The Catholic World, Vol. 13, April to September, 1871Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 13, April to September, 1871
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
successive changes, previously made known, the maximum standard
might be reached without inconvenience or injustice to any; and the
grammar-schools would be enabled and obliged to prepare their pupils
expressly for the examination they would have to pass for admittance
into the college. The college thus properly planted and cultivated
would grow of itself in due time to maturity and perfection. Nothing
more is wanted than a good system, fit men to administer it, plenty
of money, and a body of youth fit and desirous to be instructed and
educated in the best manner. The library, the scientific cabinets,
the philosophical apparatus, the buildings, grounds, and other
exterior means and appliances, should be provided for as speedily and
amply as circumstances would permit.
The second great want, in our opinion, is the provision for
ecclesiastical students of the advantages for education which can
only be completely furnished by a university, and which cannot,
therefore, be fully enjoyed at separate ecclesiastical seminaries.
The Little Seminary is only a superior kind of grammar-school, even
though it gives instruction in the ancient languages and some other
branches to the same extent with a college. The Grand Seminary is,
strictly speaking, a college for instruction in theology, although
it includes a year or two of that study of philosophy which is only
introductory to the theological course. A thorough university course,
in which all the instruction preparatory to theology should be
finished, would give a more complete and thorough education to young
ecclesiastics, fit them much better for their professional studies,
and prepare them much more efficaciously for the high position
which belongs, by all divine and human right, to the priesthood.
This is the way in which the clergy, both secular and regular, were
trained during the Middle Ages. The system of separate training
came in afterward, and has been kept up by a sort of necessity,
chiefly because the universities have become so secularized as to be
dangerous places. We have touched, in these last words, the tender
spot, which we well know must be handled delicately. The great
argument for secluding young ecclesiastics in seminaries entirely
separate from secular colleges is, that their morals, their piety,
their vocation, are otherwise endangered. We reply to this by a
suggestion intended to do away with the objection to a university
life, and at the same time to show how its advantages may be secured.
Let both systems be combined. Let there be a college exclusively
intended for young ecclesiastics, in which they shall be kept under
the discipline of the Little Seminary, at the university. The Little
Seminary will then take its place as a separate grammar-school for
boys who are intended for the ecclesiastical state. From this school
they can pass, not before their seventeenth year, to the college at
the university, and they will have seven years still remaining in
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