streams. They do the thinking for the teeming ma.s.ses who have neither the leisure nor the opportunity to think for themselves and who live on that mental atmosphere we call "public opinion." From the heights of our universities, ideas and principles gradually filter down into the lower strata of the nation. The novel, the Sunday supplement, the stage, the cinema screen-these post-graduate courses of the working man-are popularizing to-day the theories and ideals that were yesterday honoured in our secular inst.i.tutions of higher education. It may take time, perhaps centuries, for this process of intellectual filtration; but ideas, like the stream, are bound to follow the incline of the water-shed.

If the change that takes place in the mind and conscience of the individual is a slow and subtle process, what should we not expect when there is question of a nation? Yes, the process is slow but it is sure. The permeation of evolutionism into every domain of human thought is a recent and most striking ill.u.s.tration of it. This fact stands out conspicuously on the pages of history. "Lord Acton's view of history," said Shane Leslie, "was that ideas, not men or events, made the differences between one era and the next." The mind is always the storm centre of revolutions, the breeding ground of the most conflicting theories. The great storms that sweep over humanity always gather on the high summits of religion and philosophy, blackening the mental horizon; sooner or later, they break out on the lower plains of the economic social and political world, spreading everywhere revolution and destruction. The blasphemous Proudhon gave utterance to a great truth when he wrote: "It is surprising how at the bottom of every political problem we always find some theology involved." We lay stress upon this aspect of universities, for, in our mind, from a catholic view-point, it is of the greatest importance in the discussion of the present issue.

The university is not only the focus of the intellectual life of a country; by its research work, by its applied science it becomes also the very fountain head of all national progress and prosperity. The natural resources lie dormant, the soil-that perennial source of wealth, is stagnant, the export-trade of manufactured goods and agricultural products is at its lowest ebb, until touched by the magic wand of the university expert. It is he who discovers, develops and shows how to make use of with profit, the hidden wealth of the land. The research bureaus inst.i.tuted by the Government of Canada and the United States, co-operating with the various universities, are now considered as the most important factors of national prosperity. The Reclamation Service of the U.S. by irrigation, drainage and the pulling of stumps will reclaim nearly 300 million acres for colonization. To bring the economic value of a university nearer home to us, who does not know the beneficial influences of Saskatoon University on the agricultural pursuits of Saskatchewan? This relation of the university and the material prosperity of a country is so marked that the Mosely Educational Commission sent by England to the United States, most strongly emphasized that living connection and necessary correlation between the universities and the industrial and manufacturing prosperity of the United States.

A university is therefore not a mere luxury, but rather a necessary a.s.set in a nation's life. "The development of the true spirit of the University among a people is a good measure of the development of its soul, and consequently of its civilization" (Haldane). "No country," we will conclude with "Catholic" in the Antigonish Casket, "ever attained to any degree of political influence, nor have any people ever risen from a lower to a higher level of intellectual and social culture, without the light and inspiration that flow from a genuine university." This vision was before the eyes of Cecil Rhodes who founded scholars.h.i.+ps throughout the British Empire. These scholars.h.i.+ps glean every year in the wide fields of the Empire the brightest minds and throw them as a beautiful sheaf at the foot of the great English Alma Mater, Oxford. Millions and millions have been left for the same purpose to the American Universities.

