Communications

...Many of the "really good men" are not salaried...

...Bertram C. A. Windle...

...Have I received that revelation intact and undistorted ?" Here enter faith and Catholic evidence...

...if we believe that He has revealed facts necessary for us to know and act upon...

...The favorable action of the Board of Estimate shows that the importance of the public library as part of our educational system is widely appreciated and understood...

...I have always faithfully followed his instructions since...

...DUCHESNE COLLEGE Omaha, Neb...

...The percentage of prospective students utterly incapable of serious mental effort, or the persevering study of any subject whatever, is alarmingly on the increase, and to maintain a high standard it is absolutely necessary to keep such students out of our colleges...

...Up to the time I received a B.A., I had never attended other than a Catholic school...

...It is in this essential point of increasing the influence and qualifications of the teaching body that Catholics seem to me to be rapidly outstripping others...

...As for Catholic women's colleges—they are very young to show the truest results, but at that, their achievements are matter for pride...

...In comparing the graduates of Catholic and non-sectarian colleges, only a comparison applying to those who came to college from homes of the same financial and social standing should be drawn...

...What, then, are the essential factors...

...After obtaining an M.A., I decided to go on for a Ph.D., and now fully cognizant that the non-sectarian university had no superior advantages to offer, I entered a Catholic university and completed my studies for a doctor's degree...

...In such a comparison, the graduates of Catholic colleges more than hold their own...

...one can hardly hope to express always what one has in mind in such a manner that it will be rightly understood at once...

...The right of individual interpretation" is generally understood as extending to everything in the world or as extending generally to revelation...

...One may speculate indefinitely on God's revealed facts, and their reasons...

...The question is only—"Did God reveal certain things to man as facts...

...M. J. Timoney...

...The result was a visit from a dear friend, now long dead, but then prior of the Augustinians in Cork, who with much elaboration assured me that Mendel was not an abbot but a prelatus...

...He revealed to mankind that they are facts, without stating why...

...if we believe that He instituted a human agency through which to conserve the meaning of those facts and through which to exercise His continuing influence on men, it is not strictly correct to speak of restriction on human thought...

...If this appears, and Father Whelan sees it, I hope he will not think me contumacious, but will remember that it was written before I saw his letter...

...The third point stressed by C. Molanphy is that elaborate equipment is necessary to attract promising students...

...C. Molanphy's second point is a lament that Catholic colleges cannot afford the very extensive equipment, scientific and library facilities, etc., offered by highly endowed institutions...

...To sum up—it is really no more a restriction to be unable to disagree with God than it is for the most expert and original draughtsman to be unable to draw a square circle...

...TO the Editor:—I have been asked what, exactly, I mean by "original" Catholic thought, a phrase used in a recent contribution to The Commonweal...

...I repeat, however, that the absurdity of settling one's self up to disagree with God does not in the slightest degree hamper originality of thought concerning God, His body of revelation, His continuing direction of human thought and action through the human agency He instituted and left among men for their guidance...

...I hope that I have conveyed accurately what I mean by original Catholic thought: the indefinitely wide play of the human mind in harmony as complete as may be attained outside of the Beatific Vision, upon the things of God...

...The colleges, because of their number, C. Molanphy's opinion to the contrary, do not suffer in the efficiency of faculty or equipment...

...The periodic retreats according to the rule of Saint Ignatius will serve very well as an illustration of what I mean here by originality...

...Saint Ignatius, some four hundred years ago, laid down for the business of developing one's soul powers very modern business rules...

...a stock-taking, at regular intervals, of what one believes and why, a checking of one's transactions with chartered accountants, and a statement to one's self of profit and loss...

...In getting the needs of the library before the 6,000,000 inhabitants of our city, the newspapers were an indispensable aid, without which the undertaking would have been wellnigh impossible...

...I would much prefer that this were not so as it grieves me that any one from my alma mater should allow any amount of contaminating influence to blind her to what intellect, as well as her own experience, must teach her to be the truth...

...It is wholly natural that it should be so...

...Christ, concurrently with His completion of Divine revelation, set up safeguards against the loss of revelation through human stupidity and wrong use of free will...

...But now I think I had better leave his affix alone, though a spectre rises before me...

...FOR A FAIR COMPARISON New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—If my surmise as to the identity of C. Molanphy be correct, she is a graduate of my college...

...Harriet S. Wright...

...Molanphy's letter of September 23 has revealed many thoughts out of many hearts...

...Will you allow me a small space in your columns to express my own ? C. Molanphy seems to stress three points of which the first is an inquiry as to whether Catholics are doing their best to attain a high standard of education...

...I repeat that this is the very antithesis of the original Protestant "right of free individual interpretation" on the one hand, and on the other does not warrant the reproach made to us by many that "Catholic thought is not free...

...The field of activity of human intelligence is limited only by disagreement with God...

...If we believe in the existence of God, the Creator, if we believe that He influences human action directly...

...Those best acquainted with the facts of the situation must surely answer this in the affirmative...

...This may have weight with many people, especially those attracted by glitter and show, but it is to be questioned "whether it really draws the best type of student...

...Originality" in this sense is fundamentally different from "the right of individual interpretation...

