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THE

CHAPTER VII.

THE HIGHER EDUCATION.1

HE subject which I have been asked to treat is the higher education of priests; which, I suppose, is the highest education of man, since the ideal of the Christian priest is the most exalted, his vocation the most sublime, his office the most holy, his duties the most spiritual, and his mission - whether we consider its relation to morality, which is the basis of individual and social welfare, or to religion, which is the promise and the secret of immortal and godlike life—is the most important and the most sacred which can be assigned to a human being.

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Religion and education - like religion and morality are nearly related. Pure religion, indeed, is more than right education; and yet it may be said with truth that it is but a part of the best education, for it co-operates with other forces with climate, custom, social conditions,

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1 A discourse pronounced at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, which, being enforced by the offer of three hundred thousand dollars by Miss Caldwell, led to the founding of the University at Washington.

and political institutions to develop and fashion the complete man; and the special instruction of teachers which is the narrow meaning of the word is modified, and to a great extent controlled, by these powers which work unseen, and are the vital agents that make possible all conscious educational efforts.

The faith we hold, the laws we obey, the domestic and social customs to which our thoughts and loves are harmonized, the climate we live in, mould our characters and give to our souls a deeper and more lasting tinge than any school, though it were the best.

My subject, however, does not demand that I consider these general and silent agencies by which life is influenced, but leads me to the discussion of the methods by which man, with conscious purpose, seeks to form and instruct his fellow-man; to the discussion of the special education which brings art to the aid of nature, and becomes the auxiliary and guide of the other forces which contribute to the development of our being.

In this age, when all who think at all turn their thoughts to questions of education, it is needless to call attention to the interest of the subject, which, like hope, is immortal, and fresh as the innocent face of laughing childhood.

Is not the school for all men a shrine to

which their pilgrim thoughts return to catch again the glow and gladness of a world wherein they lived by faith and hope and love when round the morning sun of life the golden purple clouds were hanging, and earth lay hidden in mist, beneath which the soul created a new paradise? To the opening mind all things are young and fair; and to remember the delight that accompanied the gradual dawn of knowledge upon our mental vision, sweet and beautiful as the upglowing of day from the bosom of night, is to be forever thankful for the gracious power of education. And is there not in all hearts a deep and abiding yearning for great and noble men, and therefore an imperishable interest in the power by which they are moulded? When fathers and mothers look upon the fair blossoming children that cling to them as the vine wraps its tendrils round the spreading bough, and when their great love fills them with ineffable longing to shield these tender souls from the blighting blasts of a cold and stormy world, and little by little to prepare them to stand alone and breast the gales of fortune, do they not instinctively put their trust in the power of education?

When, at the beginning of the present century, Germany lay prostrate at the feet of Napoleon, the wise and the patriotic among her children

yielded not to despondency, but turned with confidence to truer methods and systems of education, and assiduous teaching and patient waiting finally brought them to Sedan.

When, in the sixteenth century, heresy and schism seemed near to final victory over the Church, Pope Julius III. declared that the evils and abuses of the times were the outgrowth of the shameful ignorance of the clergy, and that the chief hope of the dawning of a brighter day lay in general and thorough ecclesiastical education. And the Catholic leaders who finally turned back the advancing power of Protestantism, re-established the Church in half the countries in which it had been overthrown, and converted more souls in America and Asia than had been lost in Europe, belonged to the greatest educational body the world has ever seen. What is history but examples of success through knowledge and righteousness, and of failure through lack of understanding and of virtue?

Wherein lies the superiority of civilized races over barbarians if not in their greater knowledge and superior strength of character? And what but education has placed in the hands of man the thousand natural forces which he holds as a charioteer his well-reined steeds, bidding the winds carry him to distant lands,

making steam his tireless, ever-ready slave, and commanding the lightning to speak his words to the ends of the earth? What else than this has taught him to map the boundless heavens, to read the footprints of God in the crust of the earth ages before human beings lived, to measure the speed of light, to weigh the imperceptible atom, to split up all natural compounds, to create innumerable artificial products with which he transforms the world and with a grain of powder marches like a conquering god around the globe?

What converts the meaningless babbling of the child into the stately march of oratoric phrase or the rhythmic flow of poetic language? What has developed the rude stone and bronze implements of savage and barbarous hordes. into the miraculous machinery which we use? By what power has man been taught to carve the shapeless rock into an image of ideal beauty, or with it to build his thought into a temple of God, where the soul instinctively prostrates itself in adoration?

Is not all this, together with whatever else is excellent in human works, the result of education, which gives to man a second nature with more admirable endowments? And is not religion itself a kind of celestial education, which trains the soul to godlike life?

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