The St. Louis Plan
Schwitalla, Alphonse M.
January 6, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 239 THE ST. LOUIS PLAN By ALPHONSE M. SCHWITALLA HIS GRACE, the Archbishop of St. Louis, sometimes refers to his see as "the Rome of the United States."...
...At last these hopes and plans have been realized...
...This situation is one which many of the writers in the recent controversy carried on in the columns of The Commonweal and America have discussed, and which has been so widely deplored...
...but that the constituent college plan of the English and Canadian universities is a more adequate model of the organization which St...
...Louis University has achieved...
...Louis University will be governed by the university through an administrative board, on which will sit the Archbishop of St...
...President R. M. Hughes, Miami University, secretary...
...His Grace's cathedral dominates every view of the city...
...The university itself, therefore, will be held accountable by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for its faithfulness and effectiveness in carrying out the standards which have been universally adopted for accredited schools in the Middle-West...
...Notre Dame Junior College, the normal school of the School Sisters de Notre Dame in St...
...On December 16, an organization meeting took place during which nine colleges of the archdiocese were merged to form the Corporate Colleges of St...
...Several of the teaching orders of men and women conduct normal schools of approximately the rank of junior colleges, while others may well be considered fully equivalent to the standard senior college, except for the number of their students...
...It is definitely stated that no financial control is contemplated in the merger...
...Accordingly, in drawing up the terms of the agreement, the most careful attention was paid to the desirability of safeguarding institutional autonomy, of preserving a healthful rivalry and of retaining in the corporate colleges the individual spirit of the various religious orders to which they belong...
...To survey the situation briefly, the well organized diocesan school system embraces not only the 202 parochial schools, a fair percentage of which are free, but also free high schools for girls and boys, each accommodating approximately eight hundred students...
...There is obviously a greater lack of funds where so many institutions call upon the already limited resources of the Catholic population...
...Private Catholic institutions are no less numerous and prosperous...
...Louis or his representative, the president of the university or his representative, and two representatives from each of the signatory institutions—one representing the administrative, the other the educational function of each institution...
...Moreover, the committee indorsed "the attitude of the corporate colleges which have agreed to unify their educational leadership...
...the staffs of the corporate colleges will receive the privileges of university appointment...
...He sees one suburb after another spreading over the fields that were farmed but yesterday, all clustered around the cross of the Catholic chapel...
...Saint Mary's Seminary, the scholasticate of the Congregation of the Missions, Perryville, Missouri ; Visitation Junior College, a college for women, conducted by the Sisters of the Visitation...
...the effective achievement of the common purpose through organized cooperation under a common leadership...
...For a city of its size and for its Catholic population, surely there can be found nowhere in the country a greater number of Catholic institutions of learning, of novitiates and motherhouses of religious orders, and of teachers' training schools for the sisters...
...Saint Mary's Junior College, the normal school of the Sisters of the Precious Blood, O'Fallon, Missouri...
...and Professor J. D. Elliff, University of Missouri, met representatives of the university on October 17, 1925...
...This committee, composed of President E. C. Elliott, Purdue University, chairman...
...The general plan already has been approved tentatively by a committee appointed under the authority of the president of the commission on institutions of higher learning of the North Central Association...
...Most recently, these developments have taken more definite shape through the formation by the university of a School of Education, and through an extension of the facilities of the Graduate School, in both of which activities the needs of the teaching sisterhoods and of the women's colleges have been chiefly considered...
...Louis University has for years past attempted to be helpful in the solution of many of these problems...
...He sees almost every vantage point of the city occupied by a Catholic institution...
...These are conceived as sovereign powers, and delegate such authority as is necessary for the policies of the union to the federal authorities...
...His Grace fully approves of the merger, and in his commendatory letter of October 2, he says that he sees "in the successful coordination of Catholic educational institutions an effective instru* ment for competition with the common enemy, the materialistic tendency of education so much in evidence in the world today...
...The merger is founded and depends upon the good will of the signatories, and functions as mandatory only in matters of educational policy and standards...
...and of Radcliffe College to Harvard University...
...There is, moreover, a preparatory seminary with about one hundred and twenty-five students...
...College of the Sacred Heart at Maryville, a college for women, conducted by the religious of the Sacred Heart...
...It is this phase of the new plan which is closest to the heart of our Archbishop...
...Beneath these expressed motives, the Catholic reader will discover the desire for solidarity in Catholic educational 240 THE COMMONWEAL January 6, 1926 endeavor, and will find expressed in these inadequate words the general hope of securing that unanimity of effort which will make most effective the struggles and strivings of so many zealous and apostolic soulsi in the cause of Catholic higher education...
