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FOSTERING THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT
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Proceedings and Addresses, 59t
AUGUST 1962
MEMBERSHIP IN THE ASSOCIATION
All who are interested in the welfare of Catholic educational work are
invited to become members of the National Catholic Educational Associ-
ation. It is the desire of the Executive Board that the membership be in-
creased so that the organization may represent a powerful influence in
favor of religious education in America.
Support: The expenses of the Association are raised by the annual dues
of the members, and by contributions from those who have taken a particu-
lar interest in the work. Membership dues are as follows:
Sustaining Membership: Anyone desiring to receive the publications of
many departments of the Association may become a sustaining member.
The annual fee for such membership is $25.00.
Major Seminary Dues: Each Seminary in the Major Seminary Depart-
ment pays an annual fee of $25.00.
Minor Seminary Dues: Each Minor Seminary in the Minor Seminary
Department pays an annual fee of $25.00.
College and University Dues: Constituent Membership — Each college or
university with an enrollment of 1,500 or over pays an annual fee of
$150.00; institutions with enrollment between 1,000 and 1,499 pay $125.00
annually; institutions with enrollment between 500 and 999 pay $100.00
annually; institutions with enrollment of less than 500 pay $75.00 annually.
Associate Membership — Institutions holding Associate Membership pay
$25.00 per year.
School Superintendents Dues: Each Superintendent in the School Super-
intendents Department pays an annual fee of $10.00.
Secondary School Dues: Each institutional member in the Secondary
School Department pays an annual fee of $10.00.
Elementary School Dues: Each institutional member in the Elementary
School Department pays an annual fee of $10.00.
Special Education Dues: Each institutional member in the Special Educa-
tion Department pays an annual fee of $5.00.
Supervisors Dues: Each member of the Supervisors Section pays an
annual fee of $10.00.
Individual Membership: Anyone interested in the work of Catholic edu-
cation may become a member of the Association. Individual membership,
however, should not be a substitute for institutional membership; for
example, staff members of Catholic educational institutions may become
individual members, but not in place of institutional membership of their
schools. The annual fee for individual membership in all departments,
except Sustaining, School Superintendents and Supervisors, is $4.00.
Publications: The Association issues a quarterly Bulletin published in
February, May, August, and November of each year. The August Bulletin
includes the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting. These Bulletins and
special publications are sent to all members.
General Office of the National Catholic Educational Association
1785 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W., Washington 6, D. C.
The Bulletin is published quarterly by the National Catholic Educational Association.
Subscription price, $3.00 per year. Annual individual membership fee in the Association
including Bulletin, $4.00. Office of the Executive Secretary, 1785 Massachusetts Ave-
nue, N. W., Washington 6, D. C. The National Catholic Educational Association
Bulletin is indexed in The Education Index of the H. W. Wilson Co. as well as in
The Catholic Periodical Index. Second-class postage paid at Washington, D. C.
hi
NATIONAL CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION
BULLETIN
Fostering the
Ecumenical Spirit
REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS AND ADDRESSES AT
THE FIFTY-NINTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE
NATIONAL CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION,
DETROIT, MICHIGAN, APRIL 24-27, 1962
MARY IRWIN, Editor
Vol. LIX August 1962 No. 1
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NATIONAL CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION
Officers for the Year 1962-63
GENERAL
President General: Most Rev. John P. Cody, D.D., New Orleans, La.
Vice Presidents General:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frank M. Schneider, Milwaukee, Wis.
Rev. Edmond A. Fournier, Detroit, Mich.
Very Rev. Armand H. Desautels, A.A., Worcester, Mass.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan, Cincinnati, Ohio
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Edmund J. Goebel, Milwaukee, Wis.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Paul E. Campbell, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Sylvester J. Holbel, Buffalo, N.Y.
Executive Secretary: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt, Washington, D.C.
General Executive Board:
Very Rev. Msgr. John E. Murphy, Little Rock, Ark.
Very Rev. James A. Laubacher, S.S., Baltimore, Md.
Very Rev. John McQuade, S.M., New Orleans, La.
Rev. Robert C. Newbold, Warwick Neck, R.I.
Very Rev. Herman Romoser, O.S.B., St. Meinrad, Ind.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Louis E. Riedel, Milwaukee, Wis.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Alfred F. Horrigan, Louisville, Ky.
Dr. William H. Conley, Notre Dame, Ind.
Very Rev. Vincent C. Dore, O.P., Providence, R.I.
Rev. Richard Kleiber, Green Bay, Wis.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Anthony Egging, Grand Island, Neb.
Very Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Brother E. Anthony, F.S.C., Philadelphia, Pa.
Brother Bartholomew, C.F.X., Newton Highlands, Mass.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. T. Leo Keaveny, St. Cloud, Minn.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. William E. McManus, Chicago, 111.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. John Paul Haverty, New York, N.Y.
Brother Bernard Peter, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Rev. Daniel Kirwin, Wheeling, W.Va.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. James E. Hoflich, St. Louis, Mo.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Felix Newton Pitt, Louisville, Ky.
MAJOR SEMESfARY DEPARTMENT
President: Very Rev. Msgr. John E. Murphy, Little Rock, Ark.
Vice President: Rev. Thomas W. Coyle, C.Ss.R., Oconomowoc, Wis.
Secretary: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Lawrence J. Riley, Brighton, Mass.
General Executive Board:
Very Rev. James A. Laubacher, S.S., Baltimore, Md.
Very Rev. John McQuade, S.M., New Orleans, La.
MEVOR SEMEVARY DEPARTMENT
President: Rev. Robert C. Newbold, Warwick Neck, R.I.
Vice President: Rev. Donald J. Ryan, CM., St. Louis, Mo.
Secretary: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Ralph M. Miller, Buffalo, N.Y.
General Executive Board:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Louis E. Riedel, Milwaukee, Wis.
Very Rev. Herman Romoser, O.S.B., St. Meinrad, Ind.
iii
iv National Catholic Educational Association
COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT
President: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Alfred F. Horrigan, Louisville, Ky.
Vice President: Brother Gregory, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Secretary: Dr. Richard A. Matre, Chicago, 111.
General Executive Board:
Very Rev. Vincent C. Dore, O.P., Providence, R.I.
Dr. William H. Conley, Notre Dame, Ind.
Department Executive Committee:
Ex officio Members:
The President, Vice President, and Secretary
Very Rev. Armand H. Desautels, A.A., Worcester, Mass., Vice President General
representing College and University Department.
Very Rev. Vincent C. Dore, O.P., Providence, R.I., Department Representative
on General Executive Board.
Dr. William H. Conley, Notre Dame, Ind., Past President and Department Rep-
resentative on General Executive Board.
Rev. Arthur A. North, S.J., New York, N.Y., Secretary of Committee on Grad-
uate Study.
Very Rev. Gerald E. Dupont, S.S.E., Winooski, Vt., Secretary of Committee on
Membership.
Non-voting Members:
Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J., Washington, D.C., Associate Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Julius W. Haun, Winona, Minn.
Rev. Cyril F. Meyer, CM., Northampton, Pa.
Brother A. Potamian, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Brother Bonaventure Thomas, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Very Rev. Paul C. Reinert, S.J., St. Louis, Mo.
General Members:
Rev. Edward A. Doyle, S.J., New Orleans, La. 1
Sister M. Rose Emmanuella, Oakland, Calif. I lacog?
Rt. Rev. Msgr. John J. Dougherty, South Orange, N.J.
Sister Mary Josetta, R.S.M., Chicago, 111. J
Sister Anastasia Maria, I.H.M., Immaculata, Pa. ~\
Dr. C. Joseph Nuesse, Washington, D.C. I \^q_^a
Very Rev. Paul L. O'Connor, S.J., Cincinnati, Ohio
Rt. Rev. Msgr. James P. Shannon, St. Paul, Minn. J
Sister M. Augustine, O.S.F., Milwaukee, Wis. "j
Very Rev. Laurence V. Britt, S.J., Detroit, Mich. I jogigc
Dr. James A. Hart, Chicago, 111.
Rev. Joseph Hogan, CM., Jamaica, N.Y. J
Very Rev. Michael P. Walsh, S.J., Chestnut Hill, Mass. 1
Very Rev. William F. Kelley, S.J., Milwaukee, Wis. I iq62_66
Sister Joan Marie, S.N.J.M., Oakland, Calif.
Very Rev. Brian J. Egan, O.S.B., St. Bernard, Ala. J
Regional Unit Members:
Sister Ann Bartholomew, S.N.D., Boston, Mass. "1 .
Very Rev. Vincent C Dore, O.P., Providence, R.I. / wew fcn8lana
Dr. George F. Donovan, Washington, D.C. 1 _
Very Rev. Henry J. McAnulty, C.S.Sp., Pittsburgh, Pa. J t^K™
Officers: 1962-63
Brother Raymond Fleck, C.S.C., Austin, Tex. "I .
Sister Mary Eugene, O.P., New Orleans, La. J southern
}
Midwest
Northwestern
Southwestern
Brother Julius Edgar, F.S.C., Winona, Minn.
Dr. Martin J. Lowery, Chicago, 111.
Rev. Frank Costello, S.J., Seattle, Wash.
Sister M. Jean Frances, O.P., Edmunds, Wash.
Rev. Alexis Mei, S.J., Santa Clara, Calif.
Sister M. Humiliata, I.H.M., Los Angeles, Calif.
SECTION ON TEACHER EDUCATION
Chairman: Brother Louis Faerber, S.M., Dayton, Ohio
Vice Chairman: Dr. James Donnelly, New York, N.Y.
Secretary: Sister Rosemary Pfaff, D.C., Emmitsburg, Md.
SISTER FORMATION SECTION
Chairman: Rev. Mother Mary Regina, R.S.M., Bethesda, Md.
Vice Chairman: Rev. Mother Kathryn Marie, C.S.C., Notre Dame, Ind.
Executive Secretary: Sister Annette, C.S.J. , Washington, D.C.
NEWMAN EDUCATION SECTION
Chairman: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Alexander Sigur, Lafayette, La.
Vice Chairman: Rev. John F. Bradley, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Secretary: Rev. William D. Borders, Baton Rouge, La.
SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS DEPARTMENT
President: Rev. Richard Kleiber, Green Bay, Wis.
Vice President: Very Rev. Msgr. Bennett Applegate, Columbus, Ohio
Secretary: Very Rev. Msgr. R. C. Ulrich, Omaha, Neb.
General Executive Board:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Anthony Egging, Grand Island, Neb.
Very Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Department Executive Committee:
Ex officio Members:
The President, Vice President, and Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Anthony Egging, Grand Island, Neb.
Very Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. O'Neil C. D'Amour, Washington, D.C, Associate Secretary
General Members:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan, Cincinnati, Ohio
Rev. William B. McCartin, Tucson, Ariz.
Very Rev. Msgr. M. F. McAuliffe, Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo.
Rev. William M. Roche, Rochester, N.Y.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Henry C. Bezou, New Orleans, La.
SUPERVISORS SECTION
Chairman: Sister Mary Leonella, C.S.C., Salt Lake City, Utah
Vice Chairman: Sister Mary Philip, R.S.M., Baltimore, Md.
Secretary: Sister Mary Celine, O.S.F., Rockford, HI.
Advisory Board:
Community Supervisors: Sister Hilda Marie, O.P., Chicago, 111.
Brother Bernard Gregory, F.M.S., Bronx, N.Y.
vi National Catholic Educational Association
Diocesan Supervisors: Sister M. Bernard, O.L.M., Charleston, S.C.
Sister M. Eleanor, S.S.M., Irving, Tex.
Special Subject Supervisor: Sister M. Antonine, C.S.J., Brighton, Mass.
Director of Education for Religious Community; Rev. Lorenzo Reed, S.J.,
New York, N.Y.
Director of Teacher Education: Sister M. Philomene, S.L., Webster
Groves, Mo.
President of Department of School Superintendents: Rev. Richard Kleiber,
Green Bay, Wis.
SECONDARY SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
President: Brother E. Anthony, F.S.C., Philadelphia, Pa.
Vice President: Very Rev. Msgr. Henry Gardner, Kansas City, Kan.
Secretary: Rev. John Doogan, Seattle, Wash.
General Executive Board:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. T. Leo Keaveny, St. Cloud, Minn.
Brother Bartholomew, C.F.X., Newton Highlands, Mass.
Department Executive Committee:
Ex officio Members:
The President, Vice President, and Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Edmund J. Goebel, Milwaukee, Wis.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. T. Leo Keaveny, St. Cloud, Minn.
Brother Bartholomew, C.F.X., Newton Highlands, Mass.
Rev. C. Albert Koob, O. Praem., Washington, D.C., Associate Secretary
General Members:
Very Rev. Msgr. Roman C. Ulrich, Omaha, Neb.
Rev. Joseph T. O'Keefe, Yonkers, N.Y.
Rev. Lorenzo K. Reed, S.J., New York, N.Y.
Rev. Joseph Lynn, O.S.F.S., Wilmington, Del.
Rev. John E. O'Connell, O.P., Oak Park, 111.
Rev. Gerard Benson, O.Carm., Houston, Tex.
Rev. John Sullivan, S.J., Chicago, 111.
Rev. Cuthbert Soukup, O.S.B., Collegeville, Minn.
Brother Bernard Gregory, F.M.S., Bronx, N.Y.
Brother Thomas More, C.F.X., Baltimore, Md.
Brother Edwin Goerdt, S.M., St. Louis, Mo.
Brother Alfonso Comeau, C.S.C., Gates Mills, Ohio
Brother John Darby, S.M., Chester, Pa.
Brother Joseph McKenna, F.S.C.H., West Roxbury, Mass.
Brother Jude Aloysius, F.S.C., Chicago, 111.
Brother C. O'Donnell, F.S.C.H., Butte, Mont.
Brother J. Stephen, F.S.C., Memphis, Tenn.
Sister M. Elaine, S.S.N.D., Houston, Tex.
Sister M. Elizabeth, S.L., Denver, Colo.
Sister Francis Inez, S.S.J., Philadelphia, Pa.
Sister M. Hildegardis, C.S.C., Ogden, Utah.
Sister M. Patrice, O.S.F., Milwaukee, Wis.
Sister M. Xavier, O.P., River Forest, 111.
Sister M. Paulita, O.S.F., Milwaukee, Wis.
Sister M. Jerome, O.S.U., Youngstown, Ohio
Officers: 1962-63 vii
}
New England
}
Eastern
}
Southern
}
Midwest
}
Northwestern
}
Southwestern
}
Hawaii
Regional Unit Members:
Brother Marcellus, C.F.X., Roxbury, Mass.
Rev. Thomas E. Lawton, Bridgeport, Conn.
Brother Benjamin Benedict, F.S.C., Lincroft, N.J.
Sister M. Christopher, R.S.M., Baltimore, Md.
Rev. Walter C. McCauley, S.J., Dallas, Tex.
Brother Kerric Dever, C.S.C., Miami, Fla.
Rev. David Murphy, O.Carm., Chicago, 111.
Rev. Joseph A. Coyne, O.S.A., Tulsa, Okla.
Sister Ann Dolores, F.C.S.F., Missoula, Mont.
Rev. John Doogan, Seattle, Wash.
Brother Eugene, F.S.C., Sacramento, Calif.
Brother Herman J. Gerber, S.M., San Francisco, Calif.
Prof. George Chang, Honolulu, Hawaii
Sister M. Lucy, SS.CC, Honolulu, Hawaii
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
President: Rt. Rev. Msgr. William E. McManus, Chicago, 111.
Vice Presidents:
Very Rev. Msgr. Ignatius A. Martin, Lafayette, La.
Brother Arthur Philip, F.S.C., Yonkers, N.Y.
Sister Marie Theresa, S.C., New York, N.Y.
Sister Mary Edward, P.B.V.M., Dubuque, Iowa
Very Rev. Msgr. James B. Clyne, Los Angeles, Calif.
Secretary: Sister Jean Clare, O.P., Rockville Centre, N.Y.
General Executive Board:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. John Paul Haverty, New York, N.Y.
Brother Bernard Peter, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Department Executive Committee:
Ex officio Members:
The President, Vice President, and Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. John Paul Haverty, New York, N.Y.
Brother Bernard Peter, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M., Washington, D.C., Associate Secretary
Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D., Washington, D.C., Assistant Secretary
General Members:
Very Rev. Msgr. Leo E. Hammerl, Buffalo, N.Y.
Rev. John Sweeney, Peoria, 111.
Rev. Wm. O. Goedert, Chicago, 111.
Brother Albert William, F.S.C., Bronx, N.Y.
Sister Euphrasia, O.S.F., Tiffin, Ohio
Sister Stanislaus Marie, S.N.J. M., Alhambra, Calif.
Sister Leonella, C.S.C., Salt Lake City, Utah
Sister Petrine, S.S.N.D., Irving, Tex.
Sister Mary Esther, C.P.P.S., St. Louis, Mo.
Sister Anne Louise, C.S.J., Los Angeles, Calif.
1959-63
vm
National Catholic Educational Association
Very Rev. Msgr. James B. Clyne, Los Angeles, Calif.
Rev. Joseph Stremel, Dodge City, Kan.
Very Rev. Msgr. H. Clinton Teacle, Alexandria, La.
Brother Celestin George, F.S.C., Yonkers, N.Y.
Sister Barbara, C.P.P.S., Cincinnati, Ohio
Sister Helen Julia, S.N.D., Waltham, Mass.
Mother Frances Theresa, C.C.V.I., San Antonio, Tex.
Sister Jeanne Marie, F.C.S.P., Issaquah, Wash.
Sister Mary Rose Esther, B.V.M., Chicago, 111.
Sister Loretella, C.S.C., Boston, Mass.
Miss Alberta Beeson, Tucson, Ariz.
Very Rev. Msgr. J. William Lester, Fort Wayne, Ind.
Rev. Armand E. Cyr, Portland, Me.
Rev. J. F. McManus, Charleston, S.C.
Brother Basilian Amedy, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Sister Mary Edward, S.S.J., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Sister Eugene Joseph, S.S.J. , Philadelphia, Pa.
Sister Francis de Sales, H.H.M., Cleveland, Ohio
Sister Francis Eileen, S.L., Denver, Colo.
Sister Jean Clare, O.P., Rockville Centre, N.Y.
Mrs. Nancy McCormick Rambusch, Greenwich, Conn.
Very Rev. Msgr. Thomas W. Lyons, Washington, D.C.
Sister M. Celine, O.S.B., Miami, Fla.
Sister Sarah, S.C.L., Helena, Mont.
Sister M. Virgine, I.H.M., Detroit, Mich.
1960-64
1961-65
1962-66
SPECIAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
President: Rev. Daniel Kirwin, Wheeling, W.Va.
Vice President: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Sylvester J. Holbel, Buffalo, N.Y.
Secretary: Sister Serena, New York, N.Y.
General Executive Board:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Felix Newton Pitt, Louisville, Ky.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. James E. Hoflich, St. Louis, Mo.
Department Executive Committee :
Ex officio Members:
The President, Vice President, and Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Felix Newton Pitt, Louisville, Ky.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. James E. Hoflich, St. Louis, Mo.
Very Rev. Msgr. Elmer H. Behrmann, St. Louis, Mo., Associate Secretary
General Members:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Henry C. Bezou, New Orleans, La.
Sister Joseph Mary, S.N.D., Washington, D.C.
Rev. Thomas J. O'Brien, Kansas City, Mo.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. John J. Voight, New York, N.Y.
Rev. Francis R. LoBianco, Newark, N.J.
Sister Celine, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Sister Ann Columba, Jamaica, N.Y.
Officers: 1962-63 ix
VOCATION SECTION
Chairman: Rev. Myles Colgan, O. Carm., Chicago, 111.
Vice Chairman: Rev. William J. Martin, Toledo, Ohio
Secretary: Brother Thomas Caffrey, S.M., Mineola, N.Y.
Advisory Board:
Brother Eymard Salzman, C.S.C., Notre Dame, Ind.
Rev. Vincent Howard, Detroit, Mich.
Rev. Michael McLaughlin, Rockville Centre, N.Y.
Rev. Francis A. McKay, M.M., Maryknoll, N.Y.
Sister M. Patricia, R.S.M., Omaha, Neb.
Sister Mary Rita, C.S.J., La Grange Park, 111.
CONTENTS
NCEA Officers, 1962-63 iii
Introduction xvi
PART 1: NCEA ANNUAL REPORTS
Meetings of the Executive Board of Directors, 1961-62 1
Report of the Executive Secretary. Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt 14
PART 2: GENERAL SESSIONS
Opening Meeting, April 24, 1962
Sermon. Solemn Pontifical Mass. Rev. Edmond A. Fournier 22
The Lay Teacher in Catholic Education. William H. Conley 25
Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit. Most Rev. John F. Dearden 31
Closing Meeting, April 27, 1962
Summary of 1962 Meeting. Very Rev. Laurence V. Britt, S.J 35
Remarks of Acceptance of Office of President General. Archbishop John Cody... 39
General Meetings: Minutes. Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt 41
PART 3: MAJOR SEMJJVARY DEPARTMENT
Preparation of Diocesan Priests for Teaching in High Schools and Colleges.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Robert H. Krumholtz 45
The Nature and the Purpose of the Communications Program in the Seminary.
Very Rev. Msgr. Leonard J. Fick 52
Developing an Intellectual Tradition in the Seminary. Rev. Eugene M. Burke,
C.S.P 58
Teaching the Dogma Course: Scripture and Authority of the Church. Very
Rev. Edward J. Hogan, S.S 65
An Analysis and Evaluation of Seminary Administration. Very Rev. Edward
F. Riley, CM 69
Formation of Seminarians Toward a Diocesan Spirituality. Rev. Sergius
Wroblewski, O.F.M 76
Celibacy: Motivation and Some Problems. Very Rev. Edward J. Carney, O.S.F.S. 83
Proceedings and Reports
Minutes: 1962 Meetings 92
Resolutions 97
Officers, 1962-63 97
Contents
PART 4: MINOR SEMINARY DEPARTMENT
Background and Preparation Needed for the Office of Spiritual Director. Very
Rev. James R. Gillis, O.P 98
Judging the Character of a Seminarian. Most Rev. John F. Whealon 103
Today's Religious Candidate: Psychological and Emotional Considerations. Rev.
George Hagmaier, C.S.P 110
An Approach to Present Vocational Problems and Their Solutions. Brother
H. Bernard, F.S.C 118
The Spiritual Nature of Today's Religious Candidate. Rev. Thomas Murphy 123
Seminarian Responsibility: Scope and Means. Very Rev. Donald J. Ryan, CM. 128
A Remedial and Developmental Reading Program in the Minor Seminary.
Rev. Hugh J. Biggar 131
Notes on Discussion of Papers. Rt. Rev. Msgr. Ralph M. Miller 136
Proceedings and Reports
Resolutions 137
Proposed Bylaws 138
Officers, 1962-63 141
PART 5: COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT
Ecumenism as a Catholic Concern. Rev. Avery Dulles, S.J 142
Catholic Higher Education and the Ecumenical Spirit. Raymond F. McCoy .... 150
Christian Higher Education Faces the Future. Rev. Thurston N. Davis, S.J 154
The Ecumenical Spirit in the Curriculum: The World Viewpoint
Summary of Discussion. Sister Mary Agnes, R.S.M 159
Catholic Colleges and the Emerging New Nations. Thomas P. Me lady 160
Summary of Discussion. Sister Marie Christine, G.N.S.H 164
College Theology and the Ecumenical Spirit: Preparation for the Dialogue.
Rev. Bernard J. Cooke, S.J 166
Summary of Discussion. Sister Stella Maris, O.P 170
The Open Tradition in Catholic Scholarship. Philip Scharper 172
Summary of Discussion. Sister Joan Marie, O.S.U 174
Ecumenism and the Community Spirit: Preparing Students for Intelligent Lay
Leadership. Sister M. Stephanie Stueber, C.S.J 175
Summary of Discussion. Francis J. Donohue 180
Newman Clubs and Ecumenism on the Secular Campus. Rev. George Garrelts 181
Summary of Discussion. Rev. William D. Borders 184
Sister Formation Section
Formation of the Sister for Her Apostolic Mission in the Church. Rev. Ron-
ald Roloff, O.S.B 185
In-Service Formation of Sisters for Understanding Different National Groups.
Mother Loretto Bernard 192
Orientation and Post-Orientation for Junior Sisters from Mission Countries.
Sister M. Charitina, F.S.P.A 198
Scriptural Formation and Ecumenism. Mother Kathryn Sullivan, R.S.C.J 202
Utilizing Community Educational Conferences for Fostering the Ecumenical
Spirit. Sister Mary Magdalene, O.P 208
An Experiment in Promoting Participation of Hospital Sisters in Professional
Organizations. Sister Madeleine Clemence 211
Ecumenical Significance of the Sister Formation Fellowship Project. Sister
Margaret, S.N.D 212
Letter from Augustine Cardinal Bea 215
xii Contents
International Student Program
The Foreign Student in the United States: The Wien Program at Brandeis
University. Jean-Pierre Barricelli 218
Committee on Graduate Study
The Catholic University and Ecumenism. Heinrich A. Rom men 223
The Catholic University and Ecumenism. James P. Reilly, Jr 227
Section on Teacher Education
Catholic Institutions Accredited by NCATE. Urban H. Fleege 231
NCATE Criteria, Policy, and Implications. Sister M. Camille, O.S.F 232
NCATE and the Large University. Rev. Carl A. Hangartner, S.J 240
Accreditation of a Small Liberal Arts College for Women. Sister M. Virginia
Claire, S.N.J.M 241
Experience in Securing NCATE Accreditation in a Large Liberal Arts Col-
lege. Sister M. Cuthbert, I.H.M 244
Joint Conference: College and University and Secondary School
Departments
Cooperation Between College Registrars and High School Counselors and Ad-
ministrators. Brother Lawrence McGervey, S.M 248
Meeting for Representatives of Junior Colleges
What the Lord Said to Israel. Very Rev. John F. Cullinan, V.F 251
Proceedings and Reports
Amendment to Bylaws Providing Associate Membership for Newman Clubs 257
Report of the Committee on Membership 257
Officers, 1962-63 258
PART 6: SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS DEPARTMENT
Supervisors Section
The Supervisor's Role in Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit. Brother Majella
Hegarty, C.S.C 259
What the Supervisor Does for Public Relations. Sister Hilda Marie, O.P 266
In-Service Help Through Professional Programs. Sister Marie Celine, F.S.P.A. 268
The Supervisor and the Curriculum. Sister Mary Joan, S.P 270
What Should Be Done To Prepare Students for High School with Respect to
Study Skills? Sister Philomene, S.L 272
Proceedings and Reports
Program: Annual Meeting, New Orleans, October 23-26, 1961 274
Agenda: General Meeting, Detroit, April 26, 1962 275
Minutes of Meetings 276
Resolutions 284
Officers, 1962-63 285
Contents
PART 7: SECONDARY SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
Developing Spiritual Maturity in Thought and Action. Most Rev. Leo C. Byrne 286
"Mater et Magistra" — The Last Chance Encyclical. Donald J. Thorman 289
The Chemical Bond Approach to the Teaching of Chemistry. Helen W. Crawley 299
The BSCS Program for the Teaching of Biology. Evelyn Klinckmann 301
BSCS: One Teacher Speaking to Another. Sister M. Ivo, B.V.M 309
Team Teaching at Chaminade High School, Dayton, Ohio. Brother John
Schneider, S.M.; Brother George Deinlein, S.M.; Brother James Cos-
grove, SM.; Brother Manuel Juan Ramos, S.M 314
Enriching the Curriculum of the Small Secondary School. Frank W. Cyr 317
CHEM Study — An Experimental Approach to Chemistry. /. Arthur Campbell 323
The Case for Television in the Catholic High School. Dorothy F. Patterson .... 324
From Camera to Screen: Technical Details of Production and Reception.
Kathleen N. Lardie 329
The English Teacher and His Student. Floyd Rinker 332
DEEP — Detroit Experimental English Program. Walter Appleton 339
Proceedings and Reports
Report of the Committee on Regional Units 344
Report on Curriculum Advisory Committees 348
Report on the Catholic High School Quarterly Bulletin 361
Officers, 1962-63 361
PART 8: ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
What Is the Catholic Church? Rev. Eugene M. Burke, C.S.P 363
The Elementary School and the Unity of the Human Race. Rev. John J.
Considine, M.M 370
Catholic, Protestant, Jew — A Basis for Understanding. Philip Scharper 377
The Pros and Cons of Modern Elementary Mathematics. Sister Mary Petronia,
S.S.N.D 381
National Science Foundation Institutes for Elementary Teachers. Sister M.
Seraphim, C.SJ 382
Social Consciousness and Global Responsibilties: The Teacher's Background.
Sister Marion, S.C.H 389
Social Consciousness and Global Responsibilities: The Necessary Skills. Sister
M. Lenore, O.P 393
Today's Child — Tomorrow's World: The Multisensory Aids. Sister Mary
Dennis, S.S.J 394
Successful Departmentalization. Sister Mary Ernestine, R.S.M 402
The Successful Library Program. Sister Mary Sarah, S.C.L 405
Successful Grouping for Teaching and Learning. Sister M. Celine, O.S.B 411
The Catholic School's Role in Community Relations. Sister M. Licinia, O.S.F. 417
The Catholic School Story — The Public. Jerome G. Kovalcik 423
The Catholic School Story and the Press. Harry Salsinger 426
Fitness for the Sixties. Fred V. Hein 428
How Can the Elementary School Meet Its Physical Fitness Commitments?
C. Dale Barrett, M.D 432
How Can the Catholic Elementary School Meet Its Physical Fitness Require-
ments? Sister Miriam Joseph, O.P 436
Training Leaders. Lt. Comdr. James J. Killeen, USN 437
Basic Principles in Guidance for the Elementary School. Rev. Charles A. Curran 438
Contents
Debate: Whereas, Diocese X Does Not Have Sufficient Funds for New Schools
on Both Elementary and Secondary Levels, Be It Resolved, That Diocese X
Favors the Building of New Elementary Schools
Affirmative: Mrs. John O. Riedl 439
Negative: Sister Ann Virginia, I.H.M 444
Kindergarten Meeting
Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit Through Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Rev. William J. Mountain, S.J 451
The Role of the Teacher in Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit. Mrs. Charlotte
Gmeiner 456
The Role of the Parents in Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit. Charles and
Pearl Pillon 460
Filmslides on a Kindergarten International Unit. Sister M. Agnes Therese, l.H.M. 466
Play Along with Rhythm Bands. Sister Mary James Louis, B.V.M 468
Proceedings
Officers, 1962-63 469
PART 9: SPECIAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
Implications of President Kennedy's Panel on Mental Retardation.
Very Rev. Msgr. E. H. Behrmann 470
Guiding Handicapped Youth Toward Employment. Joseph Hunt 475
Reflections on Research in Rehabilitation. Louis J. Cantoni 476
The Psychiatrist Views the Role of the Teacher. Aloysius S. Church, M.D.,
F.A.P.A 477
The Impact of Emotional-Social Maladjustment on the Learning Processes of
Children. Helmut P. Hofmann 479
Mental Hygiene in the Classroom. Sister M. of St. Benno, R.G.S 485
The Importance of Music Reading for the Blind Child. Sister Mary Mark,
I.H.M 486
Music for the Blind Child. Lenore McGuire 488
Proceedings
Officers, 1962-63 491
PART 10: SECTION MEETINGS
Vocation Section
The Challenge of God's Call to Our Youth. Most Rev. Alexander M. Zaleski 492
The Impact of the Ecumenical Council on the Vocational Apostolate. Most
Rev. Nicholas T. Elko 494
Sister Formation Ideal and Interviewing the Candidate. Sister Miriam Therese,
M.M 496
Clarification of the Brother Vocation. Rev. Quentin Hakenewerth, S.M. 497
Successful Recruiting in Secondary Schools. Rev. Norbert C. Burns, S.M 500
Report of the First International Congress on Vocations to the States of Perfec-
tion. Rev. Godfrey Poage, C.P 503
Report on International Congress of Vocation Specialists. Rev. Michael Mc-
Laughlin 506
Vocation Section: Officers, 1962-63 507
Contents
Newman Club Chaplains Section
The Role of Newman Club Education in American Catholicism. William J.
Whalen 508
National Catholic Adult Education Commission
Adult Education for Catholics: The Necessity and the Challenge. Most Rev.
Paul J. Hallinan 513
Report of the Commission on Adult Education 518
PART 11: SPECIAL SESSIONS
Report of the Meeting of Catholic Lay Persons. Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan 519
The Classroom and Teaching in Holiness. Rev. Paul Aronica, S.D.B 521
Forming the Ecumenical Spirit Through Byzantine Rite and Church History.
Rev. Patrick Paschak, O.S.B.M 522
Effective Teaching of the Ukrainian Language in the Elementary School.
Mother Raymond de Jesus, F.S.E 527
Foreign Language Teaching Objectives and Methods. Sister M. Bohdonna,
O.S.B.M 528
Lesson Plan for Teaching Ukrainian History in Our Archdiocesan Schools.
Sister M. Salome, O.S.B.M 529
Lesson Plan for Teaching Ukrainian Geography in Our Archdiocesan Schools.
Sister Michael, S.S.M.1 531
APPENDIXES
I. The Constitution of the National Catholic Educational Association 532
II. The Financial Report: 1961 535
INDEX 539
INTRODUCTION
Gleaming with all the splendor of its polished marble and aluminum metal
work, Cobo Hall, beautiful example of all that is newest among the nation's
convention and civic centers, opened its doors April 24 to greet the 12,000
delegates who had journeyed to the Metropolis of Mobiledom for the 1962
NCEA convention. Had it been possible to have each one of these delegates
state preferences beforehand for weather and convention arrangements on auto-
matic data processing cards and then extract the qualities most desired, chances
are the convention would have come out just as it actually did. Clear crispy
air and a warm sun joined together to give just about ideal weather conditions
for five full days. Spacious facilities and comfortable seating made every ses-
sion most enjoyable. Almost nostalgically one thinks back on this convention
as being the ideal, perhaps to be equalled in the future but probably never to
be surpassed. Nostalgically, also, one recalls the happy faces of thousands of
sisters strolling in the sun during break time on the landscaped quay, the wind
tugging lightly at their veils as they gazed across the Detroit River into Canada.
Nostalgically, too, one thinks back on the happy groups assembling twice each
day at the Indian Monument, forming luncheon or dinner groups soon to depart
for their favorite dining spots.
As its theme, the fifty-ninth NCEA convention took a topic in line with the
wishes of the reigning Pontiff when he decided to re-convene the session of the
Vatican Council, namely "Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit." His Excellency,
the Most Reverend John F. Dearden, our gracious host in the Archdiocese of
Detroit, in his opening address spoke on this theme, saying in part, "the forth-
coming Council will provide an unparalleled opportunity to have our pupils
sense the throbbing, pulsating life of the Chuch." He envisioned each product
of our Catholic schools as "informed, articulate, practicing what he preaches,
able to stand as a gentle invitation to all who know not Christ and his Church."
With such noble and challenging ideals set before them the delegates set about
the task of exploring in depth the meaning of the ecumenical spirit and the best
means of fostering it in our schools.
The keynote address sounded the call to better understanding of the current
problems in the Catholic school system by singling out one of them. Dr.
William Conley spoke on the role of the laity. His inspiring words presented
a challenge to the laity to give their all in the spirit of apostolic dedication,
and a challenge to the clergy, brothers, and sisters to accept the laity as fully
mature members of the Catholic family of teachers.
Words of thanks and credit for a job well done must go to all who made
this convention possible. It was obvious to the visiting delegates such a success-
ful outcome required much advance preparation. The local committees had
done a magnificent piece of work long before the first exhibitor arrived to set
up his display. The Association is most grateful to Very Rev. Msgr. Vincent
Horkan, Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of Detroit, Rev.
Edmond A. Fournier, Rev. John B. Zwers, Assistant Superintendent of Schools
for the Archdiocese of Detroit, and Rev. Allen P. Farrell, S.J., for the wonder-
ful service they and their committees rendered all Catholic educators by taking
care of local arrangements. The Association is likewise grateful to the civic
authorities, business leaders, exhibitors, and all those who helped to insure
the success of the 1962 convention.
xvi
PART 1 ANNUAL REPORTS
MEETINGS OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD
Eden Roc Hotel
Miami Beach, Florida
June 15, 1961
The meeting of the Executive Board of Directors was opened with prayer at
10:20 a.m. by the Chairman, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frank M. Schneider, who pre-
sided in the absence of the President General, Most Rev. John F. Dearden.
Members of the Board present were: Brother Bartholomew, C.F.X., Newton
Highlands, Mass.; Brother Bernard Peter, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.; Rt. Rev.
Msgr. Henry C. Bezou, New Orleans, La.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Paul E. Campbell,
Pittsburgh, Pa.; Dr. William H. Conley, Milwaukee, Wis.; Very Rev. Armand
H. Desautels, A. A., Worcester, Mass.; Rev. Edmond A. Fournier, Detroit,
Mich.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. John Paul Haverty, New York, N.Y.; Rt. Rev. Msgr.
James E. Hoflich, St. Louis, Mo.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. T. Leo Keaveny, St. Cloud,
Minn.; Rev. Daniel Kirwin, Wheeling, W.Va.; Very Rev. John McQuade, S.M.,
New Orleans, La.; Rev. John E. Murphy, Little Rock, Ark.; Rev. Robert C.
Newbold, Warwick, R.I.; Very Rev. Msgr. Laurence J. O'Connell, East St.
Louis, 111.; Rev. Thomas F. Reidy, O.S.F.S., Lockport, N.Y.; Very Rev. Paul
C. Reinert, S.J., St. Louis, Mo.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Louis E. Riedel, Milwaukee,
Wis.; Very Rev. Herman Romoser, O.S.B., St. Meinrad, Ind.; Rt. Rev. Msgr.
Carl J. Ryan, Cincinnati, Ohio; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frank M. Schneider, Mil-
waukee, Wis.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt, Washington, D.C. Mr.
Joseph O'Donnell, Washington, D.C, was also present.
The Chairman welcomed the group to the meeting and introduced the new
members of the Board.
The evaluation of the 1961 NCEA Convention was presented by Dr. Conley.
There was general agreement among the members of the evaluating committee
and the delegates that this was clearly the best of the NCEA conventions.
There was not a single major criticism to be reported. The major recom-
mendation presented to the Board was that the method of evaluating the
convention be modified for the next year. It was proposed that the evaluating
committee be continued with departmental representatives and generalists,
but that the collection of delegate reactions during the convention be discon-
tinued. About one week after the close of the convention, an appraisal sheet
should be sent by mail to a selected sampling of registrants requesting their
opinion by a specified date. The sheets should be returned to the chairman
of the evaluating committee for tabulation and judgment. It was estimated
that expenditures of from $150 to $400 would be required to cover the cost
of duplicating, mailing, and tabulating this type of evaluation. The Board
voted to allocate money to the evaluating committee for this project with
2 National Catholic Educational Association
the suggestion that the appraisal sheets be sent out, if possible, not more than
one week after the close of the convention. The Board commended Dr.
Conley and the committee and extended its thanks for the fine evaluation
report.
The Board voted to dispense with the reading of the minutes of the last
meeting and accepted them as submitted.
The Board next considered the recommendations of the Planning Committee
for the Detroit Convention in 1962. Mr. O'Donnell explained that the physical
facilities in Detroit are the best, but the concern over the labor union difficulties
is so great that the Planning Committee discussed the problem for some time
before expressing a vote of confidence in the selection of Detroit for 1962.
The Board unanimously voted to continue with plans and to hold the 1962
Convention in Detroit.
Because of the publicity Catholic education has had this year as a result
of discussions of federal aid to education, it has been suggested that the
NCEA employ a year-round press clipping service on particular subjects
or areas relating to Catholic education. However, because this would require
a great deal of space and extra staff which the NCEA does not have at the
present time, and because of the question of the extent of coverage Catholic
education would get after the federal aid issue has been resolved, the Execu-
tive Board thought that a pilot study of coverage would be the best plan to
determine whether or not a year-round press clipping service would really
be of value. The Board voted to appoint a subcommittee to study the matter
of year-round press clipping service, and as the pilot study, to select ten or
twelve of the leading newspapers throughout the country to which the NCEA
would subscribe for a trial period. Then schools or departments of journalism
would be approached on the possibility of a student project of clipping,
mounting, dating, and cataloging these papers. The Chairman appointed the
following to the subcommittee on press clipping service: Monsignor Hofiich,
chairman; Monsignor Campbell and Monsignor Haverty.
The Board selected as a theme for the 1962 convention, "Fostering the
Ecumenical Spirit." The Executive Secretary agreed to prepare background
material on the theme to be sent to department heads for their convention
planning meetings.
The Board approved the time schedule for the opening day as suggested by
the Planning Committee: the opening Mass will be a Solemn Pontifical
Mass at 9 a.m.; the opening general meeting will begin at 11 a.m. and
conclude by 12:15 p.m.; the formal opening of exhibits will take place at
12:30 p.m.; and the opening departmental meetings will begin at 2 p.m. De-
partmental executive committees will meet at 4:15 p.m. in Cobo Hall.
The Board voted to invite Archbishop John Dearden to say or preside
at the Solemn Pontifical Mass and to give either the sermon at the Mass
or the keynote address at the opening general meeting. Depending upon the
choices of Archbishop Dearden, and with his approbation, Archbishop Antonio
Samore, Secretary, Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Af-
fairs, Rome, could be invited to give either the sermon at the Mass or the
keynote address. The following names were submitted as possible speakers
at the convention: Archbishop John Krol, Philadelphia, Pa.; Bishop Leo
Byrne, Wichita, Kan.; Bishop John P. Cody, Kansas City, Mo.; Bishop James
Griffith, New York, N.Y.; Bishop Albert R. Zuroweste, Belleville, 111.; Bishop
Paul Hallinan, Charleston, S.C.; Monsignor Francis J. Lally, Boston, Mass.;
Meetings of Executive Board 3
Father Joseph Christie, London. The names will be forwarded to Arch-
bishop Dearden for his approval. As soon as decision is made on general
speakers, Monsignor Hochwalt will notify chairmen of departments.
The Board accepted the suggestion that Father Laurence Britt, S.J.,
president of the University of Detroit, be invited to summarize the convention
at the final general meeting at 9:30 a.m. Friday.
The Board voted that the work of the subcommittee on the purchase of
portable altars, under the chairmanship of Father Kirwin, be continued with
instructions to investigate the matter of the most durable material (e.g.,
aluminum) for the altars and with authority to proceed with the purchase
of twenty altars with all the appurtenances for the 1962 convention in Detroit.
If after investigation it would be clear that it would be more practical to
purchase 100 at one time, the subcommittee was given authority to purchase
all 100. Monsignor Haverty agreed to contact the proper person in New York
City to determine whether or not it will be possible for NCEA to rent altars
from the Apostleship of the Sea office for use at the Detroit convention and
to report to the Executive Secretary.
The Board approved the recommendation that at the 1962 convention a few
sessions be held on the problems of Catholic education with the participants
to be lay persons, and appointed a subcommittee of the Board, with Monsignor
Ryan as chairman, Monsignor McDowell and Monsignor Egging, to be
responsible for setting up the programs and selecting the persons to attend
and participate.
Copies of the financial report for 1960 were presented to the Board and
reviewed by the Executive Secretary. The annual professional audit of ac-
counts was circulated among the members for their inspection and the
Chairman appointed a subcommittee consisting of Monsignor Campbell, chair-
man, Father Reinert, and Father Kirwin to review the audit. In addition, a
complete cost accounting of NCEA expenses was presented to the Board
and discussed at some length. It was suggested that the Board study this
material and comment on it at the next meeting.
The subcommittee approved the audit with the suggestion that something
be done to consider the rules laid down by former Boards on investments
and that ways be found to invest the NCEA money and to raise more money.
The Board voted to appoint a subcommittee consisting of Monsignor Bezou,
chairman, Father Reinert, and Dr. Conley to reconsider the investment policy
of former Boards that is contained in the Constitution and minutes of Board
meetings according to the suggestion of the audit committee of 1961. This
subcommittee is empowered to work with the lawyer and financial staff in
the national office. (Note: The policy on investments as contained in Arti-
cle VII, Section 4, of the Constitution and the April 7, 1953, Minutes of the
Board meeting is as follows: "Whenever the Executive Secretary, with the
approval of the President General, finds that the balance in the checking ac-
count maintained by his office is in excess of the short-term requirements of
the account, he is authorized to deposit the excess funds in savings accounts
of well-established banks or building and loan associations; provided only that
the amount on deposit with any one such institution shall not exceed the
amount covered by Federal Deposit Insurance.")
A brief report was given on a proposal to the Carnegie Foundation by a
group of educators who had met during a meeting of the Association for the
Accreditation of Colleges of Teacher Education for a study of Catholic edu-
4 National Catholic Educational Association
cation. If the proposal is accepted by the Carnegie Foundation, there will be
a committee to study Catholic education and the NCEA will be asked to be
the guiding influence and co-sponsor.
The Executive Secretary reported on the staff in the national office and
announced that Father Richard Mulroy, O.Praem., had been recalled by his
community to become rector of the seminary and director of studies. Abbot
Killeen, O.Praem., has named Father C. Albert Koob, O.Praem., to succeed
Father Mulroy as Associate Secretary of the Secondary School Department.
The Board voted to extend its thanks and appreciation to Father Mulroy for
his excellent work as Associate Secretary of the Secondary School Department.
The office of the Associate Secretary for the Seminary Departments is still
vacant.
Dr. Conley reported that the fee for associate membership in the College
and University Department was purposely left at $25. The Department hopes
to decrease the number of associate memberships and Dr. Conley will contact
the chairman of the membership committee, Father Dupont, to work on this.
The Board instructed the Executive Secretary to express to the family and
religious superiors of Father Robert Slavin, O.P., its deep regret at his un-
timely death, and its appreciation of the tremendous contribution he made
to the whole Association and especially to the College and University De-
partment.
The Executive Secretary reported on meetings held with two fund-raising
groups — Community Counseling Service and Lawson Associates — concerning
the proposed building project for NCEA. He stated that more meetings will
be held and that when preliminary plans for the project are ready, the infor-
mation will be given to the Board. The Executive Secretary was given full
authority by the Board to proceed with the plans for the expansion of the
national office as far as the new building is concerned and to choose any Board
members and any other people who would be helpful to him to be on a
national committee for this project. The Board itself will suggest names of
any persons it feels would be helpful on this committee.
The Board extended a vote of thanks and appreciation to the Executive Secre-
tary for his excellent presentations in the federal aid discussions and especially
on the television show "Face the Nation." The Executive Secretary expressed
appreciation to Dr. William Conley and Dr. Raymond McCoy who had gener-
ously given their time to represent Catholic education in these discussions.
The Board discussed the proposal to establish within the NCEA a section for
lay teachers and voted to appoint a subcommittee on the Board to look into the
organization of such a section with the purpose of better serving lay teachers
by providing insurance, retirement benefits, etc., with NCEA membership, and
the appointment of a full-time secretary for the section in the national office,
who is both an educator and an administrator. The following Board members
were appointed to this subcommittee: Monsignor Hoflich, chairman, Monsignor
Ryan, and Monsignor Bezou.
The Board instructed the national office to proceed with plans to hold the
1965 convention in New York City but to retain a tentative reservation in
Pittsburgh for a while longer. No action was taken on the proposal from the
City of Milwaukee to hold an NCEA convention there at some future time.
The Board examined a proposal for a small NCEA exhibit to be used at
diocesan institutes and other meetings and voted to proceed with this small
exhibit to be used this year wherever it may be requested and to reconsider this
matter at the next Board meeting.
Meetings of Executive Board 5
The Board heard a report on the proposed Hall of Education at the World's
Fair in New York City in 1964-65. A tentative reservation for exhibit space
has been made for Catholic education. The Board empowered the staff of the
national office to hold the matter open, to keep the tentative reservation if
possible, and to explore the matter more.
Dr. Conley presented the report of the subcommittee on adult education to
the Executive Board. The report is as follows:
Adult education in its broad sense encompasses all levels of education. It
ranges from citizenship training to the most advanced professional work. In
many cases no school credit is allowed and in other cases course work, even
at the doctoral level, yields graduate credit. Because of the diversity of adult
education it is difficult to assign it to any single department in the National
Catholic Educational Association.
Within the structure of the NCEA, the College and University Department
has major interest in adult education. Urban universities, colleges located in
metropolitan areas, and some of the junior colleges offer broad programs in
adult education, many of which grant credit and some of which are in the
noncredit category. Secondary schools in many areas offer service courses
and courses in religion. Ordinarily, the high school programs do not carry
regular credit.
A significant amount of adult education is carried on by parishes, diocesan
schools, and some independently organized groups and schools for adult edu-
cation. None of these offers credit.
The subcommittee of the Executive Board, after exploring the scope of
adult education and after considering the structure of the NCEA, recommends
the following:
1) The Commission on Adult Education should be continued as a part of
NCEA.
2) The Commission should submit its bylaws to the Executive Board of
Directors, including the following points:
a) Purposes of the Commission, defining adult education in its broad
scope as indicated in the preamble to these recommendations.
b) Procedure for the election of officers, providing representation for
colleges and universities, diocesan programs, lay organizational pro-
grams, and social action groups.
c) Conditions for membership.
d) Functions of officers.
e) Annual institutional dues payable to NCEA.
f) Authorization for registration fee to cover costs of meetings other
than the annual national meeting which will be held in the regular
NCEA convention.
3) The Committee invites the attention of the Board to a new classification,
i.e., Commission. There is no precedent for providing representation on the
Executive board.
The Board voted to accept the recommendations of the subcommittee of the
Board on adult education.
The Chairman reviewed the original proposal for a Commission on Problems
and Trends prepared by the Problems and Plans Committee and the revised
proposal to expand the present Problems and Plans Committee to include the
major points of the original proposal. It was felt that it would be better to ex-
pand the present committee rather than set up a new commission within NCEA.
The Board voted to adopt the revised proposal expanding the Problems and
6 National Catholic Educational Association
Plans Committee as submitted by the Chairman. A copy of the revised state-
ment on the functions and procedures of the Problems and Plans Committee is
attached to these minutes.
Because of some objections which had been raised, a subcommittee con-
sisting of Monsignor Bezou, chairman, Monsignor Ryan and Monsignor Hoflich,
was appointed by the Chairman to reword the Board's authorization for the es-
tablishment of the Supervisors Section as contained in the minutes of the
February 21, 1961, Board meeting. The subcommittee recommended that the
phrase ". . . purely as an administrative device" be eliminated, and the sentence
read, "Therefore, the Section will be attached to the Superintendents Depart-
ment . . ." The Board accepted this recommendation as submitted by the sub-
committee.
Father Kirwin reported that Monsignor Behrmann, Associate Secretary of
the Special Education Department, has been able to secure a limited number of
scholarships for special education and has sent a letter to superintendents in-
forming them of this so that they can submit names of candidates to him for
scholarships. The scholarship program will continue under the auspices of
NCEA as the Board had recommended.
The Executive Secretary agreed to give to Brother Bartholomew material
from departmental bylaws on the terms of departmental executive committees
for his information and use.
The Board expressed agreement with the proposal presented by Brother
Bartholomew to establish curriculum commissions in the Secondary School
Department.
The next meeting of the Executive Board will take place in February, the
actual date and place to be selected after the Executive Secretary consults with
the President General to determine his wishes in this matter.
The meeting adjourned at 5:15 p.m.
Frederick G. Hochwalt
Secretary
PROBLEMS AND PLANS COMMITTEE
Functions and Procedures (Revised 1961)
I. Functions
The functions of the Problems and Plans Committee of the National Catholic
Educational Association include the following:
1. To explore the field of education and its related areas in order to identify
problems of particular significance to Catholic education.
2. To initiate, conduct, or arrange for studies of problems and trends in
Catholic education and to submit the findings of such reports or papers
to the Executive Board with recommendations for appropriate action.
3. To recommend to the Executive Board of the National Catholic Educa-
tional Association studies of these problems to be made by:
a) scholars, specialists, or research groups
b) the various departments of the NCEA
c) departmental committees
d) inter-departmental committees
e) inter-Catholic association committees
/) individual Catholic institutions
Meetings of Executive Board 7
4. To suggest to the Executive Board of the NCEA means of publicizing
within or without the Association the results of such studies in the form
of statements or position papers as are thought to be of special signifi-
cance.
5. To recommend to the Executive Board of the NCEA plans for imple-
menting the findings of such studies.
II. Membership
1. The Problems and Plans Committee shall consist of nine members ap-
pointed by the Executive Board of the NCEA and the Executive Secre-
tary of the Association who shall be an ex officio member.
2. It shall be the duty of the Problems and Plans Committee to suggest,
through the Executive Secretary of the Association, names of persons to
be considered for future appointment to membership on this committee.
3. The term of appointment to the Problems and Plans Committee shall be
three years, except as provided in section 5.
4. A member who has served a full term shall not be eligible for reappoint-
ment until after the lapse of one year.
5. Initial appointments to the Problems and Plans Committee shall be as
follows: three members for a term of one year, three for a term of two
years, and three for a term of three years.
6. The chairman of the Problems and Plans Committee shall be elected an-
nually by the committee.
III. Meetings
1. The Problems and Plans Committee shall meet regularly at least twice
a year at a place and time to be determined by the chairman in con-
sultation with the Executive Secretary of the Association.
IV. Minutes
After the close of each meeting the minutes of the meeting shall be prepared.
A copy of the minutes shall be sent by the Executive Secretary of the Associa-
tion to each member of the committee and to each member of the Executive
Board.
Conrad Hilton Hotel
Chicago, Illinois
February 14, 1962
The meeting of the Executive Board of Directors was opened with prayer at
10:40 a.m. by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frank M. Schneider. His Excellency, the Most
Rev. John F. Dearden, President General, presided at the meeting.
Other members of the Board present were: Brother Bartholomew, C.F.X.,
Newton Highlands, Mass.; Brother Bernard Peter, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.;
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Paul E. Campbell, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Dr. William H. Conley,
Milwaukee, Wis.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Anthony Egging, Grand Island, Neb.; Rev.
Edmond A. Fournier, Detroit, Mich.; Rt. Rev. Edmund J. Goebel, Milwaukee,
Wis.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. John Paul Haverty, New York, N.Y.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. James
E. Hoflich, St. Louis, Mo.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. T. Leo Keaveny, St. Cloud, Minn.;
Rev. Daniel Kirwin, Wheeling, W.Va.; Rev. Richard Kleiber, Green Bay, Wis.;
Very Rev. James A. Laubacher, S.S., Baltimore, Md.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. John B.
8 National Catholic Educational Association
McDowell, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Very Rev. John McQuade, S.M., New Orleans, La.;
Very Rev. Msgr. John E. Murphy, Little Rock, Ark.; Rev. Robert C. Newbold,
Warwick Neck, R.I.; Very Rev. Msgr. Laurence J. O'Connell, East St. Louis,
111.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Felix Newton Pitt, Louisville, Ky.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Louis
E. Riedel, Milwaukee, Wis.; Very Rev. Herman Romoser, O.S.B., St. Meinrad,
Ind.; and Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt, Washington, D.C. Very
Rev. Msgr. Vincent Horkan, Detroit, Mich., Mr. J. Walter Kennedy, New
York, N.Y., and Mr. Joseph O'Donnell, Washington, D.C, were also present.
The minutes of the last meeting of the Board were accepted as submitted.
At the June 1961 meeting of the Executive Board, a committee, consisting
of Msgr. Henry C. Bezou, chairman, Dr. William Conley, and Father Paul
Reinert, was appointed to reconsider the investment policy of former Boards.
In the absence from the Board of Monsignor Bezou, Dr. Conley presented the
report of this committee. The following recommendation was made by the
committee: "Surplus funds of the Association should not be invested exclusively
in savings accounts of banks or building and loan associations. Just what other
forms of investment would be acceptable and feasible will require further study
by the Board as a whole or by a subcommittee to be appointed by it. On the
other hand, the higher rate of interest now paid by building and loan associa-
tions might preclude for the time being the need for other types of investments."
The question of how long this money will remain in reserve may determine how
it should be invested. If it remains only a short time, it should be invested
one way; if a long time, another type of investment would be recommended.
It was pointed out that former Boards felt that this money should remain in
reserve indefinitely and used only in extreme emergency.
The Board accepted with thanks the report of the committee but postponed
action on the report at this time. The Board voted to refer the report to the
lawyers of the Association for study and recommendations. The Executive
Secretary was asked to transmit their recommendations to the Board at a
later meeting.
A financial report for 1961 and proposed budget for 1962 totaling $214,000
were presented to the Board by the Executive Secretary. After discussion, the
Board added to the proposed budget a "contingent" item of $11,000 and then
voted approval of this amended budget, totaling $225,000, and accepted the
financial report for 1961.
The cost accounting report which was presented at the June 1961 Board
meeting was accepted with thanks.
The question of payment of expenses for convention speakers was discussed.
It is felt that the Catholic institutions to which speakers are attached should
bear the cost of the participant's expenses as a contribution to NCEA. How-
ever, an increasing number of other well-qualified people have been contributing
much to the meetings and in many cases it is felt that their expenses should
be paid by the Association. It was reported that on occasion in the past when
requests have been made to the national office for payment of such expenses
and these requests were considered fair, payment has been made. The Board
decided to leave this matter in the hands of the Executive Secretary who will
review all requests for expense reimbursements, and pay those which are con-
sidered fair and reasonable. If the amount is considered too great or not
reasonable, the request will be referred to the Board.
The Executive Secretary reported that the new secretary of the International
Exchange Section is Mrs. Ruth D'Emilio, replacing Miss Patricia Burns. The
section is now under the direction of the Associate Secretary of the College
Meetings of Executive Board 9
and University Department and will be known as the International Student
Program of the College and University Department.
Recent new publications of the Association, Calendar of 195 Educational
Meetings and the 1962 Directory of Catholic Elementary and Elementary
Boarding Schools, were brought to the attention of the Board. Reprints from
the Directory of the section on boarding schools will be made available soon.
Dr. Conley reported that the Newman Club Chaplains Section had requested
in 1960 that the College and University Department accept them as a section
of that Department. Action has been taken by the executive committee of
the College and University Department and the following resolution, which
has been accepted by the chaplains section, will be voted on officially by the
Department at the April meeting:
MOVED that a Newman Club Section be set up within the College and Uni-
versity Department; that membership in the Section be by individual clubs or
foundations; that a special class of "Associate Membership" be established
to accommodate such individual institutional Newman Clubs; that the flat fee
of twenty-five dollars, which is the present annual dues for Associate Member-
ship, be the dues for this new class of Associate Membership; and that
chaplains of Newman Clubs be invited to take individual memberships in the
National Catholic Educational Association.
Archbishop Dearden suggested that provision be made for the new diocesan
directors of Newman Clubs who will coordinate the work of Newman Clubs
within the dioceses. Dr. Conley agreed to bring this to the attention of the execu-
tive committee of the Department for the possible broadening of the recom-
mendation to include this new group of Newman directors.
The Executive Secretary reported that the International Student Program
is limited to an annual survey of foreign students in Catholic colleges, prepara-
tion and distribution of kits of materials for foreign students and American
students who wish to study abroad, and reports to the colleges of events in
this area through News Notes for the President's Desk. A matter of considerable
concern is the inability of the Church to know where the Catholic foreign
students are studying in the non-Catholic colleges in the United States and to
keep in contact with them while they are in this country. The Board instructed
the national office to take steps to obtain from such places as the Immigration
Department of the Government, NCWC, and the Institute of International
Education, all the information possible about Catholic students from abroad
coming into this country to study, especially the schools where they are studying.
A new report on staff rules and benefits was presented to the Executive
Board. The Executive Secretary explained that most of these regulations and
benefits have actually been in effect for some time, but that with the increase
of staff it has been found necessary to put them in writing to insure the orderly
procedure of office routine. The Board instructed the Executive Secretary to
put this report into practice temporarily with the understanding that final
action will be taken at the June meeting of the Board.
The Executive Secretary reported that the preliminary program for the con-
vention would be mailed within a few days and he expressed gratitude to the
heads of departments for their fine cooperation in submitting material for the
programs.
Father Kirwin reported that twenty portable altars will be ready for use at
the Detroit Convention. Mr. O'Donnell informed the Board that donations
for portable altars had been received from forty school superintendents and
10 National Catholic Educational Association
that donations were still being received. In addition, a letter will be sent to
college presidents and to heads of religious communities of priests. It is expected
that the total of one hundred altars originally suggested by the Board will be
available by the 1963 convention.
Monsignor Horkan reported that good progress has been made on convention
arrangements, that fifty altars for priests will be available in the Sheraton
Cadillac Hotel and twenty altars in the Pick-Fort Shelby Hotel. Masses for
delegates will be provided at St. Aloysius Church, and the Solemn Pontifical
Mass will be celebrated there by Archbishop Dearden, with Father Fournier
as preacher. The major hotels are within walking distance of Cobo Hall, and
the hall itself is a magnificent, new, comfortable hall.
Mr. Kennedy stated that there should be excellent press coverage from
Detroit. Father Battersby of the local committee will work with Mr. Kennedy.
The Board agreed on a nominee for the office of President General for
1962-63 and Archbishop Dearden agreed to extend the invitation in the name of
the Board.
Future conventions involve St. Louis in 1963; Atlantic City in 1964; New
York in 1965 (the convention is being planned for two hotels, the Americana
and the New Hilton in New York); and Chicago in 1966. For 1967 Boston,
Atlantic City, and Pittsburgh are being considered.
The Board voted to hold the summer meeting of the Convention Planning
Committee and Executive Board on June 12 and 14, 1962. Several sites were
suggested and the Executive Secretary was instructed to investigate the sug-
gestions and report to the next Board meeting.
Mr. O'Donnell explained that the small NCEA exhibit, designed to inform
Catholic educators about NCEA, is available for teacher institutes and other
meetings. A memorandum describing the exhibit and photograph will be sent
to all superintendents and the exhibit will be made available to those requesting
it for diocesan institutes or other meetings.
It was reported that the trend toward the 4-4-4 plan for seminaries raises
the problem of which NCEA department, Major or Minor Seminary, is the
proper department for the middle four-year, or college, group. After much
discussion it was decided that for the present, the college seminaries should
decide for themselves which department is best for them to join. When the
4-4-4 plan is more firmly established, perhaps a special department for this
group could be set up. A committee, consisting of Father Newbold, Father
Fournier, and Monsignor Schneider, was appointed to make a study and report
to the Board on the subject of the classification of Major and Minor Seminary
divisions with a view to the 4-4-4 formula which is increasing.
The 1964-65 New York World's Fair will include a Hall of Education with
the theme "The School of Tomorrow." Tentatively, 300 square feet of exhibit
space have been reserved for a Catholic education display. The total cost,
including floor space, display construction, maintenance, etc., for this exhibit
is estimated to be $75,000. The Executive Secretary stated that approaches
will be made to some groups and foundations to obtain a grant to finance the
exhibit. If no encouragement along this line is apparent by April, then the
option will probably have to be dropped. The prevailing feeling, however,
is that Catholic education should definitely be represented in the Hall of Educa-
tion and that some means of financing the exhibit should be found.
In June 1961 the Board adopted the report of the special committee on the
future of the National Catholic Adult Education Commission. This report
was carried in the June 1961 minutes of the Executive Board meeting. A letter
Meetings of Executive Board 11
dated January 15, 1962, from Msgr. Francis W. Carney, president of the
NCAEC, reported on a meeting of the executive board of the Commission
and stated in part:
The matter of payment of dues was tentatively settled in this manner. Catholic
colleges affiliated as dues-paying members of NCEA would not be requested
to pay dues or any affiliation fee. This would be true also of any other
Catholic educational institution conducting an adult education program and
paying dues to NCEA. A graduated scale of dues would be arranged for
adult education programs conducted by groups not holding membership in
NCEA, these dues payable to the National Catholic Adult Education Com-
mission. It is this latter point that would probably cause some concern and
debate with NCEA.
The Commission requests some immediate financial assistance to carry on
its business. It was suggested that five hundred or seven hundred dollars be
given from NCEA funds. It would perhaps be well to point out in this con-
nection, that much expense has already been assumed by individuals on the
Executive Board, and in the future such is impossible.
The Board authorized the Executive Secretary to grant a sum of $700 to
the NCAEC for the current fiscal year but stated that future commitments
on the amount that will be given to the Commission will follow after submission
of the Bylaws of the Commission to the NCEA and their acceptance by the
NCEA Executive Board. The Board also stated that any collections of dues
must be done through the national office.
The Board approved the slate of three new members of the Problems and
Plans Committee to serve for the period 1962-64 as suggested by the Com-
mittee in October: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Alfred Horrigan, President, Bellarmine
College, Louisville, Ky.; Sister M. Augustine, O.S.F., President, Alverno College,
Milwaukee, Wis.; and Very Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell, Superintendent of
Schools, Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pa.
The Board approved the recommendation that a press clipping service be
established as a pilot study. The newspapers selected for the study are: New
York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Washington Post, Louisville Courier-
Journal, Chicago Tribune, Des Moines Register, San Francisco Chronicle, Miami
Herald. The areas suggested for clipping are: editorial opinion on education,
church-state, straight educational news. There remains the selection of the
school of journalism which will do the clipping, dating, and mounting of articles.
Monsignor Hoflich reported that the committee on lay teachers recommended
that this matter be turned over to the national office with the recommendation
that a part-time individual be employed to work out and pull together recom-
mendations on retirement, salary, etc., and coordinate the work of the super-
intendents committee and lay organizations working on these questions. It
was suggested that perhaps the individual chosen for this job could also cooperate
with the fund-raising group that is chosen for the proposed NCEA building
project. The Board accepted this report as a progress report.
The Executive Secretary reported on the proposed Carnegie Study of Catholic
Schools. He stated that a few preliminary meetings to set down general dimen-
sions of the study have been held but that the selection of a director for the
study has not been made. The name of the director and the general dimensions
of the study should be available by the time of the next meeting of the Board
in April.
The next meeting of the Executive Board will take place in the Sheraton
12 National Catholic Educational Association
Room of the Sheraton Cadillac Hotel, Detroit, beginning at 6:30 p.m. on
Tuesday, April 24.
The Executive Secretary extended grateful thanks to Archbishop Dearden
for his excellent chairmanship of the meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m.
Frederick G. Hochwalt
Secretary
Sheraton Cadillac Hotel
Detroit, Michigan
April 24, 1962
The Executive Board of Directors convened with prayer for a dinner
meeting in the Sheraton Cadillac Hotel at 7:15 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24,
1962. Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frank M. Schneider presided, in the absence of His
Excellency, Most Rev. John F. Dearden, President General, at the business
meeting, which opened at 9 p.m.
Members of the Board present were: Brother Bartholomew, C.F.X., Newton
Highlands, Mass.; Brother Bernard Peter, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.; Rt. Rev.
Msgr. Paul E. Campbell, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Dr. William H. Conley, Milwaukee,
Wis.; Very Rev. Armand H. Desautels, A. A., Worcester, Mass.; Rt. Rev. Msgr.
Anthony Egging, Grand Island, Neb.; Rev. Edmond A. Fournier, Detroit,
Mich.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Edmund J. Goebel, Milwaukee, Wis.; Rt. Rev. Msgr.
John Paul Haverty, New York, N.Y.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. James E. Hoflich, St.
Louis, Mo.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Sylvester J. Holbel, Buffalo, N.Y.; Rt. Rev. Msgr.
T. Leo Keaveny, St. Cloud, Minn.; Rev. Daniel Kirwin, Wheeling, W.Va.;
Rev. Richard Kleiber, Green Bay, Wis.; Very Rev. James A. Laubacher, S.S.,
Baltimore, Md.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Very Rev.
John McQuade, S.M., New Orleans, La.; Very Rev. Msgr. John E. Murphy,
Little Rock, Ark.; Rev. Robert C. Newbold, Warwick, R.I.; Very Rev. Msgr.
Laurence J. O'Connell, East St. Louis, 111.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Felix Newton Pitt,
Louisville, Ky.; Very Rev. Paul C. Reinert, S.J., St. Louis, Mo.; Rt. Rev.
Msgr. Louis E. Riedel, Milwaukee, Wis.; Very Rev. Herman Romoser, O.S.B.,
St. Meinrad, Ind.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan, Cincinnati, Ohio; Rt. Rev.
Msgr. Frank M. Schneider, Milwaukee, Wis.; Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G.
Hochwalt, Washington, D.C. Mr. J. Walter Kennedy, New York, N.Y., was
also present.
The Minutes of the last meeting were accepted as submitted.
Monsignor Kirwin, chairman of the Nominating Committee, reported that
His Excellency, Most Rev. John P. Cody, Coadjutor Archbishop of New
Orleans, had graciously accepted the invitation of the Board to serve as Presi-
dent General for 1962-63, and that his name would be placed on the slate of
officers to be elected at the final general meeting on April 27.
The Executive Secretary reported that arrangements have been made to
hold the meetings of the Convention Planning Committee and the Executive
Board on June 12 and June 14 at the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach,
Florida.
The Executive Secretary reported that beginning May 1, 1962, Dr. Wil-
liam Conley would devote full time to the Carnegie Study of Catholic Schools
as director of the study. Dr. Conley stated that his staff would try to make
the study as objective as possible and come out with some recommendations
Meetings of Executive Board 13
which they hope will be helpful. The assistant director of the study will be
Mr. Reginald Neuwein, formerly Superintendent of Public Schools in Stam-
ford, Conn., and now president of the Greater Cleveland Research Council.
The rest of the staff will be selected after May 1.
It is estimated that a sum of $70,000 is needed to erect and maintain a
Catholic education exhibit at the New York World's Fair in 1964-65. The
problem of raising these funds may present difficulty. The Executive Sec-
retary stated that he would continue to investigate ways of raising these funds
and hoped to have some report for the Board in June. The Board voted to
keep open the option and to encourage the Executive Secretary to proceed
in the best way possible in the hope of raising funds so that Catholic educa-
tion will be recognized in the Hall of Education at the World's Fair.
The Board tabled discussion of the question of affiliation of other groups
with NCEA until the June meeting.
The Board dispensed with the reading of the minutes of the Problems and
Plans Committee meeting of October, 1961, and accepted them as submitted.
The Board postponed discussion of school fallout shelters until the June
meeting.
Mr. Kennedy reported that because of the fact that there were no daily
newspapers in Detroit,1 the television stations were competing vigorously with
each other to get coverage of the convention, with the result that the Detroit
convention had the finest television coverage of any convention. The wire
services, too, were giving excellent coverage to the convention.
The Executive Secretary expressed his gratitude to the members of the
Board for their confidence and encouragement and his deep thanks to the
retiring members.
A vote of grateful thanks was extended to Archbishop Dearden for his
warm support and service to the NCEA as President General.
The meeting adjourned at 9:35 p.m.
Frederick G. Hochwalt
Secretary
1 They were on strike.
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
To the great satisfaction of the General Executive Board, the National
Catholic Educational Association continues to grow in numbers and in influence.
The publications of the Association are more diversified and appeal to a wider
audience. As a result, the contributions of the staff and the loyalty of the
membership have ensured the continued success of regional and national
meetings. These same elements have added to the strength and dimensions of
the national office. The broadening interest of the Association and its member-
ship has made it possible to cooperate with more and more of the influential
groups in the general fields of culture and education.
Membership
The membership of the Association increased from 13,194 to 13,467 between
March 31, 1961, and March 31, 1962— a gain of 273 members.
Sustaining members 45
Institutional members
Major Seminary Department 122
Minor Seminary Department 144
College and University Department 271
Secondary School Department 2,223
Elementary School Department 8,290
Special Education Department 172
School Superintendents Department 262
Individual members
General 1,314
Newman Club Chaplains 20
Special Education 136
Supervisors 330
Vocations 138
Total members 13,467
(In addition, there are 166 subscribers to our publications.)
The steady increase in membership is a strong indication of the continuing
support of our teachers and administrators. The whole team — superintendents,
superiors, supervisors, principals, classroom teachers, and many devoted lay
persons — can take credit for the growing strength of the Association. All of
us are deeply grateful to those dioceses and religious communities which have
achieved 100 per cent membership at the conclusion of the fiscal year 1961.
For elementary schools these number twenty-eight dioceses: Boston, Bridgeport,
Buffalo, Burlington, Camden, Cheyenne, Columbus, Dubuque, Grand Island,
Hartford, La Crosse, Lansing, Marquette, Milwaukee, Ogdensburg (N.Y.),
Peoria, Raleigh, Rochester (N.Y.), Rockford, St. Louis, Sioux City, Springfield
(Mass.), Steubenville, Syracuse, Trenton, Wilmington, Yakima, and Youngs-
town.
14
Report of Executive Secretary 15
For secondary schools seventy-eight dioceses — more than half the dioceses
in the United States — have achieved 100 percent membership. They are:
Atlanta, Austin, Baker, Belleville, Boston, Bridgeport, Brooklyn, Buffalo,
Burlington, Camden, Charleston, Cheyenne, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland,
Columbus, Crookston, Dodge City, Dubuque, Fall River, Fort Wayne-South
Bend, Gary, Grand Island, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Hartford, Honolulu, Joliet,
Kansas City in Kansas, La Crosse, Lafayette (Ind.), Lansing, Madison,
Marquette, Milwaukee, Mobile-Birmingham, Monterey-Fresno, Nashville,
Natchez-Jackson, New Ulm, Norwich, Ogdensburg, Omaha, Paterson, Peoria,
Byzantine Rite of Philadelphia, Pueblo, Raleigh, Rapid City, Reno, Rochester,
Rockford, Rockville Centre, Sacramento, Saginaw, St. Augustine, St. Cloud,
St. Louis, Salina, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Savannah, Seattle, Sioux City,
Springfield (111.), Springfield (Mass.), Springfield-Cape Girardeau (Mo.),
Byzantine Rite of Stamford, Steubenville, Superior, Syracuse, Toledo, Trenton,
Wheeling, Wilmington, Worcester, Yakima, and Youngstown.
Finances
The Appendix, as in previous years, carries the financial report for the
fiscal year 1961. The report sets forth the various categories carried on our
books and shows a total of $255,851.21 of current funds administered during
1961.
The Executive Board has asked me to extend warm thanks to the members
of the Association for their generosity and loyalty, to the bishops of the United
States, to Catholic publishers and corporations, and to the many friends of
the Association who during 1961 donated to the Association an amount totaling
$16,338.36. We are eager to point out that this continuing help is a source
of inspiration to the staff of the national office.
Staff
Five associate secretaries, one assistant secretary, and an office staff of
twenty persons are now required to administer the national office. Following
are the current major posts in the Washington office:
Executive Secretary — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt
Associate Secretary, Major and Minor Seminary Departments — Position
to be filled
Associate Secretary, College and University Department — Rev. William J.
Dunne, S.J.
Associate Secretary, School Superintendents Department — Rt. Rev. Msgr.
O'Neil C. D' Amour
Associate Secretary, Secondary School Department — Rev. C. Albert Koob,
O. Praem.
Associate Secretary, Elementary School Department — Sister Mary Rich-
ardine, B.V.M.
Assistant Secretary, Elementary School Department — Sister Mary Nora,
S.S.N.D.
Associate Secretary, Special Education Department — Very Rev. Msgr.
Elmer H. Behrmann
Executive Secretary, Sister Formation Section — Sister Annette, C.S.J.
Assistant Executive Secretary, Sister Formation Section — Sister Ritamary,
C.H.M.
Secretary for International Exchange — Mrs. Betty Randall
16 National Catholic Educational Association
Administrative Assistant for Management and Personnel — Miss Nancy
Brewer
Administrative Assistant for Coordination of Program and Research — Mrs.
Winifred R. Long
Convention and Exhibit Manager — Mr. Joseph O'Donnell
Committees of the Association
In addition to the Executive Board, the chief committee activities of the
Association revolve around the Problems and Plans Committee, the Conven-
tion Planning Committee, the Richard Lecture Selection Committee, the Wash-
ington Committee, and the National Catholic Adult Education Commission.
The work of committees identified with the various departments can be found
in the Proceedings for the respective departments.
Relationships with Other Agencies and Associations
From June 1961 until June 1962, the Association took part in the following
conferences and meetings. Unless otherwise identified, the representatives
indicated were members of the NCEA staff.
June 8-9: National Association of Exhibit Managers, Detroit, Mich. — Mr. Joseph
O'Donnell.
June 12: Catholic Hospital Association, Detroit, Mich. — Sister Annette, C.S.J. , and
Mr. Joseph O'Donnell.
June 12-16: Third Workshop for Supervisors, Loretto Heights College, Loretto,
Colo. — Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M., and Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D.
June 14: U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, Washington, D.C.— Mrs. Betty
Randall.
June 14-18: Conference Board of the Associated Research Councils, Committee on
International Exchange of Persons, Conference on Higher Education for Visit-
ing Fulbright and Smith-Mundt Scholars, Washington, D.C. — Miss Patricia
Burns.
June 15-16: National Conference on International Economic and Social Develop-
ment, Washington, D.C. — Miss Patricia Burns.
June 17: Scholastic Magazines, Inc., Advisory Council, New York, N.Y. — Rt. Rev.
Msgr. O'Neil C. D'Amour.
June 19: American Association of University Women, Washington, D.C. — Mrs.
Winifred R. Long.
June 20-22: Catholic Broadcasters Association, Minneapolis, Minn. — Rev. John
Culkin, S.J.
June 20-23 : Sixteenth National Conference of the National Commission on Teacher
Education and Professional Standards, Universtiy City, Pa. — Sister Mary
Richardine, B.V.M.; Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D.; Sister Annette, C.S.J.; Brother
Adelbert James, F.S.C., Head, Education Department, Manhattan College, New
York, N.Y; Rev. Malcolm Carron, S.J., Dean, College of Arts and Sciences,
University of Detroit, Detroit, Mich.; Dr. James S. Donnelly, Dean, School of
Education, Fordham University, New York, N.Y.; Dr. Urban H. Fleege, Chair-
man, Department of Education, DePaul University, Chicago, 111.; Rev. Carl A.
Hangartner, S.J., Coordinator of Teacher Education, Saint Louis University,
St. Louis, Mo.; Rev. Robert F. Hoey, S.J., Assistant Dean, School of Education,
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass.; Rev. Philip C. Niehaus, Assistant Dean,
School of Education, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Mr. Timothy
O'Keefe, Professor of Education, College of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.; Dr.
Cyril M. Witte, Department of Education, Loyola College, Baltimore, Md.
July 2-4: American College Public Relations Association, Denver, Colo. — Rev.
William J. Dunne, S.J.
Report of Executive Secretary 17
July 12: U.S. Office of Education, Meeting of Representatives of Higher Education
Associations, Washington, D.C. — Rev. Brian A. McGrath, S.J., Academic Vice
President, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
July 16-23: Sixth Congress, Union Internationale Pour La Liberte d'Enseignement,
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — Rev. Edward B. Rooney, S.J., President, Jesuit Educa-
tional Association, New York, N.Y.
July 24-28: Consejo Interamericana de Educacion Catolica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil —
Rev. Edward B. Rooney, S.J.
July 25: U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G.
Hochwalt, Executive Secretary.
Aug. 25-Sept. 2: National Federation of Catholic College Students, Pittsburgh,
Pa. — Miss Patricia Burns.
August 28-29: Manufacturers' Exhibit of Teaching Machines, New York, N.Y. —
Rev. C. Albert Koob, O.Praem.
Sept. 7-9: National Science Foundation, Advisory Panel, Washington, D.C. — Sister
Annette, C.S.J.
Sept. 8: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Evaluation of 14th Annual National
High School Driver Education Award Program, Washington, D.C. — Rev. C.
Albert Koob, O.Praem.
Sept. 13: Association for Higher Education, National Education Association, Na-
tional Conference Program Planning Meeting, Washington, D.C. — Rev. William
J. Dunne, S.J.
Sept. 13: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, International Teacher
Exchange Group, Washington, D.C. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. O'Neil C. D'Amour.
Sept. 15-19: Sixteenth National Conference on Citizenship, Washington, D.C. —
Mrs. Marguerite Campbell and Mrs. Jean Jennings.
Sept. 18-20: Twelfth Annual Mission-Sending Societies Meeting, Washington, D.C. —
Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M.; Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D.; Sister Annette,
C.S.J. ; and Sister Ritamary, C.H.M.
Sept. 20: U.S. Department of Labor, Meeting on Better Employment Services for
College and University Graduates, Washington, D.C. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick
G. Hochwalt.
Sept. 21-24: Fifth National Aerospace Education Seminar, Philadelphia, Pa. — Rev.
C. Albert Koob, O.Praem.
Sept. 22: Religious Education Association, Committee on Publications, New York,
N.Y. — Sister Annette, C.S.J.
Sept. 25-28: National Conference on Curriculum Experimentation, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. — Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M., and Sister
Mary Nora, S.S.N.D.
Oct. 5: Educational Testing Service, Cooperative Test Division, Princeton, N.J. — Rt.
Rev. Msgr. O'Neil C. D'Amour and Rev. C. Albert Koob, O.Praem.
Oct. 12-13: Round Table of National Organizations, Harriman, N.Y. — Very Rev.
Edgar P. McCarren, Secretary of Education, Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y.
Oct. 13: Catholic Press Association, Washington, D.C. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. O'Neil C.
D'Amour.
Oct. 15-20: Forty-ninth National Safety Congress and Exposition, Chicago, 111. — Rt.
Rev. Msgr. O'Neil C. D'Amour.
Oct. 20-21: Council on Cooperation in Teacher Education, Washington, D.C. — Sister
Annette, C.S.J.; Sister Ritamary, C.H.M.; Rev. Charles F. Donovan, S.J.,
Academic Vice President, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass.; Dr. James S.
Donnelly, Dean, School of Education, Fordham University, New York, N.Y.
Oct. 20-21: Peace Corps Regional Conference, Washington, D.C. — Miss Valerie
Price, Youth Department, National Catholic Welfare Conference, Washington,
D.C.
Oct. 20-22: Family Life Bureau, National Catholic Welfare Conference, Education
Committee, Advisory Board, Washington, D.C. — Rev. C. Albert Koob, O.Praem.
Oct. 22-26: Eighth National Conference, U.S. National Commission for UNESCO,
18 National Catholic Educational Association
Boston, Mass. — Miss Patricia Burns and Dr. William H. Conley, Educational
Assistant to the President, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wis.
Oct. 25-27: Ontario, Canada, Conference, Catholic Hospital Association, Toronto,
Canada — Sister Annette, C.S.J.
Oct. 26-27: Twenty-sixth Educational Conference under auspices of Educational
Records Bureau and American Council on Education, New York, N.Y. — Rev.
William J. Dunne, S.J.
Oct. 28: Educational Testing Service, Invitational Conference on Testing, New York,
N.Y.— Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
Oct. 28: Diocesan Councils of Catholic Nurses, Manchester, N.H. — Sister Ritamary,
C.H.M.
Nov. 6-7; Conference of Catholic Schools of Nursing, Kansas City, Kan. — Rev.
William J. Dunne, S.J.
Nov. 7: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, National Advisory
Committee for Exchange of Teachers, Washington, D.C. — Miss Patricia Burns.
Nov. 14: Higher Education Group of Washington, D.C. — Rev. William J. Dunne,
S.J.
Nov. 15: U.S. Office of Education, Division of Higher Education, Washington,
D.C— Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
Nov. 16: National Association of Exhibit Managers, Washington Chapter, Washing-
ton D.C. — Mr. Joseph O'Donnell.
Nov. 16-18: Invitational Conference, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., on
"The Nature of Knowledge and Implications for the Education of Teachers" —
Sister Ritamary, C.H.M.
Nov. 18: Catholic Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, Executive Com-
mittee, Washington, D.C. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt.
Nov. 20: American Council on Education, Program Planning, Washington, D.C. —
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt.
Nov. 20: American Association of Railroads, Luncheon and Film Showing, Wash-
ington, D.C. — Mr. Joseph O'Donnell.
Nov. 20-21: American College Public Relations Association, Washington, D.C. —
Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
Nov. 23-25: National Council of Teachers of English, Philadelphia, Pa. — Sister Mary
Richardine, B.V.M., and Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D.
Nov. 24-25 : Middle States Accrediting Association, Atlantic City, N.J. — Rev. William
J. Dunne, S.J., and Rev. C. Albert Koob, O.Praem.
Nov. 29: U.S. Office of Education, Meeting of Representatives of Higher Education
Associations, Washington, D.C. — Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
Nov. 29: Guild of Catholic Physicians, Committee on Health of Religious, St. Louis,
Mo. — Sister Annette, C.S.J.
Nov. 29: Illinois Conference of the Catholic Hospital Association, Springfield, 111. —
Sister Ritamary, C.H.M.
Nov. 30-Dec. 2: Christian Curriculm Development Tenth Annual Conference,
Toronto, Canada — Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D.
Dec. 5: American Council on Education, Commission on Federal Relations, Wash-
ington, D.C. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt.
Dec. 6: National Education Association, Discussion on Education in Africa and in
the United States, Washington, D.C. — Miss Patricia Burns.
Dec. 8-9: President's Panel on Mental Retardation, Washington, D.C. — Very Rev.
Msgr. Elmer H. Behrmann.
Dec. 12: U.S. Department of Labor, Meeting on Better Employment Services for
College and University Graduates, Washington, D.C. — Rev. William J. Dunne,
S.J.
Dec. 12: Higher Education Group of Washington, D.C. — Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
Dec. 15-16: Catholic Youth Encyclopedia, Editorial Advisory Board, New York,
N.Y. — Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M.; and Sister Annette, C.S.J.
Report of Executive Secretary 19
Jan. 8: National Lutheran Education Conference, Cleveland, Ohio — Rt. Rev. Msgr.
Frederick G. Hochwalt.
Jan. 9-11: Association of American Colleges, Cleveland, Ohio — Rev. William J.
Dunne, S.J.; Sister Annette, C.S.J. ; and Sister Ritamary, C.H.M.
Jan. 17: National Education Association, Report on Programmed Instruction, Wash-
ington, D.C.— Rev. C. Albert Koob, O.Praem.
Jan. 20-21: Meeting on Carnegie Study of Catholic Schools, Notre Dame, Ind. — Rt.
Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt.
Jan. 23: American Council on Education, Commission on Federal Relations, Wash-
ington, D.C. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt.
Jan. 30: Round Table of National Organizations, Harriman, N.Y. — Rt. Rev. Msgr.
O'Neil C. D'Amour.
Feb. 1: National Education Association, Movie on "The Dropout," Washington,
D.C. — Rev. C. Albert Koob, O.Praem; Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M.; and
Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D.
Feb. 2: U.S. Office of Education, Project English Meeting, Washington, D.C. — Sister
Mary Richardine, B.V.M.
Feb. 2: Columbia Broadcasting System Film on Schools, Washington, D.C. — Rev. C.
Alfred Koob, O.Praem.
Feb. 6: Meeting on Carnegie Study of Catholic Schools, Chicago, 111. — Rt. Rev.
Msgr. O'Neil C. D'Amour.
Feb. 9-10: National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards,
Regional Meeting, Washington, D.C. — Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M., and
Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D.
Feb. 14-17: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, Chicago, 111. —
Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
Feb. 16: Keep America Beautiful, Naitonal Advisory Council, New York, N.Y. —
Mr. Frank Casey, Department of Education, National Catholic Welfare Con-
ference, Washington, D.C.
Feb. 19: American Council on Education, Committee on Educational Television,
Washington, D.C. — Sister Annette, C.S.J.
Feb. 24-28: National Association of Secondary School Principals, St. Louis, Mo. —
Rev. C. Albert Koob, O.Praem.
March 4-7: Association for Higher Education, Seventeenth National Conference on
Higher Education, Chicago, 111. — Sister Annette, C.S.J.; Sister Ritamary, C.H.M.,
Assistant Executive Secretary, Sister Formation Conference, Washington, D.C;
Rev. Edward J. Drummond, S.J., Academic Vice President, Marquette Univer-
sity, Milwaukee, Wis.; and Dr. William H. Conley, Marquette University.
March 6: National Science Teachers Association, Business Industry Section, Wash-
ington, D.C. — Mr. Joseph O'Donnell.
March 12: National Education Association, Reception for Berlin Teachers, Wash-
ington, D.C. — Mrs. Ruth D'Emilio.
March 12: National Association of Exhibit Managers, Public Relations Committee,
Washingotn, D.C. — Mr. Joseph O'Donnell.
March 25-28: National Education Association, Department of Elementary School
Principals, Detroit, Mich. — Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M. ; Sister Mary Nora,
S.S.N.D.; and Mr. Joseph O'Donnell.
March 26-28: U.S. Office of Education, Meeting on National Goals, Washington,
D.C. — Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
March 28: North Central Accrediting Association, Chicago, 111. — Rev. C. Albert
Koob, O.Praem.
March 30-31: National Merit Scholarship Corporation, Advisory Board, Evanston,
111. — Rev. C. Albert Koob, O.Praem.
March 31 -April 2: Meeting on Carnegie Study of Catholic Schools, Notre Dame,
Ind. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt.
April 3: U.S. Office of Education, Meeting with Civil Service Commission, Wash-
ington, D.C. — Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
20 National Catholic Educational Association
April 5-7: American Red Cross, College and University Advisory Committee, Wash-
ington, D.C.— Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
April 9: Children's Bureau, Fiftieth Birthday Celebration, Washington, D.C. — Rev.
C. Albert Koob, O.Praem; Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M.; Sister Mary Nora,
S.S.N.D.; and Sister Annette, C.S.J.
April 9-10: American Council on Education, Conference on Placement Services in
Higher Education, Washington, D.C. — Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
April 9-10: Educational Testing Service, National Advisory Committee on the Co-
operative Plan for Guidance and Admission, Princeton, N.J. — Rt. Rev. Msgr.
O'Neil C. D'Amour.
April 10: Higher Education Group of Washington, D.C. — Rev. William J. Dunne,
S.J.
April 10-13: Joint Conference on Children and Youth, Washington, D.C. — Sister
Mary Richardine, B.V.M.; Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D.; Sister Annette, C.S.J. ;
and Mrs. Jeanne Trott, all of the NCEA staff; and nine youth delegates from
Catholic high schools, colleges, and universities of the Washington area.
April 13-14: Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Boston,
Mass. — Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D.
April 18: U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C— Rt. Rev. Msgr. O'Neil C.
D'Amour.
April 18: American Council on Education, Commission on Education and Interna-
tional Affairs, Washington, D.C. — Mrs. Winifred R. Long.
April 19: U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C— Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
April 24-25: National Association of Foreign Student Advisors, Washington, D.C. —
Mrs. Ruth D'Emilio.
April 25: Round Table of National Organizations, Harriman, N.Y. — Rt. Rev. Msgr.
Robert J. Maher, Hanover, Pa.
May 2: American Council on Education, Reception for Visiting Robbins Committee
on Higher Education of the United Kingdom, Washington, D.C. — Rev. C Albert
Koob, O.Praem.
May 4: Meeting with Representatives of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish Seminaries,
New York, N.Y. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt.
May 5-7: U.S. Office of Education, Project English Meeting, Pittsburgh, Pa. — Rev.
C Albert Koob, O.Praem.
May 8: Higher Education Group of Washington, D.C. — Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
May 10: Third Annual Meeting of Organizations Giving Services to International
Visitors, Washington, D.C. — Mrs. Betty Randall.
May 15: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, Executive Com-
mittee Luncheon, Washington, D.C. — Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J.
May 16: American Council on Education, Commission on Federal Relations, Wash-
ington, D.C. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt and Rev. William J.
Dunne, S.J.
May 17: National Education Association, Movie on "If These Were Your Children,"
Washington, D.C. — Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M., and Sister Mary Nora,
S.S.N.D.
May 18: National Association of Exhibit Managers, Washington Chapter, Wash"
ington, D.C. — Mr. Joseph O'Donnell.
May 19: Community Leaders Conference on Equal Employment Opportunity, Wash-
ington, D.C. — Rev. C Albert Koob, O.Praem.
May 21: National Conference of Christians and Jews, Inc., Board of Directors, Wash-
ington, D.C. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. O'Neil C D'Amour.
May 21-22: Catholic Hospital Association, St. Louis, Mo. — Sister Annette, C.S.J.
May 23: Scholastic Magazines, Inc., Dinner Meeting, New York, N.Y. — Rt. Rev.
Msgr. O'Neil C D'Amour.
May 28-29: Foreign Policy Briefing Conference for Nongovernmental Organizations,
Washington, D.C. — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt.
Report of Executive Secretary 21
Conclusion
The General Executive Board, the staff and all of our wonderful presidents,
deans, superintendents, and supervisors join to express their profound gratitude
for the splendid cooperation extended to the NCEA during the past year.
Prospects for the future are bright and challenging. All of us on the Wash-
ington staff pledge ourselves to the present task of meeting the challenges of
each day and each problem. We are deeply grateful for the continuing under-
standing of the entire field.
Frederick G. Hochwalt
Secretary
PART 2 GENERAL SESSIONS
SERMON. SOLEMN PONTIFICAL MASS
Rev. Edmond A. Fournier
SACRED HEART SEMINARY, DETROIT, MICHIGAN
In anticipation of the formal welcome which His Excellency, the Archbishop
of Detroit, will extend to you later this morning in his keynote address, we
interrupt this Solemn Pontifical ceremony only long enough to give humble
thanks to Almighty God for the great privilege of hosting the fifty-ninth an-
nual meeting of this national body of Catholic educators. We call attention to
the fact that this marks the third time in the history of this organization that
it has conducted its meetings in the city of Detroit. The latter of these
occurred in 1927, thirty-five years ago this June, and was the twenty-fourth
annual meeting. That was the year in which the word "National" was
added to the title of the Catholic Educational Association. The host in
1927 was the fifth ordinary of the diocese, Bishop Michael James Gallagher;
the President General of the Association was Bishop Thomas Joseph Shahan of
the Catholic University. The first meeting in Detroit took place seventeen years
earlier, in 1910, with Bishop John S. Foley as host and the then Msgr. Thomas
Shahan as its President General. To quote the July 14 issue of The Michigan
Catholic of that year: "The 1910 meeting was notable by reason of the splendid
letter of approval and encouragement received from the Holy Father, Pope
Pius X."
A brief summary of Bishop Gallagher's sermon is contained in the 1927
Proceedings. After praising the Association for its great work in the past, he
spoke of the problems which it faced in the future. Among other more specific
items, the Bishop called for the inculcating of the spirit of sacrifice in our young
boys and girls to the end that vocations be fostered for the preservation and
developmnt of our religious and educational institutions and for our work in the
missions. These three and a half decades since the morning of that opening
Pontifical Mass in the Church of the Visitation, celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop
Joseph Plagens, have surely seen a fruition of this fervent prayer, I think, even
beyond the dreams of the delegates of that day. But even as the concept of
sacrifice took deep root and shot forth into the tree of vocational life which
has carried us through the intervening time, we today are well aware of the
exploding needs of the morrow. It is as though we have stood still, despite
the pardonable pride we may have in the grand achievements of the Catholic
Church and of Catholic education in our beloved country during decades of
unparalleled growth after a paralyzing depression followed by a global war.
How ripe are the fields for the harvest, how pitifully few the reapers and the
gleaners.
22
Sermon at the Mass 23
In the missions, we have won over foreign territories yet have lost countries
to iron and bamboo barriers to religion and religious progress.
In Detroit we have made progress, yet we dare not boast of achievement
when the needs seem to be growing to wider and ever wider proportions: 147
schools in 1927 — 365 in 1962; 87,000 elementary and high school pupils in
1927 — 190,000 in 1962. A grand total of 540 students in diocesan seminaries
in 1927 — 1,120 today. A Catholic population of half a million in 1927; almost
triple that number today. These figures become even more meaningful when we
realize that in 1927 the diocese comprised much of the present dioceses of
Lansing and Saginaw as well as that of Detroit. The cold, naked truth is the
one we all know and all wonder about. There is no human solution, no human
way to cope with problems of such vast magnitude. What does it take to make
us humble and dependent upon Divine Omnipotence? How better can we
understand our role as sheep under the Divine Shepherd? How can we the
better understand that we may indeed be the planters and the waterers, and
those who hope after the better things and the better life, but it is Almighty
God who will deign to give the increase under our puny ministrations. Because
God can and will give that increase in answer to those who pray and sacrifice
for Him, we forge ahead, taking up tasks which are superhuman, confident in
the help of supernatural grace and strength. "I can do all things in Him who
strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4, 13). "I live now, not I, but Christ liveth in Me"
(Gal. 2, 20). "Power is made perfect in infirmity" (II Cor. 12, 9). And so we
make our sacrifices, we religious, and we laymen. We take on the double yoke
of Church support and school support, knowing full well that the yoke is
too heavy for us individually but knowing also that Christ will make the burden
lighter. Our faith in Him is conditioned by the love we return to Him and
the sacrifices we are willing to make for Him. We dare to carry on because
it is the only direction we have to travel. Retrogression will exact an even more
terrible toll.
Had there been other meetings in other centuries, accolades would have been
paid indeed to the giants of yesterday and their monumental achievements.
Who can possibly refer to the past without bowing in the direction of the gentle
pastor of St. Anne's Church, Father Gabriel Richard, teacher extraordinary,
founder or co-founder, promoter or instigator of almost anything and every-
thing educational in this state, including the great University of Michigan? There
would have been much to say in many annual meetings about the establishment
of the teaching congregations of men and women in this area and much to
credit to the illustrious members of the hierarchy who guided the destiny of
Michigan's two peninsulas. The cause of education on every level was quick
to find proponents, always brave if not always successful, willing to rise from
defeat in securing a beachhead of learning for the cause of Christ and His
Church. There is a value in offering even these generalities without descending
to the specific and particular, since it points up the truth of Bishop Foley's
injunction to this association fifty-two years ago:
. . . there is no organization . . . that has an end and purpose so high and
important as your convention has. . . . You do not come here to propose new
theories or doctrines, for the Catholic Church has taught one doctrine from
the days of Christ, and will teach that doctrine till the end of time. You do
not come here to promote one or the other interest, but for the single purpose
of making Christian education a living force in the nation. All our teaching
24 General Sessions
is founded on Christ. He came "to do and to teach." It is your mission to
continue His work, and He is your Model.4
Had there been a meeting in Detroit during the years of 1937 to 1958, we
might well imagine how the words of these two illustrious churchmen of the
past, Bishops Foley and Gallagher, would have been repeated and reemphasized
by Edward Cardinal Mooney, Prince of the Church and champion of its needs
and purposes. If I have been but the voice of the past, it is because the past
has borne a static message and a dynamic challenge. We are proceeding in
the right order and maintaining a correct course when we bow in solemn adora-
tion this morning before the eternal majesty of God and seek through solemn
worship the divine benediction on the work of this convention, and on the
cause of Catholic education in the archdiocese, in the country, and in the world.
* Proceedings of Seventh Annual Meeting, CEA, July 4-7, 1910, pp. 30-31.
THE LAY TEACHER IN CATHOLIC EDUCATION
William H. Conley
EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT, MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY;
PRESIDENT, COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT, NCEA
The Second Vatican Council, which will begin in October of this year, has
focused the attention of the Christian world on the hope of an eventual return
to unity. The growth of the ecumenical spirit among our own is a necessary
step in the removal of barriers to the reunion we seek. The Catholic educational
program in the United States, extending as it does from kindergarten through
graduate school, is unique in the whole world, and has at once an opportunity
and an obligation to foster the spirit of ecumenism, to communicate the knowl-
edge which is necessary to its understanding, and to develop in its students a
motivation which will lead to prudent action.
The 59th Annual Convention of the National Catholic Educational Asso-
ciation in choosing as its theme "Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit" has recognized
the challenge to our schools, and will provide during the next four days a
forum for the discussion of educational issues which are directly, or indirectly,
related to the task of Christians at this moment in history.
It is my privilege this morning to discuss with you the role of the layman in
our Catholic schools. In doing so I shall consider four points : ( 1 ) the apostolic
mission of the layman in education; (2) the changing image of the Catholic
lay teacher; (3) the contribution of the layman to Catholic education; (4) the
problems of the layman in the Catholic schools.
The Apostolic Mission of Laymen
There have been times in the history of the Church when laymen undertook
an active apostolate, and there have been times when they have been silent
partners in the mission of the Church. The reasons have varied. Some were
historical, while others were economic, social, educational, and even ecclesias-
tical. The Catholic layman once played an unfortunate role in the breakdown
of Christian unity. Conditions in our country appear to be such today that
he can play, perhaps, an even more important role in the return to unity. The
Catholic in the United States has risen above the status he held when he came
to this country, which necessarily restricted his influence. Today he is socially
and politically accepted and has made rapid strides in intellectual development.
He is in a position to play a more active role in the Church's mission.
The layman's membership in the Church carries with it an apostolic function
in the world in which he lives. His engagement in the world is what determines
his being a layman. Because we are living in a civilization which is more
world-centered than at any period in Christian history, the layman has a fear-
ful responsibility in an active apostolate.
25
26 General Sessions
One of the fields in which an apostolate can and must be carried on is
education. The rapid expansion of education, and especially Catholic educa-
tion, in our country and its impact on temporal life demands lay participation
in it. The educational programs in our Catholic schools are concerned with
intellectual development through knowledge, with an understanding of and
an appreciation of the total of reality, and with the discovery of new knowledge.
They are concerned with moral and spiritual development, not in a compart-
ment, but as an integral part of the intellectual activities through knowledge
of God and His revelation, through religious orientation, through a Christian
climate and environment, and through regular religious practices. They are
concerned with setting Christ as a model for students in their personal, social,
business, and civic lives — with inculcating the principle that all acts are per-
formed for the Greater Glory of God — with developing a set of values based
on these fundamentals.
The layman who lives in the world and is a part of it, who understands its
problems through daily contact with them, who understands children and
youth of the day because he lives among them, performs a unique function in
the Catholic school. He interprets contemporary life to the school, and inter-
prets the school to contemporary life.
The Image of Catholic Lay Teachers
With the growth of Catholic education has come a changed image of the
Catholic lay teacher. Formerly, there was a bias against lay teachers on the
part of both religious and clergy and of the laity themselves. Our schools had
been largely missionary schools for the teaching of the faith at the lower levels.
At the upper levels we were concerned primarily with the preliminary education
of the clergy. It was considered, therefore, that the lay teacher had little place
in any such institution. Secondly, there was a lack of qualified lay teachers.
Most Catholic laymen who went to college did so as preparation for one of
the professions. In this field they succeeded exceptionally well. It was only
within recent years with the increasing interest in higher education, and the
economic ability of Catholics to attend colleges, that there has been a supply
of teachers who have had college education and some graduate training.
Thirdly, our schools lacked adequate funds to employ laymen. Tuition was
very low, and in some cases was not collected. Consequently, staffing had to
be done by persons who had taken the vow of poverty, or lived a life of self-
denial, and whose religious communities or diocese had some means of support
other than tuition income.
But times have changed. The number of Catholic students going to graduate
schools is increasing each year, partially because of the growing interest in the
intellectual activities but also because there are job opportunities for them in
both Catholic and public schools. Qualified lay teachers now are employed as
professionals to teach all fields, even in some cases religion. The lay teachers
are acceptable today to the clergy and the religious as teachers and as scholars.
It is interesting to note that they are also becoming acceptable to the laity
themselves who, for many years, preferred to have their children taught only
by clergy and religious.
We must not give the false impression that in every situation the Catholic
lay teacher has an ideal status in Catholic schools. The layman in some Catholic
schools is still looked upon as a paying boarder is looked upon by some
families. He is necessary to the welfare of the household, and the family could
The Lay Teacher in Catholic Education 27
not get along without him, but he is never accepted as a full member of the
family. This condition is inherent in the concept of ownership, responsibility,
and control of our schools either by a religious community or by a diocese.
In matters of policy formation, and in the government of institutions, the lay-
man has a long way to go before he is an equal partner. But Catholic laymen
are no longer the unwanted minority in the United States. They constitute
one of the important elements in a pluralistic society. Educationally, they are
rapidly developing and not only are thousands teaching in our Catholic schools
and universities but, also, many thousands are engaged in public school teach-
ing. A few have gone into college teaching and research outside of the Catholic
schools. Scholarship is no longer the sole possession of the clergy and the
religious. Consequently, the apostolate of teaching is attracting increasing
numbers of the laity.
The Contributions of Lay Teachers
The Catholic layman has made, is making, and will continue to make a
significant contribution to Catholic education. The first contribution is in
the increase of manpower. In 1948, according to the reports of the National
Catholic Welfare Conference, there were 7,422 lay teachers in our elementary
and secondary schools. In 1960 that number had increased more than five
times (537 per cent). During the same period, priests and religious had
increased only 37 per cent. This spectacular increase in lay teachers was
necessary to staff the expanding schools. In the twelve-year period, elementary
school enrollment had grown by 90 per cent and secondary school enrollment
by 83 per cent.
Today, the ratio nationally of lay to religious teachers in our elementary
schools is 3 to 8, in our secondary schools it is 1 to 3. In Catholic colleges
and universities there are two lay teachers to every priest or religious. An
analysis of predictions for the future makes it safe to assert that the lay teacher
is here to stay. Accepting this, it must be made possible for him to play an
increasingly significant role in Catholic schools of the future.
Great as is the contribution of the layman in providing numbers of faculty
members to staff our schools, equally important is the educational contribution
that is being made. The Catholic lay teacher realizes that if he is to carry
on an apostolate in the schools he, as well as the religious, must achieve
professional excellence. On the practical side he has another motivation in
financial rewards which come with professional growth. As a result of the two
forces, he strives to bring to the school academic training and experience from
a variety of universities and situations. Because of his mobility and his oppor-
tunities for scholarships and fellowships, he can attend institutions which might
present difficulties to religious and clergy.
Again, some fields of study, particularly at upper levels, are more in line
with lay activities, for example, business and social sciences. It was in the field
of commerce that the layman first made a breakthrough in Catholic teaching.
Since commerce and social science are in the area of the contemporary world,
it should be expected that the layman would bring to them special competencies
merely because he is a layman. We have already observed that because of his
vocation he has practical knowledge of the world and of the young people
in the world. These two special competencies of the layman make it possible
for him to adapt discourse to his audience most effectively. And this is of
the essence of teaching.
28 General Sessions
The layman has a role to play not only in the school itself but in the intel-
lectual and professional activities outside the school. Cooperation with peers
in other institutions in scholarly and professional organizations is especially
within the sphere of the layman. Perhaps the most important reason for lay
participation in these activities is that it is frequently easier for scholars in
the various fields to work with laymen than with religious. In the majority
of cases there tends to be greater freedom of exchange among lay people.
Again, laymen are free to follow the open tradition of scholarship without
reference to the needs of a community and without reference to permissions
and approvals of superiors.
There is a third contribution to Catholic education that can be made by the
layman in our Catholic schools and that is of a social nature. Pius XII stated,
over fifteen years ago, "The laity are in the front line of the Church's life;
through them the Church is the vital principle of human society." The layman
who is in the world and is able to interpret the secular to the Church must
also be able to interpret the sacred to the world. It is through this that the
layman may be able to meet one of the objectives of education and that is the
development of values which will influence the secular world. Bridging the
gap between classrooms and community is definitely a role of the layman.
Problems of the Layman
We have attempted to discuss so far the role of the layman in the Church's
apostolic mission, especially in the field of education; the changed image of
the Catholic lay teacher; and the contribution of the Catholic lay teacher to
Catholic schools. One further point remains for us to discuss, and that is the
specific problems which confront the layman in the Catholic school.
The first is the partial segregation of the layman which continues to exist.
There are at least three causes of the segregation. First, lay teachers and
religious teachers are members of different subcultures. The lay teacher is
part of a family and after the completion of the school day returns to the
family where demands are placed upon him, where his recreation takes place,
and where his continuing growth goes on. The religious teacher, at the end
of the day, returns to the religious community where one has definite respon-
sibilities, quite different from those of the person in a family, where one's time
is frequently regulated, and where recreation is with peers who are engaged
in the same kind of work. Lay and religious live in different worlds. They
converge in the school, and with all the goodwill possible, integration and
understanding are sometimes difficult. Both lay and religious contribute to the
problem. The lay teachers eat by themselves, discuss problems together, com-
plain about the school to each other, and sometimes develop the historic attitude
that the lay teacher is a second-class citizen in the Catholic school — although in
the vast majority of cases this is not true. The religious go to their quarters
when unassigned, discuss the problems of the school among themselves after
hours — frequently failing to communicate with the lay teachers. The result
is a wall of separation between religious and lay teachers which is sometimes
low and sometimes high. The segregation is really a sociological problem but
it must be solved. A condition necessary to the solution is the burial of the
dead past with its inferiority complexes of lay teachers and with its attitude
of religious that the laity were tolerated helpers until suitable religious could
be made available.
A second problem, and one on which we have commented, is one of tension
The Lay Teacher in Catholic Education 29
which grows out of the fact that the ownership or control of the schools or
colleges, and the responsibility for their operation, is in the hands of a com-
munity or diocese. Again, this is a reality and is not likely to change. It
creates, however, attitudes on the part of both groups which lead to tension.
I must hasten to observe that these are not universal attitudes but they exist in
sufficient frequency to warrant serious attention.
A third problem is closely related. It deals with the possibilities of advance-
ment for the lay teacher not only in salary but in positions of leadership. If
there is to be a career for the layman in Catholic elementary and secondary
schools, there must be opportunities for advancement to supervisory and
administrative positions. Restricting these positions to the clergy or to a
member of the religious community leads to the attitude that there is no future
for the talented layman in the system. In the colleges, laymen have been
admitted to some major positions, but the numbers are few, and there are
positions and titles to which the layman may not aspire in spite of his qualifica-
tions. In the long range, this may be the most serious problem to be solved.
If Catholic schools are to attract and retain the best talent of the laity, they
must recognize the barrier and be willing to take positive steps to remove it.
In addition, there are several practical problems which are worthy of con-
sideration. We are all aware of the three major problems — salaries, fringe
benefits, and conditions of service.
Salaries in most of our Catholic schools have advanced rapidly in recent
years. At the lower range, salaries compare favorably now with those in
similar institutions. Upper levels in salaries in our Catholic schools still leave
much to be desired, and as we attract more lay faculty members of ability it
will be necessary to increase maximum salaries.
Our Catholic schools in many cases have not provided adequately for fringe
benefits. This is partially because of lack of understanding of the tax problems
of laymen. Such provisions as total payment of annuities, health and surgical
insurance, and free tuition for faculty children mean far more to the layman
than an equivalent increase in contractual salary.
Conditions of service are another practical and real problem in our Catholic
institutions. Merely because we have improved economically does not mean
that we have completely solved the problem of cost. Because of this, we find
that, in general, teaching loads in our schools are somewhat higher than those
of other institutions. Even though salaries may have kept pace, reduction of
load has not kept pace. Heavy teaching loads make it impossible, or at least
very difficult, for our teachers, lay or religious, to carry on the creative activity
which is necessary both for intellectual growth, professional development, and
the contribution we should be making to human knowledge.
Another condition of faculty service which needs attention is the involvement
of the faculty in the making of educational policy. There is a lack, in many
cases, of the acceptance of the layman as a professional equal who can make
a significant contribution to educational policymaking and to long-range
planning. Where this exists there cannot be the true professional atmosphere
which makes for contented, but not complacent, teachers who are a part of
an educational team assisting in the evolving of ideal conditions for student
learning and student intellectual growth.
There are problems, on the other hand, which arise because laymen do not
all accept their responsibilities. The first responsibility of the lay teacher in
a Catholic school is to understand the Catholic philosophy of education. I do
not want to imply that every course requires the teaching of religion in it.
30 General Sessions
But it does require an understanding of the objectives of Catholic education,
the distinctive characteristics of Catholic education, and the importance of
creating an atmosphere in which there can be the pursuit of total truth.
Secondly, the layman has the responsibility of undertaking an apostolate
of excellence in his chosen career. This requires that whatever he does he
undertakes in the most excellent way possible. It involves his scholarship, his
completion of professional training, his continuous growth in knowledge in
his field, and the continuing improvement in the quality of his teaching. It
requires, also, that he recognize the necessity for contributions to his own
academic field and to the welfare of the school.
In my discussion this morning I have tried to point out that one of the areas
of active mission of the laity is in Catholic education; that the layman's role
in Catholic education is changing drastically; that he is making and will
make, because he is a part of the world which is changing at a phenomenal
rate, significant and unique contributions in our schools. Finally, I indicated
some of the problems which remain to be solved and which we may discuss
in our sessions during the convention.
Our Catholic schools have grown to their present state of excellence and
their scope because of the dedicated service of priests, brothers, and sisters for
more than a century. The foresight and the concern of the bishops and the
sacrifices of the laity have made possible American Catholic education. In the
recent past there has been a rapid expansion of a new force in these schools —
the Catholic lay teacher. More than fifty years ago, a French bishop stated,
"Everywhere there is discussion of the delicate question of coordinating the
two apostleships, ours hierarchical, yours lay."
Understandings within our schools by the clergy and religious of the laity,
and understandings by the laity of the clergy and religious, must be brought
about. To do so requires a positive effort on the part of each group, and of
the two groups together, to gain this understanding. Each has an important
role to play in building and perfecting the Mystical Body through education.
Recognition that each is a part of the Mystical Body, and that together they
have a common mission, is the starting point for the mutual understanding
which will effect the unity that is necessary and permit our schools to reach
even greater heights. Together they should communicate knowledge, develop
understandings, and stimulate motivation which will result in the total develop-
ment of their students, and will help to produce the conditions in which Divine
Grace will effect a return to Christian unity.
FOSTERING THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT
Most Rev. John F. Dearden
ARCHBISHOP OF DETROIT
With pleasure I welcome you to the Archdiocese of Detroit. You will
find, I am certain, that the spaciousness of our civic center symbolizes well
the largeness of heart that characterizes the people of Detroit. We welcome
you to our churches and schools, to our institutions and agencies, to all our
facilities and services. May your visit profit you professionally, and may it
become a memory you will cherish with fondness.
The range of this year's convention of the National Catholic Educational
Association reflects the diversity and depth of Catholic education. Catholic
schools are an integral part of the life of the Church in this country. The
spiritual and intellectual vigor of the Church in the United States today can
be credited in great part to priests, religious, and lay people who, over the
years, have contributed their talents and energies to our educational institutions.
Over five and a half million students are enrolled in our elementary and high
schools and our colleges and universities. This astounding achievement testifies
to the far-seeing vision of the bishops who at the Third Plenary Council of
Baltimore directed that, so far as feasible, every parish should provide a school.
From these roots grow the secondary schools, seminaries, colleges, and univer-
sities that reach across the fifty states, giving our society the informed, con-
scientious Catholic citizen of today.
For all its variety, Catholic education is infused with an ideal and an
idea that give it unity and purpose. The ideal is the man formed after the
heart of Christ. The idea is that the development of basic skills and the
cultivation of intellectual excellence represent the meaningful use of God-given
talents. If Catholic education finds unity in this ideal and idea, then the same
bond gives cohesion to this huge convention where the implications and
problems inherent in such a noble purpose can be deliberated and in some
measure resolved.
A further principle of unity for the convention itself stems from the theme
that has been selected for this meeting, "Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit."
The theme surely has been suggested by the forthcoming Second Vatican
Council. While this assuredly is not the central concern of the Council, it bears
a direct relationship to what the Council hopes to achieve.
The forthcoming Council makes this year an historic one for the Church,
for as long as history is written 1962 will take its place with other great years
of decision in the Church: 325 when Nicea defined the divinity of Christ; 431
when Ephesus defined Mary's claim to be called Mother of God; 1215 when
the Fourth Lateran Council rejected the errors of the Albigensians; 1545 when
Trent gave further precision to a great number of doctrines and erected a
31
32 General Sessions
structure of discipline and authority that gave shape to the visible Church
in the modern world.
Each Ecumenical Council was history-making. The matter was stated once
most forcefully by G. K. Chesterton: "Nobody will ever write a history of
Europe that will make any sort of sense, unless he does justice to the Councils
of the Church, those vast and yet subtle collaborations for thrashing out a
thousand thoughts to find the true thought of the Church. The great religious
Councils of the Church are far more practical and important than the great
international treaties which are generally made the pivotal dates of history. . . .
For in almost every case the international peace was founded on a compromise;
the religious peace was founded on a distinction — the enunciation of a principle
which had affected, and still does affect, the general state of mind of thousands
from admirals to apple-women."
Of the twenty Ecumenical Councils of the Church, I have referred to but
a few. One great purpose distinguishes all the Councils: to invigorate the life
of the Church by defining, clarifying, and advancing the Faith that she teaches
and lives. Our Holy Father has reaffirmed this purpose as that which will be
dominant in the forthcoming Council. In an address the Holy Father expressed
it in these words:
The Council's chief business will concern the growth of the Catholic Faith,
the renewal along right lines of the habits of Christian people, and the adapting
of ecclesiastical discipline to the needs and conditions of the present time. That
event will surely be a wonderful manifestation of truth, unity and charity.
It is only after the Holy Father has enunciated this primary purpose of
the Second Vatican Council that he expresses the hope that those "who behold
this manifestation (of truth, unity, and charity), but who are separated from
this Apostolic See, will receive it as a gentle invitation to seek and find that
unity for which Jesus Christ prayed so ardently to His Heavenly Father."
It is clear, then, that the Council that has been summoned is ecumenical first
in the traditional sense that every general Council of the Church has been
ecumenical, that is, a gathering of the bishops of all the dioceses of the world,
meeting with the Holy Father in the broad interests of the Church. Functioning
as a solemn witness to the established truth and existing unity of the Church,
the Second Vatican Council then serves as a "gentle invitation" to our separated
brethren to share in the oneness of truth and charity that is Christ.
In the historic setting that the Council provides, it is but natural that
Catholic educators first of all will interest themselves and their pupils in this
solemn activity of the Church. They will find it a striking opportunity to
bring home the significance of the teaching authority of the Church. At the
same time they will find in the Council a living expression of that warm and
gentle charity which the Church shows to all. Surely this will be an unparalleled
opportunity to have our pupils sense the throbbing, pulsating life of the Church
and glory in the privilege of being a part of it.
It is in this broad historical context that we should approach the narrower
theme that has been set for this year's convention. It is clear that the ecumenical
spirit of which we speak is something quite other than the Ecumenical Council.
In our discussion on the ecumenical spirit, we are speaking rather of the
attitude that we must adopt and inculcate toward those who, outside the unity
of the Church, yearn for a return to it.
The Ecumenical Movement in modern Protestantism is both a recognition of
a unity lost and a unity sought after. In the spirit of charity which the
Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit 33
Church inculcates, we cannot be indifferent to the strivings of those outside
the Church who seek after the unity for which Christ prayed. In the spirit
of the Council, we must pray and hope that the pious aspirations of those
separated from the Church may, in the providence of God, be realized through
their return to their Father's house. Because we enjoy the God-given blessings
of unity in the Church, it is our duty to pray and to work that others coming
through the grace of God to recognize that the Catholic Church is truly the
Church founded by Christ may be brought back to her fold.
When we speak of fostering the ecumenical spirit, we have in mind the
promoting in our people of a prayerful concern toward those who, bearing
the name Christian, are nonetheless separated from the Church. Such a spirit
is but an expression of charity. And at the same time, it is a spirit that is
grounded in knowledge, the knowledge that comes to us through faith. In its
fullness, therefore, it represents knowledge possessed and lived.
While it is not my duty to develop the theme that has been set for the
convention — this, after all, is to be the content of your discussions during the
next few days — it is fitting to draw your attention to some of its many facets.
At the same time what is said may serve to underscore briefly some of the
possibilities that lie ahead.
Knowledge and culture and wisdom are the common concern of every
teacher. Such common concern can itself create a climate of mutual trust
and understanding. The basic commitment to search out truth makes partners
of all who profess the intellectual life. The trained mind can best appreciate
the values of diversity without division, of unity without uniformity. The
knowledgeable mind is sensitive to historical situations; it is alert to the varied
courses that influence the making of decisions and the taking of positions. In
all these ways, the Catholic educator has a meaningful channel of communi-
cation open to him. Somehow he must endeavor to open it to his pupils.
In a climate favorable to understanding, there are many ways to foster the
ecumenical spirit. Basic to all our efforts should be the ways of faith,
hope, and love.
Just as the Church grows in her knowledge of God and His divine Son, so
the individual teacher encourages the growth of faith in his students. Faith
comes from God, but it is a responsibility of the teacher to help bring it to
full flower. This means a clear, mature understanding of the teachings of
the Church, the "good tidings of great joy" of her history, her liturgy, and
the inner life of the spirit. It means, too, the ability to express the faith intel-
ligently. Informed and articulate, practicing what he professes, the individual
Catholic will stand as a "gentle invitation" to all who know not Christ and
His Church.
In the face of anxiety and pessimism, Catholic educators will foster the
ecumenical spirit by a vibrant hope. The Resurrection is God's pledge that
His power prevails. Political, social, and economic problems at home and
abroad seem all but insuperable. Countless conflicts confront us and frighten-
ing catastrophes face us. But the ecumenical spirit is a spirit of hope. It is
the spirit of Christ saying to His apostles, "These things I have spoken to you
that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have affliction. But
take courage, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Hope will sustain
us, too, as the obstacles to reunion seem insurmountable. But God's providence
works in wondrous ways. If we sow, He will give the increase.
Above all, the ecumenical spirit is one of love. "By this shall all men know
that you are my disciples, that you have love for one another" (John 13:35).
34 General Sessions
A strong charity must first permeate our own lives and our own joint enter-
prises. Then only shall we give evidence that we live with Christ. In that
same spirit of fraternal charity, we can approach those who long for unity.
And if we approach them with the charity of Christ in our hearts, they will
receive us with understanding.
The dynamism of the Church is not an abstract fancy. It is a divine
energy proceeding from the Holy Spirit and releasing currents of grace into
the temporal and practical order. It remains for us to be worthy witnesses
to this vibrant life by fostering a spirit of renewal and rejuvenation in our own
hearts and minds, in our life and work. Then shall we be worthy members
of the Church as it renews itself in the Second Vatican Council. Then shall
we be to our separated brethren a "gentle invitation" to share fully in the
Church whom the poet has saluted:
I was the desire of all times, I was the light of all times,
I am the fullness of all times.
I am their great union, I am their eternal oneness.
I am the way of all their ways, in me the millenia are drawn to God.
Gertrude von Le Fort
Hymns to the Church
SUMMARY OF THE 1962 MEETING
Very Rev. Laurence V. Britt, SJ.
PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT
My task here this morning is a very simple one — simple, that is, compared
with the task of reuniting Christendom: in fifteen minutes I am supposed to
summarize the proceedings of this convention, during which, I roughly
estimate, something like 175 speeches and papers have been delivered!
Normally, I suppose, one could summarize most conventions by simply stating
that the air was full of speeches and vice versa. Unfortunately for my pur-
pose, but to the profit of many, this convention appears to have been an
exception: speeches and papers have been so thought-provoking that it would
really be quite impossible to summarize them adequately in fifteen hours, let
alone fifteen minutes. I feel much like the ancient historian, who set himself
the task of writing a book, De Omni Scibili et quibusdam aliis. . . .
To avoid wasting precious time with only semiprecious personal excuses,
let me simply explain that I have decided to treat briefly some of the major
points of view that have been expressed repeatedly by convention speakers.
1. The "ecumenical spirit"
We have heard the theme of the convention repeated often enough to be
quite familiar with it — even though we may have been a little uneasy at the
thought that the theme "Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit" seemed to imply
that the spirit needed fostering. Although different speakers occasionally
understood the theme in somewhat diverse fashion, its basic meaning was
made abundantly clear right from the opening session. Our own beloved
Archbishop, in the opening general session, called our attention to the Holy
Father's statement regarding the purpose of the coming Ecumenical Council:
The Church's chief business will concern the growth of the Catholic faith,
the renewal along right lines of the habits of Christian people, and the adapt-
ing of ecclesiastical discipline to the needs and conditions of the present time.
That event will surely be a wonderful manifestation of truth, unity, and
charity. . . .
Archbishop Dearden then pointed out that it was only after enunciating this
primary purpose of the Second Vatican Council that the Holy Father had
expressed the hope that those "who behold this manifestation of truth, unity,
and charity, but who are separated from this Apostolic See, will receive it
as a gentle invitation to seek and find that unity for which Jesus Christ prayed
so ardently to His Heavenly Father. . . ."
"Ecumenical," strictly speaking, then, means a gathering of the bishops of
all the dioceses of the world, meeting with the Holy Father in the broad
35
36 General Sessions
interests of the church. ". . . It is clear that the ecumenical spirit of which
we speak is something quite other than the Ecumenical Council. In our dis-
cussion of the ecumenical spirit, we are speaking of the attitude that we must
adopt and inculcate toward those who, outside the unity of the church, yearn
for a return to it."
Dr. Raymond McCoy, speaking at the opening session of the College and
University Department, went on to emphasize the fact that, while the goal
of ecumenism is the eventual reunion of Christendom, the ecumenical spirit,
properly speaking, has to do with attitudes: that is, with knowledge and
understanding, touched by favorable feelings. As knowledge and favorable
feelings fuse, they are converted into something stronger: into emotions and
motivation to action. They then become attitudes. Both Dr. McCoy and
Dr. Conley saw the job of education to be the complex task of providing
opportunities for students to grow and develop the knowledge and understand-
ing of man in relation to Christ and to all other men, together with the inner
motivation to accept full Christian responsibility as an indispensable means to
the removal of barriers to the unity we seek.
In speaking to the Secondary School Department, Bishop Byrne defined
the development of the ecumenical spirit in terms of spiritual maturity. In
simplest terms, "we must all accept the personal responsibility of living up
to what is expected of us as Christians and as members of one, true church.
Protestants will then see us as the Christians we ought to be." Briefly put,
the mature Christian is the one who is whole-heartedly devoted to Christ and
accepts all of Christ's teaching — one who thinks, judges, and acts constantly
and consistently in accord with right reason, illumined by faith; who loves
all in Christ and Christ in every member of the human race.
In speaking to the Elementary School Department, Father John Considine
reminded us that "next to God Himself, the biggest thing in the universe is the
human race, destined by God to serve Him through His Church." Christ
Himself has commanded us to teach all nations, to love each of our neighbors
as we love Him, so ecumenism is part and parcel of being a Christian.
In summary, then, we may be said to foster the ecumenical spirit when we
take advantage of every means at our disposal to make ourselves better
Christians and to assist others to come to a fuller understanding of the
knowledge and love of God and of His complete revelation; when we make it
easier for others, and not more difficult, to find their way to Christ, Who is
the way, the truth, and the life.
2. Ecumenism as a Catholic Concern
Father Dulles, after careful definition of the "ecumenical movement," in
connection with which he emphasized the fact that today ecumenism does
not imply any general formula of church unity but may properly be described
as "a multilateral encounter among separate Christian bodies whose proximate
goal is to enjoy more harmonious and fruitful relationships to one another,"
pointed out that heretofore Catholics have been rather reserved about
ecumenism.
Heretofore [he stated], we have lived as a rather isolated community, and
our isolation has been, to some extent, deliberate. We have concentrated on
preserving our own heritage from erosion, contamination, or absorption by
alien forces. We have generally taken it for granted that we had little need
of support from other Christians and little to learn from them. Either they
agreed with us or they disagreed. If they agreed, we already knew what they
Summary of 1962 Meeting 37
were in a position to tell us. If they disagreed, they were wrong. Hence it
seemed best to avoid contact with them or, if we did meet, to come armed
to the teeth with polemic arguments. Our relations with non-Catholic Christians,
therefore, fluctuated between indifference and contentiousness. In either case
they were not ecumenical. . . . (See page 142.)
But now all of this has changed. The whole tendency of world Catholicism
requires us to emerge from our isolation and enter into cordial relationships
with other Christian groups. Our Holy Father, John XXIII, has repeatedly
summoned us to have sympathy and respect for non-Catholic Christianity.
In his address of May, 1960, for example, he called for
a real understanding of those brethren who, while bearing the name of Christ
on their foreheads and indeed in their hearts, are yet separated from the
Catholic Church. We must bestir ourselves and not rest until we have over-
come our old habits of thought, our prejudices, and the use of expressions
which are anything but courteous, so as to create a climate favorable to, and
so in every way to cooperate with, the work of grace. Thus, to one and all
will be thrown wide open the gates to the unity of the Church of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, [p. 2]
In summary, then, ecumenism and Catholicism are in no way contradictory.
They belong together. Catholicism is an ecumenical concern; and ecumenism
is a Catholic concern. If Christians of different communions stand coldly
aloof from one another while Christianity itself is gravely threatened, the
world will not be edified. In an age when participants in every calling, whether
they be philosophers or salesmen, historians or engineers, hold frequent meet-
ings to exchange ideas and to thrash out differences of opinions, religious
leaders will be expected to do likewise. Should we Christians be the only
ones without the patience to discuss our differences amicably and to collaborate
cordially on matters of common concern? If we refuse to do so, our reluctance
will not be interpreted as a sign of strength, but rather of indolence, com-
placency, jealousy, or fear. Many will take our behavior as a confession
that we have nothing significant to say to each other, or that we do not
dare to subject our convictions to the test of serious encounter. (Dulles, pp.
148-49)
3. Emphasis on the Church's Social Teaching
Mr. Donald J. Thorman, speaking to the Secondary School Department on
Wednesday, rendered a tremendous service in making explicit the connection
between ecumenism and the Church's social apostolate, with specific refer-
ence to Mater et Magistra, which he terms the "Last Chance Encyclical." He
concluded with the following provocative statement:
. . . We cannot be indifferent to men anywhere any more than we can be
indifferent to Christ. This is not a rootless, maudlin, sentimental kind of
humanitarianism. It is, rather, a firm reality, founded on a sublime truth and
reality, namely, that we are living members of the Mystical Body of Christ,
which is His Church. (Page 296.)
4. Applications to the Curriculum
In general, conference speakers agreed that, in our efforts to foster the
ecumenical spirit through our educational programs, we should not be overly
concerned with the introduction of new courses, new programs, et cetera.
Rather, in our total program we should attempt to create an atmosphere, to
provide inspiring example, and to emphasize the basic understandings, the
fundamental convictions which, in the practical order, constitute the basis
38 General Sessions
for development of the ecumenical spirit: for example, the fact that
1. the unity of all Christians in Christ is in today's world a more urgent
necessity than ever;
2. that the differences among Christians belonging to different churches are
understandable in the light of historical facts;
3. that persons of other churches are people of good will, honestly search-
ing to do God's will;
4. that within the framework of God's truth, our own church is still
developing in the application of that truth to the current scene;
5. that, tremendous as the obstacles to unity among Christians may be,
the prayerful search must continue;
6. that dialogue, conversations, contacts, and communication are necessary
and even essential to the search for unity;
7. that the search is not a one-way street.
Special attention was given to the significant and possibly unique role of
the laity in the Church's work in education. The clergy, religious, and the
laity have major and complementary roles to play in communicating knowl-
edge, developing understandings, and stimulating the motivation which can
result in the total development of students, and can help to produce the
conditions in which Divine Grace will effect a return to Christian unity.
(Conley, p. 30.)
In connection with curriculum, serious doubts were expressed by some in
regard to the adequacy of programs in which civilization is equated with
Western civilization to the almost complete disregard for the cultures of the
greater portion of the world. Only 3 out of every 10 people in the world are
included in that portion of mankind which we are accustomed to consider
our world. Even after crash programs in Eastern and Asian area studies,1
we frequently find ourselves compelled to admit: "How little we really know
of these people."
Varia
For the rest, I can do no more than mention major topics that were
seriously explored: for example, practical preparation for the dialogue in
which Catholics must be prepared to engage if there is to be a truly coopera-
tive striving for eventual reunion; the practical import of the open tradition
in Catholic scholarship — a tradition that shows the Church demonstrating a
startling capacity for assimilation and synthesis; preparation of our graduates
for truly intelligent lay leadership in a world that takes it for granted that
there must be a concerted and cooperative attack on major problems, whether
economic, social, political, international, or religious; the practical procedures
for fostering development of the ecumenical spirit, or, really, the spirit of
Christ, in the education of seminarians and religious; practical procedures
for governing our participation in dialogue on religious matters, obviating the
ever-present danger of unwarranted compromise; and finally, or really first
and foremost, how to develop in our own individual selves the spirit of
Christ-like charity which will motivate us in all things and in every place to
reflect the true Christ and to win others to the knowledge and love of Christ.
In conclusion, with the noble Irishman, I can only say: I haven't summarized
these proceedings as well as I hoped to, but then I didn't really hope to.
1 As Father Paschak noted in speaking on the contributions of Byzantine liturgy and history
(see pp. 522-26).
REMARKS OF ACCEPTANCE OF ARCHBISHOP JOHN CODY
ON HIS ELECTION AS PRESIDENT GENERAL OF THE
NATIONAL CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION*
Dear Colleagues in Catholic Education:
It is with sentiments of humility and of appreciation that I accept the office
of President General of the National Catholic Educational Association to
which you have just elected me as a successor to your host the Most Rev.
John F. Dearden, D.D., Archbishop of Detroit.
My humility is intensified by the realization that I have been preceded in
this post by a long line of prelates who have served with distinction through-
out the six decades of existence of our Association.
The honor you have bestowed on me today is reflected on the Midwest,
specifically on the Archdiocese of St. Louis, where I was born, reared, and
exercised the ministry of the priesthood; and on the dioceses of St. Joseph
and of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri where, until last November, I
served as bishop. The honor you have accorded me also sheds a bright luster
on the Deep South, the region to which I now belong, and particularly on the
Archdiocese of New Orleans, whose venerable Archbishop has twice been your
convention host.
But, native Midwesterner or adopted Southerner, the President General,
as well as the officers and members of this Association, should view education
beyond the framework of the parish, the diocese, the region, or even the
nation. To limit one's perspective of Catholic education would violate the
spirit of the word "Catholic" and would be contrary to the theme of this
fifty-ninth annual convention: "Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit."
I am sure that throughout the three and one-half days of your convention
in Detroit you have kept in mind the words of Pope John XXIII at the closing
session of the Ecumenical Council Preparatory Commissions at the Vatican
on June 20, 1961: "It is the aim of the Council that the clergy should acquire
a new brilliance of sanctity, that the people be instructed efficaciously in the
truths of the Faith and Christian morals, that the new generations, who are
growing like a hope of better times, should be educated properly." The
facets of Catholic education which you have examined, and the solutions you
have offered for educational problems, far from being special to the United
States of America or to any of its regions, are of interest to the whole Catholic
world precisely because they conform with these aims of the forthcoming
Ecumenical Council.
Catholic education, perhaps more than ever in the long history of the
Church, is a prime concern of the Church Universal. The Catholic school
system, especially as we knew it in the United States, must be the chief
solicitude of every ordinary even as it is the wisest and safest investment of
* Delivered by Msgr. Henry Bezou, Superintendent of Schools, Archdiocese of New Orleans,
at the closing session, Friday, April 27, 1962.
39
40 General Sessions
every diocese. The Catholic school must be the pupillus oculi — the apple of
the eye of every pastor and must merit the full support of every loyal parishion-
er. Indeed, this pastoral concern must be so keen, this support must be so
generous, that no grade in a parochial school and no level in a diocesan
system — from kindergarten to graduate school — should be considered ex-
pendable.
We must continue to devote all our resources, spiritual and material, toward
providing an optimum Catholic education for the maximum number of
Catholic children and youth. This is the ever-widening vision of the National
Catholic Educational Association. It is a vision which I hope to share with
you during the term of office which I begin today.
GENERAL MEETINGS: MINUTES
Detroit, Michigan
April 24-27, 1962
The fifty-ninth annual convention of the National Catholic Educational
Association was held in Detroit, Michigan, April 24—27, 1962, under the
patronage of His Excellency, the Most Rev. John F. Dearden, D.D., Arch-
bishop of Detroit. The Very Rev. Msgr. Vincent Horkan served as chairman
of the Executive Committee of the Detroit Convention Committee. Other
members of the Executive Committee were Rev. Edmond A. Fournier, Rev.
John B. Zwers, and Rev. Allen P. Farrell, S.J.
The convention was opened on April 24 with a Solemn Pontificial Mass in
St. Aloysius Church at 9 a.m. This was followed by the opening general
meeting held in the arena at Cobo Hall. The formal opening of the exhibits
took place in Hall C of Cobo Hall at 12:30 p.m. The meetings of the depart-
ments and sections began at 2 p.m. and continued on April 25, 26, and 27.
The convention closed with a final general meeting held in the arena at Cobo
Hall on Friday, April 27, at 9:30 a.m. Other associations holding meetings
in conjunction with NCEA were: Byzantine Rite Teachers' Institute, Arche-
parchy of Philadelphia, the Catholic Audio-Visual Educators Association, the
Catholic Business Education Association, and the National Catholic Kinder-
garten Association.
Solemn Pontifical Mass
A Solemn Pontifical Mass was celebrated for the delegates by His Excellency,
the Most Rev. John F. Dearden, D.D., Archbishop of Detroit, in St. Nicholas
Church at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 24. The sermon was delivered by the
Rev. Edmond A. Fournier of Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit.
Opening General Meeting
The opening general meeting was called to order in the ballroom of Con-
vention Hall at 1 1 a.m. on April 24 by the chairman, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick
G. Hochwalt. His Excellency, the Most Rev. John F. Dearden, President
General of the Association, said the opening prayer.
Cordial greetings were extended to the delegates on behalf of the school
system of the Archdiocese of Detroit by its superintendent, the Very Rev.
Vincent Horkan. The Sisters' Chorus of the Archdiocesan Schools, a choir
of one hundred voices under the direction of Dr. Harry Sietz, sang for the
delegates.
Monsignor Hochwalt then introduced the first keynote speaker of the
meeting, Dr. William H. Conley, Educational Assistant to the President of
Marquette University, director of the Carnegie Study of Catholic Education,
41
42 General Sessions
and president of the College and University Department of NCEA, who
spoke on "The Lay Teacher in Catholic Education."
Archbishop Dearden then read to the delegates the following letter which
he had received from the President of the United States:
The Annual Convention of the National Catholic Educational Associa-
tion serves as an eloquent tribute to the teachers who have devoted their
lives to educating the young. Truly it can be said that they foster in
youth that love of knowledge which is a wellspring of truth and a
source of national strength. Equally important is the guidance they
give the student to temper the use of that knowledge, under God, with
a genuine love for his fellow man and an abiding concern for the needs
of the Nation.
Please extend to the delegates to the Convention my congratulations
for the achievements of the past and my best wishes for greater accom-
plishments in the future.
John Kennedy
Following the reading of President Kennedy's message, Archbishop Dearden
addressed the delegates on the theme of the convention, "Fostering the Ecumeni-
cal Spirit."
Monsignor Hochwalt next announced the membership of the Nominations
Committee: Rev. Daniel Kirwin, Chairman; Sister Ritamary, C.H.M., and
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Louis E. Riedel. He also introduced from the platform Rt.
Rev. Msgr. John Paul Haverty, president of the Elementary School Depart-
ment; and Rev. Edmond A. Fournier and Rev. John B. Zwers, members
of the executive committee of the Detroit Convention Committee.
The session closed at 12:20 p.m. after two final selections by the Sisters
Chorus and a closing prayer by Archbishop Dearden.
Formal Opening of the Exhibits
The fifty-ninth annual NCEA Convention Exhibit was opened formally at
12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, 1962. The ceremony took place on a
stage overlooking the main floor of the Exhibit Hall.
After the playing of the national anthem, Mr. Joseph O'Donnell, NCEA
Exhibit Manager, introduced Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt, who welcomed
the exhibitors and expressed gratitude to them for the warm interest in
Catholic education and in the Association which they so constructively ex-
press by coming to the annual convention regularly and bringing along such
accomplished personnel, who by their skill and dedication are able to help
teachers and administrators keep abreast of the newest and best in instruc-
tional materials and facilities.
Monsignor Hochwalt then introduced the executive chairman of the local
convention committee, Msgr. Vincent Horkan, who warmly welcomed the
exhibitors on behalf of the schools of his archdiocese and of the province
of Michigan. Archbishop Dearden then extended a personal welcome to the
exhibitors and particularly commended the six firms which with the Detroit
meeting were completing a quarter century of participation in NCEA con-
ventions. He presented commemorative plaques on behalf of the Association
to the six firms, as follows: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.; Hillyard Chemical
Minutes of General Meetings 43
Co.; Lyons & Carnahan; McCormick-Mathers Publishing Co., Inc.; A. J.
Nystrom & Co.; and Remington Rand Systems, Division of Sperry Rand
Corporation.
Mr. Leo Flatley, sales manager for Mentzer, Bush & Co., and president
of the National Catholic Educational Exhibitors Association, concluded the
ceremony with an acknowledgment of the tribute paid to the exhibitors.
Closing Session: Minutes
The closing general meeting was declared in session at 9:30 a.m. on Friday,
April 27, by Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt. The opening prayer was said by
the Most Rev. John F. Dearden, who then read the following message which
he had received from His Holiness, Pope John XXIII, over the signature of
Amleto Cardinal Cicognani, Secretary of State:
His Holiness Pope John XXIII is deeply appreciative of the dedicated,
timely theme of the fifty-ninth annual meeting of the National Catholic
Educational Association, "Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit" — a theme
so close to His pastoral heart. The Pontiff sends paternal greetings and
fervently invokes Divine enlightenment on all of the deliberations. His
Holiness cordially imparts to Your Excellency and all of the delegates
in attendance a special apostolic benediction.
The Boys Choir of the Archdiocesan Schools then sang for the delegates.
The Very Rev. Laurence V. Britt, S.J., president of the University of Detroit,
next drew together in an over-all summary 1 the highlights of the deliberations
held during the four days by the various departments and sections of the
Association.
Following Father Britt's address, the Rev. Daniel Kirwin, chairman of the
Nominating Committee, presented the following list of nominees for office for
1962-63:
President General: Most Rev. John P. Cody, Coadjutor Archbishop of
New Orleans, La.
Vice Presidents General:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frank M. Schneider, Milwaukee, Wis.
Rev. Edmond A. Fournier, Detroit, Mich.
Very Rev. Armand H. Desautels, A.A., Worcester, Mass.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan, Cincinnati, Ohio
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Edmund J. Goebel, Milwaukee, Wis.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Paul E. Campbell, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Sylvester J. Holbel, Buffalo, N.Y.
The slate was adopted unanimously.
Archbishop Cody, in a message read by Monsignor Bezou,2 Superintendent
of Schools of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, expressed warm appreciation
of the honor the committee and the delegates had done both him and the
Archdiocese of New Orleans, and assured them of his steadfast shepherdship
of the affairs of the Association during the coming year.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. James E. Hoflich, Secretary for Education of the Arch-
diocese of St. Louis, extended on behalf of His Eminence Joseph Cardinal
1 See pages 35-38, this volume. 3 See pages 39-40.
44 General Sessions
Ritter, Archbishop of St. Louis, a most cordial invitation to all the delegates
to attend the Diamond Jubilee convention of the Association next year in St.
Louis. The invitation was accepted in the name of the Executive Board by
Monsignor Hochwalt.
Monsignor Hochwalt then thanked in warmest fashion the members of the
large and very efficient local committee in Detroit which had planned so
effectively for the success of the convention and led the delegates in an
ovation for Monsignor Horkan, Father Fournier, and Father Zwers, who had
guided their efforts. Finally, with expressions of the Association's deepest
gratitude for his outstanding leadership as President General, he called upon
Archbishop Dearden, who gave the delegates a brief message of inspiration
and farewell and said the closing prayer. The meeting was declared ad-
journed at 10:30 a.m.
