4. The System of Specifically Catholic Schools. Elementary Schools and Colleges. The Activity of Male and Female Monastic Orders. The Catholic School as an Anti-Protestant Agency. Female Academies and the Protestant Element in Them. General Dissatisfaction With Secularized Schools and the Preference for Private Schools. Peculiarities of the Latter. Female Education
While fighting against the dominant system of public schools, Catholics at the same time zealously support their specifically Catholic schools, and these latter present a coherent system of Catholic education, from parish elementary schools to higher colleges. This system, standing in opposition to the adopted system of state education, represents the complete realization of those principles for which Catholics contend, and therefore its exposition can best show what kind of school Catholics desire.
As we have said above, concern about the establishment of parish Catholic schools was shown even by the first bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. But lacking both means and teachers, this work could not quickly take root in new soil. Only when a great emigration to America of various monastic orders began could school education hope for successful conduct. Female orders appeared first in the field of elementary education—the Ursulines, Sisters of Charity, and Visitationists. They were followed by new laborers—the Sisters of Mercy, Brothers of Christian Schools and other orders, and all devoted themselves earnestly to school work. At present, besides secular teachers, school instruction in Catholic schools is carried on by seven male monastic orders and thirty-six female ones. Under their direction and guidance are 2,389 schools with 423,383 pupils[1].
By their internal character Catholic parish schools naturally fully correspond to the strict Catholic view of education. All of them are under the direct direction of some monastic order, and the teachers themselves are for the most part members of various orders. Instruction consists of the usual course of elementary sciences, with the essential difference from ordinary public schools that in them religious instruction—in the form of catechism or Religious Education—is an obligatory daily element. Before the beginning of lessons the teacher reads a prayer, and all pupils listen to it on bended knees. Prayer also concludes the instruction. The walls of the school are usually decorated with icons, crucifixes, and various moral sayings such as: “We must write without wasting time”; “we must not come late or stay away without permission”; “we must listen carefully to catechism”; “we must pray to God with reverence in church and school,” and so on. Whenever the hour strikes, a short prayer is read, with pupils calmly remaining at their places. Every half hour one of the pupils, appointed beforehand, speaks aloud: “Let us remember that we are in the sacred presence of God.” Instruction stops for a moment and then begins again[2]. Thus the religious element is interwoven throughout the course of instruction and constitutes its most essential part. “Children,” says a Catholic author, “learn to keep God in their souls all the days of their lives. This is what the Catholic Church calls true education. Religion and science live together in heavenly harmony, and the young mind sees no conflict between them, because there cannot be one. The child respects the one, loves the other. He knows that both come from God”[3].
Parish schools provide only primary instruction; in them children only enter the realm of knowledge, and if they were limited to this alone, the Catholic system of schools could not achieve its goal. If, upon entering higher education in other non-Catholic schools, children would necessarily submit their initial Catholic impressions to higher non-Catholic principles. Therefore, for the full realization of the principles of Catholic education, higher schools of a purely Catholic character were also necessary, where initial Catholic education would be completed and reinforced by higher Catholic education as well. And indeed, Catholics have long been concerned with establishing higher Catholic colleges which could equal non-Catholic colleges. At present there exist in the United States seventy-nine (79) Catholic colleges and 28 seminaries with the right to confer academic degrees[4]. In these lies the main strength of Catholicism. From them emerge the most devoted Catholics, champions of their church’s dominion. A description of the external and internal organization of these higher schools gives an idea of higher Catholic education.
Like parish schools, colleges are under the direction of various monastic orders. But if the former, in its organizational simplicity, could be entrusted chiefly to female orders, the latter, by the very importance of its task, required for its direction more powerful and experienced hands. Male orders took them up, and especially the Jesuits, to whom the majority of the present-day Catholic colleges owe their existence. The Order of Loyola, both in Europe and in America, devoted itself to the work of higher Catholic education, and its members everywhere founded Catholic colleges. Upon their arrival in Quebec, they established the first college on the soil of the New World in 1635, two years before the founding of the oldest Protestant college in the country, the so-called Harvard College[5]. This was in French possessions. In the English colonies there were at first strict ordinances against Jesuits, and therefore they had no possibility of founding colleges among English colonists. But at the first opportunity they did not fail to realize their plan. In 1685 three Jesuits appeared in New York and established a college. However, the Catholic element in the city was too weak to maintain a college, and it soon closed. Nevertheless, even during its brief existence, signs of the possibility of future success appeared. The college was the best educational institution in the city, and representatives of the administration sent their children to it[6]. The oldest of the existing colleges, in Georgetown, was established in 1789 by the first Catholic bishop in the United States, the Jesuit John Carroll[7]. In 1809 the Jesuits attempted to reopen a college in New York, and this time with great success. This college soon acquired such fame even among Protestants that Governor Tompkins, later Vice-President of the United States, considered it the best for educating his own children, and afterward always entertained the greatest respect for its rector[8]. Then followed a series of other colleges and seminaries—up to the present time. Now the Jesuits have fourteen colleges under their direction[9].