The university may well then be called the Alma Mater-the nursing mother, of the leaders of a nation. From its halls "emerge those who have that power of command which is born of penetrating insight. Such a power generally carries in its train the gift of organization, and organization is one of the foundations of national strength." (Lord Haldane.) The belief that the self-made men were the real successful men is a thing of the past. A careful investigation has proved that ninety per cent of the men who stood at the head of large financial, political, philanthropic, economic, industrial and commercial inst.i.tutions of the world were graduates of universities.[2] The self-made man as a leader is the exception and has necessarily his limitations which he is the first to feel and acknowledge. Munsterberg in his book "The Americans" has a page which is very much to the point. "The most important factor of the aristocratic differentiation of America is higher Education and culture and this becomes more important every day. The social importance ascribed to a college graduate is all the time growing. It was kept back for a long time by unfortunate prejudices. Because other than intellectual forces had made the nation strong, and everywhere in the foreground of public activity there were vigorous and influential men who had not continued their education beyond the public grammar school, so the ma.s.ses instinctively believed that insight, real energy and enterprise were better developed in the school of life than in the world of books. The college student was thought a weakling, in a way, who might have fine theories, but who would never help to solve the great national problems-a sort of academic "mug-wump," but not a leader. The banking house, factory, farm, the mine, law office and the political position were thought better places for the young (American) man than the college lecture halls... . This has profoundly changed now, and changes more, with every year... . The change has taken place in regard to what is expected of the college student; distrust has vanished and people realize that the intellectual discipline which he has had until his twenty-second year in the artificial and ideal world is after all the best training, less by its subject-matter than by its methods, is the best possible preparation for practical activity... . The leading positions are almost entirely in the hands of men of academic training and the mistrust of the theorizing college spirit has given place to a situation in which university presidents and professors have much to say on all practical questions of public life, and the college graduates are the real supporters of every movement toward reform and civilization." (Munsterberg-"The Americans" 600-602.)

The true leaders in society are like the snow-capped heights of a mountain range: they are the first that the new light of a breaking dawn, of a coming period, is wont to strike with its rays, to be then reflected on the silent and sleeping valleys. The men who hold to-day the pen or draughting pencil in the university are the men who will handle the levers of the world's intricate machinery. There they grapple with the various problems of the scientifical, economic and political world and their views, later on, will gradually influence the whole mental att.i.tude of the ma.s.ses, who, in their daily life, are confronted with these same problems.

This leaders.h.i.+p of thought and action is no more the privilege of a few; in our democratic country every one can aspire to it. The days when primary education was for the ma.s.ses, secondary or college education for the middle cla.s.ses and university training for "the quality," have pa.s.sed away and gradually the benefits of higher education are being extended to all. The equality of opportunity, not that of wealth and position, is the test of true democracy. This condition has created the aristocracy of brains and character before which the aristocracy of wealth, of blood and lineage fade into insignificance.

The predominance of the "vocational feature" over the "cultural" in the scope of our modern universities, the vast "extension work" [3] carried on in the various fields, the multiplicity of "free scholars.h.i.+ps" open to the compet.i.tion of the brainy and ambitious boy, are other proofs of this democratic trait of our modern higher education.

Since higher education is the stepping stone to leaders.h.i.+p, the question most vital to Catholics in this particular and most momentous period of our history is: "What share have we in the college and university life of the country?" "The progress of the Church in any country is attributable to the indwelling Spirit which guides the Church.-Next, to the piety, zeal and education of its priesthood,-and lastly, though in no mean degree, to the devotion, activity and education of the laity. Where these three features combine, then the Church is writing the brightest pages of Her history." (Archbishop Glennon.)

I will not repeat here what "Catholic" in the Antigonish Casket, and Henry Somerville in his pamphlet, "Higher education and Catholic Leaders.h.i.+p in Canada"-have been writing on for the past year or so. With them we conclude that outside of the Province of Quebec, the Catholics of the Dominion have not the influence they should wield. Naturally there are many reasons to explain this fact. But we will say with the Editor of the North West Review, "facts cannot be ignored with impunity, the sooner they are admitted and faced with courage the more readily shall difficulties be overcome. And the necessity for an awakening to the demand for higher education is very real."