Frederick G. Hochwalt
Secretary
PART 3 MAJOR SEMINARY DEPARTMENT
PREPARATION OF DIOCESAN PRIESTS FOR TEACHING
IN HIGH SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Robert H. Krumholtz
VICE PRESIDENT, THE ATHENAEUM OF OHIO
RECTOR, ST. GREGORY'S SEMINARY, CINCINNATI, OHIO
During the past thirty years the majority of the newly ordained Cincinnati
archdiocesan priests have been assigned to teach in the high schools and
seminaries of the archdiocese or in local Catholic colleges. At present, more
than 125 of its 433 active diocesan priests carry a full-time teaching or school
administration load in addition to their parish work. In the foreseeable future
at least 15 per cent of the priests will have to teach from fifteen to twenty
years after ordination. This situation has forced the authorities of the arch-
diocese to prepare its seminarians for teaching on secondary or collegiate
levels. The late Archbishop McNicholas initiated the teacher-training program
in 1927 and Archbishop Alter in 1951 directed the administrative officers of
the Athenaeum of Ohio to work out the details of the present program.
The Athenaeum of Ohio consists of the College of Liberal Arts, the
Graduate Program in Thomistic Philosophy, and the School of Theology.
Classes in the lower division of the College of Liberal Arts are conducted at
St. Gregory's Seminary. The upper division classes, as well as those in the
Graduate Program in Thomistic Philosophy and in the School of Theology,
are held at Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West. The Anthenaeum of
Ohio is empowered by the State of Ohio to grant the degrees of Bachelor and
Master of Arts. It holds membership in the Ohio College Association. It
is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary
Schools as an institution granting bachelor's and master's degrees. It is also
authorized by the Ohio Department of Education to prepare students for
certification to teach high school academic subjects.
In recent years the Athenaeum of Ohio has made many changes in order
to adjust its teacher-training program to present needs. No doubt it will con-
tinue to do so in the years to come. My remarks will be confined to an ex-
planation of its program in its present stage.
Liberal Arts Curriculum
As in all seminaries, the liberal arts course has been designed to offer a
broad general education to the students, with a heavy concentration in
philosophy as the major field. The Athenaeum of Ohio has met the need for
a course of studies in the various high school teaching fields by summer
school courses and by increasing the flexibility of its curricular offerings. It
45
46 Major Seminary Department
has done the latter by adding elective courses in subjects not required for the
Bachelor of Arts degree and by making it possible for a student to earn extra
credits in the required subjects both during his college course as well as during
his four years of theology. The candidate for the Bachelor of Arts degree
must earn 128 college credits, of which 96 credits must be distributed as
follows among these subjects:
Credits
Philosophy 32
English 12
History 12
Latin 12
Religion 8
Modern Language or Greek 8
Natural Sciences or Mathematics 8
Social Sciences 4
The following semester hours of class are offered in these and other subjects:
Semester
Hours
Philosophy 42
Latin 30
English 25
Mathematics 20
Education 14
Religion 8
Natural Sciences 32
French 27
History 23
German 18
Greek 12
Sociology 4
By the time most of the students have completed the four-year liberal arts
course they not only will have earned the Bachelor of Arts degree but will
have taken most of the required courses toward a teaching major and minor
to be completed during their graduate studies. For example, nearly all of them
will have taken the minimum number of semester hours in the courses required
for certification as a Latin teacher. Many of these students also will have
fulfilled most, if not all, the minimum requirements to be certified to teach
either English or history.
Selection of Courses in the Lower Division
of the College of Liberal Arts
First year of college
Experience has emphasized the need for the systematic, long-range planning
of the courses of our seminarians in order to prepare them properly for
staffing our high school and seminary faculties. In their first year of college
all students are required to take 4 semester hours of religion and 12 semester
hours of English equally divided between composition and literature. Al-
though all are obliged to take 20 semester hours of Latin during the first two
years of college only those students who averaged at least 85 in their four
Preparation of Diocesan Priests for Teaching 47
years of high school Latin are permitted to follow the Advanced Latin course.
Anyone who fails to keep up with the class in this advanced course is re-
assigned after the first quarter or semester to join the majority of his classmates
in the regular Latin course. Most of the bright students will take Advanced
Latin and from among them will come, later on, most of the candidates
for a Master of Arts degree. All first-year collegians take 6 semester hours
of a modern language. Those students who have satisfactorily completed at
least two years of high school French or German and have had some train-
ing in the oral use of these languages are assigned to Advanced French or
German. Prospective teachers of these subjects would be drawn from this
group. The others take an elementary course in either language.
In addition to these 16 required hours of class load during the first year
of college, the students may take from three to nine other classes. The
elective offerings, together with the number of semester hours, are: science 10,
mathematics 8, history 6, and Greek 6. The dean of studies counsels each
student in regard to his choice from among the elective subjects in view of
his over-all ability, proven aptitudes, special talents, and preference for teach-
ing later on. The Advanced Latin students are advised to take Greek and
one or two other 3 -hour elective courses each semester. Students who think
they may want to teach English or a modern language are encouraged to
take history which would be helpful for background material. Students
who prefer the natural sciences are advised to take mathematics — and perhaps
vice versa.
Before they begin the second semester, the dean of studies interviews those
students whose achievement record indicates that there should be a change in
their original program of classes. He also confers with those students who
wish to make any changes. At the same time he checks each student's class
load to make sure it is neither too heavy nor too light.
Second year of college
At the end of the academic year, the dean of studies evaluates each first-year
collegian's achievement record, especially in those subjects for which he had
indicated a preference for teaching. He interviews each student before
approving of his class schedule for the first semester of the second college
year. At that time he advises the student whether or not he should carry on
with his original plan of teacher preparation. While all the students in the
second year are required to take 3 semester hours of American literature
and history as well as to continue the other subjects required in the first
college year, those who are capable and interested may take 3 more semester
hours of American literature and history and 3 more of English literature.
The same number of classes are offered in mathematics, science, and Greek
as were offered in the first year.
In the latter part of the second semester, the dean of studies has the
scholastic record of each second-year collegian, together with the results
of his ability and achievement tests, entered on separate cards. After he has
interviewed each of them again to determine their preferences for teaching
fields, he gives these cards to the professors of the various departments so
that they can record their own personal observations about each student's
fitness as a prospective teacher in the fields of his preference. These record
cards are passed on to the dean of studies in the upper division of the College
of Liberal Arts.
48 Major Seminary Department
Selection of Courses in the Upper Division
of the College of Liberal Arts
During the span of third and fourth college years, the students are required
to carry 42 semester hours in philosophy, 8 in Church history, 4 in speech,
4 in sociology, 3 in Hebrew, and 4 in religion. This rather heavy load prevents
their taking many elective courses. As a rule they should be averaging
a credit point ratio of about 2.5 in their required subjects before they are
permitted to take elective courses. Only the exceptionally bright seminarians
are allowed to carry as much as 21 hours a semester, so they may obtain at
most from 6 to 8 credit hours each semester in elective subjects. Twelve
credits are offered in undergraduate education which would fulfill all the
professional education requirements for high school certification except for
6 semester hours in student teaching. Newly ordained priests are usually able
to obtain these credits in student teaching from the Athenaeum during their
first year of high school teaching. It has been determined that it is not neces-
sary to take these undergraduate courses in education before taking the
graduate courses at Xavier University for the Master of Education degree.
Moreover, the State of Ohio will accept these graduate courses in fulfillment
of the requirements in professional education for a teaching certificate. Most
of the students will be advised, therefore, to take content rather than educa-
tional courses as electives during the third and fourth college years. Only
those who apparently will be going on for a Master of Arts degree would be
urged to take these undergraduate education courses at the Athenaeum —
some or all of which they might take later on during their years in theology.
Since these students would be above average in talent and achievement, they
would also be advised to take 4 to 6 additional classes in elective courses
according to their preferred teaching fields, for example, Latin, history, a
modern language. The rest of the students who would probably be going on
for the Master of Education degree at Xavier University would be directed
during their last two years of college to take elective courses in the fields of
their teaching preference. Those who would like to teach science or
mathematics would probably have to restrict their elective courses to those
fields in order to be ready for the advanced science and mathematics in which
they would concentrate for the Master of Education degree.
The dean of studies of the College of Liberal Arts is also in charge of
the Athenaeum's teacher certification program. As he directs the students
toward the Bachelor of Arts degree he is careful to guide into the various
teaching fields those who are capable of preparing themselves to be certificated
as high school teachers. He has found it most helpful to draw up a work-
sheet listing the State of Ohio requirements for certification on the left side
with space along the right side for entering in the credits which each student
earns in the various required courses. This worksheet is primarily for the
purpose of establishing finally whether or not a student is entitled to be
recommended for certification and in which fields. It may also be used
as a progress report on the students, enabling one to see at a glance just where
a student stands in the way of fulfilling the requirements for certification. In
this respect it is particularly valuable to the director of the Graduate Program
and of Summer School Studies.
Direction of Students in Graduate Studies
After the completion of the third college year until their ordination to
the priesthood, the students from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati are required
Preparation of Diocesan Priests for Teaching 49
to take summer school courses for six weeks during each summer vacation.
The director of the Graduate Program of the Athenaeum of Ohio is also
the director of Summer School Studies. In this capacity he directs the capable
students during five summer vacations either for the Athenaeum Master of
Arts degree or for the Master of Education or a Master of Arts degree from
Xavier University or other universities. This service is offered to all the
dioceses which send students to the Athenaeum of Ohio. Many students from
these dioceses are either required or permitted by their ordinaries to take
summer courses toward a graduate degree.
Most of the students since 1954 have been following their graduate school
programs at Xavier University. A dormitory building on the Xavier campus
is set aside each summer for the Athenaeum seminarians. One of the faculty
members of the Athenaeum acts as dean of men in this building. Those stu-
dents whose homes are too far away to commute to Xavier reside in this
dormitory.
The Graduate Program of the Athenaeum
Only those second-year theologians who have proved their ability to follow
profitably the Latin lecture course from the Summa of St. Thomas by a rigorous
screening process during the previous three school years are admitted into
the Athenaeum's graduate philosophy program. Most of these students would
be directed to go on for the Athenaeum's Master of Arts degree in philosophy.
During two summer sessions they have to take a course in Aristotle's Posterior
Analytics and in two of the first four books of his Physics with St. Thomas'
commentaries on these works. These courses are given by members of the
Athenaeum faculty. Some of the students who take the St. Thomas course
during the regular school year are directed to pass up the Aristotle lectures
so that they may go on for a Master of Arts degree in another college teaching
field for which they are especially equipped and which they prefer, such as
Latin, English, history, or a modern language. The rest of the St. Thomas
students go to make up what might be called "the bench" from which are
selected priests to go on for postgraduate studies in philosophy, theology,
Scripture, and canon law. All of these St. Thomas students are expected to
be qualified for certification in at least one high school teaching field. They
would probably have taken the required professional education courses while
they were doing philosophy and theology and some content courses in one
or the other field of concentration during the three summer school sessions
when they were not taking philosophy.
The Graduate Program at Xavier University
The vast majority of those students of the Athenaeum of Ohio who take
summer school courses enter the Master of Education program at Xavier Uni-
versity. A minimum of 30 hours is required for this degree. They are to be
distributed in the following manner:
1) four general surveys in graduate education for 12 credits;
2) a concentration for 12 credit hours. This would usually be in a teaching
field in which they had already taken undergraduate courses: e.g., English,
Latin, history, a modern language, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and
physics. It might also be in educational fields such as Guidance or
Administration.
50 Major Seminary Department
3) finally 6 credit hours in pertinent electives. These ordinarily would be
selected so as to fill out the requirements for a minor teaching field.
As is evident, one of the merits of this program is its flexibility.
Xavier University also offers three of the four general survey courses, that is,
Philosophy of Education, Educational Psychology, and Educational Research
as an extension program at Mount St. Mary's Seminary. These are credit
courses. The first two — the Philosophy of Education and Educational
Psychology — are offered during the first semester of alternate years while
Educational Research is offered during the second semester every year.
This makes it possible for nearly all the students who are in the Xavier
graduate program to have fulfilled the requirements for the degree of Master
of Education before they begin their fourth year of theology. The brighter
seminarians who have sufficient undergraduate background to go on for a
Master of Arts in the classics, English, or history can also usually fulfill the
requirements for that degree before starting their last year of theology, since
only 24 hours of integrated classroom study within their chosen field, the
successful completion of a comprehensive examination, a reading knowledge
of a foreign language, and the production of an acceptable thesis are required
for that degree.
Work of the Director of the Graduate Program
and of Summer School Studies
Needless to say, the over-all success of this program depends greatly upon
the director of graduate studies. He must exercise sound judgment based on a
knowledge of the students' abilities to handle the courses required for the
different Master of Arts degrees and for the fields of concentration in the
Master of Education program. He must be tactful and persuasive in guiding
the students to select the programs for which they are best fitted. He must
plan their courses in the light of the State requirements for certification in
the appropriate areas. At the same time he must keep in mind the different
needs of our high schools so as to have priests prepared to teach as many of
the required courses as possible. He must also keep a careful watch on each
student's progress in order to suggest the proper balance of courses each
summer, the preferable order in which to take them, and adjustments, either
because a student does not live up to expectations in his program or because
he wants to make a change.
Counseling New Students in Graduate Studies
In order to achieve his objectives, the director sets up a file on each new
student who is to enter the graduate program. He enters a record of the
student's previous college work on an individual worksheet. It is a form
designed for recording under separate headings his name, diocese, and entire
scholastic record in pertinent areas (philosophical and theological courses
are not listed) together with all the degrees and schools from which they were
obtained. This file is kept current during all his seminary and post-ordina-
tion studies. Under such general headings as English, Classics, History,
Modern Languages, Mathematics, Science, Religion, and Education, ample
space is provided for listing the title of each course, code identification of
college or university, year taken, catalogue numbers of courses, the number
of credits, and the grade obtained.
Preparation of Diocesan Priests for Teaching 51
Before interviewing the seminarians separately, the director holds a briefing
session with their philosophy professors to find out which students apparently
have what is necessary for making good in the Athenaeum's graduate program
in philosophy. If they have attended the lower division of the Athenaeum of
Ohio, the director already has a card indicating their high school teaching
preferences and the judgments of their professors as to their fitness in these
fields.
In his interview with the student, the director works out with him a flexible
program whereby if he should not be admitted to the Thomistic philosophy
course he will take courses with credits toward a Master of Arts degree in
a high school teaching field of his preference or toward the Master of Educa-
tion degree. Then he interviews the rest of the collegians who will be able to
enter the Xavier graduate program and works out schedules for each of them.
As a rule, the students are directed to take two courses of three credits each
during the summer session. Occasionally, during the last two summers, they
may take one three-credit course and two courses of two credits each in spe-
cialized educational guidance or administration courses.
Guidance of Seminarians after Their First Year
of Graduate Studies
Before the beginning of the regular school year, the director of graduate
studies will have received the grade reports of each summer school student.
These will be entered on their individual worksheets. He will check the list
of names of those theologians who have applied to take one of the Xavier
Graduate Education extension courses during that semester. He will submit
this list to the dean of the school of theology, who will check off the names
of any students who cannot in his opinion afford the time to take any courses
except their required theology classes, at least for the semester in question.
The director of summer school studies makes it a point to interview as
early as convenient during the first semester those students who did poorly in
one or the other course in order to discuss with them the reason for this
and to make any called-for adjustments in their prospective programs for
the coming summers. Early each spring the director of graduate studies has
the Xavier Summer School catalogue distributed to all those students who
have attended summer school there the previous year. After they have had
time to select the offerings they prefer to take, he interviews each seminarian
and either approves of his selections or directs him to take some other course
or courses. In this way the director is able to prevent students from en-
rolling in courses which they are not ready to handle or which would not serve
their best interests either toward obtaining the graduate degree or in fulfilling
the high school teacher certification requirements. Since he distributes and
collects the course registration cards for all the seminarians attending Xavier,
the director has a close check on all their course selections.
Dealing with Exceptional Cases
In guiding seminarians who are to attend other colleges and universities,
the director of summer school studies examines the catalogues of these institu-
tions. He checks to make sure that a student has the prerequisites for
admittance to the graduate school in question and analyzes the requirements
for the degree the student has in mind. If he is satisfied that the student is
qualified, he considers the course selection which the student presents to him
52 Major Seminary Department
and either approves or suggests changes. The student is instructed to have
a grade report on his summer courses sent to the director.
Since our diocesan high schools can use to great advantage priests who are
qualified to teach art, music, and business courses, and to be school librarians,
the director of summer school studies keeps on the lookout for seminarians
who have special talents, experience, and interest in any of these areas. If
they prefer or at least are willing to take summer school courses to qualify
themselves for certification in these fields, the director consults with their
bishop or his representative in the matter. If it meets with approval, the
director guides their summer school studies in these special fields.
Each year the projected plan for the graduate work of each student is sent
to his bishop or superior for approval. In the fall of the year, an annual
progress report on all the graduate students is sent to the proper authorities.
The summary of the 1961 "Progress Report on the Graduate Work of
Athenaeum Students" gives one a pretty good idea of the extent of the pro-
gram at the present time. "Of a total student body of two hundred and four-
teen as of September 1, 1961, in the five-year ordination classes, 1961-1965,
one hundred and twenty have or are expected to have graduate degrees." This
includes forty-nine out of the fifty-one students from the Archdiocese of
Cincinnati. Eleven of these are working toward the Master of Arts degree
in Thomistic Philosophy from the Athenaeum of Ohio. Twenty-five are en-
rolled in the Master of Education program and eleven in the Master of Arts
program at Xavier University. One is working for a Master of Arts degree
in French literature at Laval University, and another for a Master of Arts in
classics at Ohio State University. Of the seventy-one students from other
dioceses who are being directed toward a graduate degree, twenty-eight are
from the diocese of Toledo and twenty-six from the Youngstown diocese.
THE NATURE AND THE PURPOSE OF THE
COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM
IN THE SEMINARY
Very Rev. Msgr. Leonard J. Fick
DEAN, THE PONTIFICAL COLLEGE JOSEPHINUM, WORTHINGTON, OHIO
Two recent developments tend to make a reexamination of the seminary
communications program particularly timely. The first of these is the fact that,
in the secular area, the means of communication have never been so effective
nor the professional communicators so thoroughly skilled in their work as
they are today. The hidden and not-so-hidden persuaders have mastered
their tasks so well that the American audience, at least subconsciously, judges
the value of a product by the skill with which that product is presented to the
public. No longer is it sufficient to manufacture a product that is the equal of
any other on the market; equally important is it to create and to communi-
Nature and Purpose of the Communications Program 53
cate the image of equality, even of superiority. And habits of association,
of judgment, formed in the course of one's daily living are not easily put aside
when one approaches the portals of a church or the swinging doors of a parish
meeting hall.
In much the same way, therefore, as the technical advances made by secular
newspapers and magazines literally forced the Catholic press to take stock
and to concern itself with improved techniques of presentation, so, too, the
communications program must take stock of itself, lest, even with its proverbi-
ally captive audience, it fail to fulfill the function which may legitimately be
demanded of it. For even in the broad areas of homiletics and catechetics,
the superiority of the product will not, of itself, get that product the hearing
it deserves.
A second factor which renders a reexamination of the seminary communi-
cations program almost mandatory is the recently issued apostolic letter
Veterum Sapientia. This document, as every seminary teacher knows, makes
it abundantly clear that the major theological subjects must be taught in Latin,
from Latin textbooks. Once this directive has been fully implemented, there
is, if not the danger, at least the possibility that the seminary graduate will
have at his command a mass of technical terms which, however meaningful
they may be to his confreres in the priesthood, will arouse little reaction from
anyone else. More than ever before, therefore, it will be necessary to ac-
centuate those courses in which the seminarian can master the skill of popu-
larizing, of humanizing, of "concretizing" the abstract concepts and the for-
eign phraseology in which his own knowledge has become embedded. If, as
has been generally admitted, the problem of dissociating newly ordained
priests from the theological jargon of the classroom has never been easy, it
becomes even more difficult against the background of Veterum Sapientia.
This difficulty, of course, is certainly not insuperable. But it is precisely for
this reason that the communications program must assume a more important,
a more definitive role in the seminary curriculum.
Now any self-study of an already existing communications program must
necessarily get under way with an examination of the program's purpose.
Just what is it that such a program is supposed to accomplish?
It would be patently unrealistic to set up a program which purports to
mass-produce clerical Bishop Sheens, or latter-day Father Coughlins, or
ecclesiastical Frank Sheeds. Television, radio, newspapers, and magazines
are admittedly excellent means of communication; but no seminary program
dare gear itself to the formation of TV, radio, and journalistic personalities.
It is quite possible — in fact, I hope it is even to be expected — that 1 out of
every 500 ordained priests will have the God-given talent and initiative to
be another Bishop Sheen; but such a one will make his mark, not because of,
but perhaps even in spite of, any communications program operative in the
seminary in which he received his education.
Practically speaking, therefore, the communications courses should have
as their purpose the training of men who, by virtue of their office, have the
ability to produce, or to supervise the production of, an interesting and in-
formative parish bulletin, who are able to give religious instruction both to
school children of all ages and to adult converts, and who are able effectively
to preach to a congregation of Catholic parishioners.
I, for one, refuse to admit that any institution has the obligation to train
its seminarians to teach mathematics or biology or American literature, whether
on the primary or secondary level; and the blithe assumption that ordination
54 Major Seminary Department
automatically qualifies priests to be English teachers, for example, is, on the
face of it, ridiculously unrealistic.
Nor is it to be expected that the graduates of such a communications pro-
gram will, in every case, be superior catechists or excellent preachers; the
most that can be expected is that all attain that degree of proficiency commonly
characterized by the somewhat neutral adjective "adequate."
With this purpose in mind, the communications courses can now be sub-
jected to reexamination — and emendation.
Normally, the freshman college English course is a writing course. During
the six semester hours commonly allotted to it, students find themselves
saddled with the necessity of producing personal essays, short stories, and
research papers. There is no reason whatsoever why, toward the end of this
course, the student should not be given, as a legitimate assignment, the produc-
tion of an ideal parish bulletin.
Without wishing to verge into the area of personal experience, I may say
that, over the past ten years, I have treated the parish bulletin in the
freshman writing course as a modern literary form. Students have been
ordered to obtain a copy of their own parish bulletin; the various bulletins
have then been evaluated on the basis of information, interest, and technical
presentation; the purpose of the parish bulletin was determined, as well as
the means available for achieving that purpose; and each student was then
assigned the task of preparing a parish bulletin for a given Sunday of the
year.
The results have been gratifying. Upon occasion, the pastors of the area
have been asked to comment on the students' efforts, and they have done so,
I may add, with remarkable perspicacity. The better bulletins have been
photostated, with the result that the newly ordained priests have a variety
of norms against which their own efforts can be judged once the pastor as-
signs them the task of getting out the parish bulletin. And the parish bulletin,
these days, may well be as advantageous as the Sunday sermon in the forma-
tion of the ideal Catholic parishioner. This, I would think, may well constitute
the first stage in a seminary communications curriculum.
The oral presentation of the results of investigations in an American literature
course, or a sociology course, or a philosophy seminar, would provide in-
cidental training in public speaking during the college years. So would such
extracurricular, though strictly intramural, activities as dramatic productions,
glee club shows, and debates. In other words, I would not revise the normal
college curriculum in order to make room for courses in communications;
for the most part, the college curriculum, what with the heavy stress on
philosophy, is already overloaded; and if courses are to be added, or given
additional stress, it would seem as though preference should be given to
courses in the history and philosophy of education, and/ or in educational tests
and measurements.
The college years, therefore, would provide, for the most part incidentally,
though nonetheless definitely, the general foundation upon which to build
the communication skills which are to be taught in the theology department.
On this level, also, of course, the curriculum is already course-heavy. But
it would be the quintessence of foolishness to re-tailor the curriculum in
such a way as to stress the how of communication to the detriment of what
is to be communicated. The English teacher who knows all the gimmicks of
presentation, but who doesn't know the subject he is to present, is an un-
Nature and Purpose of the Communications Program 55
fortunate part of the American educational scene. His kind must not be
duplicated in those who are ordained to teach and preach the Word of God.
Under present curricular circumstances, therefore, the course in preaching,
or sacred eloquence, or homiletics — whatever one wishes to call it — would
extend through the entire four years of theology. It would be a 12-semester-
hour, non-cycle course: two hours each semester for the first three years and
a noncredit seminar in the fourth or deacon year.
As envisioned, therefore, each 2-semester-hour segment would have its own
syllabus, and the syllabus would be so ordered as to meet the proximate
goals to be ascribed to that particular segment. Such proximate goals must be
properly subordinated to the specific purpose of the complete 1 2-semester-
hour course, namely, to make the seminarians into effective preachers and
teachers of the truths of the Catholic Church.
Obviously, it is not possible to outline, even broadly, the six segments of
such a course as is here contemplated. However, by way of general directive,
this tentative division of material may prove serviceable.
Segment 1, to be offered during the first semester of the student's theology
course, would be very largely, though not exclusively, a lecture course. Topics
to be treated, for example, would be the specific nature of homiletics as a
branch of rhetoric possessed of its own body of principles; the qualifications
necessary for one who would effectively present religious truth; the introduc-
tion of taped sermons previously delivered in the seminary chapel or in
parish churches nearby, by way of determining the presence or absence of
those qualifications considered essential; the stage-by-stage construction of
one sermon, preferably a homily, by the teacher himself — from its initial
inception as an idea in the mind of the preacher, through the preliminary
research, the tentative outline, the composition of the opening sentences
through the body of the sermon to its conclusion.
This particular portion of the first segment of the over-all course should
be particularly valuable. Most freshman English courses, for example, devote
about three semester hours to the blow-by-blow construction of the so-called
term paper, or research paper; every stage of the project is clearly delineated
and must be performed according to established formulas. Yet comparatively
few parish priests are required to write even one term paper a year. Now
if the first term paper is considered so vastly important, why should the com-
position of the first sermon be left to mere chance, as though it could not
conceivably benefit from the application of proper methods of research and
composition?
This first segment of the course may well be concluded by a detailed
examination of the pertinent Church laws concerning preaching.
In broad outline, the second segment would be so constructed as to acquaint
the student with the available sources of sermon material, and to make him
aware of the existence of such material in his daily spiritual and secular
reading as well as in his observation and experience. Evaluation of one or
more taped sermons in the light of the use made of such materials, and the
construction of one or more sermons properly incorporating similar ma-
terials, would buttress theory with practice.
The third unit, or segment, would concern itself specifically with the con-
struction of the sermon, the various rhetorical devices available to the sermon
writer, with particular stress upon the ways and means by which the preacher
can appeal to the emotions of his hearers. Once again, practice in all aspects
will be essential.
56 Major Seminary Department
The fourth 2-hour unit will concentrate on effective sermon delivery.
The fifth segment will specialize in the composition and delivery of the Sun-
day instructional sermon, or mixed homily; and the final segment, in the
composition and delivery of the occasional sermon.
During the deacon year, the seminarian will deliver one sermon — or pos-
sibly two — to a bona fide, live audience. Whether this is done in the
seminary chapel, during the Sunday High Mass or at Lenten devotions, or
in one of the neighboring parish churches, makes little difference. I tend to
believe that a critical audience of fellow students and faculty members may
have some psychological advantages, but I see no reason to press the point.
More important is the weekly seminar, or "post-mortem," in which the
professor of homiletics meets with the deacon class to evaluate the sermon of
the previous Sunday and to suggest specific improvements.
Now such a unified group of courses, subject, obviously, to numerous and
even radical variations, would tend to give the communications program of
the seminary not only a goal but the wherewithal to attain that goal. For
best results, the program must be put into the hands of a dedicated, trained,
and competent teacher — someone who will have both the time and the sense
of duty to listen to hundreds of taped sermons and to copiously annotate
hundreds of laboriously constructed sermons.
Nor will the goal set for the program be achieved by cycling the courses.
The program's effectiveness rests upon its logical structuring as well as upon
the limited class enrollment for each course. Personal attention is essential.
In other words, the teacher of homiletics must be in the classroom six hours a
week, not two hours a week.
Another part of a communications program comprises what is traditionally
known as catechetics. In this area, the structure of courses will depend to
some extent on whether or not the seminarian has already had a course in
the philosophy of education. On the assumption that he has had such a course,
a two-semester 4-credit hour course in the third year of theology, supplemented
by a noncredit seminar in the deacon year, should prove adequate.
The first semester would be devoted to the technique of classroom in-
struction; the second semester to the technique of convert instruction, both
on the individual and group level. Particularly will both courses stress the
use of such visual aids as have by this time proved their merit beyond all
doubt.
The deacons would practice-teach, under rigid supervision, high school
freshmen, particularly in such institutions in which the minor seminary is
located near the major seminary, or, when this is impossible, in parish grade
schools or high schools in the vicinity, or perhaps in conjunction with already
established Confraternity of Christian Doctrine programs. Such practice teach-
ing, however, is completely without merit unless it is well supervised by a
competent educator; for even better results, one additional member of the
deacon class, besides the practice teacher, should also be in attendance, and
should participate in the evaluative discussions between supervisor and teacher
at the conclusion of each class period.
Now it may be reasonably asked how the communications program which
has just been outlined differs from the programs currently in operation in
American seminaries.
In summary, the differences are these:
1. The introduction, into the freshman writing course, of one unit (to use
Nature and Purpose of the Communications Program 57
the educational term) centering about the production of the parish
bulletin;
2. A logically structured and expanded course in homiletics, with well
established proximate goals for each segment of the course, and with
these proximate goals all directed to a realistic final goal;
3. A somewhat modified catechetics course which uses modern visual aids
and supplements theory with rigidly supervised practice.
In the eight years of college and theology, the typical American seminary
is presently offering no fewer than 300 semester hours. Of these 300 semester
hours, only 10 semester hours, on the average, are professedly devoted to
the how of communication; all the rest are subject-matter courses. Com-
munications, then, constitute a mere 3 per cent of all the courses taught — a
rather insignificant proportion in an age that has canonized the image and
made it, for better or for worse, an essential part of the total life of the mid-
twentieth century.
The communications program, as outlined, would give the how courses a
representation equal to approximately 6 per cent of the total courses now
being taught — and this surely is a more realistic proportion than that which
now prevails.
Perhaps more than anything else, what is needed is a deep conviction on
the part of every seminary teacher that mere knowledge does not auto-
matically enable the student, the seminarian, to communicate that knowledge
to others. Somehow, the knowledge that is in him must be made viable. It
is no accident that Pope Benedict XV concludes his encyclical on preaching
(Humani Generis) with a prayer to the Mother of the Word Incarnate that
she ask "the merciful and everlasting Shepherd of souls" to grant "that there
may be many who will strive eagerly to present themselves to God as approved
workmen that need not be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth."
Such "approved workmen . . . rightly handling the word of truth" must
be the end result of any acceptable communications program on the college
and theology levels of the seminary. And the average parish priest handles
the word of truth primarily in the parish bulletin, the instruction class, and
from the pulpit. The program, as outlined, has the merit of giving adequate
consideration to these three facets of the priest's work.
DEVELOPING AN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION
IN THE SEMINARY
Rev. Eugene M. Burke, C.S.P.
st. paul's college, the catholic university of America
washington, d.c.
If we look at the record of human experience that history furnishes us
we will find again and again that the way in which great ideals and noble
purposes become actual in the life of men is through institutional forms. It
will show that visions that have moved men forward, received permanence,
stability, and continuity only when they were embodied in ordered and
purposeful groupings of men and women. In short, wherever groups of
men and women are brought together by a common purpose and a common
ideal it is by means of institutional forms that their vision is clothed with
reality and enters effectively into the life of society. But it is equally true
that the vitality of such institutions is ultimately determined by their capacity
for true development. It must be able to bring into being its resources to
confront new problems and to adapt itself to new demands and yet not abandon
or distort or eviscerate the purpose that brought it into being. At the same
time it must be able to assimilate new developments, new methods, or enrich
the discipline that it uses so that it can keep pace with the ever widening
demands that the effective fulfillment of its purpose requires.
Taken from this standpoint, it seems to me the seminary as an institutional
form for the training of priests has had both this vitality and this capacity.
Wherever it has been allowed to function normally it has achieved its end
and adapted itself to needs and made its own whatever best served its proper
purpose. So in its origin with the Council of Trent it has one primary purpose
and that is the pastoral formation of men who should be effective priests
in the pastoral ministry. In the situation of the sixteenth century what was
needed was a very limited development, but this was supremely urgent. The
basic elements of a liberal education were literacy and grammar, and the
professional knowledge that would enable them to preach and instruct the
faithful, to conduct divine worship, and to administer the sacraments. Equally
important was the moral formation and training in ecclesiastical discipline.
The Tridentine Seminary presupposed the existence and operation of the
university and legislated that the seminary professors must have received their
theological degrees. But its primary concern was pastoral.
The same thing is apparent in the coming into being of the seminary system
in seventeenth century France. St. Vincent de Paul and Father Olier lay
much emphasis on the development of philosophy and theology. Olier en-
visages the student as taking his course at the Sorbonne and clearly distinguishes
between the theological student and the collegian. The main emphasis, how-
58
Developing an Intellectual Tradition 59
ever, is the clearly recognized need of the time — the development of a specifi-
cally priestly spirituality, deep, solid, and pastorally orientated. Saint Sulpice
does this not only for seminarians but for priests already possessing theo-
logical degrees who lived under this rule for their priestly formation — men
such as the later Archbishop Fenelon.
More immediately germane to our own era is the development of the last
quarter of the nineteenth century. Here the intellectual climate that had been
created all during the first half of the nineteenth century posed the seminary
with certain basis intellectual demands. The coming to the fore of the critical
and positive sciences clothed in rationalism and historicism as well as the
need of a sound philosophical training gives a strongly apologetic orientation
to the training, as reading the manuals makes clear. Patrology, Positive The-
ology, Apologetics and the increasing emphasis on Thomistic Philosophy all
begin to appear. However, before these could ever have time for any extensive
and effective development, the critical excesses and the philosophical aberrations
of Modernism made it necessary to protect this development by rigorously
curtailing it. Looking back now on the American scene, I say "necessary"
because we simply did not have a sufficiently large number of well trained
theologians (in terms of a sound speculative development) to be able to
make the continuing theological judgments and critiques that were necessary.
In any case the result was a very strong emphasis on purely pastoral and
practical Apologetics along with a practical piety and devotion. On the whole,
there was a real hesitancy, if not opposition, to any heavy emphasis on the
intellectual development of the seminarian. Again, from this standpoint I
think it was good since it gave the absolutely necessary time for the philo-
sophical and historical work and research that had to be accomplished before
any effective and fruitful intellectual development could take place.
It is against this background that we must view the very important de-
velopment in the American seminary in the last twenty-five years. Here,
having been intimately involved as a student and a teacher during all these
years, I can testify at first hand to the striking and extraordinary changes
that have taken place. Gradually, with much trial and error, a good many
arguments and a good deal of controversy, the American seminaries have
become sound and effective professional schools. From a situation such as
I began in where our basis contact with our temporal order was the sports
page and the "funny paper," we have seen truly immense changes: the pe-
riodical literature, the library development, the rich foreign theological and
philosophical literature that is easily available; the use of the Summa as a
normal resource rather than an emergency measure under sanction is quite
a development; the fact that it has become a basic policy with both the dioceses
and religious communities to send their men on for graduate work in the
field in which they teach. So much is this the normal policy that in my ex-
perience today the exception is a rarity and a temporary one. The National
Catholic Educational Association, the Catholic Theological Society, and the
Biblical Association have done much to produce a real professional develop-
ment and a good deal of extraordinarily valuable and effective interchange
among seminary men. In all this there has been a genuine progress in terms
of the pastoral purpose of the seminary. But I am convinced that this past
twenty-five years has simply set the stage and formed the institutional pattern
for the next development. It is my conviction that simply being a sound
professional school is no longer enough. (I am using this term professional
60 Major Seminary Department
to describe the educational aspect of the seminary as analogous to the pro-
fessional training of doctors and lawyers and others. Obviously the whole
spiritual and moral formation is integral and absolutely essential, but this
is not the field that I am concerned with this morning.) Let me then explain
why I think that a new stage of development is called for.
The first reason is a phenomenon that is becoming more and more evident
in the midst of our mass education, and its correlative — mass media of educa-
tion. It is a fact that quality education and effective leadership are being
given more and more identification and, therefore, more importance. General
knowledge, articulate communication, evidence of breadth in reading and a
knowledgeable perception of the world in which we live are becoming im-
portant if not essential prerequisites for effective leadership where moral
issues are involved.
A foreign writer has said, "The most significant factor of the last one
hundred and fifty years is the urbanization of the world." This is especially
the case here in the United States where the whole urban development is an
ever increasing percentage of the ordinary parish, and, interestingly, in the
ordinary parish an ever increasing percentage is college trained and many
of our parishioners are now professional people. We thus have the prediction
that within a generation the greater part of our parishes will be composed
of people who have had some college education and a very good number
will have done graduate work. This means that in our parishes and in our
pastoral work there is a very extensive body of men and women who
read and who read well, who ask questions, and who debate serious issues
involving both doctrinal and moral and philosophical issues. They ask ques-
tions as Catholics that demand real answers — or better answers — that are
not stock ones but the fruits of an educated mind. If our priests are not
able to give these answers, their leadership is impaired and their pastoral
work rendered that much less effective.
Evidence of all this is the quite remarkable success that has been enjoyed
by the Image Books on our parish racks. Here is a body of first-rate literature,
with many books that cannot be read lightly or in passing. Our Catholics
have access to information programs, read such magazines as Time and
Newsweek, and, on an increasing scale, both Catholic and secular journals
of opinion. More and more of them read newspaper articles of considerable
merit. And all of this is on the increase and cannot be waved away as a kind
of lunatic fringe or as a small, shrill professional intelligentsia. We have not
only spent money but poured enormous effort and talent into the develop-
ment of our Catholic colleges, and the results of that I think are now begin-
ning to be with us on a very positive and valuable scale. It is foolish not to
recognize this as a new pastoral dimension that is not to be met with eighth-
grade techniques. Rather, it can be as it ought to be, as it was intended to
be, a genuine source of spiritual enrichment for the Church in the United
States.
Another dimension is that of politics, which is the science of running the
community in which we live. Here one needs only to read the papers to
realize that simple black and white answers and approaches are no longer
compatible with the grim and complex reality we must live with. The search
for a simple solution, or the reduction to the easy rhetoric of a stereotype
or slogan, is not only unworthy of the educated mind but a genuine dis-
service to the living of an authentic Catholic life in the temporal order. If,
as modern theologians think, the function and office of the Catholic layman
Developing an Intellectual Tradition 61
and lay woman is to lead an authentic Christian life in the world; if that life
is to bear witness to Christian principles and attitudes in the concrete dimen-
sions of our temporal existence — professional, political, social — then it devolves
upon the priest to give the guidance and the spiritual leadership by which
Christian truth and principle are made relevant to the actualities in which
our people live and work and share. It is through them, our Catholic people
living in the world, that the Church is in the world, but if they are to be
effective witnesses, promoters of the kingdom of God, it is up to the priest
to labor to make them so in terms of the situation in which they live.
Illustrative of this last point is the whole new environment produced by
the almost incredible developments in science and technology. It has posed
a series of challenges for the Christian, not only in terms of the haunting
fact of nuclear warfare but in more directly spiritual areas. Thus, the pos-
sibility that the rapidity of our technological development will leave all too
many unable to withstand it, and so capable of leading only an impoverished
spiritual life, or in some cases, rendering them incapable of leading a spiritual
life. As one recent writer has put it: "There is an overwhelming imperative
that our spiritual growth match the increase of this physical potentiality."
There is an absolute need that spiritual and moral maturity be proportionate
to the development of technical skill and power. Nor may it be argued that
this is an academic or university problem for it is in fact a matter that bears
directly upon the lives of all our Catholic men and women. The debates
and developments have direct bearing on their lives and call for moral judg-
ments on their part. Disarmament, the so-called population explosion, genetics,
evolution, even theoretical physics are matters of direct and present concern.
And less and less opportunity will be offered to the priest to wave them aside
as academic or out of his field. This does not mean that the priest must
have universal expertise. But after four years of college and four years of
theology, the people who have made this education possible are hardly unfair
if they expect an intelligent recognition and appreciation of these problems
and a capacity for knowledgeable discussion proper to the educated man. In
short, there is less and less room for those who pride themselves on being
professional illiterates confined to the sports page and the comics.
Lastly, I might call to your attention an element that almost certainly
will play an increasing part in our pastoral achievement. This is the ecumenical
spirit and movement. In the immediate future much of it will perhaps be
on the academic level. But I believe that an ever increasing percentage will be
on the local level and be the responsibility of the local priest. The law of
charity and the Christian exigency for unity set up real obligations for three-
dimensional knowledge of the issues involved, of the historical background
of these divisions, and of the full and precise Catholic doctrinal position as
well as that held by the various Protestant and dissident Oriental groups. In
addition, some sympathetic interest and intelligent understanding of modern
Protestant movements and attitudes is also becoming a prerequisite in this
order of the ecumenical spirit. One might indicate that a sound and effective
approach to the problems that produced Catholic-Protestant tensions — such
as federal aid, censorship, contraception, tolerance — will be needed, not only
in terms of the moral issues but also in view of the sociocultural implications
that attend these moral issues.
Such, then, is something of the development of the pastoral work of the
future as I foresee it. Many other dimensions could be commented on, but
62 Major Seminary Department
these will serve as an excellent cross section bringing out my main proposition
and emphasizing that this ought to be a felt need. I am convinced that the
time is certainly coming, and to an extent is already here, when these issues
cannot be referred to an expert but on an ever increasing scale will be an
immediate pastoral problem. In the light of all this I submit the proposition
that: The development of an intellectual tradition is a pastoral necessity
for the future and, therefore, is a necessary element in the purpose and
work of the seminary.
If this thesis be sound then the question is: Where do we begin to work for
this development? Here it seems to me that we have no choice but to begin with
the seminary professors themselves. For there can be no intellectual tradition
in any educational effort unless it is a living reality in the minds and wills of
those who teach. Whether it be on the college, the seminary, or the university
level, the basic resource for the development of an intellectual tradition is the
faculty. The size of the library, the quality of the books in it, the quality
of the students, sympathy on the part of the administration, all are most
important, but they are useless if the faculty in its individual members is
not a living witness to an intellectual tradition. For the teacher is the true
mediator not only of a body of knowledge but of the whole order of attitudes,
values, and perspectives which shape the mind of the student. He exercises
(or at least is called upon to exercise) a priesthood of influence on every
class he teaches. And in no place in this so much the case as in a seminary
where, by the very nature of the situation, the student when ordained will
choose and decide and guide in terms of the principles, and, above all, the
climate in which those principles have been transmitted to him. We are
as seminary professors in a most extraordinary way ministers of and mediators
of God's word, whose ministerial office will be multiplied almost geometrically
through those whom we teach. It is an awesome but magnificent vocation.
As seminary teachers we are the living channels through which the spiritual
and theological heritage of the faith is transmitted to future priests. We also
are fashioners and makers of priestly souls. Into our hands has been placed
by the Church an enormous power to influence the future life of the Church
here in the United States. Hence any pastoral concern of the Church is a
crucial and personal responsibility of ours. If, then, intellectual tradition is
a necessary part of pastoral formation we must begin with ourselves. There-
fore, I suggest that this calls for the development of certain fundamental
attitudes which are the essence of a Catholic intellectual tradition. These
attitudes must be transformed into personal convictions that are interwoven
into the very fabric of our teaching. Only then can we speak of the existence
of an intellectual tradition.
The first of these attitudes that must become a matter of personal conviction
is the incarnational view of the temporal order — that view which integrates
Christian revelation and the whole order of human values into an organic
whole. It is expressed in the majestic cadences of the Epistle to the Hebrews:
"God who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past to
the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days, has spoken to us by
His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made
the world." Thus does the author unfold to us God's saving design that
orders human history and at the same time proclaims the Christian view of
the cosmos. It proposes that the Son of God become man is the culmination
of history and the point where the temporal order joins in visible, historical,
and saving union with the eternal. In the light of modern biblical theology
Developing an Intellectual Tradition 63
and the ever deepening Christian sense of cosmic history, it is evident that
for the reflective Christian God's revealing word made flesh cannot be sep-
arated from history or the temporal order. Hence our penetration of revela-
tion will be fundamentally in proportion to our understanding of both history
and the temporal order. For God has come to man by intervening into the
patterns of human history. He works the redemption of man, not by isolating
him from the stream of history nor by disengaging him from the temporal
order. Rather, He himself has entered this temporal order and made history
the vehicle of his saving purpose. And all these wonderful works of God
find their meaning in His Son made man, in whom all things meet and are
fulfilled.
This is a view that has its roots deep in salvation history, but it is also a
view that Catholics and especially teachers, and above all those who form
the priests of the future must make their own on a large scale, if the body
of Christ, the living extension of the Incarnation, is to achieve its full purposes
in this our day. I say that this is particularly urgent for the teacher on any
level because he deals directly with the point where the creative world finds
its spiritual and vocal expression — the mind of man. Whatever develops this
spiritual principle is part of the preparation for grace, and so knowledge itself,
and its development ideally is a decisive element in the historic and human
vocation. For the Incarnation by which a believing Christian is related to
all history — the Incarnation is nothing else than the visible embodiment of
that Word by which God understands himself from all eternity. Thus the
development of knowledge, the ever deepening penetration of the temporal
order, is a necessary part of God's design, a gradual realization of the full
meaning of the Incarnation.
I ask your patience for emphasizing this point, but I frankly admit that
any Catholic intellectual tradition must be conceived in this specific and con-
crete theological context — which is nothing else than the history of salvation.
It seems to me personally that all too often and all too long we have lived
in a climate (not totally through our own fault) where the whole temporal
order has been viewed with a mistrust bordering on hostility. Far beyond
any legitimate distinction or reasonable precaution, we have given the im-
pression in our educational system of building little cloister-like islands of
schooling — islands which we piously hope are moated against any problems
raised by the world, the flesh and the devil. Thus, we have forgotten that
however high we build the seminary walls the world, the flesh and the devil
walk in through the front entrance with us and our students: stone and brick
cannot keep them out, nor does the refusal to develop an incarnational view
of the temporal order combat or confront them as we ought. In any case,
if we are to develop an intellectual tradition we must see all things through
the prism of the Incarnation.
From this point of view flows a very definite attitude toward the subjects
we teach. It seems to me that if we honestly believe that the development of
knowledge and understanding is a genuinely spiritual process — a necessary
part of God's design — if, I say, we believe this, then we are obliged to be
committed to our subjects as it were from within. We cannot be dis-
passionate spectators passing out little capsules of learning but rather we must
be dedicated sowers of living seeds whose care and growth are our direct
personal concern and our eternal responsibility. As Christian teachers we
must venerate profoundly the living interaction of the human mind with
knowledge. As Christian teachers we are called upon to see in the subject we
64 Major Seminary Department
are teaching an integral part of this divinely designed development. Whatever
be the field — dogma, moral, Scripture, canon law, history, homiletics — if we
are truly dedicated teachers, then certain consequences follow. Wherever
man's thinking develops and any branch of knowledge begins to grow in a
living mind we will rejoice; wherever a man abandons this effort or wherever
any of these branches of knowledge retrogress, or find no fertile soil on which
to grow, it will be to us a deep and personal sadness. It is this commitment
to teaching that will make of us in Newman's words "the living voice, the
breathing form, the expressive countenance that catechizes. Truth a subtle,
invisible, manifold spirit is poured into the mind of the scholar by his eyes
and ears, through the affection, imagination and reason. It is poured into
his mind and sealed there in perpetuity by propounding and repeating it, by
questioning and requestioning, by correcting and explaining by progressing
and then returning to first principles." Such is the attitude of the dedicated
teacher.
In the time left to me let me call your attention to specifics with regard to
the student or the curriculum, if you will. The first is a real overhaul of the
Church history course. By this I mean a change from the process of names
and dates and pure chronology to what I would call a properly cultural course.
I submit that it ought to be changed from a kind of pragmatic secondary
adjunct to theology to a truly effective instrument in the development of an
intellectual tradition — an instrument of what Newman called "enlargement of
mind." This wholeness of view, while it is of the very essence of the intellec-
tual tradition, is basically an exercise of the reflective intelligence challenged
by the facts of human experience. It is my conviction that integration and
synthesis must take place in a living mind, not in a catalog nor in a curriculum-
planning operation. It is for this reason that I suggest that one of the best
means to bring this about is the history of Christian culture taken as an organic
whole. In advancing this as an opinion, I am not prepared to say that this
is the absolute answer, nor would I be willing to debate that it is the only
possible answer. However, I am willing to defend this opinion as a truly
effective means. The reasons for it are these: Some fifteen years of teaching
a summer course in the history of Christian culture that year by year has
covered the successive periods from Augustine to Pius IX; a carefully controlled
experimental course with college seniors that has now existed for some ten
years; and this year a two-hour a week graduate course for priests in the
history of theology as a science. As a result of this experience, I am convinced
that all the elements that make possible an intellectual tradition are best seen
and understood and made personal in such a course, for all these elements
that make for an intellectual tradition meet naturally in such a course because
it is an organic whole. Christian culture is not something confined to theology.
It expresses and has always expressed itself also in philosophy, literature, in
art and music, in society and institutions. At the same time it becomes
clear that none of these forms of expression can be understood completely
unless they are seen in relation to all of the others and seen in relation to
the whole. Above all in such a course, seeing the actual formation of the
Christian culture as an organic totality makes it clear that a Christian culture,
which itself is a wholeness of view, transcends the limitations of any particular
age or social environment. We are able to see the distinction between what
is of the very substance of Catholic Christianity and what has been contributed
by the temporal order and the inter-relating order of values between the
relativities of history and the absolutes of revelation. Finally, seeing in the
Teaching the Dogma Course 65
concrete the shaping of the relations between the world of social experience
and the world of spiritual reality, the seminarian can be stimulated to that
reflective effort by which these principles, these attitudes, these expressions
of lessons of the past can be applied to the present. He can begin to see that
Christian culture is a sacramental culture, and that of its very nature it looks
to embodying religious truth in visible, palpable forms under the unity of
faith. And is not this a Catholic intellectualism modeled on the Incarnation
where the eternal and the temporal meet in a vivifying union?
Very quickly I might propose for your consideration one other specific.
It is the consideration of the establishment of a series of seminars over the
four or six years in which the seminarians are in our charge, that might
enable them to become effective members of what Jacques Barzun calls "the
house of the intellect." In the concrete, I would suggest a set of seminars that
would consider both in depth and in extent the relevant problems in political
science, in science and technology, in history and its meaning and interpreta-
tion, in the appreciation of the humanities as an instrument of culture and not
simply as a philological experience, in the problems and exigencies of the
social sciences and sociology. All these would offer a real opportunity for the
kind of pastoral development and the new dimensions that seem necessary for
our time.
However, to return to my fundamental proposition and conviction, the real
issue lies with us as seminary professors. If an intellectual tradition is to be
developed in the seminary, it must be the result of a genuine conviction on
the part of the seminary professors. Such a conviction must be engendered
by enthusiasm, be controlled by intelligence, and indelibly marked by com-
petence, and never lose sight or that noble vision expressed by Dante:
Think of the seed from which you spring
You were not born to live the life of the brute beast of the field
But to follow knowledge and virtue unafraid.
TEACHING THE DOGMA COURSE: SCRIPTURE
AND AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH
Very Rev. Edward J. Hogan, S.S.
rector, st. John's provincial seminary, Plymouth, Michigan
No one of us here needs to be reminded or told that we are living in a thrill-
ing period of theological developments. Every branch of the sacred sciences —
dogmatic, biblical, conciliar, speculative — is not only the subject of penetrating
study and critical examination, but is the object of deeper understanding and
appreciation. This encouraging vitality is due in part to the immediacy
prompted by the approaching Ecumenical Council in which, of very necessity,
the history and foundations of all our theological traditions will be major
considerations. At the same time, we all recognize that, apart from this
immediate impetus, there has been a new vitality imparted to all theological
66 Major Seminary Department
study by the ferment in biblical theology which resulted from the Divino
Afflante Spiritu of Pius XII.
While this new movement has opened wide horizons for the theologian as
the scientist of divine truth, it has created great and practical problems for the
professor of sacred theology in his everyday classroom teaching. This is
particularly true in the presentation of scriptural material as the foundation
of our theological doctrines. To pinpoint our problem: How should we
theologically and pedagogically present the biblical material and at the same
time impart the proper relationship of biblical doctrine to the authority of
the Church?
From the theological point of view, we must always keep in mind ourselves
and insist with our students that the Church is the interpreter of Sacred
Scripture and that on her authority alone rests the understanding of the content
of divine revelation. It is to the Church that God has committed the corpus
of divine revelation as her possession to be guarded and preserved; Sacred
Scripture as the inspired written word of God is likewise the possession of the
Church. Without getting into the problem of the identity or distinction of
Scripture from tradition, we nevertheless must always recognize that the written
word of God found in Scripture is as such a source for the Church in the ful-
fillment of her teaching office.
This fact, which appears so self-evident to us as theologians, must at the
same time dominate the direction of our classroom thinking and teaching, for
when we stand on the podium of a seminary classroom we are exercising
an official function in the Church: we are there as ministers of the Church
in her office of teacher, preparing the minds of those who in the name of
the Church will stand before the faithful and impart the truth of Christ.
This seems to dictate two fundamental principles for us as professors:
1. This responsibility makes it incumbent upon us to transmit to our stu-
dents a spirit of pious dependence upon the magisterium. That this is
important in our present day is evident from the many admonitions and
instructions which Pius XII and John XXIII have issued either personally or
through the pertinent Roman congregations. The Holy See is vitally aware of
the modern spirit of independence and patently concerned about the possibly
disastrous directions which theological thinking might take. While the Church
encourages critical investigation and deeper understanding, she also insists
on humble dependence. It is a primary task for us as seminary professors to
impart that spirit, and it seems to me this is nowhere so important or so
delicate as in the handling of the biblical material in a dogma course.
2. Coming to a more particular point of emphasis: What is the role of the
scriptural material in a doctrinal thesis? Is it to prove a doctrine or to serve
as a source of greater understanding and appreciation of the full meaning and
wider implications of truths which are already accepted on the authority of
the Church? On the answer to this question rests at least in part the funda-
mental criticism which can be leveled against the so-called traditional use of
the scriptural argument.
Most of the textbooks which are in use in our seminaries first give a thesis
or proposition which is in fact a summary of a defined doctrine of the
Church: they then proceed to "prove" this thesis by citing documents of
Councils or papal decrees, passages from Sacred Scripture, and sayings of
the Fathers. The scriptural argument is either placed on an equal basis with
Teaching the Dogma Course 67
the definition of the Church, or it is cited as justification for the Church's
statement. But is either of these theologically sound?
Our manuals seem to be the products of a post-Reformation need to justify
the definitions of the Church by demonstrating how they are in harmony
with Sacred Scripture which to the reformers was the sole norm of faith.
In this sense, the procedure is apologetic rather than theological. However,
are the arguments themselves valid? On this point I need only refer to a
paper delivered at the eleventh meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association in
1948 by Father Edward Siegman, entitled "The Use of Sacred Scripture in
Textbooks of Dogmatic Theology," wherein he examines several of the con-
temporary manuals and points out how texts are either mistranslated, or torn
out of context, or are read in such a way as to see more in them than is
actually contained. It is certainly understandable that such misuse should
occur when we recall the controversies which followed upon the Reformation
and the definitions of the Council of Trent. However, should they be per-
petuated in our classroom teaching? Certainly our task is not to convince our
students of the correctness of the definitions of the Church; nor will such
methods convince intelligent non-Catholics.
In our seminary teaching, the materials of Sacred Scripture should be kept
in their proper place, that is, as a mediate rule of faith. They are not the
agency which proximately joins to believer with the date of revelation, for
this is at all times the teaching Church. Rather after the authoritative doctrine
is accepted, they support the enunciation of faith and offer a solid and un-
impeachable witness to the fact that what one professes as of faith has always
been an article of faith from the most ancient days of Christianity. As one
writer has stated it: "They express in one way or another, in language which
is the equivalent of our formularies of faith, what is affirmed by the Church
as of faith, and by that token mark the identity of actual belief with that of
the most ancient past." x In other words, as "proof" the materials of Scripture
should be used to show not the truth of a doctrine (that is known from the
Church) but rather the fact that this is a doctrine of the apostolic faith itself.
But more important than its demonstrative value, Sacred Scripture is a well-
spring of theology in the sense that in it we find in a living vibrant manner the
fuller meaning of our scientifically stated dogmatic definitions. Theology is
fides quaerens intellectum — seeking to penetrate and open up for an intelligent
Christian life God's loving design for man. God has not revealed Himself to
us merely that we might know Him, nor has He imparted the charisms of
inspiration and infallibility only for the sake of the intellectual enrichment of
men. Rather He has manifested Himself to us by His revealing acts in order
that through knowing him we might appreciate and love Him for what He
truly is, and in the light of this end He has inspired the sacred writers and
guided the Church through the gift of infallibility that this knowledge so basic
to Christian living might be free from error and filled with the light of positive
knowledge.
My reason for bringing in this consideration is to lead to my principal
point: That in our use of the materials of Scripture in seminary teaching greater
emphasis should be given to Scripture as a source of light than as a basis of
conviction. Perhaps this could be made clearer by a few examples.
1. In the Tractatus de Baptismo, rather than spending a lot of time "proving"
1 Leo G. Burke, O.M.I., "Holy Scripture as a Locus Theologicus," Catholic Biblical Quarterly
(1949), 356.
68 Major Seminary Department
that baptism was instituted and ordered by Christ, it would be much more
profitable to analyse the Joannine and Pauline doctrines about the meaning
of baptism in the Christian life. Actually this would involve an analysis of
St. John's concept of faith, of Christ as a source of life, and of baptism as
the act of generation into this life of faith. Likewise, much time could be
used profitably in the study of the fifth and sixth chapters of the Epistle to
the Romans wherein not only the fact of the use of baptism in the Apostolic
Church is demonstrated but its theological meaning and implications are won-
derfully described.
2. In the treatise on Grace, the broad outlines of the biblical notion of
justification in Christ could be taken from a survey of the total doctrines in
Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians, thus giving living flesh to the
skeletal definitions of the 6th session of the Council of Trent.
Or in the De Deo Trino one could begin with the Old Testament doctrine
on God, the Jewish concept of God as the father of the people, the foreshadow-
ings of the revelation of the Holy Spirit in the ruah Jahweh which led the Jewish
people out of the captivity of Egypt, and then the Christian revelation as found
in St. John, St. Paul, and in the Acts of the Apostles.
In other words, by the use of biblical theology in the modern sense of the
term (which is really that used by the apostles and the Fathers of the Church)
we could study the biblical material for the sake of the light it would throw
upon the doctrines already defined and accepted on the authority of the
Church rather than seeing in them principally arguments to defend the
validity of the Church's teachings.
Theologically, then, the norm of truth and of faith is the authoritative teach-
ing of the Church; and pedagogically that teaching must form the core of our
classroom methodology. For us as theologians, Sacred Scripture is a fons
revelationis in the sense that it is a divinely guaranteed means given to the
Church by which God's revealed truth can be known: its interpretation,
likewise, is the province of the Church herself. For us as professors, however,
Scripture can fill a twofold function: it can be used to demonstrate that what
the Church teaches in any century has its roots in the belief of the Church
in the apostolic age; and it can widen the horizon of understanding by opening
up the meaning and application to positive Christian living of the dogmas
scientifically defined by the magisterium. Pedagogically, then, Sacred Scripture
is ancillary to the authority of the Church, not in the sense that it is inferior
or subservient; rather that it is an enlivening and energizing force, the nutrition
which puts living flesh upon the bones of dogma.
Such an approach admittedly presents great difficulties for the ordinary
seminary professor of dogmatic theology. First of all, it is not as easily
satisfying as the traditional apologetical method. It is much easier to cite
phrases or verses of Scripture which seem to bear upon a particular point
of doctrine than to face what at first appears to be a vague and indefinite
mass of material: and if this is difficult for the professor, it is doubly so for
the student to grasp. We have a tendency to want neatly wrapped and tied
packages which are handier to carry than a lot of apparently loose and scattered
ideas which demand ordering and precision. Secondly, we can feel lost in
the mass of material which seems to call for a trained Scripture scholar with
all the apparatus of ancient languages, history, and understanding of Semitic
and Greek ways of thought. In other words, we can have a sense of almost
complete inadequacy in the face of such a task.
Analysis of Seminary Administration 69
While the problems inherent in such an approach are great, the actual
result from effort in this direction can be extremely satisfying. Our own
appreciation of dogma and that of our students will be immeasurably deepened;
and, as a result, our convictions about the truth of the Church's teachings
will be all the more strong. The Holy Spirit who is the soul of all theological
understanding will reward us with the consolation which only He can give.
AN ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF SEMINARY
ADMINISTRATION*
Very Rev. Edward F. Riley, CM.
RECTOR, CARDINAL GLENNON COLLEGE, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
In a former day, the administration of seminaries was a much simpler process.
The young man was accepted into the seminary — usually a small institution —
was put through the order of the day and the spiritual exercises, was educated
in the classroom, and, all things being equal, was moved slowly along the
way to ordination. Today, there are entrance examinations, standardized
testing, character reports, psychological helps, constant upgrading of the
academic requirements, tightening of the order of the day, strong emphasis
on spiritual direction and guidance, and many other factors of a like nature.
Whether there are better and more learned priests as a result of all of this
cannot be proved one way or the other; but there can be little doubt that
those who go through the seminaries today are subjected to a far wider
curriculum than in previous days.
There are many additional demands made on seminary administrators and
instructors. They are all greatly interested in accreditation at the high school
and college levels to prove that our institutions are the equal of lay institutions;
they are all interested in academic degrees and in becoming subject specialists
in various fields. Hence the instructors find themselves taking additional courses
of study in religious and secular universities, in attending countless summer
schools, workshops, seminars, et cetera. They are expected to keep up in
their fields of specialization, with consequent additional reading and attendance
at conventions: all this in addition to the necessity of keeping informed on
their own theological studies.
In this paper on the analysis and evaluation of seminary administration, it
is impossible to cover all the areas of the seminary in any detail. This paper
is an outline of the areas of concern to any seminary administrator. To some
of these he must give a great deal of time and energy; in some areas he will
delegate responsibilities to others. But ultimately it is the rector who is respon-
sible and he must have the constant care and thorough knowledge of all areas.
In attempting to make this outline, I have tried to group various activities
under general headings. But all areas of seminary administration are so
* This paper was delivered at a joint session of the Major Seminary and the Minor Seminary
Departments.
70 Major Seminary Department
intimately related that there is overlapping. Some of the areas and the subject
matter below are arbitrarily arranged as most convenient to the writer of the
paper.
Analysis of Seminary Administration
I. Faculty
A. Academic qualifications
1. Degrees — acquired or in progress
2. Ability as teachers
3. Ability as scholars as shown in their writings and membership in learned
societies
B. Human qualifications
1. Priests — as giving good example to the students
2. Laymen — as exemplifying Catholic principles
3. Pleasant personalities; ability to work with others; zeal and interest in
the work at hand
C. Organization of the faculty
1. Faculty meetings
a) Number per year
b) Content of the meetings: e.g., Are they devoted exclusively to discus-
sion of students, to academic problems, to curriculum, grading, etc.?
c) Are they planned in advance? Are papers read by faculty members?
2. Faculty committees
a) The number of these committees
b) Areas of competency of these committees
c) Activities of the committees
D. Lay faculty
1. Tenure
2. Salaries
3. Do they share in the faculty meetings, committees, etc.?
E. Supervision of the faculty
1. Orientation of the faculty members
2. Supervision of classes of new faculty members
II. Students
A. Admission of students
1. Documents required
2. Entrance examinations. What are the norms for acceptance?
3. Interview of potential candidates
4. Procedures for admission: e.g., letter from chancery or ordinary. Who
does the admitting?
5. Orientation of new students
a) in the summer before they enter?
b) on the day or week of entrance?
c) course in orientation in the seminary?
B. Spiritual formation of the students
1. Spiritual director: Are students free to go to anyone for direction?
a) How many times per year must they see the spiritual director?
b) Are there instructions for the priests of the house who are giving
spiritual direction?
c) Is there unity of spiritual direction?
2. Confessors available when and where? Extraordinary confessors?
3. Conferences: by whom? how often?
Analysis of Seminary Administration 71
4. Spiritual reading
a) in common: by whom as reader?
b) in private: who checks the books that are read?
5. Meditation; amount of time. Who explains the process and directs the
meditation?
6. Annual retreat
a) Number of days
b) Order of the day
c) Selection of the retreat master
7. Days of Recollection: How many times per year?
8. The content of the religion classes; teachers of religion
9. The liturgy; Solemn and High Masses; student participation; Lauds,
Vespers, Compline?
10. Other spiritual exercises: times and length of time
C. Daily living of students
1. Order of the day: Is this periodically checked over to see if it is most
efficient for the operation of the seminary and most beneficial to the
students?
2. Rules of Discipline: Are these periodically checked and reviewed by the
Rector and faculty to see if all are necessary and are fulfilling then-
purpose?
3. Extracurriculum
a) Organization of the program under the direction of students
b) Types of organizations: e.g., student council, clubs, store, projects, etc.
c) Cultural programs: e.g., lectures, assemblies
d) Formal and informal student-initiated programs: e.g., plays, musicals,
etc.
e) Publications: e.g., yearbooks, newspapers, quarterlies
f) Musical activities: e.g., choirs, glee clubs, radio and TV programs
sponsored by students
g) Opportunities for outside activities: e.g., operas, orchestras, profes-
sional plays
h) Athletic program: types of participation, e.g., compulsory; types of
games, equipment; direction of the program; injuries
i) Records of extracurricular participation
j) Financing the extracurricular program
4. Student health
a) Provisions for physical examinations before entrance and periodically
during seminary training
b) Doctor and nurse for seminary
c) Facilities available
d) Procedures in accidents
III. Curriculum
A. Aims and objectives of the institution are clearly spelled out
1. These are found in the faculty and student handbooks
2. Found also in the course syllabi
B. Aims and objectives of each of the courses are spelled out in the syllabi
C. Periodic analysis of the courses to see if they are the best that can be offered
and are fulfilling the requirements of the Roman documents
D. Periodic analysis of the content of the courses to see if there is overlapping
of the matter of such a nature that it is a waste of time
E. Special considerations
1. The amount of science and mathematics in the high school and college
72 Major Seminary Department
2. What courses constitute a good general education in first and second years
of college?
3. The problem of Latin in high school, college, theology
4. The fine arts course
5. The number of hours that students should take in philosophy, theology,
canon law, Scriptures, etc. Justification of the number of hours for each
course and sequence of courses
6. The problem of electives in high school and college
F. Textbooks
1. Are they recent?
2. Catholic authors?
3. Are instructors in search of new and better textbooks or satisfied with
what has always been used?
4. Policy of school relative to new textbooks
G. Calendar of school year
1. Number of school days; number of weeks of school
2. Length of the semester
3. Set number of holidays; visiting dignitaries give holidays
H. Equipment for teaching
1. Audio-visual equipment
2. Language laboratories
3. Science laboratories
I. Scheduling of classes
1. For convenience of the students or faculty?
2. Class days — number of hours?
3. Sectioning of classes; according to what method?
4. Recreation periods; best time?
J. Quality points
1. What do they mean?
2. How many necessary for graduation or degree?
K. Testing of students
1. Instructors tests: Are they filed in school office?
2. Standardized tests:
a) Number and types of tests used
b) Graduate Record Examination
c) Are the purposes of the tests defined?
d) How are the results of the tests used?
L. Academic counseling of the students
1. Done by whom?
2. How many times a year for all students?
3. Examination of the time schedule of the student?
M. Advancement to vows or orders
1. What procedures are used?
2. What norms are used?
IV. The Library
A. Budget of the library
1. Who draws it up? What are the limitations?
2. How closely is it followed?
B. Library books
1. Number of books in the library
2. Selection of the books by whom?
Analysis of Seminary Administration 73
3. Are the areas of concentration in seminary studies adequately provided for
by the selection of books in the library?
4. Number of withdrawals per student per year
5. Number of withdrawals per faculty member per year
6. What courses require the most use of the library?
7. What courses never make use of the library?
C. Periodicals
1. Number and selection of periodicals
2. Newspapers, secular magazines in the library
3. Number of bound periodicals: In what subject fields?
4. Arrangements for getting back numbers of periodicals
5. Use of bound periodicals by students and faculty
D. Operation of the library
1. Trained librarian: priest or lay person?
2. Student help in the library: How used? How trained?
3. Catalog system used in the library
4. Is there a bindery connected with the library?
E. Physical facilities
1. Librarian's office; workroom: How much space?
2. Seating capacity of library: Is it adequate?
3. Capacity of library: books, periodicals, etc.
V. Administration
A. School office
1. Files in use
a) Confidential file of the Rector
b) Dead file of previous students
c) Active file: What does it contain?
d) Daily file of Rector, Deans, etc.
e) Copies of previous catalogs, catalogs from other institutions; year-
books; instructors grade reports
f) Semester examinations in all the subjects
2. Forms in use
a) Academic permanent record — is it the best?
b) Health records and forms
c) Extracurricular records
d) Character records
e) Informational records
f) Grade sheets
g) Registration forms
h) Release forms for students leaving the seminary
i) Degree requirement forms
j) Vacation letter forms
k) Notice to pastors on withdrawal of students
3. Equipment in the office
a) Reproducing machines: e.g., Thermofax, Ditto, Mimeograph
b) Addressograph
c) Dictating machine
4. School secretary
B. School publications
1. Catalog: Is it reevaluated each year?
2. Faculty handbook
3. Student handbook
4. Student prayerbooks, formularies of prayers, etc.
5. Faculty writings: Are copies kept?
74 Major Seminary Department
6. Minutes of faculty meetings, committees?
7. Reports of the Rector to the Ordinary
8. Results and reports of internal studies of the institution
C. Internal studies
1. Analysis of instructors grades for each marking period
2. Dropouts
a) Number and percentage over a period of time
b) Causes of dropouts
c) What happened to dropouts? Where do they go to school? Etc.
3. Graduates
a) Percentage of students who graduate
b) Success of graduates
c) Percentage of students ordained
4. Average IQ of students in seminary
5. Average achievement of students on standardized tests
6. Studies of the effectiveness of the curriculum
7. Studies on the future growth of the seminary
8. Studies of space usage in the seminary
9. Time and efficiency studies made on lay workers in seminary
D. Treasurer's office
1. System of accounts and bookkeeping
2. Audit of the books
3. System of collection of tuition, fees, etc.
4. Budget control
5. Salaries — lay and clerical
E. Kitchen and laundry
1. Purchasing agent
2. Cooks — sisters or lay? Other help
3. Supervision — how effective?
4. Cost control
5. Food preparation
6. Inventories of goods on hand
7. Equipment replacements
8. Procedures in the operation of laundry and kitchen
F. Chapel
1. Prefect or director of the chapel?
2. Chapel budget
3. Replacement of linens, vestments. Who decides?
4. Who cleans the chapel?
G. Physical plant and grounds
1. Supervision
2. Maintenance and repairs
3. Lay help or brothers?
4. Capital improvements
H. Over-all administration
1. Educational organizations to which the seminary belongs
2. Educational organizations to which individual faculty members should
belong
3. Accreditation: state, regional
4. Affiliation with Catholic University
5. Dealings with the government: e.g., Selective Service, veterans
6. Dealings with organizations: e.g., grants from foundations
7. Expansion plans
8. Public relations
a) with the ordinaries
Analysis of Seminary Administration 75
b) with the parents of students
c) with the students
d) with potential candidates
e) with pastors
f ) with lay people, donors, etc.
9. Financing the institution
a) Carefully watching the monthly reports on expenditures
b) Budget control
c) Planning the capital improvements
d) Gifts, legacies, etc.
Evaluation of Seminary Administration
As was mentioned in the beginning, it is the rector who is responsible in
all the above areas of administration. Obviously not all the functions listed
above are of equal importance; some can more easily be delegated to assistants
than can others. But it is ultimately the rector who must speak for the semi-
naries to the ordinaries and must have a knowledge of how these areas are
controlled and how they operate.
In some areas of administration there are routines that have been followed
for years. A new rector hesitates to upset or change these routines. However,
an able administrator must occasionally do just that, for it will be evident to
him that there are better and more efficient ways of doing things; there are
procedures that have been used in other seminaries with success that could
be tried out here; there are modern educational procedures that have long
passed the experimental stage and are now accepted by almost all schools. It
is the rector who must upset the lethargy of the faculty and move in the
direction of procedures that will benefit the seminary. Age does not canonize
inefficiency.
The greatest single factor for the rector and for seminary administrators
is the ability to think, to study, to consult, and to approach problems with
an open mind. Solutions will often come from the most unexpected places.
Gatherings such as this, with informal discussion among the members, is often
the key to solving problems, or sometimes to discovering problems that you
did not know existed.
All the parts of administration are aimed at the objective of advancing
seminarians to the priesthood. Hence anything that can more effectively
contribute to this goal should be evaluated, discussed, and tried out. Because
something is relatively new, it is not necessarily wrong. All elements must be
viewed objectively and the very best adopted for use in the seminaries.
FORMATION OF SEMINARIANS TOWARD A DIOCESAN
SPIRITUALITY
Rev. Sergius Wroblewski, O.F.M.
CHRIST THE KING SEMINARY, WEST CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
The purpose of this paper is a practical one: to offer for your consideration
practical observations on the formation of diocesan seminarians. It attempts
to answer the question: How should we train a diocesan seminarian so that
he may acquire the spirituality of a diocesan priest?
At the beginning let us review: (1) what has been written about the nature
of diocesan spirituality; (2) what the twentieth century popes have said about
priestly perfection.
In the last decade or so, European spiritual writers have debated the ques-
tion of a spirituality for diocesan priests and seminarians (7). They have
stressed two things: (a) the close bond between the diocesan priest and his
bishop; (b) pastoral charity. They have concluded that the grace of the
sacrament of orders calls and fits the priest for a share in the bishop's exercise
of pastoral charity toward his flock and that the priest is to sanctify himself
in and through his priestly and apostolic duties.
These European writers reacted against certain distorted conceptions of a
diocesan priest which had become common: namely, that a priest is a Christian
who can celebrate Mass. The theologians of the scholastic era, for the most
part members of religious orders, defined priesthood as a power to transubstan-
tiate. They emphasized Christ's priestly act on Calvary and at the Last Supper
and logically concluded that the priesthood consisted solely or essentially in
its participated power to offer the sacrifice. The European writers dissented
from this narrow view of Christ's priesthood. They asserted that Christ was
a priest by virtue of His Incarnation and therefore was a priest in his every
action: in his prayer, his teaching, healing, forgiving, and all other religious
activities. And in passing on to His apostles a share in His priesthood, Jesus
enabled them to participate in all phases of His apostolic and redemptive
works, which culminated in the sacrifice of Himself represented in the Mass.
The priest consequently may not be a "Mass priest" or a "sacristy priest." He
must engage in pastoral activities, that is, in preaching, teaching, direction of
souls, and so forth. He is a priest in all these activities; he is not a priest
only during Mass. He exercises his priesthood ritually at Mass; and in another
way the rest of the day.
Moreover, these writers highlighted the close bond between the diocesan
priest and his bishop. The priest is a member of the bishop's presbyterium;
his priesthood is derived from and is subordinate to the episcopate. He is a
collaborator with the bishop in his apostolic work. Hence, the priest is not
to be placed in a position of intolerable isolation — as standing between Christ
and the people, alone — but in conjunction with the bishop and the clergy of
the diocese. He is not ordained to a certain solitary and mysterious sublimity,
to a lonely ministry which he exercises apart from anything more than a per-
functory union with his bishop and fellow priests. Rather, he should see himself
as a member of the college of presbyters, collaborators with the bishop in his
apostolic work. In this view of diocesan spirituality, the key word is charity,
76
Formation of Seminarians 11
which serves as a bond with the bishop and the members of his presbyterium
in the exercise of pastoral charity toward the flock.
The twentieth century popes did not engage in these speculative questions (2).
They wrote practical exhortations in which they urged priests and seminarians
to live holy lives and to pursue learning. They did state repeatedly, however,
that a priest exercises the ministry not for himself but for others (5, par. 124).*
They had reservations about action, even pastoral action. St. Pius X warned
that the "entire merit of a priest is not in service, omitting the passive virtues"
(3, par. 136). But all agree that a priest is ordained for others. He is ordained
for pastoral action. Pius XII, who on the one hand condemned the heresy
of action, added:
At the same time we think it opportune to urge upon priests who have
kept themselves too much aloof from external activity, to undertake
active works of the sacred ministry; these, as if they doubted the power
of supernatural help, do not make sufficient effort, according to their
abilities, to bring the spirit of Christianity into ordinary life by such
means as the times demand (3, par. 392).
The popes, however, were quite concerned that action be an overflow of
contemplation. Some modern authors reject all traditional means of sanctifica-
tion and teach that the priest's perfection lies only in the specific occupations
of his ministry, sacraments, breviary, preaching, and the direction of souls.
They explain that the diocesan priest should find his sanctification solely in
the duties of his state. But Piux XII called such activity of a priest who
neglected spiritual exercises "heresy of action" (3, par. 391). Union with
God should be cultivated separately, in itself, outside of action, through the
spiritual exercises, of which the most important is mental prayer. This is
the position taken by the weightier writers such as Masure and Thils (4).
They teach that the priest needs some set of means for the constant purifica-
tion of his intention. He has them in the spiritual exercises.
Diocesan spirituality, then, comprises two elements: (1) fellowship with
the bishop and his presbyterium; (2) pastoral action which is an overflow of
contemplation. The practical question is how can seminarians be trained
toward a diocesan spirituality.
The popes were much taken up with the training of seminarians. They urged
three things: (1) a holy personnel: "You should be careful above all in your
choice of superiors and professors and more especially of a spiritual director"
(3, par. 515); (2) atmosphere: "Piety, chastity, discipline and study should
flourish in the seminary" (ibid.); (3) selectiveness : "Do not be afraid of ap-
pearing unduly strict by demanding . . . such positive proofs of worthiness
before ordination" (3, par. 529). But with the sole exception of Pius XII,
the popes had very little to say about the dynamics of formation.
In Menti Nostrae Pius XII specified as a distinct aim of formation "to
develop gradually a sense of responsibility . . . and a spirit of initiative in
action." And he asserted that to achieve this, first, it would be well not to
overdo coercive methods: "They should free them gradually from overstrict
control and excessively curbing restrictions" (3, par. 413). Secondly, he found
it advisable not to isolate the seminarians too much: "Neither should the
directors be afraid of allowing the youths entrusted to their care to have a
knowledge of current events" (ibid.).
* All paragraph references throughout this paper are to be found in Number 3 of References
at end.
78 Major Seminary Department
In other words, too rigid control and too sheltered an existence do not help
form a sense of responsibility. But lawful freedom of action and contact with
the trends of the times produce a more responsible and mature seminarian.
No doubt Pius XII took this position because sad experience has shown that
the transition from a sheltered and orderly and passive existence of seminary
life into the marketplace proves disastrous for too many priests. They are
unprepared to stand on their own two feet. Mersch wrote somewhere that
some animals have a shell because they do not have a skeleton. It may very
well be that priests crack up because they do not have a backbone, having
been trained in a shell where none was developed or expected.
After leaving the seminary the priest should be able to wed action and
contemplation, take initiative in pastoral charity as a part of a team within
and through the diocesan community. A seminary should be a prelude to
this way of life: certainly it is not if it is too authoritarian.
Generally, seminary training is too authoritarian. Its style of life fails to
achieve a synthesis of liberty and authority. It does not make sufficient effort
to address itself to the liberty of another. The attempt is made only to obtain
an outer conduct that is objectively correct but deprived of most human
values because it has not been performed with love. The seminary puts
emphasis on the instincts of passivity and submission. It is content with orders
and commands and human tasks that have immediate tangible results. And
what is the result? The seminary rears a man incapable of assuming his sacred
and human commitments, a man who very soon loses his desire of using his
liberty on the plane of personal generosity.
St. Augustine said that too many regulations and external obligations do not
accord with man's condition according to the Gospel, which is that of a son,
not of a slave. Laws that are too burdensome are apt to produce rebels or
hypocrites or the infantile. Since God is not yet "all in all," all of us stand
in need of the discipline of an outward law. We need to look to it as a whole-
some aid to the spiritual self. But Christian law consists primarily in the
inward grace of the Holy Spirit. Rules as well as dogmas and rites and human
authority are a means to achieve docility to the Spirit of Christ. But in semi-
naries absolute value is sometimes attached to the means; in practice, every-
thing seems to revolve around their observance. Forms tend to acquire an
inflated value and to be mistaken for the whole of sanctity.
To remedy moral abuses and keep human nature in check by passing
laws has always been the Roman way. Whenever laws are brought in to
regulate the majority who have not abused their liberty, for the sake of the
minority who have; whenever an attempt is thus made to establish a uniform
average, it will press hardest upon the best. One sure result is a lessening
of generosity.
Edith Hamilton, an international authority on the Greek and Roman classics,
distinguishes the Greek and Roman ways of handling the moral behavior of
human beings. The Athenian idea was that a gentleman could be left free
and trusted. The Roman idea was that he assuredly could not be, but that he
could and should be kept in order. Harmony, said the Athenian. Discipline,
said the Roman. In seminaries we need more of the Athenian way.
There are three particular ways in which the Athenian approach could be
followed with good effect on the character formation of seminarians toward
preparing them to achieve a diocesan spirituality. First, by centering their
attention, through conferences and admonitions, on the law of the Gospel as
Formation of Seminarians 79
more important than disciplinary regulations. To this end, conferences should
be scripturally orientated and should not consist of nagging reminders about
discipline and endless exhortations to do one's duty. They should attempt to
uplift more than to insist. And even greater care should be taken that discipli-
nary regulations are not made more of than the law of charity. Take the
instance of the seminarian who was permitted to spend a sum of money to
procure a gift for his aunt but gave it to a beggar who pleaded with him.
He was severely reproached for doing so without permission, instead of being
commended for his proper sense of values.
Second, introduce the theologians to the private practice of the spiritual
exercises of meditation, particular examen, and spiritual reading. The liturgy
is public in its very nature. But the spiritual exercises are personal and
interior; there is hardly an adequate reason for "togetherness" at such times.
They are performed in common on the assumption that they will not be per-
formed if left to the initiative of each individual. The only result is that after
ordination they are soon dropped because priests as seminarians never devel-
oped a sense of responsibility about them. Seminarians should be able to work
out for themselves a schedule and method for their performance, in conjunc-
tion with the spiritual director who will be enough of a check on them. As
for the liturgy, let's not make that juridical, too, by a lot of attention to the
rubrics and little or none to the meaningfulness of the liturgy as expounded in
Mediator Dei.
Third, the class situation in seminaries is another area of authoritarian
practice which needs a different approach. There are two kinds of educators:
those who believe in objective education and see it as a passive reception of
tradition poured in from above — well represented by the funnel. And there
are those who emphasize the subjective side of knowledge (as a development
of creative powers) and see it as a drawing forth of the powers of self — this
is illustrated by the pump. In seminaries the funnel system is the usual one.
The system is authoritarian and relies heavily on compulsion: bells, reports,
grades, supervision, and standards. Authoritarian educators betray a lack of
real faith in the student as a person who must develop his own unique relation
to the truth. They do not allow the student to differ or even to express ideas
in a way appropriate to his temperament. They monopolize initiative. They
do all the talking. Their self-assertion divides the soul of the student into an
obedient and a rebellious part so that he appears docile but deep down is
resentful.
A seminary professor should renounce any thought of molding the minds
of seminarians. They have potentialities. The professor unlocks these not only
nor primarily by instruction, by talking down to them incessantly, but through
communion, through the fellowship between one who has found direction
and one who is finding it. Therefore he does not impose values. He allows
them to flower in a way appropriate to each student's personality. He does
not mold them. Rather he discovers and nourishes in another what he has
recognized as right in himself. He may not be a political leader who spellbinds,
who alienates the subconscious and reduces men to automata. He should be
like the saint who makes dormant energies gush forth. This would be the
Athenian way.
Aside from this Athenian approach to character formation, there remains
the other task of the seminary to prepare the seminarian for the world, the
future context of his pastoral charity, without occasioning worldliness. As
for contact with the world, is it possible for a seminarian who lives a cloistered
80 Major Seminary Department
type of life to become incarnate in society after ordination? Pius XII thought
not. He wrote:
When youths ... are educated in places that are too isolated from
ordinary human society, they will not find it easy, on going out into
public life, to deal either with the ordinary people or with the educated
classes; and so it will often come about that they will either act incon-
siderately towards the faithful, or be contemptuous of the education
they have received. Care must be taken, therefore, to acquaint students
gradually and prudently with the ways of thought and the interests of
the people, lest, after ordination when they have begun their sacred
ministry, they should feel lost and suffer from indecision; for this
would not merely cause disturbance of their own minds, but would
injure their priestly work as well (5, par. 415).
Before the Council of Trent there were no seminaries. Candidates for the
priesthood got their training at the bishop's house, the monastery, or the
university. The results were sad. The clergy were unlearned and undisciplined.
The Council demanded the establishment of seminaries — institutions that
combine a university and a monastery without being either. The results are
much better. The clergy are learned and more disciplined. But the seminary is
a closed community which makes for loss of contact with lay life. How then
is it possible to preserve the quasi-monastic enclosure of the seminary and
at the same time help seminarians make their own the aspirations of the man
on the street?
For one, the seminarian should be informed about world conditions through
periodicals and study clubs. Secondly, lay people should be brought in as
special lecturers on subjects in which they have competence and which are
related to specific seminary courses (5). And, thirdly, the seminarian should
do some apostolic work even though it may bring in some irregularity in his
schedule. After all, he should not be given the impression that regular observance
is more important than pastoral charity. Moreover, this will give him occasion
to practice flexibility in his schedule. If the schedule of the diocesan priest is
necessarily flexible, the seminarian's ought not to be too rigid.
Furthermore, the seminarian should be helped to form proper attitudes toward
those in the world:
(a) toward women. If a seminarian leaves the seminary with only one
idea about women — that they are an occasion of sin — his relations with
them will be anxious. Bible study should give him a more positive
view of woman's position in the world and in the Church.
(b) toward laymen. Some one caustically defined Catholic action as "the
interference of the laity with the inactivities of the hierarchy." This
indicates a complete ignorance about the position and function of each
group. A profound theology of the Church should help form the proper
views and attitudes.
(c) toward minority groups, such as the Negro. The issue of segregation
is dividing the Church seriously because not enough priests and faithful
appreciate the Christian teaching in this area. Church history and
sociology should help explain the rise of prejudices, and the theology
of the Mystical Body will motivate the seminarian toward universal
charity.
(d) toward those in management and unions. Priests should work to help
laymen "imprint the Face of Christ on industry." The cool reception
Formation of Seminarians 81
of Mater et Magistra is disconcerting. Pope John strongly urged that
his encyclical "be included as an item in the required curriculum . . .
particularly in seminaries."
(e) toward the temporal order. It is not something to be exploited but
consecrated. The spirit of poverty, the proper use of things — these
should be coupled with a cosmic theology.
(f) toward the non-Catholic, especially one of the Orthodox and Protestant
communions. In a sermon outline, Cardinal Meyer made the following
point: Protestants and Orthodox Christians should not be considered
heretics and schismatics. In the majority of cases they have never
formally rejected the Church. Rather, they belong to a church which
is in schism or heresy. Both the Protestants and Orthodox are baptized,
and are not excluded from every influence of the grace of Christ; and
they are connected with the Church "by a certain unconscious desire
and longing" (Pius XII's phrase). Such a view of the non-Catholic
Christian generates Christian tolerance and universal zeal.
But of all the matters in a seminary, the subject of charity should get the
most attention. What is charity all about? It is astonishing how many semi-
narians leave the seminary with a totally immature concept of it. And, what
is worse, so many leave it without having achieved a true Christian fellowship
within the seminary. Self-centered instead of altruistic, superficial in their
communion with the Lord, they leave the seminary immature men, ambitious
and demanding. They pass through the seminary as isolated individuals. They
are never more than superficial participants in the seminary community. They
do not learn to love in Christ, to share apostolic enthusiasm, to cooperate in
intellectual projects, to feel a common concern for the whole Church, to rejoice
with the joyful and to sorrow with the sorrowful.
A great many novels have been written about priests in the last decade,
both in Europe and the United States. Their theme is human relations, love
of neighbor. A diocesan priest more than the religious is involved in society.
He encounters human relations at every turn. The cause of Christ stands or
falls depending on the way the priest meets men. The Edge of Sadness (by
Edwin O'Connor) is a story about two pastors who shied away from people
for different reasons. The Monsignor in The Devil's Advocate (by Morris L.
West) was chaste but incapable of the warm acceptance of people. Father
Joseph in Dobraczynski's The Greatest Love * spent himself for souls out of
ambition which he mistook for zeal. In Be Not Angry (by Mitchelf elder)
the young assistant married one of his sodalists and convinced himself that
the eros which gripped him was equivalent to agape. Father Pfau in his
autobiographical Prodigal Shepherd would not submit his apostolic zeal to
the bishop's rightful disposal and sought relief for his abiding resentment in
alcohol. Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory is the story of an unworthy
priest whom the anticlericals persecuted and the faithful despised. The list of
novels is endless, but in all of them the issue is human relations, between the
shepherd and his sheep.
A seminary must be a community, a fellowship, that includes faculty as well
as seminarians. It should be a prelude to the diocesan community in which
the seminarians will work. If it is merely an institution housing bachelors,
it will hardly be a favorable and preliminary preparation for the more difficult
kind of fellowship in the parish and in the diocese.
* Jan Dobraczynski, Najwieksza Milosc. Published in Poland in the 1940's. No edition in English.
82 Major Seminary Department
Conclusion: An Illustration from Fiction
If anyone were to ask for an illustration of the kind of formation this paper
is a plea for, the answer is the novel The Tiber Was Silver written by Michael
Novak. Like most first novels, this one is amateurish in many ways. But
the author, a graduate of Harvard and possessed of a bachelor's degree in
theology from the Gregorian University in Rome, knows seminary life. It
is instructive.
The story is about a young seminarian's life in Rome during the critical
months before his ordination. The hero is Richard McKay, who is torn between
two vocations: between a desire to become a truly great painter and the desire
for priestly service. Of special influence are the two priests who are his
immediate guides: Padre Bracciano and Padre Benedetto. The former, his
superior, is a rigid disciplinarian. The latter, a Benedictine monk, is his
spiritual director and a master of the Athenian way.
Padre Bracciano sees himself as an administrator in an organization in which
men conform, do as they are told, and do not gripe. For him, the life of the
Church could be expressed in a word: obey. Superiors make decisions. Even
liturgy, in his mind, lays chiefly in the dignified performance of the rubrics.
Superiors have the grace of state, the guidance of the Holy Spirit; what need
have they of opinion? To offer an opinion is an impertinence. Docility and
humility forbid it; the spirit of faith obviates its necessity.
Padre Benedetto is different, as different as the Athenian way from the
Roman. He talks of love instead of law and discipline. He makes God seem
close and holiness familiar. He is not interested in forcing things upon another;
he wants to draw out. Richard McKay wept when his spiritual director died.
He had good reason; he owed him everything.
It seems to me Padre Benedetto had the right approach. His way is more
adaptable to the growth of the kind of charity a priest is called to — pastoral
within and through the diocesan community.
References in Text
1. J. Fenton, "Spirituality of the Diocesan Priesthood," American Ecclesiastical Re-
view, 116 (1947), pp. 120-^0.
2. Louis J. Secondo, T.O.R., The Twentieth Century Popes and the Priesthood.
Rome, 1957.
James A. O'Donohoe, "A Clerical Formation According to Two Recent Docu-
ments," The Jurist, 22 (1962), pp. 27-38.
3. P. Veuillot, The Catholic Priesthood According to the Teaching of the Church:
Documents from Pius X-Pius XII. Westminster, 1958.
(All paragraph references are to be found in this work.)
4. G. Thtls, Nature et Spiritualite du Clerge Diocesan. Bruges, 1946.
E. Masure, Parish Priest. Chicago, 1955, pp. 197-98.
5. Cf. chapter 12 in Christians in a Changing World by Dennis J. Geaney, O.S.A.
(Fides, 1959).
CELIBACY: MOTIVATION AND SOME PROBLEMS
Very Rev. Edward J. Carney, O.S.F.S.
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY, HYATTSVILLE, MARYLAND
I. Motivation
The celibacy of the Catholic priesthood, toward which the seminarian
aims, is a virtue with both natural and supernatural aspects — natural, insofar
as it entails the voluntary and perpetual control of a bodily faculty; supernatural,
by reason of its purpose: "for the kingdom of heaven's sake" (Matthew 19:12).
Thus the means of preserving it are both natural and supernatural, the latter
of which is absolutely necessary.
The root of the spiritual life is sanctifying grace. This finite supernatural
quality enables the rational creature to share God's own life. The more
perfectly it is possessed, the more man thinks and wills according to God.
The danger of committing serious sin becomes more remote although through-
out life the possibility remains. For this reason the seminarian should be
intent on increasing this grace in his soul. The ordinary means of so doing
are the use of the sacraments, the practice of prayer and of the virtues, an
understanding of the role of actual grace in the spiritual life and a correspond-
ence to it.
In the life of a student preparing for the priesthood two sacraments will
be of frequent use — Penance and the Blessed Eucharist. Penance will ordinarily
increase rather than restore grace to his soul. The Blessed Eucharist not
only will bring about the sacramental presence of Christ within him but will
also effect a special spiritual union with his Master (John 6:56-57). Since
the amount of grace derived from any sacrament depends on the actual disposi-
tions of the recipient, the seminarian should try to be as well prepared as he
can when approaching these two sacraments.
He must also be given to prayer, not only in the various vocal and mental
forms prescribed by the seminary rule or motivated by personal inclination
but also as an expression of his own inner aspirations toward God. This
latter entails the practice of the virtues.
All these means increase sanctifying grace in his soul, turn him ever more
intimately to God and away from serious sin. Indirectly they strengthen him
in the maintenance of virtue — whether this be obedience, chastity, or some-
thing else. For this reason, the cultivation of chastity should be looked upon
as a facet of the spiritual life, contributing to its growth and aided in turn
by it, rather than as an isolated struggle to control a natural faculty. This,
of course, does not mean that the proper subject matter of this virtue is to
be neglected. The seminarian should enter ever more deeply into the divine
nature through sanctifying grace — into God's way of thinking, God's way of
loving. In so doing he lessens the possibility of choosing something at variance
with the divine will.
The aspirant to the priesthood should also be familiar with the role of actual
grace in the maintenance of chastity. This divine impulse influences both the
intelligence and the will. It enlightens, strengthens, brings about action. Such
help is often needed. There is a striving for the things of God, yet the
world's call, either legitimate or illegitimate, is felt. The mind may be confused
83
84 Major Seminary Department
at times by the conflict welling within itself. Sometimes there are false and
incomplete notions on matters sexual. The will may grow weary of the constant
pursuit of virginity, the avoidance of the sinful. While much of this can be
resolved by natural means, actual grace is also necessary, sometimes absolutely,
sometimes morally. The most efficacious means of obtaining it is a general
dedication to God through fulfilling one's duties of state and by prayer.
It may be well if the seminarian's prayer of petition for such grace corre-
sponds to the order of causality in its giving. First of all he ought to have
a deep devotion to the Holy Spirit. While all grace comes from the Trinity,
in the human way of reckoning things it is appropriated to the Third Person.
He bestows all graces, among which would be that leading to continence.
St. Augustine says: "We are led by the Spirit of God, who gives continence,
whereby we bridle, tame and conquer concupiscence."1 Among those prayers
of the Roman Missal set aside for special use, the one for continence reads:
"O Lord, burn our loins and our hearts with the fire of the Holy Spirit: so
that we may serve you with a chaste body, and be pleasing to you with a
clean heart."2
This activity of the Holy Spirit in dispensing grace in some mysterious and
lesser way is communicated to Mary. Since Christian virginity is an imitation
of that of her Son, she is thought to have a special predilection for those so
aspiring or consecrated and to give them whatever help they need. Devotion
to her not only insures the preservation of chastity but stimulates the whole
spiritual life. Pius XII writes:
The eminent way to protect and nourish an unsullied and perfect chastity,
as proven by experience time and again throughout the course of the
centuries, is solid and fervent devotion to the Virgin Mother of God.
In a certain way all other helps are contained in this devotion; there
is no doubt that whoever is sincerely and earnestly animated by this
devotion is salutarily inspired to constant vigilance, to continual prayer,
to receive the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. There-
fore in a paternal way we exhort all priests, religious men and women,
to entrust themselves to the special protection of the holy Mother of
God, who is the Virgin of virgins and the "teacher of virginity," as St.
Ambrose says, and the most powerful Mother of those in particular
who have vowed and consecrated themselves to the service of God .3
Devotion to other saints and to the angels is also recommended as a means
of obtaining divine help in the quest for virginity.
Along with sanctifying grace, virtues are infused in the soul — theological and
cardinal. The latter are of immediate interest. These should be cultivated
so that they are not merely infused but also take on the character of acquired
habits. As such they flow out from sanctifying grace, are reduced to action
by actual grace, and have an influence on nature itself, correcting and perfecting
it. This correction and perfection of nature is very important in allaying the
strength of concupiscence.
Under each of the cardinal virtues brief mention will be made of certain
things helpful in the preservation of chastity. This classification cannot be so
precise as to avoid overlapping and even controversy. For example, the influence
of the emotions on chastity falls under prudence, temperance, and fortitude.
Likewise there may be question of the matter placed under justice.
1 De Continentia, V, 12 (PL 40, 357). z Missale Romanum, Orationes Diversae, 26.
3 Pius XII, Sacra Virginitas, Acta Apostolicae, Sedis, 46, 187-188.
Celibacy: Motivation and Some Problems 85
Prudence
Prudence inclines the practical intellect to propose proper means for the
attainment of an end or purpose. Celibacy involves the complete and voluntary
control of the sexual faculty out of love for God. This can be realized through
methods which are imperfect, but it is more easily achieved when under
prudence one selects suitable means.
Among the integral parts of prudence — which are dispositions to the virtue
rather than the virtue itself — several are of particular importance in the matter
of celibacy. These are a recalling of past experiences, a right understanding
of a present situation, cautious avoidance of any evil that might be intermingled
with good, the ability to correctly estimate things by self, a willingness to learn
from others.
This latter point illustrates the necessity of spiritual direction, whether this
be personal contact in the form of counseling and/ or the reading of books.
Since the problems of chastity are at times complex, the prudent man will seek
enlightenment from competent sources.
Likewise there must be caution in avoiding evil. It is imprudent for a
person aspiring to perfect continence to deliberately and without sufficient
reason put himself in situations which are proximate occasions of sin. Ordi-
narily he will either fail against purity or have greater difficulty keeping it.
Prudence also requires the seminarian to form correct judgments on matters
sexual. Thus, he should have a right understanding of the values of virginity
and of marriage so that he may deliberately and freely embrace the greater
good of celibacy.4 He should also be able to handle properly past recollections.
The following points are proposed for consideration.
Sometimes the seminarian is troubled by the memory of previous faults
against purity. What he thinks is a manifestation of sorrow may be actually
remorse and discouragement. Sorrow heals and guards against future faults.
Discouragement from this or any other source hinders progress in the spiritual
life. It also contributes to emotional problems, makes the effort to maintain
chastity more difficult, and at times predisposes to further sins of impurity,
as will be shown under the virtue of fortitude.
The simple recall of the past can take on overtones from the imagination.
In the natural order, nothing is as important as the control of this sense for
the preservation of virginity. The imagination, in conjunction with other psy-
chological mechanisms, presents past experiences not so much as they were
or are in reality but with an increased attractiveness. At least three phases
can be distinguished:
1. The recall of some past experience with the suppression of its unappeal-
ing features. For example, the seminarian may think of the married life
of his relatives or friends. This is generally presented ideally without the
difficulties encountered in such unions.
2. Past experiences may be rearranged and combined into a new pattern
never before encountered. This is a function of the creative imagination.
Thus several, separate sexual impressions can be formed into a single fantasy,
more attractive than any one of the original components.
3. The pleasure of the sexual appetite is to be controlled by reason. The
more this restraining influence is removed, the more pleasurable the object
* lnstructio De Candidatis Ad Statum Perjectionis Et Ad Sacros Ordines Sedulo Deligendis Et
Instituendis, Sacra Congregatio Negotiis Religiosorum Sodalium Praeposita, 29c.
86 Major Seminary Department
seems to become. It would appear that obscenity ordinarily involves some
escape from reason — such as God's reason manifested through the Natural
Law, or human reason, as embodied in social customs, whether these be
objectively correct or not.5
How can the seminarian be taught to control his imagination?
1. He ought to exercise care over the external senses. An improper use
of these can not only set up an immediate temptation but also stores away
in the mind sensual images for the future.
2. Activities which tend to over-stress the use of the imagination and
develop a habitual pattern, such as excessive daydreaming, should be brought
under the control of reason. If the subject matter of such fantasy becomes
sexual, the habit previously formed will tend to hold on to the image.
3. The actual thought or image — whether it be improper in itself or merely
one drawing to the married state — must be rejected. The most commonly
recommended way of doing this is the saying of a short prayer asking the
aid of God's actual grace and the insertion of a counter-thought or activity
at least equal in strength to the matter to be displaced.
4. There may be times when a disclosure of the general nature of the tempta-
tion to a director would be helpful. St. Francis de Sales writes: "The
sovereign remedy against all temptations, great or small, is to open the heart,
and to communicate the suggestions, feelings and affections which we have
to our director." 6
Control of the emotions also plays a very important part in the maintenance
of chastity. An individual treatment of some of these will be given later. At
this time a few general considerations can be mentioned. A correct evalua-
tion of a situation is one of the requirements of prudence. The emotions
depend on the apprehension of good or evil. While many factors enter into
emotional problems, one always found is a false stressing of the evil or difficulty
in life. Several consequences follow:
1. The practical judgment is hindered in its search for truth.7 In its search
for reality it is not always objective. Thus in matters of purity such
a person could find temptation where none really exists, or could exag-
gerate what does exist.
2. There is a tendency toward impulsive action.8
6 A. Terruwe, Psychopathic Personality and Neurosis (New York, 1958), p. 59. "The sexual
psychopathic deviation may manifest itself by seeking gratification of the sexual drive through
an object that is abnormal. Here all kinds of perversities may occur: homosexuality, narcissism,
sadism, masochism, fetichism, paedophilia, etc. However, one should realize that the occurrence
of one of these realities is not in itself a proof of the existence of a sexual psychopathic state.
It may have quite different causes and may also be seen as a neurotic symptom in otherwise
normal individuals."
Cf. E. and P. Kronhausen, Pornography and the Law (New York, 1959), p. 243. "Obscene
books not only have a definite structure and organization, they also contain a number of
specific criteria which are based on psychological mechanisms serving the purpose of stimulating
erotic fantasies and sexual arousal."
6 F. de Sales, Oeuvres, III, "Introduction to a Devout Life," p. 305.
7 St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, 1,2,77,2. "Passion draws reason to judge in particular against
the knowledge it has in universal." Cf. Ibid., 2,2,47,16. "Prudence ... is corrupted through the
passions."
8 Ibid., 2,2,156, 1 ad 2. "From the force of passion it happens that a man immediately follows
passion before the counsel of reason."
Celibacy: Motivation and Some Problems 87
Imprudence and impulsiveness as habitual character traits do not contribute
directly to a violation of purity, but they make its maintenance more difficult.
Moreover, a person whose emotions are continually disordered generally suffers
from obsessive ideas and fatigue, which add to the problem of resistance to
temptation. A consideration of scrupulosity would take one too far afield.
Yet it involves an emotional disturbance and is a good example of how
this makes the problem of chastity more troublesome.
Thus, the seminarian should be instructed in the principles of emotional
control. It is presupposed that ordinarily there is no need for psychiatric or
medical care. In general, such control is brought about by a proper attitude
toward life, especially by a conscientious effort to focus one's attention on the
good in things and persons. This should be done both naturally and super-
naturally. An as example of the former, a person should strive to eliminate
or at least to properly compensate for feelings of inferiority. Supernatural
means would be a trust in divine providence and prayer for actual grace.
Since the emotions also have a reaction in the body, there may be times when
such an influence must be removed. Herein lies the value of some physical
exercise. The seminarian who relaxes in such a way, preferably daily, is
contributing toward emotional control and indirectly aids himself in matters
of purity.
The intelligence gives to the will the matter for choice. Even though there
may be no consent the will is drawn to whatever motives are presented. All
things being equal, the higher and more perfect these are, the greater oppor-
tunity the will has of entering into union with God. A way of fostering such
idealism is by spiritual reading, both in the field of virginity and in the whole
supernatural life; by an appreciative acceptance of the virtues of the natural
order; by spiritual direction; by listening to sermons and conferences. The
more clearly the mind esteems these values, the greater is the possibility of
their ratification.
Justice
Justice inclines the will to give to others what is due to them. In render-
ing such things to God and to the neighbor man perfects himself.
The seminarian voluntarily undertakes certain obligations that go beyond
those of the laity. Among other things, these are concerned with God and
the neighbor. In the period of training these ordinarily involve only legal
justice. Whether this pertains strictly to the cardinal virtue is debated. Yet
it can be reduced to it at least as a potential part, and it is so treated here.
Perhaps it might be better to consider these duties as stemming from the
virtue of charity, from love of God and of neighbor.
The first is obedience to superiors and to a rule of life. Through this the
seminarian not only gives immediate satisfaction to authority, thereby giving
an objective proof of his fitness, but he also increases sanctifying grace and
love for God in his soul. The importance of this grace in the question of
chastity has already been discussed.
It is also to be noted that one interested in promoting the common good,
in associating properly with his neighbor — a desirable trait inculcated by all
seminary rules and certainly a necessary requirement in priestly life — not
only develops himself socially, but avoids many of the internal difficulties
arising from excessive seclusiveness, such as emotional problems and tempta-
88 Major Seminary Department
tions against chastity. Thus seminarians should be encouraged to avoid too
great reserve in dealing with others.
Association with the other sex, of course, must be properly regulated. The
seminarian should try to steer a course between too great familiarity and the
reserve or withdrawal that would make him appear ridiculous. His attitude
should be a Christ-like one of "holy normality." Yet the necessary segregation
of the sexes required by seminary life may produce some unrealistic attitudes,
such as over-idealization. These may complicate temptation. Ordinarily,
however, such difficulties are resolved in the social contacts of priestly ministry
provided there is otherwise the proper natural and supernatural development.
Fortitude
In general, fortitude embraces all those virtues which dispose a person to
follow the good proposed by reason even in spite of opposition. It includes
the cultivation of patience to bear a difficulty at any given moment, and of
perseverance to withstand it for a long period of time. The man who knows
how to be patient and to persevere ordinarily faces life with courage.
Discouragement in temptation can be a contributing factor to consent. Too
much effort seems required to persevere in purity. Yet this mental attitude
from any source can indirectly lead to sexual temptation. Such a person
looks for consolation, some pleasure to relieve the oppressive weight of the
emotions. He must be careful not to seek it in something sexual. St. Thomas
states the problem: "Through pleasure a remedy is had for weariness of the
soul. . . . Nevertheless in this matter it seems three things must be avoided.
The first and chief is that the forementioned pleasure is not sought in indecent
or injurious actions or words." 9 Thus the seminarian should be taught to
avoid discouragement — to be patient under the trials of life and to persevere
under them.
Sometimes discouragement comes from the mere fact of temptation. An
unnatural attitude that one ought not to be tempted is assumed. In it there is
a great deal of pride, as though one would say: "Why am / bothered by such
things?" Such a person must learn to accept his sexual powers and not to be
disturbed at their manifestations, either from internal or external sources. He
must understand that all men suffer temptation, and that he himself must be
patient under it and persevere to victory.
Sometimes a seminarian can become convinced that his sexual imagery is
unique, that he alone experiences such thoughts. This increases the difficulty
of the temptation and often leads to the discouraged feeling that there is
something perverse in him. Spiritual direction can convince him otherwise
and bring him a certain relief on the realization that others share the same
lot. He takes courage and more easily perseveres in purity.
Discouragement can also be linked with fear. This latter emotion arises
when one doubts his ability to meet a given situation. As such it is natural,
but it can very easily become exaggerated. This may happen in matters
sexual. One meets the case of a seminarian who worries about his ability to
remain chaste in the years that lie ahead even though at the present mo-
ment he is giving positive proof of his chastity. He must be taught that his
duty is to persevere in purity at every given moment. This will be a presage
of future fidelity. Then there is the fear of the so-called "unconquerable
temptation." Ordinarily this is of rare occurrence, but it does present a problem
°Ibid. 2,2,168,2.
Celibacy: Motivation and Some Problems 89
to a seminarian who has fallen into the habit of impurity and is struggling to
break it. Such an idea must be dispelled. The advice of Augustine, used in
the Council of Trent, is helpful: "God never asks the impossible. Do what
you can. Ask for what you can't do."
Temperance
Temperance regulates the appetite in those pleasures and actions concerned
with the conservation of the individual and the species. One of the difficulties
connected with the use of these things is the development of necessity. A
man may feel compelled to eat, to drink, to engage in sex. Temperance
removes this demand. Likewise, moderation in one category, such as in food
or drink, can contribute to restraint in another, such as in the use of sex —
and vice versa. Thus, the element of mortification should be present in the
life of a seminarian. Exaggeration, however, must be avoided in such practice.
One of the potential parts of temperance is zeal for learning. Opposed to
this by excess is curiosity; by defect, negligence. Since knowledge begins
from the senses, the seminarian must avoid too great curiosity, especially in
sight and hearing. This has already been discussed under the external senses
and the imagination. The natural desire to know the process of generation and
reproduction should, however, be satisfied by proper instruction. In matters
intellectual, negligence must especially be avoided. This not only causes
a defective formation of a faculty, but it also deprives the mind of those
motives and that idealism so necessary in influencing the will, and at the same
time leaves it open to suggestions of a lower order.
Another potential part of temperance is mildness, which consists in the
control of anger or impatience. This emotion seems to have some indirect
influence on the sensual appetite. It inclines to impetuosity, which is also
a facter found in sexual temptation. Likewise the physical effects of anger
in the body — increase of blood pressure and adrenalin — can be an indirect oc-
casion of sexual temptation. Perhaps the connection of anger and sexual
temptation needs to be explored more fully, but in any case the control of this
emotion leads to an increase of sanctifying grace and to the acquired virtue
of temperance — both of advantage in the matter of chastity.
II. Some Problems
One of the problems found in the direction of seminarians is that of the
student who sins habitually against purity. It has ever been the mind of the
Church that her ministers be worthy, capable of fulfilling the obligations under-
taken. Thus, she would wish the aforementioned person either to reform
and acquire the habit of purity or cease aspiring to the priestly state.
From various ecclesiastical documents 10 a general method of procedure
for such a difficulty can be devised. The opinions of theologians dealing with
a more precise application of principles are not included in the following
discussion.
10 Such teaching is clearly contained in canon law, in Pius XI's Encyclical on the Catholic Priest-
hood, in Pius XII's Menti Nostrae, and in two more recent documents: one a Circular Letter from
the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments, December 27, 1955; the other, an Instruction of the
Sacred Congregation of Religious to the Superiors of Religious Communities, Societies Without
Vows, and Secular Institutes, on the Careful Selection and Training of Candidates, for the States
of Perfection and Sacred Orders, February 2, 1961.
90 Major Seminary Department
The stages leading to the priesthood are:
1. Period prior to enrollment in the minor seminary.
2. Entrance into the minor seminary, which ordinarily would last for six
years — four years of high school, two years of college.
3. Admission into the major seminary, which also ordinarily embraces six
years — two years of philosophy, four years of theology.
Tonsure, minor and major orders are to be conferred in the temporal
sequence determined by canon law.11
1. No one is to receive tonsure before beginning his theological studies.
2. The time lapse between the reception of tonsure and minor orders is
left to the prudent judgment of the bishop. Since there is to be a period
of a year between the reception of the office of acolyte and the sub-
diaconate, the former should be conferred no later than at the end of
second-year theology.
3. The subdiaconate is not to be received before the end of the third year
of theology.
4. The diaconate is not to be received before the beginning of the fourth
year of theology.
5. The priesthood should not be received before the middle of the fourth
year of theology.
One must keep in mind that there are exceptions to the period of time
spent in the minor and major seminary, and that, at least in the past, it was
possible to obtain dispensations from the schedule of ordinations proposed
by canon law.
Three classes of sin can be considered: thoughts; actions of self -abuse;
relations with others, either of the same or opposite sex. As regards the first
two the following may be noted.
Through the various stages of preparation the candidate must give positive
proof of his ability to practice complete continence. Ordinarily he should
not be allowed to pass from one stage to another unless he has the habit
of purity. There are, however, exceptions, and probation can be extended if
the circumstances so warrant; for example, if there is a firm purpose of amend-
ment and a reasonable hope of success. In such cases a period for proof should
be set. This should be of length sufficient to fulfill ecclesiastical indications
of a long trial and at the same time to give moral certitude of the candidate's
fitness or unfitness.12
The period of probation may even be extended into the theological studies,
but ordinarily it is the mind of the Church not to postpone the decision of
withdrawal unduly. She prefers that the problem of chastity be solved by
the end of the second year of philosophy. She also wishes greater severity
to be used in judging the candidate the more closely he approaches ordina-
tion. Neither tonsure nor minor orders are to be received by anyone having
the habit of impurity, and for the reception of any major order, the person
"Canons 976; 978, n.2.
12 F. Connell, Sex Education and the Treatment of Sex Problems in the Training of Candidates
for the Priesthood and the Religious Life, p. 8. "If he has not made great headway in overcoming
a grave habit of impurity after two years at most, there is reason to fear that the evil inclinations
he has fostered may prove a permanent obstacle to the holiness of life expected of a priest and
religious. I suppose it could happen that a boy would retain a bad habit for four or five years,
then reform and become a good priest and religious. But the chances to the contrary are so
great that they must be considered as prevailing by the prudent confessor."
Celibacy: Motivation and Some Problems 91
must be free from it for a year. If, after the reception of the subdiaconate
or diaconate, sins of impurity are committed but yet not of such frequency
as to constitute a habit, the solution of the case depends on whether there is
moral certitude that the candidate has the requisite qualities to progress fur-
ther. If he does not, he must either postpone the reception of such an order
or withdraw from the seminary, in accordance with the norms of canon law.
Ordinarily the commission of a grave sin with the same or opposite sex at
any stage of preparation indicates unfitness. The candidate should be dis-
missed or counseled to withdraw, if the matter is evident only from the internal
forum. Yet in individual cases there may be extenuating circumstances, which
should be considered in reaching a decision. Two are mentioned — the case
of a person who is seduced, or one in which the acts are incomplete. The
other qualities of the candidate will aid in the determination of dismissal or
continuance.13
Finally, in all these cases the same principles are to be employed by the
rector, the confessor, the spiritual director in judging the fitness of the candi-
date. However, the manner of application will be different. The superior
ordinarily acts in the external forum; he can dismiss. The confessor and
spiritual director are generally restricted to the interior forum. They can
counsel withdrawal. The confessor can also refuse absolution if the case
so demands. Any reasonable doubt is to be resolved in favor of the Church.
Bibliography
1. Allers, R. "Daydreams and Sexuality," The Homiletic and Pastoral Review,
XXXLX (February, 1939) 469-75.
2. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica.
3. Augustine. De Continentia. Migne, Patrologiae Latinae, Vol. XL.
4. Circular Letter, Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments, 27 December, 1955.
Cf. T. L. Bouscaren — J. S. O'Connor, The Canon Law Digest, (Milwaukee: The
Bruce Publishing Company, 1958) IV, 303-15.
5. Connell, F. J. Sex Education and the Treatment of Sex Problems in the Train-
ing of Candidates for the Priesthood and the Religious Life. Privately published
by the Province of St. Augustine of the Capuchin Order, Pittsburgh, Pa.
6. de Sales, Francis. Introduction a la Vie Devote. Oeuvres, Vol. III. Annecy:
J. Nierat, 1893. Translated by Allan Ross. Westminster, Md.: The Newman
Press, 1948.
13 Ibid., p. 9. "When there has been a sin with another person, a much stricter norm must be
followed. I would not put it down as a hard and fast rule that once a student, either in the
major or minor seminary, has been guilty of a grave sin of impurity with another he should be
told to leave. Many factors would have to be considered — for example, whether it was a consum-
mated sin or merely indecent touches, whether the penitent was the aggressor or victim, whether
those involved were boys in the early years of the minor seminary or professed students. ... Of
course, the case may occur of a boy who commits a sin with a girl while home on vacation, and I
should be inclined to think that psychologically this would be a greater deterrent to advancement
to the priesthood than the sin of sodomy, even though the latter is a graver transgression of God's
laws from the theological standpoint. The nearest I should venture to a general rule would be this:
If a candidate for the priesthood has been guilty of a mortally sinful act of impurity three or four
times at most after beginning his studies for the priesthood — presupposing that there was repentance
with the promise of amendment after each lapse — I would ordinarily regard it as dangerous for
him to continue toward the priesthood, even though several years intervened between each sin.
Even one such transgression may suffice to justify such a decision, especially on the part of the
seminary authorities who learn of the incident outside of the confessional."
92 Major Seminary Department
7. lnstructio De Candidatis Ad Statum Perfectionis Et Ad Sacros Ordines Sedulo
Deligendis Et lnstituendis, Sacra Congregatio Negotiis Religiosorum Sodalium
Praeposita. Romae: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1961.
8. KmscH, F. M. Sex Education and Training in Chastity. New York: Benziger
Brothers, 1930.
9. Kronhausen, E. and P. Pornography and the Law. New York: Ballantine
Books, 1959.
10. Meyer, F. Safeguards of Chastity. Cincinnati: St. Francis Bookshop, 1929.
11. Pius XI. Ad Catholici Sacerdotii. Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Vol. XXVIIT.
Romae: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1936. Vatican Press Translation. Wash-
ington, D.C.: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1936.
12. Pius XII. Menti Nostrae. Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Vol. XLII. Romae: Typis
Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950. Vatican Press Translation. Washington, D.C.: Na-
tional Catholic Welfare Conference, 1950.
13. . Sacra Virginitas. Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Vol. XLXI. Romae: Typis
Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1954. Unofficial Translation As Printed by Tipografia
Poliglotta Vaticana. Washington, D.C.: National Catholic Welfare Conference,
1954.
14. Terruwe, A. Psychopathic Personality and Neurosis. Translated by Conrad
Baars, M.D. New York: P. J. Kenedy and Sons, 1958.
15. Vermeersch, A. De Castitate. Romae: Universita Gregoriana, 1921.
16. Von Hildebrand, D. In Defense of Purity. New York: Sheed and Ward,
1934.
PROCEEDINGS AND REPORTS
MAJOR SEMINARY DEPARTMENT: MINUTES
Detroit, Michigan
First Session — Tuesday, April 24, 1962, 2 p.m.
The meeting was called to order at 2 p.m. by the president, Very Rev. John
E. Murphy, of St. John's Home Missions Seminary of Little Rock, Arkansas.
The first paper was read by Rt. Rev. Robert Krumholtz, Vice President
of the Athenaeum of Ohio, and Rector of St. Gregory's Seminary of Cin-
cinnati. His topic: "Preparation of Diocesan Priests for Teaching in High
Schools and Colleges."
For the most part the questions which followed the reading of the paper
centered about the program of preparation in the Cincinnati seminary, and the
program of teaching by diocesan priests after ordination.
In answer to a question concerning the financial side of the program,
Monsignor Krumholtz explained that the archdiocese (rather than the in-
dividual seminarians) meets the expenses of the summer studies and the ex-
tension studies. In reply to another query, he stated that once a student has
chosen a special field for concentration, the request for change to another
field is at a minimum. When asked for suggestions as to how seminarians
Minutes: 1962 Meetings 93
may overcome undergraduate deficiencies in a particular field, Monsignor
Krumholtz recommended summer school or special courses after ordination.
It was suggested by one of the priests present that it might be more beneficial
to work for an M.A. rather than for an M.Ed, degree. Monsignor Krumholtz
explained that both degrees are granted in his program; that while the M.A.
courses involve a greater amount of work on the part of the student, candidates
for the M.Ed, degree also have a considerable number of content courses.
Regarding preparation for teaching religion, Monsignor Krumholtz explained
that there is a catechetics course in the seminary, and that fourth-year
theologians teach C.C.D. classes in nearby schools.
With regard to teaching, Monsignor Krumholtz reported that the vast ma-
jority of priests are very happy in the work. They live in rectories, assist in
hearing confessions on Saturday, offer public Mass on Sunday, and do
a minimum of parish work. It has been noted that with more intensive prep-
aration in the seminary, the enthusiasm for teaching has increased.
The second paper was read by Very Rev. Leonard Fick, editor of The
Josephinum Review and a member of the faculty of the Pontifical College
Josephinum in Worthington, Ohio. His topic: "The Nature and Purpose of
the Communications Program on the College and Theology Levels of the
Seminary."
In the question period that followed, Monsignor Fick was asked about the
inter-relation between the English department and the homiletics department in
his seminary. He explained that the former provided the student with the
basic training in writing, whereas the latter tailored this training to the
preparation of sermons.
As to the concentration on dogmatic theology and moral theology in sermon
writing, Monsignor Fick explained that in the "mixed homily" about two-thirds
of the sermon would be concerned with a dogmatic presentation and the
remainder with a moral application.
Monsignor Fick pointed out that The Josephinum Review provides an outlet
for articles by seminarians, and many seminarians in addition have written
for other Catholic periodicals.
Monsignor Fick expressed the view that specialized training for radio and
television programs should not be given in the seminary, but young priests with
an aptitude for such work might be sent to schools devoted to this type of
writing.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:55 p.m.
There followed an executive meeting, at which were discussed the proposed
bylaws. The following were in attendance: Very Rev. John E. Murphy,
Rev. Thomas W. Coyle, C.S.S.R., Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frank M. Schneider, Very
Rev. James A. Laubacher, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Lawrence J. Riley.
Second Session — Wednesday, April 25, 1962, 10 a.m.
The meeting was called to order by Monsignor Murphy at 10 a.m. The
president appointed the following committees. Committee on Nominations:
Rev. Robert F. Coerver, CM., Very Rev. Gerard A. Green, Very Rev. Edward
J. Hogan, S.S. Committee on Resolutions: Rev. Gabriel W. Hafford, Very
Rev. John J. Danagher, CM., Rev. Conrad Falk, O.S.B.
The first paper was read by Rev. Eugene Burke, C.S.P., of The Catholic
University of America. His topic: "Developing an Intellectual Tradition in
the Seminary."
94 Major Seminary Department
In the question period that followed, Father Burke was asked about the
possibility in the future of having seminaries affiliated with large universities
where various special fields of study would be available to seminarians. Father
Burke agreed that this is an ideal to be aimed at, which would contribute a
great deal to the development of an intellectual spirit in the seminary. He
added that the present trend toward having seminaries accredited is a step
toward fostering a greater interest in things intellectual in the seminary. He
advocated that theologians meet with scholars in other fields to discuss the
theological implications in their work. It would indeed be an achievement,
he concluded, if seminary professors could instill into the seminarians a love
of learning for its own sake.
The second paper was read by Very Rev. Edward J. Hogan, S.S., Rector
of St. John's Provincial Seminary in Plymouth, Michigan. His topic: "Teach-
ing the Dogma Course: Scripture and Authority of the Church."
In answer to a question in the discussion period that followed, Father
Hogan pointed out that theology rests first and foremost on the teaching of
the Church. To minimize the teaching of the Church and to start the
study of some doctrine of theology with an investigation into Scripture (as
if to try to validate the teaching of the Church by seeking a justification for
each doctrine in Scripture) is incorrect — though this seems to be the procedure
being increasingly advocated by some exegetes. Moreover, it is the living
magisterium of the Church that we must be concerned with — and not only
with the definitions of the Councils.
Asked what is the Church in the phrase "the Church as the interpreter of
Scripture," Father Hogan stated that there is no problem as regards the
extraordinary or solemn magisterium. But when or how the ordinary magis-
terium is operating, it is difficult to determine. Father Burke suggested that
the ordinary magisterium is operating in this very discussion. He went on
to explain that inasmuch as the bishops, the official teachers, delegate
theologians in the seminaries to propound the doctrine of the Church to
candidates for the priesthood, the seminary professors are official witnesses
to the work of the magisterium. They must study, evaluate, judge; and in their
teaching the Church's ordinary magisterium is operating.
This session was adjourned at 12 noon.
Third Session — Thursday, April 26, 1962. 10 a.m.
This was a joint meeting with the Minor Seminary Department at the
Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. The delegates were warmly welcomed by
the Rector, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Albert A. Matyn. The meeting was opened with
a prayer by Most Rev. John F. Whealon, D.D., Auxiliary Bishop of Cleveland.
The presiding officer was Rev. Robert C. Newbold, president of the Minor
Seminary Department.
The Very Rev. Edward F. Riley, CM., Ph.D., Rector of St. Mary's
Seminary in Perryville, Missouri, read a paper on the topic, "An Analysis and
Evaluation of Seminary Administration."
Following the reading, a discussion emerged regarding spiritual direction
in the seminary. Very Rev. Eugene Van Antwerp, S.S., described the Sulpician
system. The point was then made that to introduce such a system into
other seminaries might require a dispensation, inasmuch as the whole faculty
(except those involved in administration) are spiritual directors. Another
priest suggested that such a system might result in a lack of uniformity of
spiritual direction; but it was pointed out in answer that rigid uniformity is
Minutes: 1962 Meetings 95
not essential — each priest would direct in accordance with basic Christian
spirituality. Another expressed the view that a unified policy is a necessity —
for example, in cases where seminarians are to be advised by their spiritual
directors to withdraw because of apparent lack of moral qualifications.
Some question was raised as to secular publications in the seminary. One
priest stated that daily newspapers and weekly magazines are available in
his seminary (college level) but not in the major seminary.
A question was asked as to religion courses in the seminary. One priest
suggested that after each point of dogma discussed, practical corollaries or
applications could be made. Another suggested courses in catechetics and
convert-making. This latter point introduced a question about C.C.D. courses
in the seminary. It would appear, from a show of hands, that only a small
number of seminaries have active C.C.D. programs.
A question arose as to courses in fine arts in the seminary. It was ad-
vocated that courses in art, painting, history of music, et cetera, are important,
and indeed essential for accreditation.
The discussion closed with an exchange of views as to the requirements
made by accrediting agencies.
When it was suggested that information regarding many of the above points
be obtained from various seminaries and held available for reference, the
opinion was given that this would be part of the task for the Associate Sec-
retary of the NCEA (a position now vacant since Father Dukehart's death).
This session came to an end at 11:45 a.m. At the dinner which followed,
an inspiring talk was given by Most Rev. John F. Dearden, D.D., Archbishop
of Detroit, on the implications of the Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia.
Archbishop Dearden was presented to the delegates by Very Rev. John E.
Murphy.
Fourth Session — Thursday, April 26, 1962, 2 p.m.
The afternoon meeting was called to order by Very Rev. John E. Murphy
at 2 p.m. at the Sacred Heart Seminary.
The first paper was read by Rev. Sergius Wroblewski, O.F.M., of Christ
the King Seminary in West Chicago, Illinois. His topic: "Formation of
Seminarians toward a Diocesan Spirituality."
A spirited discussion followed the reading of the paper. Several of the
priests felt that there need be no dichotomy between the demanding of dis-
cipline in the seminary and the developing of initiative and responsibility — ■
much less between discipline and fellowship, or a spirit of charity. Military
academies, for example, aim at developing responsibility and yet maintain
very strict discipline. One priest stated that some of the speaker's views could
be harmonized only with difficulty with the recent letter on St. Vincent de
Paul issued by the Congregation of Seminaries, and indeed with Christ's own
obedience to His Father. Father Wroblewski disclaimed any intention of
instituting a dichotomy between discipline and fellowship (in fact, he said,
fellowship presupposes discipline), but he re-stated his opposition to obedience
based on fear rather than on love.
The second paper was read by Very Rev. Edward J. Carney, O.S.F.S.,
Superior of De Sales Hall in Hyattsville, Maryland. His topic: "Celibacy:
Motivation and Some Problems."
Many priests participated in the discussion which followed. Great stress
was laid upon the advantages to be derived from a positive approach to the
question. Father Carney expressed the view that the best positive approach
96 Major Seminary Department
is growth in grace — fervent reception of the sacraments, prayer, and the
practice of virtue.
The session was adjourned at 4 p.m.
Fifth Session— Friday, April 27, 1962, 10:30 a.m.
The meeting was called to order at 10:30 a.m. by Monsignor Murphy.
The paper was read by Rev. Vincent V. Herr, S.J., director of the Loyola
University N.I.M.H. Religion and Mental Health Project in Chicago. His
topic: "Mental Health: Programs in the Seminary and Preparation for Pastoral
Work."
In the discussion which followed the reading of the paper, Father Herr
stated that there is as yet no universal answer to the problem of testing in the
major seminary, and a fortiori in the minor seminary (where personalities
are in such a state of flux as to render testing even more difficult). As to the
results in seminaries where testing is in effect, there is no unanimity of opinion.
He urged faculties of seminaries to discuss these matters and to keep abreast
of the literature which is being published.
Father Herr mentioned that a code of ethics regarding secrecy has been
drawn up by psychologists. It is extremely strict, not allowing the tester to give
any information concerning the testee except with the latter's explicit per-
mission. He urged that there be maintained in our seminaries the highest
respect for the confidential nature of the results of psychological tests.
Monsignor Green and Father Flynn explained the system at Dunwoodie
where testing occurs before admission. Monsignor Schneider explained the
system at St. Francis' Seminary in Milwaukee, where testing is used for students
already in the seminary. He described it as eminently valuable.
Father Herr stated that it was his hope that his studies would be valuable,
not only for the screening of candidates, but, even more important, for help-
ing students found to be suffering from emotional disturbances.
As to the use of trained psychologists, Father Herr felt that best of all
would be a priest trained in psychology; or if there is a referral outside
the seminary, he thought the best doctor would be one with a knowledge of
seminary life and its problems (possibly an ex-seminarian). He concluded
that the seminary professor, with merely a little technical knowledge added to
his already rich background of study and experience, could be of immense
help to disturbed students; there is no need in every case to refer such
students to doctors outside the seminary.
In the business meeting which followed, Father Coerver, chairman of the
nominating committee, made his report: the recommendation that all present
officers of the department be elected for another term. The motion to accept
the report was made, seconded, and carried. Father Hafford, chairman of
the Resolutions Committee, made his report. The motion to accept the
report was made, seconded, and carried. Monsignor Murphy announced that
work was being done on the drawing up of a set of bylaws, which would be
ready next year.
With no other business to be transacted, the motion to adjourn was made
at 12 noon. It was seconded and carried.
Detroit, Michigan Rt. Rev. Msgr. Lawrence J. Riley
April 27, 1962 Secretary
RESOLUTIONS
Be it Resolved:
First: That the Major Seminary Department of the NCEA renews its pro-
found allegiance to our Holy Father, Pope John XXIII, and promises him
to devote its entire energies to the end that our beloved country in the future
as in the past may be guided by zealous pastors of the flock of Christ. It
thanks His Holiness for his continued interest in the seminaries, as evidenced
by his frequent addresses and messages to seminaries and seminarians.
Second: That the Major Seminary Department of the NCEA once more
proclaims its loyalty to the hierachy of the United States, and asks the
blessing of the Archbishops and Bishops on the future work of our seminaries.
Third: That the Department owes a special debt of gratitude to His
Excellency, the Most Rev. John F. Dearden, D.D., Archbishop of Detroit, for
his warm and gracious hospitality. To his Excellency we extend special
thanks for his words of welcome and advice during our joint meeting.
Fourth: That we express our thanks to Msgr. Albert A. Matyn and the
faculty of Sacred Heart Seminary for the generous hospitality shown us.
Fifth: That the Major Seminary Department, NCEA, expresses its deep ap-
preciation of the thought-provoking papers that were prepared and read, and
of the discussions which followed.
Sixth: That the Major Seminary Department, NCEA, in cooperation with
the Minor Seminary Department undertake a study that will lead to recom-
mendations concerning the most effective means of implementing the provisions
of the Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia.
Respectfully submitted,
Gabriel Ward Hafford
John J. Danagher, CM.
Conrad Falk, O.S.B.
MAJOR SEMINARY DEPARTMENT: OFFICERS 1962-63
President: Very Rev. Msgr. John E. Murphy, Little Rock, Ark.
Vice President: Rev. Thomas W. Coyle, C.Ss.R., Oconomowoc, Wis.
Secretary: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Lawrence J. Riley, Brighton, Mass.
General Executive Board:
Very Rev. James A. Laubacher, S.S., Baltimore, Md.
Very Rev. John McQuade, S.M., New Orleans, La.
97
PART 4 MINOR SEMINARY DEPARTMENT
BACKGROUND AND PREPARATION NEEDED FOR THE
OFFICE OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR
Very Rev. James R. Gillis, O.P.
Director, Institute of Spiritual Theology, River Forest, Illinois
As I understand my role in this session, I am expected to open the dis-
cussion, not close it. For this I am grateful, since there is enough divergence
of opinion, a wide spread between theory and practice. Many of my remarks
and comments are applicable to the role of spiritual director in general. Par-
ticular comments on specific qualities required in the spiritual director in the
minor seminary will be presented at the end of the paper.
As I recall, I first became aware of a practical problem existing in the area
of spiritual direction when I sent off a group of lay apostles to get themselves
spiritual directors. The effort was a 100 percent failure. While various reasons
were alleged by the confessors why they were unable to assume this responsi-
bility, there seemed to be a basic fear that prompted their refusals. This was
a reason for wonder that priests who seemed to be confident of their ability
to discharge the role of confessor were afraid to accept the role of spiritual
director. Was this reluctance due to a recognized lack of preparation for the
role, or was it merely due to anxiety without foundation in fact?
In reading the works of the acknowledged masters of the spiritual life, you
can find reason for the reluctance of any priest to accept the office of spiritual
director. The implication in their writings is that few priests, if any, are
properly prepared for this work. St. Francis de Sales asserts that perhaps one
in ten thousand priests properly executes the office of director. St. John of
the Cross spends many pages in castigating inept directors who hold their
penitents back from advancing in perfection. St. Teresa of Avila, whose ex-
perience with directors was wide and varied, is in fundamental agreement with
St. Francis de Sales in saying that the spiritual director must be full of charity,
knowledge, and prudence (Introduction to the Devout Life, I, p. 43). He adds
the warning that if the director lacks one of these qualities there is danger.
Is there any wonder then why many priests hesitate to accept the role of
spiritual director under any circumstances? Almost any priest will have reason
to doubt his knowledge, experience, and certainly his holiness. Are these
doubts merely negative, with little or no foundation in reality? May we con-
clude that every priest who has completed his clerical studies is properly pre-
pared for this work, and that he should not hesitate to assume the obligations
of director whenever he is asked to do so? Considering the fact that clerical
training in the twentieth century is certainly superior to the clerical training
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we might arrive at such a con-
98
Background and Preparation Needed 99
elusion. This would be a happy conclusion, but I fear it does not take into
account all the facts. Considering their improved training, we might admit
that young priests, if faithful to all their duties, including the duty to study,
should be guaranteed by their apostolic mission in the Church an ensemble of
higher lights and graces which ought to fit them for the direction of souls.
This statement assumes the adequacy of clerical training, and that the penitent
presents a normal case of direction. Since clerical doubts tend to center about
deficiency of knowledge, experience, or holiness required for even ordinary
direction, we will consider them in that order. Here I would like to insist that
general capability to assume the role of spiritual director does not include the
ability to direct every soul in every stage of its development.
The Formal Nature of Christian Perfection
Since the spiritual director takes up his function in the Mystical Body, as
the rational instrument of the Holy Spirit, the principal cause of the soul's
sanctification, it is essential that the director clearly understand the nature of
Christian perfection. We are all well aware that Christian perfection consists
in the perfection of charity, in that union with God, who makes us His sons
by adoption and raises us above ourselves, and makes us sharers of His divine
nature {Summa Theoi, II-II, 184,1). The avoidance of sin is a negative con-
dition to the advance of the Christian in the ways of God's friendship.
What is further required is something positive going beyond the avoidance of
sin. It consists in a renunciation of all that we have by nature in order to
possess it afterward through grace. God unites Himself to the soul perfectly
only when it has renounced all and arrived at perfect self-abnegation. This
program of detachment must be universal at least as regards the affections.
This is the simple, explicit doctrine of the Gospels.
Some, however, seem to conceive the Christian life as a superior brand of
natural morality or ethics, and quite consistently they tend to underestimate its
divine character and sublimity. But, as St. Thomas insists, Christian perfection
is something divine, and therefore the rule of reason, even enlightened by faith,
does not suffice to lead the soul to spiritual perfection. To direct our acts to this
end, a superior rule and guide is required. This higher rule and guide is the Holy
Ghost working through His gifts (Summa Theoi, I-II, 68, 2). This points out
the painful limitation of spiritual direction which is founded on "good old com-
mon sense" with sinister suspicion of anything which smacks of mysticism.
This is, however, a logical position if the ascetical life and the mystical life
are seen not as two related phases of the one interior life, but as two unrelated
lives. Then the ascetical life, whose rule is reason enlightened by faith, requires
only "ascetical direction." This is the ordinary Christian way, the way of the
many, and here common sense is the directive light of the spiritual director.
On the other hand, the mystical life, whose rule is the Holy Ghost operating
through the gifts, is the way of the very few, and requires "mystical direction."
In opposition to this unnatural separation of the spiritual life, St. Thomas
teaches that no one can practice the virtues perfectly without the help of the
gifts of the Holy Ghost — without being moved immediately by the Divine
Spirit (Summa Theoi., I-II, 68, 2). Moreover, St. John of the Cross condemns
directors who use "human arguments or put forward considerations quite con-
trary to the doctrine of Christ and His way of humility, and despise all things,
and place obstacles in their path, or advise them to delay their decision, from
motives of their own interest or pleasure, or because they fear where no fear
is; or, what is still worse, they sometimes labor to remove these desires from
100 Minor Seminary Department
their penitents' hearts. Such directors show an undevout spirit, and are clad,
as it were, in very worldly garb, having little of the tenderness of Christ, since
they neither enter themselves by the narrow gate of life, nor allow others to
enter" ("Living Flame of Love," Stanza III, 175).
Traditionally, ascetical and mystical refer to two phases of the one interior
life, interrelated and interdependent. This would rule out any direction which
would claim to be exclusively ascetical. Advance in the spiritual life, at any
level, is made in virtue of the soul's correspondence with grace and flexible
docility to the inspirations and motions of the Holy Ghost. Indeed, the
Christian who does not consistently strive to be faithful to these inspirations
can never hope to make notable progress. Something may appear most reason-
able, in no way contrary to virtue, yet the soul knows that God asks of it
something quite contrary, something entirely different from what the soul it-
self would select as a means of pleasing God. Such incidents are outside the
domain of pure ascetics. A director, committed exclusively to ascetical di-
rection, would oblige the soul to oppose such movements. Human judgment,
even enlightened by faith, cannot plumb these subtle motions of the Holy
Ghost. This kind of conflict can explain, to some extent at least, why so many
good and pious persons, clerical and lay, never reach true perfection. This
is the kind of direction which St. John of the Cross deplored.
Knowledge of the Means of Sanctification
The means of sanctification are treated in moral theology. In our present
program of clerical education, moral theology is severely fragmentized. The
manuals of moral theology tend to present an ordered preparation of the stu-
dent for the exercise of his powers of orders and jurisdiction as the minister of
the sacrament of penance. This is a most important function of the priest,
and concentration on this preparation is completely warranted. But this con-
centration has given moral theology, at least as found in manuals, a definitely
negative overtone. This fact is often lamented, but with a feeling that nothing
can be done about it.
The problem which the spoliation of moral theology of its positive character,
its ordered presentation of the means of sanctification, leaves is of no small
moment. This deficiency is thought to be remedied by a special course in
spiritual theology, often taught as completely divorced from moral theology,
and of dubious stature and value. Usually it suffers the fate of a one- or two-
hour per week course — not important enough to command study time from
the student. I believe that this situation is the reason why many fine priests feel
capable of the demands of the confessional for the remission of sins and at the
same time feel incapable of directing souls toward growth in union with God.
As Pope Pius XI pointed out, "many of the deficiencies of spiritual theology
would be methodically eliminated if students were trained in the study of the
2nd part of the Summa of St. Thomas" (Encyclical Studiorum Ducem, 1923).
Every spiritual director should embellish his grasp of systematic theology
with a steadily growing acquaintance with the great masters of the spiritual
life, particularly St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis de Sales.
Such reading will tend to manifest a constantly growing concept of prayer and
the life of prayer. Such an expansion of his concept of prayer is imperative
for the director. He will begin to appreciate that such communication with
God can be verified in widely diverse circumstances, sometimes not even per-
ceived by the soul, as in periods of progress, of aridity and desolation. The
Background and Preparation Needed 101
director's judgment should not be formed by acquaintance with only one tra-
dition, or certainly not by only one method. For he will frequently come upon
views that are apparently contradictory to what he has read, or at least differ-
ent from it, and then he will not know how to proceed. Acquaintance with
many traditions will provide that broad base upon which his own flexibility
of spirit will be exactly balanced.
Prudence and Experience in the Spiritual Director
While all the virtues are necessary in the director, according to authorities
on the subject prudence is absolutely indispensable. Its importance should be
evident from its nature. Aimed at the perfecting of the practical intellect in
the direction of human action to proper ends and in a proper manner, prudence
is the form of the other moral virtues. So the rule of the acquired virtue of
prudence is reason; the rule of the infused virtue of prudence is reason en-
lightened by faith; the rule of the gift of counsel, which perfects the infused
virtue of prudence, is the Holy Ghost. In the Mystical Body of Christ there
is a charismatic gift of discernment of spirit, which makes the difficult judg-
ments of the director child's play. This last grace is dispensable in the director.
I would like to point out at this juncture that prudence receives its principles
from moral theology. As a science, moral theology can be taught in the class-
room; prudence, on the other hand, is a moral virtue, and is therefore depend-
ent upon right appetite, and cannot be taught or learned as a science. Right
appetite supposes a rectification of the appetite by the moral virtues, and this
rectification will color the judgment. Since the director is expected to direct
another in his pursuit of holiness, he must possess the prudence necessary to
direct his own life and his own pursuit of holiness. Moral theology is neces-
sary in the director for it, too, guarantees that flexibility of spirit which is so
necessary so that he can adapt his direction to the penitent, not the penitent
to his set formula. But direction is practical and, therefore, is the direct care
of prudence. Prudence deals with singular, contingent things, in which moral
certitude of judgment is the best that can be expected. Now the judgments
of men are colored by what the men themselves are — qualis unusquisque est,
ita finis ei videtur. So the director's prudence will forge his guidance of souls
out of the principles and conclusions of moral theology, out of his own ex-
perience in the practice of virtue, out of his previous experience in directing
other souls. To the science, to the virtue of prudence there should be added
the art of spiritual direction. Some of the art can be learned from experienced
directors, some can be garnered from books on the subject. Courses in guid-
ance and counseling will provide helpful material for the priest. But in the
ultimate analysis the art will be properly acquired through actual direction.
Each priest will slowly but surely develop his own personal approach and art
of directing souls. In bringing to this work the fruit of his study and experi-
ence, the personal contact of one member of the Mystical Body with another
member in a relationship which is inspired, sustained, and crowned by charity,
the director certainly gains the reward of charity — wisdom.
