Means and Ends of EducationSpalding, John Lancaster
Philosophy
Means and Ends of Education
Spalding, John Lancaster
Culture; Education
intellectual faculties, and the nearest to animal intelligence; and to
know well is, in the eyes of a true educator, of quite other importance
than to know much. But a memory, more or less well-stored, is nearly
all a youth carries with him from the college to the seminary, and here
he enters, as I have already pointed out, upon a course not of
intellectual discipline, but of professional studies, whose object is
not "to open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to
know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it
power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method,
critical exactness, sagacity, resource, eloquent expression," but
simply to impart the requisite skill for the ordinary exercise of the
holy ministry. Hence it is not surprising that priests who are
zealous, earnest, self-sacrificing, who to piety join discretion and
good sense, rarely possess the intellectual culture of which I am
speaking, for the simple reason that a university and not a seminary is
the school in which this kind of education is received. That the
absence of such trained intellects is a most serious obstacle to the
progress of the Catholic faith, no thoughtful man will doubt or deny.
Since the mind is a power, in religion, as in every sphere of thought
and life, the discipline which best develops and perfects its faculties
will fit it to do its work, whatever it may be, in the most effective
manner. Hence, though the education of which I speak does not directly
aim at being useful, it is in fact the most useful, and prepares better
than any other for the business of life. It enables a man to master a
subject with ease, to fill an office with honor; and whatever he does,
the mark of completeness and finish will be found upon his work. He
sees more clearly, judges more calmly, reasons more pertinently, speaks
more seasonably than other men. The free and full possession of his
faculties gives him power to turn himself to whatever may be demanded
of him, whether it be to govern wisely, or to counsel judiciously, or
to write gracefully, or to plead eloquently. Whatever course in life
he may take, whatever line of thought or investigation he may pursue,
his intellectual culture will give him superiority over men who, with
equal or greater talents, lack his education; and he possesses withal
resources within himself, which in a measure make him independent of
fortune, and which, when failure comes and the world abandons him,
remain, like faith, or hope, or a friend, to make him forget his
misfortunes.
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