By their internal organization Catholic colleges present secular educational institutions; something between secondary schools and universities. They are divided into faculties in which specialized groups of sciences are studied. Thus, the college in Georgetown has departments of literature, medicine, and law. It has various scientific facilities for this: an astronomical observatory, a botanical conservatory, rich mineralogical and geological cabinets, and a library of 30,000 volumes. Students have a monthly journal, the “College Journal.” Professors and rector are all members of the Jesuit order[10]. Other Catholic colleges have a similar character, such as the New York College of St. John. The education in them, up to the highest level, is permeated with a strict Catholic spirit, with an almost monastic discipline[11]. Despite the preponderance of secular sciences, education is directed in a strictly religious spirit and many graduates of these colleges subsequently take holy orders[12]. Colleges enjoy great popularity among Protestants and often the most prominent representatives of the highest governmental spheres send their children to them.
In educating the male generation in its spirit, Roman Catholicism achieves only half its goal. Male colleges give it devoted fighters and defenders, literary and religious figures. But it also needs a conservative force, a more general and enduring element, from which these figures could naturally emerge. Such an element can be served by the female generation. Upon the direction given to women as mothers depends the entire character of the intellectual, moral, and religious worldview of future generations. Therefore Catholicism applies the most serious efforts to the education of the female youth in its spirit, and in this respect it achieves very important results.
Catholics began to show concern for establishing female educational institutions already in the last century, and the most zealous workers in this field were female monastic orders. At the end of the last century the Poor Clares, during their brief stay in America, opened a female school in Georgetown, which, after passing into the hands of the Visitationists, soon flourished and came to be called an academy (1799). Even earlier the Ursulines had founded a female academy in New Orleans, Louisiana, then still belonging to France. When this territory was purchased by the United States in 1803, the Ursuline academy had 170 pupils under its care. But the true epoch of female Catholic education begins with the present century, when female teaching orders began one after another to arrive at the shores of the New World and, upon first settling, established female schools. In 1809 a female academy was opened in Emmitsburg by “Mother Seton,” who had converted to Catholicism; three years later the Lorettos appeared in the field of female education; in 1818 the Ursulines penetrated into the very heart of Puritanism and founded a convent with a school in Boston; in the same year the “Ladies of the Sacred Heart” began their work in educating the female youth of the South, chiefly in the states of Missouri and Louisiana. In 1836 the “Sisters of Saint Joseph” arrived at the shores of the New World, and under their direction female academies flourished in various places. In 1840 the “Sisters of Our Lady” established a female educational institution in Ohio. In the following year the “Sisters of the Holy Cross” and the “Sisters of Providence” began their work in Catholic education in the state of Indiana; in 1847 the “Teaching Sisters of Our Lady” established their first academy in Milwaukee. Between 1840 and 1850 the “Ladies of the Sacred Heart” and the “Sisters of Charity” opened several institutions in New York and other cities, and soon after them came the “Sisters of Mercy”[13]. At present there are counted in the United States five hundred and eleven (511) Catholic female academies, or schools having a secondary school curriculum[1]. “We can point with pride and full confidence to our academies for higher female education, abounding in all parts of the United States,” complacently exclaims Bishop Becker[14].
By their internal character all these so-called “academies” are ordinary convent schools, representing something in the nature of boarding schools maintained by Catholic sisters. The education given in them might be called secondary, although in many of them there are also preparatory classes for beginning girls. The course of education encompasses both classical and real sciences, with special attention to applied sciences in the area of everyday women’s housekeeping. Many of the academies have natural history museums and astronomical equipment[15]. The entire course of instruction naturally has a strictly religious character, and all discipline bears the spirit of a monastic regime. In announcements about accepting pupils into academies it is invariably stated that the instruction is Christian in character. “Parents and guardians,” declares the Mother Superior of Mount Agnes Academy, “can be assured that the sisters, under whose direction this institution is placed, consider themselves obliged to justify the confidence shown them in entrusting pupils to their care, by providing Christian and virtuous education, paying careful attention to their intellectual development, the development of the refined manners necessary for society, and surrounding them with such care in physical matters as they could have only under a parental roof”[16]. “The discipline of the school,” declares the Mother Superior of St. Peter’s Academy in Rome (New York State), “is gentle but firm, founded on those Christian principles of divine benevolence which are the sources of all true refinement and which alone guarantee happiness for pupils in the future. Pupils of all confessions are admitted, care being taken to avoid any interference with their religious convictions”[17]. “Parents may be assured,” announces the Mother Superior of the Academy of the Immaculate Conception, “that their charges will be surrounded with every attention compatible with a gentle but firm government, and that all possible effort will be made to implant in their souls those principles of virtue and religion which alone can make education beneficial. Young women of any religious confession are equally admitted; however, to maintain good order, all will be required to observe the external discipline of the institution”[18]. Pupils are admitted as boarders with payment from $200 to $300 per year[19].