Holiness in the Spiritual Director
The spiritual director should be full of charity. Exactly what does that
mean? All authorities seem to be agreed that while it is advantageous if the
director precedes the penitent on the way of perfection, this is not absolutely
necessary. However, what is essential is that the director be seriously and
102 Minor Seminary Department
unconditionally committed to the interior life. Love of God should keep him
aware of his primary obligation — his own sanctification. Without this kind
of commitment, whatever his theological knowledge and experience, he will
lack the essential binding and unitive force of prudence to give coherence to
his direction. First of all, it will insure his own avoidance of that fatal soft-
ness which characterizes the unmortified director who is afraid to require
sacrifice of his penitent because he requires none of himself. There is also
a kind of penetration into souls, their likenesses and differences, which only
introspection can provide. Not just any introspection either, but examination
of self against the screen of divine love and mercy.
Special Qualities of the Spiritual Director
of the Minor Seminary
Since the worthy exercise of orders requires not any kind of goodness, but
excellent goodness, in order that as they who receive orders are set above the
people in the degree of order, so may they be above them by the merit of
holiness (St. Thomas, Suppl. 35, 1, ad 3um). Certainly it is the mind of the
Church that those who are charged with the most responsible task of spiri-
tual formation should be specially chosen and prepared. In the selection,
priests who have already proven their competence and ability in the direction
of souls should be chosen. This would be demanded by the spiritual maturity
and experience required for the office. Certainly the director's preparation
should embrace a study of the principles, criteria, and practical norms of cleri-
cal training. It is significant in this regard that in the recent instruction of the
Sacred Congregation of Religious on "The Careful Selection and Training of
Candidates" (Rome, 1961), it is stated that throughout the whole curriculum
of formation the supernatural sanctification of the soul must, beyond all doubt,
occupy the first place (Sections 32-34).
To my mind the most important quality in the seminary spiritual director
is that he inspire confidence and respect both in the seminarians and the facul-
ty. Without this ability, all his other qualities will be useless. At the same time
I believe that the caricature of the spiritual director as the only friend of the
seminarian in the midst of a hostile faculty should be methodically destroyed.
In conclusion, I would like to say that the temptation to describe the spiri-
tual director's background and preparation in superlative terms has been al-
ways before me. I hope that I have successfully resisted the temptation.
Whatever is deficient in his knowledge, the priest can remedy by further study.
Whatever is lacking in experience can be removed by humble acceptance of
the work of spiritual direction, realizing that he will not be able to guide every
soul, particularly at the beginning. And that humility will help him avoid the
danger of irresponsible judgments. Whatever is deficient in his pursuit of
holiness can be rectified by the grace of God, his own good will, and the wise
counsel of his own spiritual director.
References in Text
Francois de Sales, Saint. Introduction to the Devout Life, ed. and trans, by
John K. Ryan. New York: Doubleday, Image Books, 1955.
Thomas Acquinas, Saint. Summa Theologiae. New York: Benziger Bros., 1947.
Juan de la Cruz, Saint. "The Living Flame of Love," in The Complete Works
of St. John of the Cross, trans, and ed. by E. Allison Peers. Westminster, Md.:
Newman Press, 1953.
JUDGING THE CHARACTER OF A SEMINARIAN
Most Rev. John F. Whealon
AUXILIARY BISHOP OF CLEVELAND, OHIO
For priests engaged in seminary work, one of the most important and most
practical documents published is the letter dated September 27, 1960, sent
from the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities to the Bishops
of the world on the occasion of the Third Centenary Year of the Death of St.
Vincent de Paul. This letter was a forceful reminder that a seminary is, in
addition to being an institution for the training of soul and mind, a court of
judgment in which the faculty, like a Supreme Court, sits in judgment con-
cerning the fitness of each candidate for priestly studies. It said, in part:
The Church has the strict obligation to seek the signs of a true vocation
in all who feel themselves called to the sanctuary. She must make sure, at
the same time, that they have the qualities which will enable them worthily
and efficiently to fulfill their office. We know that whenever God lays on
men such exalted duties and responsibilities, he gives to those so chosen
sufficient graces to enable them to carry them out worthily. The candidate
puts himself forward for the judgment of the superiors. It is for the su-
periors to judge and act accordingly.
This scrutiny begins from the time a student first enters the seminary. It
ends either with his ordination or with his dismissal as soon as it becomes
apparent that he is unsuitable. Each superior in a seminary has his own
particular sphere, but each, by reason of his sacred trust, has a twofold
office. He is to be an educator in the daily task of making a new man out
of each of these entrusted to his charge: and he is to be a judge, as to
whether they are corresponding to the graces they have received, as to their
progress or otherwise, as to the evidence of further physical and spiritual
development, and as to their resistance to or inability to profit by the work
of formation. It is a task which is heavy and full of difficulties but it is a
task which cannot be shirked. The superiors, in their actions, must be
guided by the light of God, to Whom all hearts are open, and Whom all
hearts obey.
These solemn words remind us that every seminary professor, and especially
the rector, is a judge. This obligation to render judgment on seminarians is
shown likewise in the liturgy of ordination. In the liturgy of the priesthood
ordination, a ritual but realistic dialogue takes place between the ordaining
prelate and the seminary rector prior to the ordination ceremony. "Scis illos
dignos esse?" interrogates the Bishop, fully mindful of the prohibition of St.
Paul and of the Church that he should not "impose hands lightly" on any
candidate. And the seminary rector, equally mindful of his responsibility and
with a special prayer for one or two in the class, says in words that even
the vernacular could hardly make more clear: "Quantum humana fragilitas
nosse sinit, et scio et testificor ipsos dignos esse ad hujus onus officii." This
103
104 Minor Seminary Department
moment and this final seminary judgment constitute the terminus ad quern
of the seminary. This is the seminary graduation; this is the commencement
of the new priestly life. The rector speaks this final seminary judgment pri-
marily in his own name, as (to use the descriptive phrase of Pope John XXIII)
the "good family father." He speaks also as the spokesman of the faculty, and
he now speaks this final judgment because in every preceding year that each
of these ordinandi was in the seminary, the rector and the faculty tacitly or
expressly declared that each student was "worthy" to advance closer to the
holy priesthood.
Pope Pius XI has stated in Ad Catholici Sacerdotii concerning the judicial
role of the rector:
The Head of the Seminary lovingly follows the youths entrusted to his
care and studies the inclinations of everyone. His watchful and experienced
eye will perceive without difficulty whether one or others have, or have not,
a true priestly vocation. This, as you well know, Venerable Brethren, is
not established so much by some inner feeling or devout attraction, which
may sometimes be absent or hardly perceptible; but rather by a right in-
tention in the aspirant, together with a combination of physical, intellectual,
and moral qualities which make him fitted for such a state of life.
It is possible to define the work of the seminary faculty as the "happy
elimination of those who are unfit." A recently quoted statistic that there
are now in the United States a total of a half million ex-seminarians has been
urged as evidence of the failure of seminaries to keep candidates in the semi-
nary. Only one in seminary work, perhaps, can see the complete fallacy in
this view. The majority of those who leave our seminaries, I am convinced,
should leave; usually they leave followed by a faculty sigh of relief. The work
of the seminary faculty is to diagnose and to eliminate each year those who
are judged unfit, and to preserve and train those who are judged worthy of
continuing.
Both the final and the yearly judgments should, it appears to me, have three
characteristics: (1) They should be made by the rector after the faculty mem-
bers have voiced their judgments (consultative or deliberative, depending on
the seminary constitution); (2) They should be based on as thorough a knowl-
edge of the individual seminarian as is possible to acquire; (3) They should
be reached according to definite criteria.
A set of criteria for the judgment of the fitness of a seminarian can be a
most useful instrument in seminary operations. Criteria serve as an aid to
faculty members in formulating their judgment; they assist in counseling an
individual seminarian; and they serve as a basis for recommendations to
another seminary or to a bishop or superior.
That the judgment concerning a student should not be made on the basis
of one consideration alone has been clearly stated in the Letter on the Third
Centenary of St. Vincent de Paul:
To evaluate a vocation properly, it is indispensable to know the student's
whole personality. Taking qualities and abilities singly, considering weak
points and defects in isolation, it is possible to be seriously mistaken. These
elements must be considered under the aspect of a person's whole character —
only thus can they be viewed in their proper light. If we are to reach a
correct judgment on the vocation of candidates for the priesthood, we must
not base that judgment on first impressions of a particular facet of their
character. Rather we must strive to see the whole person and thus we can reach
a balanced estimate of the particular elements which form the total character.
Judging the Character of a Seminarian 105
Submitted for your consideration today are eleven specific criteria for
judgment of a seminarian's character and suitability for the priesthood. These
criteria, worked out at Borromeo Seminary after faculty consultation and
reference to available literature, are intended to list in order of decreasing
importance the main items to be considered in the judgment of a seminarian
in areas other than scholastic achievement and the internal forum. The eleven
items, with their qualifying adjectives, are:
A. General aptitude for the priesthood: (Would you want this seminarian
as your assistant?). Under this heading are given four adjectives: (1) Excel-
lent; (2) Average; (3) Needs development; (4) Unsatisfactory. This cri-
terion is put in first position because it epitomizes all other criteria and calls
upon all the powers of judgment and priestly sense of a seminary faculty.
This criterion was most helpful to me: supponendis suppositis, if I would not
want to have this young man as my assistant, if for a reason I would not
want to be living in the same house with him and have him working under
my supervision, then I adjudge him as not apt for the priesthood.
B. Honesty and openness of character. Under this criterion are listed five
adjectives: (1) Very straightforward; (2) Normal; (3) Self -centered; (4)
Evasive; (5) Closed. This criterion is given high rank because it is a presup-
position to any true faculty judgment. A seminarian who is evasive or closed
in his dealings with the faculty is, at best, a questionable risk. A seminarian
is expected to deal with the faculty in an open, manly, frank fashion. A story
which I read several years ago, and which I repeat yearly to our seminarians,
concerned a bishop, who, whenever he visited a new seminary, asked the same
question of the rector. "Every seminary," he said, "is noted for one out-
standing quality. For what quality is your seminary noted?" The bishop said
that the best answer which he received to this question was the following:
"Our seminary is outstanding because we treat our seminarians as men, and
because they act as men." It has been known, has it not, that a seminarian
of evasive and closed character, when ordained and separated from the re-
straints of seminary supervision, suddenly blossoms forth as a strange wild-
flower.
C. Generosity and spirit of charity. Three adjectives qualify this trait: (1)
Very generous; (2) Willing; (3) Selfish. The importance of this virtue in one
who aspires to be Another Christ is obvious, and its absence is thereby the
more important. Too many people have in past generations been alienated
from the Church by selfishness and imperiousness in priests. In that section
of the Encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii where Pope Pius XI talks of the
necessary attitude of the seminarian, he says first: "He must look to the priest-
hood solely from the noble motive of consecrating himself to the service of
God and the salvation of souls."
D. Respect for authority: Obedience. Under this trait are listed six adjec-
tives: (1) Excellent; (2) Cooperative; (3) Disobedient; (4) Resents correc-
tion; (5) Disrespectful; (6) Proud. The importance of internal and external
obedience on the part of seminarians has been put in forceful terms in the
recent (1959) Letter of the same Congregation of Seminaries on the Cente-
nary of the Cure of Ars:
Let discipline, therefore, joyously embraced, be the touchstone by which
Superiors test the vocation of their students. Let them demand an obedience,
not merely theoretical, but effective, singleminded, and complete in all things,
106 Minor Seminary Department
great and small, contained in the Seminary Rule. In requiring this obedience
and in putting it before the students let them recall the supernatural motives
which are its justification and its Supreme Model, Jesus Christ, who had
only one purpose on earth: "To do Thy Will, O God" (Heb. 10: 7). Let
them always remember that obedience primarily involves "obsequium", that
is, a total submission of mind and heart which makes our actions pleasing
to God. If Superiors can achieve this much they can be assured that their
students will also acquire the other virtues proper to a priest, especially
those, like chastity, which require manly will-power and perfect self-control.
Seminary authorities realize the necessity for both obedience and for the more
important spirit of obedience. Menti Nostrae expressed it succintly: "Young
students in seminaries should learn, from their first years there, to obey their
superiors sincerely with the devotion of sons to fathers, so that later they will
accept the will of their bishops meekly."
E. Mental stability and maturity. Under this consideration are subsumed
six categories: (1) Very stable; (2) Balanced; (3) Nervous; (4) Emotional;
(5) Easily led; (6) Effeminate. My experience in seminary work has caused
me to be progressively more deeply concerned about this consideration in
every student. The stresses of modern living, and a fortiori the stresses of
priestly living in the modern world, require emotional and mental stability.
The seminarian who, from whatever the reason, is unstable or highly nervous
is a doubtful risk for the full seminary course and for the priesthood.
The previously quoted Letter on the Third Centenary of the Death of St.
Vincent de Paul gave close attention to this requirement in all seminarians:
We would insist that superiors watch closely over unstable natures to see
whether this weakness springs only from the youth of the students con-
cerned. This will be especially apparent in adolescents. On the other hand,
it may be a permanent defect of character, as in a youth who will apply
himself to a hundred tasks without seeing one through to its completion.
He is a person of nervous temper, always vacillating and undecided, who
always puts one in mind of the basic neurosis underlying these symptoms.
Such characters as these, the products of a world in ferment almost to the
point of frenzy, cannot be blamed for their condition, but they are certainly
not the most suitable candidates for the ranks of the priesthood. This requires
a strong and even temperament, one ready to endure any sufferings and
take any risks for the advancement of God's kingdom.
And the same letter continues:
Therefore, both the whole personality and the many individual traits must
be thoroughly examined, with particular attention paid to his psychological
and emotional stability. The superior is dealing with the realms of the
spirit where the meeting of God with man is the intimate personal re-
sponsibility of each individual; he must tread warily, making constant use
of humble prayer, approaching God with reverence, waiting and listening
and sensitive to the manifestations of His will. Supernatural means must
always take the first place but the aid which the sciences of the educationalist
and the psychologist afford, should not be forgotten. When one's own ex-
perience does not suffice, a specialist should be called in. This, of course,
must involve no compromise of the faith and nothing which is contrary to
Catholic morality must be countenanced. We can never be too careful in
such delicate matters; this is especially true because, as competent psychol-
ogists tell us, the mental maturity of modern youth frequently lags behind
bis physical growth — a trap for the unwary who would content themselves
by judging from appearances.
Judging the Character of a Seminarian 107
F. Common sense and good judgment. Under this heading are listed four
points: (1) Good; (2) Satisfactory; (3) Varies; (4) Poor judgment. This is
a characteristic different from classroom achievement; this is a manifestation
of intelligence other than that indicated by the student's grades. Here proba-
bly lies the explanation as to why a student who goes through the seminary
with consistently low grades can be ordained and can function successfully as
a priest — if he has this trait of common sense and good judgment. An old
pastor used to say: "There are two talents that count in life, brains and tact,
and tact is more important." If a seminarian is a "vix-70" student, I would
pay close attention to his rating here by the faculty. If he seems to have com-
mon sense and good judgment, he deserves to be carried along as long as is
reasonably possible; if he has no judgment, he should not be given the benefit
of the faculty's doubt.
G. Effort: Willingness to work. Under this criterion are placed five adjec-
tives: (1) Excellent; (2) Normal; (3) Poor; (4) Slothful; (5) Self-indulgent.
The Letter on the Third Centenary of St. Vincent de Paul places considerable
stress on this characteristic.
There is a fundamental element in every person from which all the facets
of his character spring. It follows therefore that the superior's energy must
be directed towards a profound study of each individual student, attaching
maximum importance to the resourceful energy of the mind which is called
will power. For example, some brilliant personalities at first make a very
favorable impression — but often they are inconsistent characters who lack
the necessary stability and will be unable to face tomorrow's temptations
and the great trials of life ahead. They will fall victim to fatal weaknesses
altogether too much for their defective will power. At other times, a close
scrutiny can reveal as unjustfied the esteem held, up to then, for the piety
or at least devotional piety of a youth who otherwise showed no great
strength of character. We speak of that apparent piety which is the un-
conscious refuge of the intellectual and spiritual pauper, who once his en-
vironment is changed will stand revealed in all his weakness.
Our indulgent age produces some seminarians whose unspoken philosophy
is that they have come not to serve but to be served. In Humani Generis,
Pope Benedict XV complained of priests who "wherever they go, immoder-
ately desire the comforts of life, and provided they deliver their sermons, put
their hand to scarcely any other work of the sacred ministry, and the result
is that they appear to be seeking their own ease rather than the good of souls."
At times, I fear, unrealistic vocational promotion can easily encourage this
type of person to enter the seminary by stressing seminary facilities. It is good
when the seminary itself does not abound in creature comforts and when hard
work and sacrifice are a part of the seminary tradition. In the words of Pope
Pius XII in Menti Nostrae: "It should never happen that those who ought to
be trained to self-denial and evangelical virtue should live 'in sumptuous homes
and amidst every refinement of pleasure and comfort.' " The soft chair and
bland time-consuming television can suffocate priestly zeal more effectively
than anything else. And this same consideration has been recently stressed
by our present Holy Father, Pope John XXIII, in his address to a group of
Italian seminary rectors on July 28, 1961. The Holy Father quoted words
spoken by him in 1958:
Among the laity there is a widespread impression that certain ecclesiastics
of our times do not know how to resist the temptation of the present: temp-
108 Minor Seminary Department
tations involving the greater and more refined commodities of life, super-
ficiality of studies, of judgment, of words; an exaggerated interest in that
which impresses; uneasiness concerning daily duties which require abnega-
tion, detachment, patience and humility.
H. Sociability. Seven descriptions are listed under this heading: (1) Out-
standing; (2) Mixes well; (3) Shy; (4) Unsociable; (5) Clannish; (6) Argu-
mentative; (7) Repulsive. Because the priest must work and live with people
— whether he is a diocesan or religious — he must be sociable and must be
able to get along with people. His work through life will be much easier if
he knows how to talk to old and young, male and female — if he can be truly
"all things to all men." He must be approachable, as was his Master. As has
been mentioned in previous papers at these conventions, seminary faculties
can at times overlook training in the social graces. This criterion of socia-
bility is most valuable in counseling a student: If the majority of the faculty
finds him clannish or shy or argumentative, then he should be told this and
should be guided toward improvement in sociability.
I. Sense of responsibility. Under this are listed five identifications: (1)
Assumes responsibility; (2) Dependable; (3) Usually dependable; (4) Un-
reliable; (5) Takes things too seriously. We expect the priest to be a leader
of men, a figure in civic life, a worthy representative in society of the Catholic
Church. Many priests must handle large building projects, must manage large
establishments, must supervise many employees, and must govern other priests.
Therefore, responsibility is properly expected in every apt seminarian, and the
seminarian who cannot do even a small assignment well shows himself to be
of questionable aptitude for the responsibilities in spiritual and temporal affairs
that the priesthood brings.
J. Personal habits and appearance. Here are listed four adjectives: (1)
Excellent; (2) Satisfactory; (3) Careless; (4) Slovenly. This criterion, as is
evident, is useful in guiding every seminarian toward the ideal of being "a
gentlemanly priest."
K. Physical integrity and health (to be filled in by the Reverend Infirmar-
ian). There are five descriptive words or phrases here: (1) Very good; (2)
Normal; (3) Frequent illness; (4) Physical defects; (5) Hypochondria. The
health of the students is a source of constant anxiety of any seminary rector
and faculty. Modern parents and children expect much more medical care
and availability of physician than did people of the last generation. The rector
must never permit anyone to say or think that he is unconcerned over the
health of a student, yet he must avoid such excesses as students expecting,
without grave reason, to go to the family physician, students getting and taking
medication without faculty knowledge, and so forth. In a boarding school,
this presents a considerable problem. It is good if the Reverend Infirmarian
has a record of all illnesses and of all medications, so as to have basis for
judgment on this score.
These have been the eleven criteria used by the college faculty of Borromeo
Seminary in evaluating and in counseling all seminarians in nonacademic
areas. In practice, these criteria, with their accompanying adjectives, were
duplicated on a separate piece of paper. Because of the identifying letters
and numbers, it was possible for a faculty member to evaluate an entire class
on a separate single sheet of paper; it was likewise possible, after the faculty
Judging the Character of a Seminarian 109
evaluations were all received, to tally the judgments of the entire faculty on
one sheet. We asked the faculty to make these ratings twice each school year,
prior to student interviews. For counseling purposes the material was used
by the priest-counselor alone, and then only in generic fashion: for example,
"Several members of the faculty think that you have tendencies to be slothful
and emotional." The rating of the entire faculty for one student was kept
permanently in the student file; they were found to give service even in later
years for character, job, and school references. Their main purpose, however,
was to use objective criteria in identifying more effectively and in helping, if
possible, those in the seminary who should be identified: the closed character,
the selfish individual who, as a priest, would be a constant cross to others; the
over-emotional, the lazy, the unrealistic person.
I would like to close with two quotations. The first is from Monsignor
Ronald Knox and was a frequent comfort to me during my years of seminary
work. Monsignor Knox, at one stage in his career (June 1938), was offered
by Cardinal Hinsley an appointment as seminary rector. With beautiful
thought and style, Monsignor Knox stated why he wished not to be appointed
the seminary rector:
There's another defect which may or may not be connected with this, but
it seems to me equally ineradicable and at least equally dangerous — I can-
not take the stern life, or impress people with my dignity. To be called
by my Christian name by second-year undergraduates may be a gift, but it
is not the gift needed if you are to be the Awful Presence in the background
which the Presidency of a seminary demands. ... I think I might easily
be popular, but it is because I find it very hard to say No to people;
and with the best will in the world, I imagine that the head of a seminary
ought to spend a good deal of his time in saying No. You cannot ride
everybody with a light rein, and I feel that here I have been a failure with
most of the people who do not respond to kindness. I feel that if I went
to Old Hall the whole discipline of the place would be subtly relaxed.
Worst still, I think I should lack the sternness needed when it is a question
of getting rid of somebody, boy or divine . . . and I feel terrified of what
might be the results of overindulgence shown towards the difficult cases . . .
Another disadvantage of being an over-complaisant President is that he is
in danger of being too much influenced by his subordinates; and I know
how easily this can lead to jealousies and spiteful criticisms.
The final quotation is from Pope John XXIII, taken from his address to
the Italian seminary rectors on last July 28th. His words apply directly to
you and to your meeting here in Detroit:
These . . . days, spent in .so much serious study and in the sweetness of
brotherly meetings, will bear all the fruits expected of them. Your task,
which is hidden and untiring, is among the most precious of the many
duties in the life of the Church and We wish to assure you of Our esteem.
We are close to you in Our thoughts and with Our prayers and We wish
you much satisfaction in your work, particularly that of being able to see
always the growth of the generations of young priests leaving the seminaries
with shining eyes and open hearts to spread about them that light and that
warmth which they will have drawn from you, from your faith and from
your sacrifices.
TODAY'S RELIGIOUS CANDIDATE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
AND EMOTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
Rev. George Hagmaier, C.S.P., New York, N.Y.
co-author of Counseling the Catholic
It is dangerous and invalid to speak in detail of the "average" seminarian
or candidate. More and more psychological studies of the religious vocation
confirm the long-held conviction that there is no religious personality per se.
Indeed, we find that years of religious training, while influencing certain aspects
of personality, leave as wide individual differences among religious members
as one would expect to find in any other group. We must, therefore, expect
the profile of little mister seminarian to match that of the typical adolescent
anywhere.
There is a vast amount of excellent professional writing on the adolescent
available today, and it is hoped that vocation directors, superiors, and semi-
nary staffs are sampling generous selections of this material. I will only remind
you briefly of several undisputed characteristics peculiar to the American
adolescent of today. He is, perhaps more so than at any other time in history,
something of a little world unto himself. The speed with which the world
changes around us, the ease of inter -personal communication, the availability
of transportation, the availability of material comforts and luxuries, have
created a "third-class citizen" — no longer an infant, not yet an adult — who has
outstripped many of the interests and attitudes of his parents, and yet is not
at all sure about the future into which he is being propelled. He is in many
ways more sophisticated than his counterparts of previous generations, yet
often also more naive. He has seen more, he knows more, he can dream
bigger dreams, and yet he faces greater terrors. Young people today are in
many ways far more independent and critical than in the past. They want
straight answers to straight questions. And they are often deflected from mak-
ing a resolute and total commitment to the religious vocation — or to any other
vocation — because goals are presented to them in shadowy, inaccurate, and
often downright misleading images. Our young people today are too quickly
characterized as soft, indifferent, completely absorbed in trivialities, and in-
capable of unselfish zeal and selfless sacrifice. However, today's adolescents
must live with certain external pressures and many internal anxieties which
they cannot understand, much less deal with. Typical of these modern puzzle-
ments is the confusion of sexual roles presented by today's muddled society.
Our young people have much more difficulty identifying unequivocally with
masculine or feminine behavior. Another reason for the seeming indecisive-
ness of so many youngsters is their inability to cope with the unseen demands
which family, friends, and the culture itself seem to impose — demands for
worldly success, for personal achievement, for material goals. Finally, the
deterioration of predictable and cohesive family life has produced the alienated
110
Today's Candidate: Psychological Considerations 111
teenager — no longer able to achieve emotional maturity in a home which so
often "does not understand him," and yet unable to find compensating rela-
tionships elsewhere.
It seems important to remind you that the aimless and frustrating aspects of
our culture have also created a spectacular national mental health crisis which
has not spared the Catholic adolescent. In addition to vast numbers of the
population suffering from serious mental disturbances, there are many others,
religious candidates among them, who suffer from varying degrees of emo-
tional deficiency, and who must be helped to mature in the seminary or be
persuaded that the religious life is likely to impose needless pressures upon
an already over-burdened psyche.
Psychologists who have been testing and counseling seminarians over some
period of time are persuaded that where emotional problems in the candidate
exist, they are more likely to involve certain traits rather than others. Always
mindful of the danger of over-generalization, we can still say that the emo-
tionally defective religious candidate is often characterized as being one or
several of the following: sexually uninformed and immature; by temperament
submissive, dependent, and inclined to be uncompetitive; more introspective
and self-conscious than the average American; somewhat dissatisfied with life
and family; tends subtly to "passive aggressiveness," difficult to define and
hard to live with. There is also a higher rate of effeminacy — with or without
some past overt experience — which is difficult enough to diagnose, and still
more difficult to discuss predictively.
In terms of both the general and pathological characteristics I have outlined,
it might be well here to say something about the role of the juniorate in the
formation of the mature religious. Let me make it clear from the beginning
that I am not presenting a brief for or against the juniorate. We have for too
long a time been debating some extremely intricate propositions in terms of
black or white, when in reality the question "Is the minor seminary the most
effective means of educating young American candidates" can only be
answered "sometimes" and "sometimes not."
The particular stress the Europeans — particularly the Latins — have placed on
the minor seminary stems from the cultural facts of life over there. Almost
certainly the young European is sexually far more precocious than his Amer-
ican cousin, and is quite likely to view heterosexual experiences far more
casually. The European junior seminary is, then, as much a protection from the
enormous pull of the local mores as it is a spiritual formation. Most Italian
clergy, for example, cannot believe that a young Catholic boy in America can
go to a co-ed high school without falling into irrevocable habits of sin. How-
ever, the sheltered existence provided by the rigidly supervised junior semi-
naries has in many cases not fulfilled its purpose, as the distressingly high de-
fections among the Italian clergy indicate. The fifth-year theology program was
an attempt, also unrealistic I feel, to introduce the new priest "gradually" into a
culture from which he was in many cases snatched too soon.
However, the key to the ultimate maturity of any man, regardless of his vo-
cation, is rooted in his very early years. The debate often does not take this fact
enough into account. All the important attitudes — toward sexuality, authority,
spirituality, independent curiosity and creativity, socialization — are pretty well
jelled in the preschool and early school years. If the early years are healthy
and promising, then it is very difficult for any kind of educative experience
later on to cancel out the seeds of maturity, or prevent them from blossoming.
112 Minor Seminary Department
The problem, of course, concerns those who have not had too successful
an early development. For these individuals adolescence is an extremely im-
portant period. Psychologists refer to adolescence as a "second chance" — a new
and final opportunity — for the immature individual who must still grow out
of his unresolved conflicts of an earlier time.
Unfortunately, we cannot tell beforehand who does and who does not
possess the potentially mature personality. Even a basically healthy youngster
goes through some remarkably puzzling and misleading phases on his way to
adulthood. Breaking away from the family, building healthy relationships with
the opposite sex, testing individual initiative, rejecting certain infantile beliefs
and attitudes, ideally are done more naturally in the home, the neighborhood,
and the community. There is a kind of "brain washing" which may take place
in certain types of juniorates which reinforces rather than resolves certain
negative processes which have become entrenched many years before.
Obviously rebuking those who take a strong stand against the minor seminary
are the many mature, superbly adjusted and highly effective priests who have
spent up to thirteen years in a seminary previous to their ordination. If the
adolescent lives in a home in which he is at ease, where he is developing
happily, encouraged in his testing of the world outside, and at the same time
bolstered by affection and confidence from within, then I am frankly reluctant
to see a candidate leave such a family setting for an institution. However,
as we have already indicated, many families today are too alienating, or too
confining, or too possessive (especially mothers of future religious). In some
cases, therefore, it might well be advantageous to have this subtle kind of
dependency knocked out early in a good seminary which maintains a highly
professional course of study, fosters a precise spiritual formation, enunciates
true apostolic ideals, and provides individual direction for its student body.
By way of parenthesis, I would like to signal out the candidate who has formu-
lated specific vocational goals very early in his career. He makes an interesting
contrast to the vacillating, searching, uncommitted youngster who is more typi-
cal of our times. A boy whose eyes have long been fastened on the priesthood
or the brotherhood may not, with such urgency, need to test the temper of his
vocation against the disciplined rigors of seminary life. In any case, decisions to
enter or not to enter the seminary at any given age must be made with the
greatest sensitivity to individual needs and potentials.
Let us look at psychological implications involving two important periods
in the vocational history of a religious. Let us consider first the period prior
to the young man's enrollment in a seminary.
We know that God uses natural means for supernatural ends. And so it is
not surprising to find that preliminary attractions to the religious life follow
patterns characteristic of attraction to almost every human calling. For this
reason the most significant influence effecting the rise or fall of vocations are
exerted by those who have already chosen to lead the religious life themselves.
The impact which the individual priest or brother makes upon the young men
with whom he deals is the key to whether the ranks of his particular apostolate
will be replenished with fresh and dedicated candidates.
The image of the priesthood or the brotherhood which each religious
projects is therefore most important. Precisely because the values and goals of
the priesthood or the brotherhood are seen somewhat dimly, in embryo as it
were, through the immature eyes of potential vocations means that the essence
of this particular way of life must be sharply and clearly communicated to our
young people. This can only be done if the religious himself clearly under-
Today's Candidate: Psychological Considerations 113
stands the full implications of the life which he has chosen. If he is hesitant,
or confused, or partially uncommitted, then we can only expect hesitation and
confusion and indecision on the part of those invited to share his life.
The basis and essence of the religious vocation is theological. Consequently
the theological implications of our life and work must leap out and enkindle
the imaginations and ambitions of our young students. If, because of a personal
shallowness, or myopia, or because of plain ignorance certain priests or
brothers communicate goals which are short of the theological, or perhaps even
contrary to it, their influence becomes a sham, a scandal, and perhaps a tragedy.
If the religious does not approach his life's work in terms of personal
sanctification (ever closer union with God) and in terms of his apostolic mis-
sion to share and spread this divine life, then the image of his vocation is
already muddied and distorted. The opinion of many seminary counselors
indicates that less worthy motives for seeking the religious life are liable to
be either a flight from sexuality and affection, or a search for power by those
who have basically negative feelings about themselves. Let us look quickly at
both these possibilities.
It is a paradox that we often ask preadolescents and teen-agers to consider
dedicating themselves to a life which renounces possessions, self-will, and the
exercise of conjugal love precisely at a time when these basic human drives
are at their strongest. The desire to possess goods of one's own, the desire
to exercise independence, self-reliance, and personal judgment, the demands
of budding sexuality, the natural need to express human affection — all acquire
new and fresh meaning with the onset of puberty. How important it is, then,
to present the dedication of the religious to the evangelical councils not in
terms of "giving up something" but rather as the acquisition of something
more perfect, more desirable, and more gratifying.
Nowhere is this more important than in the call to chastity. The adolescent
is in the process of developing his capacities to give and receive affection in
their fullest meaning. To present the religious life as a flight from this vital,
human experience is to make him less a man, and to endanger the flowering
of that indispensable foundation of all religious values — supernatural charity.
Here again it is important that the priest and the professed brother examine
with a keen and ruthless eye his own response to such words as sexuality,
affection, marriage, parenthood, children. When he discusses these important
human states and values with a young man, does he reflect a negative, or
fearful, or indifferent attitude?
The new Scripture studies might support my hope that the translation of
our Blessed Lord's words on this subject might be improved upon. When
Our Lord declares "that some have made themselves eunuchs" for the love of
God in order to embrace the religious life, He meant the word "celibate" for
which at that time there was no special term. In our parlance, "eunuch" is an
unfortunate synonym for the celibate man. Eunuch implies impotency, a
sexless state. This is not what our Blessed Lord had in mind. (Indeed, the
Church herself has placed an impediment to ordination in the way of those
so afflicted.)
And, yet, we have all known those religious who would view the sexless
state as the ideal state. They would consider the dissection of sexuality from
their bodies and their psyches as a blessed liberation, even though this would
imply a deprivation of something vitally human.
This is not what is meant by chastity and virginity. On the contrary, without
a full realization of the meaning of sexuality and human love, marriage and
114 Minor Seminary Department
family life, the religious cannot make the kind of sacrificial act which his
vocation demands. We cannot give what we do not have, or cannot ultimately
understand. To quote Canon Jacques Leclercq:
There is no holiness, no purity in celibacy as such; the holiness is in the
gift, and the religious celibate is holy because he is such on account of the
gift. Renunciation is only genuine when one is fully aware of all that it
entails, and this awareness implies a concrete knowledge, drawn from ex-
perience and from life. It thus happens that one finds young people, who
have decided in favor of the religious vocation, without having faced the
question of marriage as it really is. Or, not having discerned all the legi-
timate joys which it offers, in the fullest sense of the word, they discover
its beauty when they are already bound. They discover the beauty of mar-
riage when they see married couples around them who are knowing great
happiness and doing magnificent work. . . . These young people then say,
"I never knew this. This is not what I renounced." This can be followed
by very serious crises, and if they rarely lead to external dramas, they can
sometimes leave the soul in a shattered state, with a deep sense of in-
terior prostration.
We want young men who have a true capacity to love, so that when they
renounce conjugal affection with freedom and knowledge, they are better able
to love Christ, the spouse of every religious soul. Every brother and priest
should be eminently capable of loving a woman, and of loving her well. Every
religious should here and there in his daily experience feel a loneliness which
is a natural concomitant of celibacy. When he sits alone in his room of an
evening he should not be ashamed to acknowledge an occasional wave of
nostalgia and of heartache because he has no wife to come home to, no children
to twine their arms about his neck and call him father. Oh, yes, the super-
natural compensations far outweigh the natural regrets, but this does not mean
that the regrets should be absent.
What a tragedy to find a priest or brother unable to appreciate the joys and
the ecstacies of the married state. If he is emotionally undeveloped and
factually ignorant of these matters, how can he expect to prepare his young
people for the primary vocation to which most of them are called — the married
state. And how can he demonstrate to the potential candidate for the religious
life the genuine meanings of both sacrifice and merit accruing to those who
renounce the happiness of the conjugal state for the greater bliss of direct union
with Christ? In terms of vocations, then, we must ask ourselves bluntly: Do
many young men reject the religious life because some of us have given evi-
dence that we have sacrificed very little? And what of the candidates who are
attracted by the immature, emotionally impoverished religious? It seems
likely that the unknowledgable will attract the ignorant; that the frightened
will attract the frightened; that the suspicious who see mainly danger and evil
in the magnetism between the sexes will attract the anxious, the timid, and the
suspicious. We can do without such vocations.
Poverty need detain us only briefly. This way of life is wholly intelligible
only after its careful cultivation in the houses of formation. For let us honestly
admit that the lives of many clerics and religious today, to the unperceptive eye
of the layman, seem on the surface to be more comfortable and provident
than their own. Food is plentiful, living quarters more than adequate, the
little necessities and even some of the extras fall from heaven with little or
no effort on the part of the individual. Indeed, where carelessly some of us
have failed to scrutinize the impact of our standard of living upon our
Today's Candidate: Psychological Considerations 115
neighbors, we may have discouraged vocations among those seeking a less
affluent way of life.
From the psychological point of view, however, it is the relationship of
poverty to power which may be worth examining for a moment. Money,
as we so well know, is not everything in life. There are many demagogues
who have lived extremely detached and even austere lives, but those com-
pensations lay in the exercise of power. The priest and the religious teacher
has dominion over others. How does he use it? Does he pursue the inordinate
satisfaction of needlessly interfering in the lives of his subjects? Does he
make lordly, unrealistic decisions? Does he arbitrarily demand conformity?
Does he present himself as all-knowing and incapable of error? Do his stu-
dents or parishioners fear him? Do his people see spiritual development or
the process of education as a bore or a chore or an agony, rather than a joy?
If you think a moment, you fill find that certain religious who have made
a clean sweep of their earthly possessions and live in strict poverty, seem
to approach each day by asking themselves with grim satisfaction "Whose
lives am I going to make miserable today?" Power in place of plenty — a
deadly substitution. Again, we must ask how many potential vocations this
type of tragic religious discourages, and what sort of vocation he might en-
courage? For there are those who choose the religious life only because they
are insecure themselves. They covet the position of authority and security
which they have failed to achieve on their own and which is falsely mirrored
by this kind of priest or brother.
Today's vocation director or recruiter has a difficult and specific job to do.
He makes a mistake if he tries to do it all alone. He is wise if he tries to
involve as many competent and interested people as possible. The more im-
pressions he receives of the world of the candidate, and the more contacts
he makes in that world, the better able will he be to evaluate the future
religious, and to help him to deepen and refine his vocation in the pre-seminary
years. The average recruiter is not a psychologist, and will therefore not
attempt any probing analysis of the personality potential of the candidate.
Gross misfits will almost certainly be eliminated by adequate psychological
testing elsewhere. However, the prudent and perceptive vocation director can
learn much from his day-to-day relationships with a boy, his family, and
important people in the boy's life. Because of large case loads, many recruiters
are able to give only small amounts of time to such contacts. This is un-
fortunate. An intimate knowledge of the family relationships of a future
priest or brother is a most important detail. Broken homes and alcoholic
parents, or a too-possessive family environment are all genuine danger signs
of a possibly deep psychological immaturity.
Further, we would hope that every recruiter makes sure that the future
priest or brother comes to know a good number of his potential confreres
already in religion. In this sense, each priest or bother becomes a recruiting
agent. Finally, it is most important to see that the young man receives ade-
quate and regular spiritual direction from an appealing and qualified individual.
Incidentally, the spiritual director need not necessarily be a priest, but can
be a well-equipped brother or even a layman. The importance of frequent and
detailed guidance interviews for the religious candidate cannot be minimized,
and is all too often missing.
Once adequate psychological testing has eliminated the obvious personality
disorders which would constitute serious risk for both the candidate and the
Church, the most important phase of maturation takes place in the seminary.
116 Minor Seminary Department
In the light of what we have already said, it should be clear that we can
expect a great variety and degree of emotional adjustments within the semi-
nary. It should, therefore, be consoling to seminary educators to know that
psychologists believe that a considerable amount of change and growth can
occur on the emotional level during the seminary years. Much depends, of
course, on the emotional maturity of the faculty, and the manner in which
seminary life is administered. A detailed examination of the psychological
implications of seminary training would require another long paper. However,
let me touch on two or three specific points which I consider to be of unique
importance.
When a young man leaves his mother, father, sisters, and brothers for the
religious life, it should not mean that he forsakes all the warm and gratifying
consolations of family life. Indeed, in several senses he exchanges one family
for another. How important it is, then, especially in terms of adolescent
development, that the family spirit be cultivated in the houses of formation.
A family, let me remind you, is a place where we dare to be ourselves, where
we risk revealing to each other our hopes and anxieties, our talents and weak-
nesses, without fear of rejection, reprisal, or ridicule. Too often there is a
needless gulf between faculty and student body. If there is too much formalism,
too much mistrust on both sides, too little understanding and healthy per-
missiveness, then the seminary may indeed be a poor substitute for even a
somewhat inadequate home. Ideally speaking, the seminary faculty should be
made up of extraordinarily well adjusted teachers. They should be chosen,
not just because they know an adademic subject well, but also in light of their
own sensitive self-knowledge, and their ability to relate compassionately and
sensitively to young people.
It is most important that everyone in the seminary lead the common life
together. If the faculty see the young men in their charge more as colleagues
than as underlings they will have no difficulty in eating together, recreating
together, and living generally in each other's company. Father Davis has said
in this regard:
Wherever an honest and intelligent effort has been made at as full a com-
mon life as possible the results have always been excellent. There is no end
of advantages in such a system. It brings about that very desirable and hard
to achieve situation where the faculty is enabled to get to know the seminar-
ians much better than they could in their office or in the classroom, and to
give much better and informed advice when consulted. Quite naturally the
scope of mutual interchange broadens, with the one party sharing with the
other its pastoral experiences and intellectual interests. This clears away
mutual antipathies which almost always stem from an imperfect knowledge
of the other party.
It is amazing how easy it is to dislike another person about whom one
has only a distorted knowledge; and, on the other hand, how easy to be
genuinely liked when one's real self is known. For the faculty, such
interchange is a form of self discipline and an antidote against that pre-
mature senescence which dogs serious people in high places; and if just
this much were achieved, that would be quite an accomplishment. It af-
fords an opportunity of modifying or filling out many of the simplest ideas
seminarians get off, as well as correcting an equally large number of similar
misconceptions one entertains about the seminarians. In a word, it estab-
lishes between the two groups a normal man-to-man relationship, which
transforms the community and helps both groups to develop maturity. All
the objections raised against this system are raised out of devotion to
Today's Candidate: Psychological Considerations 117
routine ways or prejudice, unless it is just a case — God forbid — of their
being too few men around willing to take on a job like this.
In this regard, it might be well to point out one major challenge to the
institutional education of the adolescent. It is the nature of every adolescent
to be in some way rebellious against his elders and authority. The rejection
of certain adult standards of his past seems an inevitable part of the growing-
up process. The rector and faculty must understand this, and should be able
to make patient allowances for certain "experiments in independence" on the
part, especially, of the minor seminarian. The family circle is obviously the
best place for such testing, but if the family spirit is transplanted into the house
of formation, similar growth can occur.
A particularly thorny problem in this regard is the religious rule. If it is
too inflexibly held up as the absolute voice of God for the seminarian, then
when he rebels, or is forced, in a sense, to cut corners, or picks and chooses
the rules which he will and will not follow conscientiously, he is likely to
get into some psychological hot water. The management of ordinary adolescent
rebellion against authority, linked as it is with the spiritual development of
the individual in the seminary, presents some problems which are not so
easily solved. A too legalistic administration of the rule can create "the
religious opportunist," the slightly devious "operator" not unknown in certain
clerical circles. The management of this particular adolescent phenomenon
requires a great deal more study.
Finally, we cannot over-emphasize the importance of good spiritual direc-
tion and counseling in the seminary. The administration of professional
psychological tests to candidates has been a most helpful and significant ad-
vancement. However, many of us have the distinct impression that some
superiors and seminary faculties expect too much from these tests. The test
is only a beginning. The psychologist, whether he belongs to the community,
or is a layman living on the outside, should continue to be involved in the
emotional formation of each candidate. With the permission of the seminarian,
certain test results can be discussed between the spiritual director and the
professional counselor. The psychologist can also provide a most valuable
in-service training program for the entire faculty, helping them on a group
level to duplicate some of the objectives of individual counseling. All too
often there is a grand canyon between the psychologist, the superior general,
the rector, the faculty, and the student. A real attempt should be made to
bring all these people closer together, so that they understand each other's
vocabulary, each other's concepts of emotional maturity, and some of the
problems unique to this or that individual.
How pointless and cruel it is to isolate seminarians in a needlessly insecure
world of tension and unpredictability. Each seminarian should know exactly
where he stands — with himself, his fellow classmates and the faculty. He
should be helped through casual and intensive counseling over the years, to
face the implications of his own vocation. The wise rector, counselor, or
spiritual director, can lead each seminarian to self knowledge, making it pos-
sible for him either to go ahead with his vocational plans, or come to the
conclusion, comfortably and optimistically, that he would do better to seek
a career in another field. Needless to say, the art of counseling, and especially
spiritual direction, is woefully uncultivated, and constitutes one of the most
serious defects of our seminary system today.
In closing, we can only repeat what we began with. Our young people
118 Minor Seminary Department
today are looking, above all, for self-reliant, convinced, dedicated models. The
best recruiter and the best guide, whether in or out of the seminary, is the
religious who is living the full religious life. When he awakens each morning
with a renewed and thrilling awareness of the privileges that are his as a
specially chosen one of God, then his own personal joy and dedication will
shine forth with a radioactive incandescence. The intelligent, holy, compas-
sionate, and in particular, happy religious cannot help but attract young men
who will ask "Is there something special I can do to gain eternal life?" And
such a religious can answer with a full heart "Sell all thou hast, and come, let
us follow Christ together."
AN APPROACH TO PRESENT VOCATIONAL PROBLEMS
AND THEIR SOLUTIONS
Brother H. Bernard, F.S.C.
LA SALLE INSTITUTE, GLENCOE, MISSOURI
Every problem has an answer, and most of them seem to be discoverable
to man, particularly in the sciences. However, some answers God reserves
to Himself. One of these seems to be a permanently effective answer to the
recurring vocational problem. There may have been a day, perhaps, when
there were too many priests and religious. And that too would have been a
problem. The difficulties we are experiencing today are of a different nature.
I would like to put my comments and observations inside a definite frame-
work. Such a framework would include my general approach to stimulate
vocational thinking, particularly among high school students, and what the
Christian Brother approach is in our schools. I will try to identify what I
consider problems, and offer some partial answers. These are inadequate — no
one seems to have discovered any one sure way to inspire youth to give — but
in some instances these answers have borne fruit.
It seems to me that the first conviction we want to get across is that these
are troubled times. There is a religious and sociological crisis in civilization.
Both are closely interrelated. To solve the one would solve the other to a
great extent. I do think that youth today is somewhat thrilled by a sense
of urgency, by a knowledge that they are needed and are being challenged to
fill the need. At least, the one we would like to see become priest or religious
is receptive to this sort of thinking.
Once the stage is set for a challenge, I try to point out that "qualifications" do
not constitute the barrier many like to think. In all too many cases, youth is
prone to say "I don't have what is needed," but they have never asked those
who make that decision. This is a blameless attitude, but it is fundamentally
dishonest. In this sort of approach, there is little or no emphasis on the Church's
term "calling." Stressing this phase in the development seems to place too
great a burden on God. Being receptive and willing — and this willingness
Approach to Present Vocational Problems 119
becomes a desire in good time — seems to be far more important early in a
youth's vocational thinking. Hence I try to place the young man somewhat
on the defensive, and urge him to answer, to God and to himself, these two
questions: "// God would be pleased at your becoming a priest or religious,
would you do it?" And then, "What makes you so sure He would not be
pleased?"
If he can make this commitment, in his will, then qualifications become
important. Physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual — and all of these qualities
can be measured to some extent. Basically, we all want the same man. The
girl wants to marry him because he would be a good risk as a husband and
father; the bishop would like to see him become a priest; we would like to
see him become a Christian Brother. Hence, what he chooses is then his
vocation, blessed by God, but not necessarily God's preference.
Then doubts arise, and why shouldn't they? "How can I be sure?" There
is no answer for this, because one cannot reach certitude at the beginning
of one's vocation. Certitude comes with living it. There are degrees of cer-
tainty, of course, but there is no way to give a young man the assurance he
wants, and to the extent that he wants it. To do so would be unfair, and
would also deprive him of some of the merit of his decision. He simply has
to gamble — which is another way of saying that he has to have a stronger
than ordinary faith. And I might add that the word "faith," as used here,
is very closely identified with "generosity."
Youth wants to be assured of happiness, but happiness comes with living
one's vocation fully. As a brother once remarked, "You want to be happy,
son? You want me to guarantee this? Listen. I cannot guarantee you any-
thing except this: a sure way to grow spiritually, and souls who need you.
All the rest of it you will have to negotiate with God, but you will find Him
most generous."
Thinking thus, it is obvious then that many, many young men do have
vocations to a way of life other than marriage. All of the vocational litera-
ture stresses average health, average intelligence, and so on. Average cer-
tainly connotes "majority." Perhaps the priestly and religious life has been
presented over the years as such a special way of life that the average boy —
and he is the one we are inviting — excludes himself, and most others. To
him, statistics make sense because they make the priest or religious members
of a highly select group. He likes to be with the majority. It is safer. The
average boy observes that the average boy does not become priest or religious,
and this is somebody's fault. Is it our ineptitude or his lack of generosity?
It could be both.
Quite naturally, in all vocational talks I define a Christian Brother. First
a religious, trained in the monastic tradition, then a teacher professionally
trained. The merging of the two makes him a student of books and of boys.
The final product is a religious teacher, so identified by the Church. His is
an entirely separate vocation from the priesthood in its purpose, its training,
and its apostolate. A teaching brother cannot be what a priest is nor do what
a priest does without ordination and training; a priest cannot be what a teach-
ing brother is without becoming a professionally trained teacher.
Christian Brother schools have been placing great emphasis on vocational
thinking. We try to make every brother conscious of his position as counselor
and guide. We urge that every qualified boy, regardless of his present think-
ing, be individually invited to consider the priestly and religious life, not
because he is better suited to them than marriage — in reality, he is well suited
120 Minor Seminary Department
to all three of them or he would not be offered this invitation — but because
the times he lives in demand more priests and more religious, not more mar-
riages. A second phase of our program is entirely spiritual. Besides a monthly
novena in the school, and other devotions, we have consecrated our entire
vocational program to the Sacred Heart. This is emphasized, and strongly
emphasized, in all schools. We have had good results from this. In contrast
to the forties, the teaching brotherhood, whether it be the Christian Brother
or the Xaverian Brother, the Marianist or the Holy Cross Brother, has become
far more popular and appealing to today's youth. In contrast to the forties,
there are many more such vocations; in terms of future needs, we are scarcely
making an impression.
The third phase of our plan is this: Make it possible for our students to
be exposed to the total work of the Church, and the many needs. Hence, any
and all representatives of other orders and congregations are most welcome
to meet with our students. With particular reference to the Midwest, we
like to see diocesan priests associated with our students in the school. Each
school tries to set up a program that exposes the students to other congrega-
tions and other needs. In principle, everyone is welcome. Any priestly or
religious vocation in a school is a blessing. Any problems, where they exist,
are organizational. One cannot devote all day to vocational stimuli, nor can
a principal run the risk of undue emphasis. Each is guided by the needs of
the Church, the opportunities that are possible, and the fundamental reason
for the school's existence. Such a program, we feel, has brought many
blessings to our schools, and has borne good results vocationally.
I might add here that our Provincial is pretty well convinced that the major
problem in today's world is getting candidates, not screening them. He insists
that the rigors of religious life screen all too well. This is an over-simplifica-
tion, and creates endless discussion, but his basic point has much merit. For
instance, in our particular province, about 30 to 35 percent do not finish the
postulancy and novitiate. Sometimes this percentage runs even higher, and
sometimes lower. The present class, which is getting into the novitiate routine
now, has lost only 20 percent. We are trying to cut down our losses at the
beginning, if possible. The losses further along are much smaller. For ex-
ample, in twenty years, there has not been a single graduating brother from St.
Mary's College in Minnesota who did not begin his apostolate in September
following his graduation. At this stage in his life, he has finished his pos-
tulancy, novitiate, scholasticate, has his degree, and is usually about twenty-one
or twenty-two years old.
Is it as important to concentrate on screening, or should we spend our
energies on ways and means to inspire so many vocations that screening
follows as a matter of course? Do the needs of our times demand that we take
another look at what we are looking for in potential priest or religious? This
should stimulate some interesting controversy.
It would be wonderful if today's youth saw the vocational problem in its
true perspective, if they saw it as we do. More men and women are needed
for specific works of the Church, and these priests, brothers, and sisters of
the future are in our schools today. Yet, we do not seem to be able to
convey to them the crisis of our times. At first they are impressed, but the
personal involvement that becoming a priest or religious demands — it is at
this point that St. Paul's reference to those starting a race becomes so true.
In other words, this sense of urgency referred to earlier does impress them
Approach to Present Vocational Problems 121
momentarily, and they will discuss the needs of the Church from all angles —
except that which involves them personally. Quite naturally, they all want to
marry and raise a family. I suppose that the basic blockade is that of gen-
erosity, to return to an old, old word in vocational work. Our Lord would
certainly make it possible for the qualified young man or woman to dedicate
his or her life to God and the things of God if this young adult were first
of all willing, totally willing. We have no right to assume that one who is
willing would not in good time acquire the grace of desire to do this — and
when he has that, along with the natural talents needed, he has all that we
can humanly measure in terms of a true vocation.
Today's youth is not so much security conscious as he is happiness con-
scious. He wants to be assured that he will be happy in the vocation proposed
to him. He wants to be sure it is a right choice. And there is no way to give
him that assurance except by evaluation of his qualifications in terms of what
a particular vocation demands. From this point on he has to take his chances,
just as in marriage. Marriage is supposed to make a man happy and con-
tented, but this comes only to those who pay the price of living their voca-
tion fully, maybe even heroically. Youth can understand this to some extent
in marriage, but fails to see it in any other vocation. The reason is obvious.
He can measure the good, the joys, the guarantees in marriage before he
marries; he knows what he is getting, he is very apt to ignore what he has
to give, and is supremely confident of all else. On the other hand, he cannot
measure with any degree of accuracy just what Christ meant when He made
his reference to the hundredfold. Yes, he wants to be assured of happiness,
or he won't take the gamble. I personally find this the most frustrating aspect
of vocational counseling. There is no way to tell him of the happiness that
comes — nor how much it costs.
The lay apostolate may be misunderstood by him, too. For the most part
this, to him, means being aggressive, alert, well educated, socially conscious
young Catholics. This, to him, is a vocation. He carries their thinking to
this extent, too — spend a year or two or three in Latin America doing the
work of the Church. All of this is unquestionably good and highly desirable,
but it is not a substitute for a life of dedication, nor does it compare, in its
present framework at least, with the good that can be done by priest or
religious. The lay apostolate is a growing movement, highly regarded by the
Church. It may well be another vocation and identified as such, and it may
well be the real answer to the Church's needs, but right now the current high
school students seems to be equating a good Catholic life, either married or
single, but most often married, with the meaning of vocation as we understand
the term. This is a sort of "All this and Heaven too" mentality. We would
expect this way of life to intrigue them — and it does. It also gives them a
very good and valid reason for not dedicating themselves as priests or reli-
gious— but it is not the real reason.
Having become priest or religious, we can take an objective look at our-
selves and realize that this was a hard thing to do, that it demanded much
more than we had of ourselves, that God played the key role all along. Youth
today asks questions, wants honest answers. He may see more than we think
he sees. He may not see us in the same perspective that we see ourselves. And
he may well think that we are asking him to follow us as we imperfectly
attempt to follow Christ. We are not asking him to be imitators of us, we
dare not. Only Christ could say "Which of you shall convince me of sin?"
But we may not be getting this across to them as well as we should.
122 Minor Seminary Department
This ties in with our personal convictions regarding the worth of our own vo-
cation, no matter how imperfectly we live it. Certainly there are those among
us who do not have an adequate appreciation of what they have done, and per-
haps do not understand it fully. These are the ones who subtly convey the im-
pression that they regret their choice and would like to change it if they could.
Some young people want guarantees or assurances that their talents will
be used in specific ways. Making such guarantees is rather dangerous. It
places a man's happiness in jeopardy, because he is building on something
beyond his control. No prospective candidate for the priesthood can be abso-
lutely sure that he will have parish work all the time, or that he won't have
any of it. No religious can be guaranteed that each successive superior will
see that he will be utilized in keeping with his talents. More often than not
this is the way it is, but there is no absolute guarantee on which a man can
plan his life before taking the step. We can't promise any of the things the
candidate sees as he stands on the outside looking in, but we can certainly
assure him that further study, some travel, challenge, personal development,
status, are part of this life — but he cannot and must not let his happiness
or his dedication be premised on these variables. To the future Christian
Brother we can honestly say that we offer him a built-in, assured way to
grow spiritually, and we can promise him that he will always have youth
to work with, boys who need him very much. Other congregations can make
similar promises, in keeping with their particular apostolate.
I have one more point that I would like to label a problem. Why do not
our high school students — and college students, too — talk as freely about the
priesthood and religious life as they discusss marriage? Even if we accept
the fact that marriage is the vocation most of them will choose, and that it
is more interesting to discuss because of its emotional and romantic implica-
tions, I firmly believe that students can and should be re-trained to let the
entire significance of vocations in general become a conversation piece during
the lunch hour, in bull sessions, on dates. Regardless of his own personal
choice of a vocation, he needs this information and knowledge. He needs
an exchange of ideas; he needs to think about this because some day he, too,
will be a priest, a religious, a single man, or a married man — and perhaps
the father of priest or religious. Why cannot this question be discussed in
corridor or cafeteria? Why are they so sure that marriage guarantees them
what they are looking for, in terms of certitude, happiness, success? A think-
ing boy will discover very soon that marriage is like any other vocation fully
lived. It will have its dangers, its pitfalls, its uncertainties, its moments of
greatness and futility and overwhelming beauty, its demands for heroism.
He has to see all vocations as they really are if he is to make a calculated
choice. It is our fault if he does not see this total picture. I do not mean
to imply that it is just as easy to be a priest as it is to be a husband, but
I certainly do say that today's youth has been badly over-sold on marriage,
and under-sold on other vocations.
It is easy to be pessimistic about the priests, brothers, sisters of tomorrow.
However, we would be wrong, totally wrong, to sell them short. They are
the answer to the problem, and consequently, they are adequate for the
problem. They are not soft, indifferent, selfish, unable to keep a secret or
live in silence, blind to the crisis of our times. If we believe this we are
disregarding the Providence of God. These young people are waiting to be
challenged. They are waiting to be used. They are ready for greatness. We
simply have not reached them — yet.
THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF TODAY'S
RELIGIOUS CANDIDATE
Rev. Thomas Murphy
spiritual director, high school dp7ision,
cathedral college, archdiocese of new york, n.y.
We are faced with a very real problem. The shortage of vocations to the
priesthood and the religious life is a world-wide phenomenon. Many solutions
have been offered but, as yet, there has been no increase in the number of
priests ordained or religious professed. Could it be that we have been ignoring
the most important means at our disposal? In preparing this paper one solu-
tion kept appearing in both the Roman documents and in many of the works
on vocations. Father Albert Pie states, "When we are what we are supposed
to be, our novitiates will be full." The Congregation of Seminaries has this
to say, "It is well to remember that in the ordinary course of events the ap-
pearance and development of priestly vocations derive from the personal ac-
tion of the priest as from their instrumental cause. It is an undeniable fact
that vocations flourish where there are real men of God." Perhaps our in-
vestigation into the nature of today's candidate will cause us to reexamine our
life; and aid, by our personal example, the growth of vocations in the Church.
May I beg your indulgence and limit my treatment of the topic. I have
been concerned with the training of minor seminarians and feel much more
at home in the field of the priestly vocation. There is also a second reason.
I do not think the two vocations ought be considered the same, or, without
making proper distinctions, considered at the same time. The two are very
different. One need only read the 538th Canon of the Code which states:
"Any Catholic, who is free from legal impediments, has the right intention,
and is capable of bearing the burdens of the religious life, can be admitted
into a religious organization." The Church is much more concerned about
the qualifications of the student for the priesthood. It is only when speaking
of the candidate for the priesthood that the Church in her code of law uses
the term "vocation." The call to the priesthood is a divine call, while that to
the life of the religious is not. The priesthood is primarily directed to the
salvation of others, whereas the primary purpose of the religious state is to
assist the individual in his pursuit of perfect love of God. This does not mean
that the secondary purpose of the religious state can be forgotten. It is the
fulfillment of this secondary purpose which has staffed our schools and pro-
vided most of us with our primary education.
For these reasons, I would like to confine my remarks to the student for
the priesthood. However, since this would be to avoid part of the subject
matter, I would like to present a few thoughts concerning the religious
vocation.
The invitation to lead the life of the counsels has been the source of a
123
124 Minor Seminary Department
great many misunderstandings. The difficulties arise from a failure to under-
stand the natuure of the vocation. In a recent work by Father Richard
Butler, O.P., Religious Vocation: An Unnecessary Mystery, the matter receives
a clear treatment:
. . . the presumption is in favor of a general invitation to try such a life,
with the assurance of the necessary grace to persevere. (P. 109.)
. . . the religious state does not require extraordinary graces or the special
call which brings a candidate to the priesthood. In ordinary circumstances
the normal Christian, with the right intention and a will docile to grace
and direction, can succeed in the practice of the evangelical counsels.
(P. 130.)
One is morally suitable for admission into religious life who manifests both
natural and religious virtues to a sufficient degree and has a sincere desire
to perfect himself in this state of life by using the means provided. The
indispensable natural virtues required, according to Father Philippe, are:
a right conscience, a profoundly honest character, sincerity and sociability.
The required religious virtues are: true piety, docility for direction, a spirit
of penance to accept the renunciations required, the practice of chastity, and
true devotion to a way of life dedicated to the service of neighbor for the
love of God. (P. 124-5.)
Father Butler indicates that a great many more could be urged to give
the life a try, after carefully investigating to see that the necessary require-
ments are present.
The Church, in her capacity as the dispenser of God's mysteries, exercises
very special care over the selection and training of those who are to be the
ordained ministers of the mysteries of Christ.
Before evaluating today's candidate for the priesthood, it will be necessary
to understand exactly what a vocation to the priesthood is. It is a call by a
bishop to a man who has the desire to be a priest, with the motive of serving
God and saving souls, and who is possessed of the necessary natural and super-
natural gifts.
A man has no "right" to the priesthood. He is called to that office by a
bishop. The bishop has received from the teaching authority of the Church
very detailed instructions as to whom he may call to this exalted office.
The man must have the desire to become a priest for the sole purpose of
serving God and saving souls. We cannot know the will of God with absolute
certitude unless He has revealed that will to us. Since there is no necessity,
according to the teaching of the Church, that there be a divine revelation of
the vocation of an individual, we can have only moral certitude about the
presence of a vocation. As far as the subjective element is concerned, the
first and indispensable element is the desire to be a priest. It hardly seems
necessary to mention this, but it will later be apparent how important it
can be.
Once this desire is present, the man must present himself to the proper
authorities as a candidate for the priesthood. It is then their obligation to
tell him whether or not he has the necessary qualifications. These qualifica-
tions are the external signs of a vocation to the priesthood.
What are these external signs? There are almost innumerable documents
from the Holy See regarding this very important matter. One of the recent
documents stands out as a succinct and clear explanation of the Church's
teaching. It was a letter addressed to the Bishops of the world on the occa-
sion of the Third Centenary of the death of St. Vincent de Paul. The letter
Spiritual Nature of Today's Candidate 125
entitled "Certain Problems of Ecclesiastical Formation" was published in the
Review for Religious in 1961.
In this letter, the Congregation of Seminaries insists upon the application
of the well known Thomistic principle, that supernature is built upon nature,
as of extreme importance in making a judgment concerning the presence of
a priestly vocation in an individual.
It is often repeated, and not without truth, that prior to making priests,
the teachers in our seminaries should make it their first care to train up-
right men. The purpose of this assertion is to emphasize the importance
of human qualities in the full priestly personality. This is the sincere mind
of the Church. She demands precisely the presence of notable natural gifts
in formulating a positive judgment on the worthiness of candidates, and
these are the foundation, the starting point of the ecclesiastical formation. A
vocation does not involve the rejection of the human qualities of man. On
the contrary it places the highest value on what he is by nature and grace.
The God who gives the divine call is the same God who has bestowed the
gifts and who waits for the day when these talents show their increase. Grace
does not destroy nature: but according to a Thomistic principle so very fertile
in the field of theology, it restores, purifies, elevates and transforms human
nature. Moreover, it can even be said that, in the ordinary course of events,
nature conditions grace inasmuch as the action of grace is facilitated where
human qualities abound, whereas it is stultified where human qualities are
lacking. Consequently, anything which is contrary to nature has no part in
Christian and priestly virtues and any educational system which disdains
natural virtues would be unreasonable and confusing and fraught with dire
consequences. (P. 172.)
When these human qualities are present there is a reasonable hope that,
cooperating with the seminary training, the young man can advance to the
priesthood. To simplify an extremely complicated subject, the natural gifts
can be divided into those of mind and those of will. The gifts of mind re-
quired are those necessary for the study of the humanities, as understood by
the Church, and insisted upon anew in Veterum Sapientia, and the ability
to learn scholastic philosophy and theology. The gifts of will are those which
will enable the person to avoid, with the aid of God's grace, grave moral
lapses and which will make it possible for him to do the work of the priest-
hood. St. Vincent de Paul put it very well:
We must be on our guard because there are many who think that when
their exterior deportment is correct and they are filled with great sentiments
towards God that they have fulfilled their duty; but when they are con-
fronted with the practical work of the apostolate their inadequacy is made
manifest. They flatter themselves with their lively imagination; they are con-
tent to converse sweetly with God in prayer; they even talk the language of
the angels; but outside of this when it is a case of working for God, when
it is a case of suffering, of mortification, of instructing the poor, of going
in search of lost sheep, of being content under privations, of accepting ill-
ness and other misfortunes, alas! they are not to be counted on, their
courage fails. No! No! We must not deceive ourselves: our whole job con-
sists in working. {Review for Religious, p. 162.)
The Congregation states that the energy of superiors must be directed toward
a profound study of each individual student, "Attaching maximum importance
to the resourceful energy of the mind which is called will power."
If the natural gifts of mind and will are found to be present then there is
reasonable hope that the spiritual qualities, which are essential, can be de-
126 Minor Seminary Department
veloped in the students to the extent that they become what the Church wants
them to be: ". . . men of sound moral fiber, men of deep-rooted convictions,
prepared for sacrifice and self-oblation. Only then does she feel confident
in presenting them to her divine spouse for the seal of ordination."
In order to form the seminarian into a suitable subject for the reception
of Holy Orders, it is necessary to nourish in him a deep awareness of the
supernatural. There is no better way of doing this than through a real knowl-
edge of Christ as priest and victim. The man called to the priesthood must
be prepared for sacrifice and self-oblation. He is to give himself for the
people as Christ did. Aware of the world of which he is a part, he must
yet be detached from the attractions, principles, methods, and facile com-
promises of that world. This ideal personality can be achieved if by the
practice of prayer and mortification the student gains a real knowledge of
Christ. It must be a real knowledge, not merely a notional knowledge. This
distinction between notional and real knowledge, a very valuable one, was
made originally by Cardinal Newman. Notional knowledge is information
stored in the mind. Real knowledge is that which moves a man to action,
and is gained by a deep meditation of truths until they become a driving
force in a man's life. Such a knowledge of Christ must be gained and it
will enable the seminarian to fulfill the great injunction of Christ, "Deny your-
self." The Congregation of Seminaries holds that this admonition "is at the
root of all Christ's teaching, and it contains the key to the secret of Christian
vocation and above all the priestly vocation" (p. 175). The student will then
be able to say with St. Paul, "I rejoice now in the sufferings I bear for your
sake; and what is lacking of the sufferings of Christ I fill up in my flesh for
his body which is the Church; whose minister I have become in virtue of
the office that God has given me in your regard" (Collosians 1:24).
How do our seminarians measure up to this high ideal demanded by the
Church? Father Valentine Young records in The Role and Function of the
Spiritual Director in the Minor Seminary, the results of a questionnaire sent
to the spiritual directors throughout the country. The 58th question asked:
"What do you think are the main causes for boys discontinuing?" Many reasons
were given. The author tabulates the reasons given according to their fre-
quency. In the opinion of a great many spiritual directors throughout the
country, the five most important causes for young men discontinuing their
preparation for the priesthood are: a lack of mental ability, a lack of the
spirit of sacrifice and generosity, no vocation, the attraction of the world,
and a lack of purity. It almost seems that the question was answered by
referring to the letter from the Congregation of Seminaries. The question-
naire was answered more than two years before the Roman document, even
though the answers appear to be a brief outline of the Congregation's letter.
We can draw certain conclusions. A good many of the young men who
leave our minor seminaries should never have been admitted in the first
place. Surely it can be known today, with a fair degree of accuracy, the
mental ability of the applicant. The presence or absence of a desire to be
a priest can be ascertained with fair certainty. The young man must at least
give a strong affirmative answer to the question, "Do you want to be a priest?"
These are the first and third most frequent reasons for leaving the minor
seminary. If we are careful, perhaps we can spend our time developing
those who really have a vocation to the priesthood.
The question is frequently asked: Are the standards too high? In the face
of the world-wide shortage of qualified men desirous of becoming priests,
Spiritual Nature of Today's Candidate 127
would it not be possible for the Church to lower her standards? The Con-
gregation has a fine answer to the objection:
Preoccupation with numbers regardless of quality is clearly seen to be a mis-
taken policy. The admission to the sacred ministry of men who are only
mediocre is a corrupting influence not only on the zeal of their fellow priests
whose apostolic effort is thereby lessened but above all on the intensity
of the religious life of the laity. This last, of course, is a necessary condi-
tion for the birth of good and numerous vocations . . . Let it be quite
clear that preoccupation with numbers, whenever it tends to compromise
quality, is self-destructive, slowly but surely drying up the sources of voca-
tions and paralyzing the work of divine grace. Pope Pius XI quotes St.
Thomas Aquinas, "God never abandons His Church; and so the number of
priests will be always sufficient for the needs of the faithful, provided the
worthy are advanced and the unworthy sent away."
We come back, then, to the religious vocation. It is intimately connected
with the priestly vocation. According to the teachings of the Church, we
cannot hope to have the necessary religious vocations unless only the truly
worthy are advanced to the priesthood. I would add that if the unworthy are
admitted to our seminaries they will have the same demoralizing and cor-
rupting influence which the unworthy priest will have upon the laity.
We are all engaged in the work of Christian education. The Roman docu-
ments have evidenced a lessening of the supernatural element in the training
of men for the priesthood. The Church teaches us that there will be vocations
in abundance when there are holy priests. Each teacher can instill into the minds
of the truly suitable a desire to serve Christ perfectly in the religious state; or
to nurture in those who have received a call from God, the seed of the
priestly vocation. To do so many of us need a clearer understanding of
the nature of the priestly and religious vocation. This can be gained by a
careful and thoughtful reading of the Congregation of Seminaries' letter on
Certain Problems of Ecclesiastical Formation and Father Butler's book
Religious Vocation: An Unnecessary Mystery. We must also try to teach
religion as a vital and vibrant subject. In that regard an attempt to familiarize
ourselves with the systems presently advocated by the world's leading catechists
would help us to bridge for our students the gap between notional and real
knowledge. This would open to their minds the supernatural world and I
think our vocational problems would begin to subside.
We must always keep in mind that "When we are what we are supposed
to be, then our novitiates will be full," and "It is an undeniable fact that
vocations flourish where there are real men of God."
SEMINARIAN RESPONSIBILITY: SCOPE AND MEANS
Very Rev. Donald J. Ryan, CM.
ST. LOUIS PREPARATORY SEMINARY, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
In the October planning meetings that preceded both the 1961 meeting
at Atlantic City and the 1962 meeting in Detroit, one of the points emphasized
was the desirability of sessions such as this in which a subject could be fielded,
reviewed for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then opened to the floor for com-
ment under the direction of previously selected discussion leaders. Per-
sonally, I feel that this approach may well be the only approach capable of
coming up with solid practical results with this particular subject. "Seminarian
Responsibility" has an unenviable record and an unparalleled history as a
soporific.
I feel that I was selected — or sentenced — to this paper mainly because I
forgot to duck! However, in common with all of you, I have had random
thoughts on the subject but I have never had enough nerve to jot them down.
The experience in a rather large day-school seminary has supplied me with a
few answers, many problems, and several observations. I will be brash enough
to proceed with these in the hope that the exposition will prompt answers
and observations of your own that will make the whole session worth while.
First of all, I consider the subject extremely important, more important
today than at any time in the past, and one that will be a mounting problem
for seminaries with the passing of each day. The reasons are rather obvious:
1. Because the responsibility that we are striving for is not merely on-the-
job responsibility, but responsibility that is tantamount to a way of life.
2. Because many of the opportunities for the exercise of responsibility that
you and I had at home are fast disappearing from the scene. If other
opportunities have replaced them, they are, for the most part, outside
the pale of our personal experience. Transportation to and from school
used to be our problem; today it is the parents'. Getting to Mass and
the sacraments was formerly up to us; today they are written into the
school schedule. Recreation was where we made it; now leagues, pro-
grams, and entertainment are tailor-made. Moreover, parents and fam-
ilies themselves have become so conscious about measuring up to other
parents and families that in many instances the smallest details of living
are planned out for modern-day youngsters.
3. Because in very recent years, for both academic and economic reasons,
there has been an emphasis on size in our modern high schools. Many
of the reasons first proposed by Dr. Conant and now being pursued by
the various accrediting agencies are sound and valid, but the fact re-
mains that while large seminaries may run much more economically and
may provide for much more depth in the curriculum, that very size is
128
Seminarian Responsibility 129
an obstacle to searching out the signs of responsibility in the individual
students.
4. Finally, the subject is important not only because of the shortcomings
we see in ourselves and occasionally witness in our own ranks, but
because of what we project for the priest of the future wherein he will
be expected to continue the role of the priest as a responsible leader
but no longer with the advantage of a vastly superior education.
The ability or inability, the willingness or the reluctance of seminarians to
be answerable for their conduct has haunted all of us for many years. We
were admonished for not evidencing it as seminarians and we have voiced the
same criticism of our own students. Because of it we have been under fire
from time to time by college and theologate and we have been quick to relay
the volley in the direction of parents and grade schools. Perhaps, at the out-
set, we can exercise responsibility in our own right by ceasing to pot-shot at
these two for the shortcomings of incoming students. Granted that entrance
procedures could be improved and that academic qualification and technical
eligibility seem to have an exaggerated importance, by and large we are getting
the best Catholic boys from the best Catholic families. I don't think there
can be any doubt about the fact that the percentage of those who seem obvi-
ously unqualified is inflated by unfavorable comparison with their classmates.
This should not lessen their candidacy. It was at one of these NCEA meetings
several years ago that I was reminded that it is no great credit to the seminary
to present for ordination those who were obviously qualified from the very
first day that they survived a cafeteria line. Our real worth as seminaries is
determined by what we do for those who fall below that level.
"Scopewise," the remarks that I have to make have as their background the
high school years of a 4-4-4 system. As a matter of fact, one of the strongest
arguments leading up to our adoption of 4-4-4 was the conviction on the part
of many that it would, in the area of student responsibility, set precise limits
to what the seminarian would be expected to evidence and to what we the
faculty would be led to expect. I feel that this has been realized. At the end
of four years in the seminary high school, we expect the seminarian to be
able and willing:
1) to do what he is told.
2) to size up a task, and
3) to have the nerve to confront it.
4) to think out his ordinary problems.
5) to seek help from available sources.
6) to realize his limitations.
7) to stand on his own merits.
8) to learn from his mistakes.
This is the type of responsibility that we are aiming for. If we don't always
secure it — and we don't — that fact doesn't make the goal less realistic or de-
sirable. Presuming effort and good will on the part of the seminarian, there
is good reason to investigate the part that we play in motivation, opportunity,
supervision, and evaluation.
If there is a strong temptation to consign the matter of motivation to the
spiritual director there is probably no more drastic mistake than departmenta-
lization of this nature. In the entire area of student responsibility, what we
the faculty members are is much more contagious than what we say. No
130 Minor Seminary Department
matter what the class or activity, the priestly motivation that the faculty
members provide, subtle at some times, obvious at others, is paramount. To
the degree that we connect seminary study and seminary activity with the
priesthood, we keep alive the spark that inspired these young men to sacrifice
something to come here. This takes judicious work on our part but it makes
those eight, ten, or twelve years less like an eternity and more like a distinct
possibility.
It is certainly apparent that the exercise of responsibility presumes the
opportunity for the same. The genius of any seminary administration will
show up to the extent that the seminary program, precise and awesome in the
catalog, is tooled down in every one of its areas so that there is given to every
student as early as possible the opportunity to indicate what his present equip-
ment is.
This program immediately runs into trouble as we deal with various types
in various circumstances: day-hops and boarding students, those who practi-
cally have to be chased home at night and those who make dismissal look like
a prison break, those who are bright and their counterparts, the exceptionally
mature and the grade-school heroes who are rapidly losing both luster and
confidence.
Thank goodness for the traditionally tough seminary curriculum that comes
through and performs an outstanding service. It absorbs if not the interest at
least the time and the energy of swarms of students and gives us our first in-
sight into them. The one drawback is that this is our first impression and one,
particularly in these days with the emphasis on academic excellence, that is
liable to prejudice subsequent impressions.
Add to the curriculum the co-curriculars, the student councils, the various
clubs and organizations, the athletic programs, the work orders, and various
other assignments and it should be immediately obvious that the opportunities
for divergent interests and useful occupation are manifold.
But that is not the point. My contention is that the element that is ques-
tionable, the one that is so often missing, is the sensitivity of the faculty to
these as opportunities for the manifestation and development of responsibility.
If we are on our toes and keen in our observation of what is going on around
us, we will witness the seminarian's character, personality, and traits popping
or sputtering as he develops in our very midst. If we get caught up in the
big picture and lose sight of the individual student then there are important
lessons that we will never never learn; for example, that this year's flop by
the Dramatic Club was much more revealing and salutary than last year's
success, that we made $5000 on this year's bazaar and lost a cool million in ill
will, that last year's rum-dum basketball team were champions and this year's
champs are rum-dums!
In the practical order, sensitivity such as this involves:
1. Interest at the sacrifice and even the theft of our own time.
2. Independent evaluations of the student on the part of the faculty.
3. The search for positive signs rather than negative.
4. Systematic recording in a student's record of the impressions in various
areas and by various professors.
5. In almost any student venture, the opportunity to make a mistake.
Several observations:
1. Students reach a level where they are ripe for additional responsibility.
To be oblivious of this or to ignore it is responsible for much in the way
Remedial Reading Program in the Seminary 131
of sourness, indifference, or discontent.
2. As often as we have given a student a responsibility associated with
a higher grade-level, we have regretted it.
3. Unless we are careful to vary a student's opportunity to exercise re-
sponsibility, there is every danger of confusing it with mere interest.
4. There is a great deal of emphasis today on creativity. Many sins against
responsibility can be committed under the pretext of being creative.
A REMEDIAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL READING
PROGRAM IN THE MINOR SEMINARY
Rev. Hugh J. Biggar
VICE RECTOR, PROCURATOR, MARYHILL SEMINARY, PINEVILLE, LOUISIANA
When people are in love and are reading a love letter, they read for
all they are worth. They read every word three ways: they read between
the lines and in the margins; they read the whole in terms of the parts,
and each insinuation and implication; they perceive the color of words, the
odor of phrases, and the weight of sentences. They may even take punc-
tuation into account. Then, if never before or after, they read. (Adler,
How To Read a Book.)
From Tins quotation it is obvious that Dr. Mortimer J. Adler has caught
the real secret of successful reading — motivation and high interest factors.
If our students would read everything as lovers devour their love letters, there
would be no need for this paper. Unfortunately, not all motivation is quite
so powerful. But at least we, the teachers, are convinced, and try to convince
our students of something else Mr. Adler says: "Reading is a basic tool in
the living of a good life." Without a competency in reading, there is not much
hope in anyone ever experiencing the true intellectual and cultural pleasures
reserved for those who can move from the company of Thomas a Kempis to
that of Graham Greene; from the Utopia of St. Thomas More to the whaling
ship of Melville's Captain Ahab.
It is an established fact that the degree of general academic proficiency
achieved by any student depends basically on his ability to read. By reading,
I mean the facile comprehension of all the various written and printed symbols
that communicate the ideas which become the foundation of his knowledge.
It is also a fact, unfortunately, that 15 to 20 percent of all who finish the
eighth grade suffer some degree of retardation in reading.
The common experience of many engaged in minor seminary work is that
each new crop of neophytes contains a number of worthy candidates, as far
as can be determined by other external indications, but who labor under a
crippling reading problem. It would be of no use to us to launch into a lengthy
expose of the individuals and the system which conspire together to create
132 Minor Seminary Department
this situation which hampers so many. The fact is that the problem does
exist, and probably will for some time. Our question must be and is: What
can be done to help overcome this handicap so as to place these students on
the road to achieving the kind of work they really should?
Besides the retarded readers, for such are these called, we must not forget
another group, usually smaller in number, but of great importance. I mean
the exceptionally gifted students who not only have no reading problem but
are already reading years in advance of their chronological level. They, too,
must be helped on to the heights made attainable by their high scholastic
aptitude. To hold them back to the level and speed of the average student
is to do them a great and unjust disservice.
Unhappily, in most seminaries, we have neither trained reading diagnosti-
cians nor reading instructors. What then, in the field of reading improvement,
can we do for our students? In the regular classroom situation, helping the
quick reader to progress, the average reader to maintain his average capability,
and the poor reader to make strides as quickly as possible to catch up with
his classmates presents quite a formidable dilemma. Let us, therefore, con-
sider our problem in detail.
Given the instructions of the Holy See concerning the average ability re-
quired for the acceptance of candidates into our seminaries, we can, I think,
rule out the possibility of any really disabled readers being numbered among
our students. A disabled reader is one who suffers a basic deficiency in the
reading skills, or has some radical physical complication. People of this sort
require clinical help. What we must contend with are average students and
even some of superior academic potentiality afflicted by bad reading habits.
Their problem will exist because of: a small and, therefore, crippling vocabu-
lary; or defective reading comprehension; or too slow a reading rate; or an
admixture of these three.
A poor vocabulary, as Strang, McCullough, and Traxler point out so well,
could grow out of many different causes: an indifference toward any reading
that is not part of an assignment; a lack of new stimuli to introduce new
experiences and new words; very narrow fields of interest or curiosity; a past
history of being allowed to skip over hard words; no training in the use of
contextural clues; or too strong a dependence on learning by listening to class-
room lectures and discussions.
It could be noted here that many of the reading difficulties springing from
a weak vocabulary can be avoided if every teacher would take the time to
instruct his pupils in the technical phraseology of his particular subject, con-
necting these new words with existing points of reference and experiences of
his students, and defining them in words already familiar to them.
There are three basic reading comprehension problems:
1) an inability to uncover main ideas, key points and definitions;
2) confusion as to the author's true aim or purpose;
3) a lack of critical principles to judge a work as good or bad, as useful
or not.
Those who have a comprehension problem have never learned to read with
a definite purpose in mind. They do not know what questions to ask as they
read, nor are they aware of the interrelationships of the parts to the whole,
and the whole to each of its parts. Inferences and implications completely
escape them.
Finally, a rate, or reading speed, problem is usually a result of a bewilder-
Remedial Reading Program in the Seminary 133
ment concerning the meaning of words or the true content of the thing read,
or a mixture of the two preceding problems: vocabulary and comprehension.
A solution of the trouble in these other fields usually solves also a rate diffi-
culty. Sometimes, they simply do not know that all kinds of reading cannot
be read at the same speed.
Vocabulary, comprehension, and speed — these are the three general areas
of difficulty. But we must never lose sight of the fact that retarded readers
do not group themselves into neat little units. There are almost as many
levels of retardation as there are retarded readers in any given class. This
adds a new facet to our problem, since there just isn't enough time in our
crowded schedules, or at the disposal of our staffs, to have elaborate individual
reading programs; nor are there trained personnel to give specific help to all
the possible types of retardation.
On the other hand, and crying out their demands in as loud a voice, we
are faced with our gifted students. Here are the really talented ones, bored
by the repetition and type of assignment required by their slower brothers.
They quickly consume the facts and knowledge presented to them and hunger
for more. They seem to need very little drill. If they do not receive the
necessary challenge, they tend to gradually become disinterested, and drift
toward laziness because of their ennui. Among them also, we find many levels
of ability, and we suffer the same lack of time and personnel to give them
individual attention.
And so, we have raised the culprit, the reading problem, and exposed it
to view. After observing its many faces, and recognizing our own limitations
in time and apparatus, certain points stand out as being fundamental in a
reading program for this type of institution.
First, there must exist a definite profile of the student's potentiality, and
this can be gained only through testing. Because of all the natural overtones
that accompany any testing, this should be kept at a minimum. Nevertheless,
some valid measure of each student's mental ability must be gained. There
are many good intelligence tests on the market, but I prefer those that are
basically nonverbal. How can a test be valid for someone with a reading
difficulty if its scoring favors the verbal factor heavily? A retarded reader
could not give a true representation of his capabilities on such a test.
Both the oral and silent reading ability of the student must be determined
through testing. A test of oral reading ability gives information on word
recognition, sight vocabulary, word repetitions or omissions, and comprehen-
sion. Problems of word attack become immediately evident. The test of his
silent reading ability will reveal a wealth of information. A good test will
measure rate, comprehension, word meaning, sentence meaning, paragraph
comprehension, and ability to locate information. These two tests must be
valid, yet simple to administer, since they will usually have to be given by
the teacher in whose class the program will be placed. There are a number
of very fine tests. Unfortunately, more stress has been placed on the means
of discovering the specific problems of our students than has been put on
creating programs that will help them overcome those problems.
Once a true profile of ability is attained, then, the problem is only made
manifest, not overcome. It is now possible to begin the actual reading pro-
gram. In order to give effective help to the retarded reader, the material
presented to him must approximate his level of individual deficiency so that
he can begin to overcome his plight at the level of difficulty at which he finds
134 Minor Seminary Department
himself. Also, he must become ego-involved in his problem, and kept aware
of the progress he makes.
He must work on his reading for at least twenty to twenty-five minutes
three times a week. He must be led to make good self -evaluations as he pro-
gresses. It is also most evident that the program must be flexible enough to
care for the ever-changing needs of the student as he overcomes one obstacle
after another and thus progresses toward his true level of ability.
The gifted pupil must also be challenged at the level of his individual
ability. As a matter of fact, his program of development must in every way
parallel the remedial program of his less proficient classmate, with the obvi-
ous difference in difficulty. It must be as frequent, as comprehensive, and
as easy to supervise. Here, also, motivation is most important. He must be
rewarded for his proficiency by being given time for private recreational but
challenging reading. He must be made to want to improve his reading rate.
In this, the reading-rate machines can play a very important part — more will
be said about them later. Still, we must consider these points not as ideal
conditions but as minimums for a successful program.
What Is the Solution?
In accordance with these considerations, then, what is the solution? We
know that we must find and establish a program that can be incorporated into
an already crowded schedule, a program that will meet all the continuously
changing needs of each individual student. Besides being multi-leveled, it must
be useful not only to the retarded reader, but also to the average and the
gifted student. And it must at the same time be something that can be effectively
controlled by a teacher with little or no specialized training in this field. Sounds
impossible? Perhaps, but it most certainly is not.
There are some very good reading programs offered by various publishing
companies that have taken a real interest in the improvement of reading for
reasons other than benevolency. Some of these can be used by an otherwise
untrained teacher in the regular classroom situation. These programs fall into
two general categories. One type consists of reading texts written at various
levels of difficulty which are accompanied by workbooks that stress the various
skills that the reader at that level probably needs to work in. The other consists
in a many-leveled set of reading exercises, mostly concise passages and ex-
cerpts: this form is called the Reading Laboratory. After reading one of these
passages, the student answers a multiple-choice test that includes questions which
seek to find if he has comprehended the following: the important facts; the re-
lationship between points made; implications; word recognition; word attack
(roots, prefixes, and suffixes); contextural clues; synonyms and antonyms. This
sort of program also includes rate builders and listening comprehension. It is ac-
companied by a teacher's manual that is full of all the facts needed to make valid
judgments and evaluations of each student's ability, problem, and improvement.
There are included the most exact instructions for the use of this program. It
takes about twenty minutes per exercise to complete the work required.
The main difference between the two programs, basically, is that the laboratory
can be conducted just as effectively in less time by less well-trained personnel as
can the basal readers. Also, the laboratory is more flexible, and can care for far
more variations in ability, yet not demanding as much personal coaching as the
readers do. If a student is progressing rapidly, he is not held back in the lab ap-
proach by the rate of improvement of any group, but moves up on his own.
Remedial Reading Program in the Seminary 135
A study has been made on the relative effectiveness of a multi-level labora-
tory by Sister Mary Madeline, S.S.J., Ph.D. Two groups, each made up of
three equal-ability subgroups, were trained, the one with a reading lab, the
other with the reader-workbook approach. The results showed a startling dif-
ference of growth and ability in the groups, favoring the lab approach. Science
Research Associates of Chicago have the only reading labs on the market, as
far as I can determine. They discovered, through the results of much research,
that the following conditions are most conducive to a successful reading
program:
1 . The student must start where he is in independent reading and be allowed
to master the skills of that level at his own rate.
2. A sequence of materials must be provided of gradually increasing difficulty
so that the student can seek and attain progressively higher reading levels.
3. Charts and graphs for recording progress have a high motivational value
and permit the student to compete with his own record rather than with
other students.
4. Procedures that are largely self -administrative give the student a feeling of
responsibility for his own progress.
5. Self -correction of mistakes immediately after they are made and detected
— the feedback process — guides the student's further efforts to improve
the reading-thinking process.
6. Materials varied in content are necessary for growth in flexibility of rate,
in comprehension, and in vocabulary power. {Teacher's Handbook, SRA
Reading Laboratory, Secondary Edition, p. 1).
There are many different labs in the SRA program, depending upon the level
you wish to work with. For us, kit Ilia or IVa would be the basic unit. Ilia is
useful among high school freshmen, and has a reading achievement span cover-
ing grades three through twelve. Unit IVa has reading achievement levels of
grades eight through fourteen, or sophomore college. Another very handy unit
is the "Reading for Understanding" program. It trains its users in the art of
recognizing inferences and drawing logical implications from the material read.
Because of the span of the labs such as Ilia and IVa, all the students in a
class, be they deficient, average, or gifted readers, can be challenged at their
own level. But in order to further challenge and help the quick intelligent
reader, machines such as the SRA Reading Accelerator, the Reading Rate Con-
troller, or the Keystone Reading Pacer might be added to their program.
They are especially helpful in getting the user to read in thought units and
not word by word. They also break the bad habits of vocalizing and eye-
movement regression. They motivate concentration, since a shutter is moving
down the page at a speed that demands fewer eye fixations per line, and is
covering the preceding lines, making it impossible to look back, a habit charac-
teristic of poor readers.
And so, in summary, after rather intense investigation of the opinions of
various reading authorities, careful consideration of the reading problem as it
might exist in our type of institution, it would seem to me that every minor
seminary could have a basic reading program that would include: mental
ability, oral and silent reading tests; reading laboratories of a kind described
above; reading accelerator machines to add additional stimulus to the devel-
opmental area of the program; and dedicated teachers who are willing to admit
their dependence on the teacher's manual for the correct use of the program.
The program I offer I know to be workable from my own experience.
136 Minor Seminary Department
NOTES ON DISCUSSION OF PAPERS
Tuesday, April 24, 2 P.M. — In discussion of Father James R. Gillis' paper on
"Background and Preparation Needed for the Office of Spiritual Director," the
following points were brought out:
The rector of every seminary depends on the judgment of the spiritual di-
rector. In no way does the rector interfere with him. The spiritual director,
however, must work in harmony with the seminary administrator.
The spiritual director must have the ability to deal with adolescents. He must
help them to develop spiritual maturity.
A discussion arose about the difference between spiritual direction and guid-
ance or counseling. No one was too clear on this point.
Father Gillis told about the Institute of Spiritual Theology at River Forest,
Illinois, where summer courses are given for spiritual directors.
Wednesday, April 25, 10 A.M. — Bishop Whealon, a former rector of the minor
seminary in Cleveland, discussed the method used in Cleveland in diagnosing
the character of a seminarian. The analysis chart that he proposed was only for
college seminarians. The Bishop admitted that the chart might be improved.
However, he felt that their system worked very well.
Thursday, April 26, 10 A.M. — At the meeting held at the Sacred Heart Semi-
nary, Detroit, Father Edward Riley, CM., read a paper on "An Analysis and
Evaluation of Seminary Administration." A lively discussion followed on vari-
ous phases of seminary administration.
1. Spiritual direction. In the Sulpician system of spiritual direction, each
faculty member may undertake direction of individual seminarians. Father
Van Antwerp of the Sulpician Fathers commented that in the year of solitude
(following ordination of a Sulpician), the Sulpician Fathers are indoctrinated
in this system. Another priest pointed out that this system is allowed, by special
permission, in Sulpician-operated seminaries. Other seminaries must follow
the other system with one or more spiritual directors, who are responsible for
the spiritual direction of the seminary.
2. What about books of individual students? In St. Louis Seminary, general
permission is given for books published by Catholic publishing houses; for
other books, permission of the Dean of Discipline is necessary.
3. What about newspapers and magazines in the library? Accreditation re-
quires that periodicals be in the library. In St. Louis, the seminarians have
access to the daily local newspaper, Time, Newsweek, and all similar publica-
tions. At Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit they get 263 periodicals in the
library.
4. What about religion courses? Father Riley, of St. Louis, suggests ascetical
courses in College I and II. Father Jasinski, of St. Mary's, Orchard Lake, says
that in College I and II the courses offered are from the viewpoint of the lay
apostolate.
5. What about the CCD program in the seminary? A show of hands indi-
cated about fifteen minor seminaries have a CCD program.
6. What about a Fine Arts course? One priest said that we should let the
architect design our churches. One protested the atrocious taste in art of our
Notes on Discussion of Papers 137
priests. Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit has programs in architecture, paint-
ing, and music.
7. What are the major problems of accreditation, especially in the North
Central Association? The main thing that accrediting agencies look for is "Do
you have the means to achieve your objectives?" In the library, you should
have 25,000 to 30,000 volumes — with the heaviest concentration in philosophy,
English, Latin, and the social sciences.
8. Is there any minor seminary library list? Yes, the Catholic University puts
out such a list.
9. Does any seminary have a definite set of spiritual conferences? No
comment.
Thursday, April 26, 2 P.M. — At Sacred Heart Seminary. Discussion on "Semi-
narian Responsibility." There should be the motivation for responsibility. Some
think that we should give special honors to those who show a sense of respon-
sibility; for example, to sports helpers, librarians.
Some suggested that older students — for example, college seminarians — act
as prefects or overseers of younger students.
There was much discussion about the faculty participating in student
activities, such as games, "bull sessions," et cetera. Some were for it, others
opposed it.
The question was raised about responsibility outside the seminary, but no one
seemed to have the complete solution.
Friday, April 27, 10:30 A.M. — Topic: Remedial and Developmental Reading.
Father Milton Kelly of Milwaukee was discussion leader. He said that such
reading is not a fly-by-night problem. We must face it.
Many different tests were mentioned: namely, Gilmour Test of Silent Read-
ing; the Nelson test and Davis test (both published by the Psychological Cor-
poration, 523 Fifth Avenue, New York City); Iowa Wide Range Vocabulary
tests published by the World Book Company.
Father Kelly suggested that someone undertake a study of tests for minor
seminaries.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Ralph M. Miller
Secretary, Minor Seminary Department
PROCEEDINGS AND REPORTS
RESOLUTIONS
Be it Resolved:
1. That the officers of the Minor Seminary Department of the NCEA be
extended the sincere vote of appreciation of the membership for their very
successful efforts in promoting the progress of minor seminary activities and
work, as also for their success in promoting greater friendliness and hospitality
for the membership.
138 Minor Seminary Department
2. That a vote of warm thanks be given to those members who presented
papers and led discussions at the various sessions of this 59th annual con-
vention.
3. That the Minor Seminary Department and its member institutions give
careful attention to means of implementing the desires of the Holy Father
regarding the more effective teaching of Latin in our minor seminaries.
4. That the appreciation of the department be extended to His Excellency the
Most Reverend John Dearden for his presence and encouraging message at
the dinner meeting of the membership.
5. That the department express its pleasure at the continued interest and co-
operation of His Excellency Bishop John Whealon.
6. Be it further Resolved: That the department publicly recognize the warm
hospitality of the Right Reverend Rector and the faculty of Sacred Heart
Seminary, which makes the visit to this seminary eminently memorable.
Submitted by the Resolutions Committee:
Msgr. James O'Neill
Father Germain Legere, C.P.
Father John Hagerty
PROPOSED BYLAWS
OF THE MINOR SEMINARY DEPARTMENT
ARTICLE I. NAME
Section 1. The name of this organization shall be "Minor Seminary Depart-
ment of the National Catholic Educational Association," hereinafter referred
to as the Department.
Section 2. There shall be nothing in these bylaws inconsistent with the bylaws
of the National Catholic Educational Association.
ARTICLE n. PURPOSES
The purposes of the Department shall be:
a) to stimulate continuing efforts to improve seminary education in all its
aspects;
b) to provide an open forum for discussions pertinent to seminary education;
c) to provide, wherever possible, for mutual assistance in dealing with semi-
nary problems.
ARTICLE m. MEMBERSHIP
Section 1. Members of the Department shall be those seminaries of secondary
or college level (or any combination of secondary and college level) which
shall have:
a) applied to the Associate Secretary of the Seminary Departments of the
Association for membership;
b) paid the established annual fee to the Association.
Proceedings and Reports 139
Section 2. A list of member institutions, with the name of the responsible
academic officer, shall be published annually, in advance of the national con-
vention, by the Associate Secretary of the Seminary Departments, either in the
Association Bulletin or in conjunction with the Seminary Newsletter.
Section 3. Each member institution shall have one vote in the meetings of
the Department. This restriction is not to be understood as applying to a
merely consultative show of hands when such is called for by the presiding
officer.
Section 4. Only those actually in the service of member institutions are eligi-
ble to hold any office in the Department.
ARTICLE IV. OFFICERS
Section 1. There shall be a President, a Vice President, and a Secretary of
the Department. These officers shall be elected at the annual meeting of the De-
partment by a majority vote of the member institutions present and voting.
All officers shall hold office from the adjournment of the meeting at which
they are elected until the adjournment of the meeting at which their successors
are elected.
Section 2. The President shall hold office for two years. He shall be respon-
sible for all the activities of the Department, and shall enjoy such powers as
are necessary to manage the affairs of the Department.
Section 3. The Vice President shall hold office for two years. He shall:
a) act as assistant to the President;
b) serve as President in the President's absence;
c) succeed to the office of President should it become vacant. In such a
case he shall hold office to the end of the next regular meeting, and shall
be eligible at that meeting to a regular two-year term as President.
Section 4. The Secretary shall hold office for two years. He shall:
a) record and circulate the minutes of the Department's Executive Com-
mittee;
b) keep a record of attendance at Department and committee meetings;
c) provide for the departmental registration at the annual meetings;
d) conduct such departmental correspondence as the President requires;
e) preside in the absence of the President and the Vice President;
/) succeed to the office of Vice President should it become vacant, and
serve until the election of a Department President. He shall then be
eligible for a full term as Vice President.
g) succeed to the office of President should the offices of President and
Vice President become vacant, and serve until the next annual meeting.
He shall then be eligible for a full term as President.
ARTICLE V. REPRESENTATIVES TO THE GENERAL BOARD
In conformity to the Constitution of the Association, the Department shall
elect two representatives for service on the General Executive Board besides
the President who serves ex officio. This election shall take place at the
annual meeting of the Department, from the past presidents of the Department
in the order of their seniority.
These representatives shall hold office for four years, and may be re-elected
to succeed themselves. In the event of a vacancy in one of these offices,
140 Minor Seminary Department
the post shall be filled by an election at the next general meeting. The repre-
sentative so elected shall serve a full term from the time of his election. The
President may appoint a representative to serve until such an election is
possible. Such an appointment shall observe the above order of seniority
among the past presidents.
ARTICLE VI. COMMITTEES
Section 1. There shall be an Executive Committee composed of the follow-
ing: the President (Chairman), the Vice President, the Secretary, the im-
mediate Past President, the Vice President General elected from the Depart-
ment by the Association, the Representatives to the General Executive Board,
and the Chairman of Standing Committees.
Duties: The Executive Committee shall:
a) assist the President in planning the Department activities;
b) prepare the program for the annual meeting;
c) pass on major issues and reports before they are submitted to the Execu-
tive Board of the Association for final action, or to the Department.
Section 2. There shall be a Committee on Accreditation composed of as
many members as there are Regional Accrediting Associations. The chair-
man of this committee shall be elected by the Executive Committee to a two-
year term of office, and may be re-elected to succeed himself. The Chairman
shall present to the Executive Committee for approval a list of members who,
with himself, shall constitute the Committee on Accreditation. The list shall
contain, if possible, one name from each of the regional accrediting areas
other than the Chairman's own.
Duties: The Committee on Accreditation shall:
a) make recommendations to the Executive Committee on any matters
pertaining to accreditation by local, regional, or professional agencies;
b) report annually to the Executive Committee;
c) under chairmanship of the Regional Committee member, organize
Regional Subcommittees as needed;
d) be of service, as individuals, to member schools seeking help in working
out accreditation problems. To this end, each committee member shall
compile a list of experienced seminary personnel, at both secondary and
college levels, in his region, who are willing to help other schools by
visit or correspondence. It is understood that schools asking such help
will themselves meet travel and other expenses incurred.
Section 4. Any elected member of a committee who absents himself from
three consecutive regularly scheduled meetings of his standing committee shall
be dropped from membership on that committee automatically, and a vacancy
must be declared. An elected member may not be represented by an alternate.
Section 5. Nothing in this article shall be construed as preventing the appoint-
ment, by the President of the Executive Committee, of such special standing
committees as are needed for the work of the Department. An ad hoc com-
mittee may be appointed by the President on his own initiative, but it cannot
become a standing committee without the express approval of the Executive
Committee.
ARTICLE Vn. MEETINGS
Section 1. The Department shall hold its annual meeting at the time and
Proceedings and Reports 141
place selected for the annual meeting of the Association.
Section 2. Each year there shall be three regularly scheduled meetings of
the Executive Committee, to be called by the President. These shall be:
a) one in the autumn, chiefly to plan the program for the annual Depart-
mental meetings;
b) one at the beginning of the annual meeting of the Department;
c) one near the end of the annual meeting.
Section 3. The President shall have the authority to call special meetings
of the Executive Committee as he deems necessary.
ARTICLE VIII. AMENDMENTS
The Bylaws of the Department may be amended at any annual meeting
of the Department by a majority of the institutional members present and
voting, provided that the notice of the proposed amendment has been sent
to member institutions at least one month in advance of the meeting. An
amendment not thus proposed in advance may be adopted by a two-thirds
vote of the institutional members present and voting.
MINOR SEMINARY DEPARTMENT: OFFICERS 1962-63
President: Rev. Robert C. Newbold, Warwick Neck, R.I.
Vice President: Rev. Donald J. Ryan, CM., St. Louis, Mo.
Secretary: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Ralph M. Miller, Buffalo, N.Y.
General Executive Board:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Louis E. Riedel, Milwaukee, Wis.
Very Rev. Herman Romoser, O.S.B., St. Meinrad, Ind.
PART 5 COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT
ECUMENISM AS A CATHOLIC CONCERN
Rev. Avery Dulles, S.J.
PROFESSOR OF FUNDAMENTAL THEOLOGY, WOODSTOCK COLLEGE
WOODSTOCK, MARYLAND
When historians come to write up the religious history of the twentieth
century, will they be able to give it a title? Glancing over the outlines of the
past, we find no difficulty in putting labels on certain chapters of religious
history, such as the age of the martyrs, the conversion of the Roman Empire,
the evangelization of Western Europe, the Crusades, the Great Schism, the
Reformation, and the Counter Reformation. Future church historians will
doubtless find a title for our age too — perhaps the age of the laity, or the
age of struggle against atheistic communism, or the age of Christian tolerance.
All these are possible titles, but there is one which seems more apt than any
other. From what we have seen of it, the twentieth century, in its religious
manifestations, may be called the Age of Ecumenism.
The very word "ecumenism" is a new one. Many of us are not quite
sure how to pronounce, let alone define, it. The adjective "ecumenical" has
a longer history and is used in several quite different senses. But the noun
"ecumenism" has taken on a rather narrow meaning, proper to our own time.
It designates that widespread effort which began some fifty or seventy-five
years ago, whereby the separate Christian bodies have been seeking to achieve
greater mutual harmony and union.
We American Catholics, like other Christians in most parts of the world,
are unaccustomed to this sort of thing. The development has been too sudden
for us to catch our breath. Heretofore we have lived as a rather isolated
community, and our isolation has been, to some extent, deliberate. We have
concentrated on preserving our own heritage from erosion, contamination,
or absorption by alien forces. We have generally taken it for granted that
we had little need of support from other Christians and little to learn from
them. Either they agreed with us or they disagreed. If they agreed, we already
knew what they were in a position to tell us. If they disagreed, they were
wrong. Hence it seemed best to avoid religious contact with them or, if we
did meet, to come armed to the teeth with polemic arguments. Our relations
with non-Catholic Christians therefore fluctuated between indifference and
contentiousness. In either case, they were not ecumenical.
But now suddenly all this has changed. The whole tendency of world
Catholicism requires us to emerge from our isolation and to enter into cordial
relationship with other Christian groups. Pope John XXIII, in his encyclicals
and allocutions, has repeatedly summoned us to have sympathy and respect
for non-Catholic Christianity. In an address of May 1960, for instance, he
called for:
142
Ecumenism as a Catholic Concern 143
a real understanding of those brethren who, while bearing the name of
Christ on their foreheads and indeed in their hearts, are yet separated from
the Catholic Church. We must bestir ourselves and not rest until we have
overcome our old habits of thought, our prejudices and the use of expres-
sions which are anything but courteous, so as to create a climate favorable
to the reconciliation we look forward to, and so in every way cooperate with
the work of grace. Thus to one and all will be thrown wide open the gates
to the unity of the Church of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.1
Nobody can complain that the Holy Father's pleas have gone unheeded.
In the past two or three years Catholic ecumenical organizations the world
over have sprung into existence or been galvanized into new vitality. A vast
literature on ecumenism is pouring from the Catholic presses. Bishops in
many countries — including some in the United States — have set up ecumenical
commissions and institutes. The Pope's own Secretariat for Christian Unity
has multiplied its labors. The fact that this entire convention of the National
Catholic Educational Association should select as its theme "Fostering the
Ecumenical Spirit" calls for no explanation at all. The topic is an obvious one.
But, on reflection, is it so obvious that Catholics ought to take part in
ecumenical encounter with other Christians? Does not this enterprise — so
novel and untried — contain hidden dangers to the purity and integrity of our
faith? Can we not imagine the frightening possibility that Catholicism might
soon find itself caught in the tentacles of a huge and shapeless monster going
by the name of ecumenical Christianity? What have we here but religious
syncretism in a new guise?
Put in another way, the problem may be stated as a dilemma. Can we
Catholics in conscience admit the existence of legitimate Christianity outside
our own Church? If so, we seem to be abandoning a cardinal tenet of our
faith. If not, how can we claim to be ecumenically minded? It looks as
though we might have to choose between Catholicism and ecumenism. Many
Catholics feel ill at ease on this score. It is imperative that we should clarify
our "thinking on this matter in order to engage eagerly and effectively in
ecumenical work.
The words "Catholic" and "ecumenical" are closely related. Both convey
the idea of completeness and universality. But as currently used, the terms
are far from synonymous. In fact, they designate contrasting facets of the
Christian phenomenon. "Ecumenical" means, most briefly, worldwide. Cathol-
icism, on the other hand, means wholeness or integrity. Ecumenism, then, is
Christianity in breadth; Catholicism, Christianity in depth. Like extension
and comprehension in logic, ecumenism and catholicity vary inversely. The
mentalities are opposite. The ecumenical (or large-minded) Christian abhors
denominational exclusiveness. He is impatient of confessional barriers. The
catholic mentality, on the other hand, insists on completeness. It is constantly
on guard against the temptation to purchase unity by yielding on matters of
principle. The catholic-minded Christian, while desirous of union, conceives
it as a conversion by which others, individually or collectively, would embrace
the total Christian faith as he himself, assured of his own orthodoxy, professes
it. The ecumenical and the catholic Christian thus eye each other askance.
The ecumenist suspects the catholic of being rigid, proud, and complacent.
The catholic, conversely, regards the ecumenist as flabby, spineless, and senti-
mental. The ecumenist is in danger of forgetting the demands of truth; the
catholic, in his enthusiasm for truth, may easily offend against charity.
1 Osservatore Romano, May 11, 1960.
144 College and University Department
1 have been speaking of the catholic mentality. But Catholicism is not
merely a mentality. It is also a church, or rather, as we believe, the Church.
Confident of belonging to the one fully authentic Church of Christ, we can-
not but be catholic in our mentality. A certain intransigence is congenial
to us. As Catholics we are defined not merely by the group to which we
belong but by the very quality of our attachment to it. We are convinced,
on a motive of supernatural divine faith, of its divine authority. We affirm
that the Catholic Church — that is, the Roman Catholic Church — inalienably
possesses the whole deposit of Christian revelation, including the plenitude of
those means of grace which Christ entrused to his chosen Spouse. The Catholic
Church, conscious of her unique privileges, can never take her place at any
council table as one church among equals, nor can she even consider the
possibility of retracting an iota of her faith.
To some observers this Roman intransigence has seemed to rule out any
genuine participation of Catholics in the Ecumenical Movement. A very
friendly Lutheran critic, Professor Kristen Skydsgaard, once gave expression to
this widespread sentiment. "The most difficult front in ecumenical work," he
wrote, "is beyond all doubt the relationship to the Roman Catholic Church.
One might be tempted to say that the differences here are so very great that
any relationship at all is rendered impossible." 2 But another Lutheran
scholar, Professor Ernst Kinder, has felt authorized to speak in very different
terms. "We cannot do without the Roman Catholic Church," he writes; it
"occupies a special, indispensable place in a truly ecumenical movement." 3
Where does the truth lie? Is our presence impossible or indispensable? The
answer depends on several factors, the first of which is the meaning attached
to ecumenism itself. Some have looked on the Ecumenical Movement as if
its essence consisted in confessional relativism. Protestant writers sometimes
assert that the ecumenical Christian must be ready to rise above confessional
loyalties, since it seems clear that the churches cannot unite unless they are
prepared to die. However applicable this may be to denominations that have
sprung into existence since apostolic times, the Catholic cannot admit this
of his own communion. A reunited Christendom, according to Catholic con-
ceptions, will not arise like the legendary phoenix from the ashes of its
predecessors. It will be an extension of the unity which already exists in the
communion Christ has founded.
The Catholic formula for unity might appear to be unecumenical. But
before drawing this conclusion we must raise the question whether the ecu-
menical movement is in fact committed to a constructionist (or reconstruc-
tionist) view of unity. The World Council of Churches debated this question
within its own ranks for some years, and at Toronto in 1950 reached a nega-
tive conclusion. "Membership in the World Council of Churches," the Central
Committee declared, "does not imply that a church treats its own conception
of the Church as merely relative." 4 A body which regards itself as the one
true Church of Christ, as the Eastern Orthodox do, is quite welcome to join
the World Council. Such dogmatic exclusiveness is not considered a bar to
the practice of ecumenism.
In its early days the Ecumenical Movement was somewhat tinged by a type
of relativism or latitudinarianism which could not be accepted by Catholics
or even by those non-Catholics who took their own ecclesiastical establish-
2 Man's Disorder and God's Design (New York: Harper, 1948), I, p. 155.
'Ecumenical Review, 7 (1955), 342.
* Ecumenical Review, 3 (1950), 49.
Ecumenism as a Catholic Concern 145
ments seriously. Partly for this reason, the Holy See initially viewed the move-
ment with great reserve. But new and better conceptions of ecumenism have
prevailed. The movement as understood today does not imply any particular
formula of church unity. It may be described as a multilateral encounter
among separate Christian bodies whose proximate goal is to enjoy more
harmonious and fruitful relationships with one another. More specifically,
the participants are striving, through prayer and study, discussion and joint
action, to promote among one and all, in mutually acceptable ways, a better
understanding and a more effective heralding of the gospel. Ecumenism is
not precisely the same thing as the apostolate of Christian unity, but the two
movements are closely interconnected. Most participants in the Ecumenical
Movement hope that their efforts may, with God's help, hasten the day when
there will be, as a manifest sign of Christian charity, but one fold and one
shepherd.
The most characteristic expression of ecumenism, perhaps, is the inter-
confessional dialogue. The dialogue, like the movement itself, is hard to define.
For present purposes, we may describe it as an earnest exchange of views on
topics of common concern, in which each participant both criticizes and builds
on the other's positions. A successful dialogue does not presuppose agreement
or necessarily lead to it. Indeed, it thrives on tension. But a dialogue does
require that each partner respect the other and be prepared to learn some-
thing from him.
Dialogue can take many different forms. The most dramatic form is a
face to face encounter between authorized representatives of different con-
fessions. This may occur in a closed theological colloquium among selected
theologians or at an open meeting attended by the laity. Ecumenical spe-
cialists these days often exchange ideas over the radio or television; occa-
sionally they publish books or articles criticizing each other's views. But the
dialogue, in a wider sense, can take place without such direct encounter.
Whenever a Christian writes or speaks or moderates his conduct with due
regard for the ideas and interests of other Christian groups, he is acting
ecumenically. In ever increasing measure, the life of Christian communities
all over the world is becoming enveloped in an atmosphere of dialogue. When
we propose theological doctrines, or devise pastoral programs — or even when
we formulate educational procedures as you are doing this week — we feel
some need to take account of the moral presence of non-Catholic Christians
as a relevant factor.
Assuming the basic validity of these comments on ecumenism, let me
return now to the difficulty already mentioned. It is objected that Catholics,
by reason of their dogmatic intransigence, cannot be ecumenically minded.
If dialogue is essential to ecumenism, this objection might seem to have some
weight. The Church can be satisfied with nothing less than the conversion of
others to her own faith. In her dealings with non-Catholics, she can make
demands and entreaties; she can call upon them to submit and return — but
can she really converse with them? She is precluded from dialogue — so runs
the objection — because she is not genuinely interested in what other Christians
have to say.
This objection rests upon a rather common misunderstanding of Catholic
doctrine. Catholics, while convinced of belonging to the only fully legitimate
Church, do not claim to be the only Christians. They do not imagine that
their own church contains within its visible borders the total Christian reality.
146 College and University Department
Authentic Christian elements are scattered far and wide through all the
bodies that make up the spectrum of divided Christendom. No Christian
today, Catholic or non-Catholic, is in a position to say: "My own brand
of Christianity is the only one; all others are on a par with infidels; I can
afford to ignore their claim to speak as Christians."
This point perhaps requires emphasis. We Catholics find it hard to see how
men can arrive at real Christian faith without accepting the divine authority
of the teaching Church. But we should not deny what we find hard to under-
stand. The fact is clear. Speaking of such non-Catholics, Pope John XXIII
has reminded us: "They too bear the name of Christ upon their foreheads,
they read his holy and blessed Gospel, and they are not unreceptive to the
stirrings of religious devotion and of active, beneficent love of their neighbor."5
If other Christian bodies baptize in the name of the most blessed Trinity,
adore the same Father, confess the same Lord, invoke the same Spirit; if they
read the same Scriptures and recite many of the same creeds and liturgical
prayers that Catholics use, can we for a moment doubt but what they too
can have Christian faith and Christian charity? The Holy Spirit is unques-
tionably at work in the hearts of many Christians who are not, in the accepted
sense of the term, Catholics. It would be unjust, moreover, to speak as
though grace and sanctification among non-Catholics resulted simply from
the subjective ignorance and good faith of well-intentioned individuals. To a
great extent their supernatural life is due to the objective structures of their
own communities.
The presence of authentic Christian elements in non-Catholic religious
bodies is the very cornerstone on which Catholic ecumenism is based. Because
of this momentous fact, interconfessional dialogue for Catholics is possible,
useful, and necessary. Let me say a few words about each of these three points.
The dialogue is possible because non-Catholic Christianity has something dis-
tinctively Christian to say to us. Of course, all men can tell us something, if
only by way of pointing out what kind of impression we are making on them.
But dissident Christians can do more. They can tell us what Christ means
to them in terms of their own religious traditions. They can tell us where
we, in their estimation, fall short of Christian ideals. While we may not agree
with everything they say, still we should pay special heed to their testimony
and their criticism because it comes to us from a Christian point of view.
And when it is our turn to speak, we can address them, not indeed as fellow
Catholics, but as fellow Christians. They can hear our message with Christian
ears. If we can show them that our views have a basis in the gospel, they
can listen with sympathy and with a measure of agreement.
Since the dialogue is possible, it is quite evidently useful. For hundreds
of years we Catholics have taken a predominantly negative view of all that
other Christians were saying and doing. We have paid little attention to their
views except in order to disagree. Their theologians are not mentioned in
our textbooks except under the rubric of adversaries. Whatever they asserted,
we have been inclined to deny. By this narrow-mindedness we have cheated
ourselves. Our own thinking has become somewhat sectarian by reaction.
Since Protestantism insisted on the primacy of the word, we talked almost
exclusively of sacraments. Because they made much of the priesthood of the
laity, we mentioned only the ordained priesthood. Because they overem-
phasized man's inner wretchedness, we spoke continually of his interior right-
eousness— and often did so in a way that seemed to exclude all need of mercy.
« Christmas Message, 1958; A.A.S. 51 (1959), 10.
Ecumenism as a Catholic Concern 147
All this, thank God, has been rapidly changing. The positive ecumenical
encounter of the past few decades has somewhat restored the balance. For-
gotten Christian truths, too long neglected in Catholic theological literature,
have been coming back into vogue. There is no Catholic in biblical studies
today who does not acknowledge an enormous debt of gratitude, for example,
to German Lutheran scholarship; nor any competent patrologist who does not
draw heavily on the work of Anglican scholars in his field. In the theology
of revelation, Catholics are studying carefully the work of Calvinists such
as Barth and Brunner; and our theology of the Church is being revivified by
insights from Russian Orthodox theologians such as Khomiakov and Boulga-
kov. It is a healthy thing for our thought to be fertilized by these influences.
For as St. Augustine remarked long ago, "Every good and true Christian
should understand that wherever he discovers truth it is the Lord's." 6
In the current dialogue, we Catholics are not only on the receiving end.
Protestants and Orthodox are anxious to learn from us. They are eager to
absorb into their theology whatever elements of Catholic substance are com-
patible with their basic intuitions. This process of mutual enrichment has
by no means bridged the gulf between us — perhaps it never will; but it has
brought us far closer together than we were half a century ago. This is a
net gain.
If time permitted, something should be said of ecumenism in the practical
order. You can see for yourselves how immense the opportunities are. All
the Christian churches are presently faced by the stupendous task of bringing
Christian principles to bear on the burning moral and social issues of the day,
such as nuclear warfare and interracial justice. All Christian denominations,
moreover, feel the need of new methods for showing the relevance and
credibility of the biblical message today. Even where we cannot reach agreed
statements, we can assist each other in these areas. Collaboration of this sort
has been highly recommended by Catholic religious authorities. The Holy
Office, in an instruction of 1949, gave unqualified approval to meetings be-
tween Catholics and non-Catholics "to take counsel together concerning joint
action in the defense of the fundamental principles of Christianity and the
natural law." 7
But to say that ecumenical action is possible and useful for the Catholic
Church is to speak too weakly. It is necessary; the total interests of Christian-
ity demand it. If the various churches work continually against each other,
Christianity as a whole will suffer. No Christian confession today, even
though it be the Catholic Church, is an island. None is a mere competitor
with the rest. Whether we like it or not, our religious destinies are inter-
twined. Each church, in its way, contributes to the esteem in which religion
in general, and Christianity in particular, is held in a given society. In
countries where Catholicism is the only recognized religion, the Church is
often faced by a large and vicious opposition which is not only anti-Catholic
but anti-Christian and anti-God. In the United States this has not hap-
pened. Our Protestant brethren, who make up the largest religious strand
in the nation, have established a Christian climate of opinion. We benefit
in part from their achievements. If Protestant ministers, for instance, add
luster to the clergy, more Catholics are likely to feel the call to the priesthood
or the religious life. And the influence is reciprocal. If Catholics, for ex-
ample, are faithful to their Sunday obligation, Protestants will be inspired to
attend church in greater numbers. Supposing that all higher motives should
•De doctrina Christiana, Bk. II, chap. 18. * A.A.S., 42 (1950), 145.
148 College and University Department
fail, sheer self-interest should prevent us from hoping that Protestantism
will go to seed.
Can we give a theological interpretation to this solidarity among all Chris-
tians? I shall take the risk. Non-Catholic, we know, are not in the full
sense members of the Church. But they are intimately related to it. If
they are consecrated to Christ by baptism, and walk by living faith in him,
then the Holy Spirit, the soul of the Church, dwells in their souls. Hence
they are in a very real way in communion with us. To make this clearer,
let us suppose that a Baptist in Moscow or a Jacobite in Syria loses his faith;
that he falls into agnosticism or atheism. As a Catholic, I cannot say that
his defection does not touch me. The great continent of Christian believers
has grown smaller by one soul. One less man upon this earth is adoring
Christ and praying to Him. We Catholics have become a little more isolated
in a religiously indifferent world.
In summary, then, ecumenism and Catholicism are in no way contradictory.
They belong together. Catholicism is an ecumenical concern, and ecumenism
a Catholic concern. Ecumenism without catholicity is superficial; Catholicity
without ecumenism, narrow. More than most other Christian groups, we
Catholics must deliberately school ourselves in ecumenism. Otherwise our
very confidence in the wealth of our own heritage can betray us into spiritual
imperialism or isolationism. Unless we are vigilant we are likely to become
more Catholic — and less ecumenical — than the pope. By a strange perver-
sion a man striving to be fully Catholic can thereby fail to be fully Christian.
As a corrective, let us remember that whatever is Christian has something
Catholic about it. All Christian truth is Catholic in its source and Catholic
in tendency. Each Catholic should be able to accept the maxim: I am a
Christian, and nothing that touches Christ is alien to me.
But before closing, we should deal with a final objection. To some it will
appear scandalous that Christians should converse and collaborate across
confessional lines. Such conduct, it may be thought, creates an impression
that differences of belief are unimportant; it paves the way for religious
indifferentism.
This objection should not be lightly dismissed. Anything that would
obscure the distinctive quality of our Catholic witness, and make the Church
appear to be one denomination among many, must be sedulously avoided.
To this end, Catholic bishops are charged with the responsibility of closely
regulating ecumenical contacts. The Holy Office, in its instruction of 1949,
laid down the pertinent norms for local ordinaries. No Catholic ecumenist
will have any quarrel with these norms. They are important in assuring the
Catholic quality of our ecumenical apostolate.
But in speaking of scandal, we must not be one-sided. Scandal can come
from several directions. If Christians or different communions stand coldly aloof
from one another while Christianity itself is gravely threatened, the world will
not be edified. In an age when participants in every calling, whether they
be philosophers or salesmen, historians or engineers, hold frequent meetings
to exchange ideas and to thrash out differences of opinion, religious leaders
will be expected to do likewise. Should we Christians be the only ones with-
out the patience to discuss our differences amicably and to collaborate cordially
on matters of common concern? If we refuse to do so, our reluctance will
not be interpreted as a sign of strength but rather of indolence, complacency,
jealousy, or fear. Many will take our behavior as a confession that we have
Ecumenism as a Catholic Concern 149
nothing significant to say to each other, or that we do not dare subject our
convictions to the test of serious encounter.
Speaking of indifferentism, Father Leeming has aptly said:
Surely more indifferentism is caused in a post-Christian age by contentions
and tensions among Christians than by efforts at agreement. One very
radical cause of indifferentism has been the hostility between Christians,
which tended to justify the gibes of unbelievers and of non-Christians. Evi-
dence that Christians have sincere charity toward one another will draw
the sting from those gibes. 8
At the opening of this talk I quoted from the present Holy Father. He
indicates that it is no easy task to acquire the ecumenical spirit. "We must
bestir ourselves," he says, "and not rest till we have overcome our old habits
of thought." Indeed, the uprooting of ingrained prejudices requires hard
work. We are wont to speak of the conversion of non-Catholics to the faith.
But to acquire a truly ecumenical spirit, we Catholics must undergo a con-
version of sorts — radical transformation in our hearts.
Ecumenism, then, is not only a movement in the world; it is a virtue in
the soul. Its opposite is sectarian partisanship. A Catholic can be sectarian
in spirit if he allows hostility and resentment to take root within him. In
our ecumenical examination of conscience, we shall daily have to ask our-
selves questions such as these: Do I blame non-Catholic Christians for the
faults of their ancestors? Am I prone to assume that they have nothing
worthwhile to say about religion, and to dismiss their criticisms of Catholics
without a hearing? Do I rejoice in all the spiritual treasures that they have,
or do I harbor a secret longing for their religious decline? Is my zeal for
Christian reunion tainted with feelings of superiority or lust for domination?
Not every form of zeal, even though it be exercised in the name of Christ,
is truly Christian.
The law of ecumenism, in the last analysis, is no different from the law
of charity. The best description of it is found in the Bible. Let me take
my concluding sentence from St. Paul, simply substituting "ecumenism" where
he wrote "charity":
Ecumenism is patient, is kind; ecumenism does not envy, is not pretentious,
is not puffed up; is not ambitious, is not self-seeking, is not provoked; thinks
no evil, does not rejoice over wickedness, but rejoices with the truth; bears
with all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
(1 Cor. 13:4-7).
• America, Jan. 14, 1961, p. 468.
CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION
AND THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT
Raymond F. McCoy
DEAN, GRADUATE SCHOOL, XAVIER UNIVERSITY, CINCINNATI, OHIO
The subject on which I am to speak to you this afternoon is indeed a formida-
ble one — the responsibility of colleges and universities for fostering the ecumeni-
cal spirit. Unfortunately I am not so formidable as my subject. Unlike
my distinguished predecessor on this platform, I am no theologian — a fact I
fear I may only too thoroughly demonstrate to you before I am through.
I do know something about Catholic colleges and universities; but so do you!
Even here, therefore, I can claim no special preeminence in the present
company.
In discussing Catholic higher education and the ecumenical spirit, I pro-
pose to take the subject up in two parts: first, to make some observations
on the goal — the ecumenical spirit; and second, to make some observations
on the role of colleges and universities in furthering that goal.
The Goal — The Ecumenical Spirit
It was perfectly clear that if I were going to present an address this after-
noon, it had to be within the guidelines set by the meaning of ecumenism,
a term which is used in several senses. In one sense, we could mean the
spirit which underlies the whole coming council, Vatican II, with its ten
preparatory commissions and its secretariat for modern means of communi-
cating ideas and its Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. But
ecumenism is also used even more widely to describe the general search for
Christian unity. As I speculated as to which usage of ecumenism would
govern the development of my remarks to you, unaided by any advance
knowledge of the incisive presentation which Father Dulles has just made,
but aided by a few words of the Dominican theologian Father Sternimann,
I made a discovery: the two uses of the word ecumenism are the same. For
Father Sternimann gives the proximate end of Vatican II as "the vigorous
renovation of the entire Church" and its final objective "to ready the Church
for a meeting of all Christians." Thus Vatican II is the search for Christian
unity in two great steps: renewal and rejuvenation of the Church herself,
but with a view to achieving the internal conditions necessary for subsequent
developments toward Christian unity.
Now, if ecumenism is the search for unity in Christ, what is the nature
of the spirit of ecumenism, the ecumenical spirit? I submit that the spirit
sought lies in the realm of attitudes. And attitudes are first of all knowledge,
the product of the intellect; but this is not all. Attitudes are knowledge
touched by favorable feelings. As knowledge and favorable feelings fuse,
they are converted into something stronger: into emotions, into motivations,
into action. They become attitudes.
If the spirit of ecumenism is attitudes, then our goal is not only knowledge
and understandings, but knowledge and understandings transformed into
attitudes. Conversely, the obstacles to the ecumenical spirit among Cath-
150
Catholic Higher Education and the Ecumenical Spirit 151
olics is not merely lack of knowledge, or inadequate knowledge; it is like-
wise attitudes. It is "misknowledge" transformed by pleasant feelings into
something which is far harder to replace than mere ignorance. Unfortunately
this is the task ahead of all agencies concerned with fostering the ecumenical
spirit — supplanting positively anti-ecumenical attitudes previously developed
with new ones.
For Catholics, the intellectual basis for the ecumenical spirit in the practi-
cal order may be said to consist, in part at least, of such understandings or
knowledge or convictions, as the following:
1. That the unity of all Christians in Christ is in today's world a more
urgent necessity than ever. In the great struggle between Christianity
and communism there is no room for intra-Christian conflicts.
2. That the difference among Christians belonging to different churches
are understandable in the light of historical facts. Put another way,
when certain new heresies sprang up and flourished, something was
probably not functioning properly within the Church. ,
3. That persons of other churches are people of good will, honestly
searching to do God's will.
4. That within the framework of God's truth, our own Church is still
developing in the application of that truth to the current scene: witness
the Holy Father's recent encyclical Mater et Magistra, from the shock
of which many Catholics are not yet fully recovered.
5. That tremendous as are the obstacles to unity among Christians, the
prayerful search must continue.
6. That dialogue, conversation, contacts, and communications are essential
to the search for unity.
7. That the search is not a one-way street. It is not just for the other fellow.
These seven understandings — and there are others — are the intellectual
components of ecumenism; they become components of the ecumenical spirit,
however, only when they are transformed into attitudes. And we do know
something about this process. We know that favorable attitudes result from
involvement. We catch attitudes from those whom we like or love or greatly
respect. We develop favorable attitudes when understandings are associated
with institutions we are attached to. And we transform knowledge into
attitudes in other ways of which we yet know little. But transform them
we must if the ecumenical spirit is to result from ecumenism.
Perhaps the ecumenical spirit, our goal, can be seen best in some of its
opposites. Let us construct a straw man, a straw Catholic it's true, but I
am sure you will recognize him as not completely unreal. He has been to
college. He has his attitudes. He is a regularly practicing Catholic. The
thirteenth, for him, is the greatest of centuries. The Church has come down
to us unchanged since the first century after Christ. The liturgy of the
Mass, for example, is unchanged. He has studied Protestantism in terms
of a syllabus of errors. He can't understand how rational human beings
could hold such absurdities. He learned about Christian Science, for example,
from the thesis that his freshman apologetics teacher taught him: "Christian
Science is neither Christian nor scientific. A. It is not Christian. B. It is
not scientific." Each half neatly proved and learned so that at the first
encounter with a Christian Scientist he is prepared for intellectual laughter.
152 College and University Department
He is well armed with ad hominen, emotion-laden arguments for the ad-
herents of Luther or Calvin. His attitude toward Protestants is hostile,
aggressive, sometimes even pugnacious. As America's Father Abbott has
described him, he sees no progress toward Christian unity except through
unconditional surrender to Rome. He is an expert on distinctions between
the role of the inquisitor and the state in the Spanish Inquisition; he knows
that Galileo's only fault was using Scriptures to bolster the Copernican theory.
He is an intellectual snob; he is an intellectual bigot.
But is this Catholic we have just created all straw? Does he at all resemble
you when you came out of college, as he does somewhat resemble me? Isn't
he what we must work to avoid if the ecumenical spirit is to be advanced in
our colleges and universities?
Which brings us to the role of colleges and universities in fostering the
ecumenical spirit, bearing in mind that ecumenism is of the intellect, but the
ecumenical spirit is attitudes.
• The Role of Catholic Colleges and Universities
Colleges and universities in this country are particularly suitably organized
for fostering the ecumenical spirit, or should be! They are devoted to knowl-
edge, and ecumenism is understanding; they typically offer to students a range
of extracurricular activities aimed at involvement, and as we have seen involve-
ment is central to developing attitudes out of understanding. But when we say
that Catholic higher education is particularly suited to fostering the ecumenical
spirit, we have not said that it has consciously used or will direct its full re-
sources toward this goal.
In each college and university, as I see it, must be the conscious, institution-
wide acceptance of responsibility for fostering the ecumenical spirit. The be-
ginning is with the leadership — with the president and deans. For your in-
stitution, the start may be right here in this convention. Next comes effective
leadership toward securing institutional emphasis on the ecumenical spirit.
Faculty symposia and colloquia, faculty discussion of the needed emphases,
faculty plans for implementation, faculty involvement, and faculty commit-
ment.
Once the basis for whole-institutional emphasis has been laid through your
leadership and faculty involvement, I would feel that a more specific examina-
tion of the contribution of the institution toward ecumenical attitudes should
come. Our colleges and universities can make their contributions in four ways:
through their programs of general education; through the areas of specializa-
tion they provide; through the research they conduct; and through extracur-
ricular activities they sponsor.
1. The contribution through programs of general education. All Catholic
colleges and universities have a program of general, or liberal, or core studies
through which they claim to make the broad liberating aspect of their intel-
lectual development. Religion or theology is always a part of this core. I
am not suggesting that religion or theology as they have been developed should
be replaced by ecumenism as we have defined it. But I am emphatically stating
that ecumenism must enter into the core courses somewhere, specifically, and
not be left to chance. And I am emphatically stating that the ecumenical
spirit must be communicated by theology teachers who themselves have it as
they teach theology. I am suggesting the delicacy of the task of reinforcing
the faith of the students in the one, Catholic, holy, and apostolic church of
Catholic Higher Education and the Ecumenical Spirit 153
Christ while at the same time supplying the intellectual basis for participating
in the search for unity. And I emphatically state that this task of charting
the path between erroneous extremes is no task for teachers who are assigned
by religious superiors to departments of theology for no other reason than
that they can't teach anything else.
I believe it is obvious enough that there are core areas other than theology
where both ecumenism itself and the ecumenical spirit can be developed if
the behavior of professors can be changed — as I like to think it can be, to
some extent at least, and at least under some circumstances. One immediately
thinks of history and philosophy as such areas.
2. The contribution through areas of specialization. Remarkably few Cath-
olic colleges and universities, other than seminaries, offer majors in theology.
Maybe this fact calls for some study. I feel, however, that the possibilities of
much expansion in major offerings are distinctly limited, and that consequently
we can expect the curricular contribution of our colleges and universities to
be chiefly in the core program.
3. The contribution through university-sponsored research. The literature
of ecumenism is new; the field is new; the problems are great. Research is
needed not only in new theological approaches and facts, but we know really
precious little about how attitudes are formed, or what techniques of communi-
cation are helpful to the advance of Christian unity. The importance of the
latter was recognized by John XXIII when, as part of the preparation for
Vatican II, he established a secretariat to deal with questions concerning mod-
ern means of communicating ideas. Regarding the possible research contribu-
tion to our goal, I have two questions to pose for your discussion: // we are
sponsoring research activity at our institution and if we are truly interested in
furthering the ecumenical spirit, just how much priority should be given to
research projects in theology, in the behavioral sciences, and in communication
arts? Are we giving these any priority now — even any attention?
4. The contribution through extracurricular activities. Extracurricular ac-
tivities sponsored by Catholic colleges and universities give them a particu-
larly rich opportunity for developing ecumenical attitudes. Through these
activities students can get that involvement which is so fundamental if under-
standings are to become attitudes. Here under faculty guidance is where
dialogues and conversations and ecumenical encounters must come first as they
must continue to come throughout the student's later life.
Most of us have the organizations on our campus and the opportunities to
use them. Only additional emphasis and programming are needed. Sodalities,
participation in civic organizations, working with the National Student
Association, participation in intergroup activities, the National Council of
Christians and Jews, interracial action — these are some of the possibilities. All
of you can come up with more. The press has carried accounts of notable
examples of Catholic universities beginning the process of dialogue and con-
frontation. Ghettos do not promote unity; maybe the dialogue won't always
either. But it must be started!
University-sponsored programs for the general community, events formerly
sponsored by us for good public relations only, may themselves be raised in
worth and dignity as they become parts of fostering the ecumenical spirit. I
wonder if many of the same things we have been doing in the name of public
relations might not find wider acceptance on our own staffs if they become
genuinely ecumenical; as motives become great, so effects become greater.
154 College and University Department
Of course, as student activities become more dialogue-centered, more of a
Christian search for unity, more confrontation, some strains on public relations
will appear as some rabid contributors call to complain. Directors of develop-
ment, even some presidents, may momentarily fail to find a positive relation-
ship between ecumenism and financial stability. In the long-view however, I
believe the strains will prove short-lived as the spirit grows.
Conclusion
Over the years I have come to shudder at the many responsibilities which
are allocated to colleges and universities. Like other administrators and faculty
members, I have been subjected to, and participated in, the role of the colleges
and universities in their responsibility for intellectual excellence, for the in-
ternational character of world society, for knowledge of the United Nations,
for developing international understanding, and for many other responsibilities
highlighted in papers and conferences and annual conventions. Somehow,
however, this one — the responsibility for fostering the ecumenical spirit is
especially pertinent to Catholic colleges; it is especially of the essence of their
job, it is singularly theirs. For the substance of ecumenism is intellectual, and
Catholic colleges and universities have primary responsibility for developing
intellectual leadership; the spirit of ecumenism is attitude, and colleges and
universities have at least the secondary role of motivating to action. The way
to a greater ecumenical spirit is difficult and particularly delicate to negotiate.
Colleges and universities have great resources to help chart the path; and the
goal itself, the ecumenical spirit, is a noble goal, worthy of the finest efforts
of all of us here in our discussions and at home on our campuses. For it is
the great business of the whole Catholic Church and of all the faithful that
the face which the Catholic Church presents to the world is what it should
be; "that the house which is adorning itself festively, which is renewing itself
in the spring-like splendor of its previous ornaments, is the Church that invites
all men to its bosom." x
CHRISTIAN HIGHER EDUCATION FACES THE FUTURE
Rev. Thurston N. Davis, S.J., editor-in-chief, America
As we close our discussions at this fifty-ninth annual convention, we take
courage from the fact that this promising spring of 1962, after a fruitful sum-
mer, is to yield place to an historic autumn. Why should we relate this NCEA
convention to history in the making? Because 1962 is not just a year like
any other, and because surely no congress of Christians convenes anywhere
in the world these days without the hope and purpose that it may serve in
1 Quoted from a translation of the address of Pope John XXIII at the closing session of
the Ecumenical Council preparatory commissions at the Vatican on June 20, 1961.
Christian Higher Education Faces the Future 155
some small way to prepare and set the stage for the Second Vatican Council,
whose momentous deliberations will mean so much for all of us.
Today our American Catholic colleges and universities inevitably reflect
this mood and share intimately in this historic purpose. Your work of pre-
paring the young men and women of tomorrow, persons whose lives will —
in many cases, we hope — stretch well into the twenty-first century, is a re-
sponsibility that you shoulder in a spirit of tight spiritual unity with the holy
purposes and aspirations of the Fathers of the Council who will assemble in
Rome on October 11th.
In the labors that it has to perform, that Council looks forward to the
realities and the needs of the twenty-first and the thirty-first centuries — and
on to the end of time. Thus, insofar as we pray and work in unison with the
Council, our thoughts and deliberations here are linked with the long future
of history.
Today the ecumenical mood of the entire Church of Christ dominates our
prayers and our proposals for action. At such an hour, therefore, our colleges,
universities, and professional schools must move, like a great convoy of ships
in wartime, on a course charted by the Spirit that broods over the waters of
our troubled and yet profoundly challenging times.
Here and there among the collegiate institutions that are — or should be —
the pride of the Church in the United States, there has been a resounding
response of fullest cooperation with the ecumenical desires of Our Holy
Father, John XXIII. This Pope, though an old man, thinks and speaks and
proposes as though he were in the full vigor of life. He urges on the Cyclopean
work of building once again the mighty house of a united Christian and Catho-
lic family. Hf asks the Church to prepare herself to live in a new age with a
renewed spirit.
On some American campuses this daring appeal of Pope John has called
forth enthusiastic reactions among clergy and laity, faculty, and students.
Elsewhere — and is this not by far the more prevalent attitude? — little or vir-
tually nothing has been done in response to his summons. Here and there,
and to some degree everywhere, one might gather that the thoughts and de-
sires of the Holy Father, which he has tried in so many inspired ways to
communicate to the entire Christian world, have not been heard or understood.
Business as usual in the old academic routines seems to dominate the councils
of many of our faculties and administrations. Thus the master idea of our
Supreme Pontiff appears to be mirrored in only negligible ways in the day-
to-day conduct of college life.
I know at least a little about the immense pressures under which you work
so generously and with such paltry regard for your personal comfort and even
at times for your health. You have a thousand distractions a week and a
hundred urgent calls on your time and energies every day of that week. And,
as if that were not enough, there is always that solidly packed filing cabinet
somewhere in your office filled with the as-yet-unsolved problems of last
semester or last year. No one will deny that your burdens are great. But I
want to insist that perhaps you might profitably shift those burdens a bit in
such a way as to gain time and strength to carry still others. Those who
guide the destinies of our colleges and universities in the year 1962 cannot
allow themselves to get bogged down in a plethora of nonessentials like CEEB
scores, percentile points, the design of a new transcript, or even that staggering
problem of where and how to find more parking space for faculty and student
cars. It would be a shame to be so engrossed in these and like questions that
156 College and University Department
we had no time to consider the meaning of our time and the special oppor-
tunities it offers.
The details of academic housekeeping — the mere arrangement of all our
little academic utensils on the shelves of our academic cupboards — too often
become the central concern of deans and presidents. These are matters which
competent registrars would delegate to their assistants. Administrative bric-a-
brac can exercise a most fascinating tyranny over our minds and imaginations.
We begin to think that when we are knee-deep in such business we are en-
gaged in education. And once knee-deep, we wade in deeper still and get lost
irretrievably in a flood tide of the essentially trivial. I believe this sort of pre-
occupation is one of the worst failings of the modern American educator.
What I shall say next is an aside. I call it an aside because I have no illu-
sions that it will be widely adopted. And yet perhaps it should. At least it
needs to be suggested from time to time to dedicated people like yourselves.
Lest the whole of an academic year — and the whole of your academic lives
year after year — get sucked into this vortex of problems about fundraising,
or plans for the new student union building, or into discussions about rules
and regulations and procedures to be published in a faculty handbook, should
not everyone in a college or university, who has real responsibility for cur-
riculum and for the work of constantly revitalizing an institution of higher
learning, be given a whole series of sabbatical weeks each year? I mean four,
five, or even six weeks scattered throughout the year, when you have no other
duty except to stay out of the office and even off the campus. This means
that we have to provide those needed breathing spaces of precious time when
we can read, pray, ponder, be lazy, do nothing, and try thus to recapture the
vision of what Christian higher education is all about in this ecumenical age.
Maybe this suggestion isn't practical or even possible. I am not sure. But,
assuming that it may not be, then let's do a bit of this pondering right here
this afternoon.
Point One. What ecumenical efforts have been made on your campus?
What prudent initiatives, undertaken with the knowledge and approval of
local members of the episcopal hierarchy, have you sponsored to cultivate the
fertile ground that has now been broken in the field of interfaith relations?
In some colleges there have been technical discussions of theological or
scriptural problems carried on between scholars from Catholic and non-Catho-
lic universities or seminaries. Elsewhere there have been informal, but none
the less real and valuable, contacts and meetings of Catholic faculty or student
leaders with non-Catholic teachers and students. Where better than under
the auspices of our colleges and universities can such persons meet and come
to know and respect one another in the present fresh and warming climate
of mutual respect that has been created by Pope John XXIII? What have you
done to make these meetings possible?
Point Two. The Council will undoubtedly consider the role of the laity in
the Church of today. How does the college for which you are responsible
view this question? What is the role of the layman or the laywoman back
where you come from? Do they have a voice in the councils of those who
determine policy? If not, I bluntly ask you to ask yourselves why not. There
are a hundred things that our colleges can do to emphasize and improve
the position of those thousands of lay partners who share the work and the
dedications of Catholic higher education in the United States. If virtually
Christian Higher Education Faces the Future 157
none of these moves have been made, and made forthrightly, on your campus,
who is to blame?