...They hope that they may have created an agency which will enable each one of the corporate colleges to promote with an ever increasing degree of efficiency, the greater glory of God and the spiritual welfare of souls, which, in the work of Catholic education, are so closely bound up with educational progress...
...the courses will be harmonized and standardized, and degrees will be conferred conjointly from the corporate colleges and the university, subject to such limitations as may be determined upon hereafter...
...There are, moreover, three senior colleges for women, and one junior college...
...In its report, the committee states that it "favors action on the part of the North Central Association whereby the association will express its confidence in St...
...Louis University and reciprocally among themselves to create a union or a 'merger' in a nonlegal signification of the latter term," by which "the faculty members, students and courses of the corporate colleges become faculty members, students and courses of the university...
...Louis University...
...That those who have formed the merger are actuated by one motive, that of advancing the cause of Catholic higher education, is too obvious to need restatement...
...Webster College, a college for women conducted by the Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross, Webster Groves, Missouri...
...Over three thousand girls attend Catholic academies, and there are 2,500 students in the private Catholic high schools of the archdiocese...
...The difficulty of achieving the number of students required by the standardizing agencies before full recognition is given to a college, means a geographical extension of influence which itself is no small problem for religious who are necessarily limited in their freedom of action...
...Whatever may be our attitude towards the multitude of smaller colleges, however, the fact remains that the various sisterhoods have each had excellent reasons for establishing these several colleges...
...The university has done this despite the stress of its own financial limitations, and has made the sacrifices for the sake of the greater cause...
...According to the terms of the agreement, the corporate colleges "agree individually in their relations with St...
...Louis University...
...In accordance with the terms of the agreement, the university will place its educational resources to the fullest feasible extent, at the disposal of its corporate colleges...
...This material development of the Catholic institutions is paralleled by an educational development that might well merit further analysis...
...Obviously in this new organization, the responsibility for the development of standardized courses in the corporate colleges is placed upon St...
...and this being the case, it would seem that the future course of action should dictate a policy of conservation rather than of discouragement...
...The colleges which have signed the agreement are the following— Chaminade College, a school for boys, which includes the normal school of the Brothers of Mary, Maryhurst, at Kirkwood, Missouri...
...For years, however, the university has struggled with the ambition to make itself more generally useful...
...That these colleges have proved themselves excellent training schools for religious training is a fact that cannot be questioned...
...More than ten houses of study and novitiates for orders of men, and fourteen for orders of women are to be found in St...
...Some of these institutions have already sought recognition by various standardizing agencies, and in several cases this has been given...
...In fact, while the negotiations for the perfecting of this plan were in progress, it was remarkable to note how frequently the writers of communications came close to the essentials of the new development in their suggestions for change and reform...
...There may be a smile behind this remark, but its chief component is not so much the sense of humor as rather an appreciative contentment over things as they are...
...The character of the organization just outlined seems to meet as effectively as can well be done under the conditions existing in St...
...Louis University to carry out through the administrative board of the corporate colleges the conditions of the merger...
...Similarly, the individual corporate colleges retain their sovereign autonomy excepting in so far as they, by mutual agreement, willingly delegate to the university such authority as is necessary in the interests of the merger...
...For the girls' colleges, especially, as well as for some of the normal schools for nuns, a system has been devised securing the exchange of processors, and assistance has also been given in filling positions of greater or less importance in the executive and administrative forces of these colleges...
...Louis and its immediate confines...
...Father Cloud pointed out that only recently Professor Leon Richardson of the University of California, in his report to the president of Dartmouth College, made the recommendation that the English type of federated university be introduced into the American university system...
...Louis University, called attention to the fact that partial precedents may be found in this country in the relation of Barnard College to Columbia University...
...and the college of Arts and Sciences of St...
...Fontbonne College, a college for women, conducted by the Sisters of Saint Joseph...
...Slowly the conviction was developed that some closer bond of relationship must be established...
...Father Cloud stated further that "the organization which we are contemplating is essentially that of the states of the union...
...His Grace sees spire after spire springing into the skyline of St...
...Louis, the countless difficulties in the progress of Catholic higher education which have been spoken of in the correspondence published during recent months in our Catholic papers...
...To be sure, the difficulties of maintaining these schools are not slight...
...The development of Catholic colleges is correspondingly great and complex...
...Making clear the type of organization, Charles H. Cloud, S.J., the president of St...
...The climax of the entire diocesan system is the far-famed Kenrick Seminary...
...Louis University—thus terminating negotiations which have been under way for the last six months...
...In accordance with the terms of the agreement, the motives for the formation of such an organization are stated to be—the necessity for the coordination of all educational resources to meet the increasing complexities of modern education...
...The corporate colleges of St...
Vol. 3 • January 1926 • No. 9
