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 UNIVERSITIES

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UNIVERSITIES

combination of graduate with undergraduate study, and in many of them departments of pure science exist alongside of professional schools; but it would be impossible to select any one of them as the typical American university, and difficult to group them on any purely educational basis. This diversity is largely owing to the fact that the American institu- tions, especially the more recent, have been organized to meet actual needs rather than to perpetuate tradi- tions; and since these needs are constantly changing, it is quite intelligible that new forms of university organization should appear and that the older forms should be frequently readjusted. Apart, however, from details, what may be called the university situa- tion presents certain features that are noteworthy.

(1) The oldest universities were established and endowed by private individuals, and they have retained their private character. Even where the States have organized universities of their own, no measures have been taken to prevent private founda- tions; the latter in fact are as a class more influential than those controlled by the State, and, on the other hand, the private universities are empowered to give degrees through charters granted by the State. This freedom is far more in accordance with the spirit of American institutions and more es.sential to the national welfare than any hard and fast uniformity under state domination. (2) From the beginning, as the oldest charters exphcitly declare, the furthering of morality and religion, not merely in a general way, but in accordance with the behef of some Christian denomination, was an avowed purpose of the founders; and divinitv schools are still maintained at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. But the state vmiversities and nearly all the more recently founded private universi- ties exclude theology. There is a decided tendency with powerful financial suj)port to make the university non-sectarian by eliminating all religious tests and removing denominational influence. (3) Besides the state appropriations, vast sums of money are contrib- uted by individuals to the endowment of universities and the establishment of in.stitutes for scientific research. Such liberality is an evidence of the practi- cal interest taken in education, which is con.sidered as the best mean.s of improving moral, social, and economic conditions. Whether the final result will be the application of a money test in deciding wh.at is or is not a university, must depend largely on the standards of scholarship that are adopted and the idea of its functions .as a social power that is formed by the institution to which so much wealth is entrusted. (4) The practical character of vmiversity training is shown by the attention that is paid to technical instruction in all its forms. The preference for applied science manifested by many students has a serious effect not only on university policies and curricula but also on the work of secondary and ele- mentary schools, in which the relative value of cul- tural and vocational studies is keenly debated. (.5) As the efficiency of the univensity is in part determined by the quality and extent of the student's previous education, one of the chief problems demanding solu- tion at present is the relation between the university and the preparatory schools. In the endeavour lo secure satisfactory relations between college, high school, and elementary school, the university exerts an influence which becomes more permeating as the educational system is more thoroughly articulated. The entire question of adjustment will probably be settled not so much by discussion or legislation as by the training of teachers, which now holds a promi- nent place in each of the larger universities. (G) Although women have long formed the majority of teachers in elementary and pul)lic schools, they were not admitted to the universities imtil about the middle of the nineteenth century. The co-educa- tional movement began in the state universities of

the West, received a fresh impetus at the University of Michigan in 1870, and then spread rapidly through the East. In some universities all departments of instruction are now open to women on the same foot- ing with men; in others, women are excluded from the courses in law, medicine, and engineering, and receive separate instruction in athhated colleges. (7) Within recent years, university extension, correspondence courses, and local examinations have enabled the university to widen out its sphere of activity. It might seem indeed that the centripetal movement which in the Middle .\ges brought students from all parts to the studium (jcncrnle, were now to be reversed or at least to be reflected in the opposite direction.

V. Catholic Action. — The universities of France, Italy, and Spain, though affected to some extent by the Reformation, had remained loyal to the Catholic Faith, and preserved their chairs of ecclesiastical science. Louvain especially, while it developed Humanistic studies to a high degree, resisted the encroachments of Protestantism. The Council of Trent ordained that provision should be made for the study of Scripture, that beneficed clergymen studying at universities should enjoy their tradit ional privileges, that bishop.s and other dignitaries should be selected by preference from among university jirofessors and graduates (Sess. V, can. i; VII, xiii; XIV, v; XXII, ii; XXllI, vi; XXIV, viii, xii, x\'i, xviii). It also provided for the education of priests by its decrees regarding the establishment of ecclesiastical semi- naries. (See Semin.\ry, Ecclesiastical.) But the Church did not lose interest in the universities or desi.st from establishing new ones. In spite of the loss of revenues through the confiscation of church properties, Catholic universities or academies were founded at Dillingen (1549), Wtirzburg (157.'j), Paderborn (1613), Salzburg (1623), Csnabruck (1630), Bamberg (1648), Ohnutz (1581), Graz (1.586), Linz, (1636), Innsbruck (1672), Breslau (1702), Fulda (1732), Mtinster (1771). To this period al.so belong the French universities at Douai (15.59), Lille (1.560), Pont-a-Mousson, later Nancv (1572), and Dijon (1722); the Itahan at Macerata (1.540), Cagliari (1603), and Camerino (1721); the Spanish at Granada (1.526) and Oviedo (1.574); Manila in the Philippines (1611), and the South .American foundations (sec Universities, Sp,\nish-.\meric.^n). Most of these new universities were entrusted to the Jesuits, whose colleges in regard to Cla.ssical studies rivalled, and, in matters of discipline, surpassed the universities. After the suppression of the Society (1773), the chairs which they had held were either abolished or trans- ferred to .secular professors. Among the papal docu- ments bearing on imiversities should be mentioned: the Constitution, "Imperscrutabilis", addressed by Clement XII (4 Dec, 1730) to Philip V of Spain re- garding the University of Cervera: the "Quod divina sapientia", published. 2S .\ug., 1824, by Leo XII for the reformation of university studies in the Papal States and some other jirovinccs of Italy; the Brief by which Gregory XVI, 13 Dec, 1S33, api)roved the action of the Belgian bishops in restoring the Univer- sity of Louvain; and thcApo.stohc Letter of Pius IX, 23 March, 18.52, approving the statutes of the Uni- versity of Dublin, the founding of which had been decided upon by the Irish episcopate at the Council of Thurles in 18.50.

During the latter half of the nineteenth century the Spanish and Italian universities were taken over by the State, .and the faculties of theology disap- peared. In France, under the present system, there is no faculty of theology in any state university; the Catholic faculties at Paris, Bordeaux, Aix, Rouen, and Lyons were al)olishe<l in 1882, and the Protest.ant faculties at Paris and Montaubon became free theo- logical schools in 1905. In 1875, however, the French bishops established independent Catholic universities