Point Three. Let's talk about the inferiority of Catholic colleges. Rather,
let's stop talking about it. Let's stop talking about it? Yes, because that ques-
tion has now been booted around so badly that it no longer has any meaning.
I consider the recent Time Magazine story on this subject a perfect example
of what can ultimately happen to a serious discussion when it falls into the
hands of people who do not know the facts or who are not in a position to
get them into perspective.
There are a dozen or more big secular universities in this country which,
owing to their endowment and their means to increase endowment, have
library holdings, expensive scientific equipment, and a roster of renowned
scholars on their faculties that we cannot match, or at least presently hope
to match, on the graduate level. In comparison with these relatively few
institutions, and in this respect alone, our best Catholic colleges and uni-
versities are at a disadvantage.
But after you have ticked off the names of the richly endowed few like
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and a few others, you come upon a vast
number of other American colleges which range down the scale from Class
One "B" to Class Five. Along with the best of these — and rated as high or
higher than the best of them — we must in all fairness range our own better-
endowed colleges and universities. Yes, and some of our smaller colleges
which, with little actual endowment, make up in imagination and enterprise
for what they lack in resources.
Moreover, considering the number of colleges there are in the U.S.A. (375
State institutions; 12 federal schools; 311 under city, local, county or school
district control; 520 private nondenominational colleges; 5 Jewish colleges;
494 Protestant institutions; and some 294 under Catholic auspices), my con-
viction is that while we Catholics have some Grade Five colleges too, an
objective appraisal of the relative merits of all 2,011 colleges made on purely
objective grounds would put the vast bulk of our Catholic colleges in an above-
average position with respect to all other American colleges.
I can't prove this statement. But I am so convinced of it that I have no
hesitation about making it publicly and in very unqualified terms. Further-
more, so far as undergraduate education is concerned, I again have no hesi-
tation in stating that, all things considered, most of our Catholic colleges are
providing superlative undergraduate programs in an atmosphere of respect for
things of the mind that is not surpassed on any campus.
Point Four. We are spending too much time these days talking pointlessly
about the so-called "liberal-conservative" split on our campuses. These "ideo-
logical" tags (left, right; liberal, conservative) are being pinned on individuals
and on groups in imprecise and misleading ways. The two European political
terms "Left" and "Right" have no meaningful bearing on the realities of
American political life, and they certainly have none at all on the realities
of the American Catholic campus. The word conservative is currently being
used to denote attitudes that range all the way from outright anarchy to an
ideology identical with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century "classical liberalism."
Meantime, the term liberal has become a kind of nasty word to denominate
anyone from an A.D.A. sympathizer to some freshman caught reading Father
John Cronin's Communism: Threat to Freedom, or Pope John's Mater et
158 College and University Department
Magistra. In other words, the discussion has gotten all muddled up with emo-
tion, special pleading, plain ignorance, and campus politics.
If Pope John and Father Cronin are liberals, then I am too, and I read and
recommend what both these liberals have written.
Politically and ideologically, I confess that I take a position in what I can
describe only as the extreme center. As a card-carrying member of the
extreme center, I advocate that our colleges and universities stand faithfully
by our full Catholic heritage of reason — a very precise amalgam of ideals and
principles that are both conservative and liberal in the best tradition of both
those words. That program is set forth, for all who run to read, in the social
encyclicals of the modern popes.
Point Five. This concerns the rights of the Church herself as teacher. How
does it come about, in this year of grace 1962, that Catholics, on Catholic
campuses in the United States, are apparently debating whether and to what
extent they intend to permit the Pope and the hierarchies of the world to
continue to form consciences with respect to moral principles involved in
social, economic, and cultural life? If that commitment to the teaching au-
thority of the Church is "up for grabs" on our campuses — and in some
quarters it appears to be — then I say we have a serious problem on our hands.
It is a problem that will not be resolved by running a big klieg-lit liberal-
conservative debate on campus, or by naming a "conservative" to be moderator
of the Junior New Frontiersmen and a "liberal" to act as moderator of the
YAF.
Incidentally, what are we doing back on the campus about Mater et Magistra?
To judge from reports I've heard, the Pope's letter has had rather rough going
in certain places where campus pundits appear to think Mater et Magistra was
written by John Cogley instead of John XXIII. Is the encyclical being taught
in our classrooms, as the Pope explicitly directs (Sections 221-223), or is it
just piously enshrined in the library? Has it become a part of the curriculum,
or is that matter still under discussion in a committee that has not yet reported
back to the dean?
We could go on and on with our probings and our ponderings, from Point
Six to Point Sixty, I'm sure. But this convention is now practically over, and
your planes and trains will not wait. In conclusion, I remind you that the
challenges of our contemporary world will not wait either. The winds of
change surround our academic houses and roar onward from every point of
the compass. If we fancy that life goes on as usual in the stilly peace of our
cloistered halls, it is only because we live today, in our colleges and universities,
in the very eye of a mighty hurricane of revolutionary forces. We must live
with and help to guide those forces. To do so, we must be aware of them.
The Church of Christ, whose Fathers are soon to convene in the Second
Vatican Council, faces the future, and all the change the future may bring,
with open eyes and with an immense courage, hope, and optimism that come
only from her Divine Spouse and from the Spirit of His Love. We, as faithful
Catholics and Catholic educators, can do no less.
THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT IN THE CURRICULUM:
THE WORLD VIEWPOINT
(Summary of Discussion)
Sister Mary Agnes, R.S.M.
PRESIDENT, MOUNT MERCY COLLEGE, CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
The Ecumenical Council to convene in October, 1962, has two main pur-
poses: the reunion of Christendom and the strengthening of the Church through
a survey of needs. The Council of Trent called in 1562 failed as a reunion
council. In some respects there is set up a "Maginot Line," and for four hun-
dred years we have lived with a war psychosis, ghetto-minded and insecure.
The war now over, a new attitude is aborning, and the Holy Father leads the
way with the Mater et Magistra. The last four hundred years might be called
the Age of the Clergy; we are now entering the Age of the Layman. Since the
spirit of ecumenism lies in the realm of attitudes, the task ahead for the Catho-
lic college is to supplant anti-ecumenical attitudes with new ones. Lay Catholics
must be prepared to supplement the work of clergy and religious in the search
for Christian unity. Aware of the power of priesthood in which they share,
laymen must go into every corner of the world as bearers of the Christian mes-
sage and as witnesses to Christ.
In the discussion the question arose, "Where do we begin to change attitudes
for this world apostolate?" Theology, since it is the integrating factor in the
curriculum should be the starting point; but the whole college has to participate
insofar as possible. The Second Vatican Council must do for the laity what
the Council of Trent did for the clergy, that is, Catholic colleges need to be the
training grounds for lay "priests" who can pass on the torch of truth, who can
penetrate into fields that no religious can reach — entertainment, education, and
government — with the same dedication as the religious. The Christian layman
must be as committed to Christianity as the Communist is to communism. Are
we producing such Christians in the colleges?
To meet its responsibilities in the Ecumenical Movement the colleges must
first demonstrate that they have the courage to face the implications of the
ecumenical age. Clerical faculty members must show that they are not afraid
to meet in the dialogue with other religious leaders. They must be willing to
participate in meetings with civic and religious leaders of other faiths. The
Catholic college must face its responsibility for positive action. As Whittaker
Chambers once said, "What is wrong with modern American civilization is
that the mind and heart of man resists a vacuum." Youth wants something
significant to do with their talents, with their lives. Communism capitalizes on
this; it fills the vacuum for too many; it gives them something to do with their
art, their talents. Proselytizing takes place in South America because it fills
the vacuum in the absence of Catholicism.
To make progress in the dialogue there is need to avoid terms that are di-
visive. A semantic problem exists in the teaching of theology, giving rise to a
need for reappraisal in terms that can be better understood by the non-Catholic.
Furthermore we must not use words loaded with emotion. Students must be
prepared to instruct rather than to "hold the line"; they must take the initiative
in spreading the Christian message. But many students lack an adequate un-
derstanding of the spirit of Christianity; they must understand other positions
if they would conduct the dialogue successfully.
159
CATHOLIC COLLEGES AND THE EMERGING NEW NATIONS
Thomas P. Melady
PRESIDENT, CONSULTANTS FOR OVERSEAS RELATIONS, INC., NEW YORK
Many American universities are ignoring the world as it is today. We have
not integrated into our university programs a most startling fact — the rise to
power of the nonwhite peoples. What are the implications of this historic fact?
What is this new challenge — the challenge of the new nations — to our univer-
sities?
The era of exclusive control of world affairs by the white peoples has come
to an end. This era, which began in Greece and passed through periods of
unilateral, bilateral, or multilateral monopoly by one or several nations within
the white community — Rome, Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany
and most recently, the Atlantic community headed by the United States —
saw occasional challenges to this control. But there were no moments in the
2,400 years between the height of Greek civilization and 1960 when one or
several members of the white community did not control the vital political and
economic interests of the world. There were disagreements within that com-
munity resulting in numerous wars; but white power was never successfully
challenged by the people of color.
The basis for the rise to power of the nonwhite peoples rests first with their
superiority in numbers. As the following table indicates, the nonwhite peoples
living in the two major locations of the peoples of color, Asia and Africa, make
up slightly more than 60 percent of the world's population. With the drastic
improvement in health and life expectancy and their higher birth rate the per-
centage will most likely increase to 65 percent within the next five years. When
the nonwhite peoples of the Caribbean, some South American countries and
other areas are added to this, it is obvious that the quantitative domination by
the peoples of color is clearly here to stay.
Population of the World
Area (km2) Midyear 1959
Continent (1 kmz = .386 sq. mi.) est. population
Africa i 30,289,000 236,000,000
North America 2 24,241,000 261,000,000
South America 17,793,000 137,000,000
Asia s 27,149,000 1,624,000,000
Europe* 4,930,000 421,000,000
Oceania B 8,558,000 16,100,000
U.S.S.R. (excluded from
Europe and Asia) 22,403,000 210,500,000
World 135,363,000 2,905,600,000
1 Excluding data for Syria.
2 Excluding Hawaii, a state of U.S.A.
8 Including Syria and all of Turkey, but excluding U.S.S.R.
* Excluding U.S.S.R. and European part of Turkey, all of which is included in Asia.
6 Including Hawaii, a state of U.S.A.
The United Nations machinery is a mirror of the sudden rise to power of the
peoples of color. Africans now control 28 seats,1 which combined with the 22
1 South Africa is obviously not included in this.
160
Catholic Colleges and Emerging New Nations 161
Asian nonwhite seats means that 50 of the 104 seats are now controlled by
these powers. With the anticipated admission of more African states within the
next two years, control of General Assembly proceedings is within momentary
grasp of the Afro-Asian peoples.
Only two of the black African states, Liberia and Ethiopia, were mem-
bers of the old League of Nations. Of the following Asian states only Afghan-
istan, China, India, Iraq, Iran, Siam (now Thailand), and Turkey were
members.
Asian nations who are members of the United Nations are: Afghanistan,
Burma, Byelorussia, Cambodia, Ceylon, China, Federation of Malaya, India,
Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines,
Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand, Ukraine, Yemen. It will be noted that Israel,
Lebanon, and Turkey, though geographically part of Asia, are not included in
this group because the political control is essentially maintained by their "white"
peoples, who constitute the majority of their populations. These three small
states plus Cyprus have, however, been friendly to the various overtures of the
nonwhite states for cooperation in an attempt to bring greater recognition to
these powers at the United Nations and in other international bodies.
The United Nations today comes close to reflecting the real state of world
affairs. This reality was dramatically emphasized in 1961 with the election of an
Asian to the chief executive position in the United Nations. Could anyone
believe that this could ever have happened in the old League of Nations or
even with the United Nations before 1960?
When these political facts are predicated on the economic realities of
growing dependence of the Western industrial nations on the Afro-Asian states
for their raw materials, and as a market for their finished products, we can
easily understand that there are good political reasons why we, as citizens,
should be interested in the new emerging nations.
But we are also fellow human beings, vitally interested in these people as
people. As people we wish to know them, to live peacefully with them, to
share our aspirations and our problems. As people we wish to regard them as
affectionate members of our family. Since a primary step to the development
of friendship should be for us to know them, let us look for a moment at
their historical backgrounds, their ethnic and cultural traditions.
The new nations are full of historical achievements. Highly developed civili-
zations existed in Africa and Asia before the West had established itself as a
leading civilization. When the West reached out to Africa and Asia in the
fifteenth century and later, however, these great civilizations had gone into
decline. The great empires of Portugal, Spain, France, and the United
Kingdom first engaged in trade, then colonized these areas.
A few of our schools have been content to establish an African or Asian
Studies program. But this is not recognition of what the phenomenon of new
nations means to our students today and to those who tomorrow must face
the vast social and political changes that destiny has brought to mankind at
this point in history.
Specifically, what is the lack of recognition? Our history courses are still
devoted almost exclusively to Western Europe. Should not at least equal time
be given to Africa and Asia — home of fifty nations? Our young people are
immersed in a cultural milieu which stresses the symbols of heroes and honor
found in their Western Literature courses. Our students are still devoting most
of their time to the Knights of the Round Table and the Moyen Age. But
what about the strong and honorable heroes of the Berber peoples in Mauri-
162 College and University Department
tania, the Christian soldiers of ancient Ethiopia, and the treasurehouse of
cultural heritage in Madagascar?
We are failing our young people because we are not giving them adequate
preparation for the world of today — so different from the world of yesterday-
Old customs, new nations; ancient languages; new power: so much is new
and we persist in ignoring it. A real danger — for which we must accept
responsibility — is that our young people will not be able to enter into a con-
versation with our Afro-Asian neighbors because they do not know about
their cultures; and since they do not know they do not understand.
In fact, we still do not comprehend the significance of the revolution that
has taken place before our eyes. We do not understand the political impact;
we have been unable to embrace the people of color of these nations with any
of the fervor that should be intrinsic to our way of life.
Why have our institutions of higher learning ignored the peoples of color
even though they constitute such a significant part of the world's body politic?
Perhaps, as a philosopher has recently pointed out, it is because so many of
us have in fact equated the West with God's civilization. Yes, it is true that
many of us were shocked recently when a self-proclaimed Christian patriot
spoke of the "divinely commissioned authority" of the West. But the curricu-
lum of our universities clearly indicate that we, while rejecting the "divine
right of kings" doctrine for our heads of state, have accorded "divine right"
to our civilization.
We have so little time to adjust to the realities of the world as it is. And
the fact is that the West was never God's civilization. In commenting on this
the Rev. Norris Clarke, S.J., in a recent edition of America said:
The sobering possibility which we must now be willing to face is that at
this stage of history the West may well, in God's eyes, have shown itself so
culpably unfaithful to its God-entrusted mission to bear witness to the Judeo-
Christian vision of man in a temporal incarnation, that God may perhaps
be ready to leave the West to its own secular devices and ultimate destruc-
tion. Indeed, He may be preparing to choose some newly born or newly
awakened culture of the non-Western world to be His equally temporary
chosen instrument for a new and perhaps spiritually richer incarnation of
the divine image of man in a temporal society.
Even if one takes the more optimistic view that the West is actually
spiritually healthier than may appear on the surface, or has a good chance
of imminent spiritual rejuvenation, it would still seem highly improbable in
the light of history that the West has any definite God-given mission to hold
the rest of the world in permanent master-disciple tutelage — spiritually, in-
tellectually, economically or culturally.
Signs point, rather, toward a new era of world culture of greater richness
than anything that has gone before, nourished by the complementary con-
tributions of all the great cultural blocs, either reawakened or come of age
for the first time, each making its unique contribution as a mature mem-
ber of the great human family, knit together around the world by indis-
soluble links of mutual dependence and enrichment on every level.
Let us look for a moment to the Soviet Union. How have the institutions of
higher learning there reacted to the challenge of the new nations?
The Soviet government has called upon its institutions of higher learning to
prepare Soviet citizens for their work in the winning of Africa. Two months
after the 20th Party Congress, in 1956, the Oriental Institute (Institut Vos-
tokovedenia) of the Soviet Academy of Science shifted its emphasis to South
Catholic Colleges and Emerging New Nations 163
East Asia and Africa and began training additional personnel in African
studies. The Soviet Academy of Science published an article describing its
Five-Year Plan of Research to build up an academic tradition. This included a
large number of new studies on "The role and significance of Africa in the
colonial system of imperialism." A long list of these studies was published in
the leading Soviet ethnographic journal.
The University of Leningrad, a traditional center of Oriental studies both in
pre-revolutionary and in Soviet times, has established a department of African
languages with several professorships. This offers extensive coverage of several
African tongues including Swahili, Hausa, Bantu, and Sudanic languages. The
University of Moscow offers several African languages as do the Universities
of Odessa, Kiev, Kharkov, Simferopol, and Tiflis.
At least nineteen Soviet universities, representing more than half the leading
institutions, offer some African languages, including Amharic, Arabic, and
Egyptian. Five offer languages spoken south of the Sahara. Twelve specialized
institutes additionally feature African languages. Arabic is also taught in several
Russian secondary schools. No secondary school in the U.S. is known to
have an African language in its curriculum.
African customs and institutions provide so much material for the study
of anthropology that it can scarcely be taught without the use of African case
studies. The subject accordingly is emphasized by the staffing-up of Soviet
universities with heavy anthropology faculties. Similarly, in the field of
ethnography, a number of recent, serious textbooks have referred copiously to
Africa. The fields of economics, geography and African Negro art specifically
are included in the teaching programs. Russian museums now can boast con-
siderable collections of African art. Source material is being developed. Soviet
university libraries, judging from documentations and bibliographic references,
already are fairly well developed.
There is very little time. We must begin today in our institutions of higher
learning. The facts of the world today can no longer be ignored. In addition to
this reality there is also the fact that a delightful intellectual experience awaits
our young people. New nations focusing onto the world stage ancient peoples
who remained silent for centuries and who, with a breathtaking suddenness,
have stood up.
No one is recommending a complete change. As members of the Western
community we want to know and to understand our own history, traditions,
and culture. But we can no longer afford a parochial, isolated exclusion of other
cultures.
History seldom gives opportunities for greatness. Here is such an opportu-
nity for the American universities and colleges: integrate into the curriculum
the history, the culture, the language of the new nations. The Afro-Asian
peoples are now our next door neighbors. We must accept the exciting challenge
of preparing our young people for this new society.
Some institutions will prefer to look to yesterday, ignoring the significance
of this revolution of color that has taken place. In doing this they will dream
about "the good old days." Our true universities will, however, look confidently
to the realities and see in them the sunrise of tomorrow.
The institutions with courage will recognize their opportunity — yes, their
duty — not to mourn the sunset but rather to look with confidence on the
new dawn that awaits us. And this dawn is a world inhabited mostly by people
of color. It is our task now to assist our young people to know them; for then
they will be able to understand.
CATHOLIC COLLEGES AND THE EMERGING NEW NATIONS
(Summary of Discussion)
Sister Marie Christine, G.N.S.H.
DEAN, D'YOUVILLE COLLEGE, BUFFALO, NEW YORK
The Very Rev. A. William Crandell, S.J., president of Spring Hill College,
Mobile, Alabama, discussion leader of group 2, introduced the analyst, Dr.
Thomas P. Melady, whose remarks are printed in full above. This report is
confined to the discussion which followed.
Dr. Melady emphasized the fact that the nonwhite nations are steadily gain-
ing control of the United Nations numerically. At the dedication of the library
at the United Nations, the majority of those in attendance were nonwhite and
did not wear suits. At a recent meeting, U. N. Secretary U Thant urged a
predominantly white group to depart from Western philosophy and dedicate
themselves to the study of oriental philosophy with its emphasis on spiritual
values, on contemplation.
The first question asked was "What constitutes a good curriculum in non-
Western cultures?" A surprising number (about two-thirds) of those institu-
tions present were doing something to incorporate studies in African, Asian,
Latin American cultures into the curriculum. New York State certification re-
quirements for secondary teachers of social studies now lists a one-year course
in Non-Western Civilization. Thus, many New York institutions of higher
learning have introduced such a course. Seton Hall in New Jersey has started
a good program. At Catholic University, the doctoral program in higher
education requires that one-fourth of all the courses taken must be in inter-
national education: Asian, African, Russian. In Minnesota, under a Hill Family
Foundation grant, an intercollegiate program, open to junior and senior stu-
dents, in the culture and history of Russia, the Far East, the Middle East, has
been carried on successfully and is now to be expanded to include Africa and
Latin America. Too, an intercollegiate summer program, called "Amity among
Nations" and financed by business men in the Twin Cities area, consists of
travel to and residence in a foreign country and the preparation of a thesis on
the experience.
Dr. Melady observed that among the textbooks exhibited at the convention
for courses in social studies only one gave the history of African and Asian
culture. He warned us that we must not think our job done by introducing
a course or a program offered as an elective or even a requirement to some
members of the student body. We must strive to make these studies, or at
least an introduction to them, an integral part of the basic or core curriculum.
Dr. Melady warned us that the American history (and state history in many
instances) requirement for college students constitutes a problem. It was gen-
erally agreed that these courses should be well and thoroughly taught on the
secondary level so that the college could devote time to developing a good
understanding of both Western and non-Western civilization. Time, of course,
is the great stumbling block for us. Perhaps, extracurricular emphasis on non-
Western affairs is a solution. Too, an imaginative director of the library could
create an interest by the attractive presentation of books, other displays, and
programs to highlight the non-Western cultures.
Dr. Melady reminded us that fascination with the peoples and customs of
164
Catholic Colleges and Emerging New Nations 165
foreign lands begins in the elementary schools. The study of geography in
the grades, if conveyed with sparkle and charm, will sow seeds that will bear
fruit later. Geography is a very important part of the training of the Peace
Corps. Dr. Melady deplored the few Catholics who are career men in
the State Department, on the ambassador level, for instance. Therein lies
a great opportunity for apostolic work, for the ecumenical spirit.
One member of the group pointed out that there is a basic misunderstand-
ing about Western and Oriental civilization. The component parts of the
first, while different, are basically the same. In the latter there are generic
differences. Since it would be practically impossible to teach such a variety
of greatly differing cultures, the goal should be rather the development of
attitudes.
Dr. Melady brought with him a young student from Indonesia, Robertus
Suhartono, a graduate of Canisius College in Indonesia, a delegate to Pax
Romana, now a student at Wayne State University. From Robertus we
received a view from the "other side." He pointed out an immediately
apparent difference between American and Russian students. In the Soviet
Union he came in contact with students who knew his country and with
whom he could, therefore, carry on a serious discussion. (Of course he
understood that the Soviet Union regulated his activities, as it does those of
other foreign students, so that he met only Russians versed in the affairs
of his country.) In America he is not asked about his own country but
rather his impressions of America. Were the question asked seriously, it
could serve as a basis for stimulating discussion but most of the time it is
superficial. He felt that attitudes cannot be developed in the student unless
he is given a broad, general background of African, Asian, Latin American
civilization. This might lead to more serious, stimulating, world-centered
rather than America-centered discussions between American and foreign
students.
Non-Western countries teach American history and civilization. Though
it is true, as some of our group brought out, that it is to their advantage
to study our civilization since America is a great power and excels in
technical skills; still the fact that a broad knowledge of the Western world
is acquired by students of non-Western countries forces us to admit that it
seems feasible to give students an understanding of a culture or cultures other
than their own. The final remarks Robertus made, politely and smilingly, served
to sum up with telling effect what had been said and to link our discussion
with the general theme of the ecumenical spirit. No country today can
afford the luxury of isolation. It is our duty as Christians to share with
others. This we cannot do unless we know something about them: how they
act, how they think, how they feel.
COLLEGE THEOLOGY AND THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT:
PREPARATION FOR THE DIALOGUE
Rev. Bernard J. Cooke, S.J.
CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY, MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY
The task of preparation for the "dialogue" is obviously one of the most
crucial obligations of our Catholic institutions of higher learning. If I am
not mistaken, the question as proposed to this group today was framed in
terms of Catholic conversation with Orthodox and Protestants. I would
like to extend that to include those in our American and world society
whose "religion," if we can call it that, consists in the lack of any
formal religious commitment and whose ideological option is directed toward
secular pursuit of knowledge and human betterment. Experience proves,
I believe, that this group is of great importance; and unless we learn to
speak to them, we will fail also to address ourselves meaningfully to intelligent
adherents of religious faiths other than our own.
For the sake of giving orientation to the discussion that is to follow this
paper, I will divide my remarks into two sections: first, I will mention
what I consider some of the areas of information that fall within the domain
of theology and that are germane to our topic; secondly, I will describe
some of the attitudes that theology should help to develop in our students
in preparation for their role in our religiously pluralistic society.
1. An intelligent Catholic who will speak in a way to be heard by his
non-Catholic fellow Americans must have a deep understanding of the true
catholicity of the Church. By this I mean that he must see that the Church
has within itself a limitless flexibility of expression, so that it can find itself
at home in any period of history, in any culture or language, in the life
experience of any and each human being. This in no way takes away
from the unity of the Church; but the unity of the Church is a rich reality
that finds its expression in the midst of a health diversity. It will greatly
contribute to such an understanding of the Church to have seen it in the
course of its historical evolution; to have discovered it as a constantly
emergent and dynamic mystery; to have acquired a genetic understanding
of the present situation of the Church as well as of our present unhappy
state of Christian disunion. Such an understanding of the Church, our
theology courses, in their historical aspects, should contribute to the edu-
cation of our students.
2. In order to grasp the true distinctiveness of the Catholic Church, our
students must come to see those elements in the Church that are super-
natural and transcendent. Lack of understanding about the whole realm of
supernatural reality, that reality which is most essentially what we call
sanctifying grace, seems to have been one of the most important thought
roots of the Protestant Reformation. We cannot look forward to any deep
reconciliation until our educated Catholics and Protestants recover such an
understanding. Hence, it is of pivotal importance that our college-level
teaching of theology impart an accurate knowledge of this supernatural
166
College Theology and the Ecumenical Spirit 167
transformation of man, and that it give concomitantly a precise understand-
ing of the Church's role in the causation of this transformation.
In the light of the fact that the Church is Christ's instrument in super-
naturalizing man, that the Church is meant to express this life (as is each
Christian in the Church) by continuing Christ's own salvific act of wor-
shiping the Father, our students can then begin to discover the truly distinc-
tive nature and role of the Church. They will then be ready for us to
help them distinguish the elements in the Church's actual life into four
groupings:
a) that which is truly distinctive of Christianity and which is common to
Catholics and to some of the groups separated from us;
b) that which we believe is distinctive of Christianity and which is lacking,
at least partially, in other groups;
c) that which is common to ourselves and others, but which is not a dis-
tinctive characteristic of Christianity;
d) that which is not common to Catholics and others and which is also
not an essential and characteristic element of Christian belief or life.
Making such a careful distinction will not solve all the areas of misunder-
standing and difference of belief that separate Christians; but it will clear
the ground, will indicate the true areas of difference that we must discuss,
and will help our students to see that some of the elements that operate most
effectively to oppose Catholics and others are elements that are nonessential.
3. One of the most heartening indications that Christian reunion may
one day be achieved is the resurgence of interest in and study of Scripture.
Obviously, the first reason we rejoice at the fact that our Catholic people
are being brought to an understanding of the Bible is that it is the Word
of God; it is the privileged communication to us of that revelation on which
alone our faith can feed and grow. From our present point of view, the
preparation of our collegians for productive religious converse with their
non-Catholic friends and acquaintances, this recovery of the Bible is of
utmost importance. One of the gravest problems in trying to work toward
reunion is that of finding a basic vocabulary and set of ideas which both
sides understand in the same way. Since the various divisions among us
occurred some centuries ago, we have grown constantly further apart in our
thinking and therefore in the meaning we attach to words; and it is quite
difficult not to misunderstand one another's use of words when we try to
initiate an ecumenical discussion. Only the Bible seems to offer us a world
of ideas and an inspired expression of those ideas which we can all accept
and use as our starting point.
However, such a recourse to Scripture to find a common ground requires
on the part of all concerned an ability to return to the Bible and to read it
for itself. We are, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, still a long way from
possessing adequately such an educated grasp of the objective content of
Sacred Scripture. Nonetheless, in Catholic circles, guided by the wise pre-
scription of "Divino Afflante Spiritu" that we seek the literal meaning of
the Bible, we have advanced by leaps and bounds in the past couple decades;
and in our college courses we are beginning to introduce our students to
an educated reading of the Word of God.
Obviously, there is at stake here something much deeper than a verbal
acquaintance with Scripture; this is not a question of the old polemic game
168 College and University Department
in which religious opponents could quote Scripture passages at one another
in order to defend their respective positions. What I am urging is that our
educated Catholics be steeped in the way of thinking of the Bible, that they
become accustomed to the process of what we might call (for lack of a
better term) biblical theologizing, that they see the roots in biblical words
and ideas and institutions of the ideas and beliefs and practices that they
possess in the Catholic Church. Then, if our non-Catholic brethren do the
same — and this process has definitely begun among them — we will be in-
creasingly able to sit down with one another and discuss together the deeper
issues of our Christian faith.
4. Men today have been educated to be critical and analytic (which is
good), and after two World Wars most men have become almost cynically
sceptical of any religious position that claims to offer an ultimate solution
to life's questions. At the same time, in his scientific and technological
progression, contemporary man seems to be grasping more and more of the
elements that will enable him to build a future of fulfillment and deep human
betterment. If our Catholic college graduates are to enter into serious
conversation with the educated men of our time, if they are to discuss the
important issues of contemporary human existence and point to Christianity
as the hope of mankind's deepest salvation, then these Catholic college grad-
uates must see the true relevancy of the Church.
If my own observations do not betray me, I think that many of us who
have moved somewhat in non-Catholic intellectual circles have found little
animosity for the Church or for the Catholic position. What we have found
often is the assumption that Catholicism has little to say to our times. What
really does the Catholic Church have to offer the ambitious, intelligent, crea-
tive young people in our American society? With a lifetime of achievement
and discovery and enjoyment of the "good life" before them, they find little
reason to accept the standard religious questions as real questions; and they
do have problems; and they do have dreams.
We must educate our young Catholics so that they understand and take
seriously these questions and problems and dreams of twentieth-century man.
We must then — and this is the difficult task of our theological instruction —
show our young Catholic collegians the true depths of the word of the Church
and the sanctity of the Church, word and sanctity that are capable, if ex-
pressed genuinely and authentically, to bring truth and life to our world, to
shape a truly Christian future. The Church is not only up to date; it is the only
human institution that is already participating in the future, because of the
presence of the risen Lord in its midst. But, alas, how little of this dynamic
reality of the Church shines through at times!
5. One of the questions that stands in the forefront of any ecumenical
discussion is that of Church authority. Granted, this is an issue that is deli-
cate, that must be handled with careful precision; but it is an issue that
must be met head-on if we are to claim any serious approach to under-
standing with our separated Christian brethren. Our students must be pre-
pared for a mature understanding and discussion of this issue; they must
know the precise areas that are proper to ecclesiastical authority in teaching
and in government; they must understand the spirit in which, according to
the message of the Gospels, Church authority is to be exercised. They
must be instructed carefully about the essential super-naturality of this au-
thority, about its need, its origin, its limits. They must be prepared to
College Theology and the Ecumenical Spirit 169
understand with mature sympathy those abuses of authority in the Church
that have occurred in past history and that occur at times in our own day.
Yet they must be educated to see what is an abuse as an abuse, so that their
acceptance of authority may be a dignified and mature choice which they
can explain as such to their contemporaries.
6. Finally, though there are areas of understanding which limits of time
compel us to neglect, our college students must be made to grasp that role
which is proper to the layman in the mystery of the Church. Their Catholic
college education, above all their theological formation, should clarify for
them the understanding of that Christian task that is genuinely theirs, a task
in which they are to exercise initiative and responsibility that are proper to
them and that are not just functions delegated to them because there is a
shortage of priests and religious. With increased awareness that he is to
participate in the apostolate of the Church, our generous Catholic student is
eager for action; but his activity must be directed by a correct vision of the
priestly role of the Church, by a clear knowledge of the contribution that he
alone can bring to the fulfillment of the Church's life and work: this our
college courses in theology should provide.
The Attitudes That Are Needed
These are, then, some of the areas of understanding that our college courses
in theology should develop in our students. In addition to these rather
clear-cut objectives, our theological instruction must also feed into the some-
what vaguer region of attitudes that come into play in ecumenical discourse.
Without being able to state sharply the part that theology classes should play
in developing such attitudes, let me state simply and briefly the attitudes that
I think our students must acquire:
1. All those who would contribute with profit to the gradual healing of
Christian disunity must have true openness of mind. They must be capable
of understanding the problems and points of view of others as being true
problems and worthwhile points of view. They must have that deep regard
for others, that charity, which enables them to believe that others have a basis
for their religious positions other than ignorance of truth. They must have
an unfeigned interest in discovering the ideas of others, they must come to
that knowledge of their fellow man that is inseparable from love.
Such an openness to opinions opposed to Catholic belief is dangerous?
Yes, it is for one who is poorly educated in his faith, or for one who is not
humble enough to realize that Catholic faith has more to say than his own
rather limited possession of knowledge about that faith. Yet we must com-
municate to our students that courageous trust in the truth of our Catholic
belief that will enable them to become the leaven in the midst of the intellectual
dough of today's world.
2. Our students must be formed so that they look at their world, at their
Catholic faith, at the Church, honestly. Without cynicism or rancor, they
must be mature enough to face the mistakes of the past and the present. They
must be instructed so that they recognize the areas of Catholic opinion that
are only opinion — even if theological opinion — and those that are of faith.
They must be trained — particularly in our day when the need is so great to
think through the ways in which the visible aspects of the Church can be
made meaningful to men — to recognize those elements in the Church's life
170 College and University Department
that are ephemeral and due to natural cultures, and to distinguish them from
those unchanging elements that are of the essence of the Church of Christ.
This point I list under attitudes rather than under information, because I
think that it is important to realize that such an objective view of the Church
requires honesty that is somewhat rare and courage that comes only from
the supernatural virtue of hope.
3. Our theological instruction must help to lay the roots of an adult, Christ-
centered spirituality. Moreover, our theology courses should gradually lead
our students to that intelligent expression of their freedom in sacramental
action that is the true heart of Christian sanctity. An approach to spirituality
that is isolated and individualistic, that is mired in a multiplicity of devotional
practices that are unrelated to the central Christian mysteries, is neither
deeply Christian, nor in line with the trend of the Spirit's workings in the
Church today.
Besides — and this is the precise aspect that touches on our topic — such
a spirituality is not attractive because it does not reveal Christ to the world.
The function of the Church in the world is to witness to Christ; only when
the spirituality of Catholics provides such an adult witness will the mystery
of Christ shine through to attract men to the Church.
4. Finally, our students must themselves grasp the pertinence of faith and
religion in their own lives: How else can they pretend to their fellows that
religion is of value to our world? Our students must really see that theology
is central and essential to their entire intellectual existence; they must, as
educated men, see their faith as the pearl of great price. Thoroughly con-
vinced that Christianity is the hope of transforming our emerging world, they
will be enabled with quiet yet effective words to present to educated men
of our day the true face of God.
Such are, as I see them, some of the tasks that challenge college theology
today. If we be honest, we must admit that we are not completely ready
to meet the challenge; we have been alerted to it late, and in some quarters
the alert has not yet sounded. Yet somehow, trusting in the providence of
God, we must face the task, knowing that the opportunity and the need are
too great for us to take cowardly refuge in our weakness.
COLLEGE THEOLOGY AND THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT
(Summary of Discussion)
Sister Stella Maris, O.P.
SAINT CATHERINE JUNIOR COLLEGE, ST. CATHERINE, KENTUCKY
The first question discussed, and the one receiving the most attention, con-
cerned ways of providing factual information regarding non-Catholic religious
thought for our students, especially by inviting representative Protestant and
College Theology and the Ecumenical Spirit 111
Jewish speakers to our campuses. This summary will note the arguments pro
and con, the clarifications resulting from the discussion, and the all-important
point of episcopal permission.
This type of program has proved popular with students. They sometimes
suspect that their instructors are not stating fairly the non-Catholic positions,
and this program convinces them. Again, the trite summaries in textbooks
often appear to pass off the whole body of opposition as stupid; this program
inspires respect for the sincerity of others who are deeply concerned with the
search for truth. It is good for our students to recognize and respect the
problems of an agonizing search, and to become aware that the profound
religious questions of others are our profound religious questions also.
It was objected that the program might lead to loss of faith by some stu-
dents, or might lead them to think that religious truth is a matter of opinion
rather than of fact. Regarding the safeguarding of faith, it was pointed out
that the college must select to present the Catholic position a priest who can
communicate with the students. Regarding truth, of course there is objective
truth, but the approach to truth, on the Catholic side as well as the non-
Catholic, might well be a sympathetic discussion of each other's opinion.
Catholics might look not merely for errors, but for elements of truth which
both sides share.
Questions were raised on openness of mind. Do our teachers have it? Can
we give it to students? Dare we encourage mistake-making as a road to cer-
tainty? Father Cooke's reply indicated that we should encourage not mistake-
making but the recognition of ignorance. The Church has the answer to all
the problems, but no individual here and now has a clear and complete under-
standing of that answer. Some other group may be developing points which
are providentially designed to contribute to our understanding.
It is generally recognized that a large proportion of the more intelligent
students go through a crisis of faith during their college years. It is well to
mention this fact to freshmen, so that they may come to look on it as a sign
of maturity rather than of loss of faith.
The discussion led to a clarification of the purpose of the dialogue. We
are trying to grow in understanding. Conversion is God's work, and no one
knows how or when it will be accomplished. For an example of the unfor-
seeable action of Providence in an historical fact, it was pointed out that the
dreadful phenomenon of nazism brought Protestants and Catholics to a greater
mutual understanding through discussion.
The attitude of the bishops of the country was found to vary considerably,
but a number of institutions reported that they had obtained permission for
this dialogue with some regulations concerning the program or the audience.
It was suggested that the Chairman of this group request the Resolutions Com-
mittee to take action which would inform the hierarchy of the general desire
of the colleges to engage in this type of activity. The bishops would thus be
prepared for the requests they will receive from individual colleges, and will
recognize them as part of a national pattern.
One further question was raised: If suitable speakers are not available, what
printed materials will help to fill the gap? Several titles were mentioned:
1. Christianity Divided: Protestant and Roman Catholic Theological Issues,
Daniel Callahan, ed., (Sheed and Ward). Five major theological issues
are treated in turn by an outstanding Protestant and an outstanding
Catholic theologian.
172 College and University Department
2. Christianity in Conflict: A Catholic View of Protestantism, by Father
John A. Hardon (Newman Press). This book was well reviewed in both
Protestant and Catholic media.
3. Krull's Christian Denominations, which, though not up-to-date, is basic
and sound.
Question 2 on the theological course brought discussion of the relative merits
of the biblical, historical, and doctrinal approaches. Father Cooke remarked
that the exact sequence of courses is not of the essence, but that good theo-
logical teaching includes all approaches. Scripture and tradition are not op-
posed, although this unfortunate impression is sometimes conveyed. The
purpose of theology is to make understandable to man the ways of God.
Question 3 on apologetics raised the point that there are three understand-
ings of this term, frequently confused by textbooks. There is need of clarifying
the purpose of the courses given. It was pointed out that statements should
be definitely classified as opinion, fact, or defined dogma. Many of the differ-
ences which separate people are nonessentials wrongly regarded as essentials.
THE OPEN TRADITION IN CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP
Philip Scharper
american editor, sheed and ward, inc., new york, n.y.
This paper will attempt to approach the subject from the vantage point of
both history and philosophy. It will deal first with the role of the intellectual
in the Church as history demonstrates that role, and will then attempt to show
why an examination of the nature of truth and man's grasp of it makes neces-
sary the openness of mind indicated in the title.
The Historical Survey
History would seem to indicate that, almost from its origins, Christianity
was deeply divided on the question of how the truths of revelation should
color the approach of the Christians to the truths of the non-Christian world.
Tertullian (and his many successors over the centuries) gave an emphatic
answer in the negative. "What possible relationship can there be between
Athens and Jerusalem?" he asked, and hundreds of sincere Christians have
been repeating that question ever since.
The decision of Tertullian was not, however, to prove definitely strategic
or normative. Thinkers such as Clement, Ignatius, and Basil were to prove
paradigmatic and, as a consequence, the startling capacity of Christianity for
assimilation and synthesis was to be shown again and again in the Church's
historical confrontation first with the Greek world and then with the bar-
barian.
While other figures in this 'open tradition' could be cited, it may perhaps
Open Tradition in Catholic Scholarship 173
be most illuminating briefly to dwell on the example of Thomas Aquinas who,
in his major works, was conducting a living dialogue with the world of Greek
thought (Plato, Aristotle); of Arabian thought (Averroes, Avicenna); and
post-biblical Hebrew thought (Maimonides), even as he himself stood within
the center of Catholic thought.
Philosophical Inquiry
The historical record, interesting and illuminating though it be, is not enough
to be finally persuasive, let alone convictive, with regard to the nature or
seeming necessity of the open tradition in Catholic thought. The historical
record itself would seem to demand a deeper reason for its being, and this
deeper reason can be found, perhaps, in the very nature of truth. The human
mind is painfully finite, and it operates, for the most part, on objects which
are themselves finite and limited. The objects of our thought and the mind
which thinks are alike creatures thrust into the universe by the hand of the
same Creator.
Given this fact, known to us by both reason and revelation, we would seem
forced to the conclusion that we cannot exhaust the truth of even the simplest
reality with our finite minds, although the temptation to think that we have
exhausted the cognoscible possibilities of an object continually besets the
scholar as well as his student.
Further, given this relation, rooted in finitude, between the thinker and
the object of his thought, it is also evident that the life of the mind, the pur-
suit of truth, is actually the life of many minds; that it is, in fact, a communal
process. Wordsworth's description of a bust of Newton as "the marble index
of a mind/ forever voyaging on strange seas of thought alone" makes reason-
ably nice poetry, but bad history and philosophy. Certainly Aquinas did not
voyage alone, but was accompanied by the Fathers and doctors who had pre-
ceded him in the Faith, by exegetes and scholars whose work was known to
him, as well as by the non-Christian thinkers who have been cited earlier.
If the pursuit of truth is, then, the work of a community of thinkers, we
have no warrant, in either revelation or reason, for assuming that this com-
munity must be a community of the religiously elect such as either the old
or the new Israel.
So true is this that we are forced rather to the opposite conclusion, namely,
that we must make a constant effort to relate our theology to the spheres of
secular knowledge — not, indeed, to elevate and bless the secular sciences, but
to enable us more fully to interpret and possess our theology.
THE OPEN TRADITION IN CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP
(Summary of Discussion)
Sister Joan Marie, O.S.U.
PRESIDENT, BRESCIA COLLEGE, OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
The meeting was opened by the chairman who posed the problem, "Are
we begging the question in Catholic scholarship?" Catholics claim to have
an open tradition, yet people point a finger of scorn at us asking about the
indexed books, the Inquisition, Galileo, and a ghetto mentality. Too often
we give pat answers. Is the tradition of Catholic scholarship open or closed?
The analyst, Mr. Philip Scharper, suggested answers to this question in his
paper which described the open tradition from two points of view: (1) a
brief historical survey of the open tradition as it is found in the history of
Catholic thought, and (2) a philosophical consideration concerning the neces-
sity of the tradition. The open tradition was defined as "an openness of mind
and a capacity equal to that of anyone to follow the truth wherever it may
seem to lead." This openness of mind, however, has not always been the con-
sistent and unfailing hallmark of the Catholic mind in history. At times there
has been ambivalence: an anti-intellectual attitude toward pagan scholarship,
as Tertullian with his belief that "we have no need of intellectual curiosity
after Christ," and the open mind with its love of wisdom searching from
school to school for all knowledge and truth whose source is God, such as
the tradition of Augustine, Thomas, and Erasmus.
Philosophically, the open tradition is necessary since the pursuit of the true
life of the mind is a communal effort, the life of many minds. Since the search
for truth engages a community of thinkers, it has no warrant on revelation
or on a body of religious-elect. Truth must be sought and it must extend to
all that is knowable in every field where Catholic scholarship may be exer-
cised. It has to move beyond the historical and philosophical to a theological
insight into the open tradition.
The discussion, which followed the presentation of Mr. Scharper's paper,
gradually resolved itself into the two areas which he pinpointed, the historical
and the philosophical. Some of the problems raised suggested the existence
at present of a dilemma similar to that ambivalence which faced the medieval
scholar. It was agreed that an openness of mind does exist and is being en-
couraged by such performances as the inter-faith dialogues and by such recent
publications as American Catholic Dilemma, Counter Reform and Union, and
the Spirit and Form of Protestantism. The controversial issues faced in these
works permit a more open dialogue with our opponents and, consequently,
a more extensive pursuit of truth. On the other hand, the restrictions of the
Index prove to be one of the most serious problems in scholarly pursuit in
Catholic institutions. Unless some better method of making this type of litera-
ture available is found, the proper advance in intellectual inquiries cannot be
made; the Index prevents that dialogue which is at the heart of the Ecumenical
Movement.
The significance of the Index in the open tradition is closely related to the
teaching of philosophy in our Catholic colleges and universities. Catholic
students are poorly prepared to enter state universities because they have a
174
Ecumenism and the Community Spirit 175
serious lack of knowledge of the philosophies taught in these institutions.
Books on the Index are like pocket books in these schools; they are assigned
to be read, and the Catholic, incompetent to meet with such a situation, im-
bibes their spirit and often loses his faith.
Why are students so poorly prepared? The fault is with method not con-
tent; there is a tendency to give immense provocative truths to our students
in a canned form which they cannot understand because they are bound by
precise terms and the "isms" of a mind less open than that of St. Thomas.
Contending philosophies must be dealt with in the positive constructive man-
ner of Thomas so that inquiry might move forward. The pursuit of truth
must move forward in all the areas where knowledge is found: this calls for
something of the inquiring spirit of St. Thomas and for his share of God's
knowledge through reason.
As educators, our own concern within the life of Catholic scholarship, how-
ever small the contribution, is to endeavor to create the climate of the open
tradition on our own campus and in our classrooms. This climate will serve
to encourage the student with the creative mind, not restrict him. We have
no choice but to embrace the open tradition, to attempt to correlate our theol-
ogy with secular fields of knowledge. This not merely that we might bless,
elevate, consecrate secular fields of knowledge but that we might interpret
and possess our theology at its fullest.
Do we dare to put the words of Terence, "I am a man and nothing which
touches man is foreign to me," on the lips of the Incarnate Christ, on the lips
of the Christian scholar? "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all things to Myself."
Let us put no arbitrary provisions on the omnia which Christ is constantly,
mysteriously drawing to Himself.
ECUMENISM AND THE COMMUNITY SPIRIT: PREPARING
STUDENTS FOR INTELLIGENT LAY LEADERSHIP
Sister M. Stephanie Stueber, C.S.J.
ACADEMIC DEAN, FONTBONNE COLLEGE, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
Were we this afternoon to compare the educational plans, the objectives,
the aims of our various colleges, we undoubtedly — at least, I hope — would
agree that a true college education is identical with the intellectual life. As
college people we are concerned with seeing relationships, getting at basic
principles, arriving at ultimate causes. With Newman, whose insights into
higher education have the respect of all respectable thinkers on the subject,
we would plead, not for mere knowledge, but for enlightenment or enlarge-
ment of mind, intellectual culture, a real illumination, an expansion that sees
the part in relation to the whole, effect in relation to cause. Again with New-
man we would maintain "That only is true enlargement of mind which is
the power of viewing many things at once as one whole, of referring them
176 College and University Department
severally to their true place in the universal system, of understanding their
respective values, and determining their mutual dependence" (Idea of a Uni-
versity, VI, 6).
This growing intellectual expansion which enables one to relate truths, to
see their mutual dependence, to refer them to a total cosmic vision of reality
— this is essential not only to the nature of a real college education but also
to ecumenism and the community spirit. There is no sense at all in talking
about "preparing students for intelligent lay leadership" regarding ecumenism
if we regard ecumenism only as an attempt to bring religions together in dia-
logue apart from the whole problem of unity, the whole mystery of unity.
Rather, it seems to me, we must increase our angles of vision regarding the
real organic nature of unity, the implications of unity, the cosmic, total, and
demanding aspects of unity. Educating intelligent lay leaders for this thrust
to unity, to ecumenism — this is our Christian and professional duty, this is
our subject for discussion today. Deeper insights into the nature of the end —
unity — will enable us better to form the instruments, the leaders, and will
enable us better to form ourselves, the delegated and consecrated leaders of
the leaders.
What I have to say today is probably not what was intended when the title
of this talk was assigned. I have no neat rules or directives to offer. I have
no practical suggestions to make. My own theory is that the truth when en-
countered, when contemplated, should impel to loving, to acting. In this pas-
sage from seeing the truth to doing the truth, from knowing to loving, from
receiving the Word to continuing the Incarnational and Redemptive mysteries
of the Word — in this passage is the final mystery of unity. It is in this mystery
that we as leaders must ourselves get more and more involved, and must get
other leaders involved. Anything less than total involvement is fragmentation.
We shall first look at, contemplate, ruminate around in the mystery of unity.
We shall then try to relate the mystery of unity to the college educational
scene. Finally, we shall try to point out some of the conditions that best pre-
pare one for "leadership to unity." Your contribution by way of discussion
will have to supply the practical aspects of this session.
"That they may be one, even as we are one: I in them and Thou in me;
that they may be perfected in unity" (John 17:23). Here is unity in itself,
in its source, in its destiny. The perfection of being called unity is eternally
and absolutely a divine perfection identical with the very nature of God. In
Him, distinctions between nature and activities, between activities and per-
fections, between perfections and existence, between existence and essence
cannot be made except intentionally. Real distinctions between the Divine
Persons, yes, within the eternal dynamic cycle of Divine Life, of Infinite
Knowing, of Infinite Loving.
Through the Word dwelling in the bosom of the Father, created beings are
brought into existence and according to their natures reflect the Divine Unity
from Whom they proceed: the blade of grass more perfect than the stone,
the bird more perfect than the rose, the man more perfect than the beast,
each more perfect because of a more perfect form, a more perfect principle
of unity. Moreover, as divinely planned, there was a cosmic unity throughout
creation wherein there were right relationships within and among natures.
The lower was ordered to the higher, matter to spirit, the many to the One.
Within man himself there was a personal unity — passions ordered to reason,
Ecumenism and the Community Spirit 177
reason to faith, nature to grace. Through grace, man was even lifted into a
participation in the Trinitarian Unity.
Although sin destroyed the original order and unity created by God, the
felix culpa evoked a new revelation of the One, the Incarnate Word of God.
Christ came to reconcile, to restore, to unify. He Who is the Perfect Expres-
sion of the Infinite Knowledge of the Father, He through Whom all things
are created, touches through His Incarnation all that is created, all that has
been eternally expressed in Him. And He touches all in order to unify all, to
restore all. In place of the fragmentation and disorder wrought by sin, the
Incarnation again makes unity and right relationships possible.
Christ's work of reconciliation, restoration, unification continues today in
His Body the Church, still another revelation of the One. And to the degree
that His members are one with Him, Christ today — Head and members —
answers His own prayer "that they (all things) may be perfected in unity."
The mystery I have dared to adumbrate here is simply this: the principle
of unity which underpins ecumenism or the community spirit must be seen
as it is in the Trinity and in the Word; then as it evolves in creation, in the
Incarnation, in the Redemption, in the Mystical Body; then as it gathers all
back into the Divine Embrace and moves to its final fulfillment, its return
and its rest in the bosom of the Three in One, the all in the All. But to
see unity in this way requires, first, that we be able to relate one truth to
another, see their mutual dependence, and refer them to a total, cosmic vision
of reality; second, that we have a theological point of view wherein values
are rightly known and chosen in terms of the Divine Mind and the Divine
Will; third, that we be Christian existentialists who see ourselves as we really
are — who act as we really are — incorporated into the Body of Christ through
His death, with His Life, knowing with His Mind, loving with His Love.
Each of these three demands spells out an indispensable approach to unity;
each is clearly an internal condition for a subsequent vital ecumenical en-
counter. The first condition is one of the mind, an intellectual perfection, a
wisdom; the second condition not only involves the will but requires the action
of the theological virtues; the third condition transforms the first two by in-
volving us in a real but mystical union, a unity with Christ, Who as Word
and as Redeemer is the absolute and final, the incarnate yet eternal, principle
of unity.
Preparing students for intelligent lay leadership in the cause of ecumenism
means necessarily preparing them along these lines — unity of mind, unity of
will, unity of person in Christ.
By their very nature as colleges engaged actively and honestly and primarily
in the intellectual life, our institutions of higher education are preparing stu-
dents for intelligent lay leadership by forming them in unity of mind. If
we are not so forming them, we need to question our right to exist as colleges.
The difficulty of getting qualified teachers, the operational costs, the secular
competition: these threaten our ability to maintain really high quality college
education — education ordered to enlargement of mind, intellectual culture,
real illumination, real unity of mind.
There are more petty things, too, which threaten that goal — a rash of ac-
tivities, projects, nonessentials which clutter the teachers' and the students'
time, obscure or confuse values, generally enervate and dissipate. Personally,
I think we need to take a hard look at some of the things that we approve
or condone as typical campus activities to keep the boys and girls happy!
There is still another threat to unity of mind — exaggerated naturalism,
178 College and University Department
modernism, rationalism, which are conducive to the insidious subordination
of grace to nature, of faith to reason. Are Catholic institutions of higher edu-
cation really different from secular institutions in this regard? Are we human-
ists or Christian humanists? Without retracting one iota from the fact that
truth is an end in itself, that the human mind can and must perfect itself by
ever deeper and broader expansion and enlightment, do we consistently order
this natural activity to the higher activity of supernatural faith — and vision —
and mystery? To be able so to relate, to unify, requires a unity and integration
in the college administrator and the college teacher wherein the secular and
the religious do not run on separate tracks but are properly subordinated so
as to produce the perfect person, unified, integrated, actively and totally in-
corporated in Christ.
Granted that the college student has been confronted with the truth and
that he has seen values truly, does he get involved? Does he commit himself
by right choices? Does he make truth practical? Does he choose within a
theological frame of reference? Failure here reflects a fragmentation, and frag-
mentation is opposed to ecumenism, to unity.
For Catholic college students — whose intellectual life, as we have pointed
out, is ordered to a unity — not to order their choices, their daily actions,
their way of life to the unity of and in the truth known is inherent and per-
sonal lack of unity. The result is continued and aggravated social, institu-
tional, national, international, even cosmic fragmentation, or to be more vivid
and precise, chaos! Let us be more concrete.
For Catholic college students to have worldly secular standards, to com-
promise on any moral issue, to forget the transient nature of all created things,
to ignore the transcendency of God and the dignity of man: this is to have
a fragmented view of life, to place obstacles to ecumenism. To live as if this
present life — cars, clothes, clubs, comforts — were all that mattered, even
though one says "God's kingdom is not of this world," is to have a fragmented
view of life, to place obstacles to ecumenism. To say that one loves all men,
yet to oppose or be indifferent to integration, social reforms, missionary efforts,
is to have a fragmented view of life, to place obstacles to ecumenism. To be
a Sunday Catholic, to discourse on the liturgy without getting personally in-
volved in sacrifice, to seek God's will in ours rather than to conform our will
to God's — this is to have a fragmented view of life, to place obstacles to
ecumenism. To know values but not to respond to them, to know truth but
not to do the truth — this is to be fragmented, to be a personal obstacle to
ecumenism. Not to relate truths known to truths lived, not to relate all know-
ing and all loving to God — this is to be fragmented.
We are talking here, I realize, about personal and student responsibilities,
moral responsibilities. We could say, rightly I suppose, that the college has
fulfilled its responsibility as a college when it has touched the students' minds.
Yet, if unity between the truth known and the truth chosen, loved, lived, is
an essential dimension of ecumenism and, therefore, of the effective leader
and apostle of ecumenism, does the college have the responsibility to get at
this dimension intellectually through what is taught and concretely through
what kind of life is lived, demanded, permitted in the institution? How and
how far should the college go in will formation? This we leave to our dis-
cussion.
The third approach to unity is that which pertains to the incorporation of
the person in Christ. Intelligent leadership in the cause of ecumenism requires
Ecumenism and the Community Spirit 179
not only an understanding of the great mystery of Christ but also a commit-
ment to it — an active, conscious, courageous participation in it. In turn, this
participation implies a full Christian life — interior, ecclesial, sacramental,
sacrificial. The depths of meaning contained in Paul's mystery, in Augustine's
recapitulation, in Pius X's restoration must be sought out through sound
theology, prayerful meditation, liturgical participation, Christian asceticism,
mystical death. Incorporation in Christ through baptism establishes a unique
and terribly real unity with the Word through Whom all is contained and
has been created, Who has re-established the unity of man with God, Whose
redeeming and unifying death is continued in His Body the Church, Whose
prayer for unity is repeated and realized today and yesterday and forever.
Again the question: How and how far should the college go in furthering
this final approach — this ecclesial and mystical approach — to ecumenism? The
question, I think, must be asked. Should the Catholic college aim directly and
solely at promoting unity of mind when such unity alone is only one dimension
of ecumenism? Should the Catholic college aim at a higher, more complete
unity — unity of will, when such unity, while it fills in another dimension, still
allows for fragmentation? Should the Catholic college aim directly at the
pleroma, the fullness of unity, that total unity of person achieved by incorpora-
tion in Christ, lived out in the sacramental life of His Body the Church,
consummated in His Cross, and glorified in His Resurrection? Does the
Catholic college need to go this far precisely because it is Catholic?
Regardless of the degree of unity at which it aims — unity of mind, unity
of will, unity of person in Christ — any preparation for intelligent lay leader-
ship in the cause of ecumenism must be solidly grounded in silence and in
sacrifice. Silence draws a person inward so that he can become absolutely
attentive and passive to truth, so that having received he can be, and being
can do. Sacrifice draws a person outward so that he can give himself to the
truth received, so that having given he can gain, and dying, live. Silence and
sacrifice invite vision and love.
In preparing students for intelligent lay leadership, as in everything else
in life, the only thing that matters is vision and love. On earth we must in
silence increase our angles of vision by working for true enlargement of mind
and by growing in faith, so that at death the veil that hides us now from the
face of God may be removed. On earth we must respond to, sacrifice to, the
truth that we see. The truth that we see reflects only dimly but very really
the Person that we love. The Person that we love is the Life that we live.
Truth, Person, Life related in one total cosmic, ecumenical grasp of reality.
And in that grasp "all things are ours, for we are Christ's, and Christ is God's."
ECUMENISM AND THE COMMUNITY SPIRIT
(Summary of Discussion)
Francis J. Donohue
ASSISTANT TO ACADEMIC VICE PRESIDENT, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY
An intellectual broadening which enables one better to refer truths to a
cosmic vision of reality is essential not only to true college education but
also to ecumenism and the community spirit. "Preparing students for intelligent
lay leadership" requires that we consider not merely the religious dialogue, but
the whole mystery of unity.
The principle of unity which is basic to ecumenism requires in the individual
a reference of all truth to this total cosmic vision of reality; a theological point
of view wherein values are chosen in terms of the Divine Mind and the Divine
Will; and Christian existentialism in which we see ourselves as incorporated
into the Mystical Body. These three demands require an approach to unity
which involves an intellectual perfection, the action of the theological virtues,
and a real but mystical union with Christ, the absolute and final principle of
unity.
Hence preparing students for intelligent lay leadership toward ecumenism
means their development by unity of mind, unity of will, and unity of person
in Christ.
Our Catholic colleges must reappraise the activities, projects, and non-
essentials which threaten our ability to develop intellectual unity by maintaining
high quality in college education. We must teach our students to free them-
selves of secular standards, of compromise on moral issues, of a fragmented
view of life, and to relate the truths known to the truths lived. We must help
our students to commit themselves not only to an understanding of the great
mystery of Christ, but also to an active, conscious, courageous participation
in it — to a full Christian life, interior, ecclesiastical, sacramental, and sacrificial.
Though the degree of unity at which the college aims in its approach to
ecumenism — unity of mind, of will, of person in Christ — may be subject to
discussion, any preparation for intelligent lay leadership in the cause of
ecumenism must be solidly grounded in silence and in sacrifice, since it is
these that invite vision and love. Only vision and love matter, since the Person
that we love is the Life that we live.
A new action program being introduced at Fontbonne College, and based
on the experience of Marymount College of Salina, emphasizes the Catholic's
responsibility and privilege of being an apostle by requiring each student to
spend an hour each week either in the apostolic work of the Legion of Mary or
as a member of a discussion group on apostolic works. Basic to such a program
is, of course, thorough training for the specific work to be done, especially
if the students are to teach catechetics.
At the same time we must be prepared for a quite human reaction from
faculty members, who tend to feel that projects associated with their own
departments tend to foster both the intellectual and the Christian life, while
suspecting that projects associated with other departments tend to impede both.
Hence faculty seminars are recommended as a means of integration and unity
of mind. Even non-Catholic or nominally Catholic faculty members may make
180
Newman Clubs and Ecumenism 181
a valuable contribution, although care should be taken that attempts at integra-
tion on the part of such persons be not too shallow, lest they disturb the
thinking of other faculty members.
It is important that, as an antidote to current secularistic approaches to
education, we encourage the students to make sacrifices; participation in the
Nocturnal Adoration Society was suggested as a specific work involving
personal sacrifice.
Although it might rightly be objected that we must also prepare our students
for life in this world, enjoying the gifts of God, rather than for the religious
life, we must not sell our students short by expecting from them less of
Christianity than they desire.
NEWMAN CLUBS AND ECUMENISM
ON THE SECULAR CAMPUS
Rev. George Garrelts
newman hall, university of minnesota
The Newman Center on the secular campus occupies an unique role with
reference to the ecumenical life of the Church, potentially. This unique role
includes the university chaplains, campus visitors, the university, religious
groups on campus, and the Catholic student.
University Chaplains. The relationship that the chaplain can develop with
the students and with chaplains of other religions is unique in that his work
carries him directly into the relationship and he is forced to seek some solution
of the ecumenical problem in his daily life on campus. He is usually thrust
into some council of religious advisers, or some religious council of university
chaplains. He is also automatically included in some student religious council
that embraces all religions. He has to endeavor to encourage his students to
participate with their fellow students of other religions.
The chaplain is also in close contact with the administration of the university
which is dominantly not Catholic, as well as the Dean's office, the student
activities bureau, and the various dormitory counselors and various professors.
He will have to discover how Catholicism can blend into the secular world and
how the needs of the secular world can be served by the Church, as well as
by Catholic students.
Until now the chaplain has been cast in a role of generalized discussion
with other chaplains. But the recent ecumenical developments make it possible
for the chaplain to enter into the dialogue with members of other religious
ministries on campus, and to bring to the campus other participants in the
dialogue in an easy, acceptable way.
Campus Visitors. When Father Francis Dvornik comes to the campus of
the University of Minnesota, for example, it is easy to draw Greek Orthodox
182 College and University Department
and Greek Uniate priests and students into discussion with him. It fits the
campus situation perfectly. The same holds true for biblical scholars such as
Father Ray McKenzie and Father David Stanley. They have both demonstrated
how well they fit the campus scene and how their scholarship can lead to a
true ecumenism with Protestants and Jews. Father McKenzie demonstrated that
at the University of Minnesota when he held the chair of the Theological
Lectureship. Most of his audience and many of the discussants at his courses
and lectures were Protestants and Jews. Father David Stanley was selected
by the University of Iowa to be Danforth Professor in the New Testament in
the School of Religion at the university.
Father Martin D'Arcy is currently making a tour of Newman Centers in
the United States, with emphasis on Minnesota and the Dakotas. His reception
in the offices of deans, presidents, and department heads has given us ample
evidence that the secular university is more than receptive to visitors of this
kind. Men with academic standing and literary reputations who are broad
enough in their outlook do not constitute any embarrassment to the people in
the university. The ecumenism here is more academic and indirect but is
nevertheless real.
I would conclude from my own experience, from the actual witnessing of
the action of such men as Father Gustave Weigel, Father Francis Dvornik,
Father Martin D'Arcy, Father David Stanley, and from the work of Protestant
theologians on secular campuses, men like Jaroslav Pelikan and Martin
Marty, that they are necessary to lay the groundwork of our ecumenical future.
There are other laymen who are also necessary, as well as clergymen, to that
future. The present head of the Iowa School of Religion, Michaelson, is
one of those men. He makes a profound ecumenical impact on the campus by
way of his presentation of the Iowa School of Religion plan. That is an institu-
tion of immense ecumenical significance. Father Robert Welch of that same
school also makes a profound impression along these same lines. I would
regard this school as institutionalized ecumenism, a model and a bastion both
protecting and insuring ecumenical relations on the best possible level.
Writers and poets, historians and scientists also have some ecumenical sig-
nificance, if they are good enough. William Thaler is in that class, so is John
Logan. But they must be good enough to command the interest of the academic
community, and they must be professionally acceptable in every way.
The University can be described as being "in readiness" for ecumenical
concerns and discussions. The mantle of theological authority has shifted in
the past decade from the department of the humanities to the physical sciences,
to psychology, to the philosophy of science, to administration, and has now
been put aside or is being extended to anyone who is strong enough to wear it.
The burden of theological authority is very heavy and the universities seem
more willing to receive an ecumenical or a cultural approach than one of
direct theological teaching and authority. The university is well disposed to
theology that can relate itself to the university curriculum and to theology
that comes to it in a pluralistic form — that is, if the theologians of various
faiths can come arm in arm to the universities then they will find a greater
acceptance. If they can also speak the language of the university and the
academy they will find even more acceptance. But matters of Original Sin,
Salvation, Sin, Existence, will find more acceptance if they are couched in
philosophical terms and if they are presented as "objective information"
rather than "proselytizing procedures."
The university is also very uneasy about the requirement of "religious tests"
Newman Clubs and Ecumenism 183
for faculty members, even in schools of theology. But the university is looking
to the churches to discover if they can agree among themselves before it will
countenance any extensive introduction of theological programs and theological
discussions.
Religious groups on campus are in strong position to practice ecumenism
in the days ahead. They have not been outstanding in their past performance
though they have manifested more ecumenical life in living and working
together than any other segment of American society. Student councils of
religious organizations meet in convention yearly, and Co-ordinators of Re-
ligious Activities also have formed a strong association. If religious student
groups on secular university campuses are to continue in existence and flourish
they must find some more effective way to cooperate and to work together for
those goals they can jointly espouse. They are not strong enough alone to affect
the campus very markedly; on the larger campuses they are rather declasse; on
the smaller campuses they have a tendency to form ghettoish attitudes or pres-
sure significance. By working together they could develop an ecumenical spirit
and enthusiasm that would bring great prestige to religion on the campus of
the secular school. This problem has not yet come to the attention of the
Newman chaplains in its full significance and potential. But after a few more
years of experience in the field and the development of some ideology in these
matters, our expectation would be that Catholic student groups would be work-
ing in much closer harmony with groups of other religious. On most campuses
only the Jewish and the Lutheran groups are well enough formed for joint
effort, but great attention should be given to this effort in the future because
of the rising obviousness of the fact that the prestige of religion on campus
rides to a certain extent with the success or failure of the student religious
organizations.
The Catholic student will have to be prepared consciously for an ecumenical
role on the secular campus, especially if he or she comes from a Catholic
school. The Catholic school graduate or transfer student now comes to the
pluralism of the secular campus with little or no preparation for an ecumenical
role. We note, as Newman chaplains, that the Catholic high school or college
graduate is really very eager to play this ecumenical role but does not realize it.
Consequently, the drive that he or she possesses is usually diverted into secular
action and association. Fraternities, sororities, student government, secular ac-
tion of various kinds in student unions, and student programs on a purely
secular level use up these drives. The drives are there. They need to be re-
shaped and re-directed in earlier days. The student in the public and the secular
secondary school will have to be reached earlier also to effect much preparation.
The chaplains and the student will need some direction about how and how
far to proceed in the direction of ecumenism in the setting of the secular
university. The Catholic student can go inter-faith in a number of ways:
by serving on joint boards made up of students of various religions;
by working for schools of religious knowledge;
by activities such as the Panel of Americans;
by joint meetings and projects staged with members of other religious student
groups, such as Religion in Life and Brotherhood Weeks, lectureships,
movie series, etc.
by joint discussions among students where such is permitted by the Ordinary;
by promotion of joint religious projects on campus.
184 College and University Department
Prospects for the Future
1. A stronger and more positive approach among Newman chaplains and
Newman students in the strengthening of their ties with chaplains and students
of other religious groups on secular campuses. Students of other religions
and their chaplains should be in attendance at Newman provincial and national
meetings, and they should be more in attendance at Newman meetings on the
local scene. However, the first move should build up the prestige and member-
ship of all religious groups on campus.
2. Ecumenical discussions could begin successfully between chaplain and
chaplain, following the rules of the dialogue. They might also begin between
students who have been properly prepared and motivated, as well as schooled
in the rules of the dialogue.
3. More manifest interest in campus politics and campus projects could
be shown by the religious groups as such and by the students and chaplains
of these groups.
4. Chaplains and students could work together jointly on projects already
mentioned but especially on the establishment of a school of religion — prefer-
ably along the lines of the School of Religion now in operation at the Uni-
versity of Iowa.
5. The community could be interested in the work of religion on campus
in a pluralistic way, by way of lay and clerical committees who would take
an open and manifest interest in the development of religious life on campus.
6. One joint project of paramount importance is the introduction of ethical
discussions and considerations into the various schools of the university. This
project could be attempted by the religious groups on campus jointly.
7. The shape of relationships now existing on campus will be the shape
of the relationships parochially, that is, exchange between all the pluralistic
elements of the community, sacred and secular.
NEWMAN CLUBS AND ECUMENISM
ON THE SECULAR CAMPUS
(Summary of Discussion)
Rev. William D. Borders
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
Father Garrelts' paper, reviewing the activities of Newman Clubs on secular
campuses now and with seven specific suggestions for future development (see
his paper, above) was supplemented by various ideas and emphasis brought
out in discussion.
Dr. John J. Meng said that a clear concept of potential dialogue should
Formation of the Sister 185
be attained, and that the varied condition of attitudes and cultures must be
taken into consideration in the approach used. College administrators are
looking for answers to basic educational needs, and good college administrators
recognize that students as a group are looking for answers to religious ques-
tions, objectives, and norms of morality. Men in authority and religious
leaders must keep an open mind on all religious groups. One should recognize
that there exists a basic backlog of good will in most college administrators
and faculty. Students must be able to recognize that philosophic and religious
principles are applicable in their own environment. The Catholic faculty mem-
ber, it was suggested, is normally not oriented to organization and follows
the pattern of other professional groups in relationship to active religious
leadership but is willing to make a professional contribution according to his
competence.
Father Robert Welch said that the church on the campus has a greater
opportunity for religious education. As an example of one characterized by
ecumenism, he quoted from the Introduction to the School of Religion of the
University of Iowa: "The basic idea — religion theoretically and practically —
is an integral part of education . . . and therefore should be included in the
curriculum of a tax-supported institution." He said the graduate program
of the University of Iowa School of Religion offers an excellent opportunity
for a dialogue.
The Church cannot isolate herself from the secular campus. A society is
changed only through working in the society.
SISTER FORMATION SECTION
FORMATION OF THE SISTER FOR HER APOSTOLIC
MISSION IN THE CHURCH
Rev. Ronald Roloff, O.S.B.
editor, Sponsa Regis, st. John's abbey, collegeville, Minnesota
During the long ages of the history of the Church, women consecrated to
God have always held an honored and influential place in the Church. As
circumstances have changed, their role and their purpose have also changed;
but in ages past this change was so gradual and so natural that there was never
any uncertainty in their own minds about the part they were plaving in the
life of the Church.
Today we find a striking and disconcerting difference. In the world at large,
ideas of all kinds are created and proliferated with astonishing speed, and we
find ourselves increasingly swallowed up in a whirlpool of aspirations and
propositions and nostrums of a dizzying variety. In the Church, new ideas about
186 College and University Department
renovation and adaptation, new kinds of apostolate, new concepts of spirituality
seem to be springing up everywhere. For the first time in the history of
religious women we find the ordinary sister asking herself: "What exactly is
my role in the Church? Is the religious life, in its present form, really the
providential instrument that it has been thought? Am I serving God or my
fellow men as well here as I could in some other kind of life?"
Perhaps of equal significance is a contrary but related problem: The in-
dividual sister may settle upon an ideal which has no genuine reality in her
world. Assuming that the world is not changing, and that the ideals of the
twelfth century cloistered nun are valid for the twentieth century nurse or
educator, she may attempt to pursue a goal that is entirely illusory. In so doing
she will not only fail to attain her goal, but she may very well be a contributing
factor in the gradual disintegration of the institution of which she is a part.
If the individual sister is to retain a firm grasp upon her convictions and ideals,
and if those ideals are to be in accord with the realities of our time, we must
do everything possible to clarify her concept of the religious life and to
strengthen her certitude about it. The formation of the sister for her role in
the Church depends primarily upon the correctness and the moral certitude
with which she is able to maintain the ideal of her religious life in her own mind.
To help her to do so it will be necessary first of all to remove those elements
of obscurity or unreality which may still linger in her consciousness.
The title of this paper, "Formation of the Sister for her Apostolic Mission in
the Church," presupposes a priori that the sister has an apostolic mission in
the Church. But it is precisely on this point that some will disagree. Indeed,
it may be said that a great number of religious consider that the primary purpose
of the religious life is contemplative, and that our apostolic labors have been
undertaken only because of the demands of our time. Much of this feeling has
arisen because of a misunderstanding of the terminology that has been used.
All religious orders have as their primary end the salvation of the souls of their
members. This salvation cannot be attained unless there is some amount of
contemplation in our lives. Ergo, the contemplative life is the essential element
in our life and must be given precedence over every other element.
This does not follow at all. To practice contemplation and to live a con-
templative life are two very different things. We need only look at Thomas
Aquinas' discussion of the contemplative life to realize this. "Theirs is said
to be the contemplative life who are chiefly intent on the contemplation of
truth. . . . The contemplative life terminates in delight, which is seated in
the affective power [of the soul]" (Suppl., 180, a.l.). He quotes St. Gregory
the Great, who says that "it belongs to the contemplative life to rest from
external action"; and he gives nine reasons why the contemplative life is
more excellent than the active life. Among these reasons we may note the fol-
lowing: the contemplative life employs our intellectual faculties, whereas the
active life is concerned with externals; the contemplative life is more delightful
than the active: "Martha was troubled, but Mary feasted." The contemplative
life consists in leisure and rest; the contemplative life is according to divine
things, whereas the active life is according to human things (Suppl. 182, a.l).
Now it is possible for us to maintain that certain aspects of this kind of life
are available to us in some degree. But to hold that our life as a whole is con-
templative seems to be an obvious falsehood. We are not living a life devoted
to the intellectual consideration of the beauties of God — a life in which we are
at leisure and rest, and in which the affective powers of our soul are the chief
agents of our activity. On the contrary, we are living a life that is primarly con-
Formation of the Sister 187
cerned with human things, with externals, with action, and indeed it is a life
which causes us to be troubled rather than at peace. That is not to deny that
at certain times we practice contemplation, and that, indeed, we must practice
contemplation if we are to attain personal sanctity. But the housewife who
sits in her kitchen and recites the rosary in the morning may also be said to
practice contemplation. No one would seriously allege that she is living a
contemplative life. We must therefore be quite clear in our own minds on this
point. We do practice contemplation. But our life, considered as the sum of
all our actions and described by what is most characteristic of us, is not a con-
templative life by any stretch of the imagination.
The reason we are anxious to apply to the term contemplative to ourselves
is fundamentally an idealistic one. We do not want it said that we have chosen
the worse part. We do not want it said that our souls do not delight in the
intellectual perception of God's beauty. We do not want to be counted among
those who apparently have turned their backs upon what is most sublime and
most God-like in human experience. But if we are to disentangle ourselves
from the hopeless treadmill of semantics we must be willing to face reality.
If a man purchases a twenty-foot sailboat and each Sunday afternoon goes for
a cruise on Lake St. Clair, he may be a very efficient and satisfied sailor under
those conditions; but he cannot honestly allege that his life is fundamentally
a nautical one when he is actually spending all of the rest of the week on the
assembly line at River Rouge.
However, some of us become so overwhelmed with the burdens of our present
life that we allow ourselves to enter a dream world of some kind, and the
worker on the assembly line may actually come to think of himself in terms
of a nautical life. This, I am sure, is a very significant element in the aspira-
tions that religious feel toward the contemplative life. Sister Agnes and Sister
Lucille keep insisting that we must become more contemplative, not because
they have so great a love for contemplation in itself but because they are troubled
and overburdened by the responsibilities they now face. The world is changing
too rapidly. There is too much knowledge to be acquired. There are too many
psychological and personality problems presented by the students in their class-
rooms. There are too many demands made upon them for time-consuming
efforts of all kinds. In their harassment, they come upon those wonderful ideas
about the contemplative life: that it is a life of leisure and rest, of purely
intellectual pursuit of truth; a life in which our affections and aspirations are
given freedom and preeminence, and in which we rise above the day-to-day
problems of this world.
Who can blame them if this ideal seems to be a very attractive one? Who
can say that they are wrong or misguided in striving to attain this more blessed
state? Yet they are fundamentally wrong and misguided for they are trying to
escape to a state of life to which they have not been called; they are trying to
abandon a lower kind of life for a higher, not because they have fulfilled all of
the requirements of this lower form and are therefore ready for the higher, but
precisely because they have failed to fulfill the requirements of the lower form.
It is a perennial temptation for a student to feel that because he has failed the
examinations in algebra it is just possible that he should have taken trigonometry
instead; and the temptation to pursue a higher and more difficult life when one
feels inadequate in her present situation is a common experience which we are
not always willing to recognize in its true character.
188 College and University Department
What the Secular Institutes Offer
There are some, however, who do recognize this problem in its true light,
and whose solution is just the opposite of the above. The secular institutes
which have begun to appear seem to offer a tantalizing alternative for one who
realizes that the active apostolate is her primary concern, and who feels that
the spiritual program of such institutes is probably more in harmony with that
apostolate than is the case in the older religious orders. Again, however, much
of one's optimism springs from a partial knowledge of the facts.
In the Apostolic Constitution Provida mater ecclesia, Pope Pius XII set
down the constitutions of all secular institutes. In that constitution he estab-
lished these fundamental requirements: that all members of these Institutes must
take private vows of poverty, chastity and obedience; that ordinarily they will
live alone in the world, being provided for in a central motherhouse only if
health or some other serious reason demands it; that they must aspire to the
perfection of Christian life by the exercises of piety and mortification common
to all, as well as by the regulations outlined for their own Institute.
At first glance this seems to be a very effective manner of life for those who
wish to devote themselves exclusively to the service of their fellow men. But
on more mature consideration it will be realized that this is a severe challenge
which can be accepted only by specially chosen souls who have absolute personal
integrity, full spiritual self-reliance, and the ability to persevere for a long period
of time in the face of circumstances which are directly opposed to all that they
are expected to hold dear.
Perseverance: That is the key. Almost anyone can begin the pursuit of a
noble ideal with energy and enthusiasm. It is only the stalwart soul who will
persevere to reach the goal. In the secular institutes one must be stalwart indeed
for one is pursuing the goal alone.
How well would any of us practice poverty, chastity, and obedience if we
were not members of a community which supports one another, encourages
one another — and in which the superiors are always available to correct us if
we wander too far from the path? Our community life enables each of us to
continue in the path of duty simply because we are all doing the same thing
together. Our convent provides us with the necessities of life, and it shields
us from the many cares and distractions of the world which would create such
serious obstacles for our primary tasks.
But the member of a secular institute is living in that world, and she cannot
live in it like a disembodied spirit. She must live with this family or in this
apartment; she must have whatever is necessary for her life and work; she must
make all those practical arrangements about hours and meals and transportation
and equipment, and still prevent them from interrupting her spiritual and
apostolic duties. To put the matter very baldly, the member of a secular in-
stitute has all the obligations of our religious life and none of its advantages.
It will be obvious, perhaps, that in the secular institutes poverty and obedience
will depend primarily upon each one's understanding of those ideals. Since each
one lives alone, each will have to be her own judge as to whether this act or
this purchase is in accord with the evangelical counsel of obedience or poverty.
How shall one be a reliable judge in such a case unless she is a person of
absolute honesty and integrity, who never deceives herself and who always
recognizes the implications of her present actions for her future development?
The vow of chastity will effectively cut her off from her society, while at the
same time she is exposed to all those elements of candor and freedom and
broadmindedness which are so dominant in our social structure today. She must
Formation of the Sister 189
strive to attain the perfection of Christian life without any particular encourage-
ment or good example, within a daily horarium which she will freely determine
herself, without any overt punishment or loss of status if she fails to pursue
this objective. The member of the secular institute, in short, is an individual
entirely dependent upon her own resources, not only for her practical needs
but much more significantly for her spiritual perfection, toward which she is
bound by vow to strive. That this is a heroic form of life cannot be denied.
That it is a kind of life which can be lived successfully and fruitfully by anyone
who chances upon it is a major delusion of the most tragic sort.
In his new book, Introduction to Spirituality, Louis Bouyer says:
There is no sanctification by means of action alone, but only action vivified
by prayer; and action cannot be thus vivified unless it is marked with the
sign of the cross of Christ. . . . There can sometimes be perceived in these
new attempts in the "religious" life the temptation to will the impossible,
whether by deluding oneself as to the simultaneous attainability of several
objectives which it would seem possible to achieve in this way, or by some
misunderstanding of the normal rhythms of spiritual development. . . ." x
In this perspective, the spirituality to be proposed to priests, to leaders
of Catholic Action, and to all the laity as well, would be one not of separa-
tion but of presence; not centered on contemplation but plunged in action;
not a negative spirituality of renouncement, but a positive spirituality of
consecration ... It must be stated plainly that all these alternatives are
factitious. To define a spirituality . . . from such a starting-point means
either to rest content with empty words or else (and most frequently under
cover of such words) to fall into extremely harmful errors . . . The Chris-
tian is not offered a possibility of choosing between an asceticism of the
cross and an asceticism of creation. Every kind of Christian asceticism is
an asceticism of the cross.2
Very well, say our protagonists, we will just become lay apostles. Perhaps the
secular institutes are too severe for us. We will therefore concentrate upon the
good works we are going to perform and not attempt a religious life along
with them.
It is at this point that this sorry litany of delusion and illusion reaches its
nadir. For now we are no longer speaking of the religious life at all. We are
speaking merely of good works, which may indeed be carried on for some time,
but which differ from the work of the Peace Corps or the C A R E corporation
only by the interior motive which, we hope, has God for its objective. Surely
such works are good in themselves and worthy of the highest praise. But the
religious life is a state of perfection which is as far above any specific good work
as the status of man is above the cooperative and fruitful efforts of ants or bees.
One may indeed admire the efforts of these small creatures of God; but no sane
person could desire to abandon his human condition in order to join in their
ingenious projects.
The Fundamental Element for Apostolic Work
We are thus brought to the fundamental element in the formation of sisters
for their apostolic work, and that is an awareness of the profound importance
and inherent value of the religious life itself.
In his marvelous little book, The Salvation of the Nations, lean Danielou says:
1 Louis Bouyer, Cong. Orat., Introduction to Spirituality. Translated by Mary Perkins Ryan.
(New York: Desclee, 1961), p. 241.
'Ibid., p. 219.
190 College and University Department
"Just as others may be signs from God for us, we also are signs from God for
them. We are a language through which God speaks to others. ... It rests with
us to make this language intelligible and to permit this manifestation of God to
pass through us. . . . It is our terrible responsibility that through our silence
we can prevent God's message from being disseminated." 3
The apostolic mission of the Church is concerned primarily and essentially
with the spread of the Kingdom of God. All the good works that we may
perform in the course of that apostolate are merely means to that end. The
Russians, after all, can give quite as adequate instruction in grammar and
agricultural techniques in foreign lands as we can. The Salvation Army gives
away food and clothing to the unfortunate in our cities with quite as much
generosity and helpfulness as Catholic centers do.
The only purpose we have in performing good works is to bring Christ to
men. And this, ultimately, is the only thing men want. A great many of them
do not know this specifically, but it is true. American foreign aid has done
marvelous things in many lands, but it has been unappreciated because it does
not make the individual more happy or more secure. New bridges and dams,
new methods of farming or manufacturing, are all wonderful and useful; but
they do not necessarily make the individual person more conscious of his dignity.
They do not bring peace to the world. They do not bring up one's children in
security and self-respect. They are, in short, superficial. They help men in
areas of life that are very important but not crucial. It is only the realm of
spiritual ideals and aspirations that is ultimately crucial.
It is precisely in this area, whether in foreign lands or at home, that we re-
ligious can make the one contribution that is necesssary, and this not for any
purposes of aggrandizement on our part — not simply to swell the ranks and
influence of the Catholic Church — but for the very elemental reason that all
men are children of God, and that they will find a place in His Kingdom only by
coming to know God and to love Him. It is by coming to know and love God
that they will also find peace and security in this world.
Now in Father Danielou's words, it is up to us to act as signs of God to
these men: to be a manifestation of God to them. And this is the crucial point:
We cannot manifest God to men unless we first possess God within ourselves.
Danielou says that "through our silence we can prevent God's message from
being disseminated." Our silence may not be due in any way to our lack of
speaking. It may be due rather to the discouraging fact that after we have gone
far abroad and traveled many weary miles and spoken many consoling words
we have, nevertheless, failed to manifest God to men in the course of all our
actions and speeches. If God is within us, He always shines through; but if He
is not there, nothing that we do externally can make Him appear.
It is this fact which gives the religious life such tremendous significance in
the apostolate. It is this fact which explains why the apostolic works of the
Church have been primarily the task of religious men and women throughout
the ages. For only those who have given themselves wholeheartedly and
irrevocably to God are sufficiently filled with the knowledge and love of God to
permit that interior light to shine through in their daily actions.
Our religious life gives us this ability in many ways, of which we will
mention only the chief.
1. By our vows we are bound irrevocably to God. This is a key concept.
So long as one knows that her present situation can be terminated at any time
» Jean Danielou, The Salvation of the Nations. Translated by Angeline Bouchard. (London :
Sheed & Ward. 1949), pp. 22-23.
Formation of the Sister 191
if she tires or feels unsuccessful, there is always a lurking, subconscious division
of allegiance, in which one's personal interests carry on a desultory warfare
with one's higher aspirations. Eventually it becomes easy to compromise, and
as one decides that certain concessions can be made to human necessities, the
light of God within becomes ever more dim and uncertain.
2. Not only do our vows bind us irrevocably to God: They also give us the
means of growing to greater spiritual perfection and maturity. It is impossible
for us to practice the vow of obedience with any amount of consistency and
fail to become more humble, more reliant upon God, more full of faith and
hope than we were before. It is impossible for us to observe the vow of chastity
with any amount of interior generosity and fail to become more detached, more
noble-minded, more spiritually alert than we were before. It is impossible for
us to practice poverty even in a minimal degree and fail to become less anxious
about our creature comforts and the conveniences that the world might offer.
In short, it is impossible for us to be true religious and to fail to become more
God-like. Oh, we may feel in our own consciences that this is not the case:
that we are actually worse examples of religious now than we were years ago.
But that is not true. If we are more conscious of our failings it is because we
have advanced far enough into the light of grace to recognize them.
3. Our religious life gives us the necessary balance between prayer and work.
This is the essential point. It is, we might say, the one thing necessary. The first
half of this paper was a discussion of the ways in which some of us try to simplify
the problems of life by abandoning either prayer or work. By doing so, however,
we do not simplify our life; we impoverish it. With all due respect for the new
secular institutes, it is on this point that I think they will find their greatest
difficulty. The demands of our work are many, and the unformed soul may
find every reason in the world for devoting more and more time to her practical
responsibilities and less and less time to her spiritual development. But if she
does so, how long will she be able to manifest God to the world? How soon
will she manifest nothing more than a practical efficiency and a successful
organizational technique? The vitality of our spiritual life is a very nebulous
and undefinable thing when we try to measure it; but its absence is always
evident — to the onlooker if not to oneself.
Our religious life is therefore a providential instrument for the apostolate, for
while it opens vast opportunities to serve God and men in obedience to the
Church, it also preserves us from sheer activism and forces us to cultivate at
least the minimum of personal spiritual life without which our external works
will be fruitless.
4. Our religious life makes the service of God easy by giving us fellow sisters
who are traveling along the same road, experiencing the same difficulties, en-
joying the same success. It is easy to persevere when others are persevering.
It is easy to pray when others go to prayer. It is easy to be chaste and poor and
obedient when all of us must be that way. It is easy to love God when we see
others loving Him.
And this, my dear sisters, is the ultimate reason why our religious life is a
providential instrument for the apostolate. Men are never converted to God
by logic; they are not converted by handouts or propaganda sheets or anti-
biotics. They are converted when they see us loving God. They are converted
when they see us loving one another. Our religious life is in itself the best
possible propaganda for the Gospel, so long as it is somehow made visible to
men. It is a challenge set down in the midst of men, demanding that they lift
192 College and University Department
their eyes from their selfish problems and glimpse the wider horizon of true
reality and value. It is in itself a manifestation of God to men; and we will
silence its voice only if we fail to live it out to the full. We do indeed need
practical training too, in whatever fields of the apostolate we are called upon
to minister. But it is never our success as teachers or nurses or social workers
that implants the Kingdom of God. It is our life as Children of God which
cries out with a thousand voices, demanding to be heard, demanding to be
imitated.
But that voice will never be heard, that example will never be seen, unless
we have gone forth and made spectacles of ourselves "to angels and to men"
(I Cor. 4:9). "How are they to believe him whom they have not heard? And
how are they to hear, if no one preaches?" (Romans 10:14). If we religious,
who of all men are most in love with God, who are the best examples the world
can provide of Christian life carried into reality — however incomplete that
reality may sometimes be — if we religious disdain to engage ourselves in
apostolic works, how shall the truths of faith ever become known? It is only
through our voices that Christ can speak; it is only our hands which can do his
work; it is only our feet which can carry him to the souls he wants to find. Oh,
yes, we will send lay apostles and support them with our prayers. When Christ
wanted to redeem the world did he send someone else, supported by his grace?
He came Himself; and it is only when we who are the children of God have
gone forth ourselves to make Him known and loved that the world will be able
to see in us a foreshadowing of that eternal life to which they ought to aspire.
IN-SERVICE FORMATION OF SISTERS FOR
UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENT NATIONAL GROUPS
Mother Loretto Bernard
mother general, sisters of charity, mount st. vincent-on-hudson
new york, n.y.
Long before the Statue of Liberty was erected in New York Harbor as a
symbol of America's open door, Mother Seton's daughters of New York were
stretching out their hands to destitute immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy,
and Central European countries in turn. More than a century before the words
became common coin, they were desegregating, integrating, assimilating, with
the long patience of those who know by experience that the handicapped minority
groups of today father the cultural leaders of tomorrow.
Any program of in-service formation that we have found helpful in the past,
that we are utilizing currently, or may devise to meet future needs, must be,
intrinsically, an interpretation or practical application of our initial commitment
as Sisters of Charity to every service in our power for those in need. The master
plan of our apostolate, staggering in its comprehensiveness, was skillfully inte-
grated by St. Vincent de Paul, educator, social philosopher, and case worker
In-Service Formation of Sisters 193
without rival. Even in this age of specialization, each time we get absorbed in
the curricula of our colleges and academies, in the relative merits of our
three-year and our two-year programs of nursing education, in residencies,
research grants, and paramedical problems, God sends us another wave of
100,000 immigrants to remind us that, by our special vocation in the Church, we
belong first of all to the poor.
Within the past decade many of our city parishes, once strongholds of upper-
and middle-income Irish-American families, have become barrios, little Puerto
Rican towns in which incoming migrants have been shamefully exploited by
unscrupulous tenement owners. Living six or eight in a room rented at $100 a
month, the Puerto Ricans have retained to a remarkable degree their innate
dignity and their deep sense of family ties.
They are essentially a migrant population. Families that have achieved a
degree of economic stability have moved to more desirable living areas in the
Bronx and on Long Island. They have been immediately replaced by incoming
Cubans and other Latin Americans from Communist-threatened countries and
by Negro migrants newly arrived from the Deep South. Following the estab-
lished pattern of all immigration, Latin Americans are slowly pushing westward;
within a few years the impact will be felt in all sections of the country. Many
Puerto Ricans return to their Island to contribute to its spiritual and social
progress their education, acquired skills, and practical training in their faith.
Our indirect apostolate in Puerto Rico is another challenge to our zeal.
Work with Puerto Ricans differs in one important aspect from missionary
efforts with other national groups. When asked whether he preferred life in
Puerto Rico or in New York, the father of two of our school children answered
definitively, "Whether I live on the Island or on the mainland, I am an Amer-
ican citizen. It really doesn't matter; I like them both." And whether we
accept the fact or not, depending upon our degree of ecumenism and sense of
reality, it is indisputable that these Spanish-speaking people, rooted in a culture
very different from ours, are citizens of an American Commonwealth, a unique
kind of statehood that confers upon them, the moment they step out of a plane
at Idlewild, all the privileges of citizenship and the right to the best that we can
give them.
Since Columbus landed at San Juan in 1493, during his second voyage to
the New World, Puerto Rico has been a Catholic country. The comment is
prevalent in New York: "The Puerto Ricans have never gone to church in their
own country and they don't go in ours. Half of them have never been baptized,
married in the Church, or faithful even to the natural, much less than the super-
natural, laws that govern Catholic lives." Before accepting this interpretation,
one should contrast the religious situation in Continental United States with that
of the Commonwealth. In 1960 there was one priest for every 750 Catholics
in the United States and one for every 5,100 in Puerto Rico. In country dis-
tricts in Puerto Rico a priest may offer Mass in a family home at intervals of
from one to six months; in the slums of the large cities, thousands are never
reached. Formal religious instruction is minimal; love of the Sacred Heart
and of the Mother of God, expressed in fervent vivas during a procession on a
great feast day, constitute the whole theology of a vast majority of the Island
population.
Continuing this pattern in New York are 700,000 Islanders of whom an
estimated 20 per cent attend Mass regularly. At least 250,000 are under fifteen
years of age. In parochial elementary schools of New York and Brooklyn there
are approximately 25,000 Spanish-speaking pupils. More than 50,000 are reg-
194 College and University Department
istered in released-time religious instruction classes. The Sisters of Charity of
New York are responsible for about 5,000 Spanish-speaking children in their
elementary schools and for an additional 6,000 in released-time classes.
Here is a missionary field of utmost importance to the future of the Church
in this country. There is no glamor in the grimy shabbiness of Harlem, in the
East Bronx centers of drug addiction, in the teeming West Side ghetto that was
once the proud parish of the Holy Name, symbol of stable Catholicity. To these
parishes we send without hesitation or regret capable young sisters who could do
excellent work with gifted pupils. Here they gain a missionary outlook that
takes in the whole world, a sense of kinship with community pioneers, a sense
of values that can face ten or more failures in every examination without losing
heart — in a word, the maturity that is the objective of all our Sister Formation
programs. From superiors who are truly dedicated to this apostolate they
receive an in-service training that no educational program can replace, the
daily, practical example of Christ-like charity.
Until recently the preparation of our young sisters for a work that requires
the gift of tongues as a basic prerequisite was left to the judgment of superiors
whose preservice orientation had commenced, in most instances, in the first
grade of one of our schools. To a native New Yorker there is nothing re-
markable in this cosmopolitan, multilingual milieu which, to Midwesterners, is
admittedly divine but no less disconcerting.
Preservice training for bilingual schools now begins with courses in Spanish
conversation for postulants and second-year novices. It is difficult to incorporate
formal training in missiology into the novitiate program without sacrificing
other values, but it is possible to give novices an inspiriting breadth of vision and
realistic awareness of the contemporary needs of the Church.
Our junior professed sisters profit by orientation sessions given by sisters who
have had intensive training in Hispanic culture and the socioeconomic problems
of migrants. In planning for the more than 120 hours of practice teaching
which we give to the junior professed sisters before they enter on their first
assignment, we arranged this year that each sister would spend half of this
period in a school with a predominantly Spanish-speaking registration and the
other half in a typically American suburban school.
Last December we provided for professed sisters and second-year novices a
stimulating panel in which the chief participants were Father Joseph Fitz-
patrick, S.J., of the department of sociology, Fordham University, and Sister
Thomas Marie, a Trinitarian sister. Both are specialists in inter-American cul-
ture. Many of our professed sisters have attended courses sponsored by the
Archdiocese of New York over a period of years for religious who work with
the Spanish-speaking in New York. Others have participated in a program
of the Hudson Guild, sponsored by Harvard University School of Education.
The period of renovation which we provide for our sisters at the completion of
fifteen years in the community is an excellent opportunity to appraise the degree
of social conscience acquired during years of intense activity.
Effective professional training is gained in summer sessions at the Institute
for Inter-Cultural Communication at the Catholic University of Puerto Rico.
Founded in 1957 under the patronage of Cardinal Spellman to prepare priests
and religious for this apostolate in New York, the Institute has trained hundreds
of students, priests, religious, and lay people for work "back home" with migrants
from Latin American countries.
To date, thirty Sisters of Charity from Mount Saint Vincent have shared this
In-Service Formation of Sisters 195
intensive program of study, which includes linguistics, problems of accultura-
tion, and efficient methods of bringing the newcomers into full participation in
the American way of life. The sessions culminate in three weeks of supervised
field assignments in catechetical and social work. Our representatives include
principals and teachers of elementary schools that have a high percentage of
Puerto Rican children. Others attending are sister nurses who work with
Islanders in our hospital wards and out-patient clinics, and sisters who are social
workers, teachers, or group mothers in child-caring homes. They return imbued
with missionary zeal and convinced that free schools, supported by the mother-
houses of the sisters who staff them, are a critical need in Puerto Rico today.
In making this judgment we are guided by the experience of seventy-three
years of arduous missionary effort in the Bahama Islands, shared with the
Benedictines of Collegeville, Minnesota (Father Roloff's community). A long-
established colonial pattern had made Nassau a center of bitter religious, racial,
and national antagonisms, perpetuated by sharply etched class distinctions. Six
days after her arrival with four companions, Sister Marie Dolores Van
Rensselaer, convert descendant of the land-owning Dutch patroons, opened a
free school in the two largest rooms of the tiny four-room convent. By the end
of the month, the free school had overflowed into two adjacent buildings and
a small academy had been opened in the convent. With the assistance of native
teachers who had first to be taught the three R's, the Sisters of Charity staffed
the academy, now Xavier's College, ten free schools, several clinics, and a day
nursery. In 1922 another foundation was made on Harbour Island. For fifteen
years the Sisters of Charity were responsible for the native congregation of
Blessed Martin de Porres, founded in 1937 under the guidance of one our
sisters. After three generations of prayer and sacrifice, our first vocation from
Nassau materialized last September when a promising young native girl
entered our novitate at Mount Saint Vincent.
On the fiftieth anniversary of our arrival in the Bahamas, the Nassau Daily
Tribune commented that "apart from the Government, no other organization
has attempted to devote this amount of time, care and money to educating poor
people in these islands." There is general recognition in Nassau today that it
was time, care, and money well spent. By the grace of God and the zeal of its
missionaries from Collegeville and Mount Saint Vincent, Nassau has been
spared the tragic fate of its neighbor, Cuba. Last summer we began to share the
educational program in Puerto Rico with our Bahama missionaries, who found
this integration of experience with differing cultures very helpful.
In the home mission fields of Manhattan and the Bronx, young sisters enter-
ing the classroom for the first time face problems that baffle the veteran Nassau
missionaries who, on their return from the Bahamas, give invaluable leadership
in our work with Puerto Ricans in New York. The Commandments must be
taught with clarity and firmness, yet without undermining the respect for
parents which is the dominant strength of Hispanic culture and the only security
these children have. At an incredibly early age, children must be warned of
the sickeningly sweet taste of marijuana and cautioned not to let anyone scratch
their arms "because he might rub a little powder into it that would make you
sick." Through the Providence of God and the power of prayer, we have not,
to our knowledge, had a tragedy of this kind, but its proximity may be judged
by the fact that, in one of our Bronx parishes, packages of drugs have been
found in the confessional, behind the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes in the
196 College and University Department
convent grotto, and even above the lintel of the convent door, where it had been
thrown by a "pusher" who did not want to be caught with it in his hands.
Routine problems of the school day yield to the magic of a few words in the
native tongue. If sister finds two Puerto Rican boys locked in a fist fight, she
can remonstrate in English for half an hour without being heard. But if she
whispers, "Miguel, Jose, respeto!" instantly they untangle themselves sheepishly.
Respeto implies much more than the English word respect; it connotes dignity,
obedience, noblesse oblige, all the qualities that Latin parents inculcate in their
children. And to think that sister understood this all the time! It had never
occurred to them.
Since limitations of time make it impossible to outline for you the varied
aspects of our work with national groups, I have committed to mimeographed
sheets details which may be useful in initiating similar programs. Freed from
preoccupation with facts and figures, I can share with you some basic concepts
which we try to instill in our young sisters.
In this work, attitudes are more important than techniques. In the security of
our somewhat theoretical poverty, we are shocked at evidences of mutual
resentment among minority groups that, according to our thinking, should be
united by their common suffering. We forget that the parents of our Puerto
Rican, Negro, and severely deprived white children "compete for a foothold on
the first rung of the ladder," and displace each other constantly. The violence
of the interracial war for the control of our Southern schools bears witness to
the fact that first-graders are the best integrators in the world. Where we fail,
they will succeed, but a sister may unconsciously retard their work by the
flicker of an eye or an inflection of her voice.
Since we shall inevitably work with Spanish-speaking people in increasing
numbers within the next decade, either on their soil or on ours, an understanding
of the Latin American temperament is essential. We have found the Puerto
Ricans an intelligent, generous, appreciative people who, once given opportuni-
ties for spiritual and intellectual growth, will add warmth and vitality to our
matter-of-fact American Catholicism. But the gulf between the two cultures
must be bridged from our side. Humiliated by rebuffs and made acutely sensi-
tive to their position in our social structure, they will never make the first
advance, even to attend Mass in a church to which they have not been welcomed.
Daily experience confirms what Latin American specialists tell us about these
people. They are intensely subjective; they can never be reached by objective
reasoning, outright charity, or technical assistance; they are won only through
personal acceptance, cordiality, and friendship. Fine distinctions in dogma that
erect barricades between Christians mean nothing to them, and the discipline
of Church legislation means less. The Commandments must be interpreted as
infallible ways of pleasing God who loves them and is immeasurably touched by
their fidelity.
If a kindly woman visits a lonely Puerto Rican in her home, sits down to read
the Bible with her in her native tongue, and invites her to services in the nearby
Pentecostal Church, she will gladly accept the invitation. In one of the store-
front or second-floor meeting houses that spring up overnight in Harlem,
Brooklyn, and the Bronx, she hears the Word of God in her own language, is
asked to lead in prayer, to join the choir. Here, in a small, protective group,
she feels secure. We must recognize this psychological need for strong inter-
personal relations and make very sure that Puerto Rican Catholics feel accepted
in their own Church.
The cumulative knowledge provided by the essential disciplines of linguistics,
In-Service Formation of Sisters 197
missiology, anthropology, and the social sciences can integrate, but only love
assimilates and absorbs. Professional terminology is silenced by the overwhelm-
ing beauty of Midnight Mass in Spanish Harlem, by the integrity of a Misa
Commitaria sung in Spanish by an exiled congregation, by the liturgical dignity
of a Forty Hours procession followed by High Mass offered at 7:30 in the
evening for a parish of working men and women. The Litany of the Saints prayed
in English by hundreds of Negro and Puerto Rican laborers becomes a heart-
piercing cry for social justice: "Let them be confounded and ashamed that
wish evil to me . . . for I am needy and poor, make haste to help me. Let not
the enemy prevail against us, nor the son of inequity have any power to hurt us."
The zealous pastors who work with these people are praying to the angels of the
Ecumenical Council for permission to substitute for vague reference to threaten-
ing dangers stark appeals for help against the social evils that can undermine a
parish. "From drug addiction and drink, spare us, O Lord!"
Statistics on the anticipated growth in population in South America during
the next decade and the estimated current loss to the Church of 1,000,000
baptized Catholics each year would test our faith in the future of the Church
if we had not conclusive evidence that we are living in what Cardinal Montini
has called a dynamic phase of her history, in which her whole organism is
being reoriented to increasingly apostolic activity. It is of utmost importance,
accordingly, that we see beyond the horizons of our immediate commitment
the larger vision of a universal apostolate in which we must be prepared to
interpret the mind of Christ to every culture and national group, as occasion
demands.
In this context also the words of Cardinal Feltin come as marching orders:
"The whole church must set itself in a state of missionary activity." The
scarcity of religious available for this work makes it imperative that we train
zealous lay apostles to labor in fields already white with harvest. Speaking to
religious educators, Cardinal Suenens asks:
Are we making ready a generation able and fit to suffer for the faith?
Have we taught our young people in a practical way how to communicate
that faith to others and how to make it fruitful, directly or indirectly, in sav-
ing or helping souls? ... It is the task of that special elite, the religious
... to find out and train these helpers of God in order that Christ may
through them give Himself in full measure to the world.
The Papal Volunteers organized at the request of our Holy Father for work
in Latin America are an intensely apostolic group trained at the Center for
Intercultural Formation at Cuernavaca, Mexico, under the direction of
Monsignor Ivan Illich. On the home mission front, also, we must learn to
tap the rich resources of the lay apostolate. Generous, dedicated lay people
can give effective help in education, social welfare, nursing, and paramedical
services. We have found Spanish-speaking teacher aides, librarians, and clerks,
nurses, and volunteers invaluable in overcoming language barriers and estab-
lishing rapport with those who speak the same tongue.
As major superiors we are irrevocably committed to the spiritual, intellectual,
and professional preparation of our sisters for their apostolic mission in the
Church, so ably outlined by Father Roloff. For reappraisals and new direc-
tions in this field we look forward to tomorrow's panel. The scope of my
assignment this afternoon has suggested to me that I come to you, not as an
that vast segment of humanity destined to be not only our ultimate judges
educator nor as superior of a religious congregation, but as spokesman for
198 College and University Department
that vast segment of humanity destined to be not only our ultimate judges
but more immediately the jury on which the life or death of our Western
Civilization depends. In the final analysis, the Iron Curtain that encircles
so much of the world today was forged by apathy that did not heed the
evidence: "I was hungry and you did not feed Me . . . sick, and you did not
visit Me."
Unquestionably, the heaviest cross that we, as major superiors, carry today
is the constant equation of the increasing demands of professional excellence
with the overwhelming needs of our contemporary world. It is the essence
of a cross that it should be too big for us, that it should stretch us two ways
at once in defiance of the laws of nature. It is my conviction that we shall
never grow to full stature spiritually or achieve intellectual breadth of vision
until, with hands outstretched to embrace the whole world, we can no longer
protect our insular interests, but must cry out with St. Gertrude, "Pierce my
heart with the arrow of thy love, so that nothing human may remain therein
and that it may be completely filled with the strength of Thy divinity."
Confronted as we are by multiple obligations and sharing with the whole
world the insecurities of a "bitter peace" bought at too high a price, we may
find strength in the simple directive given by our beloved and Venerable
Elizabeth Seton, founder of the first American religious community, to the
handful of sisters gathered around her deathbed on a bleak January day in 1821.
They were the first parochial school sisters, the first Catholic social workers
in a vast missionary country that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific
through uncharted wilderness. She had given them all the in-service training
that a mother's heart could devise. Now, saying goodbye, she summed it all
up in a few words: "Be children of the Church."
In the full radiance of the Lumen Christi that shines upon these memorable
sessions of Easter week, as we await the glorious Pentecost of the approaching
Ecumenical Council, when the Holy Spirit will speak to us one message in
many tongues, let us think deeply of our responsibilities as children of the
Church in what may be the most decisive hour of her history. As her loyal
daughters, our united effort to reorient a confused world to the full implications
of the Christian revelation can never be too little or too late.
ORIENTATION AND POST-ORIENTATION FOR JUNIOR
SISTERS FROM MISSION COUNTRIES
Sister M. Charitina, F.S.P.A.
ST. ROSE CONVENT, LA CROSSE, WISCONSIN
On august 12 of this past year, the first eager, expectant band of sisters
destined to form the nucleus of Latin American participation in the Sister
Formation Conference Overseas Program arrived in Washington, D.C., from
Peru. Two days later two sisters from Brazil joined them.
Orientation for Junior Sisters 199
On the 16th of the same month, thirty-one sisters from India and two from
Burma arrived in Newport to swell the number of Indian sisters who had come
during the previous year. Immediately upon their arrival the program of
orientation, to be followed by post-orientation, was under way.
But before we look into this program of orientation it might be well to
review the objectives of the mission project. In the light of these objectives,
the program of orientation will be clarified.
Let us briefly consider objectives outlined first by the Sister Formation
Conference in which the idea was conceived; then the objectives by Father
Considine, director of the Latin American Bureau of NCWC, and finally
by His Excellency, Archbishop Carboni, Papal Nuncio to Peru.
The Sister Formation Conference gave as the purpose of the undertaking the
promotion of a close relationship between religious communities in this country
and those in the mission field, particularly in India, Latin America, and Africa.
Such a relationship was expected to develop into a strong personal and spiritual
bond, protected and nurtured by continued interrelation which would help estab-
lish a sound basis for further self -assistance and thus contribute to a profitable
apostolate both in the sister's religious community as well as in the work assigned
to her in the mission field.
Father Considine, of the Latin America Bureau of NCWC, saw in the
project a means of providing technical training for communities in mission
countries. At the same time, he stressed the importance of acquainting mission
groups with the spirit of fraternity which exists in the United States toward
fellow religious in other parts of the world.
His Excellency, Archbishop Carboni, Papal Nuncio to Peru, who was largely
instrumental in sending twenty-two sisters to the States last August, asked that
we aim to give the sisters every opportunity to observe the close relations be-
tween American sisters and the faithful at large while at the same time teach
them how the American sister maintains an equitable balance in her daily
schedule of prayer, work, rest, and study. Above all, His Excellency wanted
them to grasp the secret by which class barriers can be leveled and the inroads
of modern indifferentism and secularism resisted.
With these objectives in mind, the orientation planning committee determined
on a program comprising spiritual, cultural, intellectual, and social values to be
given at Salve Regina College in Newport, Rhode Island, for the sisters from
India, and at the motherhouse of the Sisters of Mercy at Bethesda for the
sisters from South America.
Under the direction of Sister Mary Josetta, thirty-one sisters from India and
two sisters from Burma met at Salve Regina College to begin their orientation
program at the invitation of the dean, Sister M. Rosalia, R.S.M., who acted
as coordinator of the center. Sister M. Timothy, R.S.M., Saint Xavier College,
assisted by five members of the Salve Regina staff, directed the instruction in
English. A total of five hours every day was devoted to an intensive analysis of
the sounds, vocabulary, and syntactical patterns of English. The texts used were
prepared by Robert Lado and Charles Fries for the English Language Institute of
the University of Michigan. Each sister student was provided with a set of four
texts. Tapes were available for those who needed additional drill.
Lectures by qualified speakers enriched the spiritual and cultural phases
of the orientation. Reverend Anthony Kurialacherry from Kerala, India, gave
200 College and University Department
several talks to the Indian sisters in their native Malayalam tongue on various
aspects of life in the United States. He covered such subjects as differences
between Indian and American educational systems, methods, and student-
teacher relationships; spiritual and apostolic motivation; adaptation to a new
culture; and the role of the sister student as an ambassador of the Church
and people of India to the United States. Father Anthony spent five days at
the college assisting with the program.
Recreation periods with American sisters of the same age, evening enter-
tainments, and informal receptions were a few of the features of the social
program.
The orientation program for the Latin American group was conducted at
the Mercy Generalate in Bethesda. Here the proximity of the Academy of
American Franciscan History made it possible to enrich the program with
lectures on the Church in America, on Pan-American relations, and on
American culture in general. The excellent contributions made by priests of
the Academy were augmented by lectures given by Father Santiago of Mexico
City, who shared with the sisters his own experiences as a student at the Catholic
University of America; by Father Leonardi Rodriguez, S.J., dean of the Medical
School at Buenos Aires; Father Fredrick McGuire, executive secretary of the
Latin America Bureau, and Mr. Siri of NCWC. These lectures implemented
not only the spiritual and cultural but also the intellectual needs of the program.
For the study of the English language, Georgetown University Language
Laboratory was opened to the sisters. Professor Frederick Bosco and four
sisters from participating communities spent several hours each day helping the
Latin American sisters acquire the fundamentals of the English language.
When Mother Mary Regina, desirous of contributing to the Latin American
project, opened her motherhouse to the sisters from Peru and Brazil, she thereby
assumed the burden of the program. What followed took its vitality from the
spirit displayed by Mother Mary Regina and her sisters. The Latin American
sisters quickly felt that they belonged to the Mercy family. Together they prayed,
worked, ate, and enjoyed varied recreations. The sisters met with Embassy
personnel of Latin American countries and visited several places of interest,
among which were the Pan American Building and Peruvian Embassy.
By the close of the first orientation program, each sister, while filled with
gratitude for the blessings which had come to her at Bethesda, was nevertheless
ready and eager to leave for her destination. And the host communities were
likewise anxiously looking forward to receiving these little sisters into their re-
ligious families. How well these communities have understood their newly as-
sumed obligations is evident now in the results of the year's work with the Latin
American sisters and two years of work with the Indian sisters.
While religious in this country are fully aware of the advantages which par-
ticipation in the program has brought to their own congregations, they are in a
position to estimate modestly the results to date, and in doing so, trust in God's
continued blessing for the future. In checking results, the mutual love and under-
standing which has grown up between the host community and its guests, to-
gether with the deep appreciation on the part of the guest sisters, augurs well
for the years ahead. This relationship is further revealed by the gratitude of
superiors in the foreign countries, which is more encouraging since many of
Orientation for Junior Sisters 201
these same superiors were reluctant last August to entrust their sisters to our
communities.
A few observations seem deserving of mention. There is the question of
junior sisters. Those American sisters who have been working with the project
strongly advise limiting the program to young sisters who can be incorporated
into the juniorate of the community which receives them. The term "junior
sister" may include young sisters even though they are no longer in temporary
vows. The instructions of the juniorate and the companionship with the sisters
will effectively educate the foreign sisters to a more Christ-like attitude toward
all members of the Mystical Body, regardless of social standing. While the
religion courses of their college program will ground them in right Christian
principles, daily contacts with the American sisters will present these principles
translated into practice.
A sincere effort is being made to obtain more accurate information on the
previous education of the sisters who came to the States. It is hoped, too, that
in the future a better understanding can be reached with the superiors whose
motherhouses are in mission areas as to the nature of the college work they wish
their sisters to pursue.
For our Latin American sisters, summer vacation begins with the Christmas
holidays. To bring these sisters here in August has created a problem for the
superiors. This coming year, the additional Latin American sisters will come
to the States in January, pursue the study of English, and be prepared to begin
their regular college courses in September. In the meantime, they are encouraged
to begin the studv of English at home so as to have a basic understanding of it
when thev arrive in the States.
From time to time it will be profitable to revitalize the spirit of the group of
foreign sisters studving in our religious communities. This will mean reorienta-
tion periods either for the entire group or in sections. This summer one such re-
orientation program is being provided for the Peruvian sisters at Viterbo College,
La Crosse, Wisconsin.
All sisters responsible for the training and education of these foreign sisters
realize the indispensable need of acquiring a thorough knowledge of the various
phases of life in the countries from which the sisters come. Such knowledge will
enable them the better to understand the needs of the sisters they are endeavor-
ing to help, among whom are many who have a fine basic training in the re-
ligious life. The timely and invaluable encvclical Mater et Magistra, prepared
for us by His Holiness, Pope John XXIII, is recommended as a guide to those
who bear the responsibility of the basic training. In this encyclical will be found
information and suggestions for the best approach to the problems growing out
of the program.
Needless to say, each American communitv participating in this program
is doing so at a sacrifice, which can be prompted bv nothing other than love
for God's honor and glory. This sacrifice is an articulate expression of the
role these communities are playing in the Mystical Body of Christ. It reveals
something of the zeal and love which fired a St. Paul and a St. Francis Xavier,
for it is concerned, deeply concerned, about the needs of the world, and
knows, as an English bishop once said, "God has no other voice, no other
hands, no other feet than yours, with which to carry the Gospel to the world."
In warmly receiving sisters of foreign countries into the very heart of our
202 College and University Department
religious communities, in sharing with them the best of what we have
spiritually, culturally, intellectually, and socially, and in this being urged on
by nothing other than a pure love of God and the extension and perfection
of His kingdom on earth, we are in a unique way fulfilling our role in the
apostolate. We are sharing the spirit which gave birth to the entire ecumenical
movement, a spirit characterized by a Christ-like zeal bora of love and mutual
understanding.
SCRIPTURAL FORMATION AND ECUMENISM
Mother Kathryn Sullivan, R.S.CJ.
MANHATTANVILLE COLLEGE OF THE SACRED HEART, PURCHASE, N.Y.
Sacred Scripture is a treasured possession of the Church. We are grateful to
God that Jews and Christians of almost every denomination share this posses-
sion. It is a major bond of our union with them. Perhaps it was of the Bible
that John XXIII was thinking when last Ash Wednesday, presiding at the
Lenten station in the Dominican church of Santa Sabina, he rejoiced that
by the grace of God "our separated brethren have preserved the most precious
elements of the divine foundation." x Surely never before has a Pope declared
that what unites Christians is more important than what separates them.
Indeed, never before has a more cogent, or a more apostolically impelling
motive been proposed for the scriptural formation of the members of the
Church because without this formation no progress in ecumenism is possible.
Ecumenism and Sacred Scripture are in fact closely related.2 Ecumenism
is not only a biblical word, it is also a biblical concept. The roots of the word
ecumenism are plunged deep in the Bible and draw all the richness of its
meaning from its use by the inspired authors. Ecumenism, in the Bible,
implies negatively the refusal of all particularism or provincialism; positively
the accepting, the embracing, the welcoming of all legitimate forms of unity.
St. Luke chose wisely when he inserted it in the first sentence of his kerygmatic
announcement of the birth of Christ. The evangelist wanted to convey some
of his own wonder that a divine decision affecting all mankind coincided with
an imperial order affecting the whole of the then-known civilized universe,
so he wrote: "A decree went forth from Caesar Augustus that the oikoumene,
[the whole world] should be enrolled" (Luke 2:1).
One oikoumene was merely a geographical term. In time it acquired a
political and cultural meaning. Luke was using it in both these ways but he
was also aware of the religious overtones with which the psalmists had enriched
it; to them it stood for God's world, "the world of which Yahweh is the Lord"
1 Osservatore Romano, March 10, 1962.
2 G. Thils, "Pour mieux comprendre les manifestations dcumeniques," Nouvelle Revue Thiologl-
que, January 1962, pp. 9-11,
Scriptural Formation and Ecumenism 203
(Ps. 24:1) or the world subject to divine power and obedient to eternal
decrees (Ps. 9:9). This morning I would like to use it in still another sense,
not geographical, not political, not merely religious, but with a specifically
eschatological value, meaning "the world to come." And I ask how can
scriptural formation best contribute to the establishment of the world for which
the Messiah came, the world in which all will be subject to Him, the world
in which the many will be one?
There are three parts to my answer. I believe (1) Scriptural formation should
be centered around biblical theology; (2) it should not be studied in isolation
but should be related to all the ancillary sciences; (3) it should be rigidly
scientific and orientated to theological problems of contemporary relevance.
And I have chosen an example to illustrate each objective.
The First Objective
The first objective is that the study of Scripture should be centered around
biblical theology. Obeying the directive of Pius XII in the encyclical Divino
Afflante Spiritu, scholars since World War II have concerned themselves with
the Bible not as with a profane document, not as evidence in the history
of religion, not as the source of raw material for the systematic theologian,
but as a sacred heritage in which they analyze the Christian reality as attested
and interpreted by the various inspired writers according to the manner in
which it was revealed to them. Then the Scripture scholars synthesize accord-
ing to biblical thought patterns.
This study of biblical theology will provide broad avenues along which all
those who love the Bible can advance confidently. I have chosen to illustrate
this first objective by a very brief thematic study of the modalities of love
in the Old Testament and the New. A study of love in the Bible is primary
because an understanding of the beauty of God's love for man and His desire
for man's answering love is the only unfailing foundation for ecumenism.
The orchestration of divine and human love begins in the book of Genesis,
is heard in the magnificent crescendo and climax in the Apocalypse and is
repeated in ever-changing melodies on every page in between. Creation is not
understandable without this twofold love. The promise of a Redeemer, because
of and in spite of man's infidelity, makes the merciful quality of this love
luminously clear. Abraham's faith, Isaac's obedience, Jacob's suffering, Joseph's
purity are the response of the patriarchs to the divine call and point out some
of love's exigencies. What depths of divine love Moses must have seen in
the mysteriously burning but never altered bush, whence he drew the courage
to begin the formation of his people according to a pattern pleasing to God.
Judges (like Samuel), kings (like David and Ezechias), prophets (like Isaiah
and Osee), sages (like Ben Sirach) continued to teach through the centuries
the importance of the exchange of love, yet men went their unheeding, unhear-
ing way. So it was only a minority, the anawim, poor humble souls who were
able to carry on the dialogue when His Divine Son, with the accents of a man,
spoke to them about the love of His Father.
Love alone can teach the authentic generosity that, far from isolating
man from man, rather compels each one to discover on a more profound level
something he has in common with all men. This is one of the lessons that
biblical theology can teach. This has value in an ecumenical dialogue. But
a knowledge of biblical theology alone is not enough.
204 College and University Department
The Second Objective
The second objective is based on the belief that scriptural formation to be
effective must include training in the ancillary sciences. Our study of Sacred
Scripture must be serious, it can be no pious, pleasant pastime. It demands
the best that we have to give. Ancient languages, philology, archaeology (to
name only a few areas), have made giant strides in the past half century and
we must study the Bible in the light that they afford.
Let me use the history of the Graeco-Roman world as an example. The
discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has raised many questions about the origin
of Christianity. Similarities between the institutions and beliefs of the
Qumranites and the early Christians do exist. Far more striking are the
dissimilarities. The men who lived in the Dead Sea monastery were absolute
isolationists, but the message of Jesus did not stop at the walls of Jerusalem.
It overcame all Jewish isolationism and was carried into a Roman world
dominated by Hellenistic culture. Under God this expansion was the result
of three centuries of preparation.
From the letters, recently published, of John Gustave Droysen,3 the historian
of the post-classical evolution of Greek culture, we learn that he was inspired
to undertake the study of these neglected centuries because he saw that they
were the period during which the world was being prepared for the expansion
of the Christian religion.
The New Testament cannot be understood apart from the Christianization
of the Hellenistic world and the effect of Hellenistic culture upon Christianity.
The latter part of this sentence must be clarified. The first, and obvious example,
is the use of the Greek language, which the authors of the New Testament
preferred to the less widely understood Aramaic. Secondly, the New Testament
shows how the inspired writers adopted and adapted popular Greek literary
forms. Epistles, logia, acts of famous men, Didache, diatribe, dialexis,
apocalypse — all of these were current in Hellenistic literature and have an
honored place in Scripture and in the writings of the Fathers. Thirdly, to
limit ourselves to three examples, the thought patterns of the first Christian
missionaries were those that would appeal to a cultivated Greek audience.
When Paul reached Athens, he first preached in the synagogue, then he
went to the Areopagus and began a diatribe that was Christian in content,
Stoic in argument, calculated to win the interest of a philosophically inclined
audience, and supported by a quotation from a Greek astronomical work, the
Phaenomena of Aratus. This is the classic encounter of Greek and Christian.
Paul's failure on that occasion was personal, but the Christian victory was
never to be separated from the culture of which Athens was the symbol and
center. Henceforth he preached a wisdom not of this world, but one that the
Greek world could understand and many would accept.
A study of the historical setting of Acts 17 makes it possible to draw many
conclusions concerning the advance of the Gospel today. It is easy to disengage
the essential elements of the primitive kerygma from the accidental elements
of Greek culture in which they have come down to us, and we turn away
from such a study with new horizons, wondering what new cultures God's
providence may even now be fashioning in order that they may serve as
vehicles for the good tidings in the years to come.
8 J. G. Droysen, Briefwechsel, Berlin, 1929, I, p. 70.
Scriptural Formation and Ecumenism 205
The Third Objective
There is yet a third objective that we must keep before us in our scriptural
formation if we wish to prepare minds and hearts for progress in ecumenism.
Unless this formation is rigidly scientific, it will never provide the solid
foundation for an understanding of the issues that divide Christians. The third
objective is the attainment of a serious and scientific study of the inspired word.
What is it that divides believers? Is it a single issue? Is it a whole series
of problems? Without attempting a complete answer to these questions, let
us submit that it is the theological differences that are the most important.
This is not to minimize the significance of political, social, liturgical, and
ethical factors in the sad story of disunity, but it is probably correct to say
that ultimately it will be on theological agreements that all other solutions
will depend.
Is it possible to go further and single out certain theological questions that
are basic to all other obstacles to ecumenism? I believe it is.
Since time is running short, may I merely point out how a solid, scientific
understanding of the Bible throws wonderful light on some of these problems
and without the help afforded by Sacred Scripture no solution is possible.
1. The Church. Today the true meaning of the Church is receiving an
attention not accorded since the Reformation. Sixteenth century ecclesiology
was largely legalistic and juridical. Isolated proof — texts from the Bible —
often obscured the true meaning of the inspired word. The high decibel
quality of charge and countercharge made progress in understanding difficult.
All this has changed. The two major concepts of Catholic ecclesiology are
now biblical. The Kingdom of God is no longer explained in terms of a
Montesquieu but as a scriptural category acceptable to all Christians. The
consequences of the daring Pauline doctrine that the Church is the Mystical
Body of Christ may prove a meeting ground for fruitful discussion.
2. Justification is another doctrine which divides Protestants and Catholics.
To misunderstand this teaching is to distort dangerously the Christian message.
Only a thorough study of the New Testament will establish the legal character
of this concept, explain its relation to divine worship, and show its connection
with sanctification, good works, the needs of the individual and the contribution
of the group.
This is also true of a third theological issue.
3. Tradition. One of the most rewarding discussions going on today among
theologians centers around the connection between Scripture and Tradition.
Much depends on the answer. Time prevents even a summary of the Protestant
and Catholic positions, but it is good to report that union is now closer than
it has ever been before.
Surely the importance of a scientific study of Scripture is discernible in the
three issues I have mentioned and the list could easily be extended: the
primacy of Peter, apostolic succession, transubstantiation, sacraments, sacri-
fice, source of Christian authority, faith. In fact, it would be hard to find a
theological issue in which trained Scripture scholars — Protestant and Catholics
— have not begun an encouraging and often harmonious discussion which it
is our obligation to understand and to further, if we can.
Before I conclude my comments on my three major points — biblical
theology, ancillary sciences, correlation with dogma — I would like to face
frankly some objections that may have occurred to you.
206 College and University Department
Not all our sisters, I know, can go on for advanced work in Sacred Scrip-
ture. The preparation for their professional and directly apostolic work may
allow only a minimum of time for the study of Sacred Scripture, but I would
plead with you that whatever time can be given be devoted to the serious
study of biblical theology based on a literal exegesis of the text, so that when
our sisters teach the children in the primary grades about the Joseph's "rags
to riches" adventures in Egypt, or Jonah's experiences in a whale, they will
do so in such a way that the children will never have to unlearn anything
that they have been taught.
So, in that sense, it might be objected that Sacred Scripture is not an area
where we and they may meet. Let me make my case even weaker. Appar-
ently, there are so many people with whom we come in contact who do not
believe in the Bible, that, it might be objected, why waste time on Sacred
Scripture? My answer would be: It is not time wasted to prepare our sisters
along these lines, for four reasons:
(1) The study of Sacred Scripture can give our sisters a concrete, existential
understanding of our faith that is singularly attractive to modern minds with
whom thev will come in contact.
(2) Although our study of Sacred Scripture in the light of revelation is
transcendent and supernatural, it is also possible to study the sacred books
as historical documents. I am sure that I have some Ph.D.'s in history in
my audience, and they will agree with me that the merely human evidence
in support of many of our inspired books is far superior to the evidence
guaranteeing the authenticity of all pivotal ancient historical and literary
works. This point I would like to stress. Many of our young people go
through a crisis of faith. If our sisters in doctrine class are steeped in Sacred
Scripture, they will be able to share a conviction that it is intelligent to
accept the foundations of Christian belief. No one denies the dangers in the
ecumenical dialogue. But Sacred Scripture can protect our students and
ourselves.
(3) I would be the first to want to stress the intellectual values of a study
of Sacred Scripture. These values are there — in abundance. But it is also
true that a study of Sacred Scripture along the lines I would propose can
create attitudes that are essential in any fruitful ecumenical experience. What
are these attitudes? They are an openness of mind, charity, a hunger for truth,
and an understanding of the wonderful patience of God. You can expand
the list.
(4) Lastly, we are religious women, dedicated women. We are gathered
here because we want to find new and better ways of training those who are
to succeed us and to do what we have done — to do it even better. Is not the
study of Sacred Scripture a means to a better understanding of literature?
If we give our sisters a true grounding in Sacred Scripture, we will help
them to realize their dreams and ours.
And so we come to the conclusion. I think I can best express the final
thought that I would like to leave with you, if I ask you to think for a
moment of Rembrandt's painting of Aristotle so recently acquired by the
Metropolitan Museum in New York.4 This picture has aroused extraordinary
interest. Long lines of spectators stretch through the Museum, down the steps,
* T. Rousseau, "Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer," Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bulletin, January 1962, pp. 149-156.
Scriptural Formation and Ecumenism 207
and along Fifth Avenue, waiting for a chance to examine it. Much of this
interest can be traced to publicity — people are curious to see a picture that
cost so much. But curiosity cannot explain the reverence, the awe with which
they stand before this three centuries old painting.
What explains its dynamic? What gives it such compelling force? The
play of light is partly responsible, the mood is one of mystery, it is a powerful
picture, but there are no sudden, dramatic contrasts. All its transitions are
quiet and controlled. This sense of wonder is also conveyed to us by the
measured restraint of the colors, limited almost entirely to yellows and browns,
but so great is the wealth of tonal variety that it is easy to believe the experts
who tell us that Rembrandt prepared a fresh combination of colors on his
palette for every new brush stroke on his canvas. Irresistibly the half-shadows,
the half-lights, the infinitely delicate variations of dull gold, amber, and an-
tique bronze draw our eyes to the noble manly figure of Aristotle, whose
strong, purposeful hand rests gently, almost affectionately on the head of the
sculptured bust of Homer. The philosopher's dark, thoughtful eyes do not
meet ours, they are gazing into space, into a distant world where fears and
longings meet. With what thoughts are those deeply luminous eyes so
eloquent? Here we have more than a picture of one man of genius paying
tribute to another, more than a philosopher honoring a poet, more than a
thinker remembering a predecessor. Surely some serious and deeply felt bond
unites them both. A study of Aristotle's writings quickly suggests an answer.
He knew Homer well, in his Poetics he devotes a whole section to the bard
whose works were part of fourth century paideia. Aristotle, it would seem,
found in Homer's poetry the serene balance between two extremes they both
admired so much. Poet and philosopher were concerned throughout their
lives with the problem of the One and the Many. Homer was able to take
the Many — places, times, peoples, motives, situations, and combine them in
such a way that the resulting picture of life was complete and One.5 Aristotle
was able to analyze the causes, the distinctions, the complexities of the rela-
tions of the Many and the One in an attempt to achieve perfect unity.
Is this not the same problem that we are considering this morning — that
the many may be one? Aristotle's eyes are filled with sadness, his answers
were only half-answers, he knew that neither Homer nor he had really found
the goal of their desires; but our hearts can be filled with gladness because
that goal can be ours.
Sacred Scripture, properly taught, can provide the motive, the method,
and the content that will help us to achieve the goal of ecumenism: "That
all may be made one."
B S. E. Bassett, The Poetry of Homer, Berkeley, 1938, p. 244.
UTILIZING COMMUNITY EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCES
FOR FOSTERING THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT
Sister Mary Magdalene, O.P.
co-ordinator, racine dominican educational association,
saint Catherine's convent, racine, Wisconsin
In choosing ecumenism as our theme for the 1961 community educational
conferences, we had no debate as to its timeliness. Rather, we were faced
with this two-fold challenge: the imperative need to study ecumenism; the
best approach to the subject as a community study.
The need is as timeless as the Church herself and is discovered to be present
in every stage of her growth. I will ask you to allow me to dip into family
archives for a moment to quote from Father Bonaventure Schepers' article
"Ecumenism and Dominican Discernment" in the January, 1962, issue of
The Torch. Father Schepers looks to the life and writings of St. Catherine
of Siena for a commitment to the needs of ecumenism and for a program to
meet these needs. We find the program basically in her two-fold principle
for the spiritual life: the knowledge of self; the knowledge of God — a principle
peculiarly Augustinian in flavor! Knowledge of self in this framework means
(and I am quoting Father Schepers now):
knowledge of self as a member of the Church, a deeper realization of the
significance of one's being a member of the Mystical Body of Christ. It
means, therefore, penetrating or discerning the tragedy of a Christendom that
is divided, and the realization that . . . this division is hurting us. It means
questioning ourselves seriously: Are our attitudes and actions in any way
contributing to this division? Reflecting on "the knowledge of God" we
should become more and more convinced that whereas the Catholic Church
is conscious of being endowed with the commission to preserve and to prop-
agate the faith perfectly and integrally, nevertheless to each one of us,
theologian or not, the mystery of God, and the mystery of the Church re-
main— and will always remain — incomprehensible.
We can approach the mystery and gain, by God's help, some discernment
of it; yet the possibilities of penetration remain infinite. We must follow
the lead of our present Holy Father and realize that the Church needs to
profit from the renaissance of the study of the Bible that is being born in
the hearts of many Catholics, to profit from the liturgical renewal. These are
the Ecumenical Apostolates open to us all.
The needs were imminent; the time, as always was now. We were convinced
of the need of the study. What approach to use? These words of Pope John
XXIII on the occasion of the canonization of St. Bertilla Boscardin, May 11,
1961, corroborated our thinking: "The thing that we see happening on so wide
a scale on the economic and political levels — unification and co-operation —
has to be the distinctive note of Catholicism in our time."
208
Utilizing Community Conferences 209
We took to heart yet another admonition of His Holiness, offered to
seminarians on April 6, 1961, "not to get into the habit of looking upon the
apostolate as a matter of technique; rather, it is a matter of bringing your
thinking and your life into line with the sincerity, the generosity, and the
sacrifice that Christianity teaches, and to which we must all be completely
committed." He also urged these young men, in approaching their apostolate:
"1. to get a clear but calm view of present reality; 2. to aim for an apostolic
activity that will always be prompt, willing, and generous."
From all these words of wisdom we received our inspiration and impetus
to make the study. We knew that "this clear but calm view" in regard to
ecumenism would require study, alertness, soberness of mind, curiosity
tempered by zeal, an appreciation of the past and a concern for the present.
We knew, too, that a generous apostolic activity would flow from wills set
on fire by the white heat of truth.
The theme did not need further stretching to fit perfectly into the over-all
objectives of our association, which, paraphrased somewhat, may be put thus:
to become more completely human that we may be humanly completed by the
Divine. I have been asked to explain how we used our meetings to implement
the theme.
Since the meetings are held by "repeat performances" in four different
regions on the four Saturdays of October, practically every sister attends.
The theme, keynote address, group discussions, and professional activities
revolve around the same subjects; sometimes we have the same speakers or
panels travel to all four areas to insure "unification and cooperation." Our
Mother General's addressing all four meetings is another medium of unifi-
cation.
We understood that there was a great need for a clarification of "ecumen-
ism" in all its aspects in the minds of the sisters; we were certain that a solid
growth here would spontaneously make for a professional and spiritual growth
in each individual. Consequently, following the release of the theme in
January, 1961, "The Religious and Ecumenical Movement," our librarians
collaborated on a bibliography which clarified ecumenism, the attitude of
the Church toward it, the place of the Church as a whole, and of each
individual in it. This general subject was matter for the keynote address
given by priests especially chosen because of their field of study and work.
The theme was further broken down for group discussions into:
1. Protestant-Catholic Relationships;
2. Catholic-Oriental Rite Relationships;
3. Origin and Purpose of the Ecumenical Councils of the Church;
4. Origin and Purpose of the Forthcoming Council;
5. The Responsibility of the Individual in the Movement.
(I may say in retrospect that we would probably modify these somewhat.)
The sisters were encouraged to choose one of the themes for concentration;
groups held informal discussions on the missions on these topics; common
spiritual reading was chosen around them.
During the summer we made a community-wide effort to follow the Catholic
Hour radio programs over NBC which included:
"The Spiritual Basis for Christian Unity," by the Rev. John L. Hardon, S.J.
"Christian Unity in a Changing Community," by the Rev. Thurston N. Davis,
S.J., editor of America
210 College and University Department
"Basic Human Rights," by James O'Gara, editor of Commonweal
"Christian Unity and the Image of the Church," by Gerard Sherry, editor
of The Central California Register, Fresno, California
Sisters on various summer assignments were encouraged to listen. These
addresses were taped and read in the refectory during the summer retreats;
printed copies were secured for re-reading in mission refectories. Thus we
had some common basis for thinking and discussion. A growth in under-
standing together the issues at stake, the mind of the Church, the articulation
of some of her scholars, was important for our objectives. At summer school
centers, sisters utilized opportunities for lectures and symposia on the subject,
so that by August common interest was running high. At this time the chair-
man of each of the four areas chose discussion leaders for the topics men-
tioned earlier, and sisters indicated by mail the subjects of their choice. Thus
they signified they would join a particular discussion group on the day of
the meeting. This left about two months for specific reading and discussion.
In the Formation Departments, too, discussions were held, scrapbooks and
bulletin boards utilized to keep abreast of the current material constantly
being released.
As interest mounted, a group of sisters in Detroit visited, upon appoint-
ment, the pastor of Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and spent a
profitable afternoon becoming acquainted with the history, attitudes, and
convictions of Orthodox Catholics. Other groups became better acquainted
with Catholics of the Eastern Rites, of St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic
Church here, and with the Sisters of St. Basil the Great. While these groups
are one with us, we felt even here a better understanding was needed.
Exchanges of visits between the sisters followed and great joy and satisfaction
were realized. One of our sisters has since developed a set of colored slides
on the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, complemented by slides
secured from Fordham University on Eastern art and architecture, together
with a tape recording of the chants of the liturgy. We will make these avail-
able to our schools. The sisters contacted both the Byzantine Seminary at
Pittsburgh and the Monastery of Chevetogne, Chevetogne, Belgium, where
monks of both East and West live in community, and where there is a center
for the clergy and laity to study questions of unity.
Coincidentally, for the first time last summer, we welcomed an Episco-
palian sister to our summer session. Daily contacts with her on the bus, in
the classroom and cafeteria, strengthened a mutual bond of interest and
brought much enlightenment. It occasioned, too, an exchange of visits to
our respective convents and deepened a growing, wholesome, Christian atti-
tude.
At each of the four meetings in October, the keynote addresses emphasized
admirably the strategic areas of interest in ecumenism. Speakers were: the
Right Rev. Msgr. Joseph Emenegger of Milwaukee; the Very Rev. Msgr.
Joseph Breitenbeck of Detroit; the Rev. Placid Jordan, O.S.B.; the Rev. Pat-
rick Clancy, O.P., of River Forest, Illinois. Since each address differed in
scope and emphasis, the talks were taped and made available to all the
missions. Group discussions varied greatly, covering historical surveys of the
Councils; evaluations of fundamental areas of agreement and disagreement
between Catholics and those of other faiths; studies of doctrinal issues faced
by past Councils; a look at the issues before the next Council; keen studies on
Orthodox Catholics; animated discussions on famous converts; and above all,
Promoting Participation of Hospital Sisters 211
discussions on the part that is ours to play in ecumenism as a religious com-
munity and as individual religious.
It is needless to point out how we became professionally better equipped
to clarify the question of ecumenism; our realizations in the intellectual and
spiritual aspects were phrased by the sisters repeatedly in written evaluations.
"We have learned," they said, "to listen to those of other faiths; to recognize
the truth in what they believe; to have a profound respect for the consciences
of others; to realize better our place in the work of the Church." Significantly,
requests for the next year's theme included suggestions to continue with
ecumenism, to study the Mass as a bond of unity, to study the Scriptures as
a common ground for dialogue. While we must waive these in favor of a
theme for our centennial year (you will excuse again a nod in the direction
of the family), high on our list of popular discussion topics is "St. Catherine,
Daughter of the Church."
AN EXPERIMENT IN PROMOTING PARTICIPATION OF
HOSPITAL SISTERS IN PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
(Summary)
Sister Madeleine Clemence
director of nursing, fall river, massachusetts
Nursing sisters, because of their very close contacts with lay persons —
patients, patients' families, doctors — are in an unique position to foster
the ecumenical spirit. There is, in particular, a group of persons with whom
they could profitably engage in dialogue: their lay colleagues. And full,
wholehearted participation in professional organizations, where lay and
religious nurses learn to know and respect one another, would provide sisters
with the necessary opportunity.
But, what is the sisters' attitude toward participation in professional organi-
zations? In October, 1961, all the nursing sisterhoods of New England were
represented at the convention of the New England Conference of Catholic
Nurses. Well over one hundred sisters met and discussed their place in the
National Council of Catholic Nurses in order to make recommendations to
the board of directors of this organization.
Most sisters would want to have the same privileges and responsibilities as
the lay nurse; they would like to be judged as professional persons on their
personal merits; just as their lay colleagues, they expect that participation in
the professional organization will result in personal as well as professional
growth.
On the contrary, a few sisters desire that the difference between them
and the lay nurses be emphasized. They are willing to help these lay nurses
from the outside, but they do not want to get really involved in the organiza-
tion.
212 College and University Department
Some of these sisters stated that they wanted to limit their professional
commitment in order to live more integrally their religious life, and that they
wanted to protect themselves from the influences of "the world."
Could it be that these sisters lack confidence in their own professional
worth, and are reluctant to compete with their lay colleagues? Or could it be
that the over-protection of their convents did not equip them to discuss today's
problems with lay persons? Or could it be that they have not learned that the
perfection of their religious and of their professional life stand or fall to-
gether?
If the nursing sisters are to play the role expected of them by the Church,
they should receive an adequate professional — including liberal — education;
the potential leaders should be helped to realize their potentialities; and they
should be made to see that their professional activities are but the expression
of their religious consecration.
ECUMENICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SISTER
FORMATION FELLOWSHIP PROJECT
Sister Margaret, S.N.D.
PRESIDENT, TRINITY COLLEGE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Living in an era which is indeed an ecumenical one, it behooves us to enter
into its spirit, cooperating in the attitude of understanding and the desire for
unity. There is no need to call to mind the focus of public attention on
Catholic education, but certainly it is most important that the contribution
of the teaching sisters be clarified and comprehended. This would add to the
understanding. Catholic education in the United States must be known not
only for the numbers that it teaches, but for the quality of its teaching, and
the professional stature of its teachers. It seems to me that the Sister For-
mation Graduate Study and Research Project can help to accomplish these
ends.
