Were there question only of postgraduate work, of some special course in agriculture, domestic science, there would be no difficulty, we believe, to see Catholic students take advantage of the marvellous facilities our state universities offer.  The matter, the short term of these courses or the advanced age of the pupil would be in themselves sufficient guarantee. But what we strongly object to is the Arts Course, and particularly undergraduate work, even were the contentious subjects, such as philosophy and history, be given by Catholic teachers to Catholic students separately.  The Arts Course, we must remember, is the real dominating factor in higher education.  For we maintain with Cardinal Newman that a University is a place of teaching universal knowledge and that its object is primarily intellectual.  It has in view the diffusion and extension of knowledge, rather than its advancement, which is reserved to Academies.  It is the Arts Course of a University, particularly its Philosophy, that gives this general knowledge and enlargement of the mind.  Its influence is most telling in the various Faculties where students specialize for their future career.  For Philosophy plays such a large part in human life, the movement of opinions and the direction of minds.  The Catholic student in those most plastic years, in that critical period of receptivity, wherein ideas are analyzed and synthesized for life time, cannot help but imbibe ideas and doctrines opposed to his belief.  The elite alone, we believe, can resist in the long run the influence of that indefinable quality called atmosphere, and maintain among so many cross-currents, the right course.  The ordinary and inexperienced mind will be, if not contaminated, at least weakened and this alone is disastrous in a leader.  Many changes, many transformations, we know, take place in the mind of youth as it emerges “from collegiate visions into the rough path of real life.”  As Morley wrote, “We know after the event, the tremendous changes of thought . . . of conception of life, that coming years and new historic forces were waiting to unfold before the undergraduate when he had once floated out beyond the college bar.”  Yet, the solid teachings of Catholic Philosophy will remain to him as the charter and compass when his ship has taken to the high sea.  This is the principal reason why we vindicate the right to our own higher education.  To push the argument further, we would ask why should we be obliged to pay taxes to have doctrines opposed to our conscience propounded from the professorial chairs of our State University?  The granting of a Charter by the State is but the minimum of our rights.

Dream or Reality?