In the firing line of the world's gigantic struggle we shall never hold the strategic points to which our number gives us a right in our Canadian Democracy, unless our leaders are strong in number, and in power. Catholic leaders.h.i.+p will give us the occasion to present, explain and promote "our solution" to various problems confronting the world. During this period of universal upheaval and momentous crisis, when all the ingredients, we would say of the social and economic fabric are in a state of flux,-like bronze in fusion,-Catholic leaders should be to the front to supply the casts of Christian civilization. If in the public press, the legislative a.s.semblies, the labor meetings, public gatherings, where mind meets mind, ideal clashes with ideal, knowledge with knowledge, where facts are being examined and weighed, where ideas are thrown into the melting pot of public debate, if then and there, there is no one to stand for Catholic views in the various matters under discussion, can we be astonished that we are absolutely ignored, and our views not considered? "We believe that an att.i.tude of merely destructive criticism, of aloofness, scepticism, pessimism, is a deplorable mistake. It is not by standing aloof from the movements of our day, but by going fearlessly into them with the message of truth entrusted to our charge, shall we best fulfil our high mission towards our fellow countrymen. We must seize these opportunities in the spirit of high confidence and dauntless zeal which befits those who have the Truth, know they have the Truth, and are a.s.sured that the Truth is great and shall prevail." (Universe-June 13, 1919.)

Never has a greater opportunity challenged the Church and her leaders than at this great turning of the tide in the history of the world. Canada itself is on the threshold of the most eventful and decisive period of her national life. "The war has brought our country into the broad stream of internationalism ... and a new national consciousness is being born and is sweeping over the land." In the future, as in the past, our Dominion will remain divided by race and creed. But let us not forget that the various religious and ethnical groups will have only the influence that gives true leaders.h.i.+p. The value and the measure of higher education among Catholics will therefore give the value and the measure of their partic.i.p.ation in the remodelling of their great country.

If such is the case of Catholics throughout Canada, what would we not say of Catholics in our Western Provinces. In this reconstruction of our Dominion the prairie Provinces are without doubt to play a preponderant part. One has only to open his eyes to see the trend of our national policies, and immediately grasp the growing importance of our Western Provinces. The West is gradually pa.s.sing from the pioneer conditions and becoming conscious of its importance. With the beautiful qualities and unlimited resources of youth, it has also its dangerous shortcomings. Daring, venturous, over confident, the western mind is easily and frequently hasty and radical in its conclusions. Intoxicated with wealth and success, inspired and aroused by the great possibilities of his new home, the Westerner is ever tempted to experiment in legislation, make extreme views prevail and believe the newest is always the best. He will boast of broadmindedness, of love of freedom and at the same time will, under the deceiving tyranny of number, suppress the most sacred rights. Nowhere we claim in our Dominion, is Catholic leaders.h.i.+p and therefore higher education, more needed at the present hour than in the West. Our Catholics there need indeed higher education, for, at this hour particularly, the nation's business is our business; they cannot remain an isolated factor in presence of the tremendous issues that stare the world and our country in the face. But if we wish to make our influence as Catholics felt, let our leaders.h.i.+p come from "Higher Catholic Education" as from its fountain head.

Higher Catholic Education for Catholics in Western Canada.

There is a decided distinction between higher education for Catholics and higher Catholic education. This leads us to place before the reader the principles upon which rests the catholic ideal in matters of higher education and to suggest means of its speedy realization in Western Canada. A friendly exchange of ideas on this most important and very interesting topic will be profitable to all at this juncture, and help, we hope, to clear up hazy notions and cloudy conceptions which some may entertain on the subject.

In matters of Catholic education, the most weighty argument is that of the authority of the Church. Her views and practices, particularly on questions of education, should be the views and practices of every good Catholic. In the New Canon-Law, in the Councils and Letters of the Popes, is to be found the only authoritative direction in this momentous problem. The Church is most emphatic and most precise in its p.r.o.nouncements on the matter of higher education. The Canon 1379, paragraph 2, of the new Canon-Law, is very explicit on the subject. "If the public universities are not imbued with Catholic doctrine and surrounded with a Catholic atmosphere, it is most desirable to found in that country or region a Catholic University." The Plenary Councils of Baltimore and of Quebec (t.i.t, VI-C, VII) command in the most pressing manner the Catholic youth to frequent only Catholic universities. When circ.u.mstances necessitate attendance at non-Catholic universities, safeguards are exacted to minimize the danger. These recent dispositions of the Church's legislation reflect the stand the Church has always taken on this ground of higher education. Is She not "Mater universitatum?" Modern civilization owes its universities to the Catholic Church, as the very stones of Cambridge and Oxford still proclaim ... lapides clamabunt! And in these days of religious indifference, after heroic efforts and great sacrifices, in spite of the allurement of our wealthy state and independent inst.i.tutions, the Church counts in every country seats of higher learning, where her children may receive the benefit of university training without danger for their conscience or their faith.