The Sister Formation Graduate Study and Research Project has as its aim
the solicitation of ten million dollars which will be raised in order to pre-
pare sisters for college teaching. These sisters, it is considered, will teach in
juniorates, thus providing truly prepared college teachers to form and edu-
cate the young sisters who will go out to teach on all levels. It is limited, there-
fore, to the doctoral study of sisters having only the B.A. degree, who will
teach in Sister Formation centers, who will be given three years to spend in
study, and who are not older than thirty-five. It is planned that this money
will be raised through the united efforts of sisters of many congregations
soliciting funds from people interested in building and strengthening the
Catholic educational system in this country. The fund will provide 2,000
fellowships, each worth $5,000.
One of the first steps to be taken in this project will be the actual solicita-
Ecumenical Significance of Sister Formation 213
tion of the funds needed for the fellowships. In this process, the entire
Catholic educational system will be brought to the attention of corporation
and foundation executives as well as private individuals. For many of these
people it will be the very first time that they are presented with the facts
to refute the composite of myths. They will come to know the number and
types of schools, the number of teachers and students. For the first time,
perhaps, they will come to realize what the contributed services of the re-
ligious teacher mean to the United States taxpayer in terms of dollars and
cents. They will learn that: one out of every seven children in the United
States attends a parochial school; one out of six hospitalized patients is treated
in an institution staffed by sisters; one out of every two nursing students is
educated in a Catholic school of nursing. If, as Father Weigel has said,
"understanding is the conditio sine qua non for fertile conversation either in
writing or in the spoken word," the ecumenical significance of just the first
step in this project should be apparent.
When the money has been secured and the fellowships are available, the
recipients will have to be selected. In the selection, religious orders will
come to know other religious orders better, their needs and their strengths.
This will help establish greater unity among ourselves, and this, too, you
will grant is not only necessary but vital to the continuation of Catholic edu-
cation. Through the choice by each institute of the proper candidates for
these fellowships, universities throughout the country will learn of the true
caliber of the teaching sister in the United States. Donors of scholarships
will wish to know the beneficiary, and will not only become interested in
the progress of the individual but of the whole community of which she
is a member. The donor will tell others, and gradually but steadily, the area
of knowledge and interest in Catholic education will spread and esteem will
grow.
As the result of judicious choice of the proper person to be sent on for
graduate study, the influence of the sisters studying in the universities will be
great. Professors and fellow students will come to respect this sister as a
scholar, and this respect will be extended from the individual to the wider
field of community and, in general, to Catholic education itself. These sister
students by their seminar papers, their advanced research, their oral presenta-
tions will impress librarians, other scholars, people who may never have
pictured a sister outside a chapel. She will present to them the picture of a
selfless, dedicated religious scholar who from the fund of knowledge which
she is building up in graduate work will have much to give. Who will under-
estimate the ecumenical significance of such religious scholars in building
up esteem for the whole system she represents?
Having achieved the Ph.D. degree, the sisters in this project will teach
junior sisters. They will be eminently prepared for their work, having mastered
a particular discipline, learned the methods of and participated in research.
Building on their own sound preparation they will be truly preparing those
sisters who will go out to teach or serve others on all levels. Thus the quality
of education all along the line will be raised through the formation of teachers
thoroughly prepared in the discipline that they teach. In the past, some of the
criticism leveled at Catholic education has been concerned with poorly and
inadequately prepared teachers in our schools. The Graduate Study and Re-
search Project aims to overcome this by providing well prepared teachers for
our junior sisters, who will benefit from good teachers and become well pre-
pared before they themselves enter the profession. The result is, as seen, an
214 College and University Department
ever widening circle of benefits emanating from the central figure, the scholar-
teacher teaching the junior sisters.
The sisters educated to the doctoral level will also give stature to the
whole Catholic system by meeting others in their special fields on a professional
basis. By participating in conventions, by membership in professional societies,
by writing for scholarly journals, they will secure respect not for their own
scholarly worth alone, but for all of Catholic education. They will also help
to ensure the continuance of the Catholic liberal arts college for women,
for it is they who will prepare others for college teaching. As everyone in
college administration today knows, the only hope for preserving the small
liberal arts colleges is in staffing them with well trained religious, fully equipped
and prepared for college teaching.
This project cannot be underestimated. It is intended to fulfill a very
practical purpose in finding financial support for the higher education of our
sisters. There is none here who would deny that such education is necessary,
nor are there many, I presume, who would deny that it is expensive. The project
will be a stimulus to each community to seek out its best possible candidates for
doctoral study, with emphasis on ability for such work rather than on avail-
ability. It will, assuredly, make a most important contribution by bringing to
the attention of the Catholic and non-Catholic, of the scholarly world, of the
professional circles, of the whole public, the nature and scope and worth oi
the Catholic educational system in the American scene. It will, as I hope it is
evident, be of real ecumenical significance in winning greater sympathy and
understanding, and, finally, in commanding respect for the excellence of its
teachers and the quality of its scholarship. It will be no small achievement
to change the dominant image of the American teaching sister from the
affable, very human figure who can teach baseball and boxing and drive a jeep,
or the pious, demure, ineffective but sweet nun, into the religious scholar-
teacher, thoroughly prepared, professionally respected for the extent of her
knowledge and the excellence of her work.
This project is not only the logical development of the Sister Formation
movement, but it is of ecumenical significance in that it will present the op-
portunity of giving real information about the Catholic educational system
to those who may have known little or nothing at all about it. It will in-
crease understanding and appreciation of that system by the respect engendered
by the sisters sent on to study, and by their own achievements as scholars.
What is more, they will make financially possible the continuance of the
liberal arts college for women. Seen over a long period it will contribute greatly
to raising the quality of education in our schools by raising the quality of those
who will teach in them. The Sister Formation Graduate Study and Research
Project can truly be of significance in this ecumenical era that is ours.
LETTER FROM AUGUSTINE CARDINAL BEA
April 15, 1962
Second Passion Sunday
Secretariatus
Ad Christianorum Unitatem Fovendam
Praeparatorius Concilii Vatican! II
National Catholic Educational Association
59th Annual Convention
Section: Sister Formation Conference
Cobo Hall
Detroit, Michigan
I am very happy for the opportunity of offering to your Convention
a word of congratulation, encouragement, and best wishes. First of all,
may I congratulate you for choosing such an important and up-to-date
theme. Unfortunately, no one can boast that all Catholics are vividly
conscious of, and deeply penetrated by, the duty to be concerned with
their brothers who are baptized in Christ, brothers even if separated
from the Apostolic See. There are still countries where large strata of
Catholics are more or less indifferent towards the growing movement
to promote the Unity of all Christians. Some Catholics are suspicious,
even against, this movement. Such attitudes, it seems, stem from an
inability to overcome deeply rooted prejudices or old resentments. There
is hope, however, that the coming Council will stimulate and awaken
the consciences of everyone to a more zealous fervour and wider, truly
more Catholic, openness of view.
The selected theme is important not only in itself but particularly foi
your Association, dedicated as it is to Catholic education. Many fruitful
opportunities at all levels of education and in almost every subject
taught are open to deepen our esteem and increase our understanding
of our Separated Brethren, and thus to pave the way for that perfect
Unity which Christ desires. I have already spoken last November about
the promotion of Unity by scientific research and teaching, at the
solemn opening of the academic year at the University of Fribourg in
Switzerland. There seemed to be a lively interest and wide agreement
in what I suggested. Indeed, the strictly religious subjects have obvious
ecumenical dimensions. Likewise does the teaching of history, because
it is clear how much an absolute faithfulness to truth — freed from
prejudices, calm, objective — and a faithfulness to charity (not claiming
judgment over moral responsibilities, which belongs to God alone) — how
215
216 College and University Department
much, I say, this teaching might contribute to a deeper mutual under-
standing between Christian communities, even on the human level.
Let us take another example — philosophy. There is often a lack of
understanding among Christian brothers because each speaks a dif-
ferent language, the result of a formation by different philosophical
systems. One can be unaware of the differences, or if aware of them,
powerless to overcome them. But how can we understand one another
on the level of confessional differences, unless we first know the lan-
guage of others, and, more important, the mentalities that are expressed
in these languages? The study of the history of philosophy, especially
modern systems of thought, renders a valuable service (although one
must recognize that current manuals often do not sufficiently take this
aspect into account, and therefore are not of great help).
With reference to other subjects — literature, history of art, the natural
and social sciences — it is sufficient to mention three principles, the ap-
plications of which vary according to the subject. The very first prin-
ciple is to seek possible collaboration among Christian communities,
by common discussion and action, to promote the fundamental prin-
ciples of the natural law and the Christian tradition regarding family
life, education, public and social welfare, on the local, national, and in-
ternational levels. The second principle is to seek in different scientific
areas of knowledge to cooperate for the progress of theology, especially
in the fields of dogma, Biblical exegesis, and the history of dogmas. The
last principle is to serve truth loyally and zealously in every field of
knowledge, and to join other Christian communities in this holy service.
Such servants of truth draw closer to God, nearer to Christ Who is the
Truth; moreover, they draw closer to one another because they are
united in a loving search for truth so sublime. Imagine how the com-
munication of these principles and the formation of students to an
openness — a truly Catholic openness — would benefit these same students
when they later confront the non-Catholic Christian communities and
meet their Separated Brothers.
Let me say a few words about the quite special obligation to work
for unity which rises from your consecration to God in the religious
life. If you are, in the words of St. Paul, "all concerned with God's
claim (1 Cor. 7:32), if by this consecration you aim to acquire a perfect
love of God in which the love of a neighbor is included, then how
strong must be your consciousness of your duties toward your Separated
Brothers in Christ. You have identified yourselves completely with the
will of the Father who sent His only begotten Son, so that "those who
believe in Him may not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16). You
have given yourselves over completely to God's interests. Now, what
interest is greater that the one for which Christ, Our High Priest, prayed
so ardently on the vigil of His Passion and Death: "that they may be
one in us, so that the world may come to believe that it is Thou Who
hast sent me" (John 17:21)?
It is clear that this promotion of Christian unity cannot be impro-
Letter from Augustine Cardinal Bea 217
vised. It requires from everybody a long and solid preparation and
can only mean hard work, since it demands thorough knowledge, solid
convictions, endless patience, delicate love, and this latter — let us say it
— includes also the danger of misguided love. That is why the whole
work requires prudence and the enlightened guidance of those whom
"the Holy Spirit has placed to watch over God's Church" (Acts 20:28).
A quite special and more profound preparation is necessary for those
who are consecrated to God and who want to dedicate themselves to such
a work. The religious vocation harmonizes both contemplation and action.
This is characterized by the well known expression of St. Thomas:
"Contemplata tradere" — to share with others the fruits of one's own
contemplative life, of one's interior life of prayer and meditation. The
law of every life tells us that the better the life which one possesses and
the more abundantly he possesses it, the more a person can give life, and
the better is the life he is giving. And on the supernatural level this
means that one can have a greater influence on the supernatural life
of others, the more he himself lives this same supernatural life — that is,
the more he is united with God through every virtue and especially
through perfect charity. Moreover, the union of these who are baptized
in Christ has its very root and source in this union with Christ. From
this union flows the unity of professing the same faith, sharing the same
Sacraments, in submission to the "Holy Shepherds," the bishops, who
are united among themselves and united with the Vicar of Christ.
If, then, you want to utilize the immense possibilities offered to you
by virtue of your consecration, you need a special preparation. This
preparation gives to that knowledge, charity, and action — necessary to
every Catholic for this work — that profound efficacy which flows from
your religious consecration.
I know that in various parts of the world there are non-Catholic
Christians who sometimes ask Catholic religious for advice on how to
deepen their own intellectual and spiritual formation. No doubt, the
same has happened also to you. There is no reason to be surprised by
this fact. This is simply the fruit, not of your own merits, but of the
special graces connected with your life of consecration, graces which
God gives us undeservedly, and which Christ desires should bear fruit
for the others. In such cases we recognize humbly God's gift, and we
see also the great responsibility and privilege which it requires, to serve
Christ in His brothers and sisters.
I do not want to dwell upon the practical side and upon the manner
of preparing oneself for the work of promoting Christian Unity, nor
to work it out in detail. What I have said on this subject in a conference
to the French seminarians (and in other conferences and articles) can,
with relative facility, be applied to your needs.
What I wanted to explain in this letter is the absolute necessity of
the work of promoting Christian Unity. This task is more urgent for
those who are consecrated to God and devoted to collaborate more
218 College and University Department
closely in the salvific work of Christ and the Church, and is even more
urgent because of the immense possibilities in your work of education.
The task is complex and difficult. It requires a long and profound prep-
aration which should never cease to develop. This is the reason why
I congratulate you upon the providential choice of the Convention
theme for 1962, a choice most suitable, especially in this year of the
beginning of the Second Vatican Council. To this I add my best wishes
and prayers that the Lord may bless your Convention and your future
work.
I hope you leave the Convention with a deeper conviction of how
necessary and how urgent is your work for promoting Christian Unity.
I pray that you may firmly intend to be dedicated apostles in this
mission, that your teaching, and most of all your example, prayer, and
sacrifices, will stir up many other ardent apostles for that Unity so
much needed by the Church, desired by Christ, and expected by the
whole of humanity.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Augustine Cardinal Bea
The above letter from Cardinal Bea was read at both of the programs of the
Sister Formation Section, Wednesday and Thursday, April 25-26, 1962, Na-
tional Catholic Educational Association 59th Annual Convention, Detroit.
INTERNATIONAL STUDENT PROGRAM
THE FOREIGN STUDENT IN THE UNITED STATES:
THE WIEN PROGRAM AT BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
Jean-Pierre Barricelli
director, wien international scholarship program at brandeis
university, waltham, massachusetts
The position of prominence which history has chosen to confer upon the
United States in the twentieth century has brought upon this country an
unprecedented series of demands which would have startled Henry James in
his discontent with American culture and would have challenged Mark Twain
in his confidence in it. Especially since the Second World War, our role of
world leadership has made it imperative that we involve ourselves on a
full educational scale with the rest of the world, and that we infuse a world
Foreign Student: Wien Program at Brandeis 219
point of view in all of our university programs. It is partially with this in
mind that in 1958, Brandeis University, then only in its tenth year of ex-
istence, launched its large international scholarship program bearing the name
of its donor, Mr. Lawrence A. Wien, a New York philanthropist. I say
"partially" because any foreign student program makes its contribution not
only to international education but also to that of the sheltering institution
itself. "To ignore the world is ignominious and practically dangerous," said
Santayana, "because unless you understand and respect things foreign, you
will never perceive the special character of things at home or in your own
mind." The presence of foreign students on our campus is something we
owe our own students as an essential part of their education in a constantly
shrinking world and in the fearsome awareness of the disenchantment and
incomprehension beclouding it.
We organized the Wien International Scholarship Program mainly as an
undergraduate program, believing in the plasticity and impressionability of
the young mind and in its more genuine reaction to new environments than
the often diffident, half-willing, pre-judging mind of many foreign graduates.
I have often expressed my displeasure with our Fulbright and other com-
missions' policies of awarding travel grants exclusively to graduate students,
when the gifted and highly promising undergraduate is not given the slightest
opportunity. And yet, it is the younger student whose life will reach farther
into tomorrow's unknown, with whom we should be just as concerned as we
are with the older graduate lest we sacrifice the future for the present.
It was, thus, with a great sense of excitement and responsibility that, back
in 1958, we outlined the fundamentals of our program, which was, and
perhaps still is, the only endowed program of its kind. In a few years it
will reach its financial goal of $360,000 annually, an amount representing the
interest from investments which Mr. Wien has turned and will turn over to
the University. At $3,600 per scholarship, or $3,250, if one subtracts over-
head expenses, we expect to have 100 scholarships a year awarded on an
internationally competitive basis to students from around the world. This
figure would represent roughly 8 percent of our student body (not counting
other foreign students who are not Wien Scholars and who would raise the
percentage to around 10 or 11). Without boring you with a liturgy of
statistics, I shall point out briefly that the individual scholarship includes:
room, board, tuition, matriculation fees, book costs and laboratory fees, a
linen contract, a weekly allowance of $10.00, a series of seminars on Ameri-
can life and culture, tickets to performances of the Boston Symphony Or-
chestra, local historical trips both within the immediate vicinity and to more
distant points of New England, a spring recess field trip to Washington and
points in between under the supervision of one of our professors of history
or politics; these, together with various social events of the kind which, it
is said, round out the American campus experience, are all covered by a
Wien scholarship. Under normal circumstances, travel between the student's
home country and the university is not included except in cases where it
would be impossible for a student to accept a scholarship because he would
not have enough money to get to the university.
We welcome both the degree candidate and the special student whose in-
terest lies in intensifying his knowledge of his field of concentration or in
pursuing his subject from a different perspective. Although we insist on a
first-rate academic background, on high English proficiency, and on a plan
of studies which is consistent with a student's proposed career, we have started
220 College and University Department
to accept provisionally, a year in advance, exceptionally qualified students
whose English may at the time be inadequate, on condition that they con-
centrate on studying English during the one year interim period between their
provisional acceptance and their coming on to Brandeis.
The often discomforting prospect of selection and screening offers a per-
petual challenge which defies the philosopher's logic as well as the psychiatrist's
insight. We have worked harmoniously with the Institute of International
Education, faithfully with the African Scholarship Program of American
Universities (of which we were a pilot member), cordially with a number
of exchange institutes abroad, and fraternally with foreign universities. And
I should be remiss if I did not emphasize that we have gained by each of
these associations. Yet the fact remains that it is perhaps unreasonable to
expect many a large operation not to be undermined by its very inclusiveness,
and also to recognize that each university has its own criteria of selection
as determined by its curriculum, its strengths and weaknesses, and its aca-
demic demands. We, therefore, embarked upon a project of setting up our
own contacts or committees throughout the world. This was done largely
through one of our agents' several trips through Europe, an extensive tour
of mine around the world, and our President's journey to Latin America
last summer. We have been encouraged by the results. I do not propose this
network of private contracts or committees as a panacea to all the ills of
screening operations. But we feel, at least, the confidence of knowing per-
sonally the people with whom we are dealing, and we should like to believe
that their knowledge of our own institution permits a more discriminatory
list of recommendations, with a minimum of the irritants of nepotism, poor
scrutiny, and judgments which reflect visceral more often than cerebral factors.
We encourage independent applications, of course, and here have beeen
fortunate thus far in arranging a number of personal interviews with members
of our faculty or staff on leave.
The final decision on the award of grants rests with a university committee
built mainly around the director of the Wien Program as chairman, the
Dean of Admissions, and the Dean of Students. As far as three-way mar-
riages go, this one has proved its effectiveness and does not anticipate divorce
or separation. The secret, of course, is that each party controls his own
budget. The Dean of Admissions is happy because his scholarship budget
for American students is not dented; the Dean of Students is happy because
all administrative matters pertinent to Wien Scholars are processed through
the Wien Office, and, it should be added, our President is more than happy
that he does not feel called upon to justify the presence of foreign scholarship
holders on our campus to isolationist donors.
Before the opening of the academic year, we require as many incoming
Wien recipients as possible to take part in a summer orientation program
stressing chiefly English language training, a course which is complemented
during the regular school year by noncredit courses in English as a Second
Language. Our program absorbs this expense, but not that of a homestay
program in which it urges our accepted students to participate. We have
found that this particular combination of experiences best prepares a foreign
student for his formal studies and social desires while in this country. It
eschews the often risible indoctrinations which find telephone calling, bus
riding, and supermarket shopping an integral part of formal, classroom prep-
aration for what is sometimes astonishingly and grandiloquently presented
Foreign Student: Wien Program at Brandeis 221
under the heading of American culture. If those who advocated such in-
clusions in our orientation curricula only knew how obliquely and demean-
ingly foreign educators viewed them, then I am sure they would agree to
stressing simply the English language on all levels and to including optionally
a series of discussions on American intellectual history. We have found
with almost unyielding consistency that our foreign students are mature and
highly sophisticated individuals. We should treat them accordingly. Beyond
the warm familiarity of one or two well-chosen hosting families, and the
inviting, enriching atmosphere provided by a good course of studies, a foreign
student who is worthy of seeking further education away from his home
should need little.
Throughout the academic year, Wien Scholars, undergraduate or graduate,
are required to live on campus. What is more, they all have American room-
mates, regardless of race, color, or creed. We dread the contrivance of
an International House when it serves not as a haven for cross-cultural
discussions with American students but as a refuge for the timid, or a lair
for the angry, who wear the same badge of strangeness in an incomprehensible
or hostile civilization. A student committee, composed largely of American
students but with some Wein Scholars, offers all the practical day-by-day
direction a new foreign student would require, and by organizing outings,
panel discussions, dances, concerts, and international conventions, performs
great services in making our foreign students a more integral part of the
campus community. Faculty wives and women's committees, Rotary and
church organizations, alumni and internationally minded citizens of Greater
Boston generally provide more extra-campus wandering than our students
sometimes have energy for.
We point with some pride to the achievements of the Wien Scholars at
Brandeis, not so much because of the success of the selection procedures
which is thus reflected — for our occasionally egregious misjudgments would
tend to prove that the road to knowledge is not only bumpy but long — but
also because of the productive futures so many of the Wiens promise, which
in a way, is a vindication of our belief that undergraduates are as much
deserving of our consideration as are graduates. An average taken over
the past three and one-half years shows that 65 to 70 percent of their aggre-
gate grades fall in the honors category, and their graduating Latin honors
have been multiplying commensurately. Equally attractive to those of us
who like to observe their contributions to our communities is the manner
in which so many of them lend themselves to extra-campus events with a
desire to furthering our own understanding of their cultures: television and
radio appearances which act like extensions of their talks in our classrooms
for the purpose of bringing a first-hand point of view of some phase of
their country's civilization; speaking engagements, often in areas quite distant
from Massachusetts, which may broaden an idea that had found its first
American expression in our campus newspaper or across a dining-hall table.
And now, with the formation two years ago of a Wien Alumni Association,
we expect their contributions to keep flowing in our direction from all corners
of the globe in the form of short articles which we publish and, in turn,
distribute to the whole body of alumni.
It is of incalculable interest to follow a student's development during
his two or three years here, especially when he brings with him on arrival
the commonplace images of the United States, such as materialism, com-
placency, rock-and-roll, and Coca-Cola — stereotypes which burden the minds
222 College and University Department
of even the most circumspect. Some of these notions are retained when
he leaves (materialism); some are modified or placed in a more reasonable
perspective (Coca-Cola): some, at least, are eradicated as a result of contact
with learned American opinion (complacency), and some awaken their sensi-
bilities of communal guilt (rock-and-roll). I feel that, despite the cynic's
inveterate darts, the experience is healthy, and the exposure — especially at
the undergraduate age — beneficial. Replacements and compensations are made
early in the young, searching mind. For instance, if our charged tempo of
existence precludes the relaxing possibilities of meditation and reflection,
cherished and practiced in so many foreign countries, it bespeaks, on the
other hand, the not discountable virtues of dynamism and youthful excitement.
Quite obviously there is much to be said for the whole matter of getting onto
common ground, of students exploring together, changing, growing, and
ceaselessly adapting themselves to new knowledge born of the free inquiry
a university campus encourages. The inquiry must, of course, be honest.
If it is not, then we regress to the dangers and narrow emotions of nineteenth
century nationalistic prides and prejudices. If it is, then the Toynbeean
characterization that our age is the first in history to recognize the practical
possibility of having all peoples of the world share in the fruits of civilization
is true. Then it should somehow be possible to catapult international education
into the position of a major determinant in the dynamics of change.
But we should not naively be beguiled by our dreams into expecting that
understanding between peoples grows from the simple process of throwing
students and scholars together. First, it is much too early to assess the
impact of international exchange, given the fact that our effort on both an
intensive and an extensive scale began only after the Second World War
and has but recently reached a real momentum. Secondly, sheer contact
does not necessarily lead to understanding, much less to favorable attitudes,
and, unfortunately, knowledge does not necessarily mean love. Yet, under
propitious circumstances, exchanges of persons and of ideas may well con-
tribute to greater appreciation. How much is not the point. What I am
referring to does not lend itself to yardstick measurement. It is, at best
0ike Dostoevsky's fear of going to the Siberian prison not because of the
physical torture he would endure there, but because after leaving it, he would
later always look back upon it with a certain amount of nostalgia), an in-
tangible, even perhaps an irrational emotion, defined by its very indefinability
something not concrete but present, not overwhelming but apparent, not
steady but consistent. As such, it abides and permeates consciousness for
long periods.
I believe in this "nostalgia." I believe that if an exchange program has
no other value, it has this one, because this is what lies at the bottom of
every human relationship. And in the process, something of the truths about
America rubs off onto our foreign students, unconsciously yet directly, in-
directly yet consciously. Our country's clumsiness in specific situations, our
trials by error, can be looked at positively, as one Wien Scholar said to me
after being here for eight months during which he had undergone consider-
able change. He said that the American theory assumes the participation
of the whole people in government, and if it is a fumbling participation,
it achieves, on the whole, a greater wisdom than a dictatorship would in
the long run achieve. It seemed to me that this thought was impressive,
coming as it did, from a student (Italian) whose own country had been sub-
mitted to dictatorship, the effects of which have still not been completely
Catholic University and Ecumenism 223
erased. If this is in any way indicative of the ideas people can hold in com-
mon, then these common beliefs are much more important than the issues
which divide them.
To the realization of this hope, we of the Wien International Scholarship
Program are committed, fully aware of the role of the university today in
world affairs, and — if Emerson's dictum is correct that "it is the eye which
makes the horizon" — fully cognizant that in free societies, the university is
the eye. We do not regard our program as a philanthropy; it is a necessity,
a mutual fund of friendship through which every premium contributed is
compensated by a substantial dividend. It is an enterprise which makes us
at Brandeis feel we are sharing with all our sister institutions in the educa-
tional duties confronting every one of us in a world overtaken by profound
transformations. It is, finally, as is an exchange program at any university,
a response to the challenge of educating for tomorrow with the very best
means of today.
COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDY
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY AND ECUMENISM
Heinrich A. Rommen
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Already in their classical time the Greeks spoke of the oikumene as being
that promontory of the Balkans, Greece itself and its many colonies on the
islands and shores of the eastern and middle Mediterranean. In Hellenistic
times when Rome began to control politically and militarily western Europe,
North Africa, the Middle East, the Black Sea, half of the Balkans, the north
up to the famous Wall, and parts of England, and at the same time assimilated
Greek culture, the oikumene became also the Humanitas and lived somewhat
insecurely in the Pax Romana under the Emperor. Like Jupiter ruled the
Kosmos, so the Emperor ruled the oikumene. Romanae Spotium, said Ovid, est
urbis et orbis idem. That was the fullness of time. Christ was born, Homo
factus est crucifixus et resurrexit, and told his disciples to teach all nations
first in the oikumene. So already, a few decades after St. Paul, the apostolus
gentium, Ignatius of Antioch, speaks of the katholik Ekklesia, the Church of
all the world — that is, in urbe et orbe, the oikumene.
Irenaeus of Lyon before 200 A.D. stressed the ecumenical character of the
Church and spread kat holengen, dwelling, as it were, in one house, the oiku-
mene, of which Christ is the King. A hundred years later Eusebius, the author
of the first history of the Church, speaks of the "oikumene of all men, young
and old, men and women, even barbarians, slaves and free men, literates and
illiterates" (Praep. Ev. VI, 6).
224 College and University Department
Thus the oikumene was known mankind itself, and the Catholic Church,
though not identical with it nor realizing its spiritual part, lived in the oikumene.
And the latter as a political entity was recognized as only an historical, transi-
tory Graeco-Roman form of mankind — especially since the Trinitarian anti-
Arian councils: the Arians had indulged in a political theology of a divine
monarchy. But what was kept — at least in the Latin Church always — was the
idea of the libertas of the Universal Church, coordinated not to a particular
political form, the empire or the state, but to mankind organized in many po-
litical forms, cultures, and civilizations. The spiritual oikumene is always en-
dangered by false identifications with particular civilizations and political forms,
and is thus in danger of losing its missionary ordination, namely, that the Uni-
versal Church is intentionally and essentially coordinated to mankind, to all
nations and not only to the Latins, the Europeans, the West. All these terms
signify epochs in the history of the Church which brought trials and dangers
to her perpetual mission, but the Church cannot simply be identified with any
of them. The Latin Church is not the whole Church, said Pius XI, just as the
Codex Juris Conanici is not the law of the Church Universal.
If one fact is characteristic of the twentieth century after two World Wars, in
the inchoate oikumene created by the product of the Promethean mind of
Europe (technology), it is that today the orbis is truly becoming again ecumeni-
cal. While in the nineteenth century the belief in progress was mixed up with
colonialism, imperialism, and the European concert of great powers, the
twentieth century has seen the League of Nations, the United Nations, the rise
of a new jus gentium, admittedly all still tentative and still not wholly positive
in juridical forms.
Thus, the members of the various national or cultural Catholicisms — we
speak of French and of Spanish Catholicism without hesitancy but not of the
French or German Catholic Church — are called today to be much more con-
cerned with the Catholic-ecumenical mission of their educational institutions
of higher learning, just as they have become concerned with their great world-
wide opponent — atheistic communism. Thus arises the question: Is our general
education concept too Western and not "Catholic-ecumenical" enough not only
in spiritualibus in relation to our fellow Christians, but also in relation to secular
civilizations and non-Christian religions? By the way, what a strange reversal
of pre-Protestant, nay pre-schismatic times, that what was once the generic
term "Catholic" has become the specific term "Roman Catholic."
In the twentieth century the old orbis Christianus of 1400, despite Marco
Polo — a tight little spot in the soon-to-be-discovered Kopernikan orbis — has
become the modern world. And this world again has become a tight little
planet, its diverse culture and civilizations in principle better known than the
parts of the orbis Christianus in the Middle Ages. Europe, India, and Asia are
today nearer to us in space than was Cologne at the time of Aquinas to Bologna
or Santiago. The reason? The fulfillment of the divine command in Genesis
and of Descartes' dream that we should become Maitre et Possesseur de la
Nature — that is, master of the technological conquest of nature. This in all
its implications has brought the members of our less stratified, thus more
egalitarian, industrial society to multiple choices in satisfying our wants, ma-
terial and cultural, that would cause envy to the few of the highest strata of
medieval society.
This victorious conquest of nature, this technology, the application of the
acultural, anational natural sciences which concern matter and its hidden
powers — not spirit — have begun to create a unitary form of a technological
Catholic University and Ecumenism 225
civilization all through the world. The new cities in Europe, Asia, or Latin
America look much more alike than did Corinth, Jerusalem, and Cologne at the
times of the missionary travels of St. Paul. Thus, the venerable national
cultures centered around Europe and the countries settled by its descendants
in the past centuries, as well as the particular cultures of the ancient Asian
peoples, seems to have become, as it were, overlaid and permeated by a unitary
world civilization based on technology. A "technological Eros" seems to en-
thrall mankind, be it in the form of Western materialism or of the Marxist dia-
mat: the latter seems to exert an almost magical attraction for the undeveloped
nations. This technology is in se intercultural and internationally or spiritually
indifferent. Man has intellect and hands, says Aquinas. Once the intellect has
discovered the laws of matter and nature, hands are enough to use — and abuse
— the powers of matter. Technical products are in se unlimitedly imitable and
reproducible. The works of the spirit, of theology, philosophy, and the liberal
arts, essentially personal and culturally different, are unique. They may be
understood mit-und nacherlebt, and it is characteristic of them that they sumpti
non consumuntur. Thus, technology is not salvation, not happiness {Endai-
monia), however much it contributes to this perpetual human longing.
On the other hand, the growth of technical civilization has produced an
orbital interdependence in the socioeconomic life of the nations (or at least
of blocks of nations) that comes near interdependence and dense integration
in the modern national societies, the functioning of which depends on the
flawless cooperation of millions of highly specialized human acts marvelously
organized and demanding certain social virtues, such as fidelity to contracts,
consciousness of duty, pride of workmanship, civic and social friendship and
solidarity and mutual help. Despite the competitiveness of a free society, a
spirit of tolerance and charity permeates this network of human relations.
Though easily forgotten, these virtues, and the habits and mores they generate,
are at least as important as is capital equipment for the underdeveloped countries.
Though one should not overestimate the results of the technical Eros, it seems
clear that a new oikumene is in the state of becoming. Thus the Church Uni-
versal and its members stand, as they have so often, before a new situation.
In the nineteenth century, missionary activity — Christianization — was too much
associated with "westernizing" and with politics, as we from hindsight are
now ready to concede. But for more than fifty years that young branch of
theology, missiology, has worked on the age-old problems of the accommodation
of the Christian kerygma to the native cultures, as St. Paul, St. Columba, St.
Boniface, Sts. Cyril and Methodius did, and later that generation of giants, the
Ricci, Nobil, Schall von Bell, in China. (In parentheisis — as the Galilei affair
resulted in grave loss to the Church, so the decision in the Rites dispute set the
Church back for generations in the missionary field.) These giants knew and
practiced accommodation by first mastering a deep understanding of the native
cultures. This is again needed today for every Catholic who claims to be
educated — that is, able and willing to leave the doubtful protection of the shell
of his native nationalism. Though much of this education will be self-education,
the roots must be planted in our colleges. Yet we find ourselves in a bad
dilemma.
If we want to be in consonance with the Universal Church's mission, then
we must help to strengthen the socioeconomic and legal oikumene already being
born, the spiritual, religious oikumene that is potentially already here, actualized
in the missionary Church and in the native hierarchies. For students in higher
education that means enlarging their knowledge beyond what we call the West,
226 College and University Department
the Occident. By providential permission there is competing only one conquest-
minded ideology which is also universal and ecumenical, just as there were two
in the old oikumene.
But here we approach a dilemma. Indubitably, our undergraduates are al-
ready loaded with a many-sided curriculum necessitated by the need to absorb
an ever increasing — in depth and in width — knowledge of history, national and
European, of civilizations, the history of ideas, and the almost revolutionary
expansion of knowledge in the natural sciences. And also, thank God, the
knowledge of theology and philosophy is expanding.
On the other hand it is a scandal that the college is still forced to provide
what it is the duty of the high school to provide: the learning of languages
(English included), and introductory mathematics. And now, new demands
for ecumenical learnings? Must we now add courses in extra-European area
studies — Asia, Africa, the Middle East; courses in the intellectual, religious,
and cultural history of India, China, Japan, of Islamic countries, when we have
only the scantiest acquaintance with the oriental Churches united with Rome?
Could a year's course, according to the idea-historical method of Joseph Lortz
and embracing missiology of the last one hundred years, be designed by the
departments of theology and history? Certainly. But it would demand an
ability of synthesis and synopsis for which the specialists, products of our
graduate school training, are mostly not fit: they might even consider such a
proposal unacademic popularization. Should the philosophy department be
urged to give a course in some extra-Western philosophies and religions?
Certainly. And it might broaden our own knowledge. Have not seminary
professors in China and India pointed out that their students' minds are more
akin to that other type of philosophizing in the philosophia perennis, Augustin-
ianism? Or could such a course be built around the book The Love for God in
the Non-Christian Religions, by the Austrian Benedictine Thomas Ohm, in
connection with Dom Aelred Graham's book on Zen Buddhism? Assuredly.
We seem to be in a curriculum crisis and we need a new economy of course
offerings concentrated on the traditional essentials, thus creating room for the
suggested courses.
It would be possible to demand the private reading of some of the many
outstanding works on the major cultures of the world in the courses in modern
history, philosophy, international relations, and theology, and thus to encourage
what students of our day — in contradistinction to my student days — do so
seldom, to educate themselves by acquiring this minimum knowledge of the
new oikumene. This would mean that the college teachers would give some
inspiration to that self-education, but here lurks the threatening danger of the
specialist who "knows more and more about less and less" and is under pressure
to publish or die. But publish means all too often add a little stone of highly
specialized knowledge or repair an almost invisible ornament in the cathedral
of knowledge.
Since many of our colleges are already by the presence of foreign students,
including many from the Orient, a miniature picture of the new oikumene,
what ways and means do we have to magnify, as it were, this miniature by
means of the many clubs that flourish, or simply vegetate, on our campuses?
No doubt here exist possibilities if they are subtly organized, if some members
of the faculty are made to feel themselves responsible for this inspiration.
There remains an ultimate means of making our students conscious of the
new oikumene, of the spirit already in the state of becoming, and materially
Catholic University and Ecumenism 227
understructured by the technological World civilization — a means that has
been pointed out indirectly: The great teacher living, by his own nonutilitarian
reading and thinking, already in the new oikumene, ought to be and is a specialist
in his field of scholarly endeavor, assuredly. But his mind is so full of curiosity,
so inclined toward the totality of human existence, of the condito humana,
spread through the civilizations and cultures horizontally and through history
vertically, that he is enabled to see in the today all-too-much stressed differences
that what is common by reason of the metaphysical Natura Humana to all men,
and to recognize (in Hegel's un-Hegelian sentence) and to know the substance
which is imminent and the eternal which is present beneath the temporal and the
passing {Introduction to the Philosophy of Right and Law).
The teacher is great who, with or without a Ph.D., with loving care under-
stands the past civilizations from all its documents and at the same time has his
mind wide open to understand the living thought and actual life of the civiliza-
tions and cultures of the new oikumene which have become our neighbors
corporally as well as spiritually. The Church of which he is a living member is,
after all, called by God to teach all nations. The time of narrow national
superiority and of Western hybris is gone. Communism offers itself as a new
dialectical materialist oikumene. Catholic Christianity offers the other oikumene
in spiritu et in veritate.
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY AND ECUMENISM
James P. Reilly, Jr.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT
Athens of the fifth century b.c. was jolted out of its sense of complacency
by a self -described gadfly. His perceptive sense of irony deflated the pretensions
of those who, echoing Pericles' Funeral Oration, claimed that Athens was the
paradigm of the future, a real school for Hellas.1 Though he was eventually
to pay with his life for such effrontery to the vested interests of Athens, Socra-
tes' legacy to mankind was not forgotten. Even revered Fathers of the Church
were not without this saving grace. A St. Gregory the Great could assess
his own accomplishments in the story he tells of a donkey lent to a certain
Bishop Boniface which was never the same after a session of so great a pontiff,
post sessionem tanti pontiftcis.2
1 am, therefore, happy to see that the program committee for this session
belongs to this great tradition. The topic of today's discussion is surely an
ironic touch. After all, none of us need to be reminded that the task of a
Catholic university is ecumenical in character. Does not every Catholic uni-
versity proudly insist upon its openness to all truth, whether natural or super-
natural? I am, however, dubious of my role in this discussion. St. Gregory's
!Cf. Thucydides, II, 37-46.
2 Cf. St. Gregory, Dialogorum, III, 2, P.L. 77, 222.
228 College and University Department
anecdote troubles me. Indeed, I wonder whether at the close of my remarks
you may not be tempted to say — to mix St. Gregory's figure slightly — never was
a topic the same post sessionem tanti asini.
Yet in the best and most instructive sense, the choice of today's topic is a
reflective comment on the persistent failure of Catholic universities to implement
their claim, that is, to make their own the universe of truth. In this failure is
reflected their ecumenical failure. There are, it seems to me, two questions
implicit in today's topic: (1) Why has the Catholic university failed to achieve
its ecumenical character? And (2) Wherein should we seek a remedy for this
failure? To these questions, then, some tentative answers must be proposed,
mindful always, however, of the fate of those who would propose a paradigm
for the Christian Hellas.
The cause of the persistent failure of the Catholic university to realize its
ecumenical character goes back to the initial encounter of the Christian with
secular learning. Tertullian's question: "What is Athens to Jerusalem?" 3 may
indeed be answered by St. Augustine's double injunction to the Christian:
intellige ut credas; crede ut intelligasA Yet St. Augustine concedes to his
fellow African that the education of the Christian intellectual is essentially the
study of Sacred Scriptures illud quo fides gignitur, nutritur, defenditur,
roboratur.5 Now it was St. Augustine's answer which, for the most part, dictated
future Christian intellectual development in the West. Other Tertullians, of
course, occasionally arose to question the efficacy of secular learning, but the
Augustinian reply prevailed. And neither has the Christian conscience ever
forgotten the lesson entailed by St. Augustine's response, namely, the purely
instrumental role of secular learning.
Other historical forces have also contributed to the directions taken by
Christian education. Of these historical forces, two in particular have shaped
the direction of Catholic university education.
The first was the Eastern Schism of 1054. This grievous rupture of the
Christian community deprived the West of a fruitful dialogue with a theological
tradition rooted in the Eastern Fathers of the Church. The mediaeval univer-
sities would surely have profited, both in theology and philosophy, from such
an exchange. Perhaps some of the problems of the thirteenth century, occa-
sioned by the introduction of Aristotle through Arabic sources, might have
been avoided. Certainly, the failure of the mediaeval world to develop a
Christian philosophy is, in part, attributable to the conflict between the
Augustinians and the Latin Averroists. This conflict resulted in the Condemna-
tion of 1277, in the toils of which even St. Thomas Aquinas was caught. Even
more significant, it was the fatal amour of some later mediaeval university men
with the authority of Aristotle — contrary, it should be noted, to the spirit of
Aristotle himself — which led to their rejection of the scientific advances then
appearing on the educational horizon.
But the greatest single disruptive blow to the Christian community was the
Protestant Reformation. For the first time in its history the ecumenical char-
acter of Christianity was in question. Nationalism and religion were about to
be identified. Now aside from its other serious historical consequences, the
Reformation-originated principle cujus natio, ejus religio was to have a grave
effect on university education. As the universities became national in character,
they became less ecumenical. Nor were any of the competing theologies, even
3 Tertullian, De Praescriptive Haereticorum, 7, 9.
* Cf. St. Augustine, Sermo, XLIII, 7, 9.
6Cf. St. Augustine, De Trinitate, TV, 1, 3, P.L. 42, 1037.
Catholic University and Ecumenism 229
the Catholic, able to cope successfully with the developing scientific knowledges.
The result of this failure of the theologians, and even the philosophers I must
regretfully add, was the rising ascendancy of secular studies. Undoubtedly it
was necessary for secular studies to secure their own charters of independence
in order to ensure their continued progress. Unfortunately, this occurred at the
expense of theology and philosophy. If theology and philosophy did not imme-
diately lose their own charters, these charters at least became increasingly
suspect. The increasing secularization of the universities meant, of course,
that the universities reflected a decreasing ecumenicism. And it is perhaps in
our own time and in our own country that we witness the ultimate in seculariza-
tion and the minimum in ecumenicism in the university.
It is, therefore, against this background that we must assess the failure of
the Catholic university, and in particular the American Catholic university, to
realize its ecumenical character. Unquestionably, the American Catholic uni-
versity arose in answer to a need, namely, to realize the demand imposed by
our Augustinian heritage. We could not afford to neglect anything which might
beget, nourish, defend, and strengthen our faith. At the same time we were
becoming aware that secular studies had come into their own and must be
explored as genuine disciplines in their own right. We attempted, therefore, to
preserve, as it were, the best of both worlds. This attempt, however, could not
succeed. We were still haunted by the Augustinian formula, that secular learn-
ing has at best only an instrumental value. True, we had had the experience of
a St. Thomas Aquinas who insisted upon the proper autonomy of reason, but
we had not yet learned the lesson he taught. Indeed, today's topic is, in great
measure, a commentary on our present failure to learn that lesson.
Yet even the lesson of St. Thomas is not sufficient. The Catholic university
must learn also to accept its own particular problematic. Although in a very
real sense truth is timeless, no man achieves truth except in terms of the ques-
tions he asks. Now questions arise in time. Consequently, the questions posed
by St. Thomas in the thirteenth century, or by St. Augustine in the fifth century,
are not adequate for the problems which confront man in the twentieth century.
Indeed, none of us, least of all the Catholic university, can afford to ignore
the temporal and historical character of the questions suitable to the present sit-
uation. Yet, strangely enough, the Catholic university, for whom history should
be most meaningful, is often anti-historical in its response to the current
problematic. Present problems are resolved by reducing them to some unchang-
ing categories. Atemporal answers are proposed for questions which are properly
temporal.
This anti-historical attitude, it seems to me, stems from a misunderstanding
of the vocation of the Christian man. Yet, ironically enough, it is in the very
history of man that we find the meaning and significance of his vocation.
The history of man records an unparalleled event — an historical covenant
between God and man. God made that covenant with the people of promise,
Israel, and chose in time to seal that covenant with Himself. The Incarnation
is that seal. Since it is in the Incarnation, as the Apostle tells us, we live, move,
and have our being, the implications of this covenant can never be forgotten
(Acts, XVII, 28).
Yet there is, as it were, a prior covenant between God and man. This is the
covenant which is identical with the very act of creation itself. In choosing to
create man, God chose to covenant with man by calling him to a unique voca-
tion, a vocation to freedom. In this call, which is one with the nature of man,
230 College and University Department
man is most like God. Freedom is the divine image impressed on man. Prior,
therefore, to the historical covenant between God and man, in fact its very
ground, is this vocation to freedom. Indeed, the Incarnation only assures us
that God wills to keep His initial covenant with man by offering Himself as
security for that bond. The Truth shall make you free (John, VIII, 32).
But the divine economy does not propose that each man be stamped out in
a common image. To be called to freedom means precisely to be self-determin-
ing. But this is a temporal and historical task. Only in time and history, there-
fore, can man, aided by the Spirit, create truth within himself. Indeed, the
Truth shall make him free, but only if man pursues this task.
Thus, the vocation of the Christian man is a vocation to freedom. But time
and history are the very conditions of the realization of that vocation. And
although Catholic education generally should concern itself with this vocation,
the Catholic university, I believe, has a primary educational responsibility,
namely, the formal cultivation of the conditions of this vocation. Now this
concern with the vocation to freedom does not deny the validity of the secondary
goals of university education. Nor does this concern refuse necessary changes
in educational forms, curricula, or even in secondary goals. Indeed, to refuse
such changes may well impair the university's primary task. Ortega y Gasset
has said that the university must reflect the historical demands of society.6
The Catholic university, because of the Incarnation, has an even greater re-
sponsibility to history. Only by grappling with the problematic of its own
time, can the Catholic university foster this vocation to freedom within the
hearts and minds of men.
Yet it is not enough to accept the problematic. The Catholic university must
also structure the problematic in the language of the present situation. What
is this language? It is, in part, the claim of Sartre that man is a useless passion;
the claim of Marx that the only truth is that which is mediated by society and
history; the claim of physics that space-time referents are no longer absolute;
the claim of biology that man represents a convergence of evolutionary forces.
This is, in part, the language of the present problematic. If the Catholic uni-
versity is to structure adequately the present problematic, it cannot ignore this
language.
The Catholic university must, it seems to me, properly structure the present
problematic. Only then can it effectively structure the perennial Christian
problematic, the vocation to freedom. If it does not, the Catholic university
cannot begin to realize its primary educational responsibility, the formal culti-
vation of the conditions of this vocation. If, however, it does, the Catholic
university will not only begin to realize its primary educational responsibility,
it will also begin to reflect its ecumenical character.
Historically, the Catholic university is but one among many instrumentalities
through which man may attain to the stature to which he is called. Yet, his-
torically at least, the Catholic university has a responsibility to formally cultivate
those disciplines and that attitude of mind and spirit which will open up to
the student what we have already described as the universe of truth. This is the
ecumenicism to which the Catholic university should aspire.
But we must not be misled. The ecumenicism suggested here is not some-
thing static, already established and only waiting to be rediscovered. On the
contrary, true ecumenicism, like man's vocation to freedom itself, is involved
with the very problematic which engages us. This is why no half-measures
will succeed. Curricular changes, valuable though they may be, are not the
• Cf. Ortega y Gassett, The Mission of the University, passim.
Catholic Institutions Accredited by NCATE 231
answer. An increase in dialogue, as necessary as that is, will not do. What is
required is a genuine appreciation of the vocation of the Christian man, a
complete acceptance of the Incarnational dimension of history. A Catholic
university totally committed to the implications of the Incarnation will, indeed,
be truly ecumenical. It will not pursue the phantom of a spurious universality
divorced from the historical context. Rather, the Catholic university will pursue
a universality, dynamic in character, which arises out of the historical situation
of man. This is the ecumenicism to be sought by each generation of Christian
men, and to be fostered in each generation by the Catholic university. Man's
vocation to freedom demands this. Our true inheritance is indeed the university
of being, but only on the condition that we fully accept the implications of our
historical situation.
SECTION ON TEACHER EDUCATION
CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS ACCREDITED BY NCATE
Introductory remarks by Urban H. Fleege
CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, DE PAUL UNIVERSITY
At the present time there are a total of 363 higher educational institutions
in the United States engaged in the preparation of teachers which are accredited
by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education.
Of these, twenty-six are Catholic institutions, five of which were accredited
in 1960, and an additional institution, Saint John College of Cleveland, was
reevaluated and reaccredited in 1961.
There are thirty-four states, including Alaska and Hawaii, plus the District
of Columbia and Puerto Rico, in which there is no Catholic higher educational
institution with NCATE accreditation. Among these thirty-four states is
the state of Illinois with forty-four higher educational institutions engaged in
the preparation of teachers, fourteen of which have NCATE accreditation;
but not a single Catholic college or university in the state has been accredited
by NCATE. New York State has twenty-one institutions with NCATE accredi-
tation, but not a single one is Catholic. Only one or two of the twenty-one are
Protestant-related colleges.
One-fourth of the NCATE accredited institutions in Wisconsin are Catholic.
Wisconsin has four NCATE-accredited Catholic institutions out of the total
of sixteen thus accredited in the state.
Kansas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have three Catholic NCATE-accredited
institutions each. Two Catholic institutions with NCATE accreditation are
found in Minnesota, and the same number in Texas. The following states have
but one Catholic NCATE-accredited institution: California, Indiana, Iowa,
Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, and Washington.
232 College and University Department
New York State and Pennsylvania are tied with twenty-one NCATE-
accredited institutions each. Texas follows with eighteen, Wisconsin with
sixteen, Kansas with fifteen, and Ohio, Illinois, and Massachusetts tie with
fourteen NCATE-accredited institutions each.
Of the twenty-six institutions appearing in the Eighth Annual List of NCATE
accredited institutions, six were among the 284 institutions that were transferred
from the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education to the NCATE
on July 1, 1954. Of these six, one has since been evaluated by NCATE and
reaccredited. The others will be evaluated between now and April 15, 1964,
the date set for the evaluation of the remainder of the original list of AACTE-
transferred institutions.
Among the Catholic institutions thus accredited, nine are approved for
offering the master's degree as the highest degree, fifteen the bachelor's, and one,
Saint Louis University, the doctorate.
Of the twenty-six Catholic institutions with NCATE accreditation, eight are
predominantly or exclusively men's institutions, of which five are administered
by the Society of Jesus.
A number of the NCATE accredited Catholic institutions are currently
offering advanced degrees, but their advanced-degree programs have not as
yet been evaluated by NCATE. A significant number of Catholic higher
educational institutions with teacher preparation programs are currently under-
going self-evaluation for the purpose of applying for NCATE visitation and
accreditation.
NCATE CRITERIA, POLICY, AND IMPLICATIONS
Sister M. Camille, O.S.F.
PRESIDENT, COLLEGE OF SAINT TERESA, WINONA, MINNESOTA
During the past several years much attention has been focused on the
National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education. Educators in
all types of colleges have manifested growing concern with the accreditation
of programs in teacher education. Diverse criticisms have been voiced, doubts
and fears have been expressed, but too often these criticisms have been any-
thing but constructive in nature. Frequently, statements based on some element
of truth have failed to explore all the factors involved. As a consequence, all
too little has been accomplished in the way of clarifying basic issues.
It would seem advisable that an earnest endeavor be made to become
thoroughly informed on the philosophy, purposes, and practices of NCATE.
It is desirable that we raise questions which need to be explored, but it is, like-
wise, imperative that judgments be withheld until we are in full possession of the
facts. This accomplished, we can proceed in a constructive way to improve
our teacher education programs and offer helpful suggestions for the accredi-
tation of these programs.
NCATE Criteria, Policy, and Implications 233
Before proceeding to the discussion of NCATE criteria and policies, I should
like to call attention to a recent article in which Mr. Sterling McMurrin, United
States Commissioner of Education, emphasizes the need for serious attention
to the improvement of the quality of teacher education.
Mr. McMurrin points out that there is much to be proud of in American
education for we have countless schools of high quality with large numbers of
talented teachers, but he insists that we are capable of far more than we now
achieve and that we need to strengthen the academic character of our schools.
He says:
When we demand in our schools something less than the individual is ca-
pable of doing, we rob him of his self-respect and deprive him, his com-
munity and the nation of the personal and social dividends that can come
from a full development of his talents. We will approach a general excel-
lence in education only when we have a full appreciation of its worth to
the individual and to society and when a full and consistent effort to up-
grade our schools is made by everyone — administrators, teachers, students
and the general public. If ever in the past there has been reason for asking
less, there is none now. If the nation is to meet successfully the tasks of
our perilous times, we must demand excellence in every facet of the educa-
tional process.
In expressing gratitude for the many highly qualified and dedicated teachers
who serve our schools, Mr. McMurrin indicates that in general the quality of
teaching is lower by far than it should be and he states:
The blunt fact is that many of our teachers are not properly qualified to
handle the responsibility we have placed on them. This is our basic edu-
cational problem. Many of our teachers, for instance, lack native talent for
teaching. It is a national scandal, moreover, that large numbers of them
are inadequately prepared in the subject matter that they teach, as well as
in the elements of a genuinely liberal education. This is, in my view, the
major weakness in American education.
Mr. McMurrin places the case before us, as he says, bluntly.
It is my own strong conviction that as Catholic educators we should be
alert, well informed, and stand ready to take leadership in the education of
teachers, as area in which we have a long tradition. It is not enough to give
lip service to intelligent leadership nor does it suffice to rest on our laurels.
We have a role to play.
It is needless to belabor the importance of teacher education, the need for
more able teachers and more able leadership. It would seem, likewise, that long
since we have given ample time to discussion of the professional versus the
liberal arts. To realize to what extent this marriage has taken place in the
liberal arts colleges, we need only consult the preliminary report of a survey
of teacher education in liberal arts colleges made recently by a subcommittee on
liberal arts and teacher education of AACTE.
This report is based on a survey questionnaire distributed to 183 private
liberal arts colleges holding membership in the AACTE. It is interesting to
note that three-fourths of the colleges are 1,200 or under in enrollment. These
colleges are represented as excellent samples of the total number of liberal arts
colleges in the association. Sixty-six per cent returned usable replies.
Generalizations drawn from the data include:
1. The sample shows that 50 percent of the graduates of these liberal arts
colleges were majors in teacher education.
234 College and University Department
2. Of every five students receiving degrees in teacher education, two are in
elementary and three in secondary.
3. The elementary education majors graduating from liberal arts colleges too
frequently do not have a major academic concentration in their prepara-
tion. Forty-four of the 121 colleges sampled offer an elementary educa-
tion program with a major field of study.
4. The median number of major fields was nine in secondary education.
5. The liberal arts colleges are preparing a disproportionately small number
of teacher education majors in the traditional liberal arts fields, English
excepted. One hundred and seventeen colleges reported 1,356 graduates
with majors in English — this is 60 percent of the English majors. Fifteen
of the colleges sampled reported no teacher education graduates in any of
the sciences. The number of majors graduating in mathematics ranged
from 0 to 14, with the median number of majors being 3. In social sci-
ences, nine colleges reported none. In general social studies, 59 colleges
reported 401 graduates with a median of 7, ranging from 1 to 26. Forty-
seven colleges had no majors graduating in the foreign languages.
6. Liberal arts colleges are investing resources for providing teachers in areas
outside the liberal studies such as Home Economics, Business Education,
Industrial Arts, Physical Education and School Services (Librarian, Speech
Therapist, Teachers of Retarded Children, School Principals and Super-
visors.)
Critical problems listed by the colleges include those related to student teach-
ing, other laboratory experiences, curriculum problems, and administrative
problems. The majority of the institutions reported that their commitment to
teacher education would increase in the immediate future.
With Mr. McMurrin's statement in mind, and the comments of Gardner and
others along with the added information supplied by the survey of teacher edu-
cation in the liberal arts college, we can with profit turn to a brief examination
of the criteria and policies of NCATE.
The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education is an
autonomous organization whose sole purpose is to improve teacher education
through accreditation. In order to qualify for evaluation by the Council, insti-
tutions must meet the following criteria which have been established to guide
the Council in the accreditation process.
1. Regional accreditation, and accreditation by the appropriate state depart-
ment at the level for which Council accreditation is sought.
2. Institutions seeking accreditation must be nonprofit, offering no less than
four years of college work leading to the bachelor's degree.
3. They must be institutions offering a four-year curricula(a) for the prepara-
tion of elementary school teachers, or (b) for the preparation of secondary
school teachers; or (c) be institutions offering only graduate or advanced pro-
fessional programs for school personnel when such institutions provide graduate
work in other fields necessary to support these programs.
The Council regards accreditation by a regional accrediting association as
adequate evidence of the general financial stability of the institution, the effec-
tiveness of the administration, the adequacy of the general facilities, the quality
of the student personnel program, the appropriateness of the over-all program
NCATE Criteria, Policy, and Implications 235
including general education and subject-matter majors, the general strength
of the faculty, the faculty personnel policies of the institution, and the quality
of instruction.
Within this setting,
the NCATE examines the objectives of teacher education, the organization
of the institution for policy making, planning and administering the total
teacher education program, the student personnel program with particular
emphasis on standards for admission to teacher education, the number and
qualifications of the faculty for professional education, the patterns and
sequences of the academic and professional courses designed for each teacher
education curriculum offered, the program of professional laboratory ex-
periences, and the special facilities for teacher education.
The Standards of NCATE are stated in terms of principles that should
govern the program. Specific, quantitative standards are kept to an absolute
minimum in order to allow for reasonable flexibility. (While there is no
quantitative requirement concerning the size of the institution or the number
on the professional faculty, it must be recognized that a small institution can
seldom offer a good liberal arts program along with a proliferation of pro-
fessional programs. Some may find it difficult to offer one strong professional
program in addition to liberal arts. Institutions with limited resources may
have difficulty in employing faculty for professional education, adequate in
number and specialization to support teacher education programs.)
The Standards state specifically:
It is important to emphasize that in establishing its criteria, the Council
recognizes that teacher education is and can be effectively carried on in dif-
ferent types of colleges and universities and in a variety of patterns. In ap-
plying the Standards, therefore, due consideration is given to differences in
the nature of the institution, its internal organization, and its curriculum pat-
tern. The essential requirement is that the institution have a program for
the preparation of teachers supported by a well-qualified faculty and adequate
facilities.
It is important to keep in mind that the functions of NCATE, a professional
accrediting body, differ from those of the regional accrediting body. A state-
ment from the Source Book on Accreditation of Teacher Education recently
compiled by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
clarifies these differences as follows:
Regional accreditation is oriented to the institution, its improvement, its
wholeness, and its protection from forces without; professional accredita-
tion is oriented, instead, primarily to interests outside the institution including
the profession and only secondarily to that part of the institution which con-
tributes to the quality of the professional persons being prepared. NCATE
does have broader interest in institutional welfare than most other profes-
sional accrediting agencies because a teacher education program draws on
more parts of an institution than do other professional programs. The ma-
jor function of regional accreditation is stimulation rather than regulation;
that of professional accreditation, especially NCATE in 1962, is regula-
tion through the application of standards. The function to be emphasized
by an accrediting body during a given period depends largely upon the level
of excellence of the institutions with which it deals. The quality of teacher
education programs in institutions generally will have to be improved ma-
terially before NCATE can shift its emphasis to stimulation. While this is
taking place, all institutions including those reputed to be strong will have
236 College and University Department
to be subjected to the same rigorous examinations in terms of established
standards.
The differences between NCATE and the regional agencies therefore are
particularly marked because the regional agencies have already passed through
the conventional stage of accreditation in which NCATE now finds itself. An
institution seeking accreditation should recognize clearly that the regional
agencies and NCATE follow different procedures in order to serve different
purposes.
Evaluation and Accreditation Procedures
The policy in regard to procedures in requesting accreditation of NCATE
includes completion of preliminary application materials. Careful considera-
tion should be given to reactions to the preliminary application received from the
central office of the Council, since the Council tries to avoid the formal evalua-
tion of an institution unless the preliminary information available indicates
that the program stands a good chance of being accredited. Many institutions
have been advised to defer their requests for formal evaluation until improve-
ments could be made. The Council urges that those persons responsible for
institutional policy read the NCATE Standards carefully and make relatively
certain that their program meets them before taking final steps for an evaluation.
Institutions should keep in mind that it takes about a year for faculty to do a
self-study and to provide a satisfactory report. The report should be clear,
well written, and should provide the information requested. It should not be
taken for granted that a reader or visiting team can be in possession of facts
which are obvious and familiar to the institution but are not clearly presented.
If accreditation is requested, the central office of NCATE selects members
from a list of some 500 prospective team members recommended by col-
legiate institutions, state departments of education, state education associa-
tions, specialized groups such as music, art, home economics, English,
mathematics, industrial arts and the like, and all other interested groups
that care to make recommendations. The institution is given a list of persons
considerably larger than the number to be included on the team with the
privilege of striking out any name that for any reason is objectionable. The
selection is made from the list cleared by the institution.
While the resources of the NCATE do not make it possible to bring all
evaluators together for training sessions prior to visits, the central staff
does bring together on a regional basis the chairmen of visiting teams each
year for one-day briefing sessions. In addition, every visiting team member
has a set of written suggestions regarding the functions to be performed and
some effective ways of performing them. Generally the chairman of the
team is the head of a department or school of education though this is not
always the case. The members of the team are selected with the particular
nature of the program in mind. The size of the team is determined by the
scope of the program being offered by the institution. It includes a repre-
sentative of the state department of education and a representative of the
state education association.
A team has only one function which is to collect and report information
bearing on the total teacher education program being offered. The members
are not expected to find fault with the program or to give advice concerning it.
The team is not expected to discourage or encourage the institution regarding
its prospects for accreditation. The ultimate decision to accredit or not is made
by the Council.
It should be indicated at this point that institutions receiving requests from
NCATE Criteria, Policy, and Implications 237
the Council for recommendation of members of the administration and staff
to serve on the visiting teams should give much thought and careful study to
the selection of such representatives. Administrators of liberal arts colleges
have a serious obligation to strengthen the corps of visiting team members by
suggesting the most able representatives from their institutions. Liberal arts
institutions seeking accreditation are reminded that they may request the re-
gional association to appoint a generalist to work with the evaluation team.
Team reports are sent to the NCATE central office where they are read
immediately. If the information provided is obviously inadequate, the chair-
man of the team is asked for further information. A copy of the report is
sent back to the institution to check for accuracy and completeness of informa-
tion. When cleared with the institution, a copy is sent to each member of the
Visitation and Appraisal Committee with two members carrying special responsi-
bility for making an analysis of the report in terms of the NCATE Standards.
(The V and A Committee corresponds to higher commissions or accrediting
committees in other associations.)
An effort is made to strike a balance on the Committee on Visitation and
Appraisal in the representation of different types of institutions and in different
competencies subject-matter wise. Other than that the major qualification is
that the member be discerning, honest and courageous. An effort is made to
have on the V and A Committee some representation from the Council and a
larger institution from outside the Council. At present considerably more than
half of the V and A Committee members are from outside the Council. All
Council committees are appointed by its Executive Committee.
The Visitation and Appraisal Committee screens all reports from visiting
teams and recommends action to the Council. After receiving the reports of
the V and A Committee the Council makes the final decision in regard to the
accreditation.
1. The highest level of accreditation is full accreditation for all categories
which substantially meet all Standards.
2. Provisional accreditation may be granted to an institution when it is
generally strong and promising but deficient in one or more Standards. The
maximum period of provisional status is normally three years. The institution
files a report of progress in one of the three academic years and a person is sent
to the institution to evaluate changes made. An institution may try only once
to get provisional status lifted; if it fails the minimum two-year waiting period
applies and a reevaluation is necessary. The provisional status is no longer
indicated on the annual list compiled by the NCATE office.
3. The Council may defer action to provide the fullest possible opportunity
for the institution to place its true case before the Council before action is
taken. A time and place are provided for a reapprasial of such a program by
the Committee on Visitation and Appraisal.
4. If an institution is denied accreditation it is extended the privilege of a
review by the V and A Committee which makes a recommendation to the
Council. The Council takes final action. After denial an institution may apply
again following a two-year interval.
Reappraisals were conducted for the first time this year in conjunction with
the meetings of the Visitation and Appraisal Committee. This measure was well
received by the institutions who availed themselves of this procedure. The
members of the Visitation and Appraisal Committee, likewise, found it most
238 College and University Department
profitable to meet with the representatives of the institution who had the oppor-
tunity to provide interpretations of facts already available and to respond to
questions raised by the Visitation and Appraisal Committee.
As a member of the Council and also as a member of the Visitation and
Appraisal Committee it may be permissible for me to give some reactions to the
NCATE along with some observations concerning the implications for Catholic
colleges and universities preparing teachers.
Many of us recall that during the early 1950's serious doubts were entertained
regarding the advisability of recognizing NCATE as the national accrediting
agency in the field of education. At the time that the National Commission on
Accrediting did recognize NCATE in 1956, the two organizations agreed to
jointly review structure, financing, policies and practices of the NCATE by the
end of 1960. When this review took place it was agreed that another joint
review should be undertaken before 1963. Authorization for the appointment
of committees from the National Commission on Accrediting and NCATE was
then granted so that sufficient time might be afforded to make careful study of
proposed changes and to allow ample time to obtain approval for these changes.
In view of the increasing concern on the part of colleges of all types with
the accreditation of teacher education and complex issues involved it seemed
imperative that a serious effort be made to clarify the issues at stake. As Dr.
William K. Selden points out in his article, "Basic Issues in Accreditation of
Teacher Education," which appeared in Liberal Education, December 1961,
"almost no activity in higher education is more widely misunderstood or sub-
jected to such diverse criticism as accreditation and in particular accreditation in
teacher education, a field of study about which many educators, regardless of
academic background, will often speak with more passion than judgment."
There is need for recognition of the fact that adjustments and improvements
are needed in accreditation whether it be regional or professional. To bring
about these improvements there must be clear understanding of the basic
issues along with sincere effort to cooperate with NCATE in its manifest
desire to be a constructive influence in the education of teachers. As Dr.
Selden indicates, this will require breadth of vision and a recognition of the
obligations which all higher education must share in the education of our
teachers. These obligations are not limited to the classroom and the campus
but include the governance and maintenance of educational standards through
our unique methods of accreditation and certification. To facilitate these im-
provements there needs to be a further review of NCATE — its structure, its
financing, its policies and its practices. It is to this end that discussions and
negotiations have already been initiated among representatives of the organiza-
tions most immediately concerned.
We look to the joint committees of the National Commission on Accrediting
and NCATE to review the structure of financing policies and practices of
NCATE so that it can fulfill more adequately its stated purposes:
The Council recognizes that accreditation can and should perform two
major functions in the improvement of teacher education. First, it can stim-
ulate institutional self-evaluation and provide for exchange of viewpoint and
experience among representatives of institutions. Second, it can assure the
quality of teacher education programs to all institutions, organizations,
agencies, and individuals interested in the product.
The Commission on Teacher Education of the Association of American
Colleges has been concerned with NCATE, particularly during the past two
NCATE Criteria, Policy, and Implications 239
years. The commission established a fact-finding subcommittee to review the
philosophies and procedures of NCATE with particular reference to the prepa-
ration of elementary and secondary teachers in liberal arts colleges.
This commission succeeded in localizing major areas of difficulty which,
according to their report, require adjustment if the objectives of NCATE and
the interests of the association are to be realized.
In January, 1961, the commission recommended that the Association of
American Colleges authorize its Commission on Teacher Education to negotiate
through the National Commission on Accrediting and with the National Council
for Accreditation of Teacher Education toward the end that there be more
extensive and effective representation of the liberal arts philosophy on the
NCATE, and that the council's policies and procedures in accreditation be
modified in the light of the concerns expressed by the association; and, finally,
that the Commission on Teacher Education be instructed to make a progress
report to the board as early as possible and to the association at the annual meet-
ing in January 1963.
In the future the commission of the Association of American Colleges can be
very effective in contributing to the improvement in policies and practices of
NCATE and to the improvement of the quality of teacher preparation, in gen-
eral. It is of interest that three members on the commission are presidents of
Catholic liberal arts colleges with teacher education programs. Their contribu-
tion to the work of the commission should be valuable.
Educators are inclined to believe that NCATE is here to stay. A good
number of Catholic colleges have received accreditation; many more are on
the way. In my opinion, all colleges should give careful thought to "getting
the house in order" whether or not they propose to seek accreditation. Con-
tinuing self-evaluation and careful study of the criteria of NCATE cannot fail
to improve the academic quality of the college for, indeed, what is good for
the department of education can and should be of benefit to the whole institu-
tion.
As Catholic educators we must take more responsibility for improvement
in all areas. We need better criteria, for we must be able to recognize the true
elements of excellence lest we fall into the category referred to by President
Benezet of Colorado College when he said, "It is apparent that everyone talking
about excellence isn't going there."
We must raise the sights of the mediocre and at the same time provide for the
superior. More imagination, more experimentation and innovation are needed.
Above all, we must look with unprejudiced eyes on the weaknesses of our
own institutions and our own programs of teacher education with the hope
that, to paraphrase Stephen Vincent Benet, we may ever be "unsatisfied by
little ways."
With humility and with courage we must realize that as Catholic educators
we have a responsibility for all that concerns the spread of Christian truth and
its concrete application in all areas of teacher education.
In the words of the late Pope Pius XII, "By the authority which your learning
and professional competence confer upon you, you constitute both a challenge
and a response to those around you. By virtue of your Christian vocation you
are a light which attracts — which no one can reject without implicitly con-
demning himself, if what he rejects is the true light of Christ. This reservation
which human imperfection always justifies to some degree, nonetheless, mitigates
240 College and University Department
the total responsibility of Catholic intellectuals in the confusion of a society
which too frequently puts aside essential questions . . ." 1
NCATE AND THE LARGE UNIVERSITY
(Summary)
Rev. Carl A. Hangartner, S.J.
CO-ORDINATOR, TEACHER EDUCATION, SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY
I will confine my remarks to those aspects of NCATE accreditation which
are somewhat special for the large institution although such institutions have
many of the same concerns as those listed for other types of institutions by
other speakers.
The first concern of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher
Education is that the total university have a genuine commitment to teacher
education as one of its goals, and that this commitment be implemented by
the assignment to teacher education of an adequate share of the institution's
resources.
The second concern of the council is for unification of organization and of
curriculum. As far as organizational unification is concerned, the council has
not been putting any premium on a separate School of Education, but seems
ready to accept any reasonable pattern of organization, insisting only that the
responsibility for teacher education be centralized at some point so that one
person speaks for the program, and that this office be in conjunction with a
policymaking body in which all the segments of the institution concerned with
teacher education are represented.
Unification in curriculum is also insisted upon, not in terms of an absolutely
standardized program but in the expectation that responsible faculty and ad-
ministration will agree on what the institution thinks to be desirable in the
education of teachers, and that all prospective teachers will include these ele-
ments in their programs.
The third major consideration is that for identification of students in the
teacher education program. This means that some process of identification
and selection be set up so that only those who show positive promise of suc-
cess as teachers are admitted to, and retained in, the program, and that records
show the operation of this process.
A fourth major consideration is that the teacher education program be given
comparable status with other programs in the institution. The key points here
are, first, faculty load, salaries, privileges, qualifications, and recognition, all
of which should be on the same basis as those for other faculty in the institution;
second, student quality; and third, facilities such as classrooms, teaching equip-
1 Address of Pope Pius XII, April 25, 1957, to Eleventh General Assembly of "Pax Romana."
Taken from: The Major Addresses of Pope Pius XII, edited by Vincent A. Yzermans, Vol. I.,
p. 405. Published by The North Central Publishing Company, 1961.
Accreditation of Small Liberal Arts College 241
ment, library budget, and office space, which should be comparable to those
provided for other programs.
A fifth concern is with the graduate programs for teachers and other school
personnel. The graduate work is expected to be on a genuinely graduate level,
comparable to other graduate programs in the institution. This means, at
least, that these programs be staffed by adequate full-time faculty with advanced
preparation in their specialties; that the classes be appropriately small; that
there be evidence of continuing research; and that there be strong reinforcement
on the graduate level from other areas of the institution.
These points are not the only ones that the council will look into in a large
institution. All of the points to be raised in connection with smaller institutions
are also involved in the larger.
ACCREDITATION OF A SMALL LIBERAL ARTS
COLLEGE FOR WOMEN
Sister M. Virginia Claire, S.N.J.M.
CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, HOLY NAMES COLLEGE
SPOKANE, WASHINGTON
The sequence of preparation for evaluation by the National Council for
Accreditation of Teacher Education was formally initiated by a request to the
Northwest Association of Secondary and Higher Schools that NCATE be asked
to join the Northwest Association in evaluating Holy Names College on March
6-8, 1958. Dr. Earl Armstrong, Director of NCATE, answered the request and
sent a preliminary packet of materials which included copies of the Standards
and of the Preliminary Application. In his letter, dated September 24, 1957,
Dr. Armstrong suggested that the members of the education department study
the Standards carefully before filing the preliminary application to make sure
that the program stood a reasonable chance of being accepted.
We in the education department took this advice too literally and prepared
the full NCATE report as part of our self-evaluation before returning the
preliminary application on November 27, 1957. We also arranged to have a
formal visitation by a team from the State Department of Education in order
to benefit by their suggestions and to have their statement that they judged the
program to have a "reasonable chance of being accepted." Much to our chagrin,
we received a reply from Dr. Armstrong which said, in part, "We note that your
college will be evaluated by the Northwest Association on March 6-8, 1958.
We are sorry that there is not enough time for you to develop the kind of report
that would make it possible for the Council to participate in this evaluation."
We were requested to suggest a visitation date either in the fall of 1958 or the
early spring of 1959. To defer the evaluation would have made part of our
work on the report useless. For instance, sections on faculty and student enroll-
ment would require considerable revision.
242 College and University Department
We immediately telephoned Dr. Wendell C. Allen, State Director of Teacher
Education and Certification, and asked him to intervene on our behalf. He
sent Dr. Armstrong a night letter with this message:
Hope you can reconsider request of Holy Names College, Spokane, for
NCATE visitation March 6-8. Actually they have been working on evalua-
tion for nearly three years and had your report prepared for our staff visit
on November 20-21. I can assure you that the college's report will be
available in ample time for evaluation next March and that I believe Holy
Names College will be ready for evaluation at that time.
We sent our own letter of explanation indicating that since the previous April
we had been preparing our report, using the 1955 Standards borrowed from
our college at Marylhurst, Oregon. We made the necessary revisions on receipt
of the 1957 Standards. Our request was granted.
Dr. Allen, who assisted us in our problem, was no stranger to Holy Names
College. Under his leadership, a new program of teacher education and certifi-
cation had been initiated in Washington in 1950. From the inception of the
program, members of academic and education departments from all the higher
institutions in Washington have met annually to discuss teacher education pro-
grams and to plan improvements. Dr. Allen has visited each institution yearly
to discuss specific problems and plans.
At our request, Dr. Allen and three staff members from the State Department
of Education visited the college on November 20-21, 1957. Our complete
report to NCATE was studied in conference. We were asked to justify the
block of credits alloted to theology and philosophy in the program of general
education. Were not our students deprived of needed academic work in other
fields? The question was asked in a friendly spirit as one that would probably
be asked by Northwest or NCATE evaluators. Our answers seemed satisfactory
and were substantiated by comments from members of the visiting team.
It was suggested that the evaluation and justification of these two fields of
study be included in our NCATE report.
During the visitation, our students in education met the staff with no faculty
members present. This session proved to be an excellent means of making
known both the quality of the students and the results achieved in the teacher
education program. It was decided to schedule a like meeting for the NCATE
evaluators.
The NCATE visitation occurred as scheduled. We were in a less satisfactory
position during the visit than is ordinarily the case because the chairman of
the team was called home by a death in his family the night before the visitation
began. This event left us with an unprepared member of the team to act as
chairman. The meeting with the education students seemed to be one of the
highlights. An evaluator who indicated early in the visit that he wished to
ask us a number of questions said that his questions to the students took care
of all his problems. The visitors were unanimous in commending the caliber
of the class of 1958.
The outcome of the council deliberation on our report and that of the
evaluators was made known to us in October. We were accorded provisional
accreditation for a period of three years with the understanding that if improve-
ments satisfactory to the council were made in the areas of weakness before
the end of three years, the provisional status would be lifted earlier. The
statement follows:
Accreditation of Small Liberal Arts College 243
The program in general, though small in numbers prepared, is regarded as
of high quality. There are two aspects, however, on which reports should
be made.
The first relates to the subject-matter preparation of secondary school
teachers in some of the fields. The breadth and depth of course offerings
in mathematics and physical science are regarded as inadequate to provide
the subject-matter background needed by teachers in these fields. The upper
division work offered in all fields is not strong enough for fifth-year second-
ary school teachers.
The library is still lacking in holdings in books and periodicals on pro-
fessional education. The budget for such materials should be increased.
The strengths of the program as reported, in addition to those already men-
tioned, included: careful selection and screening of education candidates, a
well-trained and experienced faculty in the department of education, a com-
prehensive program of laboratory experiences, and a thorough follow-up
program for graduates for at least the first year.
As we began preparing to have our provisional accreditation changed, we
realized that we had failed in at least two ways to do justice to our program.
The roster of the faculty prepared for the Northwest Association did not give
sufficient emphasis to the fact that several faculty members on leave for higher
studies would be returning to the campus in the fall and that new faculty
members were to be added at that time. Detailed information was supplied
only for faculty members on campus at the time of the evaluation. We had
not prepared our sequences of courses for education students as they would
be with the addition of personnel. We spelled out all course sequences and
made a listing of the new faculty members on campus for 1958-59.
Secondly, with the sudden death of our head librarian in September, 1958,
we had lost a very valuable person on our faculty. Sister Rose Miriam would
have been the key person to interpret library policies and holdings and to verify
data concerning library use by faculty and students. Under the circumstances,
we in the education department should have made a more careful study of
the library in relation to teacher education. We made this study in preparation
for a first progress report to NCATE. We discarded about one hundred pro-
fessional books and added the same number of new ones. At the suggestion
of Dr. Allen, we submitted a listing of all our professional books in various
categories in three groupings according to copyright date. Our library budget
was increased and we gave assurance of continued attention to the development
of our professional holdings.
We submitted our report in March, 1959. On the basis of this report our
provisional status was removed and we were granted full accreditation for
our undergraduate program in teacher education for a period of ten years.
We believe that the following facts were partially responsible for our success
in securing accreditation:
1. Teacher education is a concern of the total college faculty.
2. The quality of the students in teacher education is in no way inferior
to that of other students in the college.
3. There is general concern that teachers be well prepared academically
as well as professionally.
4. The members of the education department are active in significant local,
state, and national professional and academic organizations.
244 College and University Department
The experience of being evaluated and of finding it necessary to wait a year
before receiving full accreditation was a valuable one. We have since organized
an institution-wide committee on teacher education. Formal procedures have
replaced informal ones in certain departmental activities. We have been
stimulated to take the first steps in developing research projects and have
definite plans to continue improving our program of teacher preparation.
EXPERIENCE IN SECURING NCATE ACCREDITATION
IN A LARGE LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE
Sister M. Cuthbert, I.H.M.
DEAN, MARYWOOD COLLEGE, SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA
In giving this account of our accreditation experience with the National
Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, I would like to present first
of all a brief survey of our background. Marywood College, Pennsylvania's
pioneer in Catholic higher education of women, was founded in 1915 and
chartered by the State in 1917. The power to grant three degrees — Bachelor
of Arts, Bachelor of Music, and Bachelor of Science in home economics —
was assured by the first charter. Amendments were later obtained giving the
college power to grant the Master of Arts, Bachelor of Science in education,
and Master of Science in education, in library science, and in psychology.
In 1921 the college was accredited by the Middle States Association of
Colleges and Secondary Schools, and in 1945 by the National Association of
Schools of Music.
Marywood, which is conducted by the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary of Scranton, Pennsylvania, had as its original purpose the
establishment of a center of learning and culture in an area where no such
opportunties existed and where economic circumstances prevented a majority
of young women from seeking educational opportunities elsewhere. As a
liberal arts college, the curriculum is divided into a lower and upper biennium,
giving breadth and depth to the students' education. The fields of concentra-
tion available are English, history, languages, mathematics, psychology, science,
social studies, speech and drama, and the special fields of art, business education,
home economics, librarianship, and music.
Marywood's current full-time enrollment is approximately 990, and the
part-time, 330 students. Today her alumnae number 1,300 religious, repre-
senting forty different communities, and over 4,088 lay women located in forty
states and thirty-three foreign countries. Since over 75 per cent of the lay
graduates and practically all of the religious graduates enter the teaching
profession in Pennsylvania and as many as thirty-five other states, teacher
education has always held a definite place in our total program. It was thus
imperative for us from the early years to center our attention on the problem
of teacher certification.
Accreditation in Large Liberal Arts College 245
NCATE naturally attracted our attention because it represents the evolution
of an accrediting process which tends to concentrate on the evaluation of the
general college program in a voluntary regional accrediting association and
the evaluation of the professional program in a voluntary national accrediting
association. It embodies two basic principles — legal approval and voluntary
accreditation.
An identifiable contribution of NCATE to the profession of teaching relates
to the free flow of teachers across state lines which results from the council
working in cooperation with the states departments of education. The number
of states using NCATE accreditation as the major basis for certification of
teachers prepared by institutions located in other states has increased from
five to twenty-three in the past three years. Thus, it seemed reasonable to
engage in a project which would enable our students to move freely across
practically all state lines.
Having observed the activities of AACTE (American Association of Colleges
for Teacher Education) and of NCATE over the past ten years and having
noted the approval of NCATE by the National Commission on Accrediting,
we began by applying for membership in AACTE — a national voluntary asso-
ciation of colleges and universities dedicated to the improvement of teacher
education in America; this we did in 1958 in order to keep alert to important
developments in teacher education. We followed this in December, 1959, by
a preliminary application to NCATE for accreditation. This involved a report
on institutional enrollment and the enrollment in teacher education, the
preparation and background of faculty, the general and professional offerings
of the teacher education program, and an explanation of how the major
sequence of education students differed from that of the noneducation students.
After this experience we began to direct our attention toward formal application
for accreditation. Since we were due for revaluation by the Middle States
Association in 1961, we decided to apply for a joint evaluation at that time
by both the MSA and NCATE.
Aware that the council regards accreditation by a regional accrediting
association as adequate insurance of the general financial stability of the
institution, the effectiveness of the administration, the adequacy of the general
facilities, the quality of the student personnel program, the appropriateness
of the over-all program, the general strength of the faculty and the quality
of instruction, we began our self-study first with parts "A" and "B" of the
MSA questionnaire.
Our first move was to involve the entire faculty in the study in order to
have complete faculty awareness of our work. A special group of the faculty
was organized and made responsible for coordinating activities in the devel-
opment of the report. Small committees were appointed to work on problems
of finance, administration, and library. Questions pertaining to objectives,
programs, curricula, and outcomes were faculty responsibility. Each faculty
member shared in gathering and assembling information which was pooled
and summarized for the report. Weekly time schedules were set for meetings.
This wide participation provided a strong motive toward self-improvement
for the general welfare of the institution by all involved in the work. It also
resulted in an appraisal of progress and a chart of future needs.
Our immediate preparation for NCATE evaluation centered about a careful
application of the 1960 Standards for accreditation of teacher education.
These Standards, which contain seven divisions and focus attention on objec-
246 College and University Department
tives, organizational structure, and curricula, are flexible in application so that
the distinctive character of an institution can be preserved.
Since the first section of the NCATE report was concerned with objectives
of the teacher education, the faculty reviewed their objectives and made clear
the scope of the teacher education offerings. The beliefs that guided us in
determining these objectives and the admission and graduation requirements
were drawn up.
The next section was concerned with the organization and administration
of teacher education. Here we reviewed the work of the Committee on Teacher
Education. This committee, composed of chairmen of departments with high
enrollment in teacher education, is chaired by the head of the education de-
partment. The members of the committee are responsible for the formation
and execution of policies relating to teacher education. They set standards
for admission to teacher education, review and revise curricular programs —
academic and professional — check standards for the completion of the pro-
gram, arrange for laboratory experience, and, in fact, guarantee a continuous
development and improvement of the teacher education program.
In preparing our report on the student personnel section, we mentioned our
orientation procedures, presented our plans for admission to teacher education,
as well as our record system for students preparing to teach. Special signals
are placed on the folders of these students to identify them and have them
available for interested faculty members.
Our formal screening of students planning to enter the teaching profession
takes place in the second semester of the sophomore year. At least three
faculty members participate — one from the student's major study area, one
from the education department, and a third member at large. Data sheets
for this process are made available.
Particular attention was given to faculty preparation showing that their
graduate preparation was in the area of their current teaching assignments,
and indicating that the faculty was large enough in number to cover the aspects
of professional education necessary for the scope of our program and diverse
enough in preparation to assure reasonable specialization in each of the major
areas of professional education. We made clear that faculty members from the
academic fields who were teaching methods and materials courses were
qualified by experience and preparation to offer such courses. Faculty folders
containing all such information, as well as other evidences of the vitality
of the faculty, were made available.
In reporting on curricula, a table was prepared giving the present enroll-
ment in each teacher education curriculum and the number who completed
each curriculum in the last academic year. The subject matter and the
professional education sequence of courses required for completion of each
curriculum were presented. Recent changes made in the past five years as
well as those contemplated in the future were indicated.
Under "professional laboratory experience," we explained that we co-
ordinated theory and practice in such courses as psychology, methods, tests
and measurements, and human growth and development; and that various
experiences for observation were provided in our Psycho-Education clinic
in the junior year. Information was provided on the number of students who
did student teaching in the past year, where it was done, the number of schools
used, and the number of students assigned to a teacher during a semester.
Our committee called attention to our plan for students to be free of all
assignments except student teaching for a period of eight weeks in the second
Accreditation in Large Liberal Arts College 247
semester of the senior year. This plan called for careful scheduling as well as
the cooperation of departments. We explained that arrangements for student
teaching are made by the chairman of the education department, who first
confers with the department chairmen relative to suggested placement of
student teachers. At a conference with public school personnel, proposed
placements are discussed and final adjustments are made. The public school
personnel include the superintendent of schools, the curriculum coordinator,
the grade or subject supervisor, and the principal of the school involved. The
chairman, who is director of student teaching, meets with the supervising
teachers in each cooperating school and discusses the program of the student
teachers with them. A subcommittee on teacher education, made up of repre-
sentative members of departments engaged in teacher education, is responsible
for supervising student teachers. These supervisors are chosen because of
their training and experience in the areas of their reponsibility. The director
holds meetings with the supervisors to set up visiting schedules and to co-
ordinate conferences during the student-teaching period.
The final section of the report was devoted to facilities and instructional
materials. We described our curriculum laboratories, our audio-visual equip-
ment, and our holdings in education in the library. We have no special
section of the building reserved for professional education classes but have
plans for it in the immediate future.
The final draft of our report, which numbered approximately one hundred
pages, was completed about eight weeks before the team was scheduled to
arrive. Fifteen copies of the report were sent to the MSA and ten copies
to NCATE.
During the three-day visit of the teams, their dominant function seemed to
be that of collecting and validating information. Each member had a special
assignment to complete. Classes were visited, heads of departments interro-
gated, records examined, students interviewed, facilities surveyed, and public
school officials contacted. Our counseling program and procedures were scru-
tinized. Some members checked to see if academic records were centralized and
if placement and follow-up procedures were operating. One was assigned to the
Business Office and spent the day examining books and accounts and verify-
ing findings with the bank and business firms in the city. Another studied
the library, its capacity and holdings in books and periodicals. All offices and
departments were visited by different groups. A special meeting with the
Board of Trustees was requested and members of the administration were
questioned as to their duties and responsibilities.
The NCATE team's major interest was in the teacher education program
and the members sought evidence of the functioning of our admissions and
retention policies and noted our graduation requirements.
The individual folders of faculty members were called for and examined
to see if records were up to date and if the preparation and the experience
of the professors were in the area of the teaching assignments. Another item
of special interest was the pattern of academic courses taken by students pre-
paring to teach in the secondary schools. Some members asked how teaching
majors differ from majors of non-teaching students. Others checked on our
facilities for professional laboratory experience, our materials center for
professional education, and how theory and practice are correlated.
The chairman of NCATE inquired intensively into the amount and type of
laboratory experience prior to student teaching, how we select supervising
248 College and University Department
teachers, how many times the college supervisor visits the student teacher,
how final grades are reached, what the policy is for compensating or remunerat-
ing supervising teachers, how cooperating schools are chosen, what particular
duties belong to the director of student teaching, and the size of the education
department.
About five or six weeks after the visitation, the reports of both teams were
returned to the institution to be checked for accuracy and completeness and to
be sent back promptly to the agency with corrections. The chairman of the
regional commission reported to the institution on the final action of the
commission. The NCATE director reported by letter on the action taken by
the council and presented their recommendations.
In their report they recommended that we put more emphasis on standards
for completing the program of teacher education, that we set up a separate
set of records for education students for counseling purposes, that we reduce
the number of part-time people in professional education, that we provide
more observation for students in the junior year, and that we develop more
sequential patterns in some major areas.
On the whole, Marywood found little or no great inconsistency between
the objectives of NCATE and those of the college.
JOINT CONFERENCE: COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY
AND SECONDARY SCHOOL DEPARTMENTS
COOPERATION BETWEEN COLLEGE REGISTRARS AND
HIGH SCHOOL COUNSELORS AND ADMINISTRATORS
Brother Lawrence McGervey, S.M.
PRINCIPAL, CHAMINADE HIGH SCHOOL, DAYTON, OHIO
High school graduates literally are causing a tidal wave of applications to
colleges in the last several years — a wave which really threatens to engulf
and swamp us all, students, counselors, and registrars, unless we take realistic
steps to deal intelligently and drastically with the situation just as soon as
we can.
Readings about college admissions problems and discussions with counselors
and registrars indicate that solutions are possible to these problems. It seems
clear that resolving these problems will result in a lightening, at least to some
extent, of the workload of both the counselor and the registrar; both will be
enabled to pursue their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
School counselors are anxious to learn as much as they can about colleges
Cooperation Between Registrars and Counselors 249
and, in particular, about admissions philosophies, practices, and policies.
College registrars surely need to know all they can about the high schools
which feed them, and about their philosophies, standards, programs, and recom-
mendation policies. Here is a problem in communications between two groups
of people who, as it turns out, are attempting to do the same thing — to get
students into college. One group is sending and the other group is selecting
and receiving. Surely intelligent people can get together on a common prob-
lem in order to benefit all concerned. There are two facets here, each dependent
upon the other: What the colleges should know about the high schools, and
What the high schools should know about the colleges.
Counselors should know, of course, that most colleges ask for a scholastic
record which includes rank in the class, total high school average, scores on
standardized tests; record of high school extracurricular activities; personality
and character traits; awards and honors won during high school; a photo;
and, finally, a recommendation from the principal or his delegate. The recom-
mendation will ordinarily be given rather serious consideration by an ad-
missions officer, particularly if he judges that it has been written seriously
and conscientiously. If the written recommendation avoids generalities and
outlines clearly the strengths and weaknesses of the student, the admissions
officer can more readily and fairly interpret the high school grades and test
results.
Counselors who take the time to read publications describing the charac-
teristics of the various colleges will be far more effective in guidance work.
Reports on freshman classes which are quite common today do enable the
counselor to get "in the know," so to say, concerning the advisability of
whether or not to steer certain students in the direction of certain colleges or
programs. Brochures distributed by colleges describing their various programs
and their vocational implications broaden a counselor's outlook, and, in turn,
enable him to do a better and more effective job with students. Registrars
will often send grades of students back to their former high schools, at least
during the freshman year. High school counselors who take pains to study
the pattern of grades received in college as compared with high school grades
and as compared with the counseling advice given these students when they
were in high school and preparing for college, can learn much from the college
experiences of their former counselees to assist them in guiding their current
ones. Counselors, too, I believe look to the colleges to take the initiative to
create a climate more conducive to a freer exchange of ideas between the
admissions officers and the high school counselors. The latter can and
ordinarily will benefit greatly from personal chats, workshops, meetings, panel
discussions, visits, talks, as well as newspaper and magazine articles by ad-
missions people and directed toward the high school personnel.
The college registrar, on the other hand, perhaps sits at his desk in the
admissions office or faces a group of parents and seniors at a College Night
Program and wonders just how long it will be before school counselors stop
taking college entrance procedures for granted and start doing something to
make the job of the registrar not easier but certainly more effective. So often,
he muses, he is not only doing his work but that of the high school counselor
as well. He scans transcripts from high schools — large, small, academic,
comprehensive, technical, public, private and "prep" — and is expected to
pass judgment on seniors merely from a few documents, perhaps rather
sketchily written at that, which cross his desk. So much could be done on
the part of the school counselor to prevent overlapping of work. The counselor
250 College and University Department
could counsel students, or see to it that in his high school some solid type of
college counseling is organized.
Counselors could, in their own schools, help teachers to assist students to
assess their strengths and weaknesses and then provide them with some educa-
tional information which will fill their needs. Secondly, that much accom-
plished, they can lead the way in their schools to provide for the students a
stiffer academic program. They might do this by encouraging independent
study, more and better reading, investigation of problems, a much greater
emphasis on theme writing, the "junking" of objective examinations, the
provision for college-type methods for juniors and seniors, the provision for
advanced placement courses and programs for the talented. Counselors can
ask the junior and senior teachers to assist in providing the students with
information about forms and amounts of student aid available. The faculty,
in general, can be encouraged to get students to understand that a college
education is worth every bit of what it costs in terms of time, money, and
effort. Teachers of the older students might well follow the lead of the
counselors in getting the students to realize that they will have to come to
grips with three basic challenges in college: (1) organization of the over-
abundant time at their disposal; (2) learning to put in two hours of study for
every one hour in class; (3) realizing that study is a personal responsibility —
no one is going to check up. If counselors were to convince their charges
that the selection of a major in a liberal arts program is purely tentative and
a definite choice will not be required until toward the end of the second year,
a registrar might save many a word. Furthermore, if students are warned
beforehand that a choice of a specialized field, such as engineering, accounting,
medicine, and so forth, will make it difficult to change over to another spe-
cialized field without loss of credits, they will not be plaguing the registrar
with questions along this line. Perhaps the greatest service of the counselor
to the registrar is that of getting the students to think along broad vocational
fines rather than highly specialized ones.
It does seem from the above brief analysis that there are areas in which
registrars and counselors can profitably get together, discover methods, initiate
techniques, and implement programs which will prove to the best interests of
both insofar as the conservation of time, the effectiveness of the work, and
the good of the student are concerned.
Multiple applications cause increased work for registrars and counselors.
A thoroughgoing high school guidance program headed by alert and interested
counselors should, in any one school, almost automatically prevent or at least
cut down the problem of multiple applications. The registrars, on their part,
might well see the need for presenting a solution to the problem, also, in the
form of faster or "early decisions" to students concerning the admission or
refusal and, perhaps, in the initiation of such a plan as Early Admissions. Un-
der the "early decisions" plan, the registrar requests of the high school either
at the end of the junior year or at the beginning of the senior year the ranking
of the student in question, his standardized test scores, his grades up to that
point, and a recommendation. Upon the receipt of the required information
the registrar makes his decision and informs the student. Should the answer
be in the affirmative it is, then, up to the student to remain in good standing
for the remainder of the senior year and concentrate on his preparation for
college without emotional stresses and strains as to whether or not he will
What the Lord Said to Israel 251
get into a college. No doubt, a wise college registrar will find some way of
keeping in touch with the accepted senior so as not to "lose" him along the way.
Under the Early Admissions plan, high school students with high grades
are permitted to enter college before graduating from high school.
Finally, both counselors and registrars surely need to organize to overthrow
the "papermill" which is bogging them down. Both are engulfed in a mass
of forms which surely can in some way be condensed to something more
simple and efficient. A busy staff of a large and complex high school cannot
afford to take time to fill out long and complicated forms for colleges though
the forms do ask for information vital to the admissions staff of the college.
Perhaps both colleges and high schools need to get together to work out com-
mon application and transcript forms. Perhaps modern methods of duplication
of information need to be employed so as to speed up the transition of in-
formation from one place to another. Surely high schools and colleges in the
same city could find quicker methods for processing students than those which
need to be used by the college for high schools which are out of town.
We have touched on a few problems which college registrars and high school
counselors have in common. Benefits in terms of less work, less duplication
of efforts, more effective use of time, and greater good to the students, as
well as personal satisfactions at seeing students less befuddled and more pleased
with their college choices and acceptances, are in the offing for us if we just
get together right now in this room during the remaining fifty minutes and
resolve some of these things.
MEETING FOR REPRESENTATIVES OF JUNIOR COLLEGES
WHAT THE LORD SAID TO ISRAEL
Very Rev. John F. Cullinan, V.F.
ST. MICHAEL CHURCH, HOLLIDAYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
Just a few weeks ago on a national television program, an interview was
given by the director of a world-wide activity designed to teach adults to read.
Circumstances prevented me from hearing the entire interview, but what I
saw and heard was most interesting and stimulating.
The principles involved seemed to be two: first, reduction of the problems
of reading to their simplest form; second, general participation in the program,
expressed in the slogan "Each one teach one."
These principles seem so flexible that they can be applied to many situations.
The attention of the educational world has been drawn to the very hopeful
idea of the Ecumenical Movement. There have been many competent minds
analyzing and exploring the problems and solutions of the reunion of Christian
252 College and University Department
forms of belief. In general they agree that there are three fields of action
where obstacles must be overcome: in the field of theology, in the field of
hierarchical authority, and in the field of popular understanding. Theology
and authority are beyond our present scope; but popular understanding is in
the field of education.
It has been stated, and I think with reason, that in our country the greatest
present obstacle in the Ecumenical Movement is the fact that non-Catholics
have little or no idea of just what are the essential beliefs and practices of
Catholics. Some progress has been made in theological and hierarchical as-
pects but the field of enlightenment of non-Catholics is almost untouched. It
is true that inter-faith meetings and dialogues are being held, especially in
Europe; but always the same difficulty emerges. Because of the number of
souls involved, it will have to be the multitude of lay people who must do the
teaching. And no one has taught the lay people any way of explaining their
faith simply and exactly, in ways that will make sense to non-Catholics.
This is not a new problem. I remember the remark of a non-Catholic friend,
now an attorney, who said, "When we were boys, I thought the Catholic
religion was a secret religion, because when we asked any questions of Catho-
lics they always avoided giving an answer." I did not like to tell him that
usually we did not know how to answer.
I can remember asking my mother, in my boyhood, "If anyone asks me
what I believe, what do I say?"
And Mother, who was a very intelligent and spiritual woman, answered,
"Tell them the Apostles' Creed."
And I remember thinking to myself: "What would be the use of that? They
wouldn't understand that. I don't understand it myself." But it got me inter-
ested, and ever since it has been in my mind: How can I explain to myself
and others what I know to be the truth? But our system of explaining and
teaching has been so cumbersome and involved it takes a professional to keep
it in mind.
Each one teach one. The solution of the problem will have to be along these
lines.
The problem is classic. I am sure everyone has heard the story of the priest
who was preaching on the Sacred Scriptures. Every time he pronounced the
word "exegesis" the pious old lady in the front pew reverently bowed her
head. You think this is only a story in a book. I thought so. But only recently
a religious superior told me of one of his young priests who had the very same
thing happen to him, and he was so shaken by the experience that he lost the
thread of his discourse and had to leave the pulpit. He thought, "Just what am
I getting into their heads?"
This is a good question. And we can ask further: What is in my head?
These questions apply at every level of education. I am intrigued by the recent
complaint of a junior college girl who said in great seriousness, "I have been
going to Holy Communion daily for a long time, and I can't see that I am
any better or even any different. What is it doing for me?"
Can we simplify our method of understanding and explaining the truth
to the point where all can help others to understand? The air is simply filled
with suggestions concerning reforms to be considered in the forthcoming
General Council. Can the teaching methods be reformed? We pastors lack
the opportunities for scholarship that we might like; but we do read, and I
take the liberty of borrowing a term from a work with which all pastors are
familiar, a work of the greatest conciseness, thoroughness, and exactness. I
What the Lord Said to Israel 253
refer to the annual financial report to the Chancery. This work does not men-
tion the word "reform." It lists "Repairs and improvements." I do not think
anyone will dispute the desirability of repairs and improvements in our methods
of explaining and understanding our holy religion. There is, as a matter of
fact, intense activity in progress along these very lines. With these you are
undoubtedly familiar, and I am not going to review them here; but remember
this work is only beginning, and there is so much to be done. You, who are
among the key figures in the world of education, will be doing part of this
very task; and I respectfully offer some suggestions today to help you in doing
your part.
Last year a privately issued review of a major seminary carried a sort of
symposium-interview giving the opinions and comments of three top-flight
theologians and philosophers of the Catholic Church. The general subject of
the article was, "The Theology of the Future." Now, that is fascinating, isn't
it? The treatment was interesting, and what is more important, it reached
certain conclusions, which were these: The theology of the future will be (1)
more religious, and (2) more biblical.
"More religious" — now, to me that means more about God. So many of even
the most recent treatments of our religion are man-centered rather than God-
centered . But when there are questions to be answered, we have to go back
to fundamentals, back to God himself. We look at things as they are, which
means as God sees them — as far as we can do it. Then we try to articulate
them as they are. Our trap has too often been words. We tie the truth up in
words, and then think about the words rather than about the things. We even
forget that the words may convey a quite different meaning to the hearers.
I remember an episode in a religion class. The pastor was listening to Sister
explaining the story of original sin, and he interposed. "Sister, you have to
give the children a picture. They think in pictures. Here, let me explain it
to them." So the good man expounded the lesson, and said to Sister, "That's
the way to do it." Afterwards, Sister had the children draw the pictures that
they had in their minds, and one child handed in a drawing of three people
in a car. "Who are these people?" Sister asked the child. "That's Adam and
Eve in the back seat. That's God in the front seat. God is driving them out
of the Garden of Eden."
"More biblical" — that means, told in God's way, because the Bible is God's
own telling us what He wants us to know. St. Augustine said it far better than
I can say it: "The story is complete when you start to catechize from the
words, 'in the beginning God made heaven and earth' and then carry through
to the Church of today . . . Choose, therefore, out of the whole story a few
of the highlights which you think likely to be listened to with greater interest
and are the most essential." 1
Applying these considerations, I respectfully present these suggestions.
I. More Religious — LOVE
Malachias 1:1: "The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by the hand
of Malachias: I have loved you, saith the Lord."
This statement in various forms is repeated a thousand times in the Sacred
Scriptures. More and more we are coming to realize that God's message to
us, the kerygma, is / love you. It is not merely the theme of the Bible and
1 Quoted from Teaching All Nations, by Johannes Hofinger and Clifford Howell (New York:
Herder & Herder, 1961), p. 51.
254 College and University Department
therefore of God's teaching: it is the content, the "burden." More and more
this is being preached as the Word of God, and justly so.
However, there is an obstacle in the modern mind, and especially in the
minds of the people, and it is caused by confusion concerning the meaning
of the word "love." There being confusion about this word, there will be con-
fusion about the fact, about the truth.
Some years ago, in an eastern city of this country, a young woman and
a young man were sitting together in the front seat of a car, in a parking lot
in the downtown section, in broad daylight. Witnesses saw the young woman
suddenly get out of the car, close the door, and walk rapidly away. They
then saw the young man leaning out of the car window, and noted with alarm
that he had a gun in his hand. While they looked on in helpless horror, he
shot the young woman in the back and she fell to the ground. He then started
the car, swung it around and ran over her prostrate body; then he backed up
over her. Finally he got out of the car to inspect the results of his action.
The witnesses approached cautiously, and, of course, someone asked the ques-
tion, "Why did you do it?" And he answered simply, "Because I loved her."
He related afterwards that he had told her that if she did not marry him, she
would never marry anybody, and she had refused him.
Now, I would be willing to wager that if you told that story to people and
asked their comments, many would say that he really loved her. Whatever the
word love may mean, this is the kind of meaning that is often portrayed in
popular forms of entertainment and in stories. But it is not love at all; and
when people hear God's Word that He loves them, it is no wonder that they
fail to understand.
Let us look at things, not words. Love means two things. There is the love
of desire or of attraction: We perceive that something is desirable because
it possesses, or we think it possesses, some excellence that would contribute
to our growth, our advancement. Then there is the love of benevolence, which
means that we wish to give to the loved one something of ourselves that is
good. It is mainly in this second sense that God says that He loves us.
To love means to give. And what is it that God gives to us? He gives us
the best thing that there is; and that is simply Himself.
If we are asked what we as Catholics believe, we could reply with truth
and with exactness, "I believe in Dominus vobiscum." It is said eight times
in the Mass; even more frequently in the Divine Office. It means more than
"May the Lord be with you." It really means, "The Lord is with you."
God's love means that He comes into our hearts and remains there, to give
us of Himself, to make us one with Him. He does not merely wish to do this;
He is actually always doing it, in a thousand ways.
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man listens to my word
and opens the door to me, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and
he with me" (Apoc. 3:20).
"If anyone love me, He will keep my word, and my Father will love Him,
and we will come to him and make our abode with him" (John 14:24).
"In this is the love, not that we have loved God, but that he has first loved
us" (I John 4:10).
When Jesus in a vision asked St. Thomas Acquinas what he would have as
a reward, Thomas is said to have answered, "Thyself, O Lord!" If there
could remain any doubt about just what God intends in our regard, He an-
What the Lord Said to Israel 255
swers all questions by the very existence of the Holy Eucharist. We can not
imagine His being within our hearts without giving us all that we can receive.
The theologians tell us that according to our understanding, God operates
exteriorly in three ways, the operationes ad extra: He communicates Himself
to us by means of Creation, by means of the Redemption, and by means of
Sanctification through the Holy Ghost.
God's love is one act, and, in fact, it is Himself. "God is love" (I John
4:16). He began this communication of Himself in the Creation and Elevation
of the human being. When our first parents broke off the communication
through original sin, He restored it through the Redemption; and once all was
restored, though with differences, then the Sanctification was again put into
operation. These operations all began in a point of time, as far as we are
concerned; but once begun, they have never ceased or even faltered. All we
learn of physical science convinces us that creation is still going on at an
undiminished pace. The Redemption came to a climax on Calvary; it is intensi-
fied in every Mass that is offered. Since Pentecost the Holy Ghost operates
in countless souls to bring them into closer and closer union with God, to
build them one by one into something like unto Himself: In the image and
likeness of God (Cf. Gen. 1:27).
And the more efficient this union becomes, the more we participate in the
interior life of God, sharing in His knowing and loving Himself.
This is the real destiny of the human being: By growing in closeness to
God, we grow in true stature, spiritually and supernaturally. This is our
achievement.
The mind, like the body, needs food, and that food is the knowledge of
the truth. Very often, emotional and psychological and even spiritual diffi-
culties are only hunger pangs of a mind that is not being fed; the sufferer
has stopped learning, and his mind is crying out for food. Let him feed the
mind with knowledge of the things of God and the difficulties disappear as
if by miracle.
But the soul! Here is the real dignity of human nature, that it is designed
to be increased by the addition of God himself. Sanctifying Grace is only
the spark of life; it must be present before growth can take place; but it can
do nothing without nourishment; and the nourishment is God. This is what
we mean by God's love. Our strongest and deepest instinct is to find food
for growth: excellence: God. That is why we are satisfied with nothing but
the best and highest.
We have hardly explored these truths. Like the infant, things are made
incomplete in the beginning: God wishes us to have the privilege of coop-
erating with Him in finishing things. So it is not incongruous that at this
moment we have still so much to learn.
". . . The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, he will teach you all things" (John 14:26). We find the times especially
demanding now. One of my priest friends recently remarked, "The lunatic
fringe is stealing all our thunder!" The story of God's love has been entrusted
in its entirety to the Catholic Church only. We have been blundering along
with too little understanding, but with an absolutely fool-proof system of
action given to us by Jesus Christ: "If you keep my commandments, you
will abide in my love" (John 15:10). His commandments are: to keep the
Ten Commandments, to be guided by His Church, to offer the Mass, to
receive the sacraments. If we do these things we are loving God, and thereby
256 College and University Department
opening our hearts to His coming. There are here many mysteries; but it is
not hard to give or to receive the message. Let each one teach one.
II. More Biblical
When we feel we need to learn something we consult the expert. The expert
in telling us about God's love for us is God Himself; and the book is, of
course, the Bible.
"The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by the hand of Malachias.
I have loved you, saith the Lord; and you have said: Wherein hast thou
loved us?
"Was not Esau brother to Jacob, saith the Lord, and I have loved Jacob.
But have hated Esau? and I have made his mountains a wilderness, and given
his inheritance to the dragons of the desert" (Mal.l:l-3).
"Not because you surpass all nations in number, is the Lord joined unto
you, and hath chosen you, for you are the fewest of any people. But because
the Lord hath loved you . . . and hath brought you out with a strong hand,
and hath redeemed you from the house of bondage, out of the hand of Pharao
the king of Egypt" (Deut.7:7-8).
When God wished to tell of His love, He told the story of what He had
done for His people. This, then, is God's way of teaching us of His love. We
shall not improve upon His method. We need to know the Bible story.
And when we read this story with understanding of what God means, when
we seek the burden of the Word of God on every page, then we shall under-
stand passages that we never understood before. This is the way of the
Church, and the way of the saints.
We can thank God for the resurgence of interest in the Sacred Scriptures
and for the increase of knowledge about the sacred books. We of this
generation are more fortunate than those of the past, because resources are
available to us that were unknown to those who have preceded us. Let us
not waste them. Dr. George W. Crane, in his syndicated column "The
Worry Clinic," calls the New Testament "the number one piece of educational
equipment" and says that it is impossible to be an educated man or woman
without knowing it well.
The story of God's love does not end with the Sacred Scriptures. The story
makes the most natural transition imaginable in the Acts of the Apostles
and then goes on in the history of the Church. You may, in fact, read a new
chapter every day in the Catholic news.
I was once startled by a question from a devout Lutheran: "Do you
Catholics consider the Church more important than the Bible?" I finally came
up with the answer: The Church and the Bible are like the two wings of an
airplane. Both wings are needed to fly; both Bible and Church are needed to
learn about God's love for us. When we know what we are looking for, all
the story has profound meaning, everything becomes a source of enlighten-
ment.
Proceedings and Reports 257
PROCEEDINGS AND REPORTS
AMENDMENT TO BYLAWS PROVIDING
ASSOCIATE MEMBERSHIP FOR NEWMAN CLUBS
The following amendments were passed unanimously at the General Session
of the 1962 convention at Detroit, on Friday, April 27, 1962:
ARTICLE m. Insert new paragraph at end of SECTION 1.
Associate members shall also be those regularly constituted Newman
Education Centers or Foundations which are established at institutions of
higher education and which have applied for membership and have been
certified by the Secretary of the Committee on Membership as associate
members.
Insert new SECTION 6.
A regularly established Newman Education Center or Foundation at an
institution of higher education may become an associate member by:
a) application to the Secretary of the Committee on Membership;
b) payment of the established annual fee;
c) certification of associate membership by the Secretary of the Committee
on Membership through the Executive Committee to the Department.
Renumber the remaining SECTIONS of ARTICLE III to read: SECTION 7,
SECTION 8, respectively.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON MEMBERSHIP
The Committee on Membership has recommended to the Executive Com-
mittee and now recommends to the membership of the Department that the
following institutions be admitted to Senior Constituent Membership:
Sacred Heart Dominican College, Houston, Texas
St. John Fisher College, Rochester, New York
University of San Diego Men's College, San Diego, California
The Committee on Membership has recommended to the Executive Com-
mittee and now recommends to the membership of the Department that the fol-
lowing institutions be admitted to Junior Constituent Membership:
Gwynedd Mercy Junior College, Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania
Marymount Junior College, Arlington, Virginia
Respectfully submitted,
Very Rev. Gerald E. Dupont, S.S.E.
Secretary
258
College and University Department
COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT: OFFICERS 1962-63
President: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Alfred F. Horrigan, Louisville, Ky.
Vice President: Brother Gregory, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Secretary: Dr. Richard A. Matre, Chicago, 111.
General Executive Board:
Very Rev. Vincent C. Dore, O.P., Providence, R.I.
Dr. William H. Conley, Notre Dame, Ind.
Department Executive Committee:
Ex officio Members:
The President, Vice President, and Secretary
Very Rev. Armand H. Desautels, A.A., Worcester, Mass., Vice President General representing
College and University Department.
Very Rev. Vincent C. Dore, O.P., Providence, R.I., Department Representative on General
Executive Board.
Dr. William H. Conley, Notre Dame, Ind., Past President and Department Representative
on General Executive Board.
Rev. Arthur A. North, S.J., New York, N.Y., Secretary of Committee on Graduate Study.
Very Rev. Gerald E. Dupont, S.S.E., Winooski, Vt., Secretary of Committee on Membership.
Non-voting Members:
Rev. William J. Dunne, S.J., Washington, D.C., Associate Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Julius W. Haun, Winona, Minn.
Rev. Cyril F. Meyer, CM., Northampton, Pa.
Brother A. Potamian, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Brother Bonaventure Thomas, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Very Rev. Paul C. Reinert, S.J., St. Louis, Mo.
General Members:
Rev. Edward A. Doyle, S.J., New Orleans, La.
Sister M. Rose Emmanuella, Oakland, Calif.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. John J. Dougherty, South Orange, N.J.
Sister Mary Josetta, R.S.M., Chicago, 111.
Sister Anastasia Maria, I.H.M., Immaculata, Pa.
Dr. C. Joseph Nuesse, Washington, D.C.
Very Rev. Paul L. O'Connor, S.J., Cincinnati, Ohio
Rt. Rev. Msgr. James P. Shannon, St. Paul, Minn.
Sister M. Augustine, O.S.F., Milwaukee, Wis.
Very Rev. Laurence V. Britt, S.J., Detroit, Mich.
Dr. James A. Hart, Chicago, 111.
Rev. Joseph Hogan, CM., Jamaica, N.Y.
Very Rev. Michael P. Walsh, S.J., Chestnut Hill, Mass.
Very Rev. William F. Kelley, S.J., Milwaukee, Wis.
Sister Joan Marie, S.N.J.M., Oakland, Calif.
Very Rev. Brian J. Egan, O.S.B., St. Bernard, Ala.
Regional Unit Members:
Sister Ann Bartholomew, S.N.D., Boston, Mass.
Very Rev. Vincent C Dore, O.P., Providence, R.I.
Dr. George F. Donovan, Washington, D.C.
Very Rev. Henry J. McAnulty, C.S.Sp., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Brother Raymond Fleck, C.S.C, Austin, Tex.
Sister Mary Eugene, O.P., New Orleans, La.
Brother Julius Edgar, F.S.C, Winona, Minn.
Dr. Martin J. Lowery, Chicago, 111.
Rev. Frank Costello, S.J., Seattle, Wash.
Sister M. Jean Frances, O.P., Edmunds, Wash.
Rev. Alexis Mei, S.J., Santa Clara, Calif.
Sister M. Humiliata, I.H.M., Los Angeles, Calif.
SECTION ON TEACHER EDUCATION
Chairman Brother Louis Faerber, S.M., Dayton, Ohio
Vice Chairman: Dr. James Donnelly, New York, N.Y.
Secretary: Sister Rosemary Pfaff, D.C, Emmitsburg, Md.
SISTER FORMATION SECTION
Chairman: Rev. Mother Mary Regina, R.S.M., Bethesda, Md.
Vice Chairman: Rev. Mother Kathryn Marie, C.S.C, Notre Dame, Ind.
Executive Secretary: Sister Annette, C.S.J., Washington, D.C.
NEWMAN EDUCATION SECTION
Chairman: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Alexander Sigur, Lafayette, La.
Vice Chairman: Rev: John F. Bradley, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Secretary: Rev. William D. Borders, Baton Rouge, La.
1959-63
1960-64
1961-65
1962-66
j- New > England
Y Eastern
| Southern
|- Midwest
r Northwestern
> Southwestern
PART 6 SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS DEPARTMENT
SUPERVISORS SECTION
THE SUPERVISOR'S ROLE IN FOSTERING
THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT
Brother Majella Hegarty, C.S.C.
NOTRE DAME, INDIANA
The dramatic announcement of an Ecumenical Council and the subsequent
preparations for it have roused unprecedented interest and hope not only
among Catholics, but also among all people of good will everywhere. Within
a few months the Second Vatican begins its solemn deliberations, and it is our
privilege not merely to witness the event as spectators but to participate as
well in this historic event in whatever degree we, as Catholics and educators,
possibly can. In our various fields in education we must take full advantage of
the opportunity and incentive the Council offers, now that it has been sum-
moned, to renew our own dedication to objectives, to examine the principles
which guide our work, our policies, and our practices. Now is the time, in
short, to cultivate in ourselves and to bring alive in our work the spirit and
ideals that will mark the Council itself. In our work as supervisors, specifically,
we can draw implications from the ecumenical spirit for our daily tasks in the
schools.
Leaving aside whatever else it will accomplish, the Council will certainly
emphasize the unchanging basis of our faith — that faith contained in revelation
and tradition and spelled out in dogmatic and moral doctrine; that faith un-
changed since apostolic times. At the same time we know that the faith is
one of the three essential factors that must always characterize and distinguish
Christ's Church on earth: not only agreement in faith, but also a union under
a hierarchically governed body, and union through participation in the same
sacraments and sacramental life. What, therefore, can we draw from this cer-
tain emphasis of the Council?
A personal application for educators and a sine qua non for anyone at all
who hopes to foster the ecumenical spirit, is to cherish the gift of faith — to
live it — to show God living in our lives. We must be burningly aware of the
wonder, the inspiration, and the deepening of this gift in our souls, for it is
the soul that sets souls on fire. As we meditate, and as we examine ourselves
and our work with others from the vantage point of our possession of this
treasure, faith, we find questions emerging — questions we can ask ourselves
and questions we may pose for our teachers and school officials.
Does our faith shine from within? Does it live in our faces, our actions, our
voice, our attitude toward our work? Does it shape our dealings with others,
especially students? Or do we habitually look too solemn, sad, frustrated,
worried — thus dismal, negative advertisements for our way of life and our
259
260 Department of School Superintendents
profession? Do we allow disappointments and resentments to obscure high
purpose and perhaps introduce motives we are not proud of when we uncover
them during the examination of conscience?
And are the ideals and the spirit of faith apparent in our habitual level of
spiritual and professional interests? Outside the classroom, what de we think
about and talk about most of the time? Are we often concerned with the needs
and potentialities and achievements of students, with the problems, too, of that
adult world which already too much affect students' lives? Or do we waste
time and spiritual energy on trifling matters of ephemeral interest and little
value for our work? Are we afflicted with that immature yen to be forever
entertained by radio, television, newspapers, mere light reading?
Long ago a great Jewish rabbi said that to be wisdom, knowledge must be
wrapped in reverence. Pope John XXIII has called for spiritual renewal in the
Church and among men, and at the same time has brought a kind of "second
spring" to the age-old hope of Christian reunion. Unthinkable as it was not
so many years ago, the dialogue has, indeed, begun.
The Holy Father personifies to the watching world the kind of wisdom
growing from a steadfast faith wrapped in brotherly love whereby the reunion
of Christendom may one day be achieved upon this earth. We, in turn, can
examine whether in our own lives we demonstrate the union of effort and in-
tention from which wisdom — knowledge wrapped in reverence — must result.
What of our attitudes toward other religious communities and other re-
ligious works within the Church?
Do we appreciate the worth and place of each in the total activity of the
Mystical Body? Or do we allow ourselves the use of thoughtless humor or
disparaging expressions that can be construed as lack of appreciation, as dislike,
or as even mistrust by our hearers?
Again, do we find in ourselves friendly appreciation of the work of other
members of the community or of the school staff doing work different from
our own — nursing, maintenance, cooking, missionary work?
Do those of us in the apostolate and other works have affirmative judg-
ments always regarding the essential place of the contemplative orders and the
passive virtues?
Another area that bears examination in our schools is the relationship be-
tween the religious and the lay teachers on the same faculty. Articles in Sign
have highlighted both negative and affirmative aspects. (Dr. William Conley's
classic address of yesterday also reemphasizes for us today some pertinent
problems.) Our self -questioning here would be directed mostly, of course, to
the religious.
Do we religious treat the lay teachers as full-status professional colleagues?
Or do we find we could improve: by at least knowing their names; by being
more friendly; by inviting them to participate in faculty meetings; by consulting
with them?
And when our lay people feel dissatisfied about something, do they on their
part go right to the top, where something can be done, or do they accept the
situation with more of good-natured despair perhaps than piety?
We are urged to protect the perfection of the faith in us by our reverence
for holy things. We need to give the example, then to insist upon such rever-
ence among our students. Anecdotes or humorous references involving con-
fession, biblical quotations, and sacred persons or things should not be used
or allowed. In this connection, I have held the opinion for many years that
certain facile and patronizing tags or labels that surprise, or, rather, mildly
scandalize our hearers, should be abandoned. I suggest there be a campaign
The Supervisor's Role 261
to bury once and for all the habit of referring to the chaplain or pastor as "the
good father"; to nuns as "the dear sisters"; to brothers as "the holy brothers."
Though in itself of minor importance, the use of such delicate barbs, even in
friendly irony, is part of a spirit of taking nothing and no one seriously, of
being always ready to laugh at others' foibles and mistakes, and to comment
gratuitously with that air of natural infallibility assumed by the type of person
someone once called "the invertebrate gossip."
The Church is an organism. We are each a part of the Mystical Body. In
the interests of that unity of each with the soul of that Mystical Body, the Holy
Spirit of Love, we need to submerge, subdue, and eliminate as best we can the
less noble manifestations of our individual personalities.
In light of the essential hierarchical organization of the Church, it is im-
pressive to consider the emphasis that the spirit of ecumenism places upon
the participation of the laity in the life and work of the Church. In our schools
the outward manifestation of the faith can be examined, for example, with
regard to parish membership and the activities of our students in their various
parishes. We should foster in our charges an ever better realization of basic
unity between young members of the parish flock and the pastor. We can en-
courage, and assist as occasion offers, our students' awareness of and partici-
pation in that living parish unity which exists and speaks and acts by reason
of the dynamism of that faith which inspires it and, in turn, needs it. We can
draw inspiration from the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine programs, which
continue their contribution where it is particularly necessary and fruitful. And
alert and zealous school people find it possible to aid pastors in other ways
in their concern for the spiritual welfare of the high percentage of Catholic
students attending public high schools.
Do we seek ways of aiding, or promoting, the unity of the Church in ways
like these? Or do we ignore it, refusing to "get involved," claiming to be too
busy to take an interest in what our students and their families do as members
of parish or diocese or Church-at-large? And do we go so far as to criticize
before our students, thus risking injustice or scandal along with what is al-
ready a lack of charity?
One knows instinctively of the need for unity within the school faculty.
Teachers have the duty to be the kind of people they want their students to
become as adults. (One of my teachers-in -training called this a "frightening
responsibility.") Teachers who act according to that ideal are sure to create
dynamic unity on a faculty. Yet, to carry out that duty requires more than
logic, common sense, prudence, good judgment, the realistic approach, facing
facts, and the like. Even with all these qualifications to strengthen our rela-
tions with one another, we also need charity, tolerance, good manners, tact
and diplomacy, and other virtues and traits, because we are dealing with human
beings who are, like ourselves, something less than angels.
Supervisors can often help in getting teachers and administrators to under-
stand how, colored by emotionalism, what are mere suggestions begin to sound
like and are accepted as "griping"; how emotionalism can make discussions
deteriorate into arguments and even long-lasting quarrels. When supervisors
compare notes, it is astonishing to discover what imperfections are permitted
to exist in schools through inertia, or ignorance and blindness to facts, or loss
of sense of purpose, direction, or the intrusion of actually false values that
have crept in and established themselves. By mere lack of self-examination we
seem to give aid to the devil of discord, who is sure to hate all work for souls
and the unity of effort that it calls for.
262 Department of School Superintendents
Many studies have shown that among the primary causes of failure among
teachers who leave the profession in their first year is lack of ability in class-
room discipline or management or leadership. We all agree, I think, that a
prime factor in poor teacher-class relationships lies within the teacher himself:
in his having a negative attitude toward his students, a lack of unity with them.
Trouble comes mainly from the average and below-average students. These
need some hope of success, or they will have no motivation to work; and to
have this hope, they need to know the teacher wishes them well, that he has
the attitude: "Work as well as you can, and so give me an excuse for passing
you."
A supervisor can suggest to beginning or veteran teachers who are having
disciplinary problems to question themselves: "Is my approach negative? Am
I, in my own mind, suspicious of my students, obviously expecting laziness,
copying, misbehavior, disrespect? Am I so resentful toward them that it shows
in my dealings with them, in my tone of voice, my gestures, my facial expres-
sion, in my rebukes or the penalties I impose? Do I have a belligerent attitude
toward students as a general principle, making this baseless assumption: that
the only way to make students work and to raise academic standards is to
lower the students' grades?"
Do we as supervisors and teachers worry about our teen-agers? Besides
offering this worry to God, together with the prayers we should keep saying
for our young people, we need a special kind of charity. A priest told me once,
"Tell your teachers that unless they love their students, they don't belong in
the classroom." As he explained it, that kind of love means that at the very
moment a student stands before us, distrusting us, uncooperative, rebellious,
we must stand willing to give our lives — literally — for his salvation.
The spirit of unity in charity forestalls many a problem, to be sure. Teen-
agers need the assurance we wish them well, hoping for the best, that we love
their souls, even when we do not like everything about them. We must in
turn appreciate what it means to grow up in today's world of turmoil and un-
remitting challenge and threat. We have to be not only adult, but professional,
in establishing rapport with young people. Do we treat each student as a
person, as individually important, as one in whom we take the sincere personal
interest described so well in Veaujean's wonderful little book, Your Other Self?
We may be unhappy about our teen-agers at times, now and then even horri-
fied. But we dare not deny them our love, individually or as a group; we dare
not, to use that too-often-true word, "dislike" them. Perhaps to say we cannot
really teach those we don't like is going too far; yet there's enough truth in
the dictum to frighten the truly conscientious teacher.
The spirit of unity, fairmindedness, and charity should influence us more
and more in our dealings with public school people. A few years ago Dr. Carr,
writing in America, listed several recommendations for each group. On our
part, we can once again question ourselves: Does our language tend to wound
rather than to persuade? Do we use emotionally tinged expressions and labels,
tags or cliches that are certain to rebuff other educators who heretofore may
have been friendly and interested? And are we acquainted with and actively
interested in the work of Catholics teaching in the public schools in the area?
Have we investigated locally the possibilities for interschool visiting and get-
togethers with them and their public school colleagues?
We often have the chance to help others appreciate the Catholic viewpoint
in education. We should allow them to see the manifest Americanism, the
democratic policies and procedures, that mark Catholic schools. For example,
as the struggle for civil rights goes forward, in many places the leadership
The Supervisor's Role 263
exercised by the private and parochial schools in, say, the matter of desegre-
gation, has benefited the communities concerned and set a heartening example
for all — though it does take a Ritter or a Rummel sometimes to get the point
across! This is an implementing of one of the Christian principles upon which
our democracy is founded, principles that therefore furnish a common ground
of agreement always among American educators.
Not only for our own encouragement, but also for the enlightenment of
the unaware, we should know the sociological surveys which prove that private
schools have been found no less democratic and no less American than public
schools. The Rossis, for instance, reported in the Harvard Educational Review
that they found parochial-school-trained Catholics to be involved in community
leadership as much as other people. Pfeffer, in his Creeds in Competition,
gives evidence that the private school tends to be even more heterogeneous
than the neighboring public school; that it draws its pupils from all races, varied
social-cultural levels, and from no one particular neighborhood. He further
states that this is true particularly of the Catholic school. We should use such
documentation as a source of pride in our work and in the American Catholic
educational system of which we are part.
Do some of our teachers and friends sometimes use it as a weapon for battle
and thereby do far more harm than good to the spirit of unity and that spirit
of justice to all that we pray will bless current deliberations upon the right of
each American child to the best education America can afford? Certainly the
development of a genuine social psychology of religion, such as some hope for,
would reveal how tragic disunities have resulted from such emotionalism, mis-
information, and distortion — dissentions, heresies, schisms — that have divided
Christendom.
As to civic unity, and particularly our interest in local civic affairs: Do we
cooperate in local projects as well as in the study and fostering of local tra-
ditions, drives, celebrations?
Do our schools take scrupulous care to care for and display the American
flag properly?
Do our children know and use in school our patriotic songs and the Pledge
of Allegiance?
Do we vote regularly in local, state, and national elections, and do we learn
about the issues and candidates as intelligent voters should?
Experts in the field of ecumenism have not failed to point out that the un-
changeable nature of the faith rules out any vain hope for a "common-denomi-
nator Christianity" that would, through compromises, unite Christians in a
kind of minimum creed of so-called "fundamental articles." Our very inability
to compromise on matters of faith is a reminder to us as school supervisors
that Catholic educators must come with conspicuously clean hands into any
public forum of discussion on education, and particularly into interscholastic
negotiations and agreements.
Are we, to begin with, scrupulous in observing the regulations intended to
keep school athletics within the purposes of education?
Do we ever allow this extracurricular activity to seriously interfere with
academic goals?
Is any varsity interscholastic program pursued to the detriment of the
intramural and health programs for the other students?
Do we find any school authorities so intent on headlines, championships,
and college athletic scholarships that the old dictum is lost sight of that "the
important thing going on in a school is schoolteaching?"
Considering the principles of truth and justice at the heart of our philosophy
264 Department of School Superintendents
of education, we must always in these matters be our own most scrupulous super-
visors. What schools we should have in America if we could corral for the
pursuit of academic excellence an amount of time, energy, money, and organ-
ization proportionate to that given so unstintedly and enthusiastically in some
areas to athletics!
A footnote to the above might be added: In the interests of the preservation
and the deepening of Christian culture and educational philosophy in our
schools, we might take a hard look regularly at the departments and programs
that affect most directly the Catholic thought, attitudes, and tastes of our stu-
dents— the reading lists and periodicals used in literature classes, and the
productions of the music and drama departments. Lapses in these areas warn
us now and then, too often through newspaper reports first or the comments
of parents, that censorship by school authorities is merely insistence upon good
judgment by those in charge. Again, as in athletics, overly enthusiastic teachers
and directors are inclined to forget their general educational obligations. Seldom
is there real danger of major scandal; but even in minor matters we must not
be balked by sham arguments for modernity, progress, and so forth, nor allow
to continue without protest any program or tradition that is unsuitable to
Christian ideals and conduct.
Examining our schools again from the viewpoint of internal unity, we can
build up interdepartmental and other relationships by noting, modifying, or
eliminating divisive policies and procedures. We can commend and promote
whatever fosters a "faculty spirit" akin to the "school spirit" we like to see in
the student body. Are faculty meetings held regularly? Me these meetings
really helpful? Constructive? A real aid in keeping or restoring good order
in the administration of the school? An inspiration and practical aid in the
improvement of instruction? Do such faculty get-togethers result in ridding
the school of any residues of defunct policies or intellectually moribund at-
titudes?
One method of stimulating faculty members to cooperate energetically is to
have the faculty itself, through research and committee work, draw up a
philosophy of education for the school. During summer school classes I have
assigned veteran teachers to write two paragraphs on the schools from which
they have come: the first paragraph, What I am proud of in my school; the
second, What we have in our school that does not accord with my philosophy
of education. Some indicate what they intend to do the next term about things
they have criticized. I have heard, too, of one courageous principal who has
his teachers hand in during the last week of school a page or two on the topic,
What I would do if I had my way.
Through methods like these I have seen one school replace its woeful system
of checking latecomers and absentees with a simple method that all the faculty
gladly cooperated with. In my own round of supervisory work lately, I have
been edified to see what effect the introduction of the Sodality of Our Lady
is having in one of our boys schools; results compare more than favorably with
those from CYO and YCS activities in our other schools.
How often young people surprise us by what they do of themselves! The
girls at one school agreed, quite on their own, to keep silence during their
three-day school retreat from the time they left home each day till they re-
turned. (A girls school!) At a coed school I heard that the students agreed
to keep silence in the corridors between periods during November, for the in-
tention of the souls in purgatory.
Supervisors know that unity of purpose between parents and teachers can
always be improved. Does the teacher discussing with parents a problem
The Supervisor's Role 265
student or student problem talk with the parents as a colleague, as one anxious
to uncover real causes, as one ready to form the attitude and devise the means
to best deal with the student? Or does the teacher skirt the issue, refuse to
face the facts? Does he confront the parents with the one aim in mind: to
score a victory of self-justification? We need grace, a good deal of it some-
times, as well as adult behavior from both teacher and parent, if the single
purpose of the interview is to be achieved: and that is, the good of the student.
The authorities on ecumenism remind us continually these days that in
solving external hindrances to the reunion of Christendom, the first step is
moral rather than intellectual — a matter, first of all, of good will, sincere desire,
and benevolent charity. In teaching our religion classes, we can likewise keep
in mind that our faith does not mean submission of the intellect to a demon-
stration. As the First Vatican Council, in 1870, defined faith: "We hold as
true what God has revealed, not because we have perceived its intrinsic truth
by our reason, but because of the authority of God."
We must renew often, in ourselves and in those we teach, a moral sense of
wonder and humble gratitude for this gratuitous gift of God. And always we
must make our faith deeper, not so much primarily through study and research
and discussion, but rather through loving more, and trusting more, and holding
more fast to the Person of Christ — the Way, the Truth, the Light, and the Life.
Statements like these suggest to me the danger of allowing classroom dis-
cussions involving matters of faith to degenerate from learning situations into
mere contests of attack and defense — a kind of junior ideological warfare too
often sparked by some teen-ager's urge to be entertainingly irreverent and the
teacher's concern to keep the youngster's language orthodox. One has to re-
member at such times that young people tend to be intransigent, even violent,
in debate. They are still formulating their views of things, still shaping what
will be their philosophy of life; thus, they tend to question everything and
anything before they are willing to reaffirm their ideals. Yet, even the most
vocal among them, when they fully welcome Christ into their lives, usually
make this reaffirmation with a generosity few adults seem capable of. Students
in our religion classes, therefore, are there primarily to strengthen their love
of God through clearer knowledge of what faith teaches and through more
generous love of moral good. We must pursue that objective by every means
possible; but allowing brash young "lay theologians" or hatless cardinals pull
the theological nose is not the way.
I happened to hear the correct approach used in a classroom last year. The
instructor, a priest assigned a religion class in one of our schools, asked: "Why
are we studying the proofs of Christ's divinity now, when we've always known
it by faith?" The freshman's answer was, "To be able to explain to others if
we have to."
This is the attitude needed by students today. They need to be strong in
faith. If we allow undirected or misdirected questions and contributions in
discussing matters of faith, particularly from those less devout or those weak
in Catholic belief, the faith of others in the room may suffer. Rather, we must
lead our students in affirmative thinking, judging, and acting upon the religious
and social problems that affect their lives now or will affect them later. From
us they should learn to glory in possessing the faith — the victory without which
every one of them interiorly goes down in defeat.
In living the faith — which is, after all, the bloodstream of the ecumenical
spirit — there is a time for hate as well as love, for intolerance and for tolerance,
a time for fierceness as well as kindliness. These drives make our philosophy
and our faith "operational." This is the unity we want. This is the ecumenical
266 Department of School Superintendents
spirit we wish to foster, that its truth and charity may unite us more and
more among ourselves and with all others. For we give meaning to our lives
and to the lives of others, and we give meaning to the world itself, when our
loyalty to truth, justice, and good makes us fear and hate and fight whatever
in ourselves or in the world is false, unjust, cruel, sinful, at odds with the
truth.
WHAT THE SUPERVISOR DOES FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS
Sister Hilda Marie, O.P.
SUPERIOR, ADRIAN DOMINICAN SISTERS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
In conjunction with the spirit of unity and oneness which has set the
tempo as an underlying and inspiring theme of the 1962 Supervisors meeting,
the members of panel one will endeavor to share their experiences in effective
developments of modern educational practices as they discuss the interesting
topic "The Supervisor and Administration: What the Supervisor Does for Pub-
lic Relations."
Reverting to an interesting observation attributed to Sophocles many cen-
turies ago, the following appropriate quotation was recorded, "for we depend
on you . . . that a man benefit others as far as his knowledge will go is the
most honorable of labors." Today, in this twentieth century, we aspire to
elicit a generous sharing of ideas realizing that to successfully work together
requires three important objectives: (1) communication among the members;
(2) understanding of one another's role and problems; and (3) common
appreciation of broad aims.
To fulfill such laudable aspirations let us remember that cooperation is a
key word to success in any endeavor. Recalling the Latin connotation, let us
note that opera means "to work" and co means "together." Work together!
And, as Sister Mary Jerome Corcoran, O.S.U., so aptly states in her excellent
book The Catholic Elementary School Principal:
The dichotomy "religious community supervision versus diocesan" supervision
is not a good one. Rather, "religious community plus diocesan" comes closer
to an ideal arrangement. And, when the cooperation between religious com-
munity supervisors and diocesan supervisors is active and cordial, the Sister
Principal's work is greatly simplified. Community and diocesan supervisors
can do much to strengthen the principal's position, and at the same time
assist her in her own supervision.
In the spirit of unity and oneness, then, may we strive to work together,
today and every day, to achieve a common understanding and to facilitate
desirable communication. May we strive to accept and perfect with resolute
resourcefulness the scholarly and skillful exchange of ideas presented at this
1962 Supervisors session.
Continuing with the theme of this meeting, it is noted that the ecumenical
spirit of our esteemed Holy Father, Pope John XXIII, is exemplified in daily
What the Supervisor Does for Public Relations 267
deeds, in gestures, and pronouncements; in the spontaneity of his paternal
charity toward all.
The ecumenical spirit among supervisors should also be exemplified in daily
deeds and pronouncements. It becomes both propitious and practical, there-
fore, for supervisors to pursue their tasks in a spirit of creative leadership; to
endeavor to mobilize the full potential of everyone with whom they deal by
stimulating them to generate productive ideas of their own.
In recent years more and more supervisors have become aware of the human
relations aspect of their work, realizing that in education the term "supervision"
no longer indicates "the overseeing for direction" or "inspection with authority"
as defined by Webster. Supervisors realize that they must work with people
and for people — and to do this well, they have to understand them, size them
up, motivate them, lead them, follow them, cooperate with them, love them,
and be loved by them. Since many teachers with whom supervisors work are
often teeming with tension, it is necessary to develop a super or superior vision
which encompasses many skills. Major among these skills are the following:
(1) skill in leadership; (2) skill in human relations; (3) skill in group proc-
ess; (4) skill in personal administration; (5) skill in evaluation.
Stifling rules which discourage and antagonize principals and teachers alike
must be avoided because good supervision — like good teaching — is essentially
and intrinsically built on good public relations. We should always encourage
true leadership rather than project the infallibility of our own authority when-
ever we recognize it. When authority is used it should evolve from group plan-
ning and be used only for the good of the group. We should respect the person-
alities of individuals and their individual differences while aiming to develop
the best expression of each. It is rather basic to understand that we cannot
inspire others unless we ourselves are first inspired. Therefore, we should not
be too dogmatic or dramatic, but we should endeavor to do things very, very
well so that principals and teachers will really want to do likewise.
Our role of leadership as Catholic supervisors carries with it a weighty
responsibility to provide the very best instruction possible. Our every word
to principals and teachers, whether of correction or commendation, must be
designed toward effecting this end. We should develop a warm, sincere, and
humble personality which gently but firmly guides subordinates to do things
the way we want them to. If we make our report to the administrator or
teacher and not about her we are more likely to achieve this important goal.
Scientific methods should also be utilized to arrive at true findings — a reflec-
tion of the divine attribute of truth. Through scientific approaches we realize:
1. Greater precision — which is clear, concise, complete.
2. Greater objectivity — related to the principles of Catholic education.
3. Greater impartiality — we should be democratic. When approached with
a problem, consult, listen, discuss. Develop a capacity for adaptability.
Direct the ultimate decision but always in terms of the educational well-
being and advancement of pupils and teachers alike.
4. Greater expertness — keeping astride of modern trends — maintaining bal-
ance.
5. More systematic organization — knowing what to do and how to do it.
Being sensitive to ultimate values, aims and policies.
It is quite important for the principals and the teachers alike to see us in
the role of the very human human beings that we actually are. They recognize
268 Department of School Superintendents
the fact that in obedience to our major superiors we have been appointed to
help guide and direct the destiny of the schools under our supervision toward
higher planes of professional achievement. Let them also recognize the fact
that we are their coworkers — activated by the highest motive of charity and
that we will practice true considerateness toward each of them; that we are
not a formidable character or a four-star general but a truly vigorous Catholic
educator with Christ as the center, the heart and the life-giving feature of our
dedicated work for Him. Since deeper significance is always achieved when
the supernatural dimension is added to the natural, our lives ought to include
the whole gamut of spiritual and professional qualities.
A few years ago I ventured to prepare an original acrostic in which a few
of the major characteristics of a good supervisor were included. Perhaps,
in conclusion then, we might appropriately consider some of the desirable
attributes which combine to establish and guarantee an effective public-
relations program in our supervisory proceedings.
THE SUPERVISOR
S sympathetic — spiritual
U understanding — unselfish
P prudent — patient — personable — practical
E enthusiastic — explicit
R realistic — reliable
V vigilant — vivacious
I interested — interesting
S sincere — selfless — sociable
O open-minded — organized
R respecter of personality and individuality
respecter of feelings and opinions of others
IN-SERVICE HELP THROUGH PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMS
Sister Marie Celine, F.S.P.A.
DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION, VITERBO COLLEGE, LA CROSSE, WISCONSIN
In-service help! What is it? What constitutes it? Whose responsibility is it?
And, how is it provided?
With less than a five-minute countdown, I hope to answer each of these
questions to some degree of satisfaction and thus provide a framework of
reference for the subsequent discussion of this resource panel.
What is in-service help? According to current literature, it is any pro-
fessional assistance provided for teachers while in service with the specific
objective of upgrading the profession through improving instruction, and
which is characterized to some extent by "clarity of purpose, carefully planned
procedures, and built-in provision for evaluation." x
ij. B. Hodges, "Continuing Education: Why and How," Educational Leadership, Vol. 17,
(March, 1960) 330.
In-Service Help through Professional Programs 269
With this in mind, What constitutes in-service help and how widespread is
this practice? In-service help is manifold. It may and does take the form
of bulletins, curricula guides, research projects, intervisitations, well-planned
faculty studies, supervisory visitation of schools, workshops, seminars, institutes,
conferences, grade-level meetings, subject- area meetings, use of consultants,
and for some fortunate teachers, travel and exchange assignments.
A review of the literature on research in this field indicates that in-service
help is considered second to none as a means of improving instruction. It
enables teachers to keep up with and apply the findings of modern research
to re-evaluations, revisions, and yes, even rebirths in today's instructional
program.
As a consequence, the national interest in providing in-service help through
in-service programs is at an all-time high. As J. B. Hodges says in an article
in Educational Leadership, there is hardly a [public] school system or district
today which does not have some plan for in-service professional growth.2 An
oft-stated principle of the spiritual life applies here. A school cannot stand
still. Either it will advance or it will regress. Thus it will be either an excellent
school or it will underachieve as an educational institution with subsequent
effects on the Catholic intellectuals of the future.
Whose responsibility is in-service help? It is that of anyone in a position of
leadership in the field of education — be that one who has jurisdiction over a
system of schools on a diocesan basis, or one who has the responsibility of
directing a large or small number of schools on a community basis, or one
who is in immediate charge of an individual school. It is also the responsibility
of any institution of higher learning whose avowed purpose it is to advance
learning and share truth.
