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 God 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 attitude 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 Washington, 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 institution 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 leadership.  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.