...God did not explain all of these facts...

...It is more to the credit of Catholics that they have so located their colleges that they are accessible to many who can afford to attend as day scholars, but could not bear the added burden of board and lodging...

...Our Catholic point of view admits, what for the moment I shall call logical, fundamental restrictions—God has stated a number of basic facts...

...It is not, using words in their right sense and with their true value, a restriction upon the ability of the draughtsman that he cannot do what is impossible and an absolute contradiction...

...The time spent at this university was a period of enlightenment for me in more ways than one...

...President, New York Public Library Staff Association* THE MAN OF RESEARCH Toronto, Can...

...at one of the largest non-sectarian universities, and pursued my studies there till I received that degree...

...It is a step forward which affords immense advantages to sisters of various congregations who wish to pursue residential studies in a great university...

...At this moment in some editor's hands is a review of mine in which again I correct somebody in accordance with the instructions of my old friend...

...Human intelligence is not uniform and monotonous...

...My college professors were more than qualified to teach their subjects, and if the example of their lives meant anything, how much more were they able to lead their pupils to an appreciation of true culture...

...Eleanor Fenelon Burkley...

...With the increased facilities that will now be at our disposal it is going to be possible to g^vc more and better service to the public—which will be as great a satisfaction to us as it will be to the users of the library...

...THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—May we, through your columns, express our thanks to the people of New York for their hearty and effective support of the effort to secure an increased appropriation from the city for the New York Public Library...

...He left in the world till the end of time an interpretive authority, and with fullest good measure guaranteed that even in the event that individual custodians of His revelation should be unequal or unfaithful to the vast responsibility placed upon them (as being men, and free men, they might be) the truth should never be lost to His faithful...

...Duchesne, the women's college of Creighton University, shares all the equipment, library and scientific facilities, with which that great institution is abundantly furnished, and yet I venture to say that what the faculty appreciate most highly is the extension and invigoration of an atmosphere of lofty ideals, and the union in a common cause of high-minded and scholarly professors endowed with an inborn gift of teaching...

...What we believe is that God did in fact have personal relations with man, in the course of which He imparted to him certain basic facts upon which to set up his conduct of life...

...Yet it places me in an awkward position, for years ago, when in Cork, I corrected publicly somebody who called Mendel, abbe—still a common mistake—declaring that he was an abbot...

...TO the Editor:—C...

...As I say, these rules of Saint Ignatius remain today exactly as they were set up four centuries ago, yet I have never heard any two "chartered accountants" (priests) whether Jesuits whose founder laid down these rules, or secular priests, give twice the same method of handling these rules...

...God did not create men as automata, as Robots, but gave them intelligence to work out for themselves the reason of things and free will to work them out or not, to abide by His revelation or not, as they choose...

...No apology is necessary for the number of Catholic colleges within a small area...

...I am in, doubt what influenced me to enter a non-sectarian college for graduate work, but I matriculated for an M.A...

...We in Omaha think we can answer that question from experience...

...Words are exceedingly tricky...

...I grew to realize the superiority in scholarship as well as character of the professors who instructed us at our Catholic college—those "middle-aged mediocrities," men and women undoubtedly underpaid, many of whom have declined opportunities of securing chairs in big non-sectarian universities, in a November n, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL 21 true spirit of self-sacrifice...

...My viewpoint is a more or less local one, of course, but it is shared by many here who are conversant with matter under discussion, and it may, at least, serve to enliven the aspect of conditions which C. Molanphy seems to me to regard with a somewhat too pessimistic eye...

...And whatevery study I may do in the future, I intend doing in the same Catholic university...

...A far more efficacious means seems to me that which is practised here—the rejection, namely, of worthless material...

...It is a pleasure to acknowledge our indebtedness to them and to their intelligent presentation of the question...

...A recent event of more than local interest which helps to support the affirmation is the success of the negotiations which ended in the affiliation of our Duchesne College with the well known Creighton University...

...TO the Editor:—A correction is always welcome, especially when made with the courtesy displayed by Father Whelan, O.S.A...

...The authority left in the world by God to settle doubts and guide right thinking defines from time to time what flows logically from those basic facts, declares what is a necessary and inescapable consequence of those facts...

...though it is, and always will be in those unheralded fields, the home and the convent, where the best fruit shall show...

...one cannot disagree with God, or contradict God...

...n William tranklin Sands...

...It is somewhat odd to find this point stressed at a moment when well know professors of the most highly-equipped secular universities are deploring the lack of satisfactory results in their students, proclaiming that equipment and facilities are not the most essential factors in the production of scholarship...

...it varies as the human individual varies...

...No matter how often one goes through this process of stock-taking, there will always be some new angle, some original and striking thought to take home...

...I think myself a fair judge of Catholic colleges compared with non-sectarian colleges...

...Since the field of thought is limited only by those very few things which God has stated to men as facts to be believed and as cornerstones of their conduct in life, it follows that there may be as many original methods of contemplating those facts as there are men in the world capable of thinking...

...Since it was evidently not understood, it is desirable, I think, to express my thought in the matter very fully even at the risk of boring those who did understand me...