According to Bertha Brandon, the coordinator of elementary schools in
Waco, Texas, in-service help ". . . can be a link that ties together the far-
flung units in a large school system or a unifying force that gives meaning to
the efforts of a single faculty." 3 Therefore, all superintendents, supervisors,
and elementary and secondary principals, as active and intelligent leaders,
should consider the responsibility of providing in-service help to their teach-
ing personnel a very important part of their work.
How is in-service help provided? The consensus of those who have engaged
in in-service help of any kind — be that in the form of general bulletins, study
guides, suggestions for faculty study, themes for regional or general workshops
or conferences, et cetera, is that one of the fatal mistakes an educational
leader can make is to foist any program that he or she thinks is best on a
group of teachers.4 Cooperation does not thrive on directives, rules, and regula-
tions imposed from without but on a thorough knowledge and conviction
that the help provided will fit the particular need which brought it into existence.
If a supervisor or principal can get her teachers to say honestly, "I want
to evaluate my work and improve my teaching," then leadership is ready
to move on to the place where teachers gladly identify their problems and
cooperate in planning how they will work out these problems under the
guidance of and in consultation with an experienced leader.5
3 Hodges, op. cit, 330-31.
* Bertha Brandon, "In-Service Education of Elementary Teachers," Educational Leadership,
Vol. 17, (March, 1960) 340.
* Glen Hass, In-Service Education Today, Fifty-Sixth Yearbook of the National Society for the
Study of Education, Part 1, (1957), p. 35.
6 Noel Lawrence, "In-Service Programs for High School Teachers," Educational Leadership,
Vol. 17, (March, 1960), 346.
270 Department of School Superintendents
Note well that there is no one best type of in-service help or no one best
way to provide it. However, there are certain basic principles which govern
this kind of assistance and educational leaders would do well to ponder them
seriously. Such principles are the following:
1. To create in the teaching personnel a desire for self improvement and
a willingness to acknowledge and identify problems.
2. To enable faculties to formulate their problems and to work out carefully
planned objectives, procedures, and means of evaluation.
3. To recognize and utilize the talents and professional competencies of
faculty members.
4. To help teachers distinguish between problems pertinent to a particular
school and those relevant to all schools within a system.
5. To provide or render consultative services and make cooperative action
possible.6
6 Mildred E. Swearingen, "Identifying Needs for In-Service Education," Educational Leadership,
Vol. 17, (March, 1960), 332.
THE SUPERVISOR AND THE CURRICULUM
Sister Mary Joan, S.P.
SAINT MARY-OF-THE-WOODS COLLEGE, INDIANA
When the supervisor thinks of her responsibility for the curriculum in the
schools under her direction, she recalls that while changes in this important
part of the education process are not new, still in the minds of many, both
teachers and administrators, there has been a tendency to regard curriculum
revision as a revolutionary process. Though changes have been taking place
since the earliest days in our educational system, the words of Harold Rugg
thirty-five years ago are still true: "Not once in a century and a half of
national history has the curriculum of the school caught up with the dynamic
content of American life."1
The current attention to the curriculum is the result of various factors and
developments. The interests of children are being enlarged because of tech-
nological progress, political changes, the need for more effective human rela-
tions, the quest for peace, the importance of understanding other cultures and
learning other languages, the use of new media of communication to sup-
plement book learning, and the emphasis on the fine arts. "The curriculum
will serve the needs of children and society only if it is constantly evaluated
and if those who are implementing it realize that as long as society changes
there will be need for constant revision." 2
1 Harold Rugg, "Curriculum Making," Part I, Twenty-sixth Yearbook of the National Society
for the Study of Education, (Bloomington, 111.: Public School Publishing Company, 1926).
2 Marie A. Mehl, Hubert L. Mills, and Harl L. Douglass, Teaching in Elementary School, (New
York: Ronald Press Company, 1958).
The Supervisor and the Curriculum 271
The obvious danger of inertia in the matter of curriculum revision must
be balanced by a sane and sensible view of change. "First, one must beware
that in eagerness to do a better job one does not accept blindly that which
is new simply because it is new, and, second, one must be extremely careful
that newly accepted patterns do not solidify and crystallize under the influence
of an attitude that holds 'This is the only way, the best way, the right way.'
It is difficult, almost impossible to eliminate this 'hardening of the arteries'
in education." b
Any program for curricular development should begin in the classroom,
since the end result will be expected to be found in the classroom. "The Cath-
olic teacher is not satisfied with viewing the pupil merely as a physical, mental,
emotional and social being. His philosophy of education makes him seek the
harmonious development of the physical, intellectual, and moral capacities of
the pupil, and to accord religion a proper place in the process." 4 This plan
calls for making each subject in the curriculum a factor in strengthening the
child's relationship with God, his fellow men, and with the world about him.
An examination of the literature pertaining to research in the field of
curriculum revision reveals these trends:
1. A rejection of the idea that the curriculum must be either child-centered
or subject-matter-centered. Recognition is given to the fact that both the child
and the subject matter taught him are important.
2. Efforts are being made to provide experiences to assist children in devel-
oping intellectually, physically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually.
3. There is an increasingly greater emphasis on the local approach to cur-
riculum study. Some supervisors and other administrators responsible for
curriculum revision start with those teachers who are interested in this improve-
ment and gradually add others who begin to show interest in the challenging
problem. Because teachers are the ones closest to the actual planning and
organization of learning experiences in the classrooms, it is they who must
help in the formulation of the proposed changes.
4. Curriculum development is being coordinated with supervisory procedures
and in-service activities.
5. Efforts are being made to make interrelations in the content subjects.
6. The creative abilities of children are given consideration and encourage-
ment.
7. Provision is being made for enrichment, especially for the gifted child.
Why should he be kept busy with an assignment of twenty problems while
his companions are working just ten?
8. Additions are constantly being made to the curriculum. Nothing is ever
taken out. This is the one trend that causes worry to administrators and those
responsible for curriculum revision or development. At some point we shall
reach the limit. The voluminous growth of the curriculum cannot be fitted
into the normal school day or year.
The growth and development of the curriculum has brought with it many
other problems. Financial support is necessary, textbooks that fit the new
curriculum must be provided, the attitudes of parents may discourage cur-
8 William C. Jordan, Elementary School Leadership, (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1959).
*Paul E. Campbell, Parish School Problems, (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., 1941).
272 Department of School Superintendents
ricular improvement, local and state laws may prevent or retard curriculum
experimentation and development, and the most important person of all —
the teacher — may feel inadequately prepared to meet the new demands.
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE TO PREPARE STUDENTS
FOR HIGH SCHOOL WITH RESPECT TO STUDY SKILLS?
Sister Philomene, S.L.
DIRECTOR, TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM, WEBSTER COLLEGE,
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
A prerequisite of efficient study is mastery of the skills to be used in the
learning situation. Effective work with books requires the use of certain spe-
cialized abilities which will assist students in obtaining information. Howard
E. Wilson in his book Education for Citizenship stated: "It is commonly agreed
that schools should lead pupils to acquire useful information, but it is perhaps
even more important that pupils be taught how to acquire information with
efficiency both in and out of school. To attain this latter goal, the skills of
efficient study become desirable educational objectives." 1 Some of the study
skills should be taught in the formal reading program. Among these com-
petencies are the utilization of the index, the selection of the proper reference
books, the use of the dictionary, the location of information, the evaluation
of material read, and the organization of the information obtained. The
express purpose for teaching these skills is that they may serve as tools in
the acquisition of knowledge. Skills should not be taught as ends in them-
selves. The learner should use them to achieve his goals in study situations.
William S. Gray affirmed this position by stating that one of the chief reasons
for teaching reading is to enable the pupils to work efficiently with books and
other printed materials in various types of learning activities.2
Particular items to be taught in the area of locating information are using
the index and the table of contents in an ordinary book, using the card catalog
and Reader's Guide; making use of specialized sources, such as World Almanac
and the encyclopedia. There should be definite lessons on teaching these
specific items, and provision must be made for practicing these skills.
In evaluating material, students must be taught to select only those points
of information which are important for the purpose in mind. Students must
be encouraged to develop the attitude of being willing to question the validity
of a printed statement by checking on the copyright date of the book, by deter-
mining whether the author is a scholar in his field, and by learning to distin-
guish between a statement of fact and a statement of opinion.
1 Howard E. Wilson, Education for Citizenship: Report of the Regents' Inquiry (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1938), p. 58.
2 William S. Gray, "Reading as an Aid in Learning," Reading in the Elementary School,
Forty-Eighth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1949), p. 233.
What Should Be Done to Prepare Students 273
In the organization of information, students must be taught how to make an
outline and how to summarize the selection read.
All these skills should be specifically taught, and definite opportunities to
practice the skills should be provided in the writing of reports and in prepar-
ing panel discussions.
The reading class does not provide training in all the skills required in
learning the various subjects. The study of the content subjects requires the
use of special techniques. Each field of human experience places a unique
burden upon the study habits and skills of students. Instruction must be given
on the particular skills required in the study of each subject. This point of
view was supported by Cecile W. Flemming and Walter S. Monroe, who
stated:
Though there is a great deal in common between the reading skills needed
in content fields and reading ability in general, there is definite need for
instruction in the reading skills peculiar to each field. Such instruction with
practice becomes a responsibility of teachers in subject fields as an essential
phase of directing study.3
Definite teaching of such skills as the interpretation of maps and the com-
prehension of the data in graphs and tables must be provided in the social
studies period. Incidental learning does not promote the acquisition of these
abilities. Ernest Horn stated that special periods should be set aside for
teaching these skills and opportunity must be provided to practice the skills
intensively.4 These special practice periods bring about a steady improvement
of all of the reading involved in the social studies. The development of the
skills is most effectively achieved through the medium of the content material
in which the abilities will be used. Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald suggested that
skills are learned best in meaningful situations.5 Therefore, frequent applica-
tion of the skills to the subject matter should follow instruction.
Howard R. Anderson asserted that students' achievement in the social studies
is determined to a great extent by the effective use of basic work-study skills.6
Mastery of these skills is essential in a country whose government and way of
life are dependent on the ability of citizens to think for themselves and to
reach intelligent decisions.
The goal of the social studies is to prepare students for participation in na-
tional and world affairs and to assist them in making wise decisions pertaining
to economic, social, and political problems. A command of the skills necessary
for obtaining information in these areas will be an invaluable aid in maturing
students.
3 Cecile W. Flemming and Walter S. Monroe, "Directing Study." Encyclopedia of Educational
Research (Rev. ed.; New York: Macmillan Co., 1950), 323.
4 Ernest Horn, Methods of Instruction in the Social Studies (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1937), p. 204.
6 James A. Fitzgerald and Patricia G. Fitzgerald. Methods and Curricula in Elementary Educa-
tion (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1955), p. 437.
•Howard R. Anderson, "Development of Basic Skills in Social Studies," Social Studies, 27:95
(February, 1936).
274 Department of School Superintendents
PROCEEDINGS AND REPORTS
DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS
Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 23-26, 1961
PROGRAM
Monday, October 23
2:30 P.M. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING The Sheraton-Charles
7:30 P.M. MEETINGS OF STANDING COMMITTEES The Sheraton-Charles
Tuesday, October 24
9:30 A.M. WORDS OF WELCOME BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES
Mr. Victor Schiro, Mayor
Most Rev. Joseph F. Rummel, S.T.D., Archbishop of New Orleans
Mr. O. Perry Walker, Superintendent, Orleans Parish School Board
BUSINESS MEETING
10:15 A.M. PEACE CORPS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR
CATHOLIC EDUCATION
Chairman: Very Rev. Msgr. R. C. Ulrich, Superintendent of Schools,
Archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska
Speaker: Mr. John Simons, Consultant, Office of University Relations,
Peace Corps, Washington, D. C.
12:30 P.M. LUNCHEON The Claiborne Room, The Sheraton-Charles
2:15 P.M. REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES
3:30 P.M. SHARED TIME— COMPROMISE AND CHALLENGE
(Closed Session)
Chairman: Rev. James C. Donohue, Superintendent of Schools, Arch-
diocese of Baltimore, Maryland
Speakers: Rt. Rev. Msgr. William E. McManus, Superintendent of
Schools, Archdiocese of Chicago, Illinois
Very Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell, Superintendent of
Schools, Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
7:00 P.M. BUFFET St. Patrick's Rectory Patio, 724 Camp Street.
Wednesday, October 25
9:30 A.M. THE CHANGING SCHOOL SCENE
Chairman: Rt. Rev. Msgr. John J. Endebrock, Superintendent of
Schools, Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey
Speaker: Dr. Philip R. Pitruzzello, Committee on Staff Utilization,
National Association of Secondary School Principals,
Washington, D.C.
11:00 AM. EXPLAINING OUR SCHOOLS
Chairman: Very Rev. Msgr. John Elsaesser, Superintendent of Schools,
Diocese of Covington, Kentucky
Speaker: Very Rev. Msgr. Bennett Applegate, Superintendent of
Schools, Diocese of Columbus, Ohio, and Chairman of the
Standing Committee on Relations with Public Authority
12:30 P.M. LUNCHEON The Beauregard Room, The Sheraton-Charles
Proceedings and Reports 275
2:15 P.M. WHAT ABOUT THE SMALL HIGH SCHOOL?
Chairman: Rev. Richard J. Burke, Superintendent of Schools, Diocese
of Richmond, Virginia
Speaker: Mr. Frank W. Cyr, Fund for the Advancement of Education,
and Executive Secretary of the Catskill Area Project in
Small School Design
4:00 P.M. REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES
6:00 P.M. UNVEILING OF MARKER 617 St. Anne Street
7:00 P.M. DINNER Antoine's Restaurant, 713 St. Louis Street
Speaker: Dr. Sterling M. McMurrin, U.S. Commissioner of Education
Thursday, October 26
9:30 A.M. PROGRAMMED LEARNING
Chairman: Rev. Edward T. Hughes, Superintendent of Schools, Arch-
diocese of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Speaker: Mr. P. Kenneth Komoski, President, Center for Programed
Instruction, New York City, New York
11:00 A.M. REASON AND EMOTION— A CONSIDERATION OF FEDERAL
AID TO EDUCATION (Closed Session)
Chairman: Very Rev. Msgr. Edgar P. McCarren, Secretary of Educa-
tion, Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York
Speaker: Mr. William R. Consedine, Director, Legal Department,
National Catholic Welfare Conference, Washington, D.C.
12:30 P.M. LUNCHEON The Claiborne Room, The Sheraton-Charles
REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES
BUSINESS MEETING
ASSOCIATE SECRETARY'S REPORT
2:30 P.M. HARBOR TRIP aboard yacht Good Neighbor, courtesy of the Board of
Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans
Agenda: General Meeting, Detroit, April 26, 1962
Report of Executive Committee
Report of Committee on Continuing Relationships between Catholic
Schools and Public Authority. Chairman: Monsignor Applegate
Report of Committee on Uniform Statistical Reporting. Chairman: Mon-
signor Ulrich
Report of Committee on Problem of Moral and Spiritual Values in
Public Education. Chairman: Monsignor McManus
Report of Committee on Moral Problems. Chairman: Father Kenning
Report of Committee on the Function and Status of the Diocesan Super-
intendency of Schools. Chairman: Monsignor Haverty
Report of Committee on Lay Teachers in Catholic Schools. Chairman:
Monsignor Hoflich
Report of Committee on Safety Education. Chairman: Monsignor Goebel
Report of Committee on Accreditation. Chairman: Monsignor Pitt
Report of Committee on Committees. Chairman: Monsignor Ryan
Speaker: Dr. William Conley
Subject: The Carnegie Project
Speaker: Mrs. Katherine O'Neil
Subject: National Home and School Office
276 Department of School Superintendents
Speaker: Monsignor Spence
Subject: Washington ETV Series
Speaker: Mother Benedict Murphy, R.S.H.M.
Subject: New Catholic Encyclopedia
Speaker: Mr. William Consedine
Subject: The Federal Aid Controversy
Note: Fall meeting, Washington, D.C., October 23-25, 1962.
MINUTES OF MEETINGS
New Orleans, Louisiana
October 23-26, 1961
The first session of the 1961 annual meeting of the members of the Depart-
ment of School Superintendents, NCEA, opened with a prayer at 9:45 a.m.,
October 24, in the Beauregard Room of the Sheraton-Charles Hotel, New
Orleans, Louisiana. Preceding the business meeting, local authorities (O. Perry
Walker, Superintendent, Orleans Parish School Board; Victor Schiro, Mayor;
and Most Rev. Joseph F. Rummel, Archbishop of New Orleans) extended
greetings and words of welcome to the superintendents and expressed the
hope that their meeting in New Orleans would be both profitable and enjoy-
able.
It was moved, seconded, and passed that the minutes of the Atlantic
City meeting be accepted without reading. Rt. Rev. Msgr. Henry C. Bezou,
president of the Department, announced appointments to the Nominating,
Program, and Resolutions Committees.
To the Nominating Committee were appointed: Rev. John Sweeney, Peoria,
Illinois, Chairman; Rev. James Deneen, Evansville, Indiana; Rt. Rev. Msgr.
John J. Endebrock, Trenton, New Jersey; Very Rev. Msgr. Cornelius J. Brown,
Belleville, Kansas; and Rev. George E. Murray, Manchester, New Hampshire.
To the Program Committee were appointed: Rt. Rev. Msgr. J. Edwin Stuardi,
Mobile, Alabama, Chairman; Rev. Joseph F. Sharpe, Los Angeles, California;
Rev. John F. McGough, Bridgeport, Connecticut; Very Rev. Msgr. Leo. E.
Hammerl, Buffalo, New York; and Rev. James A. Connelly, Hartford, Connec-
ticut.
To the Resolutions Committee were appointed: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Roger J.
Connole, St. Paul, Minnesota, Chairman; Very Rev. Msgr. Raymond P.
Rigney, New York, New York; Rev. John A. Elliott, Memphis, Tennessee;
Very Rev. Msgr. Cornelius J. Brown, Belleville, Kansas; and Rev. Thomas
J. Frain, Trenton, New Jersey.
Following the appointment of these committees, the President asked the new
members of the Department (both Superintendents and Supervisors) to intro-
duce themselves.
Under old business the following report was given:
1. Research under the auspices of the NCEA has increased. This is partially
due to the cooperation of the Superintendents Department.
2. The recommendation of the Department relative to the International
Seminar has thus far not been implemented. This will be further explained
in the report of the Associate Secretary.
Minutes of Meetings 277
3. The Josephite Essay Contest which was considered in Atlantic City has
been initiated. It was asked whether or not the Josephite Fathers fol-
lowed the recommendation of the Department that in each diocese clear-
ance should be secured from the local Superintendent.
Prayers were requested for the repose of the souls of Archbishop Mitty
and of Archbishop Brady. It was recommended that the Resolutions Com-
mittee include in its report a resolution that the Department of School Super-
intendents extend to the clergy and laity of the Archdioceses of St. Paul and
San Francisco its sincere sympathy.
Following the close of the business portion of this first session, Monsignor
Bezou turned the session over to Very Rev. Msgr. Roman Ulrich who intro-
duced Mr. John Simons, Consultant, Office of University Relations, Peace
Corps, Washington, D.C. Mr. Simons spoke on the "Peace Corps and Its
Implications for Catholic Education." Following this address, the Associate
Secretary of the Department, Rt. Rev. Msgr. O'Neil C. D'Amour, gave his
report. The session closed with a prayer at noon.
The 2:15 p.m. session was devoted to reports of some of the standing com-
mittees of the Department. Rt. Rev. Msgr. William E. McManus, chairman
of the Committee on the Problem of Spiritual Values in Public Education,
said that we have a responsibility for both Catholic school and public school
children. As directed by the Department, the standing committee had invited
Father Neil McCluskey, S.J., to prepare a study guide for the use of super-
intendents in the area of public school education. Father McCluskey submitted
a draft of some preliminary proposals. Superintendents are asked to comment
upon them.
Very Rev. Msgr. Roman Ulrich, chairman of the Uniform Statistical Report-
ing Committee, gave the next report. This committee, formed in 1955, believes
that its work has been completed. In 1959 it invited Brother Leo Ryan to
develop a system of uniform accounting. The manual Brother Leo developed
seems too complicated for use without special preparation. Hence, from June
25-29, 1962, Brother Leo Ryan and Marquette University will conduct a
workshop to help schools with their accounting, and the proposed manual
will be used in a pilot study. The committee recommends that this "Project
Dollar Flow" be turned over to the National Office for future direction. An
appeal was made for pilot schools to attend the Marquette University work-
shop and use the manual. Four dioceses volunteered: the Marquette Diocese
(2); the Peoria Diocese (2); the Baltimore Archdiocese (2); and the Manchester
Diocese (1).
The third report was given by Father Herman H. Kenning, chairman of
the Committee on Moral Problems. The following research topic was recom-
mended: "Ideals and Attitudes of Catholic High School Graduates," with
an instrument that would compare Catholic graduates of public high schools
with those of Catholic high schools. As a preliminary, some depth studies in
university graduate schools might be made. Such research would purportedly
show our laity why their financial sacrifices are so worth while. Certain cautions
concerning the above were made, e.g., inexperienced graduate students might
conduct a harmful survey; "Project Talent" results cannot be used for com-
parative purposes; some of the supernatural virtues might escape attention
while the investigator concentrates on the natural virtues, etc. This matter
was referred to the Executive Board of the NCEA. The last report of this
session was given by Rt. Rev. Msgr. James E. Hoflich, chairman of the
Committee on Lay Teachers in Catholic Schools. Monsignor Hoflich reported
278 Department of School Superintendents
that the study on Health and Retirement Insurance for lay teachers has been
referred to the Executive Board of the NCEA. The problem of lay teachers
guilds can be handled only on a local level but must be under the guidance
of the Superintendent's office. Rt. Rev. Msgr. Felix Newton Pitt is to be
thanked for his excellent report on lay teachers. Reports of lay teacher salary
scales in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh are available.
The topic of the 3:30 p.m. session was "Shared Time — Compromise and
Challenge." The chairman of the session, Rev. James C. Donohue, introduced
the two speakers: Very Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell of Pittsburgh, Pennsyl-
vania, and Rt. Rev. Msgr. William E. McManus of Chicago, Illinois. Discussed
were the shared-time proposals made both by Claud D. Nelson in an article
published in The Christian Century and by Dr. Harry Stearns in an article pub-
lished in Christianity and Crisis.
Prior to the opening address on Wednesday, October 25, Rt. Rev. Msgr.
Edmund Goebel, chairman of the standing Committee on Safety Education,
gave his report. Since the Chicago fire much has been done by our schools,
but in some cases excessive demands are being made. The superintendents
are urged to work with local police, fire, and civil defense officials. There has
been some criticism of our attitude toward school civil defense measures.
There followed comments from the floor such as: some areas use radios set
at the Conelrad band; in Louisiana at least there is partial reimbursement
for electronic installations in schools; in New York there is discussion con-
cerning the possibility of building shelters in all schools.
Following this report, the chairman of the session, Rt. Rev. Msgr. John
Endebrock, introduced Dr. Philip R. Pitruzzello of the Committee on Staff
Utilization, National Association of Secondary School Principals, Washington,
D.C., who spoke on "The Changing School Scene." In his introduction,
Monsignor Endebrock summarized the increasing demands being made on
secondary schools by social, national, and international developments and
some implications for school construction.
Dr. Pitruzzello reported that we have not been entirely successful in reconcil-
ing the need for change with the existing framework of the schools. Over
the years many changes have been taking place in areas of methods, classroom
furniture, etc., but the classroom dimensions have remained the same. Yet
the Gesell study in Chicago showed that there are differences in children both
in IQ and in creativity. Do secondary schools meet the need of the creative,
more imaginative type? Do we adjust methods to the different study disciplines?
Do we prompt students to embark on lifelong learning?
Schools can be criticized on the following:
1. The self-contained classroom which lacks many of the latest instruc-
tional aids and a variety of teachers.
2. Rigid organization of the school day which gives the student little or
no time to follow his own interests. All students get the same dose.
In answer to some of these criticisms, the following observations were made:
Team teaching whereby students receive instruction from teachers presenting
units in their own area of strength is possible. The primary teaching unit is
a team of two or more teachers who plan out their own blocks of instruction.
This shifts class planning from administration to teachers where there can
be better recognition of individual differences. The teacher need not confine
herself to blocks of thirty students.
However, clerical and custodial duties are lifted from the teachers. More-
Minutes of Meetings 279
over, during study-hall periods students should have access to instructional
materials that permit depth study. Audio-visual materials should be used for
more than just supplementary purposes.
Implications in school planning. Classroom sizes should vary. Teachers in
team will need planning areas. Custodians and clerks will need special facilities.
Miscellaneous. Over 1,000 schools, including some Catholic schools, have
begun such planning. Accrediting associations have accepted such changes
in a recognized school, but not in one not approved. Ask them first. School
costs need not go up, e.g., McPherson High School, Kansas; Jack Stone High
School, San Diego.
The next session was presided over by Very Rev. Msgr. John Elsaesser, who
introduced Very Rev. Msgr. Bennett Applegate of Columbus, Ohio, speaker of
the session. Monsignor Applegate presented excellent slides and a commentary
on the theme, "The Catholic Schools." The purpose of this worthy production
was to help our people to speak more intelligently about our schools. The
superintendents were encouraged, in turn, to develop a similar project in
their own dioceses.
Monsignor Applegate reported that the slides have been shown before
service groups, public agencies, and parents groups. They also serve as a
vocational aid.
At the conclusion of this meeting, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl Ryan of Cincinnati
announced that at the Executive Board meeting in June it was recommended
that at the 1962 national convention a few sessions be made available for out-
standing Catholic lay people who could also attend the general meeting. The
superintendents will soon get letters describing this project and requesting
the names of lay leaders who would come simply as unaffiliated individuals —
and at their own expense.
The 2:15 p.m. session was presided over by Father Richard Burke. Father
Burke introduced the speaker for the session, Dr. Frank W. Cyr of the Fund
for the Advancement of Education. Dr. Cyr said that it is a myth that
small schools should be simply small imitations of big schools. Bigger schools
are better than small schools only when small schools attempt to organize
in the same way as big schools with their emphasis on specialization. Small
schools should be designed to take advantage of such features as teacher
initiative, flexible programing, the use of noncertified aides, shared special
teachers, student control of instructional materials, and audio-visual teaching
equipment. The small-school teacher must be versatile and like people enough
to work with them. Dr. Cyr then showed slides with a taped commentary
of the Catskill Area Project in Small School Design indicating application of
the above principles in actual practice.
In the question and answer period he asserted that the pupils in small schools
did as well if not better than students of large schools in so-called objective
tests, although he personally believes tests inhibit teachers and prevent neces-
sary experimentation.
This address was followed by standing committee reports. Very Rev. Msgr.
Edgar McCarren gave the report of the Committee on the Function and
Status of the Diocesan Superintendency of Schools. He commended the
superintendents for their 96 per cent response to the study questionnaire of
Father De Walt on this topic. When this study is completed it should be
helpful. He also reported that the NCEA brochure on the status of Catholic
School Superintendents will be sent to the superintendents for their perusal
and comments.
280 Department of School Superintendents
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Felix Newton Pitt submitted the report of the Committee
on Accreditation. It includes superintendents reports only from the North-
west, California, and the South. Monsignor Pitt recommended that the existing
committee be reorganized to include superintendents and supervisors who are
in close contact with regional groups. Moreover, no appointments should be
made before the prospective members have expressed their willingness to give
time to the work of the committee.
Presiding at the 9:30 a.m. session on Thursday, October 26, was Father
Edward T. Hughes. Speaker for the session was Mr. P. Kenneth Komoski
of the Center for Programed Instruction in New York City.
Programed instruction is the antithesis of the lecture. In it, each student
proceeds at his own pace. Moreover, the student is kept active by being
constantly interrogated. Again, each student begins the instructional sequence
at the point he knows and is tested at each point thereafter.
Programed instruction uses a teaching machine — but always a machine that
has a program. Without the latter it is only a piece of hardware. Hence, the
main problem is the curriculum problem: what you plan to teach, and what the
student is expected to know at the end of an instructional sequence.
In constructing the program, the authors begin by drawing up questions
which require answers that would prove the student's grasp of the concepts
taught. Then the earlier part of the sequence is developed. Aims are deter-
mined before means are developed. At every step of the sequence, questions
are presented to determine the student's understanding at each stage. The
teaching machine controls the questions, and it prevents the student from
turning over a card before he understands. This pinpoints the area of weakness
and guarantees thorough, orderly learning. Programed learning is used from
kindergarten through college and in a wide variety of subjects. It is used
effectively in book form, if the book is programed.
Publishing houses are now desperately turning out programed instructional
materials. Certain groups (e.g., Educational Testing Service) are attempting
to set up criteria for judging the quality of material and devices that are
flooding the market. Superintendents should be guided by these evaluations.
Publishers should supply interested parties with data concerning where the
program was developed and upon whom it was tested. The developer rather
than the salesman should present such data.
Some places are using the program. Manhasset, L.I., has an English pro-
gram but this, like much of programed material, is antiquated English put
into a modern machine. New approaches in mathematics, etc., have not
always been employed. But Manhasset did discover that necessary review or
remedial instruction can be handled without tying up teacher and whole class.
New York City is using remedial reading material in the seventh and eighth
grades. New York found that the machine helped extend the attention span
of poor readers dramatically because the material is geared to individual
students. Denver, Colorado, has a series in Spanish and elementary grammar.
Newton, Massachusetts, has a program also.
Teaching machines should not be considered as a means of meeting teacher
shortages, etc., but rather as a new way of teaching effectively and of training
teachers. This is not a mechanization of instruction but rather the individual-
ization of instruction.
Questions
Fear was expressed that teaching machines emphasized the Pavlov response
Minutes of Meetings 281
rather than a lively interplay of relevant facts and inquiring minds.
Dr. Komoski states that he is also opposed to SR (Stimulus Response)
learning. But in this, the teacher is being changed by the student's behavior
rather than the student blindly responding to stimuli. He referred to Jerome
Bruner's Process in Education. The teacher discovers the process which the
students are actually using rather than continuing to assume something that
is not true.
Books, if programed, can be used effectively. The audio element is lack-
ing in the machine. Remember, too, that only certain parts of class instruc-
tion lend themselves to programed instruction.
For those who have questions concerning the value to parents of com-
mercially sold teaching machines, it is recommended that superintendents
ask Dr. Bernard Everett of Newton, Massachusetts, Public School System for
a copy of the letter sent to parents on this matter.
The 11:00 A.M. session was chaired by Very Rev Msgr. Edgar P. McCarren.
Speaker for the session was Mr. William R. Consedine of the Legal Depart-
ment of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. Mr. Consedine spoke
concerning the Constitutional issues involved in federal aid.
The final business session of the Superintendents' meeting followed immedi-
ately after lunch on Thursday, October 26. The first item on the agenda
was a report of the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Department
of School Superintendents which was held on October 23, 1961, at 2:30 P.M.
Following is the report:
REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING, OCTOBER 23, 1961
1. Telegram from National Home and School Service. A telegram from
the National Home and School Service was received. Full cooperation
of this new office was extended to the Superintendents.
2. Service Office — Home and School Association. There was a discussion
of the revisions that have taken place in the Service Office of the Home
and School Association. There have been significant changes in the
organization as well as in the schedule for fees. The Executive Com-
mittee agreed:
a) to give a wholehearted endorsement of the National Home and
School Committee of the NCCM and NCCW.
b) to present to the National Home and School Committee the prob-
lems which confront the new organization as seen by the Superin-
tendents.
c) to request the Executive Board of the NCEA to establish an inter-
departmental committee.
d) to invite the NCCW or the new committee to make a more thorough
investigation of the status of the Home and School Association in
the dioceses where it exists.
3. International Seminar. The Executive Committee felt it was not in a
position to break the stalemate in which the proposed International
Seminar now is.
Recognizing that lack of funds is one of the chief obstacles to further
development of plans for the Seminar, it was suggested that the Execu-
tive Secretary of the NCEA approach appropriate foundations to acquire
funds for this purpose.
4. These Young Lives. The Executive Committee recommends that finan-
cial support for a revision of These Young Lives be given by the Depart-
ment of School Superintendents, that this support be given by subscrip-
tion to the publication rather than by contribution, thus underwriting it.
The Committee recommends that the publication be cut down in size,
282 Department of School Superintendents
possibly even to the point where it becomes a pamphlet-type publication.
The Executive Committee was asked by the Executive Secretary of the
NCEA to appoint an editorial board to work with the Executive Secre-
tary. Superintendents appointed to this editorial board are:
Very Rev. Msgr. Raymond Rigney
Very Rev. Msgr. Bennett Applegate
Very Rev. Msgr. Edgar McCarren
Rev. John Sweeney
5. Financing the Department. The matter of raising dues was tabled
because other financial demands already have been imposed on the Superin-
tendents, namely to support the revision of These Young Lives and to
support the Home and School Committee.
6. Additional Man to National Office. The Executive Committee of the
Department of School Superintendents requests the Executive Board of
the NCEA to consider appointing another man to the National Office
of the Superintendents Department so that a closer relationship may be
maintained between the National Office and the Superintendents.
7. Standing Committees. The Executive Committee recommended the
establishment of a committee to evaluate the work of the standing com-
mittees. Appointed to this committee are past presidents of the De-
partment:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan, Chairman
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Henry M. Hald
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Henry C. Bezou
8. Subscription Plans. Alleged abuses in regard to the sale of magazine
subscriptions by Catholic school children were called to the attention
of the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee felt this was
a local problem to be handled at that level.
9. Research. The Executive Committee endorses any program of coor-
dinated research,. However, it hopes that any contemplated program
would come under the direction of the National Office, NCEA. It
further hopes that the research would be developed in such a way that
no one of the institutions of higher learning would be alienated.
10. Advisory Council on Building. The Executive Committee heartily en-
dorses the establishment of such a council.
11. Educational Testing Service. This organization has asked permission
to appear as an educational advisor (in a noncommercial manner) and
requested one-half hour at the April meeting. This request was approved
by the Executive Committee.
12. National Forensic League Debate Society. The National Office of NCEA
received a request from the above group for our stand on federal aid
to education, which is the topic chosen for debate during this year.
It is suggested that superintendents give whatever help they can to
both Catholic and public schools in their area.
13. How to Construct a Catholic School. The Executive Committee was
informed that the publication, How to Construct a Catholic School,
is the product of a research committee of the NCEA.
14. Booth at the NCEA Convention. The President of the Department will
be asked to staff that portion of the booth assigned to the Department
of School Superintendents. It was suggested that there be a projector
and slides for use in the booth.
Following the report from the Executive Committee, the telegram from
the Home and School Association (Point 1 in the report of the Executive
Committee) was read to the delegates. The report of the Executive Com-
mittee was accepted as read.
Washington was chosen as the site for the fall meeting of the Department.
Minutes of Meetings 283
The Report of the Resolutions Committee was then read and accepted as
read. (See below).
The last report given was that of the Nominations Committee. The follow-
ing slate of officers was presented: President, Rev. Richard Kleiber of Green
Bay, Wisconsin; Vice President, Very Rev. Msgr. Bennett Applegate of
Columbus, Ohio; Secretary, Very Rev. Msgr. Roman C. Ulrich of Omaha,
Nebraska; General Executive Board, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Anthony Egging of
Grand Island, Nebraska, and Very Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell of Pitts-
burgh, Pennsylvania; Executive Committee, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan of
Cincinnati, Ohio, Rev. William B. McCartin of Tucson, Arizona, Very Rev.
Msgr. M. F. McAuliffe of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, Rev. William M.
Roche of Rochester, New York, and Rt. Rev. Msgr. Henry C. Bezou of New
Orleans, Louisiana. The slate was accepted as read.
The rostrum was turned over to Father Kleiber and the meeting adjourned
at 1:20 P.M.
Detroit, Michigan
April 24, 1962
The Executive Committee met at 2 p.m., Tuesday, April 24. The meeting
was presided over by the president, Father Richard Kleiber. The matters dis-
cussed by the committee and presented to you for your consideration are as
follows.
1. Home and School Association. The Committee discussed with Mrs. Kath-
erine O'Neil, Executive Secretary of the National Home and School
Association, the status of its organization, and it was recommended that
Mrs. O'Neil appear before the superintendents at the general meeting. It
was further recommended that a committee of superintendents be formed
to study the structure of the association. The following members were
appointed to this committee: Very Rev. Msgr. M. F. McAuliffe, Rt. Rev.
Msgr. Anthony Egging, and Rev. William M. Roche.
2. These Young Lives. The Associate Secretary informed the Committee
the new publication date for These Young Lives has been set for Novem-
ber of 1962.
3. Communism. The Executive Committee resolves that the Superintend-
ents Department should recommend that the Catholic schools throughout
the country emphasize the study of Communism and that the Committee
on Moral Problems should be instructed to review the literature and to
submit an outline for such a course by the fall meeting of the Super-
intendents Department.
4. Committee on Committees. Monsignor Ryan, chairman of the Committee
on Standing Committees, made a progress report. A full report has been
deferred until the October meeting.
5. Utilization of Personnel. The Executive Committee instructed the Asso-
ciate Secretary that when making appointments to standing committees
to include not only superintendents but also religious who are members
of the Superintendents Department.
6. NCATE. The Executive Committee asked the Committee on Accredita-
tion to begin immediately the study of the NCATE problem and be
prepared to give an extensive report at the fall meeting.
7. Carnegie Grant. The Associate Secretary explained to the Executive
Committee the negotiations that have taken place relative to the Carnegie
284 Department of School Superintendents
project at Notre Dame. Further discussion on this project will be handled
by Dr. Conley at the general meeting.
8. Monsignor Kevane's High School Religion Program. Monsignor Kevane
of the Catholic University appeared before the Executive Committee
and explained the work that is being done on the development of his high
school religion program. He asked for close cooperation of the superin-
tendents in order to establish a broader base of distribution for experi-
mentation purposes. Monsignor Kevane will be in contact with the indi-
vidual superintendents at a later date.
9. Resolutions. The Executive Committee recommended that resolutions
be prepared on the following subjects: protection of the superintendent's
dignity and professional status, the National Catholic Guidance Confer-
ence, and the Superintendents Directory.
RESOLUTIONS
Whereas, The diocesan superintendent of schools is in a position of in-
fluence and dignity; and
Whereas, It is highly important that that dignity be protected and that his
influence be not abused; therefore
Be it Resolved, That
1. The members of our Department be forewarned about the dangers that
threaten their dignity and influence through the use of the Superintendent's
name for the purpose of endorsing commercial products, enterprises, and con-
tests of questionable professional value.
Whereas, Guidance is a critical area in education;
And Whereas, The National Catholic Guidance Conference has given lead-
ership in this area;
Be it further Resolved, That
2. The Department of School Superintendents commend the National
Catholic Guidance Conference; and That
3. The Department of School Superintendents recommend to the Executive
Board of the Association that serious efforts be made to bring the Guidance
Conference into a liaison with NCEA; and That
4. The Department of School Superintendents give consideration to having
the Guidance Conference as a section of the Department.
Proceedings and Reports 285
DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS: OFFICERS 1962-63
President: Rev. Richard Kleiber, Green Bay, Wis.
Vice President: Very Rev. Msgr. Bennett Applegate, Columbus, Ohio
Secretary: Very Rev. Msgr. R. C. Ulrich, Omaha, Neb.
General Executive Board:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Anthony Egging, Grand Island, Neb.
Very Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Department Executive Committee:
Ex officio Members:
The President, Vice President, and Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Anthony Egging, Grand Island, Neb.
Very Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. O'Neil C. D'Amour, Washington, D.C., Associate Secretary
General Members:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan, Cincinnati, Ohio
Rev. William B. McCartin, Tucson, Ariz.
Very Rev. Msgr. M. F. McAuliffe, Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo.
Rev. William M. Roche, Rochester, N.Y.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Henry C. Bezou, New Orleans, La.
SUPERVISORS SECTION
Chairman: Sister Mary Leonella, C.S.C., Salt Lake City, Utah
Vice Chairman: Sister Mary Philip, R.S.M., Baltimore, Md.
Secretary: Sister Mary Celine, O.S.F., Rockford, 111.
Advisory Board:
Community Supervisors: Sister Hilda Marie, O.P., Chicago, 111.
Brother Bernard Gregory, F.M.S., Bronx, N.Y.
Diocesan Supervisors: Sister M. Bernard, O.L.M., Charleston, S.C.
Sister M. Eleanor, S.S.M., Irving, Tex.
Special Subject Supervisor: Sister M. Antonine, C.S.J., Brighton, Mass.
Director of Education for Religious Community: Rev. Lorenzo Reed, S.J.,
New York, N.Y.
Director of Teacher Education: Sister M. Philomene, S.L.,
Webster Groves, Mo.
President of Department of School Superintendents: Rev. Richard Kleiber,
Green Bay, Wis.
PART 7 SECONDARY SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
DEVELOPING SPIRITUAL MATURITY
IN THOUGHT AND ACTION
The Most Rev. Leo C. Byrne
COADJUTOR BISHOP OF WICHITA, KANSAS
Addressing the Catholic teachers of secondary education is both a privi-
lege and an opportunity. It is a privilege because of the almost frighteningly
important place you have in the expanding centrality of our whole educational
program. Lashed between primary and college sectors, you have the twofold
task of enlarging the vision of adolescents and laying solidly the groundwork
for collegiate and professional careers. Besides being a privilege, it is also a
grand opportunity to be able to discuss with you something fresh and new
in the world, something as significant as orbital flight.
The primary theme of this entire meeting is Fostering the Ecumenical
Spirit, and in the light of that general theme I propose to speak to the particular
point of developing spiritual maturity in thought and action.
For the moment, let us make some observations about the word "ecumen-
ical." It is very ancient in origin with its roots in Greek, which when literally
translated means "the entire inhabited world." It is a word that is being widely
discussed today in the free world as well as in the enslaved world: witness the
recent affiliation of the Russian Orthodox group at the New Delhi Conference.
It is a word that is being used by both Catholics and Protestants. It seems
important to make a clear distinction between the Ecumenical Movement and
the Ecumenical Council, which is to take place so shortly. In one sense it
could be said that the Ecumenical Movement has more Protestant overtones
than Catholic.
The Ecumenical Movement is an effort toward union among persons and
churches calling themselves Christian. A tremendous impetus was given by
Protestants in 1910 when a group of like-minded peoples met at Edinburgh in
Scotland. There are many who regard this a starting point of the modern
ecumenical idea, or the Ecumenical Movement, although obviously there had
been much preceding this in the centuries before. Out of this beginning of the
Ecumenical Movement in our century, there developed the World Council of
Churches, which was established in Amsterdam, Holland, in 1948. Since then
there have been many well known gatherings of Protestantism under these
auspices. In the United States there took place a great meeting in Evanston,
Illinois. And then only a few months ago, the world body of Protestant
Churches met at New Delhi, in India, and representatives of Protestantism
from all over the world gathered to seek ways and means of forming some
kind of unity out of the great variety of denominations that make up modern-
day Protestantism.
Staying for the moment with Protestantism, may I observe that it has been
286
Developing Spiritual Maturity 287
most striking to watch the developments in Protestantism toward the Catholic
Church. After 1959 when Pope John announced the Ecumenical Council for
Catholicism and said the emphasis would be placed upon unity, there has been
a veritable parade of Protestant leaders making their way to the Vatican to
have a conference with our Holy Father. Great publicity surrounded the visit
of Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, then Archbishop of Canterbury and the presiding
head of the Church of England, who made a formal and official call upon our
Holy Father. It was the first time in 400 years that a leader of Anglicanism had
visited with the head of the Church of Rome. The presiding bishop of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, Bishop Arthur Lickten-
berger, visited the Holy Father last November. In March of this year, Scot-
land's top Presbyterian leader, the Right Rev. Archibald C. Craig, Moderator
of the Church of Scotland, came to Rome to visit with Pope John XXIII.
Two weeks ago the Anglican Bishop of Southwark, Dr. Mervyn Stockwood,
paid a courtesy call to Pope John XXIII. He described his visit with the
Holy Father as a "general discussion of good will between two Christian
Persons." The Holy Father warmly welcomed all of these visitors. He deeply
appreciated the Christian gesture that was implied by their coming. Now
whether these visits were significant or not, at least it indicates that efforts are
being made toward understanding, and certainly such efforts are necessary
toward any step in the direction of unity.
It is an easy step to move from these examples which certainly foster an
ecumenical spirit to the particular subject that is before us, namely, the need
for developing spiritual maturity in thought and action on the part of Chris-
tians in today's world. I believe that Pope John XXIII put it very succinctly
when he said at one of the sessions of the preparatory commissions of the
Ecumenical Council, and I should like to quote him:
It is the aim of the Council that the clergy should acquire a new brilliance
of sanctity, that the people be instructed efficaciously in the truths of the
faith and Christian morals, that the new generations who are growing like
a hope of better times should be educated properly, and that attention be
given to the social apostolate, and that Christians should have a missionary
heart, that is to say — brotherly and friendly toward all and with all.
The hopes of the Holy Father will be purely realized and there will be a
great increase in the Ecumenical Movement among Catholics if we succeed
in becoming spiritually mature in our thinking and in our action. Now how
do we achieve this? Do we seek new apostolic endeavors? Do we urge others
to join organizations of one kind or another? The answer is a quiet but firm
"No." Rather, we must all accept the personal responsibility of living up to
what is expected of us as Christians and members of one true Church.
Protestants will see us as the Christians we ought to be. We will reflect the
true Church more perfectly, and in this way we will be doing mightily to
bring about unity.
We find ourselves on the threshold of the Second Vatican Council which
in the Holy Providence of God is destined to initiate a reform of Catholic life.
It behooves us to examine our conscience as to what extent each one of us
has contributed to the need for reform and to resolve to fulfill our task and
function in the reform which His Holiness Pope John has invited us to take.
A saintly predecessor of our beloved Holy Father, now reigning, took as the
model of his pontificate the need to reform all things in Christ. This could
well serve us in today as we approach the coming council.
Most of you are aware of the letter transmitted by the Apostolic Delegate
288 Secondary School Department
in Washington, which urged Catholic institutions to initiate projects which
would "excite in students a lively interest in the Council and induce them in
a spiritual participation in it." I am convinced of the wisdom of this sugges-
tion, and I firmly believe that it will contribute very much to the spiritual
maturity of the students of our Catholic institutions. It will contribute to
greater depth in their thinking and will give them opportunities of doing things
in order to increase their knowledge of the coming Council.
This is the way one academy handled the proposal. Beginning in mid-
March, their religion classes turned to the presentation and discussion of
materials on the Council as their principal project. The academy library
contributed to the program by setting up a special display of books, magazines,
newspaper articles, which touched upon it. Then there was given a complete
selection of issues of the local diocesan paper wherein articles about the
Council were highlighted.
A speech contest was arranged for, and each student was asked to prepare
a five-minute talk as a religion assignment. Some of the topics were such
things as the history of the Ecumenical Council, the doctrinal implications of
a General Council, the mechanics and the scope of material to come before
a Council, the question of church unity, discussion of the position of bishops
in the church, and so forth.
Now of course this classroom work will count toward the semester religion
grades, and examinations will be arranged on the basis of material covered
in class. Also, it should be mentioned that the special prayer was offered
before each religion class from that time until the end of the semester. In
the light of the constant requests of Pope John for prayers for the success
of the Council, this is important.
A list of books was suggested which would be of practical value for all
schools contemplating an Ecumenical Council project. Listed in this category
were The Church in Crisis by Philip Hughes, The General Councils by John
L. Murphy, Ecumenical Councils by Francis Dvornik, Ecumenical Councils
of the Catholic Church by Hubert Jedin, Ecumenical Councils by E. I. Watkin,
The Council and Reunion by Hans Kung, and The Ecumenical Council, the
Church and Christendom by Lorenz Jaeger. This is a very practical project
which we commend to all of you for consideration. It will certainly be of help
in lifting the level of the thinking of our Catholic students about this important
work before us.
The Rev. George A. Tavard, who is in the secretariat for Christian Unity
in the Council, made this observation: "The Ecumenical Movement in Ca-
tholicism today implies an appeal to a reform of our life in the Catholic
Church, not a reform of the Church, which is quite as unthinkable as a reform
of Christ, or a reform of the revelation, but a reform of ourselves in the
Church."
Mature Catholics are very much needed by the Church today. The apostle
St. Paul points out to us the nature of that true maturity. In his letter to the
Ephesians, he writes "that we may now no longer be children tossed to and
fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine . . . rather are we to practice
the truth in love and so grow up in all things in Him Who is the Head, Christ."
A mature Christian is one who is not immediately taken in by every novelty
in song or fashion, by every new still-unproved hypothesis of science, or by
those products of newspapers which are meant only to create sensation; rather,
the mature Christian is one who bases his conviction and his moral life on
the unshakable foundations of faith and truth. The mature Christian is able
to act according to his Christian conscience because he is spiritually formed
"Mater et Magistra" 289
and strengthened by the ever-present authority of Christ in the Church. If
we would go no farther than the limits of our own country, we would easily
see abundant evidence of immaturity in the thought and actions of our citizens.
There is pettiness and irresponsibility; there is selfishness and self-seeking.
The scandal of racism is a blot upon our society. John Foster Dulles, when
he was Secretary of State, made this incisive observation, and I quote, "Racial
discrimination in the United States is our greatest National scandal and our
most dangerous international hazard." Many American Catholics by and large
are equal parties with our non-Catholic brethren in the scandal of racism, and
hence equally guilty.
We think of immaturity also in the reaching out to the tawdry in the field
of entertainment, marring the huge potential of the cinema, the television,
the radio, and the stage, and ofttimes those who bear the name of Catholic
are involved in this heavily. Immaturity manifests itself also in the weakness
that has penetrated into the field of government which has produced so many
politicians and so few statesmen. Ofttimes, our Catholic brethren are in the
forefront of this picture. There are many other examples of the lack of spiri-
tual maturity which are all about us.
All this, of course, is at variance with and in opposition to the kind of
spiritual maturity that must be in the thought and in the action of all of us
if we are to share in the renewal that is necessary to foster the ecumenical
spirit.
We conclude with the recommendation to pray well and obtain from God
the guidance the world Council will need to accomplish its task. The Holy
Spirit can work miracles in restoring understanding and opening minds and
hearts. This, above all, the intervention of the Holy Spirit, will be the greatest
factor in developing spiritual maturity in thought and action.
WATER ET MAGISTRA"— THE LAST CHANCE ENCYCLICAL
Donald J. Thorman
managing editor, Ave Maria, notre dame, Indiana
"Let us thank God that He makes us live among the present problems . . ."
said Pope Pius XI, "it is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre."
And let us thank God for Pope John's historic social encyclical Mater et
Magistra which not only challenges Catholics and all men of good will to rise
above mediocrity but which gives us a detailed set of principles to guide us in
seeking solutions to the most pressing social and spiritual problems of our age.
The present Holy Father has done for our times what Pope Leo XIII in 1891
and Pope Pius XI in 1931 did for theirs: he has demonstrated that the Church's
social doctrine is as vital and living and timely as tomorrow morning's news-
paper.
There is so much material contained within the 25,000 words of the en-
cyclical that we would be hard pressed to cover all of it in depth even in a
290 Secondary School Department
full year's college course. But I would like to attempt today to give you a
panoramic view of what Mater et Magistra is saying by taking up in very brief
form ten of the major concepts to be found in the encyclical.
1. The dignity of the individual. This concept of the eternal worth of each
human being is at the very heart and center of the entirety of Catholic social
teaching; it is around this concept that all the rest is built and from it flows
our concern for the social order.
If there is a unifying principle that explains and holds together all the many
things that the Church has had to say about man in society and his varied
social relationships, it is this: that every social structure, every social insti-
tution, every social arrangement must respect the sacred dignity of the in-
dividual. They must keep man free to develop his human personality to the
fullest. They must strive to help him reach natural perfection and provide the
sociocultural conditions which make it easier for him to pursue supernatural
perfection.
Do not misunderstand. This is not a theory of individualism, for the indi-
vidual can only be understood completely in relation to the concept of the
common good which we shall discuss in a few moments. But more than any
other social theory, Catholic social doctrine requires and teaches a genuine
concern for the sacredness of every human life. This concern is based on solid
theological principles which require that a man be as free as possible to assent
to the will of a God who desires most of all the love of free men, freely given.
Thus, to understand Catholic social teaching we must first grasp the essen-
tial idea that this teaching is based primarily on the individual who, because
of his origin, nature, and destiny, has a holy dignity. On this fundamental
principle is built the house of Catholic social theory.
2. The dignity of work. Closely allied to the importance of the individual
is a second basic concept — the dignity of work, a concept which is constantly
returned to in the papal social teachings.
Work, says Pope John, is "an expression of the human person." This is one
of the main reasons why the Popes in their social encyclicals are so preoccupied
with the problems of wages, labor-management relations, working conditions,
unions, and the participation of workers in both ownership and management.
This is why the Popes have always condemned the idea of work being treated
as a commodity without regard to the workers. For work cannot be considered
or discussed or bargained for except within the context of the dignity of the
human beings who produce the work and for whom society and economic
life exist.
It is precisely because responsible unions and employers associations can
safeguard the dignity of the human person and the work he produces that
Pope John goes out of his way to praise and encourage both Christian unions
and the "neutral" unions we have here in the United States which do not have
any specifically religious ties.
This takes us back once again to the fundamental concept of Catholic
social teaching — the value and integrity of the individual — which gives us the
logic for the rest of our social doctrine. To achieve his natural and super-
natural goals in life, man normally needs freedom. In the natural order, much
of our freedom is conditional on how independent we are economically. This
is a teaching — although with different overtones — of Marxist and Christian
philosophers alike; it was also very much on the minds of our own Founding
Fathers.
It is just common sense that the more self-reliant a man is economically,
"Mater et Magistra" 291
the more able he is to participate in the political and social life of his community
and nation. Therefore, any legitimate associations or social groups which can
help men be free from undue economic pressures are to be encouraged.
However, if we went no further than this, these sound ideas could easily
degenerate into an individualism which could wreck any society in which they
were accepted and put into practice. This brings us now to the third major
concept which gives Catholic social doctrine balance and practicality: the con-
cept of the common good.
3. The concept of the common good is the principle which preserves Cath-
olic social teaching from the extreme individualism of the ultraconservatives
and the extreme statism of the ultraliberals. It reflects a philosophy of the
middle way, the golden mean. It corresponds generally to our Founding
Fathers' idea of the general welfare.
As we read the papal social documents we constantly come across phrases
such as "within the framework of the common good," or "the common good
demands." It is the work of social justice, Pope Pius XI pointed out in his
encyclical on atheistic communism, to arrange society in such a manner that
the common good is realized. And this common good is a condition in which
society as a whole as well as the members of that society are able to achieve
the purposes for which they exist. Of course, all this implies the cooperative
working together of individuals and private groups under the general coordi-
nating direction of the proper public authorities.
In sum, the Church is saying that society cannot be built around an every-
man-for-himself philosophy. Nor can it be guided by an omnipotent State
that tries to run everything. Instead, our guiding principle must be the common
good which recognizes the rights of individuals and of groups but which says
that individual and private rights only make sense within the broader view
of the good of the entire society.
4. The role of the State. In speaking of the common good, we are led in-
evitably to the role of the State, for the State is the guardian of the common
good. And this in two ways — negatively, to intervene when and where neces-
sary to prevent and control dangers to the common good; and positively, to
encourage private groups to work together for the common good so it becomes
less and less necessary for the State to become involved.
We might as well face it. The idea of government intervention of any kind
simply goes against the grain of large numbers of Catholics in America who
have been brought up in the tradition of free enterprise, no-government-inter-
ference economics. Their theory is that government intervention will ultimately
lead to government interference, and it is a theory not without some historical
foundation.
Yet, as Catholics we are faced with the reality of Catholic social doctrine.
And this doctrine does provide quite clearly for the government to play a
crucial role in economic life. It is our job to reconcile our personal prejudices
with the Popes' social teachings rather than to refuse to listen to these teach-
ings at all or else to reject them out of hand. Therefore, it is incumbent on
us to understand exactly what the role of the State is.
Taking it step by step, the reasoning evolved by the Popes goes something
like this:
The basis of our social teaching is the dignity of the individual. Society
must serve and protect this individual, keeping him free to develop his human
personality naturally and supernaturally. Conversely, society is protected from
the individual by the concept of the common good which means that we must
292 Secondary School Department
exercise our rights as individuals or groups within the terms of the common
good.
But inherent in the common good is the idea of the State. As Pope John
explains:
The state, the reason for whose existence is the realization of the common
good in the temporal order, cannot keep aloof from the economic world.
It should be present to promote in a suitable manner the production of a
suitable supply of material goods, "the use of which is necessary for the
practice of virtue," and to watch over the rights of all citizens, especially
of the weaker, such as workers, women, and children. It is also its ineluct-
able task to contribute actively to the betterment of the condition of life
of the workers.
It is further the duty of the State to see to it that work regulations are
regulated according to justice and equity and that in the environment of
work the dignity of the human spirit is not violated in body or spirit.
Thus, it is crystal clear that the State has a part to play in economic life
and that role is primarily to promote and protect the common good. The
State, indeed, has a right to intervene. But the crucial question is, "What prin-
ciple determines when and in what manner it should do so?"
The action of public authorities, notes Pope John, "should be inspired by
the 'principle of subsidiarity' formulated by Pius XI in the encyclical Quadra-
gesimo Anno:
This is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, unshaken and un-
changeable. Just as it is wrong to withdraw from the individual and commit
to the community at large what private enterprise and industry can ac-
complish, so too is it an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right
order for a larger and higher organization to arrogate to itself functions
which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies; of its
very nature, the true aim of all social activity should be to help individual
members of the social body, but never to destroy or absorb them.
Just as the principle of the common good prevents individualism from run-
ning riot, so does the principle of subsidiarity avoid the interference and undue
intervention of the State in the affairs of men. The State is more than a police-
man standing guard over the common good and rapping the knuckles of in-
dividuals or groups who overstep their bounds and infringe on the rights oi
all. The State has functions to perform which individuals and private groups
cannot do. But it is also one of the State's functions to encourage individuals,
private groups, and smaller governmental units to fulfill their own responsi-
bilities and not to turn these responsibilities over to the government except
in necessity.
The more closely we examine the Church's teaching on the role of the State,
the more we see how well it fits into the entire logical pattern. The State
must protect and promote the common good, in other words, look out for the
rights of individuals and groups in relation to each other. It is the task of
the State to make men more free by doing for them what they cannot do for
themselves and to encourage and stimulate individuals and voluntary groups
to work for the common good.
5. Socialization. Now we come to another major concept of Mater et
Magistra — socialization, a word which seems never to have appeared before
in papal social documents. Because it received such widespread attention out
of context in the daily press, it would be well for us to study it carefully so
that it is not misunderstood.
"Mater et Magistra" 293
Pope John takes up this concept right after discussing the role of the State
in economic life and the principle of subsidiarity. He says: "One of the typi-
cal aspects which characterize our epoch is socialization, understood as the
progressive multiplication of relations in society, with different forms of life
and activity, and juridical institutionalization."
With a few words — big, tongue-twisting ones, I admit — Pope John has
summed up the vast social changes of our age which we take so much for
granted. Yet, we have only to look back fifty or one hundred years to see
how interdependent and related men have become. The day of the frontiers-
man, alone and independent, has gone forever. We are now dependent on
unions, on trade associations, on decisions made in conference rooms thousands
of miles from us. We need car insurance to drive a car; to do certain things
even with or to our own homes, we need government permission and possibly
inspection; even the manner in which we treat and educate our own children
is subject to laws.
The closer people have to work together in the giant cities in which tlicy
live, the more necessary it has become for private and public intervention so
that the whole system does not disintegrate and fall into chaos.
This natural tendency of human beings to join together "to obtain objectives
which are beyond the capacity and means at the disposal of single individuals,"
says Pope John, "have given life, especially in these last decades, to a wide
range of groups, movements, associations and institutions with economic, cul-
tural, social, sporting, recreational, professional and political ends, both within
single national communities and on an international level."
The Pope points out that socialization has both advantages and disadvan-
tages. On the one hand, it helps men to achieve many social and economic
advantages they could not hope to obtain in an unorganized society. But at
the same time it does restrict their liberty of action and makes it difficult for
them in many cases to act independently.
"Ought it to be concluded, then," asks the Holy Father, "that socialization,
growing in extent and depth necessarily reduces men to automatons? This is
a question," he says, "which must be answered negatively."
The reason for his negative answer is that socialization is not the product
of outside forces. Rather, it is the free creation of men. The problem, of
course, is how to promote the benefits and negate the dangers of this process.
Here, the Pope urges men to develop the idea of the common good and to
set up private groups which will be autonomous and which will act as buffers
between the State and the individual. Rather than have the government step
in directly and control the lives of individuals, the idea is that these individuals
will form their own unions, employers groups, and other associations to work
together and serve as intermediary groups protecting the individual from the
power of the State. In this way the power of the State is kept under control
and the freedom of the individual protected while at the same time encourag-
ing the benefits which arise from socialization.
By a study of this controversial section on socialization, we can easily see
that there is really nothing sensational involved. The Pope is merely saying
that in a society such as ours there is a growing interdependence brought about
by the desires of men to unite for their common advantage. Generally, this
has proved to be a good thing, even though along with the advantages there
are some dangers.
To avoid the greatest danger — that the individual human being might be
submerged in such a highly organized society — it is essential that we set up
many intermediary groups to achieve the benefits, or, where necessary, to
294 Secondary School Department
allow the State to intervene and perform the function for us. Following the
principle of subsidiarity, the State should encourage the formation of private
groups or stimulate lower levels of government to handle as many of their
own problems as they can.
This is hardly socialism. But neither is it individualism. It is, rather, a very
balanced and democratic view of man in modern society.
6. Private property. Because the concept of private property, which is dis-
cussed at length in the encyclical, is perhaps the most generally known Catholic
social teaching, I should like to save some time here and mention only one
brief thought along the line I have been pursuing.
Pope John makes it quite clear that private property is desirable— -among
other reasons — because it helps secure the essential freedom of the individual.
That is why totalitarian regimes do not recognize the right of private property.
For this right, he says, "constitutes an apt means to assert one's personality
and to exercise responsibility in every field. . . ."
The Pope also takes time out in another part of the encyclical to "underscore
the importance of the artisan and cooperative enterprises." And he approv-
ingly quotes a commendation by Pius XII of the place of small business in
modern society.
All of this is part of the papal pattern of social thought which aims at
preserving the dignity and integrity of the individual and of encouraging and
fostering any economic or social structures which accomplish that end. That
is one of the main reasons why private property plays such an important part
in Catholic social doctrine.
7. International responsibilities. We pass on now to the seventh major con-
cept of Mater et Magistra. Pope John observes that today the demands of
justice not only have bearing on the relations between the worker and the
employer, but also concern "the relations between countries with a different
degree of economic-social development."
Characterizing this as "Probably the most difficult problem of the modern
world. . . ." he adds that "The solidarity which binds all men and makes them
members of the same family requires political communities enjoying an abun-
dance of material goods not to remain indifferent to those political communi-
ties whose citizens suffer from poverty, misery and hunger and who lack even
the elementary rights of the human person. This is particularly true since,
given the growing interdependence among the peoples of the earth, it is not
possible to preserve lasting peace if glaring economic and social inequality
among them persists."
We can immediately recognize what he is aiming at here. We are brought
back inevitably to our concern for the human person. The circumstances have
changed: here we are talking about international relations rather than on the
local or national level, but the principles remain the same.
On this international level, Pope John makes some specific recommenda-
tions: "Emergency aid, he says, is not enough." "We must help these under-
developed nations acquire professional, scientific, and technical competence."
We must also put "at their disposal the necessary capital to start and to speed
up their economic development with the help of modern methods."
Further, he says, we must do this in such a way as to respect and preserve
the rightful individuality of each nation and we must do all this "in sincere
political disinterestedness, for the purpose of putting those communities on the
way to economic development in a position to realize their own proper eco-
nomic and social growth."
"Mater et Magistra" 295
So here again, on the international level, we find an extension of our basic
concepts of the individual and the common good. Social justice not only de-
mands that we work for the common good on the local and national levels,
but also on the international level — to achieve the general welfare of the world.
Understanding the basic reasoning of Catholic social doctrine, we can easily
see that this is a logical and organic development of that doctrine.
8. Social doctrine and the full Christian life. Perhaps no other Pope — with
the possible exception of Pius XI — has stressed more energetically than Pope
John the place of Catholic social teaching in the life of the Catholic. In the
final section of Mater et Magistra, he sums it up in one sentence when he says:
"We must reaffirm most strongly that this Catholic social doctrine is an integral
part of the Christian conception of life."
Today more than ever, he comments, it is indispensable "that this doctrine
be known, assimilated and translated into social reality in the form and manner
that the different situations allow and demand. It is a most difftcvilt task, but
a most noble one, to the carrying out of which We most warmly invite not
only Our brothers and sons scattered throughout the world, but also all men
of good will."
The days of what has come to be called the "Jesus and I" concept of religion
are over. Our spirituality must be built on an inner strength and personal
relationship to our Creator. But its expression must be social, and directed
along the lines so clearly drawn by Leo XIII, Pius XI and XII, and John XXIII.
They have spelled out so clearly for us what is required in these times — a vast
renewal of personal and social morality on the one hand, and on the other
an intensive effort to build a local, national, and world community based on
the clear-cut social doctrine of the Church.
I do not see how we can call ourselves true Catholics if we do not embrace
and make our own this magnificent vision of social relationships built firmly
upon truth, justice, and love. In these days of so many false social heresies
and ideologies, based often on antireligious or irreligious theories, the duty of
the Christian to know and spread true social doctrine is more incumbent upon
each and every one of us than ever before in the past. Especially is this true
of the laity, a point which Pope John develops in some ways even more com-
pletely than Pius XII's two great addresses on the role of the layman.
9. The laity and social doctrine. Mater et Magistra is a great addition to
the literature on Christian humanism, for the whole tone of the document is
one of love for the human element in society, for love of Christ. Perhaps
more than any other papal directive, it commits the layman to the world.
There is always a constant tension in the Church between the ideas of with-
drawal from the world and commitment to it. "The world is evil," says one
view, "escape from it." "We must bring Christ to the world," says the other
view.
There is no doubt about where Pope John stands in this matter. He says:
... it would be an error if Our sons, especially the laity, should consider
it more prudent to lessen their personal Christian commitment in the world.
Rather should they renew and increase it.
We should not [he comments] create an artificial opposition between the
perfection of one's own being and one's personal active presence in the
world, as if a man could not perfect himself except by putting aside all
temporal activity and as if, however such action is done, a man is inevitably
led to compromise his personal dignity as a human being and as a believer.
Instead of this being so, it is perfectly in keeping with the plan of Divine
296 Secondary School Department
Providence that each one develop and perfect himself through his daily
work, which for almost all human beings is of a temporal nature.
How, he asks, is the Church to make an impact in the market place? And
he answers ". . . the Church fulfills this mission through her lay sons, who
should thus feel pledged to carry on their professional activities as the ful-
fillment of a duty, as the performance of a service in internal union with God
and with Christ and for His glory."
Throughout this entire final section of the encyclical, Pope John keeps re-
peating one major theme: the role of the laity is to make the social doctrine
of the Church a living reality in modern society. Their vocation as laymen
commits them to the temporal and it is in and through the world that they
shall achieve their perfection.
In his remarks about the role of the layman, the Holy Father shows him-
self to be well aware of the temper and needs of the times and even ahead
of most of k»3 contemporaries in his grasp of modern lay spirituality and the
function of the layman in the temporal order.
10. The Mystical Body. We cannot discuss Mater et Magistra without ad-
verting to the Mystical Body, for this is obviously a fundamental source of
inspiration and direction for the Holy Father throughout the entire encyclical.
It is only in the final paragraphs that Pope John actually gets around to
spelling out the doctrine of the Mystical Body as it applies in this social con-
text, but the fact that this concept is his inspiration and guide is clear in every
paragraph, every sentence, every word.
We all must be concerned about the world and the condition of men because
we are brothers with Christ under the Fatherhood of God. If our brother — in
any part of the world, or in any social or economic or political class — if our
brother suffers, then we suffer. We cannot be indifferent to men anywhere
any more than we can be indifferent to Christ. This is not a rootless, maudlin,
sentimental kind of humanitarianism. It is, rather, a firm reality, founded on
a "sublime truth and reality, namely, that we are living members of the Mysti-
cal Body of Christ, which is His Church."
Pope John insists that both clergy and laity must
be deeply conscious of this dignity and nobility due to the fact that they
are grafted onto Christ as shoots on a vine . . . And they are thus called
to live by His very life. Hence, when one carries on one's proper activity, even
if it be of a temporal nature, in union with Jesus the Divine Redeemer,
every work becomes a continuation of His work and penetrated with Re-
demptive power. ... It thus becomes a work which contributes to one's
personal supernatural perfection and helps to extend to others the fruits
of the Redemption and leavens with the ferment of the Gospel the civiliza-
tion in which one lives and works.
As we come to an end of the consideration of the major concepts to be
found in this vast summary of Catholic social teaching, I think it appropriate
for us as Catholics to meditate on the special obligations imposed on us by
Pope John.
The first, I believe, is to read and study the encyclical itself and the com-
mentaries on it. Secondly, we must act on the knowledge we obtain. Action,
says the Holy Father, "is a task that belongs particularly to Our sons, the laity,
since in virtue of their condition of life they are constantly engaged in activities
and in the formation of institutions that in their finality are temporal." Unless
we act, we shall let history and the opportunities of this moment pass us by —
opportunities to bring the world to Christ that shall never come our way again.
"Mater et Magistra" 297
We have seen that this is a thrilling and profoundly moving document. And
it is a twentieth century document, totally relevant to the needs of our times.
For although the word communism appears only once, the entire document is
really about this terrible danger which faces us and the world today on all
sides.
Why do I say this? Well, mainly because the Popes have said it before me
and I presume they are not totally innocent about the manner in which com-
munism is to be combatted. In 1931, for example, Pius XI said very clearly
that "unless utmost efforts are made without delay to put [Christian social
principles] into effect, let no one persuade himself that public order, peace and
tranquillity of human society can be effectively defended against agitators of
revolution."
And in 1937 in his encyclical on atheistic communism, the same Pontiff
commented that "the means of saving the world today" are "the infusion of
social justice and the sentiment of Christian love into the social-economic
order." "There would be today neither socialism nor communism," he said,
"if the rulers of the nations had not scorned the teachings and maternal warn-
ings of the Church."
Now, let me make it quite clear that I did not intend to come here today
as a prophet of doom and gloom. After all, many commentators have made
it clear that Pope John shows a great deal of optimism in Mater et Magistra.
His optimism, I might point out, though, is based on the assumption that
Catholics and all men of good will, will respond to his appeals for the con-
struction of a Christian social order.
I, for one, hope he is not disappointed. But in all honesty I must confess
that I see very few reasons to be optimistic.
Let me explain the reasons why I feel less than joyous about the response
to the new encyclical.
I feel that in many ways Mater et Magistra is a last chance for us as we
stand in the face of an historic crisis occasioned in no small measure by our
own unwillingness and inaction. Let me quote again what I quoted a moment
ago: "There would be today neither socialism nor communism if the rulers
of the nations had not scorned the teachings and maternal warnings of the
Church."
Let's be realistic about it. Not just the rulers of nations have scorned the
teachings of the Church. I state it as a simple fact: So have Catholic edu-
cators and members of the Catholic press and — well, you make up your own
list. We have scorned the Church's social teachings by ignoring them.
For example, I recall seeing a study made a few years ago by the Industry
Council Plan Committee of the American Catholic Sociological Society. The
study revealed that only 62 per cent of the colleges, 41 per cent of the semi-
naries, and 83 per cent of the high schools offer a formal course in one or
more of the social encyclicals. The situation may have improved somewhat
since this study was made, but there is no indication of anything revolutionary
being done in the past few years.
But even a course, as I am sure you well know, hardly qualifies a student
as an expert in the social teachings of the Church. Indeed, one of our most
serious problems is that we have a shortage of qualified teachers of the
Church's social doctrine.
Let us pause for a moment to go back almost twenty-five years, to 1937.
We are listening to Pope Pius XI speaking in his encyclical on atheistic
communism. He has been describing the need to reconstruct society, to
establish what he calls "the reign of mutual collaboration between justice
298 Secondary School Department
and charity in social-economic relations" and he is telling the Catholic press
that its "foremost duty is to foster in various attractive ways an even better
understanding of social doctrine."
He refers to the need for Catholic social action and he goes on then to say:
To give to this social activity a greater efficacy, it is necessary to promote
a wider study of social problems in the light of the doctrine of the Church
and, under the aegis of her constituted authority, its principles and counsels
should be given the widest possible publicity. If the manner of acting of
some Catholics in the social-economic field has left much to be desired, this
has often come about because they have not known and pondered sufficiently
the teachings of the Sovereign Pontiffs on these questions. Therefore, it is
of the utmost importance to foster in all classes of society an intensive
program of social education adapted to the varying degrees of intellectual
culture. It is necessary with all care and diligence to procure the widest
possible diffusion of the teachings of the Church, even among the working
classes. The minds of men must be illuminated with the sure light of Catholic
teaching, and their wills must be drawn to follow and apply it as the norm
of right living in the conscientious fulfillment of their manifold social duties.
Now we skip some sixteen years to the study by the Industry Council Plan
Committee I referred to a moment ago and find that at that late date a sub-
stantial percentage of Catholic educational institutions do not even offer a
formal course in one or more of the social encyclicals.
And then we move further down the corridor of years to 1961 and examine
Mater et Magistra to find Pope John making essentially the same plea Pius XI
made almost twenty-five years before. Referring to the Church's "clear body
of social doctrine," Pope John comments:
. . . We ardently desire that more and more attention be given to the study
of this doctrine. While We note with satisfaction that in some schools it
has been taught with success for years, We strongly urge that it be included
as an item in the required curriculum in Catholic schools of every kind,
particularly in seminaries. It is to be inserted into the religious instruction
programs of parishes and of associations of the lay apostolate. It should
be publicized by every modern means of mass communication — daily news-
papers and periodicals, publications of both a scientific and a popular nature,
radio and television.
I am hopeful that we shall take and act on the Holy Father's plea. Real-
istically, especially studying how we ignored Pope Pius XI, I do not expect
much. Particularly do I not expect much from parochial instruction programs
— mainly because of the fact that we have failed in our educational institu-
tions to produce leaders and teachers who understand the social doctrine of
the Church.
I repeat that this is one of the key problems facing us today. Ask yourself
this question: How many people — clerical, religious, or lay — do you know who
really understand what the Church's social teachings are all about? And I
don't mean just social ethics, I mean the whole panorama of the twofold
reconstruction of society, the Industry Council Plan, the reform of social
institutions with all it entails, the autonomy of the temporal, the cultural
apostolate, what Pope John means when he says we must give a human and
a Christian tone to society. Or let me take the current phrase which has little
or no real meaning in the lives of most Catholics who hear it — the Christian-
ization of society.
Just what exactly does it mean to say that we must Christianize society?
How does the factory worker or housewife or an office worker go about
The Chemical Bond Approach to Chemistry 299
Christianizing society? We have developed a jargon and terminology, but few
people, indeed, know what it really means.
These are some of the problems facing us today and I say that it is going
to be largely up to you here today and others like you whether or not we
Catholics of 1962 answer the pleadings of Pope John better than our fore-
fathers did in 1937 when Pius XI made substantially the same requests. I
simply do not see anything being done in parishes on a wide scale until
our educational institutions begin turning out formal or informal teachers
who can teach in our parishes. And that, I submit, puts the matter in your lap.
I do not think it melodramatic to suggest that this might be your last
chance to answer the recurring plea of the Church for our educational struc-
tures to make the social doctrine of the Church an integral part of Catholic
education. At least, if you decide to ignore this last chance, be prepared
to live with the inevitable fruits of your neglect.
THE CHEMICAL BOND APPROACH TO THE TEACHING
OF CHEMISTRY
Helen W. Crawley
CHEMICAL BOND APPROACH PROJECT STAFF, DEMONSTRATION DEVELOPMENT
CENTER, TUFTS UNIVERSITY, MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS
The Chemical Bond Approach Project is supported by the National
Science Foundation. The headquarters for the project is at Earlham College,
Richmond, Indiana, where Dr. Laurence E. Strong, Director, is a professor
of chemistry. The CBA Laboratory Development Center is at Lebanon
Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania, and is under the direction of Dr.
Howard A. Neidig. The Demonstration Development Center is at Tufts Uni-
versity, Medford, Massachusetts. Dr. Robert D. Eddy and I are assembling
a collection of demonstrations to be used with the text now being developed.
A third edition of the text is scheduled for commercial publication in Sep-
tember, 1963.
During the summer of 1960 I attended a CBA summer institute at Brown
University, and during the school year 1960-61 I was one of the seventy-five
"evaluation teachers." I taught the course at Natick High School, Natik,
Massachusetts. I am on leave from this school for a year to be a member
of the CBA staff.
During the present school year CBA is being taught in 184 schools. From
this group, 83 schools are being used for evaluation and feedback purposes.
In order to follow the CBA teachers and to give them some aid from time
to time, twelve regional groupings have been established. A series of twelve
half-day meetings in each region have been planned. Each region has a CBA
consultant attend the meetings. I am a consultant for the Boston region and
have been attending the other meetings when a CBA staff member is needed.
The National Science Foundation will support six summer institutes in 1962
300 Secondary School Department
to give teachers background material to help them fully to understand the
new approach embodied in the CBA course.
"The Chemical Bond Approach (CBA) is an attempt to develop an intro-
ductory chemistry course which presents modern chemistry to beginning
students. The presentation is intended to give students a preliminary under-
standing of what chemistry is about rather than simply an encyclopedic col-
lection of chemical reactions and laboratory techniques or a mere overview
of diverse conclusions held by chemists today." '
Chemistry is more than the facts which make up the information possessed
by chemists. It is a process of uncovering and extending natural phenomena.
The CBA students participate in this process instead of just learning facts
which have been developed.
The student is made to feel that it is within his power to learn facts and to
use basic concepts and to originate ideas. He sees that the combination of ideas
and practical experiences in the laboratory are powerful tools for solving prob-
lems. The students get involved in logical arguments based on factual detail.
They reason from concepts and theories and use them in unfamiliar situations.
Students may be confused at first by substitution of creative thinking for the
traditional rote memory processes.
However, many students quickly find the new stimulation to learn an incen-
tive to progress beyond the usual limits of high school chemistry. It comes to
some students as quite a shock that his success hinges on his ability to follow
and use logical arguments rather than on his ability to remember details.
Teachers are becoming aware of the abilities lying dormant in students and are
beginning to tap these abilities.
"Focus on the theories and processes of science enables students to en-
compass a larger portion of knowledge than heretofore thought possible. Al-
though the volume of facts treated in class is reduced, the student's potential
for acquiring new facts is greatly increased." 2
A former student wrote me this winter that she was going to be required to
take the college entrance examinations in chemistry because she had decided to
major in chemistry in college. I wrote her to encourage her, and to ask her what
she had planned to do in reviewing last year's CBA course. She had borrowed a
traditional text over Christmas vacation and spontaneously she said, "I never
really appreciated CBA last year. You really taught us to think. I would have
been so bored if I had had to learn all the facts in this book."
The CBA course has been based on the organization of chemistry around a
central theme. This theme is the concept of the Chemical Bond. Interwoven
into this concept is the relationship of the structure and properties of matter
to the three types of bonds — ionic, covalent, and metallic. Changes which
take place in matter are associated with changes in energy. This concept is
related to the making and breaking of bonds.
Demonstrations with models, with explanation of laboratory processes, followed.
1 Laurence E. Strong, Director of CBA Project, talk at Division of Chemical Education, 140th
meeting of the American Chemical Society, Chicago, Illinois, September 1961.
2 Paul D. Hurd, Stanford University, "The New Curriculum Movement in Science," The Science
Teacher, February 1962.
THE BSCS PROGRAM FOR THE TEACHING OF BIOLOGY
Evelyn Klinckmann
consultant, biological sciences curriculum study; assistant professor
of biology in education, san francisco college for women
A primary aim of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study has been to
develop materials for the average high school student which will convey a valid
image of modern biological science.
Notice the three key phrases in that statement: "develop materials," "average
high school student," and "valid image of modern biological science." By
examining each of these phrases we can better understand the BSCS program.
First, what is meant by "average" high school student? The BSCS has
attempted to design materials that are suitable for the upper 80 per cent of
tenth-grade students. This means that the materials are designed for all but
those students with severe reading problems or other kind of difficulty. And
a BSCS committee is currently considering the problem of developing a biology
program for the lower 20 per cent. But has this aim been met by the materials
already designed? We do not have a substantiated answer, but the Evaluation
Program is designed to obtain adequate data on which to base a substantiated
answer. The Evaluation Program is extensive — it involves approximately 500
teachers and more than 50,000 students. Geographic location, type of high
school, variety of students, and other factors must be considered.
The data that have already been gathered indicate that the aim of designing
materials for the upper 80 per cent of tenth graders has been largely successful.
Weaknesses are showing up, of course, but by and large these are weaknesses
which can be corrected in the final revision of the materials. In addition to
the indications of the partial statistical data, practically all qualitative evalua-
tions by teachers, administrators, professional educators, and biologists is
favorable — that is, the materials are suitable for average tenth graders. For
example, information which we have from teachers in the program is that
regardless of the weaknesses they find, all but about 1 per cent of these
teachers will continue with BSCS biology.
Let us examine another key phrase in our original statement: What is
meant by a "valid image of modern biological science"?
There are at least three components of modern biology which can be iden-
tified. First, there are different levels at which biological phenomena are or-
ganized and can be studied. These levels are molecular, cellular, organ-tissue,
organism, population, community, ecosystem, and world biome. Historically,
biological research has had a shifting emphasis amongst these levels. For
example, there was a period when the organ-tissue and organism levels were
the main foci of research; currently molecular, cellular, and the several eco-
logical levels are being given considerable emphasis. In teaching biology it is
important that the student become familiar with the fact that living organisms
can be and have been studied from different points of view which are par-
tially represented by the different levels of biological organization.
301
302 Secondary School Department
Second, there are concepts and conceptual schemes which organize bio-
logical knowledge and focus, along with other factors, the direction of mod-
ern research. These concepts have varying degrees of generality and abstrac-
tion. At the lower levels of generality are such concepts or principles as "suc-
cession" and "catalysis" which are appropriate primarily to particular areas
of biology. At the higher levels of abstraction are the conceptual schemes
which enable us to organize the total field of biological facts and principles,
to organize biological knowledge. The "themes" which the BSCS writers have
identified are such broad conceptual schemes. The BSCS themes are evolution,
diversity of type and unity of pattern, genetic continuity, complementarity
of organism and environment, biological roots of behavior, complementarity
of structure and function, regulation and homeostasis, science as enquiry,
and intellectual history of biology.1 These conceptual schemes provide one
basis for the structure of biology as a field of knowledge. They are a means
of organizing biological information for better understanding. They also
provide points of view and principles of enquiry for research.
There is a third component of biology which must be understood by
students if they are to have a valid image of modern biological science. This
third component is the process by which biological knowledge is attained —
that is, the processes of biological investigation or enquiry.
The three components of modern biology suggest two kinds of demands
for materials which are to convey a valid image of modern ecology, of bio-
chemistry, and of the biology of behavior as well as details of zoology,
botany, and physiology. But the up-dating of materials reflects only one
aspect of modern biology — the shift in research emphasis to different levels
of biological organization and the knowledge resulting from this shift.
The second demand is that the materials must convey a general familiarity
with science as enquiry rather than with science as a body of established
knowledge. This demand is probably more important than the demand for
up-dating materials, for several reasons.
A most significant reason is that understanding of scientific enquiry is
becoming relatively more important in biology (and other sciences) than
understanding currently established knowledge. This is true because es-
tablished knowledge is becoming rapidly revised as a result of enquiry. The
very meaning of facts change as they are seen in the light of new concepts
resulting from or used in enquiry.
Now that we have some notion of what is necessary to a valid image of
modern biology, we can examine the materials. The materials are the means
by which BSCS attempts to convey this image. The materials include three
Versions of a high school biology course — the Blue, Green, and Yellow. We
believe these to be equivalent but alternative ways of teaching high school
biology. Each of the Versions has a different approach and emphasis but
each Version attempts to present a comprehensive overview of all the major
areas of biology. The Blue Version, for example, emphasizes the biochemical-
physiological aspects of biology; the Green Version emphasizes ecological
and evolutionary approaches; the Yellow Version emphasizes development
and reproduction. This does not mean that all of the various areas of
biology are not covered in each Version: it merely means that particular
points of view have been taken as starting points from which to present a
relatively comprehensive picture of the total field of biology.
There is a very good reason why there should be at least three — and per-
haps as many as twenty — versions of high school biology. Biology as a field
1 Further discussion of these themes may be found in the Teacher's Handbook, Chapter 3.
The BSCS Program for Teaching Biology 303
of study is not a fixed discipline in the way that physics or mathematics is
relatively fixed. That is, the total knowledge within the field cannot be tightly
organized into a single, logically coherent system which would satisfy all
biologists. The fact that BSCS presents three Versions — three approaches to
the study of biology — reflects the state of biological science at the present
time. There are differences of opinion among biologists as to which areas
and concepts in the field of biology are the most fundamental.
I should add that subject matter has not been the only consideration in
the development of BSCS materials. One of the strong points of the BSCS
program is that the materials are the outcome of a collaboration of subject
matter specialists, high school teachers, and professional educators.
Besides the fact that three Versions more adequately reflect the state
of biological science at the present time than would a single version, there
are considerable pedagogical advantages to having three Versions. Teachers
can select the Version which they think is the most adequate and/ or teach-
able relative to their own background of experience and interest, and relative
to the way they view the field of biology. For example, a teacher might
believe that some of the most important problems which our society is begin-
ning to face are related to the role of the human species in the biosphere.
This teacher might consider the Green Version most appropriate for the educa-
tion of future citizens since the problems dealt with in this Version most
closely pertain to the social-biological problems which are very much on
the horizon. Another teacher might argue that biochemistry is fundamental
to the understanding of living processes and may prefer the Blue Version.
The Yellow Version, on the other hand, might be chosen because of its em-
phasis on reproduction and development — topics which are of considerable
interest to many high school students. These topics also reflect two of the
most fundamental processes, or characteristics, of living things.
In addition to the three Versions — each of which consists of a textbook,
a laboratory manual, and a teacher's guide — BSCS has published several other
kinds of materials which can be used in connection with the basic Version
materials for a high school biology course. One type is the Laboratory Blocks.
Each Laboratory Block is a six-week laboratory investigation in depth of a
particular problem or topic in biology. The Blocks are designed to investi-
gate a problem in much the same way as a research biologist would in-
vestigate it if he were starting at the same point of knowledge and understand-
ing from which a high school student starts. The Blocks currently available
are: Animal Growth, Plant Growth, Microbes, Interdependence of Structure
and Function, Ecology, Animal Behavior, and Regulation.
Another publication, entitled Investigations for High School Biology, which
is sometimes referred to as the "gifted student material," has been designed
for those students who have a particular interest in or aptitude for biological
science. The Investigations volumes, (there are now two), suggest research
projects which can be carried out by high school students. Each of these
research projects deals with a biological problem which has not yet been
solved. They are real problems on the frontier of biological research which
have been suggested by biologists working in various areas.
The third kind of special material which BSCS has published are the
Invitations to Enquiry. These are teaching units designed especially to teach
science as enquiry. One of the weakest aspects of biology courses in the
past has been that the processes of biological investigation, components of
enquiry, have been almost completely ignored. The Invitations are pub-
lished in the Teacher's Handbook. They are designed as guided discussions
304 Secondary School Department
and have two components: materials addressed to the teachers and mate-
rials addressed to the student. The materials addressed to the student out-
line a situation in which there is a blank or gap which needs to be filled.
The students are invited to fill the gap and thus contribute to the enquiry
presented. The teacher's material helps guide the teacher as to what to expect
in the way of response from students, what direction discussion should go
to develop understanding by the student.
Because the Invitations to Enquiry are a relatively new kind of teach-
ing material, let me describe them a little bit more fully. The name and for-
mat of the Invitations were originated by Joseph J. Schwab of the University
of Chicago. The Invitations currently published were developed by Profes-
sor Schwab and some of the writers of the Biological Sciences Curriculum
Study and hence are specifically designed for the teaching of biology. How-
ever, the Invitations are not suited only to biology. This type of teaching
unit could be developed for any science, and indeed probably for any subject-
matter area. But that is a point not especially relevant to this presentation.
A quotation from the BSCS Teacher's Handbook clarifies what is meant
by teaching science as enquiry.
To teach science as enquiry means first to show students how knowledge arises
from the interpretation of data. It means, second, to show students that the
interpretation of data, indeed even the search for data, proceeds on the
basis of concepts and assumptions which change as our knowledge grows.
It means, third, to show students that because these principles and concepts
change, knowledge changes too. It means, fourth, to show students that,
though knowledge changes, it changes for good reason — because we know
better and we know more than we knew before.
Let me repeat a few phrases from the quotation. It says show the student
that knowledge arises from data. Show the student that knowledge changes.
The point is that merely telling students about such things is not effective.
The Invitations to Enquiry are designed to exhibit scientific enquiry in op-
eration and to invite the student to contribute to the enquiry outlined in
each Invitation.
BSCS is also currently working on two kinds of supplementary mate-
rials. One is a pamphlet series. These will be 32-page pamphlets dealing
with topics and problems in biology which supplement the BSCS materials.
The pamphlets will be sold on a subscription basis: eight will be published
each year. The other kind of supplementary material is films, which present
materials which cannot be presented in other ways. For example, some
film sequences will deal with laboratory investigations which cannot be readily
done by students or teachers because of unavailability of equipment, danger
involved, or similar factors. Others will also present areas of biology with
which the student cannot have direct contact. For example, desert and
marine biomes can be presented on films for students in inland areas who
have never seen such biomes.
So far, I have described mainly what materials in the form of various
publications are available. This does not really tell you very much about
how BSCS attempts to convey an image of modern biology. This can only
be done if we examine a little bit more closely the contents of these books.
Two characteristics distinguish BSCS biology from traditional biology.
These characteristics have been described earlier, but let me mention them
again. One is that BSCS biology attempts to convey a comprehensive picture
of the total field of biology. Another way is by emphasis on various or-
The BSCS Program for Teaching Biology 305
ganizing ideas — conceptual schemes — which enable us to organize the details
of facts and principles that are considered current biological knowledge.
These organizing concepts have been called "the BSCS themes" and include:
evolution, complementarity of organism environment, and so on. These have
been mentioned earlier. The main point is that in all of the BSCS texts
and laboratory materials of the three Versions there has been an attempt
to weave these major ideas throughout the materials. It is as though the
themes were horizontal threads woven through the entire material. The levels
or areas of biology could be considered analogous to vertical threads. That
is, the levels of biological organization and the BSCS themes can be con-
sidered the warp and woof of the texture of the BSCS materials. BSCS dif-
fers from traditional biology is in its attempt to convey some comprehensive
and organized view of the total field of biology as a discipline with emphasis
on biological investigation or enquiry. As I have said earlier, the processes
of investigation in any science are becoming relatively more important than
the products of that investigation. This is the case because biological re-
search is continuing at such a rapid rate that the products — the knowledge —
of research in any field are becoming almost completely reorganized and
revised in a relatively short period of time. For example, it has been predicted
that there will be a complete reorganization of biological knowledge within
ten or fifteen years. What this reorganization and revision means is not
that old facts and principles are discarded but rather that old facts and
principles take on new meaning or become revised in the light of new knowl-
edge. Because of these revisions, reorganization, and new facets of meaning,
biology learned only as a body of knowledge rapidly becomes unfamiliar
after one learns it. Hence it is extremely important to understand the proc-
esses of enquiry which lead to this revision and reorganization of knowl-
edge. It is only by understanding enquiry that the revision of knowledge
can be understood both in terms of specific changes in knowledge and in
terms of why revision occurs — (for example, in cell reproduction, "splitting"
of chromosomes, cf. "duplication" of chromosomal material).
It is for these reasons that BSCS so strongly emphasizes processes of
enquiry. Enquiry not only is the heart of any science in the sense that
science is a way of "finding out," but also, the products, or knowledge —
what we find out — are truly meaningful only in relation to the ways in which
we find them out. Hence enquiry which has been neglected to some extent
in all science teaching, and particularly in the teaching of traditional biology,
is put back into proper perspective by BSCS. It may seem to some persons
that the BSCS emphasizes the processes of investigation too much, that is,
to the exclusion of the products — the biological knowledge. This is only
an apparent over-emphasis because BSCS emphasizes something that has
previously been omitted almost entirely. Learning about enquiry in isolation
from accumulated knowledge is no more valid than to learn accumulated
knowledge apart from understanding the processes which have led to it.
There are various ways in which biological enquiry is incorporated into
the BSCS materials. First of all, there has been an attempt to design labora-
tory exercises which are investigative in nature rather than illustrative. In
traditional biology, laboratory exercises have been designed primarily to il-
lustrate facts, principles, phenomena, and knowledge of organisms which
have previously been learned from a textbook. In investigatory laboratory
exercises there is an attempt to have students deal with small problems that
reflect and are parallel to the kind of investigation that actually goes on in
biological research. These, of course, have to be scaled to the competence
306 Secondary School Department
and knowledge with which the students have to work. But such exercises can
be devised.
Besides the investigatory laboratory exercises reflecting biological research,
there is an attempt to present exercises which deal with phenomena and
principles with which the students are not already familiar from their text-
book study. That is, the students actually may discover new principles —
principles which they do not already know — as a result of their laboratory
exercises. Many of the laboratory exercises now in the revised Versions
are of the illustrative type. These exercises are still useful. But there has
been some attempt to develop exercises which much more strongly em-
phasize investigation than has been the case in the past.
There has been an attempt to write the texts in a way which reflects and
illustrates biological enquiry. Certain portions of the text present current
views on a subject, developed step by step through a description of the ex-
periments performed, the data obtained, and the interpretations made of them.
Notable examples of such narratives of enquiry are found in sections on
genetics and development. The Laboratory Blocks are, of course, a means of
better understanding biological investigations since these provide laboratory
work which is interspersed with discussion designed to analyze and syn-
thesize work previously done in the laboratory. As I indicated earlier, the
investigations in each Block parallel what a research biologist might do if
he began at the same point from which the high school students begin.
Another way in which the BSCS attempts to convey an understanding
of enquiry to the students is by means of such special teaching devices as
the Invitations to Enquiry. As described earlier, these are patterned dis-
cussions in which the students are free to deal with the intellectual problems
involved in enquiry. They are supplements to the laboratory. It is unfortu-
nately all too often true that students become so engrossed in the tech-
nological aspects of enquiry — that is, the particular techniques they must
acquire, the ability to use certain kinds of equipment, and so on — that
the intellectual aspects of enquiry are often left out of the picture. By in-
tellectual aspects of enquiry I mean understanding the relationships between
data and interpretation.
What makes the difference between a valid interpretation as compared
with a less valid interpretation?
What is involved in designing experiments relative to stated problems?
Does the statement of the problem itself partly determine the design of
experiments used to investigate the problem?
What are the underlying assumptions which are used in interpretation
of data?
What assumptions are involved when we view a situation and define a
problem? It is such questions as these which point up the intellectual prob-
lems involved in any kind of scientific enquiry.
In work with teacher-preparation programs, BSCS emphasizes that the
ways in which materials are handled in a class situation can reflect and il-
lustrate the kind of thought and communication which occurs among scien-
tists. Let me try to illustrate this. If a teacher sees his role as that of an
authority — one who has many of the answers — then the teacher is assuming
a role comparable to a traditional encyclopedic textbook. Such textbooks
attempt to present in an organized way all of the things that are known
in a given subject-matter area. If the teacher's role is that of an authority
The BSCS Program for Teaching Biology 307
in biology, he is functioning in much the same way as an encyclopedia-like
biology text does. This is not to say this role is never desirable or that such
textbooks are not useful. It is simply to say that the role of the teacher
as an authority and encyclopedia-like textbooks are better suited to con-
veying an image of science as an established body of knowledge than they
are suited to conveying an image of science as ways of finding out. The
role of the teacher which is more appropriate to the image of science as a
way of finding out is as a guide and assistant to learning.
One of the advantages of the BSCS program is that the materials have
been developed by groups which represent various components of the bio-
logical and teaching communities. The BSCS materials represent a con-
sensus of opinion as to what is good modern biology. This consensus has
been arrived at as a result of extensive discussion and interaction between
research biologists and high school teachers of biology. Hence the
BSCS materials represent a "community decision or judgment" as to what is
good biology. Thus the teacher is freed from having to assume the role
of personal taskmaster. As personal taskmaster, the individual teacher alone
decides what is a good biology course. But when this is not necessary, the
teacher can act as guide and assistant to help the student better attain an
understanding of the modern biology which "community" judgment has des-
ignated as good biology. In the same way, use of tests designed by a
group can free the teacher from the role of the inquisitor. Too often, tests
are viewed by teachers and students alike as a way of getting a mark in a
book for the sake of a report that has to be made later. Very often students
see examinations as simply the whim of the teacher. When, however, there
is a group of individuals separate from the classroom working to develop
tests that test for the abilities and learnings which constitute BSCS aims, then
again the teacher can assume the role of guide and assistant to the student in the
attainment of these learnings and abilities.
One of the aspects of classroom presentation which clearly illustrates the
difference between the teacher as a guide and assistant rather than as an
authority or taskmaster, is the matter of discussion. Discussion is an integral
part of the high school classroom, and it should be. However, there is not
just one kind of discussion. There are many kinds of discussion. For ex-
ample, there is discussion in which the teacher is guide and assistant to
learning. The Invitations to Enquiry have been patterned in such a way
that the teacher has been put into this role. In contrast, there is discussion
in which the teacher is a quiz master. Rapid-fire questions are presented to
the students; if one student does not answer immediately then the question
is put to the next student and so on until the answer which the teacher is
looking for is stated by some student. There is also the discussion in which
the teacher has a role comparable to a television MC: this is to keep every-
one happy and agreeable and participating in a general conversation period.
In this, there is simply an exchange of anecdotes and experiences without
anyone dealing much with what is learned from others. Sometimes a bull
session can degenerate into a discussion in which individuals are determined
to convince all of the others that their position is right. Then the role of
the teacher becomes that of a referee.
Now, all kinds of discussion perhaps have a place in the classroom at
certain times. For example, it is desirable occasionally to have a bull-session
type of discussion period. It is occasionally useful to have a rapid-fire ques-
tion-and-answer type discussion since this is a good way of drilling students on
information which they are expected to have acquired.
308 Secondary School Department
But for the most part, the guided discussion in which the teacher's role
is that of guide and assistant to the students' learning is probably most appro-
priate to science teaching. This is the case because such guided discussions can
parallel and approximate the kind of thought and communication that actually
goes on in the scientific community. This type of discussion involves individual
minds interacting in trying to deal with and solve commonly understood prob-
lems. One individual revises or extends a point which another individual has
made just previously. Another person points out a fallacy in reasoning in a state-
ment just made. One student discerns a point in the problem situation which im-
mediately sparks another student to see a whole new aspect of the situation and,
therefore, a whole new way of dealing with the problem. This is what is actually
done in the exchange of ideas that goes on through published research reports.
In addition, in the guided discussion the teacher can work with one student at
a time if he so chooses to help that one student step by step attain an under-
standing which he did not have previously. Over a period of time each student
can be helped and guided so that he begins to be able to see the way his thought
processes can lead him to a better understanding. The Teacher's Handbook
presents a more complete discussion of discussion and of other aspects of
teaching biology.
Another of the things that is discussed in the Teacher's Handbook and which
is crucial to conveying an understanding of biological science as enquiry is the
kind of tests that are used in connection with the biology course. As all teachers
well know, students will learn what they are to be tested on. This means that
regardless of our good intentions on developing certain competencies and learn-
ings, if we do not test for these, then our good intentions are for naught. The
BSCS has designated four major kinds of competencies crucial to BSCS biology.
These are:
1. Ability to recall and reorganize materials learned.
2. Ability to show relations between bodies of knowledge.
3. Ability to apply knowledge to new concrete situations.
4. Ability to use skills involved in understanding scientific problems.
The last is actually a whole group of abilities involved in understanding biological
enquiry.
Because test items are very difficult to construct, the first category — ability to
recall and reorganize materials learned — is the ability most usually tested for.
Items of this type are easiest to construct. But if an effort is not made to test
for the other kinds of abilities, then they may as well not be included as aims of
the BSCS course. It is tor this reason that this past year BSCS has formed a
test construction committee which is attempting to devise test items which will
adequately reflect BSCS aims.
One further point. Regardless of the quality of BSCS materials (they are
certainly not perfect but probably are better than other materials available for
high school biology), the central factor in any good course is the teacher. The
teacher is the one who determines the ways in which materials are presented —
and these ways, as I have tried to indicate previously, can be consistent with
certain aims or with other aims. Hence, if BSCS materials are not presented
in class in ways which are consistent with BSCS aims, then the BSCS materials
will have much less value.
It is for this reason that BSCS has been working with colleges and universities
in planning programs for in-service teachers who want to teach BSCS biology.
I will merely list some of the factors which are of crucial importance to these
BSCS: One Teacher Speaking to Another 309
teacher-preparation programs. A list should be adequate since most of these
factors have already been discussed.
Factors which are crucial in teacher preparation for BSCS are the following:
1. Laboratory experience relative to familiarity with laboratory techniques,
and especially to familiarity with scientific enquiry.
2. Discussion and other means of presentation of materials.
3. Construction of tests.
[A question period followed.]
BSCS: ONE TEACHER SPEAKING TO ANOTHER
Sister M. Ivo, B.V.M.
PILOT TEACHER, BSCS, THE IMMACULATA HIGH SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Taking an active part in this convention is both stimulating and exciting.
It is stimulating because we are here to exchange facts and ideas, thereby
experiencing the professional enrichment that flows from this kind of inter-
change. It is exciting because we are pioneering in an educational movement,
the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study.
Miss Klinckmann, who is a member of the BSCS writing staff, clearly
defined to you the aims, levels, and themes of the program. She also pointed
out the differences between the versions and explained why one teacher
might choose one or another of the versions. Supplementary materials were
described and then Miss Klinckmann added a significant point — that these
materials, as they exist, represent a community decision. Prior to this time,
a method or a system or a book on high school biology was the result of
the work of one or two gifted persons. But here we have the combined force
of 110 minds, with each writer a master in his field. There are contributions
by Marston Bates of the University of Michigan, Charles Botticelli of Harvard,
Donald Bucklin of Wisconsin, Ingrith Deyrup of Barnard, Frank Erk of
New York State University, and numerous other distinguished scholars. The re-
sults are so impressive that other countries have sent representatives to AIBS
headquarters in Boulder to translate the BSCS materials into their own native
languages. Miss Klinckmann described the entire program to you; she
enumerated its structure and nature and what is more, she did an excellent
job.
You may ask then, why I am here. Is there any more to say? I am here
because we feel that you may be wondering about such matters as:
1. What type of material is included in a single version?
2. Is the cost of laboratory equipment prohibitive?
3. Is the program workable, and are the less talented students able to com-
prehend it?
4. What is a typical chapter like and how do the lab assignments cor-
relate with it?
310 Secondary School Department
5. Lastly, what about me as a teacher? I have long ago graduated from
college and am beginning to be dated. Can I fit into the program?
Let me begin by saying that I am a pilot teacher of the Blue Version in
the Chicago Center. This is the reason I am before you. I am not dis-
tinguished in any particular way. I am average. In fact, that is the reason
I was selected. The BSCS committee wanted an average teacher to tell you
how this program operates in an average classroom and school.
Now for the first question: What type of material is included in a single
version? Because I am teaching the Blue Version I shall confine my remarks
solely to this text. This version consists of a biochemical and physiological
approach emphasizing the subcellular level in all living matter. Academically,
I believe that this version is the most demanding of the three; however, this
is a personal viewpoint and may be prejudiced. The book begins by in-
troducing the student to the nature of scientific knowledge and the method
of solving a problem. From here on, the evolutionary theme prevails. Dar-
win's theory of natural selection and the heterotroph hypothesis are devel-
oped chapter by chapter. It is a distinct advantage to present this hypo-
thesis because it is so deeply rooted in chemical evolution and provides the
opportunity of developing the necessary concepts of the growth of biological
life. The hypothesis is further developed to include the problems of energy
utilization as it relates to primitive life on earth. Oparin's sixth and seventh
assumptions introduce DNA and how this material applies to self-duplication,
coding, and variation. A comparative study of energy utilization in digestion
and excretion concludes Part 2 of the text. Problems of integration in higher
levels of societies and population studies are taken up in the last chapters
of the book.
The vital question that faces every teacher is: How is the student best
helped in acquiring qualities of creative thought as well as precise quantitative
procedures in experimentation? Surely the answer cannot be "by memorizing
facts or even by teacher-centered situations." The BSCS is a lab-centered
program, wherein biology is not taught as an anthology of topics but rather
as scientific discoveries. Facts are not covered but uncovered. The lab is
not a place for problem doing but for problem solving.
This brings up our second question: Are lab requirements and costs pro-
hibitive? No. This I say emphatically, but I will qualify the statement and
show how you can obtain supplies from the various sources that surround
you — surplus centers, hospitals, and second-hand shops. At most I spent
$500 for equipment this year, and 1 think I have as much as one finds in
most public schools. The material I purchased took care of four classes that
totaled 120 students. From a second-hand store I purchased an icebox, four
electric plates, and a pressure cooker. From a local hospital I collected dis-
posable syringes and discarded plastic tubing from glucose injections. The
school engineer made an incubator out of plywood and glass. Water bottles
can be an excellent substitute for the necessary water outlets needed for
special experiments. A common source of these plastic dispensing bottles is
discarded detergent and shampoo containers. Do not overlook the unlimited
help you can obtain from the physics and chemistry laboratories in your own
schools.
The next question is: Does the course really work? What do students get
out of it? I thought these answers ought to come from the students, so I
asked for some volunteer comments. I will read them. You will have to
believe them to be true.
BSCS: One Teacher Speaking to Another 311
Student A: "I have a sister who is taking the old biology course and
as far as I can see, the greater part of her learning involves memory work,
whereas ours demands practical thinking. Ours is a challenge to the minds
of those students who want to improve their reasoning."
Student B:"BSCS is not failing in its purpose; this is proven by the way
everyone pays attention during class. In the beginning of the year I dis-
liked this biology very much because the reading was too heavy. But later
I found out the more I read the easier the reading became. Now, I am glad
that we have it."
Student C: "To me the one thing that seemed to be stressed is each
student on his own. Everything that one accomplishes is achieved by the
individual himself. We should not rely on others to do our thinking and
just accept chewed-up facts."
Student D: "The main accomplishment the program has achieved for
me is my new spirit of inquiry. I now form my own judgments and draw
my own conclusions rather than hunt for answers in the text."
Student E: "I have a wider outlook on daily happenings and events.
I think I have become more alert and probe into things deeper than I did
before."
Student F: "Since taking this biology I have learned how to enter into
discussions. I like this way of learning. It is much better than questions
and answers."
On the next question: Am I, the BSCS teacher, satisfied with the results
of the course? Yes, I think I can say that I am. Standardized tests that each
center takes indicate that my classes are doing good work. We have some
very stimulating discussions. No one is allowed to monopolize time. It must
be a free and easy discussion in which there is a volleying back and forth
of the chapter's work.
While I am here in Detroit my classes are being proctored, and the students
are reviewing in a discussion manner eight chapters on which they will be
tested by the ETS testing program. I think that this proves that the BSCS con-
tributes to the development of attitudes and skills that are functional and that
it stimulates conceptual thinking, consequently lessening the student's depend-
ence on the teacher. And have not all students the right to become self-educable?
BSCS Laboratory vs. Traditional Approach
How does a BSCS lab lesson differ from the traditional approach? To describe
it briefly, the traditional is descriptive. Students make collections, look at pre-
served slides, and for the most part use pickled specimens. Students poke away
at the specimens and recite a great deal of rote material, learning little of the
processes by which life exists.
The BSCS, on the other hand, completely departs from the phyllagenetic ap-
proach. Because of the recent breakthrough in chemistry and physics, molecular
biology here emerges as an exciting subject. Quantitative results are sought. The
lab is accentuated; about 65 per cent of the class time is spent here. It is here
that the work of science is really done and methods are transmitted. Here one
learns which questions can be answered fruitfully; why science insists on
exact measurements, accurate observations, and clarity of communication.
Experiments rarely include pickled specimens. Laboratory work includes either
chemical analysis, quantitative data, or experimentation on living tissues.
312 Secondary School Department
No lab exercises are compartmentalized. Each is a dovetailed complement of
the other, filling a specific niche in the text. A typical chapter with its accom-
panying experiments — Chapter 21: Transport Systems in Animals — illustrates
graphically what I mean. It consists of a treatment of homeostasis; that is, the
ability to maintain a constant internal environment, or the maintenance of a
steady state. It includes a complete articulation of the blood and lymph systems.
The supplementary material, "Invitations to Enquiry," have seven specific invi-
tations which a teacher may use in developing this chapter. One specific invi-
tation, a thermostatic model, clarifies the principle of homeostasis by urging the
student to explore something nonbiological — the thermostat. He learns to apply
the principles that operate this mechanical model to homeostasis.
The text then proceeds to the articulation of circulation. The corresponding
experiments consist of observations made on the capillary systems found in the
webbed foot of a frog or the tail of a goldfish. Blood cells can be seen passing
through the capillaries, and various chemicals are used to induce dilation and
constriction of the wall of the capillaries . At this time an experiment on the
cellular composition of blood is made, components are identified and the blood
grouping is made.
Next, the text develops the structure and function of the heart as a pump.
Here, with the usual beef or pig hearts as specimens, an unusual dissection
procedure is given.
Another extremely fascinating experiment deals with the physiological pro-
cesses of blood, and clotting reaction of citrated blood are observed and con-
trolled. The effects of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide in citrated
blood are also studied.
This brief description is a sample of the entirely fresh laboratory approach
of the BSCS program.
How Do Religious Fit into the BSCS Pattern?
Now where do we religious fit into the BSCS pattern? My answer to this is
another question. Have we grown professionally along with biological ad-
vances? We are the teachers of a generation of students who face a future in-
volved in the perils of cosmic radiation and null gravity. Those who will make
the 240,000-mile venture into the vast void, to that airless, waterless, lunar
rock, are among the American students in today's classroom. All science
teachers must reemphasize their dedication in a strong offensive. We cannot
be mere bystanders to scientific progress. We cannot run the risk of missing the
significance of a single key phase. We have compelling obligations. Our Holy
Father was the first to make us realize this with his pertinent message that
"we are to be teachers of professional competence above average, better still,
outstanding on all levels of instruction." Now, he did not exclude science from
his remark. He said, "all levels of instruction." Cardinal Cushing stated about
a year ago that theologians (and here I think that the Cardinal could have
included religious as well) were failing to keep abreast with the scientific ex-
plorations and discoveries of the present era.
"The failure of theologians to join forces with the scientists," the Cardinal
said, "was the cause for the estrangement of religion and science."
Another well known clergyman, Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, president of
Notre Dame University, stated that the vitality of Catholic learning in any era
must be seen in the light of its influence on that era. "What must future judges
think of us if we live in the most exciting age of science and then philosophize
mainly about Aristotle's physics?" Father Hesburgh continued with the startling
remark, "Must we always be the last to initiate anything new and imaginative,
BSCS: One Teacher Speaking to Another 313
anything intellectual, the first in those obvious causes like anti-Communism and
old clothing drives? We took the wrong turn in the road of science as far back
as Galileo, and we are still lagging behind."
Here are the sentiments of three outstanding leaders of the Catholic Church
in reference to modernizing our teaching and learning of science. Religious
teachers have security in their jobs in the Catholic school system, but this is all
the more reason why we must not allow ourselves to grow intellectually
apathetic. That Catholic school enrollments have increased 500 per cent since
1900 reveals the Catholic parents' trust in us as educational leaders. Are we
worthy of this trust? Catholic schools, wherever it is possible, must incorporate
scientific progress into their educational program, for leadership in the scien-
tific field constitutes a major strength of a democratic nation.
Now for the last question: What about me, the teacher? Can I fit into the
program? A teacher whose education has been dogmatic and doctrinaire will
be somewhat unprepared to teach BSCS as science inquiry. A teacher whose
training demanded acquiescence or passivity may be unprepared to demand
anything from his students. But regarding needs — that is, background courses
in science that teachers who are interested in BSCS feel that they must have —
really nothing more is demanded than that which the ordinary science teacher
already has: surely an average amount of scientific knowledge and a receptive
mind. A background of organic chemistry is not necessary but it is most help-
ful. One is encouraged to read avidly all scientific journals and to keep abreast
of the newest discoveries. James Harlowe recently wrote that perhaps the most
frightening aspect of America's predicament with respect to education in the
sciences is the possibility if not the probability that fewer than 10 per cent of
the precollege teaching staff holds any real awareness of the basic nature of
science.
The problem is becoming increasingly grave. Those of us who took our
degrees fifteen or more years ago are presenting materials that lack modern
concepts. Every decade, 25 per cent of the curriculum must be abandoned be-
cause of obsolescence; how great a portion of what is now known in science
was not in the books when we went to school! To any who would like to intro-
duce the course into their schools next year, I would suggest that they become
familiar with all BSCS materials before making a final choice of text.
Secondly, it would be to the advantage of the teacher to attend an institute
before BSCS embarcation, thus ensuring a successful launching.
There is the story of the French marshall who wanted to plant a special type
of tree in his garden. Upon hearing the request, the gardener said, "Oh, sir,
it is a slow growing tree. It will take many years for it to mature." Whereupon
the marshall said, "In that case, there is no time to lose. Plant it this afternoon."
And that is the way I feel about this program. Start today. Study the materials.
It will be to your professional profit.
314 Secondary School Department
TEAM TEACHING AT CHAMINADE HIGH SCHOOL,
DAYTON#OHIO
BY MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY
ORIGINS AND AIMS OF OUR EXPERIMENT IN TEAM TEACHING
After much planning and organizing, the experiment in team teaching at
Chaminade High School, Dayton, Ohio, began with the fall term of the
scholastic year 1962-63. Three teams were organized: one in the senior
academic English track, two in the junior academic English track, and one
in junior Spanish. Although the team size ranged from 84 to 131 students,
it was found by experience that the best team class would number about 110
students.
Teachers as well as students were a vital concern in the organizing of the
Chaminade team project. Teachers, too, had to be chosen for the team work
for their competencies, interests, and compatibility. Not even every able
teacher was found suited for the team.
Members of the Chaminade faculty studied and analyzed the various aspects
of the team-teaching concept. It was felt that change merely for the sake of
change was not a sufficient reason for the adoption of this technique. In
the final analysis, the why was established and the need seen in the basic
definition of team teaching: two or more teachers responsible for the common
instruction of two or more classes for a top-flight performance. In other
words this meant: quality education for the masses.
With the basic concept in mind, the men of the faculty arrived at these five
simple but meaningful objectives: First, considering the Catholic philosophy
of education, the change must produce better results for the students; second,
the change and the adoption of team teaching must raise the individual and
collective professional standards of the school and teachers; third, team teach-
ing must stimulate both faculty and students to greater efforts in order to reap
the satisfaction from a better job well done; fourth, this change must utilize
the faculty members rather than exploit them; and, finally, five, in going into
team teaching, all the advantages of the technique must be capitalized upon
to the greatest possible extent.
With the experience of the past months as the basis of evaluation, the
teachers of the team look to the future for better ways of achieving the goals
of the Catholic philosophy of education. And the team members of Chaminade
are counting upon team teaching to be one of the big aids in helping to achieve
these goals.
— Brother John Schneider, S.M.
Team Teaching: Dayton, Ohio 315
TEAM TEACHING: ORGANIZATION
Team teaching makes it easy to be efficient. Students, for example, who
need remedial work can be isolated on certain days while the majority in a
group of 120 are occupied with supervised work in reading or composition.
An efficient speech program also can be scheduled in somewhat the same
way. While one teacher supervises reading or composition in a large team
room, the other three each take a group of eight to adjacent classrooms to
listen to prepared speeches. Teachers and students write critiques while the
speeches are being delivered. At the end of the period the teacher comments
on notable strengths and weaknesses.
Team teaching pays its greatest dividends in lectures and demonstrations
to large groups. Each teacher on the team is given time to prepare in depth
and in detail a lecture in an area of literature, for example, in which he is
most proficient. The objective of these lectures, scheduled on an average of
one per week, is to impart basic introductory information, as well as to arouse
enthusiasm for the reading assigned.
All the teachers on the team should be attentively present at the lectures.
The lecturer is then able to give his undivided attention to his lecture or dem-
onstration. And the other teachers are better equipped for the follow-up
work in the discussion groups of thirty on succeedings days.
In these smaller groups the students are aware of a more personal relation-
ship with a teacher as they discuss literature, improve writing skills, review
for tests, and so forth.
The teachers on a team meet frequently to plan as a group. Incidentally,
they learn much from one another as they work out a program in a system
which pays large dividends in variety and flexibility.
— Brother George Deinlein, S.M.
STUDENT EVALUATION OF TEAM TEACHING
Did the students at Chaminade High School feel they really benefited from
team teaching in English? If so, would they benefit in a similar way from
team teaching in other subjects? A careful analysis of some three hundred
"Student Evaluation of English Team-Teaching" forms has enabled me to
come up with an answer for both of these questions.
I believe that there are three fundamental phases of any team teaching pro-
gram— lectures and demonstrations, small discussion groups, and supervised
study. Thus, I will include here primarily the student reaction to these three
elements.
Although many students found fault with some of the lectures for being
long, boring, and at times difficult to follow, they felt that they got better
coverage of the material of the course since different teachers were lecturing
in their fields of special competency and interest. Lectures also taught the
students to take good notes, thus preparing them for college.
Students unanimously praised the small discussion groups as the "backbone"
of team teaching. Here they could ask questions, express their own views,
and receive individual attention.
The majority felt that supervised study was beneficial if the time was prop-
erly supervised and if the student made use of it to his own advantage.
The foregoing remarks were some of the more tangible results of the
316 Secondary School Department
survey. The following will be less tangible — weaknesses and strengths de-
duced from the tone and tenor of student comment.
First, the weaknesses. Some students — especially the less intelligent and/ or
the less industrious — felt insecure in the team-teaching program. Teachers
were frequently rotated, and thus student-teacher rapport was difficult to
maintain. Students sometimes felt they were faced with an impersonal "sys-
tem."
The broader, more general aims of the program were distressing to some
students. They would have preferred more mechanical assignments and
strictly objective tests.
It seems, nevertheless, that student insecurity can be traced largely to a lack
of maturity and of personal responsibility in the learning process. Not, how-
ever, that these need be considered precisely as prerequisites for entering a
team-teaching program. Indeed, perhaps the greatest advantage of the new
method is that it fosters maturity and personal responsibility, for in team
teaching the student's attention is focused on the subject matter and on his
progress in it — not on the personality of the individual teacher.
In answer to the first question posed at the beginning of this paper, I can
say that the majority of our students felt that team teaching gave them more
than the traditional method would have.
Will the student like team teaching in other subjects? I would say yes.
Any department making use of a program which employs broader objectives
set in the basic team-teaching framework of lectures — small discussion groups
and supervised study — will find that the students will respond favorably, albeit
critically, to the new system.
Finally, two recommendations:
1) Send the more intelligent and more enthusiastic students into team
teaching since it requires a certain amount of personal responsibility in
the learning process.
2) Change the teachers of the small groups as infrequently as possible so
that the student retains a personal relationship with some individual
teacher.
— Brother James Cosgrove, S.M.
EXPERIMENT IN SPANISH
An experiment in team teaching in Spanish I was carried out at Chaminade
High School, in Dayton, Ohio.
A unit was initiated by a large group meeting. Here all the students were
exposed to native speakers. The aim was entender — to understand. For forty-
five minutes the students listened to Spanish phrases while the English equiv-
alents were in front of them, and through group recitation memorized them.
Through imitation they learned correct pronunciation.
In the smaller groupings the rest of the unit was taught, each teacher using
the method he preferred — the direct method or the traditional. These groups
numbered less than twenty-five students each, allowing for the desirable in-
dividual attention.
At the end of each quarter a departmental test, parts of which were stand-
ardized, was administered. This test and the achievement of the period were
the criteria for re-grouping the students homogeneously.
Enriching the Curriculum of the Small School 317
All the newly formed groups would still cover the essentials of a unit even
if in a different manner. The more advanced groups could launch into Spanish
conversation. Since all the students met at least five times a quarter in the
large group it was very easy for them to adjust to a new small group.
The uniformity that team teaching provided made the departmental test
very valuable. In order to make the test more valid, team correcting was
initiated. Each teacher corrected one question only per student.
The experiment was carried out at the sophomore level to a limited degree.
Since we only had two Spanish teachers available at that period of the day
the smaller groups numbered forty students. Nevertheless, the sophomores
participated in all the other advantages of the program.
Students and teachers at Chaminade have accepted, enjoyed, and profited
from team teaching.
— Brother Manuel Juan Ramos, S.M.
ENRICHING THE CURRICULUM OF THE
SMALL SECONDARY SCHOOL
Frank W. Cyr
PROFESSOR, TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY; EXECUTIVE SECRETARY,
CATSKILL AREA PROJECT IN SMALL SCHOOL DESIGN, ONEONTA, NEW YORK
The following is substantially Professor Cyr's script which accompanied his
slides illustrating the facilities and the educational services of the Catskill Area
Project in Small School Design (CAPSSD).
The spread of good educational practices is a fundamental objective of the
Central School Study. Pooling and sharing of information regarding good
practice has been, and is, of prime concern to the members of the Study.
During the annual summer workshop at Columbia University, the Central
School Study State Committee extended its policy of pooling and sharing by
entering into a cooperative effort with the Catskill Area Project to disseminate
the findings of CAPSSD throughout the Central School Study.
The purpose of these sessions in the fifteen Central School Study zones
is to share experimental practices which have been developed in the Catskill
Project, and to pool these practices with similar developments in schools out-
side the Catskill area in such a way that they may be available to any Central
School in New York State. Arrangements are being made for interested school
people to visit Project schools. In those instances where initiation of prac-
tices is being planned, Central Schools may want teachers and administrators
from the Catskill Project to visit their home schools.
The Catskill Area Project in Small School Design grew directly out of the
cooperative efforts of the Central School Study and the Catskill Study Council.
An inquiry regarding the possible use of supervised correspondence study to
318 Secondary School Department
increase the variety of curricular offerings in small schools led to a meeting of
interested school personnel within the area. The discussion centered upon the
possibility of an action research project in the area to improve the variety and
quality of education in the small school.
CAPSSD was established in 1957 and financed by a grant from the Ford
Foundation. It is now in its fourth year of operation. The program of the
Catskill Project has been conceived and developed through the cooperative
efforts of administrators and teachers in schools in New York State's upper
Catskill Mountain region. The schools in the project are located in the tri-
county area of Delaware, Otsego, and Chanango counties, and all are twelve-
year schools — kindergarten through high school. They vary in enrollment
from 250 to 1,100 pupils, and present problems of organization, operation,
and programming common to many schools throughout the state.
The communities served by these schools are centered in small towns. Dairy
farming predominates throughout the area. A majority of the students live
on farms and commute to the schools by buses. Businesses in the towns are
confined to servicing the needs of the immediate areas, although there are
several instances of processing of dairy products, making bookcases, bowling
pins, clarinet and dress manufacturing, hydraulic lifts, insurance offices, and
other small industrial operations. A large Scintilla Magneta Corporation,
Bendix Aircraft, employs many in the tri-county area. Schools themselves
are often the largest single business in the district, employing the greatest
number of people locally.
What are the characteristics of these small schools? First, the small schools
serve small groups. Second, human relations are basic. In these schools,
students, teachers, administrators, and parents know one another. This face-
to-face relationship, in school and out, is a distinctive inherent characteristic
which the small school can use with great effectiveness. Pupils and faculty
have much in common through sharing community life. A third characteristic
is that organization and operation are closely articulated. Each school has
one student body, one faculty, one administrator, and a continuous curriculum,
elementary through high school, all in one building. Teachers, guidance
counselors, nurses, and special services provide for both elementary and
secondary grades. Fourth, the school is an integral part of the community.
Having contact with both pupils and adults, the school is both in structure
and daily operation a part of community life. Many of the community activities
are centered in the school building. What goes on in the school has a direct
bearing on community life.
How May These Characteristics Be Used to Better Meet
The Needs of the Pupils
To provide for the needs of the students, the school's operation must be
flexible. Curricular offerings on a wide and varied basis may not be possible
through the traditional one-subject-per-teacher-per-period classroom regime.
Flexibility in program is the key to small school design.
The staff of the school must be versatile to meet the flexibility needs of the
small school. Where there are not enough pupils to justify the usual class, a
multiple class can be organized in which a pupil or several pupils proceed
on their own initiative and responsibility under the advice and guidance of a
teacher who is constantly available to several groups in the same room at
the same time. Versatile teachers who enjoy working with students as they
work together are particularly adapted to guide this type of learning. Teachers
who are able to use resources other than their own memories, and to use
Enriching the Curriculum of the Small School 319
communications devices other than their own voices, in creating effective
learning situations are required.
In the small school, space must be provided for multipurpose use, since
the traditional classroom can not serve the needs of these varied activities.
The major problem, then, of the small school is to increase the variety of
educational opportunity, retaining and improving the quality of instruction.
The one basic limitation of small schools is the few human memories on the
faculty available to provide the information pupils need. The analogy of a
railroad train to the automobile highlights some of the differences between
the large and small school.
A large school, like a railroad train, is designed on the principle of specializa-
tion. The train is a series of specialized units — locomotive, baggage car,
day coaches, and diner — loosely coupled together. It is the best design so far
discovered to transport hundreds of people at one time from one large city
to another. A big school is a series of specialized units, too. The elementary
pupils are segregated by age; the secondary pupils are segregated according
to specialized subjects.
Small schools, however, can no more be patterned on large school design
than automobiles can be patterned on trains. But small schools should be
designed as small schools to serve educational needs just as the automobile
serves the needs of transportation of small groups.
This means that there is need for a design that will replace the rigidity of
the specialized pattern with a more flexible pattern. How to provide this
flexibility and how to initiate developments is the problem faced by the co-
operating systems in the Project.
Excellent studies lie on bookshelves unread and unused since those who could
use them to advantage were never involved in their development, and conse-
quently, have little or no interest.
Involvement of staff was a prime consideration in the Project since the more
dramatic changes in schools come when the associated research is conducted
within the schools with the teachers themselves taking part. Study Groups
were initiated in each of the areas of development in CAPSSD. Through
these groups, individual teachers came to revise programs within their own
setting and to experiment. Guidelines were formulated and the information
disseminated to other schools within the Project.
Multiple Classes in Same Room
Flexibility is the key to small school design. Basic consideration to increas-
ing the variety within the small school is the provision of learning in subjects
when groups too small for a regular class may be enrolled. Multiple classes —
two or more different subjects taught in the same room at the same time by
the same teacher — increase the flexibility of small schools. More subjects may
be offered. Students have greater opportunity to develop skills and compe-
tencies in diverse areas. Technological communications, supervised corre-
spondence courses, flexible scheduling, school aides, shared services, a pro-
gram for able and ambitious students, are each in themselves paths to flex-
ible programs. Each, however, supports and provides implementation of the
multiple class. The approach to small school design has been one of a co-
ordinated, interrelated attack upon the problem of restricted curriculum in
small schools.
Let us look carefully at this teaching situation in the multiple class. Earth
science and general science are being taught in the same room at the same
time by the same teacher. The teacher is addressing a small group on the
320 Secondary School Department
human anatomy; the group at the left is at work cooperatively on a prepared
learner lesson in general science; a third group is doing workbook assign-
ments involving study of the eye; a fourth group is preparing a tape record-
ing for class use in earth science, and still another group is at the lab tables
working over maps in earth science. This, then, is the multiple class in
operation; small group learnings — students proceeding on their own initiative
and responsibility, working cooperatively using learner guides, worksheets,
and teacher-prepared lessons.
How do students react to this departure from the traditional class?
"We do more on our own and learn more, too" is one comment.
"You get a feeling of achievement when you finish an assignment because
you have figured out things for yourself and in discussion with other students,"
is a second.
What about the teacher? Versatility of staff is a key to flexibility in small
schools. It needs a teacher who can depart from the traditional one-class,
center-of-the-class approach, to small group learning and operation in many
areas. Many teachers in the Project are using multiple classes effectively. A
teacher may teach French and Latin in the same room at the same time. A
student in the same room may be studying German through the use of a
supervised correspondence course. Three groups in Business Education study
in the same room at the same time and use technological aids. In mathe-
matics, general mathematics and an elementary algebra class are taught in
the same room at the same time. Three different courses in art and one in
mechanical drawing. Homemaking has always been a center of small group
learning around different subject areas.
The question might be asked: "Isn't the quality of instruction lowered in
such situations?" Quality might suffer were it not for the aids developed by
these teachers to carry some of the burden. What are these? The teacher in
the multiple class uses technological aids to increase the number of human
memories and voices to the student. Technological aids are not replacements
for teachers, but aids to teaching. The voice of the teacher is available at
the time the student is ready to use it.
The use of earphones eliminates distractions to other students in the class-
rooms and study halls. Students listen to a Shakespearean record and follow
prepared guides. Technological aids in the form of language labs are in wide-
spread use in the teaching of foreign languages. In this case, students have
three different channels and three communication devices available for their
use. Teachers' tape-recorded guides act as a human voice resource, supple-
menting the teacher's regular class instruction. A three-channel electronic
device was developed as the direct result of the needs of a classroom teacher
in the Project. It is now being marketed and being made available to schools
of the country. Films such as the nationally available physics film shown
here have increased the resources used by students, both as a supplement to
the teacher in the classroom and as a resource available to small groups or
individuals.
Experimentation in the use of learner guides and machines as an aid to
the classroom teacher has been under way. A learning machine is being devel-
oped by a supervising principal of a Project school. A teacher in the system
is now preparing material in social studies for use with this machine.
Technological aids, then, have played an important part in increasing the
number of resources available to the classroom teacher to meet the needs of
small group learning.
Enriching the Curriculum of the Small School 321
Supervised correspondence studies provide a second means of increasing
the resources available to students in small schools. "Supervised" means "un-
der the direction and guidance of the local teacher." Schools are using super-
vised correspondence courses to meet individual and small-group needs. Success
in correspondence courses is related to: a recognized need on the part of
the student; a student with the initiative to meet this need; a sympathetic,
interested staff member available to guide the student; and a definite time and
place in the schedule when the student works on the course. Although the
correspondence center teacher works closely with the student, the local teacher
remains the key to the use of these courses to increase the variety of curricular
offerings in the small school.
The Time Schedule
The master schedule indicates to a great extent the basic philosophy of the
school. Compartmentalism and specialization is emphasized in the traditional
40-minute class, 8-period day.
Flexibility to meet the needs of comprehensiveness in the small school would
seem to require utilization of time in units other than in the traditional blocks.
Flexible scheduling emphasizes staff and facility versatility and focuses upon
individual learning rather than class instruction. The schedule is viewed as
an administrative device to facilitate the school's purposes.
Experimentation within the Project schools has been upon schedule de-
signs which provide longer periods. An increased personal interaction be-
tween the teacher and the individual students is sought through these longer
time periods. Teachers are available to use a greater variety of aids to teaching
than in traditional schedules.
Four CAP schools have adopted the floating period to the new six-period
day. This schedule provides seven 57- or 5 8 -minute periods, each scheduled
four times a week, and two periods for activities.
School Aides
A question often asked regarding multiple classes and the use of techno-
logical aids is, "How can the teachers find the time to prepare lessons, mark
papers, keep attendance records, and do the many odd jobs which have come
to be connected with teaching?" An increasing number of schools are finding
the answer by hiring competent adults as school aides to do the routine chores
and the handling of technological devices that usually consume so much of the
professionally trained teacher's time.
School aides as used in the Catskill Project are versatile, resourceful adults
who relieve, on a paid basis, two or more teachers of necessary, time-consum-
ing tasks not directly related to instruction. The aide may work on a flexible
time schedule carrying out activities of varying importance designated by pro-
fessional personnel.
The activities are numerous. Here are some of the ways aides have been
used in the Catskill Project: checking attendance reports, marking objective
tests, supervising playground activities, locating teacher materials. Principals,
teachers, and aides plan together the wise use of the aides' time. More than
half of the aides serving in CAPSSD have their programs scheduled at least
one semester ahead.
Aides assist in many of the clerical jobs of the school: for teachers and
librarians, for guidance counselors, for principals; filing, dittoing, and collating
322 Secondary School Department
materials. Aides are also used in study halls where pupils work on their own
and sometimes in small groups.
Teachers are able to utilize technological aids to a greater extent when
school aides are available to assist. The success of the school aides develop-
ment in the Project can be seen through the increase in their use from 12 in
1957 to over 60 in 1959. The purpose of school aides is to give teachers time
to do professional work that will improve the quality, quantity, and variety
of learning by pupils. They constitute an important factor in the small school
design by increasing the resources available to the students.
Shared Services
Shared services are an integral part of the small school's attempt to increase
the educational program of the students. The shared services program is not
new to New York State. It has been expanded in the Project to include the
sharing of students as well as teachers. Expensive facilities in one school are
utilized by students of another through the cooperative efforts of the local
systems.
Typical services in the Catskill schools are: dental hygienist, nurse-teacher,
women's physical education teacher, elementary vocal teacher. Many other
services, including psychologists, speech therapists, and so forth, are in opera-
tion.
Oneonta State University College of Education has welcomed the oppor-
tunity for close cooperation of its staff and the secondary schools in the area.
It has provided a center for the Project headquarters, and has placed its facil-
ities at the service of Project schools. Specialists in education are drawn
from the Teachers College at Oneonta to act as consultants in special and
general fields.
Close cooperation between the State University College and the partici-
pating schools has resulted in the development of an able and ambitious pro-
gram. Classes in advanced mathematics, science, and Spoken Russian were
inaugurated. At present, thirty-seven staff members of the Oneonta College
are associated in some way with the Project program. The program has been
extended to include special classes for teachers on Saturday morning in foreign
languages and mathematics.
The college-secondary school program is a highly significant development
in cooperative effort to improve educational opportunities for students.
Three Points — in Summary
Three points should be made clear in closing:
1. CAPSSD is not an attempt to so strengthen small schools that reorganiza-
tion of districts in New York State is forestalled. On the basis that some small
schools will always exist, it is an attempt to develop those areas through
which these schools can better meet the needs of the pupils.
2. The Project has been developed along lines of action research. The test
of success is the use to which the practices are being placed. The Project is
an attempt, by volunteering participating schools, to develop and initiate ways
by which education within their systems may be improved.
3. The areas of development mentioned — multiple classes, technological
aids, flexible scheduling, supervised correspondence courses, school aides,
shared services, and able and ambitious programs — cannot all be found in
CHEM Study — An Experimental Approach 323
any particular system. Each school has participated in those areas which its
principal and teachers have desired.
A principal in the Project, in speaking of results, states that there are some
developments, strictly attributable to the Project, which can neither be stated
nor measured. They relate to the building of closer teacher relationships and
morale through cooperative effort in study groups, to the development of new
insights as to the job of teaching and to those intangible, often far-removed
from source, results of a new idea, a new approach which a teacher has seen
or heard.
One district superintendent remarks that "For research to have meaning it
must be developed, tested, and applied in the local area." Through projects
such as CAPSSD, teachers in small schools working cooperatively with others,
in their own schools and in neighboring schools, may pool their talents to
provide new methods, materials, and techniques in their own classrooms.
Our attempt here is one of sharing with you the developments of the Catskill
Area Project to the extent that time will allow. If, as a result of this series,
you have some questions regarding the Project; if there is some doubt re-
garding a particular practice about which you may wish further information;
if you have one idea regarding some application within your school; or, if
you may have a development in your school which you would like to share
with others, our purpose has been served.
CHEM STUDY—
AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO CHEMISTRY
(Summary)
J. Arthur Campbell
DIRECTOR, CHEMICAL EDUCATION MATERIAL STUDY;
PROFESSOR, HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE, CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA
The Chemical Education Material Study, operating on a grant from
the National Science Foundation, is investigating means of increasing the
effectiveness of the first-year chemistry course.
CHEM Study is currently trying its third revised version of a laboratory
manual and a text in some 125 high schools with 12,000 students. It is also
trying a teacher's guide, a set of motion pictures, a battery of tests, and some
special equipment and wall charts. Information obtained from the teachers
and students using the materials is currently being used in preparing the
next and final revision of the material, which will appear in printed form for
general use in the fall of 1963.
CHEM Study emphasizes strongly the importance of laboratory observa-
tions, and real experimentation by the students. Student work starts in the
laboratory and, in general, laboratory experiments are done before the topic
is completely investigated in the classroom context. Thus, the student often
324 Secondary School Department
meets an idea for the first time in the laboratory, and then uses the classroom
to explore, amplify, and further understand his observations. The student
is also encouraged to place a minimum emphasis upon strict recall.
The CHEM Study course develops in some detail most of the major con-
cepts which are useful in approaching and understanding the chemical world.
For example, a student is encouraged to think of chemical reactions in terms
of the activation necessary to initiate the reaction, the types of molecular
collisions and interactions necessary to maintain the reaction, and the types
of forces and interactions which lead to a given equilibrium state. This,
in contrast to a more typical approach of merely pointing out which reactions
occur and being able to write over-all equations for them.
Extended efforts are being undertaken to evaluate the potentialities and
possible successes, as well as limitations, of the material, but it is too early
to give a thorough report on this. Current evidence is that teachers must
work very hard during the first year to set up the laboratory and carry on
the experiments, but that most of them find this rewarding in student response.
Current evidence also is that the best students are more challenged, and the
so-called poorer students more interested, than in the past. In fact, there is
considerable evidence that an appreciable number of students with little
indication of scientific ability in the past accomplish considerably more than
would be expected of them in the CHEM Study course.
The finally revised materials will be given one further trial during the
academic year 1962-63, so that by the time the laboratory manual, text,
teacher's guide, films, and other materials are generally available by the fall
of 1963, the over-all course will have been tested in several hundred high
schools with some twenty to thirty thousand students.
THE CASE FOR TELEVISION IN THE
CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL
Dorothy F. Patterson *
PRODUCER, DEPARTMENT OF RADIO-TV EDUCATION, DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS
I am now A producer on the staff of the Department of Radio-TV Education
of the Detroit Public Schools. It is my responsibility to work with the tele-
vision teachers in the production of television lessons, to help them adapt
the content to the medium, to suggest visualization, and ultimately to direct
the program on the air.
What, then, is the case for television in the Catholic high school? Let us
look at some of the advantages of teaching with television. It is possible,
first of all, for one teacher to teach much larger classes, to reach more students
than she ever could in a regular classroom. Naturally there must be a teacher
or even teachers in this larger class during the TV lesson; still some of the
* Dorothy F. Patterson replaced Dr. Edward E. Stasheff, University of Michigan, originally
scheduled to give an address on this subject at the 59th Annual Convention, 1962.
The Case for Television 325
teachers whose classes are involved will be released. And it has been shown
in the three-year experiment carried on nationally under the auspices of
The Fund for the Advancement of Education that television teaching can
be used successfully with larger than normal classes.
One of the first benefits of this use of television is that the classroom
teachers whose time is released during the television lesson can then work
with small groups or even individual students in doing remedial or advanced
work. The teacher thus released is available for guidance, counseling, for
special conference periods.
The second advantage is that the television teacher will be the person with
the best possible background of preparation in her field. But this is not ignor-
ing the importance of the classroom teacher in the over-all ETV picture.
Cliche though it is, two heads are better than one. Television teaching has
to be team teaching, for no one person can simply step before a TV camera
and teach per se. So I say this is an advantage, for the television teacher is
going to be surrounded and aided by the team: the curriculum expert, the
content authority, the producer-director, the artist and scenic designer, the
engineers, and cameramen. All of these people play a tremendously important
part in the lesson which utlimately goes into the classroom.
I myself am teaching just as hard every minute that I sit in the director's
chair calling shots on the air as I ever did in the classroom. It is of vital
importance to me that we use the proper visual at the proper time, that we
see it in as big closeup as possible, that the teacher achieve the purpose of
each lesson. And I am teaching, too, before we go on the air, while we
are in the planning stage. Nor am I ever more thrilled than when during
a rehearsal or a lesson one of the engineers makes a valuable suggestion. In
fact, everyone involved is sincerely concerned that each lesson be the best
possible. The camera man works carefully and creatively to achieve the very
best angle of a shot as the director gives him instructions.
This is certainly one of the biggest advantages — the television teacher is
not alone. She is, indeed, the luckiest teacher I know because she has full
time to devote to one lesson a day. This is Utopia, really. But the end
product, the lesson, more than justifies all of this energy and effort on
everyone's part.
Another advantage is the tremendous challenge which ETV brings to all of
us. In it, we are confronted with a completely new tool for education. We,
as teachers, are ourselves tools for education, and ETV is a new tool, a
new way to stimulate the imagination and the minds of our students. With
it we can bring into the classroom the expert in any field, the important
public figure who would not have time to visit every class but who can and
does give the time for one lesson. So it is that in Detroit we have brought
to all the school children of our metropolitan area members of our City
Council to talk with them about government, and the most prominent doctors,
lawyers, engineers, and artists to discuss their fields as possible careers.
With television we can bring also objects of great significance which would
never be available to the individual teachers. For example, when several
years ago we did a commemorative program on Father Gabriel Richard,
we were able to secure documents in his own handwriting, maps and pictures
of the City of Detroit as it was in his time from the Burton Historical Collec-
tion. For the most part these things are figuratively speaking Kepi under
glass; but this was a program the entire city was going to see so we were able
to borrow these precious articles. We even had Father Richard's glasses,
326 Secondary School Department
loaned to us by Marygrove College. None of these things would be available
to every teacher in every classroom.
Then two years ago Will Geer, the famous Shakespearean actor, was here
with the American Shakespeare Festival Company. We had him on Channel
56 in a program with high school students who were able to question him
about studying Shakespeare. What he said to them meant more to the
youngsters in the studio and to those viewing in school than anything ever
said by one of us as a teacher. Last summer when I went with some eight
hundred youngsters, who were in New York for the National Catholic
Theatre Conference, to a matinee performance of the Shakespeare Festival at
Stratford I could not help but rejoice that we have Mr. Geer on video tape
for the school children of Detroit to see and hear close up.
This then leads me to two more advantages of ETV: (1) video tape, (2)
the closeup. That last word is vitally important, for with television the
student in the classroom is going to see and hear everything in bigger closeup
than he ever could in a regular class. Every youngster is as close to the
visual, or the object, or the teacher as he is to the TV screen. We can take
an object the size of a twenty-five cent piece and fill the television screen
with it. We can show the pronunciation of a foreign language as the native
teacher teaches so that every youngster knows exactly where to place his
tongue, and how to use his lips to form the words correctly. In the scientific
experiment, in the sewing class, each child is closer to the work being demon-
strated than he could ever be in the regular lab or homemaking room. The
art teacher demonstrating a technique in painting, ceramics, or jewelry can
be clearly seen by every student. All the details of the work are clearly visible
to every child. You can almost say that in this one respect alone ETV gives
each child equal opportunity. Just because your name begins with "T' you
don't have to take a back seat. I know I always wished that my name began
with A, B, or C because as "Patterson" I always ended up near the back and
hated it.
Then there is the matter of video tape. You may wonder why I am so
enthusiastic about it. After all, you say, film is just as good a preservative.