This stand of the Church in primary, secondary and higher education is the logical conclusion of her doctrine. "The theory of life," said Father Little, S.J., "and the theory of education go hand in hand." As the Church has a definite teaching on life, its value and its purpose, She has necessarily fundamental principles upon which education must rest if it wishes to be in harmony with Christian life and Catholic belief. In her eyes education, in all its degrees, must be primarily and profoundly religious. "If indeed, the Catholic Faith which makes such tremendous and such confident statements about G.o.d and His ways with men, is true, then obviously it takes the central place in human knowledge, and all other knowledge groups itself round and is coloured by Faith." Therefore, the principle, "every Catholic boy and girl in a Catholic college or university" should be to us as sacred as is "every Catholic child in a Catholic school." One is the consequence of the other; both are the practical conclusions of our faith. This close connection between theories of education and the att.i.tude towards problem of life is evident in history.

The Pope, Benedict XV, in his recent letter to the American Hierarchy (March, 1919), writes: "The future of the Church and State absolutely depends on the condition and organization of the schools; there will be no other Christians than those whom you will have formed by instruction and education... . We have followed with joy," he adds, "the marvellous progress of the Catholic University at Was.h.i.+ngton, progress so closely united to the highest hopes of your churches. We have no doubt that henceforth you will continue even more actively, to support an inst.i.tution of such great usefulness and promise as is the University."

The Most Reverend Dr. O'Dwyer, Bishop of Limerick, in 1904, vindicated for the Irish people not the privilege, but the right to a Catholic University. "For us Catholics," he wrote, "the Gospel as taught by our Holy Church, is our philosophy of life and we hold that any attempt to educate a youth in what we call secularism is a retrogression to a lower level than that of pre-Christian culture. For this reason we have withstood every attempt to force secularism on this country and we shall resist it to the last. We have equally withstood mixed education, which, false as it is in itself and pernicious, is in this country a specious pretext for Protestant educational ascendancy." (University education in Ireland.)

If such is the case with Catholic Ireland, what should we not conclude as regards our Western Provinces? Here, more than anywhere else in Canada, does the Church need staunch, genuine, Catholic leaders.h.i.+p. In it the future of Catholicity beyond the Great Lakes is involved. Reason and experience prove that the training which makes for genuine Catholic influence is plainly out of question unless it be received in a college and university whose atmosphere, teachings, aspirations and ideals are thoroughly Catholic. The recent foundations of a Catholic University in Milan and in Nimeguen, Holland, justify this claim.

Conditions existing in our modern neutral universities vindicate our stand and strengthen our position. The tendency in these universities is, without doubt, towards infidelity or to say the least, towards diluted Christianity.-"The transformation from the old denominational education to the new undenominational education was in point of fact due to an ant.i.theological-and even in some of its manifestations-anti-religious movement. If it included a sense of the justice of equal treatment for all creeds and a sense of the liberty necessary for science, it also included some of the anti-Christian spirit of Continental liberalism. The undenominational movement was the practical expression of the liberal and scientific movement." (Life of Newman-L 306.)

A few years ago there appeared in the "Cosmopolitan Review," under the glaring t.i.tle "Blasting at the Rock of Ages," an article which startled the intellectual world. It was a crude and biting exposure of the intellectual license and unhealthy moral atmosphere of the great American universities. To follow the author of this powerful indictment in the proof of his facts and statements would be beyond the scope of this paper. Only we would advise some of our near-sighted Catholics who through that sn.o.bbishness which money often gives them, have a sort of wors.h.i.+p for non-Catholic universities, to read this indictment. In giving them a glance of the "inside of the cup" it may change their opinion.

