In Aid of Education

...Ever since 1920, the governing board of Saint Mary's College, which is conducted in Halifax by the Irish Christian Brothers, has been interested in seeing whether the institution could be made to serve those who wished to follow professional studies, which the college was not in a position to offer...

...One should note also that it is incorrect to infer from such an action anything like a general principle or a canonical norm...

...They are now enabled to take advantage of educational facilities offered by the community without sacrificing the good that comes from solid religious teaching of those branches of general culture which vitally concern the faith...

...This development Is Interesting enough in itself, meaning as it does association of Catholic education with a state university, but to it there must now be added another which Is perhaps even more significant...

...The Eminent Cardinal-Secretary of this Supreme Council in a letter of the seventh instant informed me that in a Plenary Council held on March 30, the Eminent Fathers, having examined the reasons set forth by Your Grace and the statement of the Procurator-General of the Christian Brothers, decreed: 'The reply given on June 16 to the query proposed by the Ordinary of Edmonton may be applied in the present case.' " It is, of course, much too early to speculate upon the effect that will follow the putting into practice of this decision...

...During June of 1926 the Congregation of the Holy Office, to which the question had been referred, replied affirmatively...

...Meanwhile, however, it Is well to see clearly that the decree has reference to special needs and conditions...

...Before proceeding to outline this action, it is well to bear in mind that it applies only to Canada, where the Catholic population is differently distributed and circumstanced than in the United States, if we except certain regions of the South and far West...

...and now, just one year later, the news comes that the new college has been completed and placed under the direction of the Brothers of the Christian Schools...

...The first statement of the plan suffered by reason of the vagueness with which certain Important details had been worked out...

...but in 1924 the Archbishop of Halifax submitted to the Sacred Congregation a complete statement regarding the educational needs of Catholics in his diocese and again suggested some kind of an arrangement with Dalhousie...

...These conditions had to do chiefly with the teaching of courses in history, religion and other subjects involving a relation to the Catholic faith...

...Sometimes men committed to one have been so firmly convinced that it alone was adequate that they have violently condemned others...

...A query was submitted to the proper Roman authorities with a view to determining whether association of some sort with Dalhousie University, the leading secular Institution in Nova Scotia, might be effected...

...Nevertheless the new ruling obviously does remove from the Catholics affected a great burden and handicap...

...The governing board of Saint Mary's College renewed its appeal during 1926, drawing attention to the fact that the situation had grown even more acute...

...These things having been remembered, we may go on to note that during 1926 the Archbishop of Edmonton, convinced of the need for higher education among Catholics and aware also of the impossibility of developing an existing Catholic college to anything like the size and complexity required, inquired of the Sacred Congregation of Studies whether this college might be connected with the flourishing University of Alberta under certain specific conditions...

...The old truth that any method which in itself is not evil and which produces good results can safely be pursued according to the circumstances prevailing, seemed in some danger of being ignored in the discussion of education from a religious point of view...

...To a considerable extent, the building was made possible by a generous gift from the Carnegie Foundation, with which the Archbishop of Edmonton had been in touch years before, when he was planning the erection of a great inter-denominational university In the maritime provinces...

...In so far as this matter is Catholic, new light of great value has been thrown upon it by a recent action of the Congregation of the Holy Office...

...This time the matter was referred to the Congregation of the Holy Office, with the result that the following decision, bearing the date of April 30, 1927, was dispatched to the Archbishop of Halifax by the proper authority: "Having maturely considered the petition in which Your Grace requested that to Dalhousie University might be affiliated Saint Mary's College, which Is the property of the archdiocese and is directed by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, I felt it my duty to submit the question to the judgment of the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office...

...This implied, of course, Catholic association with a privately conducted secular university, of the same type as Harvard...

...Even so, the clear voice of Rome is likely to dispel certain uncharitable sharpnesses in contemporary educational controversy...

...The principle that wherever specifically religious institutions of higher learning are practicable and sufficient to supply the need they are eminently more desirable than other arrangements, seems to remain firm...

...Other causes—the influence which naturally accrues to professional men and women in a democratic country, the necessity for allying notable scientific, literary and artistic gifts with the service of religion, if the authoritative expression of contemporary human advancement is not to be wholly anti-ecclesiastical—also force the educational problem into the limelight...

...With a decision so reasonable and practical as this, everyone ought surely to be satisfied...

...Several methods for dealing with it have been proposed...