To a degree you are right, but nothing has the complete fidelity of video
tape, nor does anything else work so quickly. For this is truly a modern
miracle. I never cease to be awed by the fact that as I sit in the control
room, directing a lesson, it can be video-taped so that when the lesson ends
I have only to walk from the third to the second floor to see that entire lesson
played back on the video-tape machine. Video tape has lasting quality far
outreaching film. It can be played back many, many times with complete
fidelity.
Then there is the immediacy of television. No matter what happens in
the world you can, with the live TV broadcast bring it at once to every
classroom. I remember most vividly the day of Dag Hammarskjold's death.
Our television world history teacher did the most magnificent tribute to this
famous man at the opening of his lesson that could possibly be imagined.
This was immediacy, done to meet the tragic event. All of us who watched
were deeply moved: I know that every child who saw it will remember
it as long as he lives, and that the name of Dag Hammarskjold will be a
meaningful one to him.
In the same way, we took our country's space flights into the classroom.
Thus the use of television as a tool for direct teaching, that is to say for
instruction, or supplement and enrichment, this use, I repeat, is endless.
There is the matter of sharing ideas, learning from each other. It gives the
The Case for Television 327
person involved a good feeling, too. Lynn Olmsted, who was our first
American Literature teacher on television in Detroit, could talk with special
feeling of Robert Frost and his poetry because she had met him, talked with
him, and heard him read his own works at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference.
Three days a week when I go on the air with French 2, I get a special
feeling of nostalgia because the background of the French setting was blown
up by our studio artist from a 2x2 color slide which I took in Paris.
Nor is this the only kind of sharing I have in mind. There is the exchange
of ideas between teachers. All of us can benefit from someone else's bright
idea. This is so often brought out in the team approach to preparation when
one person makes a statement which stimulates another person to a com-
pletely new creative idea. Students add to this, for we can and do bring
students into the studio to take part in the lesson on television with the
teacher. Youngsters from different schools are able to share their ideas and
reactions with each other. In the science lessons, project day is truly an excit-
ing time. The youngsters who come in bringing their projects, which they
have worked out in school with the aid of their classroom teacher, have
made tremendous achievements. Things scientific always have baffled me
and quite honestly I am awed by the achievements of these boys and girls.
There is another kind of sharing. There is the small school with only a
few faculty members, none of whom is prepared to teach certain advanced
or technical subjects. With television these schools can have the advantage
of the best teachers in the field. "Continental Classroom" is undoubtedly
the best known example of this. In fact, the entire MP ATI operation is
now fulfilling just such a need. This kind of sharing results in actual dollars-
and-cents saving, for every school could not afford the total faculty thus
made available to them.
Now, how is all of this television available to you for classroom use?
Quite simply, it is available on the open air waves via the educational channel
in your area, or it is available via closed circuit within your own school or
school system.
In Detroit, WTVS, channel 56, is the ETV channel. Added to it this year
we have channels 72 and 76 with MP ATI. Closed circuit is being used by
Wayne State University and the University of Detroit for teaching within
their own campus limits. They both also do open circuit programs on WTVS.
There have been and still are notable closed-circuit operations in Hagers-
town, Maryland, and in New Orleans, to name only two. Reports of these
have been favorable. You will be interested to know that the Detroit public
schools are on the verge of launching a closed-circuit operation in one of our
high schools. The opportunities for experimental teaching with closed circuit
are limitless.
The materials for either open or closed circuit are, of course, the same.
They may be kinescopes, video tapes, and live broadcasts. The live broad-
casts may be done from a classroom, a school studio, or a central studio.
Some of you have doubtless been receiving and using Detroit public school
lessons on WTVS and MP ATI lessons on the other channels. As Sister
Rosalie and Mrs. Lardie talk with you, they will develop the ways in which
these lessons are achieved from both teaching and production angles.
I would like now to show you a very brief excerpt of one MPATI lesson
in the series "The World of Living Things." This is biology for ninth and
tenth grades. It is taught by Mr. Stephen B. Smalley and it demonstrates
specifically the great advantage of the BCU on television. I do want to point
out that when this lesson would be seen in the classroom no student would
328 Secondary School Department
be as far away from the TV screen as many of you will be here. In the
larger than normal class as many as five or six sets are used. In the small
class each child is well within good viewing area.
[Kinescope excerpt shown.]
I think you will agree that Mr. Smalley has demonstrated television's
advantage with the BCU or even EBCU. True, you might have the model
of the eye in your biology lab, but I still question whether every student
would be able to see it and profit from the lesson to the same extent that
students taking this lesson on TV could.
One more point I would like to make with you is that with television in
the classroom we can for the first time give every parent the opportunity
to know exactly what his child is learning in school, even to share the
learning experience. Many Detroit parents do just this as they tune in
WTVS. What's more, when a child is ill he doesn't have to miss out on
all of his school work. He can follow the lessons at home. Here, too, the
handicapped child can be helped, for he can and does share in the total
lesson. The advantages of television in the school are truly limitless. They
are bounded only by the imagination and inventiveness of all of us. This
is perhaps the key to it all, for I am sure that right here in this room there
are television teachers, viewing teachers, producer-directors, content and cur-
riculum experts, all of whom will be playing a part in future TV. Some of
you may well be doing so now.
This I would say to all of you: If you are given the opportunity to work
in the field, take it. Nothing else you have ever done in education will be as
exciting, as demanding, as exhausting, as completely satisfactory as working
in ETV. In theatre, my first love, there is a well known bromide, "The
Difficult we do immediately, the Impossible takes a little longer."
In television there is no "Impossible." There is always a way it can be
done, there is always someone on the team who has the solution. I consider
myself the most fortunate person alive because I am in the field, that I have
had such wonderful opportunities to grow and develop with this new art.
I look forward with great anticipation to the day when we will have world-
wide telecasting using the satellites. The prospect of youngsters all over the
world being able to learn together, to share their ideas is so tremendous; and
the implications which it has for furthering world unity and understanding
are so overwhelming, that the horizon for education stretches before us as
teachers, challenged anew to give our very best efforts that all children may
have the education which will enable them to realize their full potentialities.
FROM CAMERA TO SCREEN:
TECHNICAL DETAILS OF PRODUCTION AND RECEPTION
Kathleen N. Lardie
DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF RADIO-TV EDUCATION, DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS;
MANAGER, STATION WDTR-WTVS, DETROIT, MICHIGAN
Twenty-sdc years ago, in 1936, the British Broadcasting Corporation inaugu-
rated the first television service. For more than fifteen years television has
been established in the United States, and is now generally acknowledged as
the most persuasive source of entertainment, information, and culture in our
world today. Yet educators whose mission in life is to instruct, inform, and
inspire are still questioning its place in the classroom — still shunning their
responsibility to use this powerful tool of education.
Despite the fact that studies show that 98 per cent of homes have at least
one TV set and that 46 million families give attention to TV approximately
six hours a day (high school students average 14 hours per week) schools
have made few attempts to demonstrate the possibilities of the medium, to
develop criteria for listening, or to raise the standards of the viewing audience
they meet daily.
Yet the elements of TV are not new to the classroom. Visual aids have
been used by teachers for centuries, and learning by the combination of
aural and visual means has always been utilized. With the coming of TV,
which employs charts, books, films, sound, music, voice, teaching becomes
more effective and complete.
Let us review some recent developments in the use of TV in high schools.
Evaluators have found:
That students take instruction via TV for granted.
Recently I watched some 150 eleventh graders viewing a lesson in English.
(Six sets were in operation.) When I tapped a girl on the shoulder and
asked her if she enjoyed the lessons, and why, she replied, "Oh, yes — you
see I'm never disturbed."
In the same class, when the "on-camera teacher" lost her place and asked
the class to bear with her a moment until she found the page, a husky
football player sang out, "It's page 176." He had truly forgotten she wasn't
"live."
Letters are frequently sent to the TV teacher. One I will always remem-
ber. Said a young lady, "You are the only person I ever met who understands
how I feel. I should be able to write poetry like the poet you told us about
today because I too have suffered."
That educational TV gives opportunity for teaching at the highest level.
Well organized stations offer opportunities for supervisors, viewing teachers
and "on-camera" teachers, producers, artists, and others to work together
in planning and evaluating broadcasts. The reaction of the students is care-
fully noted and changes made accordingly.
329
330 Secondary School Department
That TV can bring persons, events, and materials, not readily available in
any other way, to the students.
The entire cultural resources of the city are generally offered to on-camera
teachers. Valuable materials that could not be loaned on a city-wide basis
are offered for use on educational TV.
That TV can address itself to large groups of students thus employing the
services of expert teachers everywhere.
The on-camera teacher with his partners has time for research, prepara-
tion, and presentation. In addition, he should have had wide experience
and knowledge in the field of work presented. Constant evaluation makes it
possible to attain "excellent lessons."
That TV enables the teacher in the classroom to observe his students at
work, noting where interest wanes, and indirectly improving his own method
of instruction.
One teacher observed that some of his students were counting on their
fingers during the lesson, and he had not been aware of this — too busy in
front of the room to note reaction.
That subjects not possible to offer because of teacher shortage can be
presented on TV.
I have visited classrooms where no teacher was present, yet the attention
was high and students knew they were enjoying courses that were formerly
denied them because no teachers were available for small groups in small
cities. I have observed scientific experiments on the air that were not
possible in classrooms because equipment and trained teachers were not
available.
That foreign languages on TV are welcomed not only by students but by
parents. Today's world points up new needs in education.
Many wise classroom teachers are learning foreign languages with their
students. Those classes fortunate to have trained language teachers in the
classroom find new inspiration in teaching.
That all students have a front row center seat at the lesson.
Television sets are so arranged that all students can see each operation
clearly and distinctly. Close-ups enable teachers to demonstrate intricate
details and point up important phases . . . the delicate carvings on Paul
Revere's original silver teapot and his signature on the base could not have
been appreciated by the naked eye.
That TV is a link between home and school. Parents and other citizens
can tune in to the same broadcasts offered the classes.
In what other way could schools demonstrate to the community the daily
instructions they offer?
Summary
As we observe these students we realize that in reality no teacher can take
credit for the growth of TV. In fact, most educators were the last to employ
this medium for their own enjoyment and development. We remember that
it was persons of most modest means who first welcomed the world coming
into their homes — preferred a picture to a slice of bread — were inspired by
the music "flowing in raptures down spillways of space precisely in the pattern
first set down."
If we want our democracy to continue, we must make it possible for every
From Camera to Screen 331
high school student everywhere to develop to whatever heights he is capable.
We repeat so many times that in our democracy "man has a right to knowl-
edge." I say that TV is one of the few sources that makes knowledge
accessible. If we believe that access to knowledge is important, then tomorrow
we must:
obtain confidence in the programs presented;
provide, through exchange of programs, video tapes, and kinescopes, oppor-
tunities for all students in our age to benefit by excellently planned and
produced programs. Our quest for freedom must give equal opportuni-
ties to all.
concern ourselves over raising standards. The surest way to get programs
of high quality is to have the taste of the audience improved. Yet tastes
and standards of a relatively small group of people must not be super-
imposed on the majority.
resolve the time schedule of broadcasts with bulletins published well in
advance of production;
convince the public that in a democracy, education is everybody's business;
demonstrate that the printed page is not the only road to learning;
enlist the cooperation of all classroom teachers to share their techniques
of utilizing TV programs. We must circulate case studies of actual
utilization of TV in classrooms. Excellent effective uses must be dis-
covered and publicized.
extend TV programs not only to handicapped and lonely but to the citizens
who are homebound by family duties yet could and would improve
their learning experiences;
provide the money necessary to equip schools and studios to provide
nothing but the best for our nation's students;
establish Centers of Information to dispel the fear of those who do not
recognize TV as an aid to the work they should do and want to do;
realize the change of instruction demanded by the times — laud the work of
Daguerre, Edison, Marconi, and DeForest as we do the accomplish-
ments of great doctors and artists;
acknowledge the shortage of well trained teachers, and determine that
our best hope for education of large numbers lies in TV;
realize that people are hungry for information, ideas, and knowledge;
appreciate that TV has a profound influence on listeners everywhere;
develop a basic philosophy of TV and determine to promote the highest
possible professional standards of programming everywhere.
question how TV can help to shape America's goals.
In order to serve, it must be given the confidence and attention of the
schools.
Let us hope that television in the high schools everywhere will not be a
dream but a reality. Many of these citizens will form life-patterns during
the years they spend with us. Some will have no other formal training.
The challenge is ours.
332 Secondary School Department
THE ENGLISH TEACHER AND HIS STUDENT
Floyd Rinker
executive director, commission on english,
college entrance examination board, boston, massachusetts
Recently my rather full schedule of office work, school and college
visits, conferences, and other commission affairs was abruptly interrupted for
several weeks. I missed engagements, disappointed people including myself,
neglected the job, but all through no fault of my own. The calendar and the
clock were taken away, and I, in excellent health, was imprisoned only by
earth and sky. I watched the progress of spring in a North Carolina town
and timed the end of winter back home. I sat for hours in the sun, a substitute
for telephone, mailman, and airplane in a brook that fell and paused and fell
again like the waterfall in Tennyson's "The Lotos-Eaters." I had time to
browse in bookshops and to read the lines and between the lines of print.
I tell you this because I learned from my experience. Years out of the class-
room and extreme busyness had made me doubtful of my abilities as a teacher.
I believed the skill and the art were irrevocably gone. Now I was anxious
to have the present job done and get back to the classroom. The gap between
student and teacher, I knew, I could bridge.
And I say this because I and too many of my colleagues among English
teachers are allowing large classes, extracurricular activities, the ever-increas-
ing number of committee and school meetings, not to mention "moonlighting"
and "the irrepressible new," to keep us from the study and meditation and re-
freshment we need for our job. In a world where sculptors and painters spend
months in preparation, where writers have justifiable demands of time and con-
dition and mood, where musicians and stage people get breaks between per-
formances, the English teacher has not seen fit to rebel against an automaton
productivity, a ceaseless repetition of books read and homilies learned in his
own salad days, and consumption of barrels of red ink.
It is now or never that the English teacher sets his course for better teacher
training and for greatness in his profession. He has the most enviable position
in the school; his failure makes unimportant any other success in the school.
If a knowledge of language, the power of expression, and the appreciation —
I use that word in the noblest connotation — of literature are lacking, there is
no schooling in the true sense of that word.
Some centuries past, a young man wrote a letter of application.
Having, most illustrious lord, seen and considered the experiments of all
those who pose as masters in the art of inventing instruments of war, and find-
ing that their inventions differ in no way from those in common use, I am
embolded, without prejudice to anyone, to solicit an appointment of acquaint-
ing your Excellency with certain of my secrets.
1. I can construct bridges which are very light and strong and very portable,
with which to pursue and defeat the enemy; and others more solid, which
resist fire or assault, yet are easily removed and placed in position; and I can
The English Teacher and His Student 333
also burn and destroy those of the enemy.
2. In case of a siege I can cut off water from the trenches and make pontoons
and scaling ladders and other similar contrivances.
3. If by reason of the elevation or the strength of its position a place cannot
be bombarded, I can demolish every fortress if its foundations have not been
set on stone.
4. I can also make a kind of cannon which is light and easy of transport,
with which to hurl small stones like hail, and of which the smoke causes great
terror to the enemy, so that they suffer heavy loss and confusion.
5. I can noiselessly construct to any prescribed point subterranean passages
either straight or winding, passing if necessary underneath trenches or a river.
6. I can make armoured wagons carrying artillery, which shall break through
the most serried ranks of the enemy, and so open a safe passage for the
infantry.
7. If occasion should arise, I can construct cannon and mortars and light
ordnance in shape both ornamental and useful and different from those in
common use.
8. When it is impossible to use cannon I can supply in their stead catapults,
mangonels, trabocchi, and other instruments of admirable efficiency not in
general use ... In short, as the occasion requires I can supply infinite means
of attack and defense.
9. And if the fight should take place upon the sea I can construct many
engines most suitable either for attack or defense and ships which can resist
the fire of the heaviest cannon, and powders or weapons.
10. In time of peace, I believe that I can give you as complete satisfaction
as anyone else in the construction of buildings both public and private, and in
conducting water from one place to another.
I can further execute sculpture in marble, bronze or clay, also in painting
I can do as much as anyone else, whoever he may be.
Moreover, I would undertake the commission of the bronze horse, which
shall endue with immortal glory and eternal honour the auspicious memory of
your father and of the illustrious house of Sforza. . . .
And if any of the aforesaid things should seem to anyone impossible or
impracticable, I offer myself as ready to make trial of them in your park or in
whatever place shall please your Excellency, to whom I commend myself
with all possible humility.
The letter writer addressed the Duke of Milan and signed himself Leonardo
da Vinci. He got the job.
I have a like belief in the power of English teachers, if they will only pre-
pare and assert themselves, with, of course, "all possible humility."
The Commission on English gets its support from the College Entrance
Examination Board. In his charge, President Frank Bowles expressed concern
about the state of English and told us to do something about it. We had to
begin somewhere. Would it be College English? Or the whole program, school
and college? Or a part? The early decision, in 1959, to confine ourselves to
the secondary school, to grades 9 through 12, and to college-preparatory
students, was I believe, sound policy. The board is concerned primarily with
the college-bound group — more than 55 per cent of the students — and in the
last four years of schooling the student earns his college admission units.
Whatever improvement comes in these four years is certain to influence the
curriculum in the preceding grades, 7 and 8, and in the elementary school.
Again, a strong program will require the colleges to undertake revision of their
offerings and the revitalization of their English departments.
Quite obviously, our work is not centered on the needs of all boys and
girls. The fact remains, however, that change in one curriculum affects all
334 Secondary School Department
curricula. Improved methods and emphasis on high academic standards will
spill over. I would not be working for the commission did I not believe that
any usefulness we have will, in time, reach all boys and girls.
You and I can begin right now by examining the courses we plan for the
college-bound and for the non-college students. I venture that most of us
underestimate the intelligence and the desire for learning. I wonder that the
classes do not rebel against the pap we spoonfeed when our students are ready
for strong meat. The choice of books might not be so vital were the students
living in an era before the radio, the movie, the television, the slick magazine,
and the paperback. Even The Old Curiosity Shop was worth reading when I
was a boy. True, we had no knowledge of word-level, age-interest, and other
factors, and one could switch to Paradise Lost or Moby Dick and, if one
liked, to Huckleberry Finn — he was not told that this was a boy's story for
adult enjoyment. In my youth we had not discovered the economy and waste
of the omnibus volume, Beowulf to Yeats, that was to make Americans, in the
words of Stringfellow Barr, the "excerptest nation in the world's history."
The English teacher's student is asking, "Why should I read this book?"
The answer of one headmaster, who keeps in the curriculum an amazing
collection of Lorna Doone's and Lady of the Lake's informs us that the
"other things they will read, but if we don't require them to read the 'classics,'
they never will." It is time the English teacher and the student find some
vaccination against this attitude. Why not give the students the best, old and
new? Greek tragedy, but not at the graduate level. The best modern poetry,
but not with higher criticism. Great biography, but not these highly popular,
journalistic life sketches. And no snippets! The student needs something to
get his teeth into; he must, I think, have a better diet. And in the choice of
reading, let us remember that a new book is one that a person has not read,
that the period 1875-1925 is far removed from the world of today's youth,
and that classical and medieval periods produced writers that can make a
sixteen-year-old say, "This fellow is talking about us."
While we are examining our choice of books for required reading and our
methods of instruction, whether cramming our interpretations down the
students' throats or acting as a catalyst who does not come between the author
and the reader, we might as well set a limit on the time we give to the study
of literature. Approximately one-third of the time is right if we are not to
neglect the study of language and of written composition.
To explain that language study does not mean word lists and memorization
of grammar rules, and that composition is not workbooks and busy drills,
would waste time and tax your patience. It is enough to say that I am unhappy
to see English classes devote so much time to shabby pursuits, and to know
that English teachers are reading thousands of badly assigned and poorly
written compositions that accomplish nothing of real value.
What I say is said in love, not anger. I speak out of my own failures during
thirty-five years in the classroom. I am critical in a helpful way. I no longer
see easy solutions, no more believe there are any. I worked through most of the
things that were new yesterday — testing, counseling, departmentalization,
6-3-3 and 6-2-4, social studies, language arts — and the things still considered
rather new — space areas, utilization, audio-visual techniques. Constants have
been boys and girls, teachers, knowledge and wisdom. They, in the give and
take, the daily duellum of the class, make a school more than a building,
though I sometimes think the public is more fascinated by the envelope than
by the contents.
We need not be stampeded by any organization or any technique. Utilization
The English Teacher and His Student 335
is not a panacea. Television, learning machines, group teaching, para-
professional aid, and a reduced status for school janitors may help but will
not supplant a good teacher. I think a horizontalism of Madison Avenue doesn't
have much chance against the verticality of scholarly application. Though a
peaceful world may get along without the foot soldier, I can envision no
desirable culture by-passing the book.
We feel safe in teaching literature. What's more, it is usually fun. There
are so many ways to approach the study and to make the class hour exciting.
Too frequently we hope to succeed without lesson plan or other restraint
on our love and enthusiasm. We wander off into the social sciences, we
attach to the literary work under study our own and the class's ideas and
customs, and we obliterate what the author is saying when, how, and under
what circumstance. Or fresh from a course at the university, we go unbridled
into symbol, myth, and image chasing, lose the whole in the part, and miss
the art and the joy.
I am not trained in linguistics. All my teaching years I depended on
"a little Latin, less Greek." Grammar, which has a close relationship to
rhetorical analysis, may some day be restored to its former position as one
of the humanities. I am told that no one really knows what can be done
or will be done as language from an entirely different point of view moves
into the curriculum. Certainly, the younger teachers are more concerned
with the practical application of theory.
More knowledge of rhetorical theory by teachers and students is needed.
The handbooks, no matter what their dress, are still very much the 1900
vintage. Rhetoric of the paragraph and the sentence are neglected for mere
usage; logic and order are lost in attention to style. Millions of papers, and
many of them written by our ablest students, are read and graded every year
solely for punctuation, spelling, grammar. The rigorous criticism of matter
and organization a school should reasonably exact of English teachers is far
from a common educational practice or fetish, even in the doctorate years.
In writing, we can get, I believe, a sharper focus. Ordered thought for the
four Carnegie-unit years and writing based mostly on the literature studied
are sound measures, if the students are required to read and criticize their
own writing. Too frequently we have only ourselves to blame for the rubbish
we accept as homework, and we can blame ourselves for the resultant modifica-
tion of the exact standards necessary in grading and judgment.
We still do not spend much money and thought on the outstanding students.
The amiable interest in the retarded, called by a Boston prelate the "exceptional"
children, is admirable. A distinction in our nation of which we can be proud,
it can also become a menace. As John W. Gardner pointed out, equality doesn't
mean a lockstep system for sprinters and stumblers, nor is quantity enough.
Adding a second language or a third is no solution, if there is no mastery
required of our own language. Enrichment by more papers to write, more
books to read, more courses to take, more years of study, can be superficial,
even harmful. Nobel prize-winner Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, speaking for creativity
and quality, finds such reasoning "analogous to saying that if one woman can
produce a child in nine months, nine women will produce it in one."
What the Commission on English has done and what it plans to do have
been generously publicized. I am willing to talk about the kinescopes addressed
to teachers, the summer institutes for 1962, the preparation of teaching mate-
rials, the research, the cooperation with other groups interested in the English
336 Secondary School Department
curriculum, and the report scheduled for publication early in 1964. If you
are not on our mailing list, we would be glad to have you write us if we can
be of service.
I do want, however, to present one phase of the commission's program.
A subcommittee of the commission met in Pasadena to explore the use
of a series of tests that would complement the commission's position paper
and indicate to teachers of English the level of achievement we would like in
college-preparatory courses of the secondary schools. This subcommittee drafted
an end-of-year grade 12 examination which was tested in September, 1960,
with incoming freshmen at several universities. The papers, written by students
already admitted to college, ranged from great excellence to wretched in-
adequacy. They were read and graded by a group of teachers who had years
of experience reading the English Achievement, the Advanced Placement, and
the State Department examinations.
Use of sample papers — Excellent, Average, Poor — along with the readers'
detailed comments, convinced us that teachers of English would welcome a
series of end-of-year examinations for grades 9, 10, 11, and 12. These examina-
tions would not be used for admissions. They need not be given under the
necessary security of Educational Testing Service. They would be public
property and be used by schools in several ways. Teachers could give the same
questions to their classes and match their students' performance with the
published report of pilot testing. Teachers could read the commission's examina-
tions for ideas in structuring their own tests and, hopefully, to ascertain if
their own courses of study in English were planned and taught to assure
the end-of-year competence the commission has set as a desirable goal. The
examinations are difficult by present achievement in many schools — and let
me say that my work has convinced me that no section of the country and
no type of school (public, parochial, private) has a premium on bad teach-
ing, or on quality work — but not too difficult for the standards you and I
want in our English departments and are determined to get. These examina-
tions may inform administration and community of English teacher needs,
such as time for preparation, time to correct papers, time to confer with
individual students and to give the help they need. Long in the profession,
I am still a bit astonished with my century and my nation. Do not misunder-
stand me. I am glad to be alive now and here. Like Margaret Fuller, who
splendidly said in the nineteenth century, "I accept the Universe," and got a
wry comment from Thomas Carlyle, "Egad, she better," I accept the twentieth
century, and the United States but not the status quo of our profession.
Nearly anyone can handle an English class, it seems, and nearly everyone
does. Guidance is a cubiculum, an expert, a child, and, quite often, a secretary.
Cooking, crafts, and body poise require small sectioning in the school. And
the parents want private lessons in music, dance, and driver education. Will
the home ever accept mass dentistry or wardrobes that come in one style,
one size, one fabric? What I am saying is that I hope these examinations
may help define English and help improve the conditions under which we are
trained and work.
I seem to digress, but not unintentionally. I am trying to say that the
tests may help you and us to make clear the kind of training we should have
and do not get in preparation for our profession, that we share the blame
for our failure to define our work and to insist on professional standards,
and that, properly used, these tests, and added series made by the commis-
The English Teacher and His Student 337
sion or other groups of English teachers, can make known a wanted reform.
To guide us, the subcommittee drew up some basic assumptions:
This examination is based on the assumption that by the time a student
intending to enter college has graduated from high school he can
(1) Write with clarity and organization — i.e., that he can spell, punctuate,
handle the grammar and vocabulary of the English language decently and
precisely, knows how to arrange sentences in paragraphs, and paragraphs
into articulated compositions.
(2) Reason on paper logically — i.e., that he knows the difference between
general statements and details or illustrations, recognizes the need for support-
ing evidence, and is aware of what makes an argument valid.
(3) Is familiar with the ways usage may vary appropriately in different
contexts — i.e., that he is not only aware of the different levels of usage but
also understands their rhetorical effectiveness or ineffectiveness in a given
context.
(4) Is able to discuss intelligently the uses of figurative language — i.e.,
that he understands the qualities that make a figure of speech fitting and
logical within a given context; is aware of the uses and dangers of cliches;
and recognizes the qualities that make for "overwriting."
(5) Is able to read contemporary prose which uses an adult vocabulary
and sentence structure — for example, the essays in The Atlantic Monthly
or Harper's Magazine.
(6) Understands basic grammatical and literary terminology — i.e., that
he has learned through experience the meaning of common grammatical,
rhetorical and literary terms.
Examples of grammatical terminology
subject-verb agreement
position of modifiers
lack of parallelism
pronoun-antecedent relationship
logical sequence of tenses
Examples of literary terminology
meter
blank verse
quatrain
ballad
sonnet
couplet
first and third person narrative
omniscient narrator
comedy, tragedy, melodrama
metaphor
simile
(7) Has read a number of significant literary works of the present and
past thoroughly enough so that he can discuss them intelligently when
confronted with a specific problem or question. The following writers are
illustrative of the kind of reading we have in mind, but they are, of course,
not prescriptive or inclusive:
Shakespeare Mark Twain
Dickens Frost
Conrad Steinbeck
Hardy Hemingway
Galsworthy Benet
Tennyson Thornton Wilder
Browning Willa Cather
338 Secondary School Department
A special committee of secondary school teachers structured many questions
in language, in literature, in composition. A large number of these questions
were pre-tested in schools in sixteen states. The students' papers and their
teachers' comments helped in revision and final selection. Two-hour end-of-
year examinations have been written for grades 9, 10, and 11, and a three-hour
end-of-year examination for grade 12. These examinations will be given
late in May in a wide range of pilot schools: public schools in fourteen
states, parochial schools in five states (California, Massachusetts, Missouri,
New York, Pennsylvania), private schools in five states.
The students' answers will be read and graded by English teachers under
contract with the commission. Without revealing identities of schools or of
students we will publish excellent, average, and poor papers and the readers'
comments. With your indulgence, I will read one of the questions. This is the
language question for grade 12. The student has one hour for the question:
Direction.1 The following announcements appeared in the Moniteur of
France in March, 1815, on Napoleon's march from Elba to Paris. Study
these announcements and then do the work called for.
March 9: "The monster has escaped from the place of his banishment."
March 10: "The Corsican ogre has landed at Cape Juan."
March 11: "The tiger has shown himself at Gap. Troops are advancing on
all sides to arrest his progress. He will conclude this miserable
adventure by becoming a wanderer among the mountains."
March 12: "The monster has actually advanced as far as Grenoble."
March 13: "The tyrant is now at Lyon. Terror seized all at his appearance."
March 18: "The usurper has ventured to approach within 60 hours' march
of the capital."
March 19: "Bonaparte is advancing by forced marches, but it is impossible
that he reach Paris."
March 20: "Napoleon will arrive under the walls of Paris tomorrow."
March 21: "The Emperor Napoleon is at Fontainebleau."
March 22: "Yesterday evening His majesty the Emperor made his public
entry and arrived at the Tuileries. Nothing can exceed the uni-
versal joy."
1. "The art of good reporting lies in the willingness to stick to statement of
fact."
(a) Identify by their dates any of the ten announcements from the Moniteur
that, in your judgment, exemplify the above definition of good re-
porting.
(b) Identify by its date one of the ten announcements that, in your judg-
ment, violates the definition of good reporting. Then rewrite this one
announcement so as to make it conform to the given definition of
good reporting.
2. Show fully and specifically how the succession of epithets (names) applied
to Napoleon serves as a key to the changes of mind and heart that must
have gone on in the office of the Moniteur between March 9 and March
22. To do this you will need to comment on the meanings, the implica-
tions, the emotional effects of each one of the epithets.
3. In the manner of the Moniteur, write the announcement that might have
appeared on or about March 15. Take special care to select a suitable
epithet for Napoleon.
4. Comment on the effectiveness of each of the following words or groups
DEEP — Detroit Experimental English Program 339
of words for achieving the Moniteur's purpose of producing certain effects
upon its readers and evoking from them certain responses.
(a) March 11: "miserable adventure"
(b) March 12: "actually"
(c) March 13: "all"
(d) March 18: "ventured"
(e) March 22: "Nothing can exceed the universal joy."
DEEP— THE DETROIT EXPERIMENTAL ENGLISH PROGRAM
Walter Appleton
coordinator, detroit public schools
Detroit's DEEP was born of the much talked about crisis in education
which is being worsened by two uncomplementary trends: a rising school
population and a teaching staff whose size is not keeping pace with this
boom. In Detroit we began to consider the problem of furnishing quality
instruction to increasing numbers of pupils as the threat of an inadequate
supply of competent teachers confronted us. We now feel that the shortage
of competent teachers will fall to some other community while our youngsters
continue to improve in reading and composition skills.
Back in 1959 teachers of English from various parts of the country began
analyzing this problem at Rutgers University in New Jersey. In 1960 twenty
Ford Foundation fellows from the high schools of Detroit, together with
another twenty from Chicago, and two dozen more scholars and teachers of
English from such various places as New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and Massachusetts gathered at Rutgers University for a second summer
conference to improve instruction while cutting class size in two. They worked
out what became known as the Rutgers Plan. When the Detroiters returned
to their Motor City high schools, they found that they had to modify their
Rutgers ideas somewhat in order to fit them into the public school program.
The Detroit proposal, with its modifications, was named the Detroit Experi-
mental English Program and was approved for financial support by the Fund
for the Advancement of Education.
"Student centered, with traditional emphasis on the fundamentals of grammar
and usage, composition and reading, the program appears at first to be old wine
in new bottles, but the potential of it seems to suggest thresholds never before
crossed and the first genuine revolution in teaching patterns in over half a
century. Heady stuff, indeed."
The experiment was promptly adopted by four high schools. Where an
early Rutgers idea was to try to assure college-bound youngsters such intensive
preparation in English that they not only would pass all entrance exams but
also that they would continue through a four-year college program without
danger of faltering by the academic wayside, the new Detroit plan was to
accommodate any or all 10th graders who were of about-average reading
ability or who were superior readers. The reasons for this were several. The
340 Secondary School Department
move equalized opportunity for participation for more youngsters. It broadened
the abilities of research which the experiment might take. It changed a singular
(college) experiment into a multipurpose activity which sought to show
whether youngsters would improve in language skills if they had more op-
portunity to practice.
To this end, the 10th graders were to be given more school time in which
to read, more time in which to write, possibly more time in which to discuss,
and less time in which to be under the direct supervision of the teacher. In
this way, it was being waggishly suggested that they could "double the learning
by dividing the load."
The project is asking four questions and has three years in which to answer
them:
1) Can students learn the fundamentals of English through self-explaining,
self-correcting programmed exercises?
2) Can students increase their appreciation and understanding of literature,
and subsequently have the increase reflected in their written and oral expression,
through extensive individual reading programs?
3) Can students benefit from increased writing assignments?
4) Can university graduates from the community be engaged part-time
to assist the teacher in implementing these increased opportunities for the
student?
In 1960 the Detroit Board of Education approved Superintendent S. M.
Brownell's request for an initial grant from the Ford Foundation to finance
the program. The operation of the plan is unique. While the conventional
English class in the Detroit high school contains 35 pupils and meets five
times a week, a Detroit Experimental English class contains 40 pupils, bisects
itself into groups of 20, and sees the teacher but twice a week. Actually, on
the first day of school, two DEEP teachers meet two DEEP classes simulta-
neously in two separate rooms. That is probably the last time they ever meet
40 strong. One half of each class convenes with its teacher on Monday and
Tuesday. The other half meets with the teacher on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Friday no formal class session is held by the teacher.
What happens to those half classes unattended by the instructor? The
pupils go to a third room, especially furnished and outfitted for independent
reading, individualized language drills, and written examinations. They are
under the jurisdiction of an English assistant, a college graduate who has
majored in English, who may or may not hold a teaching certificate. This
person is not concerned with instruction, but oversees pupil conduct, attendance,
and the books on the shelf. Thus, 20 pupils from each teacher come to this
room to read books of their own choosing on Monday and Tuesday. They
trade places with the other 20 pupils on Wednesday and Thursday. On each
of these four days the English assistant is in charge of 40 readers. On Friday
all four half -classes, 80 pupils strong, come to the English assistant for the
purpose of practicing programmed exercises in a 10th grade workbook which
emphasizes such things as punctuation, spelling, usage, and grammar.
On this fifth day, the teacher is at professional liberty to improve her means
of instruction in any way that she sees fit. The most common practice is to
invite a number of students for individual or small-group conferences regarding
their achievement in writing compositions. Both pupils and teachers have
found such evaluation to be most beneficial. On each of the preceding four
days the teacher holds discussions regarding literature, written composition,
DEEP — Detroit Experimental English Program 341
or other language skills in classrooms containing no more than 20 pupils.
Pupil participation is much more active, it has been found, and communica-
tion is more apparently two-way. It has been found to be feasible to schedule
at least four half-classes in the reading room and in the programmed exercises
room at one time. It has also been thought that it would be possible to expand
the program in emergency times should school enrollment increase and teacher
supply decrease so that a teacher would handle four classes with 50 pupils
in each class, but at no time meeting more than 25 pupils while the other
students were reading under the supervision of the English assistant.
The reading room is stocked with 2,000 books, one-third to one-half of
them paperbacks. Students select books on their own, but they are often
quite naturally influenced by the reading tastes of their classmates, by suggestions
stemming from the English assistant's background in reading, or by comments
made by the teacher during a classroom discussion of student reading. Pupils
who have been known to read no books in a semester, under these enticing
conditions now actually read five books in a twenty-week period. Youngsters
who were omnivorous readers of ten to fourteen books in a semester now
race through as many as twenty-seven or twenty-nine books. This reading
on "company time" does not necessarily reduce the amount of reading they
do at home. While reading a book in school the pupil is permitted to check
it out of the building in fashion very similar to the procedure followed by the
school library. Independent reading in school apparently has a pump-priming
effect on almost all the children. In fact, parents have called one school in
complaining wonder as to why their children "stay up hours after bedtime —
not watching television — but reading! Does the school require that much
homework?" In each of these unusual cases parents have been assured that
these late hour endeavors are purely voluntary on the part of their children
and have not been suggested by their teachers. In another school there have
been polite remonstrances to the head of the English department from two
other department heads whose teachers had been complaining that their pupils
did not have their homework prepared because they had forsaken effort on
science and history assignments to read, read, read novels and biographies
which they had discovered in the DEEP reading room.
So you see, DEEP teachers have not only concerned themselves with
increasing children's reading but they have also been obliged to try to get these
youngsters to strike a happy medium between reading and sleeping and between
English activities and other academic pursuits.
To match the additional opportunity provided for reading, youngsters were
also given additional opportunity for writing through the employment of theme
readers — college graduates who had majored in English and who had satisfac-
torily passed a rigid test of language skills. These readers work under the
very close supervision of the teacher, in reading, appraising, and grading
student papers. When they become proficient in their task, they are likely to
assume as much as 75 percent of the teachers' theme-reading load. The
objective of this team work is not to ease the teacher's burden but to increase
the student's ably motivated, properly guided writing practice. The theme
reader works at home and comes to the school to pick up and deliver composi-
tion; sometimes he or she remains briefly for a conference with the teacher
regarding the work.
Experiences with DEEP in the spring of 1961 were so satisfactory that two
more high schools joined the experiment in September, 1961. The six senior
high schools (Central, Denby, Mumford, Northwestern, Redford, and Western)
engaged in the 1961-62 phase of the program represent the social spectrum
342 Secondary School Department
of a large city: wealthy, professional, $25,000-$60,000 homes; middle class,
white collar, $10,000-$ 15,000 homes; and factory labor, culturally different,
rented tenements. In each school attempt is made to use only students reading
at grade level or one grade below; approximately 40 percent are college
preparatory and all are in the tenth grade.
At least three more high schools are joining DEEP for September, 1962.
With the incorporation of Commerce, which draws students from all parts
of the city; the incorporation of Pershing, which lies in the north central
section of the city; and the addition of Finney, in the extreme southeast
section of the city, DEEP will continue to be available to high school students
coming from all socioeconomic levels in all parts of the city. This is one
of the steps which the language department is taking to assure continued
equalization of educational opportunity. Administrators in five more high
schools would like to embark on this reading-writing adventure, but their
buildings cannot accommodate the experiment simply because rooms are not
available.
The DEEP plan, our projections indicate, can function in a given school
at a lower pupil-period cost than the cost required to educate a 10th grader
in a conventional English class. In order to arrive at this situation, school
personnel need a gradual transition. Adapting two teachers who are con-
ducting a total of four sections (160 pupils) to the DEEP plan is a giant,
initial stride in this direction. It has been found that most persons need to
increase their willingness to experiment, generate their own enthusiasm from
personal successes, and develop their own satisfactions before they can
confidently plan to expand their activities. Eventually a school administrator
or a department head wishing to employ DEEP on a grand scale may look to
a full-fledged program in another school for his example or proof that aspects
of DEEP are beneficial to improved instruction at less expense. When the
time comes for other schools to give closer consideration to DEEP, they
should not be thinking of starting the program with a mere 160 pupils because
their predecessors will, by that time, have considerable data available to
help them avoid problems which current schools are encountering and solving.
During spring, 1961, before an extensive evaluation program was begun
using the California Achievement Tests and other measuring instruments,
judgments of the program could be made only on an informal basis. Teachers
reported sincere satisfactions, several saying that in fifteen or twenty years of
teaching they had never before been able to know students so thoroughly. Stu-
dents voted overwhelmingly for continuation. Records showed that all students
read at least twice as many books as ever before: 12 was common, 17 frequent,
and even a rare 27 was reported. Parents, who had the program explained
to them in a letter and at evening meetings, were genuinely enthusiastic.
A DEEP advisory committee on evaluation has been formed. Its purpose
is to review the evaluation procedures and to make suggestions for improve-
ment according to these directions: (1) Observe the evaluation program as
it is designed for 1961-62; (2) Advise what modifications may still be put
into effect; (3) Advise on the construction of the evaluation program for
1962-63; (4) Observe and comment upon the conclusions drawn from both
the first and second year's evaluation.
Evaluation of the experiment is a continuing process. In September, 1961,
approximately 1,000 DEEP students and 500 students enrolled in control
classes were given tests 1, 2, 5, and 6 of the California Achievement Tests,
Form W. These same youngsters will be similarly re-tested in June, 1962,
The Instructional Research Department will analyze the results in connection
DEEP — Detroit Experimental English Program
343
with achievement in reading and in language. Further evaluation will continue
through 1964.
Nevertheless, the plaudits for the program continue to roll in. Teacher
enthusiasm stems partially from the psychological relief from oppressive
numbers of youngsters.
For example, the conventional schedule calls for five lock-step meetings
per week.
Monday Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri.
35 pupils w/ teacher 35 35 35 35
The DEEP classes free pairs of teachers somewhat:
Total
175 teacher pupil
contacts per
week
Monday
Teacher A
20 in Room # 1
Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri.
20 20 20 0-9 coaching or
conferences
Teacher B 20 in Room # 2
English
Assistant
40 in Reading
Room # 3
20 20 20
40 40 40
( reading )
0-9 coaching or
conferences
65-80
Total
80-89 teacher-
pupil contacts
per week
80-89 teacher-
pupil contacts
per week
265 + pupils
in Room #3
Heartening to teachers have been such findings:
1. Incomplete figures tend to show that DEEP youngsters of average and
above average ability tend to fail far less frequently than do average
and above average students in conventional classes, some of which are
also taught by DEEP teachers (DEEP 2.4 percent. Control 13.9 percent).
2. Students read more books than they have ever before, (averaging 12-14
and reading as many as 27 in one semester).
3. Students write more compositions, somewhere between 15 and 25, where
formerly only 8 were expected.
4. Student compositions improve greatly in quality, in the opinions of the
teachers.
5. Discipline, under the English assistant in the "reading and drills room,"
has not been a problem.
6. There are occasional isolated problems, but these are of the same kinds
of minutiae which are encountered by teachers regularly in almost any
situation.
7. Students (currently 998) are largely for remaining in the program for
one full year.
8. Teachers (16 of them) are very enthusiastic about participating.
9. Not one parent has raised objection to the experiment.
To be more specific, an analysis of the failure rate for one semester in three
representative schools provided these statistics:
School
DEEP classes
#1
2.5%
#2
3.1%
#3
1.4%
Totals
2.4%
Control classes
17.2%
11.1%
5.8%
13.9%
All Non-DEEP lOB's
(Excluding DEEP, but
including control)
9.1%
5.3%
6.7%
7.3%
344 Secondary School Department
What is the cost? In the long run, it is cheaper and more efficient to teach
English to 10th graders in DEEP classes than it is to teach them through
conventional five-day-per-week sessions of 35 pupils each. This is due to (1)
larger class size in DEEP, and (2) a much lower failure rate which leads to
less re-teaching expense.
Besides improving the learning environment for the children, the Detroit
Experimental English Program is bringing many side benefits to the educa-
tional system. We are learning a lesson long known to the medical profession
and applicable to the legal profession. That is, let the professional do the
work for which he is certified and leave the noninstructional tasks to other
people qualified to perform them. DEEP has taken the teacher — and her
subject — out of the isolation of the self-contained classsroom. It is true that
the DEEP teacher forsakes a kind of hidden security behind the closed door,
but all teachers welcome the change after they have broken with the tradi-
tional routine of their schedule and have increased their creativity. The fact
that the teacher's whirlwind day is usually an inescapable revolving door
all but eliminates one of the teacher's most critical professional tasks — planning
and thinking through what she is trying to teach. Planning, a process that
feeds on evaluation and reflection, is work, yet most schools provide the
teacher no time for it. Paradoxically, DEEP is less strenuous, yet more de-
manding. Teachers need time in this era of rapidly expanding knowledge to
catch up on new developments and keep their courses up to date. Using the
time saved by DEEP to load another class onto the teacher's schedule,
therefore, would be unproductive. The teacher spends less time in repetitious
and nonprofessional chores, but works infinitely harder on her share
of the instructional task and in the cooperative planning, criticism, and pro-
fessional improvement of the program. Time to plan lessons and keep abreast
of one's field; relief from nonprofessional chores by use of assistants, aides,
and theme readers; and the benefit of cooperation with professional colleagues
not only raise the quality of teaching but also improve teacher morale.
PROCEEDINGS AND REPORTS
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON REGIONAL UNITS
Detroit, Michigan
April 23, 1962
The Committee on Regional Units of the Secondary School Department
of the NCEA reports that all seven regional units functioned during the past
scholastic year. Existing units are: the New England, the Eastern, the South-
ern, the Midwestern, the Northwestern, the Southwestern, and the Hawaiian.
NEW ENGLAND UNIT
The annual fall meeting of the New England Unit was held at Boston Col-
lege, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, on December 9, 1961. In the forenoon
there was a joint session with the College and University Unit with an address
Proceedings and Reports 345
on "The Spiritual Formation of Students Through Apostolic Action" by Rev.
Leo C. Putz, C.S.C., Notre Dame University. Panelists were: Rev. Edward
J. Kroyak, Cathedral High School, Springfield, Mass., Chairman; Rev. Richard
J. Carelli, Sacred Heart Academy, Worcester, Mass.; Sister Loretto Joseph,
S.S.J., St. Catherine Academy, Newport, R.I.; Rev. Geoffrey Keating, S.S.E.,
St. Michael's College, Winooski, Vt.; Sister Anne Cyril, S.N.D., Emmanuel
College, Boston, Mass.
His Eminence Richard Cardinal Cushing, D.D., Archbishop of Boston,
then addressed the groups.
In the afternoon there was a brief business meeting of the Secondary Unit
presided over by Father Edward J. Kroyak, followed by an address on "New
Reading Methods, Eye to Mind Understanding," by Irving D. Baker, Ph.D.,
aided by a reading demonstration team.
Officers of the New England Unit for the coming year are: Chairman,
Brother Marcellus, C.F.X., Mission High School, Roxbury 20, Mass.; V ice-
Chairman, Sister Mary Edward, R.S.M., St. Mary's Academy, Riverside, R.I.;
Secretary, Rev. Richard J. Carelli, Sacred Heart Academy, Worcester, Mass.;
Delegate, Rev. Thomas E. Lawton, C.S.C., Notre Dame Catholic High School,
Bridgeport, Conn.
EASTERN UNIT
The Eastern Unit met in the Vernon Room of Haddon Hall in Atlantic
City, N.J., on November 25, 1961.
The meeting was called to order by the chairman, Sister Mary Christopher
of Mount St. Agnes High School, Baltimore, Md. The first speaker introduced
was Rev. C. Albert Koob, O.Praem., Associate Secretary of the Secondary
School Department, NCEA, Washington, D.C. He spoke on "Educational
Developments on the National Scene." Next William J. Costello, Ed.D., Asso-
ciate Professor of Education, Chestnut Hill College, developed the topic, "The
Role of the Classroom Teacher in Good College Entrance Results." Then
followed a short business meeting and election of officers.
Officers for the coming year are: Chairman, Brother Benjamin Benedict,
F.S.C., Christian Brothers Academy, Lincroft, N.J.; V ice-Chairman, Mother
Mary Raymond, S.H.C.J., Convent of the Holy Child, Rosemont, Pa.; Secre-
tary, Rev. Joseph C. Hilbert, Lebanon Catholic High School, Lebanon, Pa.;
Delegate, Sister Mary Christopher, R.S.M., Mount St. Agnes High School,
Baltimore, Md.
SOUTHERN UNIT
The Southern Unit held its annual meeting at the Fontainebleau Hotel in
Miami Beach, Florida, on December 4, 1961. Presiding was Brother Keric
Dever, C.S.C., principal of Archbishop Curley High School, Miami, and chair-
man of the unit. He called upon Very Rev. Msgr. William F. McKeever, dio-
cesan superintendent of the Catholic schools of Miami, to say the opening
invocation.
Then followed a discussion of "NDEA Loans to School Programs" as pre-
sented by Herbert A. Decker of the U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C.
"Public Relations" was the subject developed by John S. Bonner, Director
of Corporate Relations, General Development Corporation, Miami. On the
discussion panel were: Rev. James A. Amos, principal of Pensacola Catholic
High School, Miami; Brother Benedict, F.M.S., principal of Christopher Co-
lumbus High School, Miami; Mother Anne Catherine, O.P., provincial, St. Rose
of Lima Province, West Palm Beach, Florida. A business meeting with elec-
346 Secondary School Department
tion of officers was followed by entertainment by the Noveliers of St. Patrick
High School, directed by Sister Alma Christa, D.P., of Miami Beach.
Officers of the Southern Unit for the coming year are: Chairman, Rev.
Walter C. McCauley, S.J., principal, Jesuit High School, Dallas, Texas; Vice-
Chairman, Brother Martin, S.C., principal, Our Lady of Good Counsel School
for Boys, Dallas, Texas; Secretary, Sister Justin, S.S.M.N., principal, Our Lady
of Good Counsel School for Girls, Dallas, Texas; Delegate, Brother Keric
Dever, C.S.C., principal, Archbishop Curley High School, Miami, Florida.
MIDWESTERN UNIT
The Midwestern Unit met at the Morrison Hotel in Chicago on March 27,
1962. After an invocation by Rev. Thomas Munster, CM., president, Arch-
diocesan Catholic Boys High School Association of Chicago, and a word of
welcome by Sister Francis Mary, O.P., vice-chairman of the Midwestern
Unit, the opening general meeting had for topic "Discernment of Emotional
Problems in Students," by Rev. Charles J. D. Corcoran, O.P., professor of
psychology, Dominican House of Studies, River Forest, Illinois.
Chairman of a second general session in the morning was Brother Jude
Aloysius, F.S.C., De La Salle High School, Chicago. He treated "Applying
Mater et Magistra with Dedication and Zeal." Discussants were Dr. Paul
Mundy, Loyola University, and Dr. Frank Brown, De Paul University. The
question panel consisted of Rev. Joseph Battagilia, O.S.B., Sister Francis Borgia,
O.S.F., and Sister Mary Inviolata, R.S.M.
The after-dinner speaker of the noonday luncheon was Dr. George N. Shus-
ter, Carnegie Foundation Study, Notre Dame University, on "Critique and
Evaluation of Catholic Secondary Schools."
Rev. J. Edward Duggan, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Chicago,
presided at the afternoon general session. Philip R. Petrozello, Commission
of Staff Utilization, National Association of Secondary School Principals,
spoke on "The Changing School Scene, Emphasizing Team Teaching."
Reelected officers of the Midwestern Unit for the coming year are: Chair-
man, Rev. David Murphy, O.Carm., Carmel High School, Mundelein, 111.;
Vice-Chairman, Sister Francis Mary, O.P., Trinity High School, River Forest,
111.; Secretary, Brother Francis Haug, Cathedral High School, Belleville, 111.;
Delegate, Rev. Joseph A. Coyne, O.S.A., Cascia Hall, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
NORTHWESTERN UNIT
The Northwestern Unit chose Pigott Auditorium, Seattle University, Seattle,
Washington, for its meeting of December 3, 1961.
There was a joint session with the College and University Unit, with Rev.
John R. Sullivan, S.S., rector of St. Thomas Seminary, Kenmore, Washington,
in the chair. After a word of welcome from Rev. Philip Duffy, Archdiocesan
Superintendent of Education, Seattle, and a word of greeting from Rev. A. A.
Lemieux, S.J., president of Seattle University, the keynote address, "The
Responsibility of Catholic Education in the Contemporary World" was de-
livered by Rev. John Fitterer, S.J., dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,
Seattle University. Discussants for the Secondary Department were Brother
Popish, F.S.C.H., principal of O'Dea High School, Seattle, and Rev. Fred
Brenner, S.J., principal of Marquette High School, Yakima, Washington.
In the afternoon, the Northwestern Unit of the Secondary School Depart-
ment met separately in a discussion session under the chairman of the unit,
Rev. James Mallahan, Blanchet High School, Seattle. Primers of the discus-
sion were Rev. Melvin Farrell, S.S., principal of St. Edward's Seminary High
Proceedings and Reports 347
School, Seattle; Rev. Christopher McDonnell, S.J., Bellarmine High School,
Tacoma, Wash.; Sister Ann Myra, S.N.J.M., education faculty, Marylhurst
College, Portland, Oregon; Rev. Joseph Neuville, principal of Central Catholic
High School, Portland, Oregon. This was followed by a buzz session and a
general session when reports of various attending committees were discussed.
Officers of the Northwestern Unit for the coming year are: Chairman, Sister
Ann Dolores, F.C.S.F., principal, Sacred Heart Academy, Missoula, Montana;
Vice-Chair man, Sister M. Anna Teresa, C.S.C., Judge Memorial High School,
Salt Lake City, Utah; Secretary, Sister Valerie, F.C.S.P., Missoula, Montana;
Delegate, Rev. John Doogan, principal, Blanchet High School, Seattle.
SOUTHWESTERN UNIT
The Southwestern Unit met in Riordan High School, San Francisco, Cali-
fornia, on December 19 and 20, 1961, under the patronage of the bishops of
California and Arizona. The convention theme was "Education in the Ecu-
menical Spirit."
At the opening general session, Rev. John T. Foudy, Superintendent of
Schools, Archdiocese of San Francisco, presided. Brother Herman J. Gerber,
S.M., principal of Riordan High School, said a word of welcome, and Rev.
Frederick G. Hochwalt, Executive Secretary, NCEA, Washington, D.C., de-
livered an address on "The Public Image of Your Schools." Then followed
sectional meetings on all subjects in the curriculum.
The afternoon was devoted to a continuation of the sectional meetings of
the morning, ending with a general session at which Rev. Jerome G. Kerwin,
director of the Honors Division of the University of Santa Clara, spoke on
"The Catholic High School and the Secular College."
The second day of the convention of the Southwestern Unit opened with a
general session at which Rev. Joseph F. Sharpe, Superintendent of Schools of
the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, introduced Rev. Gerard S. Sloyan, Catholic
University of America, Washington, D.C., who delivered an address on "Some
Problems of Religious Formation in the High School." The rest of the morn-
ing was given over to sectional meetings on subjects of the high school
curriculum.
In the afternoon, final meetings of curriculum sections terminated with a
general session at which Rev. James G. Dowling, Superintendent of Schools,
Diocese of Monterey-Fresno, and Rev. Francis A. Quinn, Assistant Superin-
tendent of Schools, Archdiocese of San Francisco, presided. Brother Fabian,
F.S.C., St. Mel's High School, Chicago, delivered an address on "The Class-
room: A Social Situation." The second day of the San Francisco meeting
ended with benediction at 3:40 in the auditorium.
Officers for the coming year of the Southwestern Unit are: Chairman,
Brother Eugene, F.S.C., Bishop Armstrong High School, Sacramento, Calif.;
Vice-Chairman, Sister M. Ronald, S.C., Sal Pointe High School, Tucson, Ariz.;
Secretary, Sister M. Jeanette, C.S.J., Pius X High School, Downey, Calif.;
Delegate, Brother Herman J. Gerber, S.M., Riordan High School, San Fran-
cisco, Calif.
HAWAIIAN UNIT
The annual meeting of the Hawaiian Unit took place at Sacred Hearts
Academy in Honolulu under the auspices of the Most Rev. James J. Sweeney,
D.D., Bishop of Honolulu, on April 30, 1962.
The morning session was devoted to familiarizing teachers with the use and
techniques of audio-visual materials. Professor Richard Sanner, instructor in
348 Secondary School Department
audio-vision at the University of Hawaii, led off with the keynote address on
"The Use of Visual Aids" and was aided by a demonstration team of four
teachers of as many Catholic schools.
The afternoon was spent in visiting the display set up by suppliers of school
aids and equipment. The day ended with a business meeting and benediction
and address by Most Rev. Bishop James J. Sweeney, D.D., of Honolulu.
Officers of the Hawaiian Unit are: Chairman, Prof. George Chang, St.
Louis High School, Honolulu; V ice-Chairman, Sister Marie Cordis, O.P.,
Maryknoll High School, Honolulu; Secretary, Sister John Thomas, C.S.J., Holy
Trinity School, Honolulu; Delegate, Sister Mary Lucy, SS.CC, Cathedral
School, Honolulu.
Respectfully submitted,
THE COMMITTEE ON REGIONAL UNITS
Brother Julius J. Kreshel, S.M., St. Louis, Chairman
Rev. Thomas E. Lawton, C.S.C., New England Unit
Sister Mary Christopher, R.S.M., Eastern Unit
Brother Keric Dever, C.S.C., Southern Unit
Rev. Joseph A. Coyne, O.S.A., Midwestern Unit
Rev. John Duggan, Northwestern Unit
Brother Herman Gerber, S.M., Southwestern Unit
Sister M. Lucy, SS.CC, Hawaiian Unit
REPORT ON CURRICULUM ADVISORY COMMITTEES
Advisory Committees have been set up to study the current trends in cur-
riculum in six subject areas in Catholic high schools — English, foreign lan-
guages, science, mathematics, religion, and history. They began their work at
the Detroit convention in 1962 and will conclude it at the 60th annual con-
vention to be held in St. Louis in 1963.
General objectives of the Curriculum Advisory Committees are:
1. To determine three specific points of information about the curriculum
in various subject areas in Catholic high schools:
a. Who does the actual planning of curriculum?
b. How are curriculum decisions being made and introduced?
c. What curriculum changes are occurring?
2. To assemble this information through six Advisory Committees so it will
include:
a. Cross sections of practices throughout the country.
b. Trends within distinct subject areas.
c. Dissenting as well as concurring judgments on trends and practices.
3. To report results to Catholic high school administrators and teachers to
provide them with:
a. A survey of current curriculum practices and trends.
b. A critique of some of these trends.
c. A list of suggestions for improvement in some curriculum areas.
Minutes of meetings held by each of the committees at the Detroit conven-
tion follow.
Proceedings and Reports 349
THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON ENGLISH
The following report attempts to present a brief summary of the work
undertaken by the Advisory Committee on English during the 1962 meetings
of the NCEA.
April 24, 1962: Under the chairmanship of Rev. James E. Farrell, S.J., the
meetings followed the procedures as suggested in the Guidebook. At the
closed meeting on Tuesday, April 24, members, having been divided into three
groups of four each, discussed an assigned section of the Curriculum Outline,
after which reports were submitted to the entire group. Plans for conducting
the open meeting the following day necessitated the appointment of each com-
mittee member as a chairman of a group. The topics discussed by these
chairmen were as follows:
Rev. William J. Power, S.J. — The curriculum in private schools for boys.
Mr. Alan Davitt — The curriculum in relationship to accrediting agencies and
to research.
Sister St. Agnes, S.S.J. — The curriculum in the large diocesan high school.
Sister Mary Edward, C.PP.S. — The curriculum in the small diocesan and
parochial high school.
Rev. George J. Feldman, O.Praem. — How and by whom are curriculum
decisions being made in your school?
Brother Leonard Gilhooley, C.F.X. — How are curriculum decisions related
to the Catholic philosophy of education and how should they be so related?
Sister Mary Flavia, B.V.M. — What curriculum recommendations should be
made in the teaching of literature and rhetoric?
Sister Mary Julitta, O.S.F. — What curriculum recommendations should be
made regarding reading programs?
Brother Thomas Corbett, S.M. — Should curriculum changes be dictated or
designated by the experts in the fields of literature and rhetoric?
Brother Charles A. Conefrey, F.S.C.H. — What curriculum recommendations
might be made with regard to textbooks, supplementary texts, and the
use of the library?
Rev. James E. Farrell, S.J. — What curriculum changes should be made with
reference to the sequence of offerings and modifications in the syllabus?
The curriculum and teacher training?
Sister Mary Jeannine, S.S.N. D. — What curriculum recommendations might
be made with regard to number of units of credit being offered, number
of units required for graduation, scheduling of classes, grouping of stu-
dents, special programs?
April 25: Following the open discussions, each chairman presented a sum-
mary of the facts and the recommendations made.
April 26: During the closed meeting on Thursday, April 26, the members
of the Advisory Committee discussed the reports of the preceding day, made
recommendations, and planned projects of research to be done before the 1963
convention. A list of these recommendations and areas of research is as follows:
Recommendation Area of Research Member
1. Survey of present practices in his 1. Does your school follow All members
geographical area should be made a planned curriculum?
by each member 2. If so, what is the source
of your curriculum?
(State, diocese, commu-
nity, etc.)
350 Secondary School Department
Recommendation Area of Research Member
3. What recommendations
would you make concern-
ing the total preparation
of the English teacher?
(Background, education,
in-service training, etc.)
2. A detailed study of the total English Recent studies on the nature Bro. T. Corbett, SM
program as it now exists of the total English program
3. Articulation should be strengthened Articulation between high Sr. M. Jeannine, SSND
between high school and elementary school and elementary school
school and between high school and
college
4. A study of the curriculum to deter-
mine existing problems and solutions
a) Classes in composition should be Current practices in the Sr. Mary Flavia, BVM
improved and emphasized teaching of composition and Bro. Charles Conefrey,
their correlation with the FSCH
needs of both terminal and
college-bound students
b) English teachers should become Reading in relation to the Sr. Mary Julitta, OSF
better acquainted with funda- English curriculum
mental terms, techniques, and
programs in reading
c) The place of Speech in the En- Speech in relation to the En- Sr. Mary Edward, CPPS
glish curriculum should be clari- glish curriculum
fled
d) More research concerning ad- Honors Courses and Ad- Bro. Leonard Gilhooley,
vanced courses and remedial pro- vanced Placement Programs CFX
grams in vicinity of New York City
e) Problem areas and possible solu- The content of literature Rev. Wm. Power, SJ
tions should be investigated with relation to writing
Outcomes of team-teaching Sr. St. Agnes, SSJ
in English
5. Background, education, and in-serv- The teacher-training program Mr. J. Alan Davitt
ice training of the English teacher in English
should be given more consideration The apostolate of teaching Rev. James Farrell, SJ
and emphasis English
a) The same provisions made for
the training of teachers of math-
ematics and science should be
available to teachers of English
b) To provide better coordination
and to engender teacher-motiva-
tions, chairmen of English de-
partments should be given au-
thority to present various forms
of in-service training, to demand
staff meetings, and to supervise
the over-all program in English
c) Sources for procuring available
reading lists, visual aids, teacher-
training materials, etc., should
be brought to the attention of the
English teacher
d) English teachers should be en-
couraged to participate in pro-
fessional organizations
Proceedings and Reports 351
The final point on the agenda concerned the procedure to be followed at the
1963 convention. It was agreed that, if possible, there should be a closed meeting
on Tuesday afternoon, a closed meeting on Wednesday morning, and an open
meeting on Thursday afternoon. For this open meeting a large room would
be needed. The general procedure would demand reports from the appointed
committee members.
Respectfully submitted,
Sister Mary Edward, C.PP.S.
Secretary
THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Closed meeting, April 24: Under the chairmanship of Dr. Alfonso Tous,
the committee made plans for the open meeting of Wednesday. Decision was
made to follow the prepared Outline with its questions on "Who Are Making
Curriculum Decisions for Our Schools?", "How Are These Decisions Being
Made?", and "What Decisions Are Being Made?" Eight "buzz" session leaders
were selected and briefed.
Open meeting, April 25: 129 delegates attended the session. They came
from 21 states and Canada. Their expressed interests were: Latin, 52; Spanish,
25; French, 62; German, 6; Greek, 2; Russian, 2; all languages, 7; modern
methods, 20; language laboratories, 11.
The major portion of the meeting was taken up with the eight buzz sessions
and the brief summaries of these sessions. The sessions were exploratory and
designed to aid the committee in properly reporting on the Outline and in
preparing for the final reports at the St. Louis Convention in 1963.
Closed meeting, April 26: The buzz sessions were reviewed and plans laid
for the St. Louis meetings. It was generally agreed that if meeting time and
place were available that four sessions would be presented in the manner of the
Northeast Conference on Foreign Languages. The proposal is that four work-
ing committees of five members each be set up to prepare a position paper, or
working paper, which would be edited and duplicated and distributed to dele-
gates at the time of registration so that they might read the paper before the
open meeting. The chairman of each working committee would then give a
five-minute summary at the opening of the session and leave 25 minutes for
discussion by the audience and the working committee. Two hours would be
needed for the four presentations.
The topics for the working committee papers as tentatively agreed upon are:
1. Teacher Training.
2. The Audio-Lingual Approach.
3. Language Laboratory Techniques.
4. Aims of a Catholic Language Program.
THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
April 24, 1962: The meeting was called to order at 3 p.m. by Brother Fred
Weisbruch.
Roll Call: Brother Fred Weisbruch, Chairman; Rev. Joseph A. Coyne,
O.SA., Liaison Member for Science; Sister Therese Ann, Brother Richard
352 Secondary School Department
Cassin, Brother William Fitch, Sister James Francis, Sister Mary Irenaea,
Sister Mary Ivo, Sister Julia Marie, Brother Gregory Nazianzen, Sister Paschal,
Sister M. Ambrosia, Secretary.
Order of Business
I. Directives from Rev. Joseph A. Coyne
Detailed minutes of these directives are on attached sheets.
II. Selection of the following chairmen for the Wednesday "buzz" sessions
Biology: Sister Mary Ivo, Sister Julia Marie
Chemistry: Brother Fred, Sister Mary Irenaea
Physics: Brother Gregory, Brother William
Ninth-Grade Science: Brother Richard, Sister Paschal
Sequence of Courses: Sister James Francis, Sister Therese Ann
Statistician for the buzz sessions and member-at-large: Sister M.
Ambrosia
III. Discussion on how Father Coyne's directives could be implemented. It
was agreed that the attached mimeographed sheet would be distributed
to each person in attendance at each buzz session. It was believed that
the use of these sheets would encourage discussion and simplify the
task of making a summary after the session.
Meeting adjourned at 5 p.m.
(Father Coyne's directives were recorded on tape and are available for
audition. )
April 25: Brother Fred called the meeting to order at 9:30 a.m. and asked
one of the Reverend Fathers in the audience to open the meeting with a prayer.
The Chairman introduced the members of the committee, explained the pur-
pose of the breakdown into small buzz groups and indicated the place of
meeting for each small group. There were many late-comers and transients
to this session.
The attendance statistics are: Sequence of Courses, 35; Ninth-Grade Science,
22; Biology, 48; Chemistry, 41; Physics, 25. Total attendance in the small
groups, 171.
The Secretary had prepared 150 copies of the mimeographed sheet of
"Guide Lines." All copies were distributed.
At 10:35 a.m. the committee members returned to the platform for the
scheduled summaries. At this time the Chairman introduced Miss Diane B.
Gestler from the Educational Statistics Division of the United States Depart-
ment of Education. Miss Gestler had asked for a few minutes to thank the
administrators and teachers for their response to the 1962 Survey of Sectarian,
Nonpublic Schools. On March 7, 1962, 70 percent of the forms had been
returned. Miss Gestler encouraged those who had not replied to do so as
soon as possible. Those in charge of the survey expect a 99 percent response.
The chairmen of the small groups gave a one-minute summary for each
group.
Sequence of Courses: 9th Grade — Earth Science, General Science, Physi-
As it is at present ca* Science
10th Grade — Biology
11th Grade — Chemistry and Physics
12th Grade — Chemistry and Physics
Proceedings and Reports
353
In some large schools
Ninth-Grade Science
Biology
Chemistry
12th Grade — Advanced Placement course in one
area of the major sciences.
There is a need for a General Science course.
There is a lack of adequate textbook material.
A comprehensive laboratory course at this level is
desirable.
Grade placement for this course should be 10th
grade.
Diocesan supervision of this course is effectual but
it would be desirable that classroom teachers be
consulted concerning the course.
There is a need for meetings to acquaint the teach-
ers with the new courses which are being designed
and used in biology.
Relatively few of the schools are using the courses
recently designed for high school chemistry. Six
schools are incorporating some of the Chemical
Bond Approach materials, one is incorporating
the Chem Studies material.
Almost half of the schools represented in the buzz
session are using the Semimicro technique.
Most schools require a mathematics prerequisite of
two years work; a few require three years mathe-
matical preparation.
There is considerable variation in the schedule pat-
terns for chemistry. This variation embraces both
length of period and continuity of periods.
In places where a syllabus is used, it is a diocesan
syllabus. In many schools, the textbook is the
syllabus.
A teacher from Australia pointed out the advantages
in a curriculum which introduces the study of
physics at an early level and continues the study
for more than two semesters.
The general session adjourned at 10:57 a.m.
The summaries of the information obtained from the mimeo handouts are
as follows:
I. Who plans the curriculum in your diocese? There is very little diocesan
planning. Where it does exist, it is done by supervisors and a commit-
tee. In your school? Community supervisor, principal, and teachers.
II. What is your science curriculum?
Physics
Grade 9
Grade
Grade
Track One
General Science
Earth Science
Biology
Interchange: Chemistry
and Physics
Track Two
50% General Science
50% no science
50% Biology
50% no science
Track Three
25% General Science
Grade 12
10% Physical Science
354 Secondary School Department
III. How is your curriculum implemented? Negligible responses.
IV. Do you feel that your science curriculum is in keeping with our Catholic
philosophy of education? 33% response, yes.
V. What recommendations would you make for the secondary science cur-
riculum? Step up the elementary science program. At the present time
the elementary program is not very effective in preparing students for
the senior high school sciences.
There is almost complete freedom in science curriculum planning. The effec-
tiveness of the high school courses is very dependent upon the individual
teacher but some kind of guideline map is needed.
Too few teachers plan to participate in the National Science Foundation
Summer Institutes. More administrators and teachers should become interested.
Our teachers should be given the opportunity to obtain training in the BSCS
biology programs; CBA and Chem Studies chemistry programs; PSSC physics
program.
Administrators and teachers should provide for one advanced course in at
least one of the major sciences. Biology seems to offer the most promising
possibility at the present time.
Provision must be made to provide some scientific training for the non-col-
lege student and at a level comprehensible to that student. Much could be
done at the ninth grade level to provide for these students and to introduce
the science-prone students to the scientific method.
Prospective chemistry and physics students should study trigonometry as
early as possible in high school, earlier than eleventh grade, if possible.
April 26: Brother Fred Weisbruch, Chairman, opened the meeting at 2 p.m.
and presided.
Report from Special Meeting, for Secretaries of Advisory Committees: Sis-
ter Ambrosia reported that Brother Bartholomew would like to have the
Secretary's Report mailed to him before June 1, 1962. Brother asked that the
report include the answers to the following questions:
What sequence of meetings does this committee desire for the 1963 Conven-
tion? (There are to be one open meeting and two closed meetings.)
What type of open meeting does the committee wish to have in 1963?
Speaker? Panel discussion? Buzz session?
The members of the committee discussed the questions presented in the
above report and decided upon the following sequence for the three meetings.
First Closed Meeting Open Meeting Second Closed Meeting
The committee also decided that the open meeting would be a panel discussion
on the five areas which were discussed at the buzz sessions of the open meet-
ing of the 1962 convention. These five areas are: Ninth-Grade Science, Biology,
Chemistry, Physics, and the Sequence of Courses in the Science Curriculum.
Buzz Sessions at the Open Meeting. The committee members who presided
at these sessions reported that diversity and freedom seem to be the general
pattern in curriculum planning. Length of class periods and laboratory periods
continues to be a traditional problem in some school systems. The curriculum
sequence in common use at the present time is the one which has prevailed for
some time, Ninth Grade, General Science; Tenth Grade, Biology; Eleventh
Grade, Chemistry; Twelfth Grade, Physics.
Proceedings and Reports 355
Because there was some indication that a few schools are trying out an ex-
perimental course, it was decided that a summary of the mimeo sheets which
were distributed and filled out during the buzz sessions would be compiled by
each of the five leaders and sent to Sister Ambrosia before Friday, May 4.
Sister is to consolidate these five reports and include the summary in the
minutes of the Open session.
Committee Work for the Coming Year. In order to facilitate the work which
must precede the completion of the "Outline for a Report on Curriculum Prac-
tices and Trends," the committee drew up the following set of questions to be
used as Guidelines for securing information.
GENERAL SURVEY PREPARED BY THE
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
1. How many minutes of lecture time do you have per week for science classes?
b) Of laboratory time?
2. Are you participating in any of the following experimental programs in sec-
ondary schools?
P.S.S.C.; BSCS; CBA; CHEM Study; Earth Science Project; Others?
3. What is your science curriculum:
Above Average Average Below Average
Grade 9
Grade 10
Grade 11
Grade 12
4. Would you suggest any changes in the sequence of courses? If so, please in-
dicate:
Grade 9
Grade 10
Grade 11
Grade 12
5. What recommendations would you make for the secondary science curriculum?
6. Are the elementary science courses offered in your school diocese adequate to
prepare students for secondary science?
7. What in-service training do you feel you need to upgrade your science teaching?
8. What enrichment programs, if any, do you offer for your students?
9. Do local or state regulations interfere with effective science teaching in your
school?
b) Are there other problems which interfere with effective science teaching?
10. What is the mechanism of curriculum planning in your school?
11. What is the evaluation guide you use in making a study of a textbook prior
to adoption?
12. Are you a member of any professional science groups? List them.
b) Do you participate in the activities of the organization?
c) Do you hold office?
The following assignments, state-wise, were agreed upon by the committee
members:
Sister Therese Ann Arizona, Georgia, California, Nevada, New Mexico,
West Virginia
356 Secondary School Department
Brother Richard District of Columbia, Kentucky, Louisiana, New
York, New Jersey
Sister James Francis Florida, New England states
Brother Gregory Maryland, Pennsylvania
Sister Irenaea Colorado, Indiana, Ohio
Sister Mary Ivo Iowa, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming
Sister Julia Marie Michigan, Nebraska, South Carolina, Wisconsin
Sister Paschal Kansas, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota,
Oklahoma, South Dakota
Brother Fred Weisbruch Hawaii, Illinois, Missouri, Texas
Brother William and Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, Mississippi,
Sister Ambrosia Tennessee, Utah, Virginia
An effort will be made to secure information during the summer months
and early in the school year of 1962-63. If Sister Ambrosia receives the infor-
mation in time, Sister Therese Ann and Sister Ambrosia will try to have a
summary prepared before Thanksgiving.
Those committee members who are planning to attend the annual conven-
tion of the Central Association of Science and Mathematics Teachers in St.
Louis at Thanksgiving agreed to meet for a brief progress report on our com-
mittee work.
The meeting adjourned at 4 p.m.
REPORT OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON MATHEMATICS
Members of the Committee: Brother Edward Daniel Dougherty, C.F.X.,
Chairman; Very Rev. Justin E. Diny, O.Praem., Vice Chairman; Brother U.
Alfred, F.S.C., Secretary; Sister M. Madeline Rose, S.N.J.M., Assistant Secre-
tary; Sister Marguerite Ann, C.PP.S.; Rev. Ralph Bange; Sister Rita Buddeke,
S.N.D.; Sister Mary Catharina, O.P.; Sister San Jose, S.S.J. ; Sister Mary Ken-
neth, B.V.M.; Brother Edward Lee, C.S.C.; Sister Mary de Lourdes, O.S.M.;
Brother Edward Michael, F.M.S.; Rev. Timothy Reardon, S.J.
All members of the committee were present and participated in committee
sessions. At the closed meeting held on April 24, 1962, there was a general
discussion of the function of the committee and plans for the open meeting
scheduled for the following day were drawn up.
About three hundred convention delegates attended the committee's open
session on April 25. After the opening remarks of the Chairman, each delegate
joined one of the twelve discussion groups set up to provide committee mem-
bers and convention delegates with an opportunity to exchange views and
experiences on important problems connected with the secondary school
mathematics program. The topics discussed were the following:
1. The School Mathematics Study Group Program — for those who wish to
become familiar with this approach.
2. The School Mathematics Study Group Program — for those who are
familiar with it and who wish to share ideas and experiences.
3. Local Experimental Programs in Mathematics.
4. Advanced Placement in Mathematics.
5. The Place of Trigonometry in the High School Mathematics Program.
6. Twelfth-grade Mathematics Programs.
7. Articulation of the Total Mathematics Program (K-16).
8. Mathematics for the Average and Slow Learners.
Proceedings and Reports 357
9. Pre-service and In-service Preparation of Mathematics Teachers.
10. Mathematics Textbooks.
11. Programmed Instruction in Mathematics.
12. Discovery and Creativity in Mathematics.
Members of the committee acted as discussion leaders and recorders for the
groups.
At the closed meeting of the committee on April 26 each committee mem-
ber reported the reactions and conclusions of the discussion group he had led
at the open meeting. The committee then discussed the nature of the research
members would carry on during the 1962-63 school year and the methods that
would be used in disseminating results to other members of the committee.
This material will form the basis for the committee's final report which will
be issued at the 1963 NCEA Convention in St. Louis.
The committee also approved a motion to request a closed meeting with
superintendents, supervisors, and other administrators to acquaint them with
the urgent need for the in-service and pre-service training of teachers.
The committee plans to hold an open meeting for mathematics teachers and
others interested in mathematics at which it will present its final report and
provide delegates with the opportunity to discuss the report with committee
members.
REPORT OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON RELIGION
The Chairman of the committee, Rev. Edward Burkhardt, asked that it be
clearly understood from the beginning that in all the discussions, no criticism
of the past and its accomplishments would be implied. Each member of the
committee has great admiration for all that has been done and each member
also recognizes the era in which texts, methods, etc., had been prepared. A new
era began in 1943 with the encyclicals Mystici Corporis, Mediator Dei, etc.,
and so new approaches are now essential. Major publishers are starting over
in textbook production and do not intend just to "fix up" present editions.
Regardless of the text, it is essential that the teacher be as well prepared to
teach religion as he is to teach any secular subject. In this subject, more than
in any other area, the proper type of personality is required. It is, therefore,
strongly recommended that there be a religion department, a qualified head of
the department, and teachers properly selected and trained to teach religion.
Since proper teacher preparation cannot always be presumed at the present
time, strong teacher manuals should accompany each text.
With regard to both content and method of presentation, the clergy must be
careful not to try to give a seminary course or a sermon. Religious must
be careful not to try to form "religious" rather than first forming adult
Catholics. It must be an academic presentation of Christ, of Divine Revela-
tion. It is the student's grasp of this academic presentation that is the only
thing marked under religion on the report card.
The objective of our religious instruction must be the total commitment of
the person in faith, hope, and charity, following upon his intellectual assent
to doctrine. We must strive to develop a mature type of adult faith that results
in complete dedication; in a total response of a living, supernatural faith, to
the message that is Christ. It can be said that there is a proximate objective
which is the imparting of knowledge and there is also an ultimate objective
which is the formation of a mature faith.
358 Secondary School Department
The doctrinal approach, which is very important, does not go far enough to
produce the ultimate objective. The Christo-centric approach goes further.
Christ, the Message, the Logos, the center of doctrine, of the liturgy and of
biblical history, is the motivating force for the complete dedication of mature
faith. In our teaching there must be a blend of the Biblical Sign, the Liturgi-
cal Sign, the Doctrinal Sign, and the Sign of the Witness. (This last sign
again emphasizes the need for well-prepared, attractive, religion teachers!)
High school religion must be biblical. It must be a presentation of events
with the realization that we are caught up in these events. These are not just
historic events, but God's action in the world in the past, the present, the future.
The student must be taught Christ in the Old Testament (B.C.), Christ on earth
in the New Testament (A.D.), Christ living now (1962), and Christ living
triumphantly (Parousia). The student must be made to see the unity of
things as a result of God's planning and Christ as the center of it all.
It was the general opinion of the committee members that the 1963 NCEA
religion sections would be most practical if the time could be given to the
religion advisory committee for two open meetings.
It was suggested that these two open meetings (120 minutes each on two
different days) would follow this pattern:
30 minutes — a paper given by a committee member
15 minutes — an interview-question type of panel consisting of other com-
mittee members and prepared in advance with the one giv-
ing the paper
10 minutes — questions from the floor
5 minutes — recess
30 minutes — another paper given by another committee member and
then the same procedure as above.
It was also the general opinion of the committee members that the groups
at the NCEA are too large for practical buzz sessions.
Sister Mary Verona, S.S.J.
REPORT OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON HISTORY
Meetings: Monday, April 24, 1962 — 5 to 7 p.m.; Tuesday, April 25 — 3 to
5 p.m.; Wednesday, April 26 — 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; Thursday, April 27 —
2 to 4 p.m.
Monday: Informal, get-acquainted meeting of the committee. General dis-
cussion of scope of the committee: decided it included the other social studies
in addition to history. Agreed to need for outline of conduct of buzz session.
Discussion of the proper place for study of papal encyclicals. Consensus
favored placing of these in the social studies.
Tuesday: Meetings to be conducted by "modified" parliamentary procedure.
Much discussion on actual organization for buzz session; finally decided that
participants would be divided mathematically with no regard for geographical
distribution. Each member of the committee would lead a group during the
buzz session. The session would be guided by the outline included in the
Guidebook for Advisory Committees. At the end of the session each mem-
ber would summarize the findings of his particular group.
Proceedings and Reports 359
The committee made several other decisions of importance at this meeting.
(1) We are after no original evaluation but rather a gathering of results of
prior evaluations. (2) There is a necessity of letting the Catholic school sys-
tems know that we are engaged in this study. (3) For practical reasons it was
decided that the committee would not attempt to go into details on teacher
qualifications, new teaching techniques, etc.
Wednesday: For obvious reasons, there are no accurate minutes for the
buzz sessions. There were twelve different groups that included representatives
from at least twenty-three different states and Canada. The most uniform
opinion expressed was the need for additional work in geography and economics
at the secondary level.
Thursday: A lengthy discussion on the depth of the committee work was
modified extensively by suggestions from Brother Bartholomew. The net result
was the decision to use a brief questionnaire that would be mailed out by the
members of the committee to a random selection of schools and superintendents
within the region of their responsibility. The results, in turn, would be for-
warded to the Secretary or Assistant Secretary.
The following responsibilities* were assigned:
Brother Leonard Fabian Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri
Sister Alfreda Marie California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah,
Nevada
Sister Edward Ann Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, North Dakota, South
Dakota, Montana, Idaho
Brother John McCluskey Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon
Sister Mary Xaveria Michigan
(The above members should forward their reports to Sister Mary Xaveria.)
Sister Mary Josella Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Con-
necticut, New Hampshire
Rev. George Tiffany New York, New Jersey
Brother James Kelly Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware
Sister Mary Gemma Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Texas
Brother Gunther Aucoin Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisi-
ana, Arkansas
Rev. Francis Schulte Pennsylvania
(The latter members should forward their reports to Thomas Bass.)
The Secretary is to send to each member of the committee approximately
twenty-five copies of the questionnaire, a copy of the minutes, a copy of the
Syllabus on International Relations, a list of participants in the buzz session,
and a list of names and addresses of members of the committee.
It was decided that the best time for members to mail the questionnaire
would be the latter part of October. It was further decided that the Chairman
would obtain as much publicity as possible to ensure a good response to the
questionnaires. Brother Fabian was kind enough to agree to revise a ques-
tionnaire that he had used in an earlier study.
The last topic was a consideration of next year's meeting. The consensus
favored a "known" speaker followed by a short buzz session.
Thomas Bass, Secretary
* Revised by correspondence from Rev. Schulte.
360 Secondary School Department
SOCIAL STUDIES SURVEY
Conducted by the History Committee
National Catholic Educational Association
This is an attempt to discover the typical social studies course offerings
in our Catholic Secondary Schools
I. required courses: Please write YES after all of the following courses which
are required for all students prior to graduation and then list the year in which
the course is required and the textbook used for the required course.
(A) AMERICAN HISTORY? YEAR?
TEXT?
(B) world history?
(C) sociology?
TEXT?
(author)
. YEAR? _
(publisher)
(author)
YEAR?
(publisher)
TEXT?
(author)
(publisher)
(D) PROBLEMS OF DEMOCRACY?
TEXT? _
YEAR?
(author)
(E) DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER REQUIRED COURSES?
1. COURSE TITLE? YEAR REQUIRED?
TEXT?
(publisher)
2. COURSE TITLE?
YEAR REQUIRED?
TEXT?
II. elective courses: Please list elective social studies courses, the year the stu-
dents usually elect to take the course and the textbook used.
(A) course title?
YEAR ELECTED?
TEXT?
(B) COURSE TITLE?
YEAR ELECTED?
TEXT?
III. WE ARE PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS:
(A) Does your school offer economics? when? required?
ELECTIVE?
(B) Does your school offer geography? when? required?
ELECTIVE?
(C) Does your school teach a special course in the papal encyclicals?
IV. ANY COMMENTS THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE ABOUT THE SOCIAL STUDIES?
PLEASE USE THE ENCLOSED ENVELOPE TO RETURN THIS QUESTIONNAIRE.
Proceedings and Reports 361
CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL QUARTERLY BULLETIN
The Catholic High School Quarterly Bulletin is published in January, April,
July, and October of each year by the National Catholic Educational Associa-
tion in the interest of the Regional Units of the Secondary School Department.
It is sent gratis to institutional members of the Secondary School Depart-
ment, to members of the Executive Committee of this Department, to members
of the General Executive Board of the Association, to all sustaining members
of the Association, to members of the Executive Committee of the College
and University Department, and to all superintendents of diocesan school
systems.
Following the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Secondary School
Department in October, 1961, the Quarterly was completely revised as to for-
mat. A two-year program was set up to form an integrated approach to
problems facing the high school principal. The format at present is such that
each issue can be used eventually as a chapter in a handbook for high school
administrators. The Quarterly Bulletin is likewise designed for in-service
courses for teachers.
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Brother Anthony, F.S.C., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Brother Bartholomew, C.F.X., Newton Highlands, Massachusetts
Reverend C. Albert Koob, O.Praem, Editor, Washington, D.C.
Mrs. Betty Randall, Assistant Editor, Washington, D.C.
SECONDARY SCHOOL DEPARTMENT: OFFICERS 1962-63
President: Brother E. Anthony, F.S.C., Philadelphia, Pa.
Vice President: Very Rev. Msgr. Henry Gardner, Kansas City, Kan.
Secretary: Rev. John Doogan, Seattle, Wash.
General Executive Board:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. T. Leo Keaveny, St. Cloud, Minn.
Brother Bartholomew, C.F.X., Newton Highlands, Mass.
Department Executive Committee:
Ex officio Members:
The President, Vice President, and Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Edmund J. Goebel, Milwaukee, Wis.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. T. Leo Keaveny, St. Cloud, Minn.
Brother Bartholomew, C.F.X., Newton Highlands, Mass.
Rev. C. Albert Koob, O. Praem., Washington, D.C, Associate Secretary
General Members:
Very Rev. Msgr. Roman C. Ulrich, Omaha, Neb.
Rev. Joseph T. O'Keefe, Yonkers, N.Y.
Rev. Lorenzo K. Reed, S.J., New York, N.Y.
Rev. Joseph Lynn, O.S.F.S., Wilmington, Del.
Rev. John E. O'Connell, O.P., Oak Park, 111.
Rev. Gerard Benson, O.Carm., Houston, Tex.
Rev. John Sullivan, S.J., Chicago, 111.
Rev. Cuthbert Soukup, O.S.B., Collegeville, Minn.
Brother Thomas More, C.F.X., Baltimore, Md.
Brother Edwin Goerdt, S.M., St. Louis, Mo.
Brother Alfonso Comeau, C.S.C., Gates Mills, Ohio
Brother John Darby, S.M., Chester Pa.
Brother Joseph McKenna. F.S.C.H., West Roxbury, Mass.
Brother Jude Aloysius, F.S.C., Chicago, 111.
Brother C. O'Donnell, F.S.C.H., Butte, Mont.
Brother J. Stephen, F.S.C., Memphis, Tenn.
Sister M. Elaine, S.S.N.D., Houston, Tex.
Sister M. Elizabeth, S.L., Denver, Colo.
Sister Francis Inez, S.S.J., Philadelphia, Pa.
Sister M. Hildegardis, C.S.C., Ogden, Utah.
Sister M. Patrice, O.S.F., Milwaukee, Wis.
Sister M. Xavier, O.P., River Forest, 111.
Sister M. Paulita, O.S.F., Milwaukee, Wis.
Sister M. Jerome, O.S.U., Youngstown, Ohio
362
Secondary School Department
Regional Unit Members:
Brother Marcellus, C.F.X., Roxbury, Mass.
Rev. Thomas E. Lawton, Bridgeport, Conn.
Brother Benjamin Benedict, F.S.C., Lincroft, N.J.
Sister M. Christopher, R.S.M., Baltimore, Md.
Rev. Walter C. McCauley, S.J., Dallas, Tex.
Brother Kerric Dever, C.S.C., Miami, Fla.
Rev. David Murphy, O.Carm., Chicago, 111.
Rev. Joseph A. Coyne, O.S.A., Tulsa, Okla.
Sister Ann Dolores, F.C.S.F., Missoula, Mont.
Rev. John Doogan, Seattle, Wash.
Brother Eugene, F.S.C., Sacramento, Calif.
Brother Herman J. Gerber, S.M., San Francisco, Calif.
Prof. George Chang, Honolulu, Hawaii
Sister M. Lucy, SS.CC, Honolulu, Hawaii
New England
Eastern
Southern
Midwest
Northwestern
Southwestern
Hawaii
PART 8 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
WHAT IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH?
Rev. Eugene M. Burke, C.S.P.
ST. PAUL'S COLLEGE, THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA
WASHINGTON, D. C.
To the believing Christian nourished by revelation there can be no question
but that God is the master of history. We are sure that He alone holds its true
and ultimate meaning which He orders for His purpose. We are equally sure
that however mysterious be the design at any given moment, nevertheless the
totality of the many-threaded interweaving of history has but one end — to
show forth His glory and bear witness to His love for man. To the Christian,
revelation proclaims unwaveringly that a divine purpose is at the very root of
human history and guides the development of the world toward its accomplish-
ment. For in revelation God's glory is organically joined with the salvation of
man. And it is in the perspective and dimension of this divine design that we
must set the Church if we would know truly and fully what it is. In this con-
text the Church is the culmination and realization of the first stage of God's
saving intent in history. The form it takes, the dynamisms that impel it, the
structural elements that distinguish it, all have their roots deep in the divine
action realized in and through the events that constitute the history of salva-
tion. Each of the events and words and acts form the history of salvation have
been eternally willed and ordered in the divine plan that reaches from the call
of Abraham to the coming of the Holy Spirit on the nascent Church.
The first stage of this divine design finds its historical realization — its in-
carnational form — in what St. Paul calls "Israel" and what the Fathers describe
as "the Church of the Promises." For St. Paul, Israel denotes the Jewish nation
adopted as God's people and entrusted within the word that reveals God's
intent and manifests His power. It is Israel as the nation 'after God's own
heart' in and through which He will work out His salvific design. A chosen
people not a multitude, an organic community not a mass of individuals, a
historic nation that will gradually learn to recognize itself as the vehicle of
God's saving purpose in history. Interwoven into the life of the community
by the Word of God are the major dynamisms or themes that are as it were
the spiritual arteries through which the experience of Israel will flow into the
life of the Church of Christ. Vocation, Election, Faith and Obedience, En-
lightenment through Suffering, God's choice of the weak things, Exile, Con-
version, Sin, Deliverance; each of these plays its part in the life of Israel and
each of them Israel slowly penetrates and spiritualizes through the interaction
of God's Word with contingent events and free agents. Out of this interaction
is shaped the terrain over which Israel makes its way toward Christ and His
Church.
363
364 Elementary School Department
Thus it is that the Church looking back through Christ can discern the type
of her own organic and communal structure as well as the germ of the forms
by which she will carry out Christ's commission. So we see Israel given God's
own word of salvation — a word whose understanding gives wisdom for the
present and knowledge of the future. Yet it is a word, as St. Paul makes clear
and Israel testifies, that is above all the law through which God manifests his
will and intent. It is through the law that He guides them to His end and it is
by observing the law that their lives are properly ordered — are wise. But the
word of knowledge and the word embodied in the law are conjoined to the
prophetic word through which Israel comes to know the deeper meaning of
the law as well as its own historic experience. It is the prophetic word that
makes of God's action a true revelation and so the object of faith. Lastly, but
integral to the total word, is the ritual of Israel where it recalls and transmits
the memory of God's great interventions into the patterns of Jewish history.
By its liturgical renewal of the Pasch, of the Dedication, of the Tabernacles,
the relation of God to Israel is recalled, the covenant reaffirmed and hope in
His Promises renewed. Rule, teaching and cult, all these we also see in the
Church but transformed and fulfilled and animated by the redemptive Incarna-
tion. Thus the law that guides becomes the Spirit commanding through men
given the power of Christ; the prophetic office becomes the apostolic office
wherein men speak with the living voice of Christ, the supreme intervention
of God into history — the Incarnation — finds sacramental expression wherein
the past is not only recalled and signified but made present in power and truth.
Hence we can never disassociate the Church from her Old Testament roots
without attenuating our full understanding of her. On the other hand it is
a distortion to think of the Church as only the historical continuation of
Israel — a kind of universalization of it. For between the history of Israel and
the history of the Church there stands the central event of history itself —
the Word made flesh and dwelling amongst us. Christ the Son of God, it is
true, is the bond that unites the Church of the promises and its Christian
fulfillment, yet, at the same time, He bears a relationship to the Church
which is His body that of its very nature makes it other than Israel. It is
a relationship, a bond, that makes of the Church a transcendent entity.
To understand the depth of the distinction between Israel and the Church
of Christ as well as the uniqueness of the Church we must be clearly conscious
of a fundamental affirmation of Catholic faith. It is the fact that Christ is
the key event of history because in Him the purpose of history finds its com-
pletion and fulfillment. All that the law had looked to, all that the prophets
had proclaimed, all that had been promised by God and testified to by His
works are realized in His Son through whom He speaks to us in these last
days. The work of God that has its inception with creation finds its term
in Christ. God's love for man achieves its fulness by reason of the fact that
in Christ human nature is joined with the divine order and man is rendered
capable of the divine friendship. In like manner, God is perfectly and forever
glorified by the priestly sacrifice of His son, who becomes obedient even
unto the death of the cross. Accordingly not only the history of Israel but
of humanity as well as creation find their completion in the risen Christ who
is at once the end and the center of history. From this point on the history
of salvation can only be the unfolding in time and space of what has already
been accomplished in Christ. Hence it is precisely because the Church is
organically related to the Risen Christ that we are able to speak of it as the
body of Christ and Christ as her head. It is because the divine saving pur-
pose has been fully realized in Christ that we can speak of the Church as
What Is the Catholic Church? 365
the unfolding of Christ in history or as the extension of the Incarnation in
time and space.
So central is this element in the mystery of the Church that it calls for
some elaboration here. Let us begin with revelation itself as transmitted
by the inspired words of St. Paul. Writing to the Ephesians he states: "And
He has made Him the head of the Church in an unsurpassed way for the
Church is His body the fulness of Him Who fulfills all in all" (1:22-23).
To the Collossians he writes: "He is the head of the Church his body . . .
and it has pleased the Father to make all fulness dwell within Him bodily
and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself making peace by His
blood which was poured out on the cross" (1:16-20). It is this fulness —
this pleroma — that St. Paul uses to explain in what sense the Church is the
body of Christ. In His office as savior, Christ is the head of the body and
so rules over it; by reason of His fulness He is the source of the spiritual
activity of the faithful, uniting and animating them and making them to
grow as an organic supernatural community — the people of God. The Church,
then, is the sphere in which Christ exercises His power of sanctification and
where men participate in that more abundant life He came to give. This
community becomes the receptacle of the graces and gifts that flow from
Him in whom is all fulness. Through this community is unfolded and ex-
panded the power of sanctification which dwells in Him bodily. This body,
this organic community so united, so animated, so vivified is mystically
identified with the Risen Body of Christ in which is realized the fulness
of the divine work and sanctification. It is termed a mystical identification to
show that it is on a transcendent level where it means more than mere like-
ness and yet less than actual identity. Thus Christians by faith and baptism
become members not of an organization, but sharers of the life of Christ
which is found in a community instituted by Christ himself. By participation
in the new life human nature is reformed, renewed, and elevated and the
"new man" created in justice and holiness becomes in the strong patristic
phrase "the flesh of Christ" and all that is man's is brought into living com-
munion with the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Up to this point we have emphasized the fact that Christ willed to exercise
His saving power and communicate His fulness through an organic and
visible community — the Church His body. Our next step is to see the con-
sequences of this fact since they are an essential element of the mystery of
what the Church is. First, because the Church is not a haphazard collection
of individuals but a community, then it will achieve its divinely established
purposes as a community — a body; it will unfold the fulness of Christ as a
community — a body; it will bear witness to Christ and proclaim His gospel
as a community — a body. As a community, an organic unity, a body it will
carry out its purposes by means of communal activity, ordered processes —
organs — all of which are integral to sound communal activity. The Church
will act as befits a body "united to the head from whom the whole body
supplied and built up with joints and ligaments attains a growth that is of
God" (Col. 2:19). Moreover, because this community comes into existence
and takes its form not from the will of men but by the will of Christ then
its essential organs are instituted and empowered by Christ to Whom the
community itself owes its existence and whose grace creates the Christians
who make it up. But because the Church is not only a mystery of grace but
a human structure then these organs grow from its very nature as a living
society of men — a body. Thus, from the fact that it is an organism flows the
consequence that it will seek its ends by ordered and organized effort. From
366 Elementary School Department
the fact that it is established to seek its proper ends, its common good, in a
communal and ordered way, then authority will be an integral part of its
constitution.
We arrive, then, at one of the distinctive notes of the Catholic Church —
authority. This note is at once the abiding strength of the Church and a
permanent stumbling block to those who do not share her faith (as well as
to some who do). Around this note has swirled an unending stream of
fallacies, distortions, and misunderstandings — the American image that the
Church is simply a power structure. In the face of so critical a reaction and
so crucial an issue let us try to disengage the true notion of authority from
the intellectual swamp created by the use of the term "authoritarian" as an
epithet.
We must first begin by recognizing that any time a society is organized
in terms of a common end or a common good, authority has an essential
role to play in its activity. The essential function of authority is not coercion
but to bring about common action for the achievement of a common good.
The common good that brings the society into existence calls, also, for an
authority to assure that there will be unity of action in the pursuit of this
common good. This holds whether the decision is made collectively, by a
committee, by a majority vote, or by an individual. In the face of the actuali-
ties of our human condition with its permanent possibilities of disagreement
and debate, uncertainty and hesitation about the best or most effective means
to the end there must be an authority to decide and command so that the
group can act as a group. Lacking this, the alternatives are paralysis or anarchy.
On the other hand, authority properly understood can never be an imper-
sonal thing. Rather it must, of its nature, reside in a person and be exercised
by a person for it is an exercise of responsibility — a thing of reason and will
and choice. In its essence it is "exercised through a command accepted by
the free will of another as a rule of conduct — that is obeyed." Authority
and obedience, therefore, are correlative since free persons are involved on
both sides. Authority without responsibility leads to tyranny, but authority
without power leads to anarchy or inertia. True authority needs power, but
must ever be aware of responsibility for the common good and the com-
munity which seeks that common good. It is in this sense that authority is
given to the community of Christ:
All power in heaven and on earth is given me. Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have
Commanded you (Matt. 28:18-20).
At the same time, however, Christ has made it clear that this authority js
given them for the service of God's ends and not for their elevation.
Let him who is the greatest among you become as the youngest and him
who is the chief as he who serves. ... I am in your midst as one who
serves ... I appoint to you a kingdom even as the Father has appointed
unto me a kingdom (Lk. 22:26-29) and: even as the Son of man has come
not to be served (Matt. 20:28).
So Christ gives true authority with real power but demanding that it be
encompassed in that Christian charity which seeks only to serve.
While Christ bestows his authority on the apostles it is by no means intended
to be a purely human structure or something intimately dependent on human
What Is the Catholic Church? 367
personalities or human character. Like the body in which it is exercised,
it joins the human and divine in such wise that the effective exercise of this
authority is owed to the Spirit of Christ Who is the soul of the Church. The
unity of action which this authority looks to achieving, and which in fact
it supposes, also supposes the cooperation of the Holy Spirit in the Church.
For the organic unity of the Church is not simply the fact that it is visibly
one professing the same faith, obeying the same authority, or receiving the
same sacraments. Rather these signs of unity are the bodying forth of the
supernatural unity which is the work of grace. The living unity of the Church
has existential reality because each member of the Church is possessed by
the Holy Spirit and moved by Him to a unity of belief and action with the
whole body. This possession penetrates the very soul of each member, and
by the work of grace makes of each one an instrument played upon by the
Holy Spirit. The result is that the life of the soul is transformed and it has a
new and supernatural mode of being whereby the Christian believes and hopes
and loves and acts and is one in life with the Church. Ultimately, therefore,
authority and power in the Church have their roots in that charity which
the Holy Spirit pours into the souls of believers. Hence it is most fitting that
the very apex of this sacredly established authority should rejoice in the title
"The servant of the servants of God." Equally fitting is it that the ancient
title of all the hierarchy should be episcopos (pastor — shepherd) and that
tradition should describe the bishop as the husband and spouse of the local
church over which he presided.
Not only must there be a ruling authority in the community of Christ, but
this authority to rule must carry with it the power to teach by the very fact
that the Church must proclaim and manifest the fulness of Christ. Hence it
must bear witness to Him Who is the truth — the Supreme Revealer and the
Supreme Revelation of God. For knowledge of the truth is necessarily con-
nected with salvation, and salvation is dependent on it since God wills that
all men be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. Christ Himself tells
His disciples that He calls them friends because He has made known to them
all things that He has heard from the Father. As the gospels make clear,
Christ has revealed the salvific will of God by His every word and act, by
His birth and public life, by His passion and death, by His resurrection and
ascension. He has commanded that this whole order of divine truth be com-
municated to all men in every age: "Teaching them to observe all that I
have commanded you and behold I am with you all days even to the con-
summation of the world." By the will of Christ, the Church as the living
community of Christ must of necessity proclaim the gospel until the end of
time to all the earth. In the light of this, the Church must needs become a
"school of truth," a living teacher presenting revealed truth to humanity and
responding to man's needs and questions.
To see all that this teaching office entails we need only glance at the history
of the ecumenical councils as indications of the demands made on the teaching
office of the Church. In them we can see the various doctrinal emphases, the
cross currents of centuries of historical events, the interplay of personalities, new
insights, new needs, and new perspectives. In short, all that is meant by the
interaction of forces and ideas, of persons and events that constitute the living
flow of history. And it is in and through this mighty current that the truth
of Christ must come to every age and be accommodated to all men and yet
remain unchanged and unchangeable. How can this be unless this truth be
entrusted to a living authority able to transmit, preserve, explain, adapt, and
develop it? It is this that is meant by the living magisterium of the Pope and
368 Elementary School Department
the bishops in union with him. As the successors of the apostles they carry
on the apostolic office and are protected in it by the continuing activity of
Christ in His body. Once again we see the visible structure is human but
the inner form is of Christ. True the voices of the present are historically
linked with the apostles but they remain human voices. What informs them
with power and endows them with surety is the Spirit of Christ working in the
Church communicating to its apostolicity and catholicity.
Viewed in this living totality of the Church, apostolicity means that the
men who constitute the teaching authority of the Church in any age are not
only the successors of the apostles in time but that the apostolic office itself
actually lives in them. Through the sacrament of order, the call given to
Peter and the twelve, the mandate and authority conferred on the apostolic
college, the protection promised it — all these are communicated to the bishops
in their actuality. For the sacrament not only signifies these past things but
contains and confers them. Through his ordination and consecration the
Pentecostal Spirit is directly communicated to each bishop here and now so
that through the abiding activity of the Holy Spirit the apostolic office and
authority is and will continue to be a living reality. Not only is the episcopal
college in union with the Pope, the living succession of the apostles, but the
apostolic tradition lives in and through the bishops here and now. Dispersed
throughout the world or gathered in ecumenical council, theirs is the respon-
sibility, theirs the office to judge and proclaim what is the faith once delivered
to the apostles. Through them the Son speaks in these last days as the living
organ of His voice. This possession of apostolic truth demands that they
preach the truth of Christ in season and out; that they accommodate it to the
needs of their flocks without deforming it; that they recognize and affirm
dogmatic development but reject every effort that would corrupt or distort or
eviscerate the truth of Christ entrusted to them. Above all, must they affirm
that the fulness of the apostolic office finds voice in the successor of St. Peter
to whom has been supremely entrusted all the sheep of Christ to feed and to
rule. Even as each bishop is for his own diocese, so is the Pope for the whole
Church — the Prince of the Apostles and the Vicar of Christ — the visible mani-
festation of that unity of the body with its head. In the words of St. Thomas:
"To say that the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff, does not hold the primacy
in the universal Church is an error analogous to that which denies that the
Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. For Christ, the Son of God, consecrates
His Church and consecrates it by the Holy Spirit as by his seal or stamp. Like-
wise, the Vicar of Christ by his primacy and governance, like a good servant,
preserves the universal Church that is subject to Christ."
Equally necessary to and constitutive of this teaching office is the super-
natural gift of catholicity. It seems to me (and I offer this as a personal
opinion) that in catholicity there are two complementary elements. On the
one hand it makes present in every age the fulness of the Catholic faith, that
is, the totality of the apostolic tradition and all that has developed out of it
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as well as the whole corpus of
dogmatic affirmations and the inferences that must be made from them. Yet
because this is a living structure of truth formed and communicated by the
Holy Spirit in every age, Catholicity also implies a kind of prophetic potential
which is proper to the Paraclete Who will guide the disciples of Christ in all
truth and draw it from the teaching of Christ. Because of this potential, the
truth of Christ has a dynamic universalism. It gives to the teaching office
"a capacity to assimilate, win over to God, reunite and bring to the perfection
of Christ the whole of man and all human values." It gives to the truth of
What Is the Catholic Church? 369
Christ an aptitude for the whole of mankind and for every truly human value
so that through this supernatural dynamism it can recapitulate in Christ and
make its own the immense variety and wealth of human values — past, present,
and future — in every race and culture. Catholicity in this sense is the mani-
festation of transcendent supernatural vitality that is proper to the body of
Christ.
The last constitutive element of the Church necessarily follows from the
fact that it is a religious fellowship and society. As such it must by nature
look to communion with God and express its relation to Him in worship. In
the case of the Church of Christ it must be further recalled that the very
action which brings it into existence and is the source of its existence is a
supernatural act of worship. For Christ's death on the Cross is above all the
act of worship by which God is perfectly and supremely glorified. It is this
act that in turn initiates the worship of the Christian community. Ultimately
it is in order to perfect the members of the body for worship that the Church
works unceasingly to sanctify them. As St. Thomas puts it: "The grace of the
sacraments not only removes the gaps caused by past sins but renders the
soul perfect in those things that pertain to the worship of God in the Christian
religion." Thus, the whole of the sacramental, activity by which the Church
sanctifies the members of the body, is orientated to that worship which is
the supreme end and expression of the Christian religion. This sanctification
looks to bringing about and sustaining that communion of love and knowledge
which is the very foundation of Christian worship. Every sacrament thus
expresses something of the perfect worship of the passion and death of Christ.
Each looks in its own way to the worship offered in our name by Christ,
either by qualifying us to receive the effects of redemption, or by giving us a
participation in the priesthood of Christ, they we may effectively share the
worship of the Church, or as in the Eucharist constitute the very rite of
worship itself.
It is in this same sacramental context that we must see that "there is no
sanctity in the Church which is not sacramental nor is there any sacramental
act which is not at the same time a striving after sanctity." So the Church
by her sacramental activity bears children unto God in baptism, furnishes
grace for maturity in confirmation, nourishes that life with the flesh and blood
of her Lord and heals the bruises and disorders of sin with the cleansing grace
of penance. Through that same sacramental activity she keeps alive the
apostolic and sacramental power bestowed on her through holy orders. By
virtue of it she enobles marriage and makes of it a channel of God's grace.
Lastly, in the sacramental reality of extreme unction she stands with her
sick and dying. But the richest and fullest expression of her sacramental
activity is to be found in that moment when the Church visibly manifests
her union with God and acknowledges his Lordship, the Mass. For just as
the informing spirit of Christ's mission was His loving and complete submis-
sion to the will of His Father, and just as that interior submission was per-
fectly manifested on the Cross, so also the Church, His spouse, makes known
her dependence on Him at the sacramental renewal of Calvary and unites
herself anew with her head who lives always to make intercession for her.
Such then in an inadequate and compressed way is something of the
answer to the question: What is the Church? Confronted with the riches of
the organic union of human structure and divine mystery, the Catholic can
only bend the knees of his heart in awe and gratitude seeing here indeed the
evidence of things that appear not. As a joyful believer moved by the Holy
Spirit, he knows that in the words of Jean Guitton: "Catholicism is the name
370 Elementary School Department
given by history to the Mystical Body of Christ, that is to say to that communion
of consciences united to Christ by the bond of love according to their ever
growing capacity — a communion through which flows the grace of a partici-
pation in the divine life.
"Catholicism is the mystery of eternity already present in time germinally."
And so we begin to see something of the poetic insight that prompted
Gertrude von le Fort to address the Church in these words:
You bow not your neck to the yoke men would put upon it nor will you
lend your voice to their error.
You throw nations down before you that you may save them. You bid
them raise up that you may work their salvation.
See, their boundaries are like a wall of shadow in your sight and the roar
of their hate like laughter.
The clash of their weapons is like tinkling glass and their victories are as
tapers in small chambers.
But your victory stretches from morning until evening and your wings are
spread over every sea.
Your arms enfold men of every color and your breath blows over all
generations.
Your boundaries are without bounds for you carry in your heart the com-
passion of the Lord.
THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND THE UNITY
OF THE HUMAN RACE
Rev. John J. Considine, M.M.
DIRECTOR, LATIN AMERICA BUREAU, NATIONAL CATHOLIC WELFARE CONFERENCE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
On November 25, 1961, Pope John XXIII was eighty years old. On that day
His Holiness left the Vatican and paid a visit to the College of Propaganda
Fide where 290 young men from 57 nations were studying for the priesthood.
Propaganda College is perched high above the Piazza of St. Peter's, as are
the Pope's apartments. Thus, both the Pope from his windows and the stu-
dents from their windows on the opposite side of the square may gaze at
each other's dwelling place.
"Our two residences," said the Pope to the students that day, "mine on the
Vatican and yours on the Janiculum, face each other, speak to each other,
understand each other. In both of them there is the same inspiration, the
same prayer for the Redemption of the whole world in Christ."
This magnificent octogenarian continued: "Dear sons, as we contemplate
you today we feel that you constitute the strong modern generation . . .
attracted here from every corner of the earth to represent visibly the catholicity
School and Unity of the Human Race 371
of the Church and its solicitude to see the testament of Jesus carried out in
the old woild and the new, and in the world that has just been born."
How we may envy these students of the Propaganda, of whom the Pope
states so categorically that he and they "understand each other," in whose
household he asserts that "there is the same inspiration" as in his own.
In the new world to which Pope John made allusion on this occasion just
cited, the ideal of every elementary school classroom will be to create the sense
of presence within its precincts of the ensemble of the nations of the earth to
which His Holiness referred. For this era in history, in contradistinction to
any other era, is the era of the human race.
And, of capital importance, all of us must come to realize that in this
ensemble of the nations which we sense as present among us, the great
majority of mankind is of the non-Western world. Of every 100 persons on
the globe, 65 are Asians and Africans — 56 Asians and 9 Africans. Those of
the Western world will total 29 out of the 100 — 15 Europeans, 1 Australian,
8 Latin Americans, and 5 from the United States. Finally, the Soviet Republic
will furnish 6 out of every 100.
Thus, barely 3 out of every 10 in this world ensemble are of that portion
of mankind which we have been accustomed to consider our world, that por-
tion which in recent generations has held the leadership around the globe.
Men describe this portion as predominantly white, dominantly Christian, of
Western culture, politically democratic.
But of major importance to us of the Western world is the fact that the
70 per cent of mankind who belong to the non-Western world, far from
being any longer subject to the West, are a challenge to the West. Indeed,
because this challenge is basically economic and cultural rather than im-
mediately military, much of the Latin American area and fractions of the
European world must be classed with the non-Western world of "have-nots."
Thus, the percentage of mankind lined up in the struggle for earthly gain
outside the Western orbit totals 80 per cent of the human race to our 20
per cent. Supposing then (and this frankly is not a legitimate supposition)
that the dominantly Christian West remains united as the world protector
of the Christian ideal, of the unity, equality, dignity, and nobility of all man-
kind, the Christian West is more than ever today a minority force fronting
the great problems of the human race.
In this struggle there is, in the first place, the grave situation created by
the unprecedented population increase throughout the globe. As Barbara Ward
explains in her remarkable new book, The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations,1
in the older Western countries the increase in population has made the
nations richer because among them an economic machine already functions
to convert the new labor into new wealth. On the contrary in the backward
nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America the upsurge in births is simply
creating more mouths to feed. The result is, Miss Ward states, that we not
only have luxuriantly rich and pathetically poor nations; we have "the most
tragic and urgent problem of our day" — the rich countries that grow richer
while many of the poor nations actually grow poorer.
And then there is the problem of race. After generations of colonialism,
in many areas it is hard for the white man really to think of the black or
yellow person as an equal, or for the man of color genuinely to accept the
Westerner as an ally.
Further, there is the problem of world communism as a sociopolitical way
of life. Among the have-not peoples of the earth, including those of the
1 New York: Norton, 1962.
372 Elementary School Department
former vast colonial areas, the fascinating adventure of the fight for independ-
ence gives way, once independence is won, to the tedium of nagging worka-
day problems, so many of them painfully complex and some even beyond
immediate solution. Western leaders with understanding realism readily declare
to the new peoples that only the slow, tortuous path of day-to-day struggle
represents the road to success. The Communist demagogues, instead, offer
a categoric blueprint with no if' s or but's. "Ours is the sure, quick way to
victory!" they cry. It is not surprising, therefore, that so many leaders among
the new nations, harassed by mountains of woe, tend to listen to these siren
voices with their hypnotic cocksureness.
Next to consider is the global onslaught of modern-day destroyers of spiritual
values. Foremost is contemporary atheism, which Maritain labels as a major
phenomenon of our times in the degree of its development without precedent
in all human history. Pere Naidenhoff, the French writer, made the assertion
some years ago that as many as a billion people on the globe have completely
lost their religious sense and thus are practically atheists. This estimate is
excessive, but certainly tens of millions within the society of all of the earth's
religions practice an atheism which is absolute (categorically denying the
existence of God) and positive (openly hostile to the concept of God and
all theistic institutions).
Marxist atheism represents the typical prevailing form of atheism, built up
into a synthesis which develops to the full technicist and scientist mentality.
Pope Pius XII in his Christmas message of 1953 and in his encyclical Fidei
Donum noted its global reach. Laicism is a form of atheism. Though all
laicists do not arrive at the extreme of absolute, positive atheism, they practice
militant opposition to all religion, including all reference to religion in educa-
tion and public affairs on every continent of the globe.
With this brief confrontation of the problems of our age, it is quite clear
that these problems today challenge not Americans alone, not Catholic
Americans alone, not people of the Western world alone, but the entire human
race.
In the light of this situation, let us give consideration to our solemn task
as men and as Christians. Both in withstanding the avalanche of destructive
ideas with which today's wholly new form of human society threatens our
globe, and, more importantly, in facing our duty of announcing to all men the
sublime Christian principles by which men may reap glorious victories from
the marvelous opportunities born of this new human society of our day, the
ideals which we present must be catholic, must be universal; the object of
our efforts must be the all-embracing concept of the entire human race.
Let us ask ourselves if, as teachers, we are gearing our students to march
into life thoroughly armed to fight for the common good of their fellow men
of the human race. Do we inculcate into them the regard for, respect for,
their confreres throughout the planet? Do we inculcate into them the Christian
virtues of love and dedication for all men as prescribed by the Second Great
Commandment?
One evening a short while ago I was sitting in the family circle of a home
in Bogota, the brilliant capital of Colombia, one of Latin America's most
advanced countries.
"Yesterday," said a man in the group, "I saw half a dozen young people
taking a plane to Moscow. They are part of the 160 university men and
women leaving Colombia to study for five years as Communist leaders at
Moscow University. A couple of thousand have gone from Latin America
this autumn."
School and Unity of the Human Race 373
"Well," some one remarked, "I suppose the Russians can pick up some
scum even here in Colombia."
"But one of this group," rejoined the first speaker, "was the daughter of
a rich Colombian plantation owner. She's a graduate of a Catholic college.
You know, she had the gleam of Satan in her eyes. The only thing she'd
talk about was all the good she'd accomplish when she came back to Colombia
as a Communist leader."
"What a disgrace for her family!" cried a motherly lady in the group. And
for a moment an awed hush fell over the room.
"Well," said one man quietly, "maybe some of us are at fault for her going.
She may be a most unworthy young girl; but it is conceivable that she is a
person of deep sensitivity, with a great capacity for ideals, that would have
made her a strong public leader or a nun in a convent, but who was allowed
to live an empty life and never understood her duty toward others.
"Then one fine day," this man continued to reminisce, "she met new
companions who talked about the rights of man and berated her for being
one of those ugly creatures who have no concern for the millions on earth who
must suffer from hunger and cold and disease and ignorance.
"Thus, like a flash, she made a terrific discovery — namely, that her life
did not add up, and that she had no explanation for it.
"Suddenly she became ashamed because she was rich. Suddenly she was
ashamed because she lived among people who ignored the poor and the
needy. Suddenly she was ashamed because all these years she had belonged
with people who treated the poor with callous injustice.
"And she decided with exaltation in her heart to begin a new life, to run
away from her shame and go to Moscow."
This experience in Bogota recalled sharply to me an address delivered in
1958 by Pere Danielou, the French Jesuit, to the twelfth national congress
of the Union of Religious Teachers in Paris. Pere Danielou faced the class-
room sisters of France with precisely the same problem which we may presume
to be represented by the Catholic college girl of Colombia who has become
a Communist. Our young Catholics, Danielou said, often lose their faith
because we do not convey to them properly the full force of Christ's appeal to
men to have concern for, respect for, regard for, in short, genuine love for the
totality of human beings created by God.
Next to God Himself, the biggest thing in the universe is the human race,
destined by God to serve Him through His Church.
A requisite of every Catholic is a knowledge of and love for the human
race; failure of Christian teaching to convey this knowledge and love must
be regarded as defective education.
To match in the human sphere the powerful thrust of world communism,
Christianity needs a renewed effort to make every Christian conscious of,
and an active apostle of, the Catholic world program of dedication to the
enduring good of the human race.
"Christians have an immense treasure," said Danielou in the Paris address
alluded to ". . . their developed moral sense ... as regards personal obliga-
tions and relations with individuals about them. But Christians do not always
have an equally well formed conscience regarding their collective obligations.2
"This lack in teaching our young people," continues Pere Danielou, "tends
to give them an infantile immaturity which leaves them insufficiently prepared
for today's world into which they are plunged. . . .
* "L'Education de la Charite," Bulletin de YUnlon des Religleuses Enslgnants, Paris. Spec. No.
1957, pp. 15 ff.
374 Elementary School Department
"If we do not prepare them, if they pass from a purely individualistic
Christianity into a world which more and more represents a contest of huge
social masses, many of our young people will be completely upset by the
spectacle which they encounter. They risk," says Danielou, "breaking away
from the Christianity which we have depicted to them because they will
reproach this Christianity for apprising them only of a personal existence and
not demanding of them to think and to live in terms of the whole world of
today, this modern world of universal collectivity and of the total community."
But, it may be objected, these considerations which we have reviewed are
all very fine for high school and college; they are, however, too mature for
the elementary grades. It is true that the deeper implications of the relations
to the human race of today's new social philosophy belong to institutions of
higher education. Nevertheless, their simple enunciation definitely belongs to
the elementary school curriculum.
In this curriculum, consideration of the human race need not represent
the addition of a single hour of curriculum content. Rather, it should repre-
sent a reorientation, an up-dated accentuation in the curriculum content
which will recognize the substantial changes that world society has experienced
in our generation.
Let it be noted regarding this call for reorientation, for an up-dated accent
on the realities of our times, that the purpose of this paper is not to criticize
the efforts of curriculum builders or of textbook editors. Rather, it is a plea
that educational leaders and teachers generally encourage and stimulate the
makers of our elementary school histories, geographies, and religion books
to adjust their works to the needs of the times. In face of the lightning speed
of today's world changes, it is almost impossible for texts to correspond fully
with the march of events. More difficult still is the task of making our text-
books correspond to the sharpened sensitivity of a world which today condemns
social institutions as immoral which a generation ago were placidly portrayed
in our geographies and histories as accepted ways of life.
We no longer countenance narrow nation-centered teachings for our chil-
dren or the unchallenged exposition of social practices condemned by Mater
et Magistra. We cannot today describe to our children a great hacienda in
Latin America without reminding them that sometimes the worker families
on such estates suffer economic and social injustices from the owners even
though these owners may be Catholic. We cannot present the Portuguese
colonies in Africa to our children without expressing regret at the presence
in these colonies of outworn practices that offend against human dignity.
All important for our Catholic elementary schools is an adequate presenta-
tion of Christian teaching regarding our relations with our world neighbors.
It is no longer a matter of teaching about other lands and peoples with detached
unconcern for the peoples. The march of events and ideas has made it clear
that such unconcern is harmful to our national interest, to international
political, social, economic interests. Most important of all, it is gravely opposed
to our basic obligations as Christians. To every point of view it is impera-
tive that we be concerned about people, all people, for the fact alone that they
are people, all members of the human race.
A Suggested Teaching Filmstrip
It has been proposed that a filmstrip be prepared for religion class with
accompanying voice recording which will aid the elementary school child to
obtain a simple and clear comprehension of Catholic teaching on the human
School and Unity of the Human Race 375
race. Let us undertake to describe briefly what might be the contents of
such a filmstrip.
The first section of this presentation of Christian teaching on the human
race would delineate a correct consideration of the two great commandments:
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God," and "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself." These two commandments, the recording would explain, must not
be separated. Faith in God and worship of Him is not enough; faith without
charity is an incorrect faith. St. John the Evangelist says, "If anyone says
'I love God' and hates his brother, he is a liar" (I John: 4:20). St. Augustine
makes the piquant observation (and the visual presentation should illustrate
his words) : "To say one loves Christ but has no love for his neighbor is
like a person who embraces his friend and at the same time stamps on his
friend's toes."
For effectiveness, an exact and comprehensive interpretation of love of
neighbor is necessary. Authentic Christian charity does not stop at our
neighbor's terrestrial good; it must be an integral charity which seeks to serve
both the temporal and the eternal welfare of our neighbor. And "our neigh-
bor" must be clearly understood as every human being on the planet Earth.
But why every human being on the planet? Why not just the human beings
whom we know? Why not just good human beings, friendly human beings?
Why not just Christian human beings, signed with the saving sign of baptism?
Because Christian teaching assures us otherwise, the filmstrip would explain.
Divine revelation has been directed to every individual human being, to all
the inhabitants of the earth.
Each of these individuals, we are assured by revelation, excels above every
other material being. All without exception belong to the human race. Next
to God Himself the greatest thing in the universe is the human race.
The superiority of each human being rests in the fact that he is a person.
Although a material being with a body, this person possesses as well a soul
endowed with intellectual life, capable of knowing even God Himself, capable
of choosing freely his way of life from among various forms of good.
Each of these persons, though his body is subject to corruption, possesses
incorruption in his soul, immortality which ensures him everlasting life. The
ferocious Chavantes Indian of the Amazon jungle, the lowly Asian leper
abandoned in his filth and stench, have the same immortal soul as the teacher,
the scholar, the ruler.
Every man, from the fact that he is a man, has excellency which flows from
genuine values:
1. Man — every man — is able to recognize his being as given to him by
God and to enter into dialogue with the God Who gave it to him;
2. Man — every man — as a person in relation with other persons possesses
moral unity, equality, dignity, nobility;
3. Man — every man — through grace can elevate himself to an intimate
life with God, achieving union with Him in baptism or its equivalent in
spiritual desire;
4. The material world is created to serve as man's aid — every man's aid —
to provide his needs, to declare his Creator's beauty and providence, to supply
man with his field of life.
But man is not only an individual. He not only acts in relation to others;
others act in relation to him. Thus the filmstrip now would present the
Christian teaching on human society.
376 Elementary School Department
What is human society? It is more than a mere aggregate of men. Human
society is the sharing that goes on between individuals and groups in that
mutual supplementing one of another which brings out men's potentialities
and thus gives added stature to their individual selves.
It is only as the member of the family, of the nation, of other forms of
society, that man can express himself fully. The purpose of society is to
assist individuals to obtain help from social cooperation. Mankind's common
good is thus served. This common good implies two fundamental functions.
The first of these is to obtain the basic needs for man's common existence
with his fellows, the various factors that contribute to the establishment of
the institutions that make up life. The second fundamental function is to
ensure the economic and cultural welfare of mankind.
An all-embracing concept of society would be represented in the filmstrip
by five concentric circles, each a symbol of a successively larger physical
social body. These five circles would represent: (1) the family, (2) the
community, (3) the region, (4) the nation, (5) the world. This fifth circle,
since it would represent world society, would embrace the entire human race.
For the elementary school boy or girl of today these five concentric circles
must come to represent a simple but all-embracing philosophy of life that
will insure each against the inadequacies of thinking about mankind which
frankly plague large numbers of grownups today, who, too late in their lives,
find themselves called upon to accept a concept which never in their early
years required their attention, namely, the expression of an allegiance of any
sort to the totality of mankind. Theoretically, all of these people have always
known that there was a human race; practically speaking, they have never
dreamed of being required to face the pragmatic problems of living in a
shrunken world that almost daily must rub elbows with this human race.
Let it be carefully noted that in considering our relations with the various
social bodies represented by these concentric circles, a loyalty to any one of
the spheres of life in no practical way interferes with our loyalty to any other
sphere. For instance, each of us loves his family. But attachment to our
home community in no way lessens this family attachment. Each of us
experiences prideful attachment to his native land. But again, such attachment
never injures love of family or of the town of our birth.
So, likewise, in approaching this relatively new concept of allegiance to the
human race there is no valid reason for believing that a concern for, respect
for, and regard for the peoples beyond our national boundary lines who
inhabit the remainder of the globe, in any way mars our attachment to our
family or community, or our loyalty to the United States of America. Yet,
what furious arguments all of us have heard from people facing for the first
time the call of our generation that we recognize our duty to live in Christian
fashion with all the peoples of the globe. For all of these people quite as for
us Christ died on Calvary.
If every family, every community, every region, every nation under heaven
were to be united to their maximum capacity in friendly cooperation, what
a gigantic step forward this would prove for the dwellers on our planet!
"The human race," declared Pius XI on a memorable occasion (Urban
College, June 30, 1938), "is one sole race, universal, catholic. No one would
deny that in this universal race place is found for diverse varieties of special
races, with many nationalities which provide still further distinctions. It is
quite as with the multiple variations which we find in great musical composi-
tions, through which nevertheless runs the same general, frequently recurring
Catholic, Protestant, Jew 377
theme with altering tonalities, intonations, differing moods of expression. So
with the human race, there exists a single universal human family possessing
multiple varieties."
CATHOLIC, PROTESTANT, JEW— A BASIS FOR
UNDERSTANDING
Philip Scharper
american editor, sheed and ward, inc., new york, n.y.
This paper will take, as its starting point, the understanding implicit in the
idea of "dialogue." After centuries of hostility and mistrust, members of
the major religious groups are now beginning to look at one another, if not
with the awesome virtue of charity, at least with curiosity and candor. After
centuries, then, of either silence or invective, we have entered, providentially,
a situation of dialogue.
It must be, however, authentic dialogue. If one party expects to do all of
the talking, it is a monologue; if one party expects merely to scold and correct
the other, it is a sermon; if both parties expect to score points against the
other, it is a debate; if neither party deals seriously with the issues, it is mere
banter. If both parties, however, expect to listen as well as to speak, to learn
as well as to instruct, and to take both the issues and the other party seriously,
then, and only then, will we have authentic dialogue.
Authentic dialogue demands, too, that as in any effective conversation, we
must know who we are, we must know to whom we are talking, and we must
know how to talk to them.
1. Who we are. It may seem rather strange to suggest to a group of pro-
fessional Catholic educators that they must make a serious effort to learn who
they are, that is, what authentic Catholicism is, if they are effectively to par-
ticipate in the inter -religious dialogue now taking place. But we must con-
stantly remind ourselves that over the last four centuries the presentation of
our Catholic theology has tended to be polemical rather than ecumenical.
As a consequence, there have developed certain emphases in post-Reformation
Catholicism that, at the present moment, actually obstruct the struggle toward
a deepening of religious respect and a furthering of that Christian unity which
the last several pontiffs have called one of the great tasks of the Church in
our time.
When Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door of
Wittenberg in 1517, he profoundly altered your life and mine — indeed, the
life of every Roman Catholic since his time.
For Luther's hammer blows were, in their effects, like the sounding of a
tocsin — and there were many men of the caliber of Melanchthon, Zwingli,
Calvin, and Bucer who answered that call — made the rupture with Rome com-
plete and shaped the nature of Protestantism as a distinctly different under-
standing of Christianity.
378 Elementary School Department
From that time to this Roman Catholicism has itself been somewhat different.
The Church has not, of course, altered in her essential understanding of herself,
but she has often tended to define herself, as it were, in terms of what she was
that Protestantism was not. The Council of Trent (1545-63), for example,
constituted the mold in which the modern Church was shaped, and the Council
was called precisely to define and defend the Roman Catholic faith on the
points where it had been either assailed or questioned by the Protestant Re-
formers. Much was gained by the Council in terms of clarity, but much was
lost in terms of completeness, as contemporary Catholic theologians are
discovering.
Thus, the great stress laid by the Reformers upon the Scriptures alone as
the rule of Christian faith led many subsequent generations of Catholic bishops
and priests to regard as potentially dangerous the reading of the Bible by the
laity, and Catholics today are only slowly recovering an awareness that the
Word of God is not only to be heard in His churches, but is to be read in
one's home or even on subways and buses.
Again, the fact that the Reformers attacked the sacramental system of the
Church led the Council vigorously to defend the validity of the seven sacra-
ments (the Reformers tended to reduce the number to two or three), and to
stress the fact that the sacraments gave grace independently of the state of
soul of the minister (ex opere operato).
Subsequent generations of theologians, elaborating on the formulations of
the Council, have thus been concerned more with the administration of the
sacraments than with their reception, and it is only rather recently that we
have begun to recover the earlier clear-eyed realization that the sacraments are
the very gestures of Christ, inviting man to a personal encounter with Him,
and imparting to the Christian a share in His own divine life. The sacraments
thus make possible a union of love so staggering that the deepest of human
loves pales beside it like a candle held against the sun.
What has happened then, in effect, is that as a consequence of the Protestant
Reformation the Roman Catholic Church has, for four centuries, been forced
to adopt, in part, a defensive attitude not only to the increasingly secularized
world of Western civilization, but toward those millions of people in the
Protestant churches who have claimed to be as authentically Christian as
the Church.
Even more tragic is the fact that, for over four centuries, Catholic and
Protestant have often violated the great command of charity in their relations
to one another. A wall has been built between us and both sides have stared
at each other across that wall with glances of hostility, suspicion, and rancor
instead of love.
Love, according to the old maxim, is blind. It is not, of course — not if it
is real love, certainly not if it is Christian charity. Hostility and bitterness
are blind — not love — and the hostility that has too often marked the relations
between Protestants and Catholics has kept both in semidarkness, unable to
see each other clearly and hence almost unable to understand one another.
Failing really to understand and know each other, we have fallen back
upon cliches and stereotypes, most of which have been negative and unfavorable.
Thus, all too many Catholics are prone to think of Protestantism as "watered-
down Catholicism," and the individual Protestant, no matter how sincere, as
being less fully committed to Christ than is the Catholic; as being a consum-
mate individualist in religious matters — "his own Pope," as the old cliche has
it; and adhering, when all is said and done, to only one unvarying dogma —
that the Catholic Church is obscurantist, opportunistic, and obsolescent if
not obsolete.
Catholic, Protestant, Jew 379
The Protestant, for his part, has his own uninformed, harshly critical
stereotype of the Catholic, whom he views in purely negative terms as the
benighted member of a repressive, authoritarian Church, who cannot eat
meat on Friday, who cannot miss Mass on Sunday, who cannot divorce his
wife, who cannot practice birth control, who cannot send his children to
public schools, and who cannot see "condemned" movies.
Fortunately, under the guiding hand of God, a change has been taking
place in Protestant-Catholic relations over the last ten years, and we may hope
that the next ten may see the final smashing of the kind of unfair and offensive
stereotype with which, in our mutual ignorance, we have been dealing with
each other. Curiosity is slowly replacing complacent ignorance, friendliness
(not yet, I am afraid, the awesome virtue of charity) is replacing hostility, and
openness is inexorably replacing suspicion. More and more, Protestants are
becoming aware that they must confront the Catholic, not in the light of what
Catholicism means to them, but of what it means to him. Catholics increasingly
are aware that the Protestant is not merely a non-Catholic, but is one who
feels that he possesses the primitive and authentic Chrisitian revelation in its
fullness. For the Protestant (no matter what the Catholic thinks) his religious
commitment is solid and substantial; if there is such a thing as "watered-down
Christianity," it is to be found within the Church of Rome.
We have reached a point in post-Reformation history, then, when instead of
looking at one another in strained silence, we are beginning (cautiously) to
talk to one another. After four hundred years a "dialogue" between Protestants
and Catholics has begun.
In this sense, dialogue obviously demands that we know who we really are,
and who the other person really is. I think it accurate to say that many of us
American Catholics are not too sure of who we really are. Our knowledge of
the Church and her teachings has been gleaned from catechisms, religion courses
and sermons — and these sources, no matter how good, are not adequate for the
demands of the dialogue. They could hardly be expected to give us a full,
rich, adult understanding of what it means, really, to be a Roman Catholic,
a member of Christ's Mystical Body, "another Christ" in our small share
of space and time.
Most of what we learned about our faith we learned when we were young
and immature (including our college years), and the presentation of the
immense treasures of the faith had to be tempered to our immaturity. Further,
for reasons that I have tried to sketch above, much of even that necessarily
limited presentation was cast in a rather defensive mold to enable us to answer
questions about our faith or to refute attacks against it. But the real task of
the Catholic is not to debate his faith, but to live it, and we can all use —
until the day we die — additional understanding of exactly what that faith
is which we are to live, and how we are to live it. Quite apart from the
dialogue we need continuing help to discover what a Catholic really is.
2. To whom we are talking.
a) The Protestant. Historically, of course, not all of the offenses and
errors have been on the Catholic side. Protestantism, too, has tended to react,
often violently, against Catholicism, and it is only within the comparatively
recent past that Protestantism has tended to develop an accurate theological
understanding of itself. It is important for us, however, to be aware of these
trends within contemporary Protestantism, lest we run the grave risk of
talking to a Protestant who really is not there. In other words, we must
make an effort to understand a Protestant, not in terms of what we think a
Protestant is, but in terms of what a Protestant thinks a Protestant to be. We
380 Elementary School Department
must understand, for example, that Protestants no longer believe in an invisible
Church, but rather that they are developing a theology of the Church which
bears a rather startling resemblance to our own definition, that is, that the
Church is a community of God's people, and exists to make effective among
all men Christ's teaching and redemption.
Again, we must disabuse our minds of the older notion that the essence of
Protestantism is the right of the individual to interpret Scripture for himself,
that "every Protestant is his own pope," as our forefathers were accustomed
to put it. There is, rather, a growing understanding among Protestants that
the Scriptures exist in the Church and that the Church is entrusted with the
understanding and interpretation of the Scriptures. There is, perhaps even
more astonishingly, a growing Protestant concern for sacramental theology,
and one can see on almost every hand, a deepening liturgical awareness and an
effort more fully to penetrate the mysteries of baptism and the Lord's Supper.
In every significant area of theology, then, one can detect a movement
within Protestantism which seems to bring it closer to a Catholic understand-
ing of these vitally important points of faith.
b) The Jew. Perhaps there is an even greater need for us to understand
what Judaism means to the Jew than to understand what Protestantism means to
the Protestant. For the Jew has been, for all the long centuries, the target
of sociological fears as well as the victim of false Christian theology. We
modern Christians may tend blithely to forget what the modern Jew most
assuredly does not, namely, that literally over the centuries the Jew has been
the victim of forced conversions to Christianity, as in Spain, or has suffered
legal deprivations and injustices in so-called Christian countries, that he has
been forced into ghettos of Christian construction and has been the victim
in pogroms at the bloodied hands of men who, at least, professed them-
selves to be Christains. And the modern Jew, most assuredly, does not forget
what may be in danger of becoming blurred in our own memory — the fact that
six million Jews were gassed, cremated, or starved in Nazi Germany without
a strong, effective Christian protest.
So many of these historical sins against the Jews have been excused by
Christian apologists on the theological grounds that the Jews are an accursed
race. Had they not crucified Christ and called down his blood upon them-
selves and upon their children? Heinous though it may seem to us today, for
centuries Christians thought that they were somehow doing God's work in thus
oppressing the Jew. Such a theology, however, is not only wrong; it is
blasphemous. Scripture and authentic Christian tradition bespeak a much
more positive relation between Jew and Christian, between the old Israel and
the new. The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is also the God of the
Christian. The Church is the new Israel, but we know increasingly that this
fact means the fulfillment, not the repudiation, of the old Israel. In the Sacred
Canon of the Mass, reference is made to the sacrifice of Melchisedech; the
prayers of the Jews, the Psalms, have become Christian prayers, and have
become incorporated into every aspect of the Church's liturgical life, as are other
portions of the Old Testament.
Spiritually, we are all Semites, in Pius XH's phrase — the realization so
movingly expressed by Pope John XXIII when, in recently welcoming a dele-
gation of American Jewish leaders, he made an allusion to the Old Testament
story when he opened wide his arms and said: "I am Joseph, your brother."
3) How we talk to them. Again, we must increasingly understand, if we
are to carry on authentic dialogue, that Christians have rarely achieved Christian
charity in talking to, or about, either their separated brothers who are the
Pros and Cons of Modern Mathematics 381
Protestants, or the other sons of God, who are the Jews. Here again, then,
we must make a massive effort to talk to, and about, the Protestants and Jews
not in tones of mere civility or scant politeness, but with the deep, penetrating
tones of genuine charity. And we are reminded by St. Paul, the Jewish apostle
to the gentiles, that charity is patient, is kind, endureth all things, hopeth all
things, is not puffed up, seeketh not her own.
THE PROS AND CONS
OF MODERN ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS
(Summary)
Sister Mary Petronia, S.S.N.D.
MOUNT MARY COLLEGE, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN
It would be a lengthy procedure to list all the trends in elementary mathematics
as different programs are emphasizing different approaches and each program
has unique features. Consequently, I will cite those trends that are common to
almost all of the current experimental projects. To my way of thinking, they are:
the teaching of arithmetic mathematically, that is, teaching correct mathe-
matics the first time, so that at no future time would a student have to
unlearn and relearn;
the use of sets as a unifying, simplifying, and clarifying factor for all
of mathematics;
precision of language, with emphasis on distinguishing between numbers
and numerals and between number systems and numeration systems;
the use of the basic properties of a set of numbers, such as the commu-
tative, the associative, and the distributive principles, and the role of
zero and one as special numbers;
the concept of ratio as a forerunner of the concept of relations and
functions;
the concept of an equation as the expression of the structure of a problem
situation;
the use of controlled discovery as a means of getting students to be
creative, to formulate principles and make generalizations on their own,
to use knowledge they already have and apply it to new problems, in
short to stimulate them intellectually;
the use of relationships to promote better understanding of mathematics
as the unified system that it is;
the presentation of a broad over-all viewpoint of a concept first and then
the special cases, so that these fall into the big pattern;
the use of inequalities as a means of making equalities more under-
standable.
382 Elementary School Department
I plan to discuss how each of these trends is put to use in classroom situ-
ations, and to speak of their good points, if the concepts are correctly presented
and properly taught. Lastly, I will talk about the "cons," which I prefer to
call "dangers," since actually in the mathematical concepts themselves I
perceive no cons. Among the so-called dangers I would include teaching a
unit on sets as an isolated unit; in other words, teaching sets for the sake of
sets, and in so doing assuming that one is teaching modern mathematics. This
would indeed be a mistake, for it in no way makes clear to students how the
concept of sets fits into and contributes to the whole picture of mathematics.
Then I think there is the danger of becoming too abstract, or going from the
concrete to the abstract too quickly, instead of choosing a happy medium
between the concrete and the abstract. A swinging of the pendulum too far
in either direction is definitely not good.
The other point I wish to include is more of a question than a danger: In
mathematics at the present time, are we trying to see what mathematics can
be taught at the elementary level, or are we teaching the mathematics that
will be most beneficial to those we teach? If we feel the modern trends are
definitely better, then we must acquaint our elementary teachers with these
ideas and convince them that this is the case, so that they will be willing
and ready to make use of them. It is true, I think, that a teacher is apt to
teach the way he has been taught rather than the way he has been taught to
teach. This fact may make it difficult to convince him, but if we really want
the teaching of better mathematics, this task of convincing must be done.
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION INSTITUTES
FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
Sister M. Seraphim, C.S.J.
THE COLLEGE OF ST. CATHERINE, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA
National Science Foundation Institutes are almost ten years old. The
Foundation was created by an act of Congress in 1950; it is an independent
agency of the federal government, operating under policies set by a director
and the twenty-four members of the National Science Board, all of whom
are chosen and appointed by the President of the United States for their
outstanding contributions in the various fields of science. In carrying out
its work, it uses the services of scientists on leave from academic institutions
throughout the nation, supplemented by advisory committees and panels drawn
from the scientific community. Its mandate from Congress is "to promote the
progress of science"; its budget is submitted to the Congress, upon which it
depends for appropriations.1
The Foundation carries on its work through four separate divisions; the
1 Further information about the Foundation and its activities may be gained from its publica-
tions: Program Activities of the National Science Foundation, and National Science Foundation
Programs for Education In the Sciences, both available on request.
National Science Foundation Institutes 383
one which interests us most this morning is the Division of Scientific Personnel
and Education. This division grants fellowships, helps with special projects
in science education, and supports course content improvement efforts. In
the summer of 1953 it supported two institutes for college teachers as a new
experiment in the "promotion of education in the sciences"; in 1954, one was
offered for high school teachers and three for college teachers. In one of the
latter I had the great privilege of being a participant. The success and popu-
larity of these early institutes led to a gradual expansion of the program; this
was spurred on by action of Congress which stipulated in the later fifties
that opportunities for high school teachers were to be greatly increased.
Last summer there were 398 institutes for secondary school and college teachers,
of which 333 were solely for high school teachers. Of 481 scheduled for this
coming summer, 412 are to be specifically for high school teachers.
In the meantime, there has been developing a pilot program of institutes
for elementary school personnel. Twelve institutes were conducted in the
summer of 1959, 15 in 1960, 19 in 1961, and there will be 21 this summer.
What do National Science Foundation Institutes for elementary school
personnel aim to accomplish, and how do they go about it? It is their purpose
to strengthen the teacher's mastery of the subject matter in one or more
fields of science or mathematics; their stress is primarily on increased under-
standing of content, but method and approach are also considered.
