Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/77

Rh it; in every seminary and monastic college the impression made upon the student is that the scholastic system is so clearly and uniquely true that all opponents are either feeble-minded or dishonest—usually the latter alternative is urged.

And, indeed, apart from the fact that all opponents (as writing ‘expressly against faith’) are on the Index, and that it would be a sacrilege to entertain the possibility of their being right for a moment, the time which is devoted to the vast subject is entirely inadequate. Two years is the usual duration of the course; one year is very frequently the limit of philosophical study. Then the ages of the students must be taken into account; they are generally youths of from eighteen to twenty-one who are quite incapable of entering into such grave problems seriously, and only one in a hundred makes any attempt to do so. Sufficient information is committed to memory to satisfy an examiner; but, unless the student is drawn to the science for a solution of questions that have arisen in his own soul (which is rarely the case), he shirks philosophy to the utmost of his power, and looks forward eagerly to his deliverance from it.

Its attractiveness is still further lost sight of on account of its injudicious treatment at the hands of professors; they are frequently men of little or no scientific attainments (though a wide acquaintance with science is essential to a philosopher), and,