Studies in the South and West, with Comments on CanadaWarner, Charles Dudley
History
Studies in the South and West, with Comments on Canada
Warner, Charles Dudley
Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
The University has now no dormitories and no boarders. There are
twenty-five professors and instructors. The entire course, including the
preparatory, is seven years. A glance at the catalogue shows that in
the curriculum the institution keeps pace with the demands of the age.
Besides the preparatory course (89 pupils), it has a classical course
(143 pupils), an English course (82 pupils), and 85 post-graduate
students, making a total of 399. Its students form societies for various
purposes; one, the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with distinct
organizations in the senior and junior classes, is for the promotion of
piety and the practice of devotion towards the Blessed Virgin; another
is for training in public speaking and philosophic and literary
disputation; there is also a scientific academy, to foster a taste for
scientific culture; and there is a student’s library of 4000 volumes,
independent of the religious books of the Sodality societies.
In a conversation with the president I learned that the prevailing idea
in the courses of study is the gradual and healthy development of
the mind. The classes are carefully graded. The classics are favorite
branches, but mental philosophy, chemistry, physics, astronomy, are
taught with a view to practical application. Much stress is laid upon
mathematics. During the whole course of seven years, one hour each day
is devoted to this branch. In short, I was impressed with the fact that
this is an institution for mental training. Still more was I struck with
the prominence in the whole course of ethical and religious culture. On
assembling every morning, all the Catholic students hear mass. In every
class in every year Christian doctrine has as prominent a place as
any branch of study; beginning in the elementary class with the small
catechism and practical instructions in the manner of reciting the
ordinary prayers, it goes on through the whole range of doctrine—creed,
evidences, ritual, ceremonial, mysteries—in the minutest details of
theory and practice; ingraining, so far as repeated instruction can,
the Catholic faith and pure moral conduct in the character, involving
instructions as to what occasions and what amusements are dangerous to
a good life, on the reading of good books and the avoiding bad books and
bad company.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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