The Catholic population of Western Canada is yet very limited.  We cannot afford to scatter our forces and multiply our institutions.  One university for all Western Canada would be sufficient to meet the present requirements.  The multiplication of inefficient universities is a calamity for genuine higher education.  This has been the contention of “Catholic” in a recent series of brilliant articles in the “Casket.”  The policy would therefore be for all to agree on one college as the non-Catholics have done in the different Western Provinces.  This naturally requires the sacrifice of parochialism and provincialism.  But if the Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists have each agreed on the establishment of one educational centre for their students, surely the Catholics can also sacrifice local interests to the welfare of the cause.  How many efforts our bigoted provincialism has neutralized in the past!

Authoritative leadership only can unite our efforts on this unity of plan of action.  Nothing in this matter can be done without the direction and support of the Hierarchy of the West.  The division among Bishops was, according to Newman, one of the main causes that made the Dublin Catholic University scheme a failure.  Naturally this problem of higher education is one that overflows diocesan boundaries and remains common to all.  “Boundaries of jurisdiction, as wrote so advisedly, Archbishop McNeil, of Toronto, are conveniences and means to an end.”  Beyond the responsibilities of each separate diocese there are other responsibilities which affect the Church of Canada as a whole.  Let one man with vision, judgment, energy, and action, make the creation of the Catholic University in the West the work and ambition of his life, let him have the sincere approbation and efficient co-operation of all the Hierarchy . . . that man, we claim, will rally the Catholic forces around him and will give to the West and its rising generation the blessing so much needed of Catholic university training.  Newman was fond of repeating that it is only individuals who do great things.

And what will, this Catholic university mean to Catholic life in Western Canada?  Well established upon the highest academic level by its success in the competitive field of learning, it will stand out as the embodiment of Catholic intellectual life and the centre of Catholic activities.  It will be the counter-ideal to the ideal of agnosticism and materialism so fostered and so prevalent in our neutral universities.  Just as the cathedrals are the expression of the Catholic faith in Christ’s abiding presence in the Sacrament of His love, so is a Catholic university the embodiment and accomplishment of the Church’s ideal in education.  By its extension work, summer courses, circulating libraries, correspondence courses, lectures, etc., the university would unite our activities, eliminate waste of energy and direct our combined efforts.  Cardinal Newman believed that