Olier and Bourdoise accordingly, while carrying on the work of reform,
and becoming heads of religious congregations, remained parish priests
of St. Sulpice and Saint-Nicholas du Chardonnet. The seminary had its
origin in the assembling together of the priests into communities, and
these communities became schools of clericalism, homes in which
young men destined for the Church were piously trained for it.
What facilitated the creation of these establishments and made them
innocuous to the state was that they had no resident tutors. All the
theological tutors were at the Sorbonne, and the young men from St.
Sulpice and St. Nicholas, who were studying theology, went there for
their lectures. Thus the system of teaching remained national and
common to all. The seclusion of the seminary only applied to the
moral discipline and religious duties. This was the equivalent of the
practice now prevalent among the boarding-schools which send their
pupils to the Lycée. There was only one course of theology in Paris,
and that was the official one at the Faculty. The work in the interior
of the seminary was confined to repetitions and lectures. It is true
that this rule soon became obsolete. I have heard it said by old
students of St. Sulpice that towards the end of last century they went
very little to the Sorbonne, that the general opinion was that there
was little to be learnt there, and that the private lessons in
the seminary quite took the place of the official lecture. This
organisation was very similar, as may be seen, to that which now
obtains in the Normal School and regulates its relations with the
Sorbonne. Subsequent to the Concordat the whole of the education of
the seminaries was given within the walls. Napoleon did not think it
worth while to revive the monopoly of the Theological Faculty. This
could only have been effected by obtaining from the Court of Rome a
canonical institution, and this the Imperial Government did not care
to have. M. Emery, moreover, took good care never to suggest such a
step. He had anything but a favourable recollection of the old system,
and very much preferred keeping his young men under his own control.
The lectures _intra muros_ thus became the regular course of teaching.
Nevertheless, as change is a thing unknown at St. Sulpice, the old
names remain what they were. The seminary has no professors; all the
members of the congregation have the uniform title of director.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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