Dr. James Henry Leuba, professor of psychology at the Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, gave out to the public the answers he received from sociologists, biologists, psychologists and teachers of universities and other inst.i.tutions in the United States, as regards their belief in the existence of G.o.d. More than fifty per cent. admitted that they had no belief whatever in the existence of G.o.d; forty per cent. denied the immortality of the soul. The great majority, said Dr. Leuba, were university teachers and none could compare with them in influence over the rising generation. (Cfr. Archeological Report 1917-published by Ontario Government.)

When subversive theories based on an absolute materialistic conception of life, and from which G.o.d, Divine Providence, Christ, Christianity are systematically excluded and ridiculed as myths of by-gone days; when, we say, such theories are rampant in the halls of our modern universities, should we be astonished to see outright infidelity, political socialism, religious anarchy, stalk the length and breadth of the land? "Impurity, obscenity, moral corruption in many forms, with the ever consequent cynicism and pessimism, forerunners of moral decadence, destruction of the original, creative, shaping, joyous, confident energies of society, come daily more boldly to the front of the stage and defy criticism or mock at the archaic sanctions of yesterday. One does not need to peruse the great modern historians of Roman morals to foresee the results of such an educational debauch, when allowed time enough and the working of its own, unholy but intimate and inexorable logic." (Mgr. Shahan-at the Catholic Educational Convention, U.S., 1919.) Sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.

Should not such atmosphere of infidelity or diluted Christianity in non-Catholic universities be for Catholic students a source of danger to the vigour and even to the integrity of their faith, to their constancy, in the full and faithful observance of their practical religious duties? Familiarity with error, at the age of youth princ.i.p.ally, breeds contempt of truth and jeopardizes faith. The suppression of truth in its various forms, the concealment of religious profession and observance, necessarily lead to religious indifference. How many sad examples could we not give to back this statement? This danger which Catholic youth meets with in the very atmosphere of our neutral universities is still greater when we consider the method of teaching now in honour in these schools of higher learning. The tutorial method, still in vogue at Oxford, has given place to the professorial. The systematic lecture has replaced the exposition of texts. The professor, with his frame of mind, his views on facts and ideas, is the living book from which our youth read their daily lesson. His personality dominates the mind of the pupil. We all know what fascination the science, reputation and eloquence of a professor have on the unarmed and impressionable minds of youth. The "Magister dixit" is very often the supreme law, the last criterion of truth. President Garfield's ideal of a college, "Mark Hopkins on the other end of the log," recognizes the educative value of the contact with a master-mind.

Authority and reason militate in favor of higher Catholic education for Catholics in Western Canada, this is the logical conclusion of our statements.

Yes, nice theories, some may say; but we are facing facts. How are we to contend with these well equipped, richly endowed, neutral inst.i.tutions of higher education? Where shall we find the resources to pay efficient teachers, to establish the various faculties that go to form a university worthy of its name? Have we not a state-university marvellously well equipped and for which our Provinces are yearly spending fabulous sums? Why not take advantage of our own money that goes in taxes for the support of these inst.i.tutions?

To argue along these lines is to concede to our enemies our position on the Separate School question. All these objections have been met with in other countries and other provinces, and the answer to them was the creation of Catholic colleges and universities.

The great fallacy of the age, and particularly in this part of the country, is State Monopoly in educational matters. This is looked upon as the great triumph of modern democracy and the palladium of liberty. The monopoly over the human mind by this monopoly of education is the most dangerous of all state-monopolies. It is the resurrection of the pagan ideal, the magnification of the state to the detriment and absorption of the individual and the family. Germany has given us an example of where "the standardization of thought and outlook" by the State education leads to. The Prussian ideal, in its last a.n.a.lysis, is nothing else but the pagan ideal.

But no country in the British Empire has pushed the policy of monopolisation of education so far as our Western Provinces. Under the specious plea of efficiency and absurd reason of uniformity, they will not even grant charters to independent inst.i.tutions of higher learning. This policy surely does not reflect true statesmans.h.i.+p and makes British liberty a misnomer on the lips of many of our ultra-loyal Westerners. We would ask our Western Governments to take lessons in this matter from England. When some few years ago the question of converting the university colleges into Universities was before the English public there was much talk of the danger of Lilliputian universities and of low standards of teaching and examination. But this question was brought to trial by the State before a high tribunal and a firm decision was given in favour of the principle. A special committee of the Privy Council conducted a semi-judicial enquiry and gave sentence on Febr., 1903. The result of this decision was that the colleges of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Bristol, Durham, blossomed out into teaching universities. This is the real British way of doing things.

The United States[4] have granted university charters to the various Catholic inst.i.tutions of higher learning which dot that land of Liberty from coast to coast. And let us not forget,-facts and figures will bear us out,-the independent universities in the United States, in England and in Belgium, only to mention some, have been in many Faculties more efficient and more successful than the state inst.i.tutions. The remarkable record of St. Louis University, a Jesuit inst.i.tution, is ill.u.s.trative of this point. A comparison of the respective medical and dental records of this inst.i.tution with perhaps two of the greatest professional schools of the United States, John Hopkins and Harvard, gives proof of higher efficiency to St. Louis University. The official bulletins of the Medical Dental a.s.sociations give the statistics.

The right of Catholics to their own schools-primary, secondary, university, is a birthright we must always fight for. It is the elementary right of a civilized people to educate her sons as she sees fit. In the battle for this right the best strategy is to offer the accomplished fact of a college and a university which by their efficiency, their intellectual and moral value, impose themselves upon the community and win their way to acceptance. Let us blaze the trail and to-morrow, it will be the great highway of Catholic education for the coming generation in Western Canada.

But instead of this policy of "isolation" which in school matters is the ordinary policy of the Church, some Catholics, in view of circ.u.mstances, rather advocate that of "permeation." The presence of Catholics in State Universities will, they claim, create a better atmosphere, abate or soften prejudice, beget a better feeling among the future leaders of the community. In England, it is true, Catholics are allowed to attend Oxford and Cambridge; in Germany, they attend State Universities. The Catholics of Australia have since 1916 also a College in conjunction with the Melbourne State University. Student societies have been formed, Catholic halls opened, courses of apologetics are given to help the Catholic youth in the "steady daily pressure working against them in a non-Catholic university," and to influence religious thought in those centres of higher learning.

Has this "modus vivendi" brought about by various circ.u.mstances which it would be too long to a.n.a.lyze here, produced the desired results? In Germany it has not created a Catholic atmosphere in one single university. Have not, on the contrary, the German universities been the hot-beds of Modernism and many a young cleric has come from their halls inoculated with this virus.

As for Oxford and Cambridge, we all know the controversy which divided the Catholics for so many years. As Catholics have been allowed to follow the courses there for only a few decades, we are not yet, we believe, in a position to judge of the influence of these universities on the Catholic body of England as a whole. Time only will tell. But one thing is certain, no comparison can be established between our state universities and these colleges. Although in the halls of Oxford, Christianity "is often attuned to the outlook and temper of the age" as the book "Foundations" (a statement of Christian belief in terms of modern thought, by seven Oxford men) sadly reveals it, nevertheless, there is not to be found in the English Colleges that atmosphere which the absence of religion has created in our state universities. The presence of various denominational colleges on the grounds of our Provincial Universities only gives them a tint of Christianity. The teaching of history and philosophy will tell the tale. "It must be remembered that an Oxford scheme was never Newman's ideal. It was a concession to necessities of the hour. His ideal scheme, alike for education of the young and for the necessary intellectual defence of Christianity, had consistently been the erection of a large Catholic University like Louvain. This he had tried to set up in Ireland. In such an inst.i.tution, research and discussion of the questions of the day would be combined as in the middle ages with a Catholic atmosphere, the personal ascendancy of able Christian professors and directly religious influence for the young men." (Life of Newman)-by Ward.