How does an individual institute come into being? Usually it happens
that the members of the faculty and the administration of a college or uni-
versity become aware of a specific educational need which can be met in a
summer or in-service institute; then either a single science, mathematics, or
education department — or perhaps better, a coalition of these — works out a
plan by which it believes the help teachers need can most adequately be given.
Typically, this will be a comprehensive program including formal classes,
laboratory work, field trips when useful, and informal discussion. The plan
is written into a proposal and submitted to the National Science Foundation
to be considered for financial support. There are assigned deadlines for the
submission of such proposals.
The foundation invites an advisory panel to evaluate all the proposals which
come in for a particular program. Since the funds are limited, not all de-
serving proposals will receive support; consequently, no institution should
conclude that its proposal was considered poor just because it received no grant.
For summer institutes a basic stipend of $75 a week is intended to replace
the income the participant might otherwise derive from summer employment;
an additional allowance of $15 a week for each dependent up to a limit of four
is also available. It may be well to point out here, though, that sister com-
panions do not qualify as dependents! Travel allowances are also made to help
with the expense of one round trip between the participant's home and the
institute.
The increased emphasis on science in the elementary school and the
changing concepts of what constitutes elementary school mathematics have both
brought about rather serious discrepancies between the preparation which many
elementary school teachers have had the chance to acquire and the content
they are expected to teach. The undergraduate programs for future teachers
are being planned to avoid this difficulty insofar as it is possible. In the
meantime, opportunities for broader and deeper learning in the areas of
science and mathematics must be made available to the teachers already in
service. The institute program is a partial answer to this need. It can only
be a partial answer because of the finite number of teachers who can be
384 Elementary School Department
accommodated in any one summer; even if the program were radically en-
larged, the number accommodated would be limited as compared with the total
number of elementary school teachers. The fact that a teacher would desire —
and need — preparation in more than one field complicates this problem of
numbers.
At a science institute, the teacher chosen will attend lectures planned to
give a deeper understanding of the principles of the science being considered.
She will work in the laboratory to become familiar with its equipment and
methods so that giving class demonstrations and encouraging children's experi-
mentation will no longer frighten her.
Planning Institutes To Meet Different Needs
Institutes will differ since each is planned by specific professors in particular
institutions to meet a need which they see to exist. Science is a broad term;
elementary school teachers called upon to teach science could profit greatly
from preparation in chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, astronomy, geology,
ecology, bacteriology, physiology — and perhaps a few others! A person
planning an institute and being conscious of this range may think it wise to
provide a certain minimum acquaintance in a few of these disciplines and
decide to have an institute in the physical sciences, or one in the life sciences
or earth sciences. Another institute director may choose to provide an experi-
ence in depth in a more restricted area: his choice is usually predicated upon the
conviction that science is not a collection of many known facts and relation-
ships but is a way of seeking knowledge and understanding; and that the
actual experience of the search and of the forming and testing of hypotheses
will be of the greatest help to the teacher when she is leading pupils in the
study of science. Some summer institutes have offered participants the chance
to carry out a real problem — and expected them to have the perseverance to
do it! Perhaps it is needless to say that they had been quite careful in their
choice of participants. I heard from one such participant who claimed she
would not have missed the experience for anything in spite of her weary hours
in hip boots taking samples of water from a certain spot in a pond!
In mathematics institutes the aim will be to show as a whole the field of
mathematics (at least the parts considered appropriate to the elementary and
secondary school). This is important because there are central concepts
running through the whole; these must be introduced and developed in the
early grades; they will be enlarged and built upon in intermediate and upper
grades.
The institute will also try to enable the participants to understand how our
arithmetic methods depend upon the structure of the number systems we use.
To some it may be a surprise that there are various number systems, and that the
operations — such as addition, subtraction, and so forth — which can be per-
formed will depend upon which number system is being used. An effort will be
made to show how our customary methods for performing these operations
(such methods are called algorizms) depend upon the basic properties of the
number system itself. Other algorizms (that is, short cuts; I sometimes call
them recipes) may be developed from these same properties. The great ma-
jority of teachers who come to institutes exclaim with some delight, after
considering why our usual method for long division works as it does, "I
never understood this before; I just learned to do it!"
Because elementary mathematics is tending to include much more geometry
than formerly, most mathematics institutes consider quite thoroughly the con-
cepts of space, of informal geometry, and of experimental geometry. A
National Science Foundation Institutes 385
thorough analysis of the ideas involved in measurement is likely to be part
of the program.
As the other paper on this morning's program suggests, there is somewhat
of a revolution in progress in elementary school mathematics to the extent
that use of the term "modern mathematics" can lead to highly emotional
reactions, both for and against. Actually the change is more one of approach
and of method than of content. One characteristic of contemporary mathe-
matics is the attempt to see the unity which exists among the parts of mathe-
matics; seeing likenesses of structure makes it possible to avoid duplicate
developments, thus conserving time. A big help in bringing out such simi-
larity of structure is the use of set terminology and set operations. An
introduction to such terminology will often be furnished in an institute since
it gives us the opportunity to speak of sets of numbers which fulfill given
conditions in arithmetic and algebra as well as sets of points in geometry. The
set terminology and notation may seem very strange at first and create panic
in a teacher who encounters them without warning in a text from which she
is expected to teach, but they are easy to learn.
Another contemporary characteristic is the effort to allow students the joy
of discovery. Demonstration classes and supervised practice in the writing of
exercise material which "sets the stage" for discovery by the student are
devices intended to encourage the use of discovery methods.
Most institutes have reading rooms in which are gathered together good
collections of the available reference materials, displays of books, visual aids,
pamphlets, and so forth, recommended periodicals, and samples of newer
texts. Reports of any experimental projects in elementary science or mathe-
matics education are usually displayed and discussed.
From personal experience I know that at the close of the institute a
participant is conscious of having received many fresh ideas and much help.
However, it is only in teaching during the months and years afterward that she
realizes how much of what she is doing can be traced back to the institute
experiences.
Our Catholic schools can benefit greatly by having as many teachers as
possible attend institutes, either the in-service ones held during the academic
year or those in the summer. Of course, to be realistic, we must accept the
fact that not many teachers in any one school or system are able to participate
in the institutes. However, the amount of help derived from each institute can
be generously multiplied by the judicious use of the experience of the partici-
pants. Some communities have planned with admirable skill to do just that,
organizing their "institute sisters" into teams of two or three to conduct short
workshops in the latter part of the summer. The team idea seems particularly
good because teachers frequently need each other's moral support when ven-
turing forth as leaders in such in-service projects. In other cases, series of
Saturday morning classes were conducted by those with institute experience.
One community has had a very profitable series of three-week workshops for
teachers of specific grade levels conducted in various convents during the
summer months by teachers of these same grades who had received help at
institutes and who had used the ideas in the particular grade.
Opportunities for the Religious
A religious attending an NSF institute has unique and valuable opportuni-
ties; she will be part of a group, meeting both formally and informally, working
together, helping each other, and exchanging experiences and judgments. She
must be an active member of this group. The picture of our schools which
386 Elementary School Department
emerges from her conversations, from her purposeful application to improve her
background as much as possible during the institute, from her cheerful opti-
mism, and from her alertness to present curricular trends will be noticed and
watched carefully by her fellow participants, particularly by the non-Catholics
to whom she is somewhat of a puzzle. There may well be in the beginning
a polite but reserved acceptance of each other's participation. As they come
to know how many of their educational aims they hold in common and how
much similarity there is in the problems facing them, a mutual understanding
grows. We have been fortunate in having as participants sisters who showed
up very favorably in seminars and in informal discussions; by their very
competence, combined with simple straightforwardness in discussion, they oc-
casioned admiration and a good impression of the parochial schools. This
impression was enhanced one day when a young man teacher from a public
school system said: "We always find in our city that the children transferring
to us from Catholic schools are about a year ahead in arithmetic." The
sisters have also been a great help in the matter of morale.
The chance there is to influence people by participating in the same institute
with them can best be proven, I think, by statements made by some known
to be non-Catholic. Here are some:
One participant wrote: "I shall never forget the wholesome attitude and
vigor the sisters displayed during the institute this summer. I certainly miss
the sisters, their sense of humor, and their sincere interest in all of us."
From another: "May I thank you again for giving me the opportunity to
share in that summer of experiences, the knowledge gained in the classes, the
discussions of curriculum, the quiet friendly atmosphere of the lounge and
cafeteria; and last, but not least, the brief insight into the tremendous dedication
and devotion portrayed by the sisters and exemplified in their actions."
The most dramatic illustration of the possibilities of this apostolate concerns
a colored man from the South. He was ill at ease the first few days. When we
went for our first coffee break, he asked someone diffidently where he should
go. Only later did I learn from another participant that he was also on the
defensive, religiously speaking. He began to realize that no exception was
made of him; he was absorbed into the group. After the second week he
mentioned to a number of people that he thought the way the sisters acted was
the way "Jesus meant for people to live." He became much more at ease
and enjoyed his work. The climax came in the last week of the institute when
he asked for a few minutes to address the group. His speech was eloquent:
"This is the first time I have been north of my own state. Do not mis-
understand me, I love my own state. I don't know what made me apply for
this institute. When I got Sister's letter saying I was accepted, I was scared to
death. I didn't know what would happen to me up here, especially in a
Catholic college. But I want to thank everyone in this institute. It's the
first time I have been able to be just a man among other men, treated just
like everybody else. And I'd like to say something else. I've learned some-
thing besides mathematics here this summer."
Our colleges are ideally suited for this service of conducting summer insti-
tutes. The campuses are usually small enough to reinforce the efforts to unify
the group. The helpfulness and hospitality shown, and the fact that the whole
faculty will be well aware of the presence of the institute participants and
interested in the success of the project contribute to the achievement of that
success. The college faculty member has easy access to the practical informa-
tion and understanding she needs of elementary school programs and problems
National Science Foundation Institutes 387
since many members of her own religious community are actively engaged there
and are more than willing to help in such an important project.
The director of an institute is invited to a meeting in Washington with
other institute directors. Here, among their peers, faculty members from
Catholic colleges have a fine opportunity to represent the best in their schools.
Many institute directors are invited later to serve on advisory panels and have
the additional chance to become acquainted with leaders in the fields of science
and mathematics education. There are other fringe benefits for the college:
the director and faculty become better informed about contemporary develop-
ments; bibliographies may be watched more thoroughly and library accessions
increased; book companies are more interested in seeing that copies of their
books get into the hands of faculty members at such a college. Finally, the
courses for undergraduates planning to teach are enriched by the contact of
faculty members with in-service teachers.
How To Apply for Membership in an Institute
Information about which colleges will offer institutes at a given level or at
a given time can be obtained by sending a postcard request to the Institutes
Section, National Science Foundation, Washington 25, D.C. The use of the
postcard is of greatest importance; it is a real help at the other end where
almost limitless amounts of mail will be received daily. The postcard does
not have to be opened, it can be routed to the right place easily. Use a separate
postcard for each program (high school, elementary, summer* in-service) about
which you are asking. Be specific; ask for the list of elementary institutes for
the summer of 1963 or the in-service institutes for 1962-63. Send your requests
early; the list will be mailed to you as soon as it is printed. Each year some
people, who are evidently in charge of assigning studies for their communities,
miss the chance because they find out about institutes after the participants
have all been chosen. After you find from the list what kind of institutes
will be at which colleges, send postcards to the directors listed asking for
their brochures and application blanks. They may not yet have the brochures
printed nor have received the application materials from the Foundation, but
the card will be kept and the material sent as soon as available.
Do read the brochures. If you are choosing sisters to apply, be sure they
meet the criteria which the brochure says will be used in choosing participants.
Do choose those whose ability and readiness to profit from the opportunity
will be a credit to you. Do not choose those in poor health; institutes are
hard work. I think that most of our communities are over-conservative on the
number of applications. Do not apply at Catholic institutions only.
When it is decided how many and which ones are going to apply, the
applications will have to be filled out. Some people are tempted to leave
blanks; but if, for instance, a person fails to fill in her age, the inference may
be made that she is of an age which might be considered inadmissible. This
matter of age is important. Directors are told to have participants whose
contributions in the classroom will continue a reasonable time after institute
attendance, so upper age limits are listed. However, directors can make
exceptions if they seem indicated, and with sisters they frequently are justified.
If the applicant is over the age, it is better that she fill in that age, and then in
her essay on the last page give the reason why it is important and very profit-
able to her school system that she have this training; she might tell how many
more years she will most likely be in the classroom, since this is different
for sisters.
Other blanks which sisters have a tendency to omit or fill incompletely are
388 Elementary School Department
those asking for courses in science and mathematics — and grades. To say
that these were long ago, that you can't remember exactly, really says that you
are not sufficiently interested in this institute to get copies of your transcripts.
The essay on the last page is the applicant's chance to "make the case" for
being one of the most desirable participants; it is worth careful composition by
one who wishes to be among the chosen thirty-five or forty from six hundred
applicants. How has the applicant reached awareness of his need for this
institute? How will his attendance help his home school or system? What
leadership has he exercised in the past that will indicate his ability to share
effectively with fellow teachers what he himself gets at the institute? What
plans do administrators have to utilize his new knowledge? Specific informa-
tion along these lines seems to me to be important in the essay.
Things which ought to be left out include statements like the following:
"I have never been in Minnesota and have heard that it is a good vacation
state in summer." "I've always wished I could spend a summer on your
campus." "This is the space age and it is very important for every teacher to
give his students the unlimited chance to develop all their potentialities . . ."
One thought for us religious. We prize our vows and act in accordance
with them; but once the decisions have been reached within our communities,
and we are to apply for something — a fellowship, or an institute membership,
we are individuals among other individuals so applying. Our arguments have
to carry weight in that context. We must write as teachers among teachers
or nurses among nurses.
Another problem we have sometimes presented to institute directors is the
following: A sister applies at an institute and is accepted. She then writes that
of course this means her companion will have to be admitted to the institute
also. The selection committee has already filled up the membership quota, and
even if it had not, this borders on pressure technique. It is not good. Such
tactics will make institutes wary of accepting any sisters as members. We our-
selves know that we go to summer sessions with one sister taking one set of
classes and her companion a different set.
Many institutes require recommendations to be sent in by administrative or
supervisory officers. If asked for, these recommendations are usually depended
upon to give some idea of the applicant's possibilities as an in-service help in
the home district or system. Here, vague statements are not much help, and of
course, no promises should be made which are not to be carried out. But if the
school, school system, or community has specific plans for using the person's
improved background, and states them, his chances of being chosen are better.
Such advance planning would also put the applicant in a better position to plan
toward his in-service work all the time he is at the institute.
I do not know if I have given what Monsignor Haverty had in mind when he
invited me. I can assure you that I am heartily in favor of institutes, in our
becoming participants as often as possible, and in our colleges and universities
cooperating with the National Science Foundation in offering them.
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITIES:
THE TEACHER'S BACKGROUND
Sister Marion, S.C.H.
ACADEMY OF THE ASSUMPTION, WELLESLEY HILLS, MASSACHUSETTS
In a speech to Congress last month John Glenn, our first astronaut in orbit,
closed with these words: "We are proud to be part of this effort. As our
knowledge of the Universe in which we live increases, may God grant us the
wisdom and guidance to use it wisely."
As Catholic educators in the elementary schools of the United States, we,
too, are part of a great effort in which we can take much pride. In this
ecumenical age of the second half of the twentieth century our ultimate pur-
pose is the unification of mankind. A sense of social consciousness and global
responsibility will help us to attain this goal. As Catholic teachers we are
conscious of the fact that we belong to a universal church where there is no place
for selfish individualism; no place for an isolationist's complex; and, certainly, no
place for a narrow parochial spirit. In all our personal efforts to be united to
the God who made us, we are conscious of His insistence that we cannot love
Him unless we love our fellow man. "Thou shalt love thy Neighbor as Thyself."
And, as we labor to become Christlike ourselves, we become more conscious of
our goal as Christian teachers: "to form Christ in souls regenerated by
Baptism." Filled with the divine virtues of faith, hope, and charity we can
accept our share of responsibility in establishing the unity of mankind on
this earth. But in order to succeed, we must be world-minded, skilled in the
art and science of human relations and conscious of the wide variety of
culture patterns in the world.
No one will question the fact that we live in the most exciting age ever known
to mankind. Almost daily we are faced with new, monumental, and un-
precedented problems. Our contribution to education will be in direct propor-
tion to our influence and effectiveness in meeting the challenge of the age in
which we live. As we feel the shadow of cosmic thermonuclear destruction
moving over and around the world, we are aware of the fact that today we
are engaged in a race between education and catastrophe.
The fact that God, after making this earth, turned it over to us, is a startling
one. We are, indeed, the stewards of the earth. God has given us the two
things necessary for our happiness — intelligence and material riches. Our
own wisdom is our first and most important resource — the key resource that
unlocks the universe. The level of living of each man on this earth depends
primarily on his ability and desire to make a workable connection with the
land. We can evaluate the habitability of any region only in terms of the
human culture, that is, the attitudes, objectives, and technical skills of the
people. God did not intend man to live on this earth as if by accident. God
expects man to establish a set of working principles — a program of good
works that will influence the future. The alternative is hopeless disorder for
the whole world. Peace in our day depends upon the recognition of the inter-
dependence of nations and acquiescence to God's will in the use and distribu-
tion of His Gifts. We recognize in any plan for the relief of suffering people,
God's plan. Peace demands a program of good works by informed and world-
minded people. It will be the product of men in free societies working to
389
390 Elementary School Department
construct a better life. God depends on us, His stewards, to establish this
peace on earth. As Christian teachers, we are vitally concerned with human
relationships, with the actions and conditions that lead men to union with
God through pursuance of the common good to society.
Only teachers with a global outlook can establish global concord. Today's
problems are rooted in one and the same world. It is One World that God
created. Today the church that claims oneness and Catholicity is challenged
for the first time in human history. Today we face an organized world move-
ment against God — communism. Only a Christian teacher's universal phi-
losophy of the human race can be the basis for true global social welfare.
Only in establishing the doctrine of the individual dignity of each human being
of every race, color, or social position will we recognize the essential unity
and equality of all individuals and groups. Let us not think that the United
Nations is the only institution with a global outlook. The Catholic Church
since the days of the early Christians has looked on social welfare as a joint
enterprise of the entire human race acting as a single whole. In Mystici
Corporis Pope Pius XII says the love of the Church embraces "the whole
human race without exception." Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano pointed out
that while the Church is concerned primarily with the spiritual, "the Church
fosters the temporal prosperity of individuals and societies as if she had been
instituted for that purpose alone." Father John XXIII shows deep concern
for the common good in his recent encyclical Mater et Magistra. In it he
proposes a positive program for building a better society. He spells out the
social doctrine of the Church in solving the social problems of our age. In
Part III of his social encyclical he discusses the four new social problems that
confront modern man and stresses the fact that they must be solved in terms
of truth, justice, and love. An awareness of these four problems should be
part of the background of every teacher in our schools today. They are:
1. The depressed state of agriculture in an increasingly industrial and tech-
nological world;
2. The great difference between the underdeveloped nations and the tech-
nologically advanced nations;
3. The world population increase and its relation to economic development;
4. The lack of mutual trust among nations.
Before looking at these problems, let us look at the way society has developed
in our own country that we may understand better unity on a global scale.
On our American continent we have seen emerge a society founded on unity
and the common welfare of each and every one of its citizens. Men of all
races, of all nationalities have established a society where differences do not
count. We have shown the world that accidents of birth and historical back-
ground do not prevent human beings from living close together; from getting to
know and trust one another; from bearing one another's burdens; or from
building a powerful nation. To be sure, our unity has been a long time in
the making and it is far from perfect. Discriminations are still practiced and
segregation has not completely disappeared, but we have come a long way,
and we do maintain a community of ideals and aspirations. But this is not
enough. What we have done within our own country must spread around
the globe if all men are to share in the fruits of such a unity. Scientific ad-
vances in transportation and communication have given us a smaller world
and we have learned through bitter experience that we must be vitally con-
cerned with anything that happens any place on the face of the earth.
Social Consciousness and Global Responsibilities 391
After two world wars, the people of the world looked to us for moral and
material support. By the grace of God we had been spared the ravages of
war on our own soil. We were the only people ready to bear the burden of
rebuilding Europe. In a few short years the economic, financial and political
responsibility for world leadership passed over to us — a very young country.
The task was not easy then and is more difficult today. We cannot lead people
we scarcely know. The problems today need much understanding and
patience. No longer can the nation with the most power control the world.
Today we have so much power we can destroy the world and ourselves with it.
The solving of today's problems demands a planetary perspective and a global
outlook that will stretch our horizons to include the whole world.
In the world of human living there is nothing so permanent as change.
The teacher's background must include a knowledge of the principal changes
in human living if she is to understand the present-day world and the forces
and realities that make it what it is. In other words, the teacher must be
informed with a background of global knowledge. The world-minded teacher
of the twentieth century does not see the world in chaos. She realizes it is in
the throes of two revolutions: the Industrial Revolution and the Democratic
Revolution.
Let us look at the revolutions that preceded these two revolutions. They
are only three in number. The first was the discovery of fire and simple tools
but it did bring about a change in man's relation with the earth. Then no
change occurred for thousands of years until man learned to cultivate crops
and domesticate animals. This major revolution revised society. Many more
people were able to live in such an economy. Men could settle in one place
and food became plentiful. The third revolution took place when the great
civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Maya, and the Inca freed
men from hunting, fishing, and farming so that they had time, for the first
time, to think about the world in which they were living. They studied the
stars; they measured the earth; they learned to formulate laws and regulations
between men and communities. Then for 2200 years no fundamental change
took place in the way people lived, in the way they secured their food, in
the way they obtained their shelter from the earth's resources. Certain men
had specialized occupations. City people were fed by those in rural areas.
The method of regulating relations with other men remained the same.
Now for the last 200 years this world of ours is again in the turmoil of
adjusting to fundamental changes. Twin revolutions are taking place at the
same time in history. Both began in the same place and at the same time —
around the North Sea late in the eighteenth century. Both deserve our atten-
tion because they so profoundly affect the present-day thinking of mankind.
We shall see the Communist movement not as a revolutionary one but as a
reactionary one — for the Communists are opposed to every basic tenet of the
Democratic Revolution and to the method of carrying on the Industrial Revo-
lution. We are the Revolutionists because we want for the rest of the world
what they want for themselves — the fruits of these two revolutions in human
living, a higher level of living, and a respect for the dignity of the individual.
The Industrial Revolution is a change in technology. It is a shift from
the use of energy produced from the animate power of men and animals to the
use of energy produced from inanimate power — steam, electricity, internal
combustion motors, nuclear reactors. This change revolutionized the patterns
of population. It gave rise to the growth of great cities (eighty in the million
category today). Before this time, men concentrated in small areas could not
supply themselves with food. Improvements in transportation accompanied
392 Elementary School Department
the rise of large cities. With the capacity to produce more and more manu-
factured goods, more and more food and fibers were needed. Many indirect
changes in the fields of education, health, and welfare accompanied the growth
of controlled inanimate power in the field of industry.
The global-minded teacher is informed as to the world scene. She is
conscious of the fact that the Industrial Revolution has not reached the
majority of the people of the world. In her large frame of reference she
realizes that most of the world's people are nonwhite, are poor, are ill-fed,
ill-housed, ill-clothed, illiterate, and ill. She knows that most are subsistence
farmers and live in small villages and towns. This knowledge arouses her
concern for better ways of living for people everywhere.
The second of the great revolutions is the Democratic Revolution. This
came about as the result of a demand on the part of ordinary people for certain
basic rights. These five basic rights of the Democratic Revolution must be
clearly defined in the world-minded teacher. They are the right of the individ-
ual to (1) equal treatment before the law; (2) protection from the arbitrary
acts of those in authority; (3) choose the form of government and to be repre-
sented where laws are made; (4) majority rule through the secret ballot; (5)
free access to knowledge and to free discussion of policy issues.
Every one of these basic tenets of democracy is denied to all peoples of the
world where totalitarianism holds sway. We have fewer democracies in the
world today than we had in 1914. Only in Canada, the United States, Scan-
dinavian countries, the United Kingdom and Ireland, Switzerland, the Benelux
countries, Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay, Australia, and New Zealand can
we find the full flowering of the democratic revolution. In some countries
since 1945 (Japan, for example) the form of democracy is being tried; in
others, such as Turkey, it has collapsed. In Africa, and in Asia from Haifa
to Hong Kong, there is no sign of democracy.
The idea of democracy is essentially a Christian idea that recognizes the
spark of divinity in every man. The Christian idea is based on the concept
that all human beings are children of God and, therefore, endowed with
human dignity which must be recognized, developed, and safeguarded. Christ
taught the doctrine of democracy all through his public life. He insisted that
the love of one's fellow man is the criterion of the Last Judgment. As a
religious ideal many accept Christ's doctrine, but as an element of society
it often becomes as so much dynamite, for the tyrants of the earth insist on
holding power over the minds and bodies of men. Is there any doubt as to
where the sympathies of the world-minded Christian teacher should be under
these circumstances? Will her attitudes in the classroom hasten the day when
all men can stand in dignity and in Christian unity?
In conclusion, let us remember that our sense of global responsibility should
be as compelling as the dangers we confront. Today four stages of retro-
gression are on the march. They are ignorance, confusion, disunity, and
destruction. If informed and enthusiastic teachers combat the first two —
ignorance and confusion — with knowledge and human understanding, then
cooperation and progress will replace disunity and destruction. In order to
accomplish this task the teachers in our elementary classrooms need help.
The courses that lead most directly to global understandings are woefully
neglected in the schools of the United States. The majority of our teachers
are attempting to teach the science of geography in the same grade where
they stopped learning it. Is it any wonder that misconceptions or no con-
ceptions at all are prevalent regarding the peoples of the world who are now
our near neighbors? Is it any wonder that as a nation we are classified as
Social Consciousness and Global Responsibilities 393
geographic illiterates? The times demand that the liberal arts faculties and
schools of education view the education of world-minded teachers as a joint
enterprise. Courses in regional studies, world cultures, and political geography
are urgently needed to produce teachers with the breadth, perspective, and
flexibility of mind to cope with the problem of presenting the peoples of the
world to the children of today.
"No nation liveth unto itself alone." The work of unity is the work of
every Christian. Only patient charity can cut away the vast network of
misunderstanding that separates man from man, nation from nation; and fails
to realize that
No man is an island, entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of a continent;
A part of the main;
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were,
As well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were;
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind;
And, therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
John Donne. Devotions, XVII, 1624
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITIES:
THE NECESSARY SKILLS
(Summary)
Sister M. Lenore, O.P.
COMMISSION ON AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP, THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The world is one as never before. This is the truth; what are the conse-
quences? For us there are at least two imperative consequences: first, to
understand the meaning of the unity of mankind inasmuch as this meta-
physical reality can be identified in peoples of the world; and, secondly, to
consider the necessary skills with which our pupils will form social con-
sciousness and an attitude of global responsibility.
The idea of the common brotherhood of the peoples of the world com-
munity is founded on recognition of a common Father, God. All have a calling
to the Mystical Body of Christ. Some obstacles to the full response of all
men to their vocation to the Mystical Body of Christ which we shall consider
are these three: first, the exclusivism of Western man who maintained an
attitude of superiority over other peoples of the world; secondly, the secular-
ization of Western man who placed his acquisition of material wealth before
his duty to be neighbor to peoples everywhere; and, thirdly, bored acceptance
394 Elementary School Department
of schism, instead of concern over "Our Lord's desire just before His death,
'that they all may be one.' "
The urgency of the world's need for consciousness of these truths and the
implementing of these Christian views demands that our pupils take up their
responsibilities with conviction and skill.
The human abilities to think, to judge, to act, and to communicate ideas
to others — these are the necessary skills and powers which our pupils must
develop now. The pupil himself has personal responsibility for the develop-
ment of these abilities. He applies his mind and his will to the acquisition of
knowledge under the instruction of the teacher.
Each subject in the curriculum can be oriented toward a world view and
toward strengthening social consciousness and an attitude of global respon-
sibility. Pope John XXIII states in Mater et Magistra that "It is not enough
merely to publicize a social doctrine; it has to be translated into action. This
is particularly true of Christian social doctrine, whose light is truth, whose
objective is justice and whose driving force is love." With an economy of
words, Pope John teaches that Christ's social doctrine comes to life in all of
the virtuous actions by which the pupil perfects his powers. Knowledge of
Christian social doctrine "whose light is truth" comes through understanding,
science, and ultimately, wisdom, the speculative intellectual virtues; and
through art and prudence, the practical intellectual virtues. The practice of
Christian social doctrine "whose objective is justice" involves the moral virtues,
primarily justice, the giving to others what is their due. Christian social
doctrine "whose driving force is love," through the theological virtues, unites
us by ever stronger bonds to God and neighbor for "when Christians put
themselves to work ... in conscious union with the divine Redeemer, every
effort becomes a continuation of the effort of Jesus Christ and is penetrated
with redemptive power . . ." (Mater et Magistra).
Such translations of doctrine into action at one and the same time strengthen
the unity of mankind and develop social consciousness and an attitude of
global responsibility in the pupil as he works out his perfection in the footsteps
of his Master, Jesus Christ.
TODAY'S CHILD— TOMORROW'S WORLD:
THE MULTISENSORY AIDS
Sister Mary Dennis, S.S.J.
ST. JOSEPH GRADE SCHOOL, NATRONA, PENNSYLVANIA
The general subject of our panel, "Social Consciousness and Global Re-
sponsibilities— Today's Challenge," contains within it temptations to launch
off on any of a number of other topics seemingly more interesting than the one
assigned to me, "The Multisensory Aids." However, if "all knowledge comes
through the senses," then it follows that the better we develop our senses the
more knowledge we are capable of attaining. Multisensory aids, then, are
important since they are basic to the process of communication.
Today's Child — Tomorrow's World 395
Communication of ideas is the basis of culture. Among living beings, man
alone has developed techniques for passing on complex and abstract ideas
through symbolic systems. Systems of communication are but the means and
methods of transmitting the culture of man. Education has always employed
the devices that formalize this function.
Modern technology has placed at our disposal increased facilities for com-
mand of the materials and methods of culture transmission. It has responded
to the necessity of communicating an increasing number of ideas to a larger
and more diversified population than ever before in the history of civilization.
However, the instantaneous flow and processing of complex data by modern
electronic methods no longer permit the patient, plodding, systematic man of
print culture to go his sluggish mental ways. For this reason, modern tech-
nology has brought with it problems of universal proportions.
In an age when the world-wide struggle for the minds of men is paramount,
the problem of communication becomes increasingly significant and challeng-
ing. Our past conceptions of what constituted social cause, effect, and influence
are quite unable to cope with the electronic simultaneity and conspicuous
coexistence of social phenomena. We must now foresee the effect on all cultures
of the world of any and all social change. Just as any chain reaction which
occurs rapidly is chemically explosive, so information that moves instantly to
all parts of the globe may be explosive in personal or in social life. In an
electronic era we can no longer tolerate the irresponsibility of social trial and
error. Since new ideas and new attitudes may be disturbing to some cultures
and to some groups, the normal movement of information may have on them
nearly as disruptive an effect as an armed invasion! Yet, these modern means
of communication, so potentially revolutionary in their effects, are fast becom-
ing the norm of our communications flow.
The Church and the world are at the end of an era — the era that began
with the invention of printing and the Protestant Revolution. The age opening
before us will be dominated by these so-called mass media and by the fierce,
person-to-person combat of men who believe that supernatural faith and
morality must become integrated into the world of men and of institutions
versus men who think that supernatural religion must be destroyed, or at least
isolated from science, government, education, and industry.
This is the kind of world we have inherited, with its problems, its challenges,
its dangers. In such a world, teachers of the social studies face a major
responsibility. We, more than any other group, must capture the imagination
of our young people, help shape their dreams and ideals — and by so doing,
imbue their fertile minds with constructive objectives, direct their volatile
energies toward goals that will help build a better tomorrow.
Such ambitious objectives cannot be effected by concentrating on "the social
studies" as simply another branch of learning. To paraphrase the novelist
Balzac, no such thing as social studies exist. There is only life, of which
literature, art, history, politics go to make up parts. And the teachers and
students are people who live. That is all.
So, as educators, we must perennially remind ourselves of the over-all view
— that there are only people who live: grown people and small; old people
and young; the more mature, in virtue of their having lived or experienced
more, trying to render others less immature.1 This they do through social
processes, not merely through one branch of learning called the social studies.
In teaching today's children to build a better tomorrow Catholic educators
1 Quoted from Rev. Gerard Sloyan's dissertation for Catholic University: "Christian Concepti
in Social Studies In Catholic Education," p. vil.
396 Elementary School Department
must ever keep in mind that Catholic education is denned as "growing up in
Christ," and growing up in "the whole Christ" is a living, developing reality
involving the totality of human experience, including man's social experience.
If it is not this, it is nothing.
Just why totalism in the use of the senses — synesthesia — must be employed
today as a technique or method in Catholic education is the proper subject
matter of this paper. We wish to examine the potential power of multisensory
aids for good or for evil in the formation of attitudes and habits which will
lead our students to so develop their individual and social nature that not only
will they suceed in "putting on Christ," but they will effectually carry His spirit
into the various strata of the society in which they live so as to "renew the
face of the earth." That educators must realize the value of such aids and take
leadership in their proper use is an implicit corollary.
Because of the availability of so much literature on the existence and use
of multisensory aids, little or nothing will be said on these aspects of the
subject. Let me rather try to convince you — as I was convinced by my prepara-
tion of this paper — of the absolute need for revising our thinking, of bringing
ourselves up to date on synesthesia.
Classroom Without Walls
Today, much learning occurs outside the classroom. The sheer quantity of
information conveyed by newspapers, magazines, films, TV, and radio far
exceeds that transmitted by school instruction or texts. This challenge has
destroyed the monopoly of the book as a teaching aid and has cracked the
very walls of the classroom so suddenly that we are confused and baffled.2
The simultaneity of awareness provided by electronic media makes it possible
for us to tackle whole cultures today in the same spirit that the sixteenth century
did whole authors. Consequently, our entire approach to the social studies
must be reconsidered and revamped. As Arnold Toynbee writes:
The eighteenth century western view of history as a movement in a straight
line, leading up to a twentieth century Europe, Britain, or Nicaragua, instead
of leading up to a future Last Judgment, simply cannot take in the new
panorama that the twentieth century has now opened before our eyes. . . .
In this age our western civilization has collided with all the other surviving
civilizations all over the face of the planet . . . and we can take a compara-
tive view of the effects of these simultaneous collisions upon the parties
to them.3
It is modern communication that lays open that panorama before the gaze
of all who will look. The new media are knocking out all the walls between
times and places and modalities of experience.
In contrast, the silent classroom is to modern students an obsolete detention
home, a feudal dungeon. It favors only those who have been rigidly swaddled
in habits of silent, solitary reading and study, whereas, in their "normal"
milieu outside the school, our students feel they must have the radio or hi-fi
playing, not only for reeling and writhing, rocking and rolling, but even as an
accompaniment to such activities as conversing and writing, reading and
thinking! 4
In this environment, auditory messages, since they are carried simultaneously
by different media on several levels, obviously demand new habits of attention.
•Edmund Carpenter, Marshall McLuhan (eds.), Explorations 7, Studies in Culture and Com-
munication (Toronto: University of Toronto, March, 1957), p. 22.
•Ibid., p. 113.
* Carpenter and McLuhan (eds.), Explorations 8, Studies in Culture and Communication (Toron-
to: University of Toronto, 1957). p. 11.
Today's Child — Tomorrow's World 397
Rather than peremptorily denying the possibility of acquiring such habits,
modern educators deserving of the name do well to explore this possibility.
Perhaps our students are already more skilled in this educational area than are
their teachers.
If communication of ideas is in reality the basis of culture, then, surely,
modern teachers need to be familiar with and use, as well as evaluate and
influence, the offerings of current communication media. Failure to do so would
be to neglect a realistic contact with the culture our students regard as meaning-
ful, and this lack of empathy with students engenders an ever-widening
communication gap between teachers and students, a situation that tends to
preclude the possibility of their contact with other cultural offerings teachers
wish to set before them.
Resistance to the changes in education brought about by electronic communi-
cation devices makes no more sense today than did resistance to the "new
discipline of learning to read" five hundred years ago. From that time on, the
phenomenon of print has rendered "illiterate" any and all who cannot read;
moreover, "illiteracy" and "ignorance" eventually became synonymous, for
those who could not read were indeed out of contact with the major means for
the communication of ideas.
Currently, we witness a fall in the level of literacy in inverse ratio to the
great increase in range of oral verbalization. Today, literacy is the social
acceptance of the monopoly of one mode of perception; perhaps in the near
future those who are not conversant with the ideas communicated by current
media may be considered the illiterates.
Teachers must note this trend and, regretfully or not, acknowledge that a
merely literary avant-garde is no longer possible. The handwriting is on the
celluloid walls of movie and TV film. Even though the teacher's voice and
the book have dominated learning for over five centuries, the day of captive
student audiences is drawing to a close. Those of us who are not equipped to
compete with the new media for the students' attention will fail in our attempts
to educate the whole man.
Most of us still consider the book as norm and other media as incidental;
hence, we speak of audio-visual aids to teaching. We also think of the new
media — press, radio, movies, TV — as forms of mass communication, and re-
gard the book as an individualistic form.5 However, teachers, and particularly
social studies teachers, need to consider the fact that the book is truly individ-
ualistic when used exclusively; it isolates the reader in silence, hence tends
to be divisive and, consequently, unlikely to effect the aims of the social
apostolate. It is my belief that the printing process helped to create the
western "I"; to precipitate the intense individualism and even more ferocious
nationalism that splintered Europe in the sixteenth century.
We are presently experiencing a revolution in communication. It is to
our advantage to understand this revolution, to be aware of its origin, its
progress, and its present stage. To cope with it, to influence it, we must know it.
History of the Communications Revolution
"For hundreds of thousands of years, the human voice was the best instru-
ment of instruction." 6 The young learned by listening to oral instruction,
principally group instruction; by watching; by doing.
* Explorations 7, p. 22.
• Neal E. Miller, "Graphic Communication and the Crisis in Education," Audio-Visual Com-
munication Review (Washington: Department of Audio- Visual Instruction, National Education
Association, 1957), Vol. 5, No. 3, p. 5.
398 Elementary School Department
Then, four thousand years ago manuscripts froze the voice for later genera-
tions. These were the first visual aids to oral instruction. However, since in
medieval times manuscripts and commentaries could be duplicated only by
the slow process of copying, it was impossible for different students, different
educational institutions to have copies of the same texts.7 For this reason, the
interplay of ideas and opinions, emotions, and overtones communicated by
human voices was retained; the relationship between author and public, between
teacher and student remained naturally social, at least to an appreciable degree.
Solitary study was reserved for the advanced student.
But even in the manuscript era the trend away from multisensory participa-
tion had begun, a consequence of the very act of recording. For writing did
not record oral language; it was a new language which, as time went on, the
spoken word came to imitate.
Writing encouraged an analytical mode of thinking, with emphasis on
lineality. Oral languages tend to be polysynthetic, composed of great, tight
conglomerates, like twisted knots, within which images are juxtaposed, in-
separably fused. . . . Where preliterate man imposed form diffidently, tem-
porarily— for such transitory forms lived but temporarily — on the tip of
his tongue in the living situation the printed word was inflexible, permanent;
in touch with eternity, it embalms truth forever.8
Gutenberg completed this stage of the revolution in communication. The
printed word could now be widely distributed; books became the first product
of mass communication. The manuscript page with pictures and colors, cor-
relation between symbols and space, gave way to uniform type, the black-
and-white page, read silently, alone. Thus the printing press changed not only
the quantity of writing, but also the relationship between author and public,
teacher and student.
It also affected the character of language. Writing eliminated the art of
ambiguity; the "word" became a static symbol, applicable to and separate
from that which it symbolized. It now belonged to the objective world; it
could be seen.
Now came the distinction between being and meaning, the disputes as to
whether the Eucharist was or only signified the Body of the Sacrifice. The
word became a neutral symbol, no longer an inextricable part of the creative
process.9
Print was unable to cope with the organic, living totality of Truth. With
mechanical, meticulous exactitude, Truth was compartmentalized, segmented,
regimented into neat parallel lines of print — arranged from cause to effect,
to influences. By 1900, philosophy had become almost entirely written philos-
ophy— philosophy about philosophy.
This method of learning by its very nature created a dichotomy — a
dichotomy even in the learning of Catholic doctrine: between God the Creator
and God the Redeemer, between nature and grace, between knowing and
loving. Reflected in the learner's life, this dichotomy became apparent in
the cleavage between his knowledge of Truth and his response to the truth he
learned. Print had separated him, too, from Him into Whom he was to be
integrated — from Christ, the Incarnate Word. He was severed by lines of
print from Christ in His Church, from Christ in His Mystical Body, Who is
"Thou and I."
» Explorations 7, p. 23.
•Ibid., p. 6.
•Loe. dt.
Today's Child — Tomorrow's World 399
The newspaper represents another stage in the communication revolution —
revolt against the lineality of book culture. Its articles give important facts
first and then taper off to incidental details. The position and size of articles
on the front page are determined by importance and interest value rather
than by any preconceived arrangement. Unrelated reports from Moscow,
Peoria, London, Timbuktu follow one another. Time and space are not
treated as separate concepts; the here and now are presented as a single whole.
Such a format lends itself to simultaneity, not to chronology or lineality. Items
extracted from a total situation are not arranged in casual sequence. The
front page is cosmic.10
In magazines, where the length of an article is frequently controlled by the
writer, he may, if he wishes, organize his composition in traditional style; how-
ever, most journalists do not. An increasingly popular presentation is the
symposium, which is little more than collected opinions, pro and con. The
magazine format as a whole opposes lineality. In Life, extremes are juxtaposed:
space ships and prehistoric monsters, Flemish monasteries and dope addicts.
The effect produced is a sense of urgency and uncertainty; the next page is
unpredictable. As one thumbs through a typical issue, he encounters in rapid
succession, a riot in Algeria, a Hollywood marriage, the activities of the
Kennedy administration, a two-headed calf, a party on Jones beach — all
sandwiched between advertisements. The eyes take in the page as a whole;
the reader may pretend this is not so, but the success of advertising suggests
that it is. Indeed, the whole magazine becomes a Gestalt wherein association,
though not causal, is often life-like.11
The Electronic Era
During the print era, oral transmission of ideas never actually died out. But
its confinement to the classroom, pulpit, lecture rostrum, or theater precluded
either rapid or mass contact. The advent of electronics has changed all that.
True, early motion pictures were silent. Yet, their graphic portrayal of
events, personalities, and places added something to the printed word, at least
in the spheres of mood, tone, color depth. Moreover, because they reached
vast numbers who had neither attended the theater nor read widely, they
brought to millions novels, old and new; biographies; history; and, gradually,
current happenings with attendant circumstances of persons, time, and place.
The movie began to substitute for the book as a modern "ditto" device.
As its technology developed and sound tracks added the missing oral verbaliza-
tion, its popularity increased and, hence, its range of contact with a comprehend-
ing (dare we say "literate") audience.
Yet, this avenue of information and formation (consequently, of education)
was regarded as "entertainment," a "fringe benefit" of daily life. People still
had to leave their homes for it, pay for it. It was still a "sometimes" thing,
a reward for those who saved up the price and arranged free time. It remained
for radio and television to integrate such experiences into daily living.
Radio served as the pivot on which the continuous revolution turned. For
the first time, entertainment entered the home to accompany household duties;
its integration into daily life was emphasized by its position within the context
of news on one hand, advertisements on the other. Within a short time, radio
became a necessity; as a necessity, it could not be a reward. We all began to
feel we had a right to the entertainment radio provided.
Television represents the latest advance on the communication frontier.
10 Ibid., pp. 6-7.
**lbtd., p. 7.
400 Elementary School Department
Coupled to the advantages of radio, namely, access to oral communication with
life outside the home, this new communication device brings to fifty million
simultaneously the actual scenes and participants of real life situations.
As evidence of the cultural lag, there are still those who feel that the value
of a book or of an experience is diminished by being extended to many minds.
This notion is implicit in the phrases "mass entertainment," "mass media."
Such indictments obscure the fact that language itself is a mass medium, that
language represents man's invention of a means of communication. Hence, all
means of communication are mass media.
Therefore, the most modern means, too — films, radio, TV — are not merely
mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of illusion; they are new languages,
their grammars as yet unknown. Each codifies reality differently; each possesses
new and unique powers of expression. Historically, the resources of language
have been shaped and expressed in constantly new and changing ways.
The new languages have once more pushed communication toward the
spontaneous shifts in and freedom of the spoken idiom. Radio and TV offer
short, unrelated programs, interrupted by commercials. We say "interrupted,"
being ourselves anachronisms of book culture. The child does not regard
them as interruptions, as breaking continuity. He regards them as part of a
whole, and his reaction is one neither of annoyance nor of indifference.
And the child is right. There is pattern in these new media — not line,
but knot; not lineality or causality or chronology, nothing that leads to a
desired climax, but a Gordian knot without antecedents or results, containing
within itself carefully selected elements, "juxtaposed, inseparably fused"; a
knot that cannot be untied to give the long, thin cord of lineality.
This is especially true of the ads, which never present an ordered, sequential,
rational argument, but simply offer the product associated with desirable things
or attitudes. Thus, Coca-Cola is shown held by a beautiful blonde who sits
in a Cadillac, surrounded by bronzed, muscular admirers, with the sun shining
overhead and sweet music for background. By repetition these elements be-
come associated in our minds into a pattern of sufficient cohesion so that one
element can magically evoke the others. It we think of ads as designed solely
to sell products, we miss their main effect: to increase pleasure in the consump-
tion of the product. Thus, Coca-Cola is far more than a cooling drink; the
consumer participates vicariously in a much larger experience. In Africa,
in Melanesia, to drink a Coke is to participate in the American way of life.
Revival of Oral Culture
One of the results of the time-space duality that developed in Western
culture, principally from the Renaissance on, was a separation within the arts.
Music, which creates symbols in time, and graphic art, which creates symbols in
space, became separate pursuits, and men gifted in one rarely pursued the
other. Dance and ritual, which inherently combined them, declined in popu-
larity. Only in drama did they remain united.
It is significant that of the four new media, the three most recent are
dramatic media. They convey emotional tones, not merely information. This
is particularly true of TV, which combines music, art, dance, rhetoric, and
gesture into meaningful wholes. It favors simultaneity of visual and audi-
tory images.
The theater audience is far away from the intimate action of the drama.
They cannot see the silent reactions of the players. They must be told in a
loud voice what is going on. The plot movement from one scene to another
must be marked, rather than gently shaded as is done through film and TV.
Today's Child— Tomorrow's World 401
Through these media, we can dig into the most humble, ordinary relationships
— the relationship between mother and child, between husband and wife,
between worker and employer; in short, the relationships of people.
In TV especially, cameras do not focus on speakers but on persons spoken
to or about; the audience hears the accuser but watches the accused. In a
single impression they hear the prosecutor, watch the trembling hands of the
big-town crook, and see the look of moral indignation on the district attorney's
face.
On film and TV even silences can be made to convey meaning.
. . . Not to speak does not mean that one has nothing to say. Those who
do not speak may be brimming over with emotions which can be expressed
only in forms and pictures, in gestures and play of feature.12
Just as radio helped bring back inflection in speech, so film and TV are aiding
us in the recovery of gesture and facial awareness — a rich, colorful language,
conveying moods and emotions, happenings and characters, even thoughts —
none of which could be properly packaged in words. In fact, if film had
remained silent for another decade, how much faster this change might have
been!
Thus, film and TV re-enact life realistically, artistically — life that is real
drama, in process, with the outcome uncertain. Print cannot do this; it has
a different bias.
But even the film only simulates uncertainty; live TV most dramatically
reflects this vital aspect of life. Viewed thus, the flight of an astronaut is
threatened with numerous disasters; seen on newsreel, it is history, without
potentiality. Yet, this absence of uncertainty is no detriment to film if it is
properly used; its bias, too, is different.
The primary contribution of the new media seems to be the process of
identification. In theater, the spectator sees the enacted scene as a whole in
space, always viewing the whole of the space. Distance never varies. But in
film and TV, distance and angle constantly shift. The same scene is shown in
multiple perspective and focus. We see it from here, there, then over here;
finally, we are drawn inexorably into it, become part of it. We cease to be
spectators.
Although we sit in our seats, we do not see a performance from there. Our
eye, and with it our consciousness, is identified with the characters in the
film; we look at the world out of their eyes and have no angle of vision of our
own. We walk amid crowds, ride, fly, or fall with the hero; and, if one character
looks into the other's eyes, he looks into our eyes from the screen, for our eyes
are in the camera and our gaze becomes identified with that of the characters.
Herein lies the psychological act of identification. Nothing like it has ever
occurred as the effect of any other system of art, and it is here that the film
and TV manifest absolute artistic novelty.
Conclusion
From this discussion we conclude that if these mass media are to serve only
to weaken or corrupt previously achieved levels of verbal and pictorial culture,
it will not be because there is anything inherently wrong with them. It will be
because we have failed to master them as new languages in time to assimilate
them into our total cultural heritage.
Current confusion over their respective roles comes largely from miscon-
ceptions of their function. They are art forms, not substitutes for direct,
"Ibid., p. 27.
402 Elementary School Department
human contact. Insofar as they attempt to usurp speech and personal living
relations, they harm.
But when media simply exploit their own formats, they become complemen-
tary and cross-fertile. Each reveals and communicates a unique aspect of
reality, of truth. Each offers a different perspective, a way of seeing an other-
wise hidden dimension of reality. It is not a question of one reality being true;
the others, distortions. One allows us to see from here, another from there, a
third from still another perspective; taken together, they give us a more com-
plete whole, a greater truth. New essentials are brought to the fore, including
those previously rendered invisible by the "blinders" of old languages. This
is why the preservation of book culture is as important as the development of
TV. This is why new languages, instead of destroying old ones, serve as a
stimulant to them. Only monopoly is destroyed.
The problem has been falsely seen as democracy versus the mass media.
But the mass media are democracy. What is really being asked is: Can the
book's monopoly of knowledge survive the challenge of the new languages?
The answer is, no. What should be asked is: What can print do better than
any other medium, and is it worth doing?
As educators our task is not only to provide the basic tools of perception,
but to develop judgment and discrimination with ordinary social experience with
which they put us in contact. We know that few ever acquire skill in analysis
of newspapers. Fewer have any ability to discuss a movie intelligently. Yet,
to be articulate and discriminating about ordinary affairs and information is
the mark of the educated man. I believe with Marya Mannes:
No human being can be called civilized, let alone educated and cultured,
unless his senses are developed to their highest capacity — to hear, see, taste,
smell, and touch with knowledge and judgment. This development should
start as early as possible in a child's life and should continue as long as
possible.13
The teacher today must understand "tomorrow's world" in order to ade-
quately educate "today's child."
SUCCESSFUL DEPARTMENTALIZATION
Sister Mary Ernestine, R.S.M.
ST. CATHERINE OF GENOA SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
A controlled and reasonable degree of departmental teaching in the upper
grades of the elementary school offers the possibility of providing for the
pupils the advantages of the self-contained classroom and the departmental
system of organizational plans without the concomitant disadvantages of either.
Communications with high school teachers and administrators have led to
the recognition of the following problems: the freshmen were not ready to
*• Marya Mannes, "Culture-Bogus or Bona Fide," Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide
(January, 1962).
Successful Departmentalization 403
tackle ninth grade work; they were befuddled even by the mechanics of high
school, such as changing classes or meeting the varied demands of three or
four teachers; average and above average students were flunking the first
quarter. We were invited to consider reasons for this maladjustment and to
find possible solutions for it — either on the part of the high school or the
elementary school. Such introspection as this would entail proved valuable
and contributed to the development of the successful plan of departmentaliza-
tion which will be described here.
Essential elements in all successful planning are ample time and profundity
of thought, and freedom of action on the part of the planning committee.
Starting with the latter, an administrator must be openminded and willing to
accept suggestions and to allow her group to work at this project with a free
hand. Original thinking and initiative must be encouraged and guided by
the wise principal. Time, thought, and much discussion are absolutely necessary
since such a program will vary from school to school, and only after facing
all possible local situations will the best choice be made for this particular
group.
Many factors influence the type of program that would suit a given school.
How many classrooms in seventh and eighth grade will be involved? How
many teachers — religious and lay? What have their academic backgrounds
to contribute to this project? What are the weaknesses? And so forth.
The program here described involves three classes of seventh graders and
three of eighth. In the three years of operation it has been fortunate enough
to have its teaching staff include an M.A. in English, a B.A. in mathematics,
a B.A. in science, a B.A. in humanities, and sister teachers with upwards of
thirty years experience in the elementary schools, lay teachers, and inexperienced
teachers. Degrees are not the sole desire of such a program. Rather, experience
and true enthusiasm accomplish more since team effort is a vital key to success.
Subject matter was the next planning step. What areas should be depart-
mentalized and what remain with the homeroom teacher? It was not difficult
to choose the major subjects. We all realize how readily English, arithmetic,
and reading fall into groups. Our thought was to break each grade into
homogeneous groups with respect to these subjects, including the social studies,
so that the teacher could accelerate the work with the best, keep moving at
a normal rate with the average, and encourage and reemphasize points of
difficulty with the slow. All other subject matter would be handled while
the group was mixed heterogeneously.
One of the painstaking elements in our program was that each child's
performance in each subject was considered. That is, one child may be
exceptionally quick in grasping arithmetic while only average in English and
reading. He would be, therefore, put into classes accordingly, the best arith-
metic group, and the average or middle English and reading groups. There
were times when this required delicate juggling so that one teacher did not
have empty seats while another was utilizing window sills.
Classes were planned each year after the spring Achievement Tests, on the
basis of these results plus IQ test results, combined with class performance as
indicated by the previous teacher.
Seventh and eighth graders were not combined but were independent except
for the structure and procedure of the program. The psychology of the child
was considered in the planning and we felt rather strongly that even though
the child was maturing quite rapidly there was still a strong need for the
security of the self-contained classroom where a mixture of all types of
children most closely resembles family and social life. Social advantages
404 Elementary School Department
come to the entire group through class participation — a spirit of acceptance,
tolerance, and "togetherness." The slow and average benefit greatly through
sharing in the research and enrichment experiences of the above average
and the gifted. From the standpoint of guidance, the homeroom teacher has
the opportunity of counseling and following up her recommendations.
Our program, therefore, had the following structure: a ten-minute period
in the homeroom in the morning. The morning classes followed, with arith-
metic, English, and social studies given to groups homogeneously arranged,
and a wind-up period in the homeroom for spelling. In the afternoon, the
first class is religion in the homeroom, followed by reading with the groups.
The last fifteen minutes of the day are an optional homeroom period which
concludes a very active day. Art, science, and music are included in the
program, also.
The teachers remain constant in this plan, thus allowing one room to be
equipped for the subject matter taught therein, and also providing physical
freedom to the boys and girls as they move from class to class. No, or relatively
few, discipline problems have resulted since the children are too busy and,
also, because standards of conduct have been previously outlined, discussed,
and printed in booklet form. Each child has possession of a "conduct card"
which is both respected and feared since the follow-up is consistently carried
through by faculty, principal, and pastor. This subject would be a topic for
a whole discussion!
"Elastic" groups have been a great source of encouragement to the eager
youngster and a deterrent to the lazy, knowing that they can progress from
one group to another as they show improvement, or they can go back when
they evidence retrogression. Now and then a youngster himself requests to
return to a lower group in order to strengthen a shaky grasp on a skill.
This program has succeeded in the manner of all things mortal. There have
been needed adjustments here and there, and human elements have clashed
now and then, but on the whole it has proved itself to be of great value to the
children especially and also to the teachers and to the school system.
We have kept rather close tab on many students, some of whom are
sophomores now. Their initial reaction to entering high school was one of
finding things quite easy. The familiarity with procedures aided academic
progress right from the start. It is needless to say what has been done for
the best group in each class, as a good teacher can take them to great lengths
in all subjects. Much, too, has been done to keep all groups performing at
maximum output levels.
For the teachers, this has been a great source of encouragement. It has
never seemed quite fair to expect the same individuals to prepare equally
stimulating presentations and activities for eight and nine subjects, especially
in seventh and eighth grade. For many years we have had to skim the surface
of important subjects in order not to neglect any. What a relief it is to do
some depth and quality teaching in one of the important subjects only.
Our system has profited from departmentalization since inadequate teachers
are not a prey on a class for more than one or two periods each day. Rather
their best qualities are utilized and our very good teachers are spread out to
reach more students.
THE SUCCESSFUL LIBRARY PROGRAM
Sister Mary Sarah, S.C.L.
PRESIDENT, HELENA DIOCESAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION: PRINCIPAL,
ST. HELENA'S CATHEDRAL SCHOOL, HELENA, MONTANA
A rapidly changing world, a tremendously expanded curriculum, and an
unparalleled concern about the efficacy of present educational procedures,
have combined to account for the national boom in elementary school libraries.
These factors have intensified the thinking of parents, teachers, and administra-
tors about the importance of teaching techniques and materials, and the result
has been a new awareness of the necessity of the library in the elementary
school and the values to be gained from its use. If there is one significant
trend in the new methods of education, it is the realization that our students
must be given an opportunity for independent study and research. Access to
a well-stocked library will assure them the continuity and adequacy necessary
for such study and research. They must have the knowledge and skills
necessary for them to live in today's complex world and to cope with problems
in the unpredictable world of the future. Only the library will make available
the multiple materials necessary for these learnings, and happily, elementary
school libraries, a fairly recent phenomenon in the educational picture, are
now demanded and expected as an essential of quality education.
The concept of the elementary school library has also undergone a revision.
It is no longer considered as a center of recreational reading. The new library
is a center of learning and activity as inquiring minds seek answers to the
questions stemming from their classroom study and discussion. The scope of
man's knowledge has become too vast to be covered within the boundaries of
classroom instruction. A well-equipped, well-staffed central library, developed
as the instructional materials center of the school, is necessary to augment
the experiences that the curriculum provides.
The position that a classroom book collection, sometimes termed a classroom
library, is adequate to meet modern instructional demands is without founda-
tion. Such collections are entirely too meager and too limited in scope of
materials to satisfy the requirements of the changing curriculum. If costly
book duplications are to be avoided, and if the demands of the slow learner
and the gifted are to be met, with the individualized materials each requires,
the centralized school library, which acts as a reservoir for all the reading
needs in the school, is mandatory. Only through the use of the central library
can children learn early how to use the essential library tools, such as the
card catalogs, encyclopedias, atlases, almanacs, and indexes. The independent
use of library resources is a vital skill which must be taught if children are
to make creditable progress in their subsequent education. Through actual
participation in the procedures of a central library, children will be taught to
care for books, to withdraw and return books, to understand the library classi-
fication, to use the card catalog, and to manipulate library tools of learning.
This does not imply the total abolition of classroom libraries, but rather
the use of these as fluid and not fixed collections. In the new library program,
books are available from the central library for use in the classrooms when
they are needed. These collections are considered as branches of the main
school library. They are placed in the classrooms so that students may have
ready access to the materials needed in conjunction with classroom instruction.
405
406 Elementary School Department
When they are no longer being used, they are returned to the central library.
They may meet a particular need at a particular time, but no single classroom
collection can contain enough materials to meet the wide range of interests
and abilities represented in any class. Certain materials, such as the classroom
encyclopedias, globes, maps, and atlases should be issued to the classrooms for
long-term or permanent loans.
There is another source of library materials, too often overlooked by school
administrators who are making sincere efforts to build a library collection
within the confines of their schools. The tax money of the parents of children
attending our parochial schools has been utilized in some measure to erect
creditable local public libraries. The resources of these libraries are often
at our immediate disposal. They should be used as fully and frequently as
possible. Public libraries frequently offer outstanding school services, and
this is one way in which public tax funds can be diverted to the advantage
of our private schools. It is essential that administrators and librarians main-
tain effective relationships with the public library in the community. A program
which utilizes the resources and services of the public library may result in
the elimination of much duplication of effort and expense for the successful
elementary school library.
Figures released by the United States Office of Education in 1954 indicate
that almost 75 per cent of the elementary schools in our country are without
central libraries.1 These figures are startling and we may conclude that
millions of elementary school children are being deprived of the use of the
library resources so vital to their educational needs. Although these figures
were released in 1954, they still reflect the current picture, and therefore
the need for action is imperative.
Developing a Library: Standards and Space
The time for a library development program in our parochial elementary
schools is now. Research has proved that it is educationally and economically
sound to start a program under other than model conditions. Never before has
there been such universal support encouraging those who must pull a scrambled
service together and mold it into a strong and effective program. Can we afford
to begin this undertaking? We can't afford not to begin, since much of the suc-
cess of our educational endeavors will be determined by the content and extent
of the school's library resources. The matter of financing the school library is
not the overwhelming question that it once was. Since the library program is an
essential service in the school, its operation must be considered as part of the
general expense of the education process. It should be financed in the same way
that other essential services, such as textbooks, audio-visual aids, supplies,
and salaries are provided. Book Fairs and other systems of donation can be
most valuable in obtaining the initial book collection, but the general opera-
tional costs must be budgeted into the essential school expenses and maintained
through general funds. Only through such support can the library be main-
tained in proportion to the importance it plays in the educational pattern.
The development and growth of a dynamic library program begins when the
general and specific objectives of the school library service have been con-
sidered and adopted as they apply to the school in question. For a concise and
still complete summary of the objectives of school libraries, the much discussed
contribution of the American Library Association, Standards for School Li-
1 U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, "Statistics of Public-
School Libraries, 1953-54," Biennial Survey of Education in the United States (Washington, D.C.:
1957), p. 19.
The Successful Library Program 407
brary Programs,'2 is highly recommended. In cooperation with nineteen other
prominent educational agencies, among them the Catholic Library Association,
the American Library Association has presented a complete coverage of the
principles and policies that represent the qualitative and quantitative standards
for school library programs. The publication appeared in 1960 and has received
wide acclaim for its contribution to the school library programs of our country.
The standards which are advocated are based primarily on the judgments of
educators and librarians that represent long experience with school library pro-
grams. The standards are divided into three main categories. They include:
1) the principles of policy and practice that make the library program an
educational force in the school;
2) the principles of administration and organization that make the school
library an efficient tool;
3) specifications for a staff, materials collections, funds, quarters, and equip-
ment required for the translation of principles into action.3
Admittedly, the goals set forth in this publication are very high and generally
difficult of attainment. In many instances the complete achievement of these
aims is impossible, or is possible only after several years of careful planning
and constant effort. Still, superior goals call for superior and concentrated
effort, and these are necessary if the library program is to be an excellent one.
After a careful consideration of the needed goals and objectives, the ad-
ministrator of the parochial elementary school is ready to take the initial steps
in organizing the library program. Certainly it will be necessary to involve
all the personnel possible. The pastor, parents, and teachers must be made
aware of this vital need and must eagerly seek a library service for their school.
Obviously this will require a program of good public relations, plus a sound
program of in-service education, through which these interested persons can be
informed concerning their role in the library program. Because of the national
momentum toward developing good elementary school libraries, the education
of pastor and parents to an appreciation of the values of the library should
not be too difficult.
It may require considerable ingenuity and quiet perseverance, but every ad-
ministrator can eventually find a room or area that may be designated as the
central library. Once this is accomplished, the program has begun. No central
library is a library at all until the shelves have been erected. There is no
good short cut to satisfactory library shelving. It is one of the items that
will probably remain as long as the building stands. Specifications for shelv-
ing and furnishings may be found in the publication previously mentioned,
Standards for School Library Programs* Shelving need not be elaborate, but
it should not emerge sagging, inadequate, or insecure and dangerous. Certain
items of equipment are indispensable to the central library. There is no sub-
stitute for the well-constructed card catalog and book truck. Library table and
chairs are an essential part of the furnishings, their number depending upon
the size of the room and the number of students utilizing the room. Any desk
or table may serve as a charging desk. These are the minimum requirements.
Magazine racks, atlas and dictionary stands, bulletin boards, and display stands
may be added as they are made available.
•American Library Association, Standards for School Library Programs, (Chicago, 1960), 132 pp.
»lbtd., pp. 6-7.
<lbtd., p. 125.
408 Elementary School Department
The Selection of Books
The designation and the furnishing of a central library accomplished, the
books for the library must be acquired, accessioned, cataloged, and shelved
for circulation. A prerequisite to establishing an initial book collection for a
new library is the development of a basic list of books for immediate acquisi-
tion and distribution. Both the Catholic Library Association and the American
Library Association have prepared basic, first-purchase lists which are deserv-
ing of consideration.5 By using the recommended annotated lists issued
through reliable sources, the librarian is assured that the books purchased
will produce the end product sought in quality education. How should this basic
collection of books be distributed in order that there be a fair proportion allo-
cated to the various fields of learning? The recommended lists already dis-
cussed will provide the needed information to achieve a balanced book collec-
tion. It has not been uncommon in the past to find libraries that have an
overabundance of fiction, almost to the exclusion of the many other fine books
which are deserving of a place in the elementary school library.
All of the learning areas must be adequately represented in the central
library collection. Particularly fine are the new religious books that are
currently being published for children of elementary school levels. We are de-
sirous of producing students with a vibrant faith; this faith must be buttressed
by knowledge and information. The biographies, scriptural studies, and guid-
ance books now available should be included among any library's initial
purchases.
No social studies program is effective without a central library for a research
center. Certain factual books are necessary such as atlases, almanacs, and
encyclopedias. Related fiction works are most important in this area. Biogra-
phies and historical works are well received by the elementary school child.
For work in the social studies fields, the library should provide teachers and
students with a classified picture file and current children's newspapers and
magazines, which may be used to augment the classroom instruction and dis-
cussion.
Our students turn eagerly to the library for the use of authentic, carefully
chosen science books to answer their many questions which range from paleon-
tology to anatomy and space exploration. Most science programs emphasize
scientific principles and structure, the understanding of which may be greatly
strengthened by the use of related books on scientific teachings. We cannot
stress too emphatically the necessity of an adequate, carefully up-dated col-
lection of scientific books if we are to prepare our students to live competently
in an age of science.
The arts should not be neglected in the elementary library collection.
Literature, music, and art books are now published in a most attractive fashion
with great appeal for young readers. Biographies of those who have excelled
in these areas serve as inspirational material for potential artists and crafts-
men. Stories of operas, books about ballet, the designs of great architects are
all available. In well-chosen books, children interested in illustrations will find
the work of our ablest artists.
Besides using the prepared lists recommended by outstanding library groups,
the lists provided in functioning courses of study must also be studied for their
recommendations. Bibliographies, frequently included in texts and in teachers'
manuals, are another source to be considered in making the selection of those
books which should find a place on our library shelves.
6 Sister M. Jerome Corcoran, The Catholic Elementary School Principal, (Milwaukee: Bruce
Publishing Co., 1961), p. 408.
The Successful Library Program 409
Catholic Library Service Suggests Basic List
We cannot pursue the subject of basic lists without referring to the re-
markable service now made available to the elementary schools by the Paulist
Press of New York City. Termed the Catholic Library Service, the stated
purpose of this group is to assist the administrator to establish a professional
library with a minimum of effort and expense.6 A basic list of 1,650 first-
purchase books has been compiled for the starting collection. Of these, about
650 are immediately available and the remainder will be ready within the next
year. The list of books was drawn up by professional top-ranking librarians,
members of both the Catholic Library Association and the American Library
Association. The librarians performed the tremendous task of selecting the
proper books from the more than 30,000 juvenile titles issued by more than
350 publishers. The special feature of this list is that it is modern and up to
date, especially in filling the gap in the vital fields of science and other recom-
mended subjects. The results of this study should be used by all libraries,
whether they are only beginning or have been long established. Catholic Library
Service provides, free of charge, a manual or catalog which contains a com-
plete plan for setting up the central library, besides including the annotated
list for first-purchase books.
A most helpful feature of this excellent service offered by the Paulist Fathers
is the book processing procedure which is completed before the books are
delivered to the purchasing library. The books are cataloged according to the
approved Dewey system, the attractive dust jackets have been retained and
covered with clear plastic jackets, and an entire set of catalog cards is supplied
for each book. The cost for processing is about 95 cents per title. This fee is not
exorbitant, since the cataloging has been completed by professional librarians
whose services are not usually available to elementary school libraries. Consid-
ered in its entirety, the Catholic Library Service cannot be too highly recom-
mended for the establishment and implementation of the central school library.
With today's cross-media approach to learning, the library has come to serve
as a center for all school instructional materials; these include other printed
matter besides the book collection — films, recordings, filmstrips, teaching ma-
chines, and any of the newer media developed to aid learning. There is a strong
movement toward the inclusion of these in the library program. In many
schools, a variety of arrangements has existed in the past for the administration
and circulation of audio-visual and other teaching aids, and many of them have
been quite successful. There is no indication that these systems cannot con-
tinue to operate effectively in this manner, or that they will change their policies
in the immediate future. However, the point must be stressed that library au-
thorities advocate that good school library programs make audio-visual and
other curriculum-related materials easily accessible for use in the library,
regardless of the prevailing administrative pattern.
Procedures and Personnel
Excellence in education goes hand in hand with excellence in library proce-
dures. The library program is a most comprehensive one; many of our ele-
mentary schools are understaffed, and where shall we find the qualified librarians
to direct this phase of the educational program? Ideally, the library in a school
of 300 to 400 students functions with an open schedule, with open shelves, and
with a full-time librarian. These are optimum conditions, and their fulfillment
demands many hours of service by a strong personnel. An open schedule im-
« Paulist Fathers, Catholic Library Service, Paulist Press, New York City, 1962. 152 pp.
410 Elementary School Department
plies that the library is open before school, after school, and for at least three
hours during the school day. Such an arrangement gives the student time to
study at length, to browse through the open shelves, and to fully utilize the
many materials housed in the library.
Obviously it is indispensable that one who has had training in library science
be in charge of this vital school service. Usually the librarian for the elementary
school must be recruited from the ranks of the classroom teachers. Her train-
ing for this position should make her willing to explore new methods of opera-
tion and exhaust every resource at her command to make library experiences
meaningful and fruitful. She cannot teach a full schedule and also administer
the library. The administration must relieve her of part of her teaching duties;
it is recommended that she devote three hours to teaching and the remainder of
her school day to her duties in the library. She must have free time to direct
the work of her assistants in their assigned tasks.
Her assistants are often adult volunteer workers who are willing to give some
time to improving the school library program. This is an excellent source of
help for the busy librarian. It was stated earlier that the services of parents
should be recruited in developing the library; this is a concrete example of an
area where they may be of invaluable assistance. Under favorable circum-
stances, some student participation in the program yields desirable outcomes.
Student assistants can develop a sense of belonging, can assume new responsi-
bilities, and may develop a genuine appreciation of the role of the library in
the educational scheme. Student help should never reach such proportions that
students suffer loss in academic pursuits because of the service hours they give
to library operation.
The trained librarian should act as a supervisor of her personnel, directing
the work of cataloging, of circulation, and the other multiple routine jobs of
the functioning library. Many technical operations can be performed appropri-
ately by nonprofessionals. The teacher librarian, armed with an eagerness and
enthusiasm to develop a philosophy of library operation in keeping with her
library's potential, can do a very excellent job in her work as administrator of
the centralized library.
The appointment of a faculty library committee, acting in an advisory capac-
ity, should provide the needed articulation between the librarian and the teach-
ing staff. This committee would pass on library policies, would approve requests
for library expansion, and would supply bulletins to the members of the teach-
ing staff. Made up largely of curriculum specialists, the committee would be
able to anticipate curricular changes and would serve as resource consultants in
providing library materials necessary to properly reinforce the expanded cur-
riculum.
Long-Range Planning
The smoothest functioning and most complete library is inadequate, however,
unless consideration of its future operation has been carefully outlined in the
long-range planning procedures. Formulating objectives should be the initial step
in the library building program. These objectives are inadequate unless they
state conclusively the procedure to be followed for a period of at least three to
five years. The aims of the library need not include unlimited expansion. A
good library provides five books per student; the excellent library includes no
more than ten for each student using its facilities. Long-range planning makes
provisions for book replacements and additions, for weeding out books no
longer useful, and for adding to areas where the need will continue to be most
vital.
Successful Grouping for Learning 411
Most important in long-range planning is the provision made for adequate
personnel to staff the library. Personnel planning begins with the in-service
training program for all teachers to emphasize their role in library development
and usage. It includes an awareness of the importance of the head librarian.
This might even involve the necessity of a sabbatical leave for a teacher to re-
ceive the needed training in library science. The administrator who does not
make provision for the librarian of the immediate future lacks the foresight
necessary to cope with the demands of our present fluctuating curriculum.
The school which has stated its goals and has determined the priorities
necessary for their achievement will soon point with pride to an excellent
library, a prime requisite for a quality education in an excellent school. To
work continuously toward excellence in giving students the resources for learn-
ing that they require is a laudable aim for every elementary school. There is an
urgency felt in education now that has never been felt before. Elementary
schools are exhorted to begin with their present library holdings, to develop
long-range plans, to involve all the personnel available, and to forge ahead
toward the achievement of an excellent library program in the Catholic
elementary school.
References
1. Archer, Marguerite P. "Library Opportunities for Children in the Primary Grades,"
Elementary English, February, 1962, Vol. XXXIX, No. 2, pp. 109-13.
2. Fargo, Lucile F. The Library in the School, American Library Association, Chicago,
1947. 405 pp.
3. Frary, Mildred P., "Start from Scratch," American Library Association Bulletin,
February, 1962, Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 104-07.
4. Heffernan, Helena, "The Library Improves the Elementary School," American
Library Association Bulletin, February 1962, Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 100-03.
SUCCESSFUL GROUPING FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
Sister M. Celine, O.S.B.
PRINCIPAL, HOLY FAMILY PAROCHIAL SCHOOL, NORTH MIAMI, FLORIDA
How far removed is the elementary school teacher in achieving the goal
as defined by the Holy Father: "Education is the concern of the whole child!"
How can the teacher, handicapped as she is year after year by an overcrowded
class, even vaguely anticipate that she will be able to meet the individual needs
of her students to any great degree of effectiveness?
It was this common annual problem that stimulated the two-year-old
"Experiment Grouping Program" in a large parochial school in North Miami,
Florida. With the assistance and guidance of several specialist educators,
among them Mrs. Callie Sievers, assistant director of elementary education,
Dade County Public Schools, this program of grouping for more individ-
ualized instruction was planned and initiated to meet the particular needs.
Previous to the launching of the grouping experiment, deliberate and en-
412 Elementary School Department
thusiastic efforts were made through all possible media to reach the minds and
hearts of faculty, students, and parents. The revivifying of the spark of
Christian social relationship is indispensable to any successful program for the
betterment of society, but most especially it is a basic requirement before
attempting any deviation from traditional educational methods. Conscious
efforts on the part of the faculty members were reflected among the students
in their own classes, then interclass-wise. The average and slow learners ac-
cepted the leadership of their brilliant comrades; yet this latter group was made
to feel their keen responsibility to God and to society. Often it was to the slow
student — that unique possessor of the talent of persistence — that the student
of high ability was forced to go to accomplish a given task.
While making the study plan for each child as a part of a group, the educator
is continuously aware of the need not only to prepare the child for advance-
ment as an individual, but to prepare him for orientation within a society.
He must as far as possible be prepared to take his place as a worth-while citizen
and a person of virtuous character. To prepare this solid structure upon which
divine grace might build, the school must understand the child as an individual.
Fundamental to such a procedure, an administrator or specialist educator who
will guide the program must establish criteria upon which the child will be
studied for grouping. He must be analyzed with the assistance of correlated
materials concerning him, never by IQ alone.
Identifying the Students for Grouping
The identification of students into workable groups was realized, in general,
from a study of (1) the national achievement scores of the last two years; (2)
an index of several IQ scores; (3) teacher reports and recommendations. The
grouping pattern was not the same throughout the school. Two types were
initiated: "cross-grouping," and "relative" homogeneous grouping.
Cross-grouping here refers to classes set up allowing for homogeneous home-
room but students meet with a particular group to study a given subject, not
necessarily one in which he is deficient.
Six classrooms were set to a "relative" homogeneous pattern; that is, they
were not selected according to IQ's but, rather, according to comparative
achievement scores, students with similarities in superior achievement, similar
backgrounds, and similar in emotional and physical development.
For the first six weeks of our "Action Research Program," which began in
September, 1960, an experienced reading consultant, who had formerly been
an administrator and supervisor, showed eagerness to assist our school. In her
judgment, the place to begin pointed "toward an intensive improvement-of-
reading program." Although the usual heterogeneous grouping of classes per
room was maintained, small intergrouping was arranged according to each
class's reading ability for comprehension, skills, or appreciation. More will be
said about the results of the reading program later on.
Devices to Facilitate Group Work
Special aids to meet the needs of the grouping program included:
1. Installation of electronics in first grade for improvement of teaching of
reading through phonetic approach. (Twenty earphones)
2. Portable electronic set (twenty earphones) for use in any desired area
of the school.
3. ETV in middle grades for "Science Enrichment" over Miami Channel 2.
Successful Grouping for Learning 413
4. Portable science laboratory for special enrichment of classes for honor
students — those who qualify with the high ability students at the end of
each six-week term. Neither high ability nor honor students are per-
mitted to begin classes unless they requalify.
5. SRA (Science Research Associates) reading laboratory for lower and
higher grades. SRA spelling laboratory for two levels.
6. The teaching aid that has proved far in excess of usefulness over all
others has been the recruits, or volunteer personnel — tutors, remedial
teachers, enrichment teachers, teacher aides, who give generously of their
time to reduce the teacher overload.
The Use of Electronics
The most efficient material improvement for the teaching of group work
was the electronics system. It was used in both primary and upper-grade
classes. The initial cost of this excellent device was a bare minimum. The
materials were purchased at cost price, and labor was a donation of one of the
Lindsey Hopkins Vocational School students. He used this as his class project
which his professor supervised.
During the first year of this experimental project, the device was used par-
ticularly for the first grade (two divisions) in which cross-groupings were
made. The very slow first graders did not respond at once to tape-teaching;
it was most effective with the fast learners. During the second year of tape-
teaching, the two faster groups (Groups 1 and 2) were not given a tape-teacher
and were grouped according to IQ and achievement tests. Groups 3 and 4,
composed of average and slow learners, were given extensive tape-teaching in
phonics as an approach to reading in grade two. February achievement tests
showed an equal grade placement norm of 4.4, but acceleration in reading
vocabulary was higher in the slower group (10 students ranged 6.5 in vocabulary
whereas the high-ability room had only 5 students with such vocabulary range).
It is a tentative plan to equip a second portable electronics set and follow this
experimental group for the remainder of their education at Holy Family. The
statistics should prove interesting.
Electronics as a device for teaching has many advantages, among which are:
1) as a music enrichment program, accompanying the reading of a story
or poetry;
2) as an aid to the slow learner in choral work, developing more concentra-
tion of attention because the sound is given closely into his ear;
3) in science classes, challenging research questions may be given over the
tape and an accompanying book provided. The student is given specific
directions where to read for the relevant information; he reads as rapidly
as possible, records his answers, and listens for the tape-teacher to call
back the correct answers. The psychology of his knowing immediately
whether he has answered the question correctly is more effective and
encouraging than having to wait until the next day or later to find out.
4) The complete quietude during tape study develops composure and
creates a learning situation.
The Contribution of Teacher Aides
The use of teacher aides in parish schools is becoming an accepted prac-
tice. Their services have been invaluable in accomplishing successful group-
414 Elementary School Department
ing in our school. Besides the usual six helpers who give several hours each
day to work with the exceptionally slow child, two remedial teachers give
Saturday morning classes in language arts and arithmetic.
When a highly individualized program is needed the teacher aide is most
effective. We had the daily services of a teacher aide in assisting our experi-
mental fifth grade in accomplishing the homework assignments. The aide
discussed the assignment with the student to make sure of the student's under-
standing, gave detailed training in how to locate information, and discussed
the student's homework with him when it was completed. These aides possessed
both the enthusiasm and the right psychological approach to secure the
participation of the student, often encouraging home study by phone calls
to the student suggesting and directing means of improvement.
In addition to the aides who teach, at least two dozen others serve devotedly
in various areas. One aide concentrated on extending our library service.
Gifted with a pleasing personality, good educational background, drive, initia-
tive, time, and energy, she set out in search of in-service practical training
and obtained it in a neighboring public school which has continued to show
an interest in our program.
The Grouping Plan
Tentative grouping was set up, arranged closely but not rigidly to follow
this general plan:
Group 1, consisting of high-ability students. These students usually became
members of the honors program. This program functioned as a special class
in science, mathematics, creative writing, and public speaking. (These might
be drawn from any group, but ordinarily would come from Group 1.) All
students were aware at the beginning of the school term that there were 70
places open to those who might excel. In order to give equal opportunity to
all, classes for the honors program did not begin until the week following the
first record card.
Group 2, consisting of students whose expectancy, judged from previous
years, will remain comparatively consistent among those known as "average
learners." Many will remain in this group only a short time. For various
reasons they needed to work in a small homogeneous section for remedial
skills or for motivation. In small groups, problems can be quickly identified,
analyzed and cleared. All grouping should have flexibility to allow for regroup-
ing whenever a need is apparent.
Groups 3 and 4, consisting of slow learners, in varying degrees.
CRITERIA FOR IDENTIFYING THE HIGH-ABILITY STUDENT
1. Gets along well with others.
2. Has a constructive attitude toward failure and criticism.
3. Has ability to apply factual knowledge to practical use.
4. Has good health.
5. Assumes leadership and the responsibility involved.
6. IQ of 125 or above.
7. Shows proficiency in many areas.
8. Has many interests and hobbies.
9. Uses reasoning and insight in dealing with problems involving abstract
thinking.
10. Displays humor and wit.
11. Is physically well coordinated.
12. Learns to play complicated games.
Successful Grouping for Learning 415
13. Learns at a rapid rate.
14. Ability to make decisions.
15. Has an attention span above average when challenged.
16. Is of service and help to others.
17. Does research to obtain knowledge beyond the basic concepts of
subject matter.
18. Is self -critical.
19. Has insatiable curiosity concerning world around him.
20. Stability or security from home background.
21. Shows sympathetic understanding.
22. Adjusts readily and easily to his environment.
23. Shows originality in solving a variety of problems.
24. Seeks companionship of children of his mental age.
25. Requires little drill to fix new concepts of learning.
26. Possesses advanced vocabulary in written or oral language.
27. Reads widely and at an advanced level.
General characteristics common to this group influenced the content of our
program in the following points:
1. Grouping of children with high intelligence for part of the day. Those
who achieved the points mentioned in the set of criteria are taken from their
classrooms twice each week for the entire afternoon 12:30-3, during which
period they are given an accelerated course in science, mathematics, English —
especially creative writing — and public speaking.
2. This group is given more responsibility for the planning of their program.
3. More emphasis is given to creative and interpretive activities and less to
memorization and routine skill practices.
4. More informality is permitted in these special enrichment classes.
5. Each six weeks allows newcomers to be admitted to the program if their
achievement and behaviour warrant this privilege. At the same time, if stu-
dents who have been members of the high-ability class fail to keep their stand-
ard achievement in their homerooms, at the end of the six-week period they
are dropped from the roll.
6. Our experience shows that the outcomes of this group have acted as a
general stimulation throughout the school.
7. At the end of a period the science teacher has a display of excellent
projects; the creative writing teacher publishes the writings of her students
as a supplement to a school paper which these students have entire charge of.
8. Twenty eighth-grade students showing the highest all-around develop-
ment in leadership are now serving as teacher aides for a short part of the
day. They are to help with an intellectual and organizational type of work
and are given a grade by the teacher whom they serve. She checks them for
general attitude, dependability, initiative, and courtesy. This grade is sub-
mitted to the social studies teacher as part of the final report card grade.
9. Other superior students who are also varsity team members direct a
physical fitness program for lower-grade boys: this program is under the
supervision of the boys' physical education teacher.
10. One of the most gratifying and contagious outcomes of this training-
for-leadership program is the genuine interest students show in school and
parish activities. They show spontaneous willingness to offer help wherever
possible.
CRITERIA FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF SLOW LEARNERS
It must be remembered that the students in Groups 3 and 4 were slow
416 Elementary School Department
learners in varying degrees, and that the criteria suggested below are very
general.
1. Child shows general lack of confidence.
2. He is often, though not always, aggressive.
3. His thinking is consistently superficial.
4. He is unable to follow curriculum as set up.
5. Grade placement scores are usually very low, showing lowest areas in
comprehensive subject.
6. Many assignments are poorly understood and incomplete.
7. Class participation is seldom, if at all; when it is attempted, it is often
irrelevant to the topic.
8. He is often inclined toward introversion.
9. Often he shows over-eagerness to please teachers or to attach himself
to hero students.
10. He shows an extremely short attention span; lacks initiative in locating
source materials; lacks originality in abstract thinking.
Although the largest block of time for slow learners should be spent in
laying the basic foundation of skills and understandings, their psychological
need for receiving public recognition should not be overlooked. Functioning
as part of our experimental program are the following:
1) Field trips, which tend to stimulate interests in concrete form.
2) A Hobby Club meets once weekly after school. This group designs and
produces seasonal novelties for patients in two local hospitals and for residents
of the Home for the Aged.
3) These students have slowly accomplished the learning of the Offertory
for the Requiem Mass and are given full responsibility for this part during
group singing.
Conclusion
According to the statistics revealed in December achievement testing there
has resulted noticeable progress. The grouping experiment undertaken is
apparently a "success story." It is a success more than mere indication by
test scores for the students seem stimulated toward superior performance.
The attitude of parents is enlivened; they seem eager to locate the next step
progress-wise for their children. Many more have come for counsel as to
their child's secondary education; more students have enrolled in Catholic
high schools. This "revolution against apathy" as Schools of Tomorrow —
Today refer to this type program, has above all, awakened students to a
keener sense of personal responsibility in the matter of striving to develop
one's potential. It is hoped that "grouping for improved instruction" will
accomplish better things toward realizing the desires of our Holy Father,
that the faithful "have an awareness of the obligation to carry on in a Christian
manner their economic and social obligations," and as Pope Pius XI enjoins:
"Education is for the whole child." May such a program prepare for apostolic
Catholic leadership — so critical a need in our present society.
THE CATHOLIC SCHOOLS ROLE IN
COMMUNITY RELATIONS
Sister M. Licinia, O.S.F.
PRINCIPAL, ST. CATHERINE SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN
Today when the entire world seems to be caught up in a dialogue of uni-
versal friendliness, our great work has become the fostering of the ecumenical
spirit. This is something to be desired. God, in Whose sight a million years
are as a moment, may in our times use a great ecumenical-minded pontiff,
John XXIII, as the instrument of His purposes. The concept of an international
community as a community of individuals bound one to another by the strong
bond of membership in the same human family is a much discussed issue
today. The entire world seems to be taken up with the idea of better public
or human relations.
What do we mean by "public relations?" There are those who hold that
since public relations is an art and not a science, it cannot be subjected to
a precise definition. I like to think of public relations as the "sum total of all
impressions made by an institution and the various persons connected with it."
From this definition, it is immediately evident that no one individual person
could hope to deal adequately with its entire scope, even within a single school.
Public relations is an expression that translated into action has become a potent
force influencing our lives in many and varied ways. It uses every media of
communication for the sole purpose of informing, interesting, and molding
favorable public opinion. It is used on all levels of politics, in business large
and small, in diplomacy, as well as in education.
School public relations has assumed vast importance in America's educa-
tional efforts. A program of public relations in the field of education requires
careful, intensive planning and execution because of the fundamental two-fold
purpose it serves: first, to keep the public intelligently informed concerning
the objectives and the scope of work in our schools; and, second, to develop
intelligent, sympathetic understanding between the home and the school in
meeting the needs of every child, thus ensuring efficient cooperation based
upon a thorough insight into the responsibilities of the home and the school.
Not long ago education, for various reasons, was quite divorced from the
home. As civilization has grown more complex, transmission of ideas has
quickened, and competitive forces have multiplied and expanded, all groups in
society are increasingly aware that they must win and hold public favor in
legitimate ways in order to survive. At the same time, the public is increasingly
in a receptive mood for better understanding and resultant good will. It is a
known fact that public schools have more easily and quickly realized this trend
and have adapted themselves to the situation. Public educators, aware of their
responsibility to the community they serve, endeavor to keep the school well
in the focus of the public eye. These educators know that adequate funds will
be allocated to schools only if they develop and utilize communication processes
which will keep reasonable amounts of informed public attention focused on
education. Therefore, every medium of communication is used to acquaint
parents and others with what the school is doing. Thus, the public school
has assumed a prominent position in its community and has united itself to
the home in an unprecedented degree.
417
418 Elementary School Department
If good public relations is important to the public school, it is even more
important to the Catholic school which makes a significant contribution to
the community and to the nation. The Catholic school has set up ideals beyond
reproach. It has striven mightily and achieved much. Yet, to a large extent its
accomplishments and contributions are unknown and its efforts unrecognized
because the Catholic school failed to make maximum use of good public
relations. As Cardinal Cushing has said:
The Catholic school must re-penetrate by a renewal of Apostolic spirit the
modern community from which it was largely isolated. The community will
not come to us. We must go to it. In an age so enamored of ideas, it is
upon the children of our schools that the mission of our schools depends.
We can no longer be content with the snug security that too often shuts off
the influence from the community of which they are members, but to which
they seem alien.
It is important here to emphasize the place of the Home and School Asso-
ciation which is organized to bridge the chasm which exists between the home
and the school. If fathers and mothers believe "that the dignity of Christian
parents lies in being associated with Jesus Christ in the education of their
children," they find in the Home and School Association an organization ade-
quate to assist them in the ultimate solution of their manifold problems. For
the most important reason for the existence of this organization in its relation
to the school lies in its effort to understand and appreciate the philosophy
which underlies the principles of the Catholic educational system. If we
can be thoroughly convinced that a close relationship between the home and
the school is satisfying to parents, helpful to teachers, and conducive to
Christian growth and living for both the children and the parents, we have
achieved a common ground.
Role of the Pupil
Since the elementary school is closer to all the people than any other, it is
the key institution functioning between the people and the parochial school
system. In the school's public relations program the pupil's position is strategic;
he is the key interpreter of the school. He is the most immediate, most constant,
probably the most energetic, and certainly the most talkative link between the
school and the community. This has staggering implications for school public
relations when the single pupil is multiplied by the tens of thousands enrolled
in the nation's parochial schools. It is a public relations position enjoyed by no
other public or private enterprise. All these pupils are potential ambassadors
of good or ill will. How the student takes the good will home and what he
takes into the community are all-important. If he is enthusiastic and vitally
interested in his bit of public relations media, then we can expect those listening
to him to be enthusiastic also.
Recognizing the importance of the pupil's position in a public relations pro-
gram leads us to the next step — the pupil-teacher relationship. Improved
public relations must always be oriented to better teaching and better learning.
Teaching, whether good or bad, always leaves some effects on the pupil, interest
or boredom, a feeling of achievement or defeat, a spirit of enthusiasm or a
sense of frustration, a liking or disliking of subject, school, or teacher. Good
teaching remains the teacher's primary means for building effective relations
with her pupils and for cultivating favorable and lasting attitudes. Those
procedures which achieve best results in learning are most likely to foster
favorable pupil attitudes toward learning and ultimately to achieve the best
for public relations.
The Catholic School's Role 419
Informally, classroom teachers are shaping public opinion all day long.
Without question, some of the most important human relationships of a
teacher are the close-at-hand, day-by-day interactions with her pupils. What
happens in school, what the teacher says or does, is told and discussed on
buses, in the stores, and in the homes. It is of prime importance that the
teacher realizes her position in the public relations program.
Role of the Principal
Thus far we have spoken briefly about the positions of the pupil and the
teacher in a school public relations program. The principal, however, must
lead the way in making every member of her faculty conscious of the impera-
tive need for good public relations. For the success of such a program, the
good will and the cooperation of the teaching personnel are necessary. By
showing respect for the staff, confiding responsibility to them, and by demon-
strating an interest in their efforts, the principal can earn their good will. This
tactful but firm and just administration of the staff along with cooperative
planning will result in teamwork, an essential to good internal relations.
Thus each teacher will be motivated and inspired to do her best.
Public Relations Techniques
We have seen that public relations must be thought of as a cooperative part-
nership, a sharing process, in which the philosophy, the policies, and the work
of a school are relayed and interpreted to an interested public. The result will
be an intelligent understanding of what the school is trying to accomplish,
and through this knowledge the public will be moved to cooperate with the
school. With all these factors in mind, I shall share a few ideas, experiences,
and means which we have used in our school to develop and promote a good
public relations program. Let me preface my remarks by saying that we have
done nothing spectacular and that we have not made the front page headlines
in any of the city's daily newspapers. However, we believe that we have taken
at least a first step in the right direction. We know that our schools have the
potential, the interest, and the vigor needed for further development. When
we stop becoming better, we cease to be good.
Handbook
The parents want to know about the child's school from the broad aspect of
philosophy and curriculum to the most minute details of classroom procedure
and extracurricular activities. One sees with deepening understanding the day-
by-day adjustments of family living to school hours, school bus schedules, rules
and regulations, activities, requests, requirements, and demands. It is really
understandable that it is not only for the child's sake but for the sake of good
family living that these parents want to know so much. To provide this
information for the home we have prepared a handbook for the parents. A
copy of this handbook is given to the parents at the time of the registration
of their children. Being a direct and positive channel of information, it has
proved helpful to the parents and has resulted in a better understanding and
cooperation between the school and the home.
Parish Brochure
The public, in public relations, are all the people we meet. We must get
to know them, know who they are, how they live, what they do, and what they
think. It is only by knowing them that we can find the most effective ways of
420 Elementary School Department
serving them. In a large metropolitan parish such as ours, there is continuous
influx of new parishioners. (For instance, in the last seven months, 180 families
have entered our parish.) To welcome these newcomers into our parish family
and to invite their participation in the life of the parish, the members of our
Junior Legion of Mary, supervised by their moderator, visit each new family.
They give the family a brochure entitled "This Is Your Parish." It contains
important parish data such as Mass schedules and descriptions of parish
organizations that cover a variety of groups and interests. A sense of security
and a feeling of belongingness are established and promoted by these personal
contacts. The fruits of this particular public relations technique are evidenced
in the numerous expressions of gratitude and appreciation from these pari-
shioners, and by their consequent active interest and participation in the various
activities of our parish.
Lay Participation in School Activities
An awareness of the importance of informed and intelligent lay participa-
tion in school problems and programs can lead to schools taking advantage of
the resources of the community in various ways which, in turn, will contribute
to school-community relations. Laymen with special knowledge or experience
can be asked to participate as resource persons. As a result of President
Kennedy's appeal for a physical fitness program in every elementary school,
we called upon the policemen in our parish to organize our program according
to the handbook, Youth Physical Fitness, published by the President's Council
on Youth Fitness. It is significant to note that other members of the police
force, some not of our faith, are showing interest in our program by coming
to observe and to help, with the idea of promoting the program in other schools.
(The City Chief of Police wholeheartedly endorses the role of his men in this
program.) All of this is volunteer service. Such devices aiming at drawing
laymen into the school are promoted with public relations ends in mind. The
object is clearly to help the laymen know the school.
Baby-Sitting Program
That doing carries home to the parents and gets to the community is con-
firmed by the many expressions of appreciation we receive for the baby-sitting
service our Junior Legion of Mary members provide for mothers with pre-
school children during the Sunday Masses. These girls, by their graciousness
to the parents and their gentleness to the children, establish friendly person-to-
person contacts. They accept no fees or tips, not even for the materials they
provide for the children. Their program includes telling simple Bible stories,
teaching short prayers, playing games, and engaging in good conversation.
Courtesy Program
We have found courtesy to be another important and effective factor in
promoting good internal and external public relations, for it embodies the Cath-
olic objective of education, the perfect Christian. Pupils are in personal contact
with most of the population in the community and exercise direct influence
upon the people they meet. Don't we often ask children when they do some-
thing commendable or not commendable, in a bus or elsewhere, "What school
do you attend?" The school must be aware of the impact the child's individual
actions and attitudes make on the public.
Conscious of the public relations value of courtesy, we have a coordinated
courtesy program to help awaken a new spirit of Christian thinking and living
The Catholic School's Role All
in the school and in the home. Working as a common unit and united in a com-
mon bond, the children are drawn together as members of the Mystical Body
and brought into a living, vibrant fellowship.
In our faculty meeting before the opening of school, we discussed how best
to initiate and carry out our all-school program for encouraging the children
to be courteous Christians. We agreed that the general objective should be
courtesy toward God and toward our neighbor. We try to impress the
children with the realization that courtesy is not a sugar-coating process or
a selling campaign but an honest outright attempt in promoting the apostolate
of good example.
The teachers, of course, supplied the initial inspiration and cooperatively
drew up an agenda of practices. Each practice is presented and motivated
over the public-address system. It is our hope to have the pupils discuss
their own problems and their own needs and then to formulate plans for their
own courtesy campaign. We realize, however, that the inspiration and guidance
of the faculty has to promote the steadfastness to carry on when youthful
enthusiasm begins to cool.
The children individually, as evidenced by the observation of parents,
school personnel, and others, are manifesting a growing consciousness in Christ-
like living. These children, as a result, are, as it were, germ carriers spreading
the contagion of courtesy to all with whom they come in contact. Principals
of the schools where our seventh- and eighth-grade pupils attend weekly classes
in Industial Arts frequently call or send letters commending our children
for the courteous way they conduct themselves. Because of the thoughtfulness
and friendliness of the Catholic children next door, the members of an entire
family were inspired to investigate the Catholic faith and through the grace of
God to embrace it. This is an example of good performance, publicly ap-
preciated because adequately communicated.
School-Family Prayers
Another aspect of our program that has proved to be an effective line of
communication with pupils, parents, and others, is the practice of praying over
the public-address system for important intentions recommended by members
of the parish and community. Immediately following the daily announcements,
the intention is mentioned and the entire student body, as one big family, joins
in prayer. It takes but a moment, but it is amazing how the knowledge of this
practice has reached out beyond the confines of the school to the community
at large. It is our belief that its very simplicity makes it an extremely effective
public relations device. These little gestures of personal interest in family
problems should not be minimized; they are crucial in the formation of
impressions which influence public opinion and promote good will.
Routine
Some activities may be carried out purposely to foster good school public
relations; however, not everything in public relations need be programmed.
There are many little things we do or can do, traditional or insignificant things,
which influence parents and others in their evaluation of the school. Courtesy
and friendliness in the front office are often major steps toward a favorable
opinion of the school. A polite, pleasant, and helpful clerk often can make the
difference between a favorable or an unfavorable impression. A word of
recognition on the part of the principal or members of the staff to the custodian
will encourage him to take pride in his work. The cafeteria personnel are
pleased when the principal notifies them of vacation dates. The bus driver is
422 Elementary School Department
grateful that he is told in advance of changes in the school schedule. Family
ties with the school are strengthened because of the teacher's visit to a
hospitalized pupil. Thus, good public relations includes countless little acts
that produce a desired cumulative effect.
Parochial-Public School Relationships
The relationship between parochial and public school systems is another
area of growing importance. The time has come when the parochial schools
can no longer absorb all the Catholic children. Therefore, there can be no
discounting the need for a strong, well-planned public relations program with
the public school system. Conscious efforts to establish and maintain a per-
sonal, professional, and institutional friendliness must be made. Proper
understandings in this area are multilateral.
In preparing this paper I conferred with top-level public school administra-
tors, including the assistant superintendent of schools, principals of elementary
schools and junior and senior high schools, and guidance counselors. From the
top down, these educators agreed that in the Milwaukee area the relationship
between the parochial and the public schools is good and has traditionally
been so. There was a friendly exchange of information and ideas and a sincere
effort on their part to discuss, share, and face common problems.
In these discussions there was opportunity to restate in clear, concise
language Catholic objectives that all might more easily understand the Catholic
position. The many common goals, especially those of loyalty to the nation
and obedience to its laws, were recognized. The assumption is made in each
system that we are friendly cooperators rather than competitors in the
tremendous task of educating the children of the community. The religious
development and growth of the pupils is the main point of divergence between
the two systems.
While lauding our achievements and emphasizing unity of purpose, these
public school officials did not hesitate to indicate the things they did not like
about our schools. Free exchange of records between school systems aids
better understanding of existing problems. This is an area that needs mutual
consideration and can be approached for solution only on a mutual basis.
In our friendly interchange of ideas and discussion of common problems,
one of the top-level public school officials suggested a list of directives for
dealing with other school systems, in which I thought you would be interested.
Among them are the following:
1. Keep the door open and the welcome sign out. Most difficulties are
misunderstandings that yield to fair, friendly conference.
2. Do not stand on your dignity. When people come together as profes-
sional cooperators, it would be well for them to consider themselves on
an equality with everyone else similarly concerned.
3. Maintain friendly relations. Use friendly language. Say "we" and "us"
rather than "you."
4. Talk in terms of common problems, or in terms of the other man's
problems. At least recognize the fact that a situation that may be pro-
ducing trouble for both is probably not wholly the fault of one or the
other, and is equally deplored by both.
5. Think and speak charitably of everyone. For public school people to
talk about the stern discipline of the parochial school is uncharitable.
On the other hand, for Catholic schools to speak of the permissive
quality that allegedly pervades the public schools is equally unkind.
6. If controversy unfortunately arises, speak softly. "I prefer," said
Edmund Burke, "that if there is an excess of generosity needed on one
side or the other, it should be mine to enjoy."
The Catholic School's Role 423
To summarize my paper briefly, the aims of every Catholic educator in
developing a strong public relations program should be to inform the public
and to mold its opinion and thought. By this means, the Catholic educational
system can be revealed for what it really is — "a contributor of significance to
American culture and a stout defender of its liberties and traditions."
THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL STORY— THE PUBLIC
Jerome G. Kovalcdc
ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT IN CHARGE OF OFFICE OF EDUCATION
INFORMATION SERVICES AND PUBLIC RELATIONS, NEW YORK CITY
BOARD OF EDUCATION
Having just arrived from New York City where yesterday the Board of
Education resumed negotiations with the union selected by the teachers as
their collective bargaining agent, I cannot help but say, as I look at all of you
assembled here, that you belong to the largest teachers union in existence —
a union with God — and that you have been bargaining collectively for many,
many years with God for the graces that are due to you for teaching His little
ones the way to His Home. Moreover, although you do not wear AFT or
CIO-AFL buttons, so many of you carry the cross with the label INRI.
It is good to be able to recite before you again. My first recitations before
Catholic school teachers took place in St. Josaphat's parochial school in
Cheektowaga, N.Y., near Buffalo, where the dear Felician sisters guided us
to God's truth. Upon graduation from St. Josaphat's, I came under the
discipline of the Jesuit fathers at Canisius High School. Then came Canisius
College and finally graduate work at Fordham University. So I feel very
much at home with you here today. I might add that my wife is also a
product of the parochial schools and that each of my seven children either
did attend or will attend a parochial school.
I would like to propose two thoughts for your consideration in the hope
that they will stimulate discussion in the period that has been set aside after
we panelists speak. The first is that the "Catholic School Story" cannot be
told completely and is not told well unless it includes the story of the role
of the Catholic school in the cold war between communism and democracy.
The second is that "support begets support" or, in other words, that the
Catholic schools can strengthen their own public relations by contributing
to the public relations needs of the public schools.
Essentially the struggle between communism and the free way of life is one
between atheism and belief in God. In this contest, which Lenin said will
continue until one is dead and the other remains alive, denunciation of the
atheistic philosophy of the Communists is not enough; neither does it suffice
to boast with pride that we here in America and other free countries enjoy
religious freedom. Living according to moral and spiritual values based on
belief in God will prove to be the only sure way of survival for democracy.
Indeed, America must maintain the greatest military strength so that it can
424 Elementary School Department
deter a hot war or be supreme in the event of armed conflict. But, perhaps
even more essentially, America must be assured of a citizenry that not only
voices a belief in God but also knows about Him and His teachings, and
knowing Him loves and respects fellowman as a creature of God with an
immortal soul as well as a body. For if we in our country in all of our daily
activities act toward one another with full respect for the soul of our being
and in a spirit of brotherhood under God, no subversion, no infiltration, no
duplicity on the part of those who represent communism in the cold war of
ideologies can ever be successful.
If, therefore, the knowledge of God and His teachings and living in ac-
cordance with them is so essential and potent a weapon in this cold war,
where can this armor best be distributed? We ought to be able to say with
confidence that the home and the church are the best armories. Unfortunately,
the fast pace of community life — absorption with the task of making a living,
the preoccupation with radio and television in most homes — leaves very little
time for religious training. The weekly attendance at Mass is certainly in-
adequate. The brief period of released-time instruction or weekly evening
confraternity classes at best can be likened to weekly National Guard drills in
preparation for the eventuality of a shooting war. If Godlikeness is to triumph
over Godlessness, our children need a thorough, rigorous basic training in
religion. Catholic schools — and, indeed, all other religious schools, Protestant
and Jewish — are the best camps for such training. This is primarily why the
parents of more than five million children this year have enrolled them in your
schools. You can boast of having under your care more than 13,000 elementary
and secondary cold-war training camps, and I exhort you to do so.
In brief, then, the role of the religious school in the cold war between
communism and democracy should be a major part of the Catholic School
Story. It has not been told well enough and often enough. When it is, then
perhaps all of America will be more ready to support religious schools.
Survival of a free way of life is a tremendous motivating factor. Understanding
of what is necessary for it to survive may well be what is necessary to convince
so many people that separation of Church and State was never meant to be
separation of God and State. For if it were, what would be the essential
difference between our democracy and communism?
Nothing that I have said thus far is to be construed as the slightest criticism
of the public schools. In fact, as I mentioned in my initial summary, all
persons participating in Catholic or other religious education — the religious
themselves, the parents, the pupils — must in a spirit of fairness help the public
relations programs of the public schools if the public relations of the religious
schools are to improve. One of the strengths of America is that there are both
public and private schools; that among the private schools there are secular
and religious schools; that diversity in educational opportunities exists as well
as it does in economic and other opportunities.
Take, as an example, the importance of training our young in the know-
ledge of God and His teachings, which I have just stressed as the hallmark
of the Catholic School Story. It would be most unfair to blame the public
schools for not doing enough to provide religious and spiritual training. It
is also unfair to remain silent when we hear others criticizing them so. Unlike
religious schools, public schools are constrained by law to keep religion out-
side the school threshold. A government-established school simply cannot
teach what the parents of children in religious schools believe in conscience
should be taught. In a sense, Catholic and other religious schools have a greater
freedom to educate than the public schools.
The Catholic School Story — the Public 425
We must also make clear that the public schools are aware of the need
to teach moral and spiritual values. The Third White House Conference held
in 1939, in which both lay and clerical leaders of many faiths expressed con-
cern about the lack of religious knowledge, was evidence of the awareness of
public education to the need to pay attention to the spiritual development of
the young.
Public school teachers generally try within legal and constitutional limits to
teach moral and religious values in the course of teaching other subject matter.
In New York City, for example, we have the Jewish Teachers Association,
the Protestant Teachers Association, and the Catholic Teachers Association, all
dedicated to inculcating moral values in their pupils.
To recognize public school efforts in this direction, and the legal and con-
stitutional limits imposed on them, and to spread that recognition among others
is what religious school administrators and teachers in all fairness need to do.
Another illustration of how we must in fairness help the public relations
efforts of the public schools lies in the area of pupil discipline. To be silent
when some members of the public sledge-hammer public schools with ac-
cusations of poor discipline and then rub salt into the wounds by comparing
it with the good discipline in the Catholic and other religious school is unfair.
May I say here that unfairness begets unfairness just as support begets support.
We must make clear that religious schools or other private schools are
not required by law to make place for the seriously disturbed student or to
retain the chronically incorrigible and delinquent. We must point out that
the pupils religious schools suspend or expel must be accepted by the public
school system. Moreover, we must point out that the Catholic schools, for
example, enjoy some inherent advantages promoting better discipline. The
very presence of the Cross in the classroom is a deterrent to misbehavior in
the class. The reverence of parents for the priest, the nun, and the brother
breeds respect and good behavior in the school. The daily prayers, the weekly
confession, the retreats, the May devotions all are advantages not possessed by
the public schools.
Another way in which Catholic schools can enhance their own public
relations is by publicly supporting the public schools in their campaigns for
greater financial support. Here, too, silence is not enough. Catholic school
principals and teachers, Catholic school superintendents, and parish priests
are in a position to urge laymen in the community to become active in efforts
to improve the public schools. I am just idealistic enough to believe that
support of a bond issue for public schools by the Catholic schools will gen-
erally result in a return of that support in the event the Catholic schools
call for help. As a Catholic I wince when I hear persons say "the public
schools in the city of are inferior because more than half of the
children are enrolled in parochial schools." This reasoning is not always true,
but it is true often enough to make us feel ashamed. Disregard by Catholics
for the children in public schools begets disregard on the part of others for
Catholic schools, and conversely Catholic school support for public schools
will lead to greater public support for Catholic schools.
Sister Licinia summarized this thought so beautifully when she said that
public and parochial schools should be "friendly co-operators rather than
competitors in the tremendous task of educating the children of the com-
munity."
In review, I have tried to indicate that the Catholic School Story must
stress the role of the Catholic schools in the cold war between atheistic
communism and a democracy based on man's respect for his fellowman
426 Elementary School Department
as a creature of God — and, furthermore, that the Catholic School Story will
be received more favorably if those who participate in Catholic education
help their colleagues in public schools tell their story.
THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL STORY AND THE PRESS
Harry Salsinger
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT, The Detroit News, DETROIT, MICHIGAN
I have been asked to say a few words about the relationship of the press
with the parochial school and it will — of necessity — be a few words.
The fact of the matter is that there is not enough of such a relationship —
not enough written in the daily newspapers about Catholic schools. But it is
not because we would not like to write more. I think I can speak for the
press generally when I say we not only would like to but feel we ought to do
more than we do.
However, there are some practical obstacles.
For one thing, the parochial schools in any city are a system of schools —
not a school system. There is no single contract for teachers, no single budget,
and no superintendent speaking for all schools. There are no professional
organizations to speak for all teachers or even for a large segment of the
teachers.
You can see how this hampers us. If the public school teachers get a pay
raise in their new contracts, we can cover the whole thing with one story.
To do the same story about salaries in parochial schools, we would have to
contact all of them. In Detroit, that would mean 160 schools, and a total
of 358 in the metropolitan area.
The parochial schools also lack the biggest source of education stories
in any city, large or small. That is the board of education which determines
policies applicable to all schools and all students.
Lacking such a central authority as a source for stories concerning all of
the parochial schools, we then have to depend on teachers or students as a
source of feature stories.
Since nuns are retiring by nature and circumstance, about the only source
we have left is the students. The only obstacle here, and it is one applicable
to all students, is that we have no regular lines of communication with them.
Teachers might keep us informed on this score — except that teachers and
newspapermen do not see eye to eye on what makes a good story. Teachers,
I find, are glad to call us when some sweet little girl wins the fifth-grade
oratorical contest. This might be an appealing subject for a feature story
except we must consider the fact there are probably 500 fifth-grade classrooms
in Detroit. If we print a story about this particular little girl, we will have
a hard time saying "no" to the other 499 fifth-grade teachers when they ask
us. This problem — of what kind of requests we are liable to get whenever we
use a particular story — is a very constant one with us.
On the other hand, when some young genius rigs a simple electronic device.
The Catholic School Story and the Press All
which will ring the school fire alarm every hour on the hour, his teacher is
very unlikely to call us. Yet, this would make a wonderful feature story.
Admittedly, this is a somewhat absurd example — but I hope it makes my
point that a story has to have some decidedly different angle to get con-
sideration from a metropolitan newspaper.
On the positive side, let me cite a parochial school story that can, and did,
get in the newspapers. It concerned a school observing some sort of anni-
versary which would not be a story except that for the celebration they had
dressed some third- or fourth-grade girls as nuns of different orders. This
made a wonderful picture and the picture made the story.
Speaking of pictures, I might point out that getting newspaper photographs
in parochial schools is — or at least has been — one of our obstacles. Things
seem to be getting better but we still run into trouble on occasion when the
subject of pictures comes up. Some teachers and principals don't want pictures
taken in the classrooms, some don't want nuns in the pictures, and some want
to tell us exactly how the picture should be made.
All of these things are very discouraging to the reporter who wants a
particular picture to illustrate his story. He is very liable to decide all this
trouble isn't worth the bother — especially if he can do the same story in a
public school without any trouble at all. Because of the importance of pic-
tures today, I believe parochial schools would be wise to be as cooperative
as possible in helping newspapers get their pictures. This is really a "must"
in good press relations.
At the high school level, there are other ways in which parochial schools
can gain favorable attention. The most common is the citywide or statewide
competition, either sports or academic. For the last two years, parochial
schools in the Detroit area have had the most favorable type of publicity
possible in connection with the Metropolitan Detroit Science Fair, which is
co-sponsored by our newspaper.
Parochial schools here enroll approximately one quarter of the students
but each year they walk off with one-half of the awards in the Science Fair,
which is open to all students. Not only that, but we also find instances where
a parochial high school with 150 students will have 30 entries accepted in the
fair and a public high school, with 2,700 students, will have only 3 entries.
I can assure you that these achievements have been pointed out specifically
and in detail in our newspaper. Unfortunately, this is not an avenue of pub-
licity open to the elementary schools, which is our concern today.
Let me assure you again that we would like to report, whenever possible,
what parochial schools are doing but we need your help. You can tell us
when you think you have the makings of a story.
There are some rather unspecific but simple guidelines you can use. Just
ask yourself if what you have to say is new, or different, or would it lend
itself to an interesting picture. If you can answer "yes" to any of these
conditions, you had better get in touch with your local newspaper. And don't
confine yourself to the general news section. The women's pages, or the
boys and girls page, may be even more interested in your story.
I hope that I have been able to explain some of our problems and that
these rather vague hints may be helpful. I sincerely hope we will be hearing
more from you — and writing more about you — in the future.
FITNESS FOR THE SIXTIES
Fred V. Hein
DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH EDUCATION,
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Interest in youth fitness has spread through the country like an old-style
epidemic in recent years. A youth fitness program needs to be broadly based
with consideration for all of the factors involved in fitness. These include
good nutrition, needed medical and dental services, sufficient sleep and rest,
and other sensible living practices as well as physical activity. Implementation
also requires involvement of community groups as well as personnel from
within the school.
It is fortunate that the President's Council on Youth Fitness has seen fit
to develop its program in terms of a "Suggested School-Centered Program."
For several important reasons this is the best possible arrangement. First, the
school is the only agency having a continuing day-by-day contact with all
of our youth; second, the schools are tooled for the fitness job with organized
instruction in physical and health education on a regular basis; third, the
schools have the leadership in their teaching and administrative staffs to de-
velop and carry out the needed program.
In trying to build a program for the years ahead, it is essential to see where
we are in 1962. How healthy, how fit, are our youngsters at the present time?
Health and fitness are certainly not the same thing even though they are
closely related. Basic health underlies fitness and is essential to its develop-
ment. An individual's fitness is dependent upon the soundness of his organic
structure. But fitness goes beyond this physiological basis. It must include
development of physical capacities and skills.
Measures of Health
We have valid objective measures of health as yardsticks for our purposes:
Our youth are healthier today than at any previous time; they have longer
years of life expectancy; our youth are taller and heavier on the average
than any previous generation; gains against disease have been phenomenal —
many of the so-called common diseases of childhood have become uncommon.
So, without doubt, today's youth have the finest potential for fitness in
history. This raises the eternal question: Fitness for what? Probably the
best answer that can be given is: Fitness for living.
A fitness program meets today's needs when it includes: (1) physical edu-
cation for the whole student body with adaptation for the handicapped and
provision for the physically gifted without neglect of the average child; (2)
arrangements for physical recreation after school and on weekends; (3) aid
and encouragement toward correction and/ or adjustment of individual health
problems; (4) revitalized health education to maintain interest and motivate
action; (5) an environment which recognizes mental, emotional, and physical
facets of education; (6) emphasis on physical conditioning and skillful per-
formance as a protection against accidents; (7) careful development in
relation to accepted educational, medical, and public health practices; (8)
an every-step-of-the-way interpretation to the community.
428
Fitness for the Sixties 429
Automation and Inactivity
Although the state of general fitness of our children and youth may be far
above that of earlier generations, there is little question but that physical
demands upon them are more limited than in the past. Physical demands are
constantly being reduced by the mechanization of modern living.
In the home, power appliances and other automatic devices drain the
physical activity out of our lives. Automobiles or other motor vehicles make
walking almost a lost art. Automation on the farm as well as in industry
reduces the activity level of most occupational tasks.
In today's schools there is a growing emphasis on academic achievement and
excellence along with more attention to the physical sciences. Within rational
limits this is certainly all to the good. In some places, however, short-
sighted policies have allowed health and physical education programs to be
crippled or crowded out in the process.
There are other forces that tend to subtract physical activity from the lives
of youth: television, a great communications medium because of its almost
universal appeal is, nevertheless, an additional force in the direction of
sedentary living; commercial recreation, mostly of an inactive type, seeks to
exploit the time and energy of youth. More important, perhaps, is the image
of today's American being portrayed and promoted through mass media like
the movies, television, radio, books, magazines, and newspapers. Far greater
prestige is ordinarily associated with the pleasures of easy living than with
the virtue of physical activity and fitness. In some cases, a definite stigma
is attached to exercise, muscles, and perspiration.
A Positive Program
What kind of program is required to meet the fitness needs of our children
and youth? How broad should the program be, what activities should it in-
clude, what needs should it meet?
1. For proper growth and development, children need vigorous physical
activity appropriately interspaced with the more sedentary school activities.
First, there should be an instructional program in the school, with emphasis
on teaching and learning. If this instruction is to fulfill its purpose, there must
be adaptation for the handicapped and provision for the physically gifted with-
out neglect of the average child.
Second, a diversified intramural program possessed of enough virility and
vitality to attract the active participation of a large majority of the student body.
Third, at appropriate school levels, a balanced interschool sports program
which achieves a happy mixture of participation and successful play.
Fourth, and perhaps the most important, the arrangement of many opportu-
nities for unregimented play after school and on weekends. With proper
provision for safety, particularly toward the end of the school career, students
should be encouraged to utilize the school's equipment and facilities on their
own. Here, stress should be given to the development of "activity appreci-
ation" rather than on activity for its own sake.
In the community there should be organized recreation and youth agepcy
activities, a proper proportion of which place rational physical demands upon
our youth. We should try to build a national climate that upgrades physical
activity as a part of the American way of life.
2. Some children have health problems that interfere with their growth and
development and their opportunity to learn and live effectively. Methods to
430 Elementary School Department
discover such problems and to encourage correction or bring about adjust-
ment to them are essential.
Screening tests such as those of vision and hearing along with alert health
observation by teachers will point to possible problems. Health examinations
periodically and on referral, preferably by the family physician, will reveal
others.
3. With even the best organization and supervision a certain amount of
sudden illness and some accidents are bound to occur. An accident prevention
program and procedures for dealing with emergencies, including large-scale
disasters are, therefore, a practical necessity.
4. During the school year, children are compelled by law to spend several
hours a day within. the school and its environs. This places a responsibility
upon the school to provide a safe and healthful environment — mental and
emotional as well as physical.
It places an equal responsibility upon all community agencies which serve
youth to give continuing attention to these factors. The community as a
whole should be geared to healthful living.
With today's tensions we must give increasing attention to mental health.
We must work out ways in which all who deal with children can contribute
appropriately to an over-all preventive program in this field. The school and
community climate — the emotional tone — of the environment is as important
as its sanitation. New understandings, as well as the "anxious age" in which
we live, point up the importance of concern for mental health.
5. The school years present a unique opportunity for health education:
tomorrow's citizens are grouped in an instructional situation during the im-
pressionable formative period of their lives. Unless this golden opportunity
is to be lost, well-designed and properly graded health education is essential
throughout the school years. Health education is the catalytic agent which
can put the advances of medicine and public health to work. Health education
is needed to build personal health responsibility and to motivate people
to make full use of the services available.
The schools have the instructional skills essential to such teaching; edu-
cation has recognized the obligation in every recent listing of its objectives.
Health education deserves equal rights in even the most crowded curriculum.
It deserves teachers as well prepared as in any other field. Without health, what
are the values of the qualities and skills that education may produce?
6. Many problems in connection with a youth fitness program result from
misunderstanding of its aims and objectives. Health education at school will
lose much of its value unless health practices in the home, school, and com-
munity can be brought into harmony. The interpretive program should stress
parental responsibility for child health but must be carefully developed in terms
of accepted medical, educational, and public health practice. Youth fitness
is a big assignment — too big for any one group to accomplish alone. As in
other areas of child care, it is a shared responsibility.
The primary obligation belongs to the family. The schools and the health
departments have certain legal and moral responsibilities. Medical and dental
practitioners in the community provide unique services. Recreation and
youth-serving agencies also make important contributions.
To formulate an effective program, representatives of all such groups must
get together. The initiative might well come from the school, although in some
situations other agencies may take the lead. The goal should be joint action
based on careful planning.
Fitness for the Sixties 431
The Council's Recommended 5-Point Program
Our bipartisan program of Youth Fitness, initiated under Mr. Eisenhower
and now being continued by the Kennedy administration, is making its basic
approach through the schools. The President's Council's publication Youth
Physical Fitness — Suggested Elements of a School-Centered Program recom-
mends a five-point action program as follows:
1. Identification of pupils with a low level of muscular strength, agility,
and flexibility with assignment of developmental activities designed to
raise physical capacities to a desirable level.
2. A comprehension program of class instruction in health and physical
education for all pupils in both elementary and secondary schools.
3. Intramural sports opportunities for all boys and girls in grades 4-12
with emphasis on a broad program of activities.
4. Interschool sports for the physically gifted youth with the goal of more
sports, more teams, and most participants.
5. Sports clubs and opportunities for informal physical recreation in such
activities as hiking, cycling, skating, skiing, aquatics, gymnastics, rhythms,
etc.
There is inherent recognition in these recommendations that sports alone
cannot do the job. Usually sports involve those already most fit and may not
bring into play those body parts in greatest need of development. Therefore,
prescribed developmental activities are emphasized along with broad partici-
pation in active sports and other physical recreation activities.
The Council is aware of the importance of health education and health
services in any fitness program. However, it felt that the first emphasis
should be on activity as the most immediate need. In the long-term effort other
facets of fitness will receive the emphasis they deserve. In this connection,
task forces are now at work preparing supplementary materials.
The American Medical Association through its board of trustees has en-
dorsed in principle the general recommendations of the President's Council on
Youth Fitness as have many other health and educational organizations. I
hope that you personally and those you represent will also endorse this
emphasis and effort.
There is a sense of well-being associated with fitness that relates to the moral
fiber of the individual as well as to his physical adequacy. This influences, in
turn, the morale and the vitality of the community, the state, and the nation.
With a continuing cold war facing us for years to come we have a personal
obligation to promote individual fitness as part of the effort to preserve respect
for the dignity of the individual. Likewise, we have a professional respon-
sibility to help build a national fitness ideal as part of the struggle to assure
that our republic will endure.
The fitness of our youth and of our people as a whole is as much a part
of preserving the peace and national defense as arms and men and missiles.
Our developing emphasis on fitness may be a vital factor in making certain
that no potential aggressor underestimates how highly we prize our freedom
and our determination to maintain these values.
HOW CAN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL MEET ITS
PHYSICAL FITNESS COMMITMENTS?
C. Dale Barrett, M.D.
DIRECTOR, MATERNAL, CHILD AND SCHOOL HEALTH, DETROIT DEPARTMENT
OF HEALTH, DETROIT, MICHIGAN
Our youth of today is no longer threatened by the disastrous epidemic dis-
eases of the past such as plague, cholera, diptheria, and smallpox. Even the
elimination of paralytic poliomyelitis from the United States is a distinct
possibility. On the other hand, we are threatened with the diseases that
seem to come with prosperity, which all too frequently is accompanied by a
"soft way of life." We live better, eat better, have better medical care, and
have more time for rest and leisure — but are these really the blessings they
appear to be? No. All too often, as a result we have over-nutrition, high
blood pressure, and atherosclerosis — a fatty degeneration of our arteries.
In too many homes the greatest physical activity seems to consist of switch-
ing TV channels or moving from the television set to the kitchen to pick up
a snack — usually loaded with carbohydrates and fatty foods — during com-
mercials. Lack of physical activity and improper nutrition have become in-
creased menaces to the health and optimal development of our youth.
Insurance and vital health statistics have demonstrated clearly the relation-
ship between obesity and the shortening of the life span. The cause is too
many calories, whether they come from carbohydrate, protein, or fat. Obvi-
ously, then, physical fitness is injured by overweight and enhanced by normal
weight. It isn't just the extra pounds under the skin that count; much of the
fat goes elsewhere, including the inner lining of the important arteries of
the body (resulting in atherosclerosis). This includes the coronary arteries
that supply the heart muscle with blood; the carotid, vertebral, and basilar
arteries that supply the brain; the renal arteries that supply the kidneys; and
the iliac arteries that supply the circulation in the legs.
Forty years ago pneumonia was the leading cause of death. Diseases of
the arteries throughout the body now hold first place in mortality and account
for much of our morbidity. Not only has the heart suffered severely from
atherosclerosis of its arteries, but the brain, too, is crippled by extensive
atherosclerosis, the kidneys are damaged by reduction of their arterial blood
supply (an important cause of high blood pressure), and the circulation in
the legs is hampered by atherosclerotic changes.
Of great significance in physical fitness is a regular habit of vigorous
exercise. Physiologically, it has been well demonstrated that physical activity
with vigorous use of the muscles is advantageous to health. Strength, agility,
and endurance come from play and exercise that is long enough, intense
enough, and frequent enough to tax the body musculature beyond the ordi-
nary. Good muscle tone, especially of the legs, improves greatly the return
of blood from the dependent portions of the body to the heart, thus supple-
menting the work of the heart and relieving the work load on the heart muscle.
Therefore, there is great importance in having good muscle tone in_ the
legs, which have some of the largest muscles of the body and where the
effect of gravity naturally tends to hinder the flow of blood back to the chest,
heart, and head. Good muscle tone of the diaphragm also is very important
432
Elementary School and Physical Fitness 433
in aiding the return of blood to the chest through action of the thorax as a
suction pump. This same mechanism serves also for the inhalation of air,
whereby the blood is more adequately oxygenated and rid of its waste products
of carbon dioxide and water.
Two other physiological effects of regular and vigorous exercise should be
mentioned. One is its favorable function as an antidote to nervous tension.
Exercise is one of the best means for relaxation! General muscular fatigue
is conducive to physical and mental rest and sleep. A second benefit is that
vigorous exercise — provided it is taken in regular and prolonged doses — helps
prevent obesity, although diet is of primary importance in this respect.
Three questions seem to evolve naturally at this point:
1. What is meant by the term "physical fitness?"
2. When and where should a program of physical fitness be implemented?
3. How do we know when a person is "physically fit"?
1. What?
The concept of physical fitness encompasses far more than a system of
routine exercises and diet control, important as these attributes undoubtedly
are. Physical fitness is a broad quality dependent upon many other aspects
contributing to healthful living and its maintenance. In addition to exercise
and nutrition, these factors are ( 1 ) proper medical care from birth throughout
the lifetime of the individual, including periodic medical examinations, im-
munizations, and prompt medical care when illness strikes; (2) dental services;
(3) a sanitary environment; (4) good practices of personal hygiene; (5)
healthy play and recreation; (6) adequate rest and relaxation.
Physical fitness is achieved through a sensible balance of all these provisions
adapted to age, maturity, and capability of the individual. Physical fitness,
however, is but one aspect of the total fitness of the individual. Efforts to
improve physical fitness should be carried on with full regard for all fitness
qualities — mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. School programs should
emphasize physical aspects of fitness as part of total fitness.
2. When and Where ?
Physical fitness — or the lack of it — begins at birth: indeed, the state of
fitness, or the health, of the mother during the prenatal period may well have
a profound effect on the unborn child. Continuous health supervision of the
child from infancy throughout maturity can wield a lifelong influence on the
health development of the individual. By contributing to the family under-
standing of the needs of the infant, the physician shapes his growth and
development as he progresses into adulthood. The physician understands .the
relationship between physical fitness and the mental and emotional develop-
ment of the child. It is not uncommon for physicians to find that the origin
of muscular aches and pains or backaches in school-age children, for example,
brought to their offices by parents seeking medical means of alleviation, is not
due to some orthopedic condition but rather to the lack of sufficient exercise.
It has been aptly said: "What a man is able to do at 70 years of age
depends largely on what he did at 7" (Kaare Rodahl). The child should
be taught early in life that a flexible, strong body and a continuing state of
good muscular conditioning is vitally important for counteracting physical
fatigue, emotional stress, and tension. We — parents, educators, and physicians
— should help the child learn that a healthy, physically fit body requires hard
work and sustained effort. It is axiomatic, then, that in order to achieve these
434 Elementary School Department
goals with a maximum effectiveness that a program of systematic physical
education begin in the elementary years starting with the first grade. The
development of essential health habits, knowledge, and attitudes resulting from
instruction and practice of sound health principles should likewise begin in
these early, formative years. It is important, however, that the various exer-
cises and competitive activities are appropriate to the individual differences
in children's capacities at successive developmental levels. The activities
should be varied in nature and adapted to the needs, interests, and physical
condition of the pupils. Students engaging in physical educational activities
should do so in accordance with their entering and subsequent medical
examinations. No activities should be prescribed or elected except as their
health status warrants. Physical status should be evaluated by considering
such factors as muscular development, coordination, physique, strength, or-
ganic or functional disorders, presence of infection, and physical disabilities.
3. How ?
Muscle testing is not, per se, a valid estimate of physical fitness, or of good
health. Tests designed to measure pupils for motor skill, endurance, muscle
strength, agility, and flexibility are really physical performance tests, and
those who interpret them must be aware of their limitation and avoid attaching
undue significance to any particular test.
It is unfortunate to label any child as physically unfit merely because he
fails in an arbitrary performance test that may have little relationship to a
total concept of fitness. Physical fitness is only one part of total fitness, which,
in a broad sense, includes mental, emotional, and social, as well as physical,
facets. So-called national norms should be used with caution, since physical
fitness is an individual type of thing and should be evaluated primarily in
terms of individual potentials.*
It is impossible to achieve physical fitness without good health. Schools
should continue to emphasize and improve school health programs. Health
appraisal procedures on behalf of the school child should therefore include:
(1) Identification of pupils with orthopedic, nutritional, and other health
problems and subsequent referral to medical authorities.
(2) Height and weight measurements, interpreted in terms of individual
needs; pupils who are obese, underweight, or malnourished should be identi-
fied and referred to medical authorities. In this connection, the utilization of
anthropometric grids or "growth charts" has been found by many to be a useful
means of plotting a continuous record of growth and development leading to
the detection of growth failures (retardation) and children of poor physique.
(3) Other screening procedures of demonstrated value are tests for
vision and hearing.
(4) There should be continuous observation of the health of pupils by the
classroom teacher. The local health authority has responsibility to arrange
for the evaluation of teacher observations and for facilitating referrals to ap-
propriate medical or dental community facilities by way of the parent.
(5) There should be a plan and provision for medical examinations of all
children at periodic intervals as well as those based upon teacher-nurse
referrals.
* Health Appraisal of School Children, National Education Association and American Medical
Association joint publication, 3d ed., p. 31.
Elementary School and Physical Fitness 435
Lack of physical fitness may, therefore, be due not only to insufficient
exercise but to some organic defect or deficiency or infection or growth
failure. It is obvious, then, that an accurate identification as to the cause is
essential in order that corrective measures can be intelligently undertaken and
so that pupils with health conditions which preclude vigorous participation can,
and should, be given an adapted program consistent with their physical status.
The needs of physically underdeveloped children have frequently been over-
looked: these pupils require particular assistance. Fitness programs should give
emphasis to a program for girls as well as boys. The school physical educa-
tion program offers the best means of reaching these children.
Summary
1. Every boy and girl can be helped to achieve and maintain lasting fitness
through sound programs of health education and physical education based
upon developmental activities, including sports and recreation, in the ele-
mentary, junior, and senior high schools and colleges. An effective school
program provides basic instruction in vigorous activities and participation for
all students, regardless of age, sex, and physical ability. It also provides
intramural and interschool sports competition at the appropriate levels as well
as opportunity for active forms of recreation.
2. School health programs should complement both health services pro-
vided by the home, through the family physician and dentist, and services
provided by other community agencies. It must be remembered that before
girls and boys are subjected to strenuous physical exercises which stress all-out
effort and endurance, there should be a medical evaluation of their physical
health status.
3. Basic health underlies basic fitness; fitness is built upon sound organic
health.
4. Programs to improve physical fitness must provide vigorous activities that
will develop the physique, increase the efficiency of the cardio-vascular system,
and contribute to the development of physical skills.
5. Progressive resistive exercises involving increased work loads for longer
periods are essential to increase the level of fitness.
6. The school physical education program should include a core of develop-
mental and conditioning activities appropriate to the growth and developmental
level of the child. These activities should be carefully identified and stressed
in progressive order.
7. The school health education program provides knowledge and under-
standing on scientific facts and principles in order to develop desirable health
attitudes and practices for promotion of physical fitness.
8. The laudable goal of improving the physical (and mental) health of our
youth should have no age limit at any decade and it ought to continue through-
out life. The problem of our aged will thereby be greatly lightened. It is not
God's will that we should suffer from atherosclerosis, or any other diseases for
that matter; it is our own fault (Paul D. White, M.D.).
"One should always appreciate and encourage honest bodily exercise and
noble competitions. These bring the body health, vigor, agility, and grace . . .
as well as constancy of mind and practice of self-denial" (Pope John XXIII).
HOW CAN THE CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
MEET ITS PHYSICAL FITNESS REQUIREMENTS?
(Summary)
Sister Miriam Joseph, O.P.
PRINCIPAL, OUR LADY OF FATIMA SCHOOL, SCARSDALE, NEW YORK
In speaking to you today on "How Can the Catholic Elementary School Meet
Its Physical Fitness Commitments?" I shall describe what has been done at
Our Lady of Fatima School in Scarsdale, New York. This account may serve
as a practical illustration which, I hope, will afford you some useful insights
for your own programs.
The program was initiated by a group of seven mothers who were very con-
cerned over the many reports they read on the decline of American youngsters
today. School buses, cars, television, movies, and a growing aversion of youth
to anything that demands much physical effort, they knew, had lowered physical
fitness to a dangerous level. Something had to be done and they felt they should
make the first move.
The group sought the permission of the pastor, then the help of the director
of the Institute of Physical Fitness that was then located in the vicinity of
our school. Bonnie Prudden had not only established her institute but she also
had written books on physical fitness. Under the guidance of Bonnie Prudden
the seven enthusiastic mothers participated in an intensive training program.
Enlisting the aid of the Mothers Club they financed the purchase of the neces-
sary equipment: mats, wooden horses, and jump ropes.
The mothers meet on Tuesday morning in the school hall to prepare the
exercises for the next day's classes and simultaneously keep themselves slim,
trim, and physically fit. Varied and imaginative exercises are presented to
develop all parts of the body to increase agility, flexibility, and strength — the
basic elements of physical fitness.
Since clothing that permits freedom of movement is essential, the children
wear white T-shirts, blue play shorts, and acrobatic shoes. These clothes
are worn under the regular school uniform thus eliminating the problem of
dressing rooms and tote bags. This arrangement also saves time and the
children are ready to begin the warm-up exercises within minutes of arriving
at the school hall.
The warm-up exercises vary with each group and are different for boys and
girls. The children consider these warm-ups a pleasure and a challenge
rather than the dreary bore which many associate with the name "exercise."
The grade classes are assigned half -hour periods and go as a group, except
the seventh and eighth grades. The seventh and eighth-grade girls form one
class; the boys form another.
In addition to this weekly half-hour, each class conducts two three-minute
daily drills in which the children under the guidance of their teachers take
turns as leaders. These exercises, also charted by the mothers, help to maintain
the goals set forth by our fitness conscious parents and the President of our
country.
Five years ago we realized the existence of the crisis in our children's com-
plete education; we confined ourselves to an investigation of causes; we co-
operated with the mothers who pioneered the pilot project and we Sisters
436
Training Leaders 437
of the Order of Saint Dominic, Newburgh, New York, think we have remedied
the major problems.
Today we witness physical betterment, self-assurance, and self-discipline,
limited only by potentiality and maturity levels of our pupils.
Let me plead with you to give your pupils "the opportunity to make them-
selves physically fit to learn, to understand and grow in grace before God
and man."
TRAINING LEADERS
(Summary)
Lt. Comdr. James J. Killeen, USN
MEMBER OF THE STAFF OF THE SPECIAL ASSISTANT FOR LEADERSHIP
TO THE CHIEF OF NAVAL PERSONNEL, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Christian excellence through leadership is the theme of this address.
Christian excellence is interpreted as meaning "excelling at being Christlike"
with emphasis on the apostolic nature of Our Lord's work on earth.
Leadership is being considered as the art of accomplishing a mission through
people — the sum of those qualities of intellect, human understanding, and
moral character that enable a person to inspire and manage a group of people
successfully.
Lessons learned from recent efforts to revitalize leadership in the United
States Navy will be related to the role of the elementary school teacher in this
presentation. Particular emphasis, therefore, will be placed on the desperate
need for leaders on all levels of command; the fact that a leader is successful
not in spite of but because he adheres to fundamental moral principles; the
importance of maintaining a strong chain of command; the fact that a leader
must know his stuff — be a man — care for his men; the importance of leading
by personal example; and the idea that leadership is hard work, it takes time
and effort.
Within this framework we will develop the following points in order:
1. America needs effective Christlike leaders.
2. Leadership training should begin in our elementary schools.
3. Elementary school teeachers should be aware of this, willingly assume the
responsibility for it, and prepare themselves to carry it out.
4. As teachers, you must be Christlike leaders.
a) You must see clearly your mission in terms of the mission of the
parents, the school, the parish, the order, the diocese, and of the
Church of Christ.
b) You must be effective leaders and loyal followers in your chain of
command.
c) You must be technically proficient as teachers.
d) You must be aware of the environment in which your students spend
their out-of-school time.
438 Elementary School Department
e) You must be conscious of the fact that each one of you is the most
influential "visual aid" in and outside of any classroom.
f ) As this powerful "visual aid" you can make leadership-for-Christ the
most appealing concept the student has yet experienced.
g) To do so, you must act as an older "child of God" living with
"younger brothers and sisters."
h) You can maintain this frame of mind only if you are faithful to
prayer, the sacraments, good reading, and mortification.
5. The teacher trains leaders for Christ by being one.
6. The results should be: better teachers academically and spiritually; better
students academically and spiritually; more vocations; more effective
lay-Catholic action; and a more Christlike America and world.
BASIC PRINCIPLES IN GUIDANCE FOR
THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
(Summary)
Rev. Charles A. Curran
PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, LOYOLA UNIVERSITY, CHICAGO
We are all familiar with the old philosophical axiom, "Whatever is received,
is received according to the manner of the one receiving." Applying this to
education and in particular to elementary education, we can see that the
learning encounter involves not only well-presented subject matter, but also
the psychological state of each child receiving this information.
This is the reason for the basic importance of guidance and counseling
in the elementary school curriculum. These consider especially the basic
psychological and physical state of the one receiving. For the child is not only
an intellect — as he was and still is considered in the Cartesian mind-body
dichotomy — but he is, in the Aristotelian sense, a psychosomatic unity. He is
a rational animal. Each child must, therefore, be considered from the point of
view not only of his rationality but also from the aspect of his highly complex
emotions, instincts, and physical reactions. These constitute his human animal-
ity. It is in relating these areas to his rationality that counseling can prove
helpful.
In this light it is interesting to realize that the word counseling is not an
entirely new or uniquely modern word. Aristotle and St. Thomas both under-
stood the necessity of this in their treatment of the virtue of prudence. Prudence,
they considered, not as a purely intellectual, rational, or knowing capacity,
but as a complicated and involved operational ability. This ability, like any
virtue, must be acquired. Prudence has to bring order and integration into the
emotions, instincts, and soma of man, if man is really "to do — what he knows
were good to do." They both saw, with Shakespeare, that it is indeed easier to
know "what were good to do," than to do it smoothly and consistently.
Consequently, it is not surprising that the first virtue of the prudential process
Debate: Elementary vs. Secondary Schools 439
should be the capacity to take counsel with oneself. This virtue of counsel is
acquired by inquiring into the present and past personal factors of one's own
life in order to know oneself better. Thus, one uncovers and studies all the
minutely personal details that go into any particular operational judgment.
Through modern counseling skills we learn how best to facilitate this process
of acquiring the self-counsel necessary for responsible operational judgments.
It occurs best when an atmosphere of deep mutual understanding and warmth
is created between the counselor and an individual or group that he is counsel-
ing. Out of these counselor qualities of what was traditionally called amor
benevolentiae — a deep understanding regard that is completely for the other
person — come those profound personal awarenesses for the individual or the
group that constitute the counseling process. The student or the group thus
gain in prudential self-insight and emotional stability by recognizing in the
counselor's warm manner and penetrating responses "someone who truly under-
stands me."
DEBATE
Whereas, Diocese X does not have sufficient funds for new
schools on both elementary and secondary levels, Be it
Resolved, That Diocese X favors the building of
new elementary schools
Affirmative
Mrs. John O. Riedl, past president and program director,
MILWAUKEE COUNTY RADIO AND TV COUNCIL, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN
At the risk of seeming to lack a proper humility, I wish to point out my
qualifications for this debate on Catholic education. I have had experience
of Catholic education at all levels as a student in Catholic schools. As parent I
have children now in all levels — elementary, high school, and university. I
have taught in Catholic universities, Marquette and the University of Toronto.
I have been principal, superintendent, janitor, and staff of a Catholic elemen-
tary school.
My Catholic elementary school administrative, custodial, and instructional
experience came during the years we were in Germany. The first two years,
our boys attended the Herz Jesu Schule, a little four-room barracks that was
the only Catholic elementary school in the city of Berlin. For the rest of our
seven years in Germany in four different cities we found no Catholic elemen-
tary schools. I finally decided to make my own school for our three boys
who were then eight, ten, and twelve years of age. It was in all truth a
nongraded elementary!
Why did I consider Catholic education so important that I resorted to this
drastic measure of setting up my own school for our boys?
I sat in a hall in Bonn in 1948 and heard a German of the Nazi times
denounce the teachers of his generation. "The signs of the times you have not
440 Elementary School Department
understood," was Frederick Dessauer's text. "The education our teachers gave
us was not good enough to prepare us for the Nazi test," he said.
Frederick Dessauer was himself one of the signs of his times — gaunt,
emaciated, hollow-cheeked, from years in a concentration camp.
I have a horror of the judgment that will be passed on this generation if we
send our children forth into today's world without the strongest religious
formation we have it in our power to give. When I learned the definition of
a martyr in my catechism class in the Gesu School in Milwaukee, martyrs were
remote indeed from my experience. I rubbed elbows with martyrs in Ger-
many, people who were alive only because the American Army arrived in time
to stay their execution in Dachau. The children whose education we are
coldly considering today could conceivably be called to prove in their bodies
the definition of a martyr, to write it in their blood.
"A tragic mistake" is the verdict of Father Handlbauer, Provincial Superior
of the Marianist Austrian-German Province, to the proposal to drop the grade
school in favor of building more Catholic high schools. Father Handlbauer
knows whereof he speaks. He spent the war years, 1941-46, in the United
States teaching religion in Catholic high schools of his community.
Father Handlbauer reports that he was deeply impressed and amazed at the
religious attitudes of American boys in Catholic high schools, their "healthy,
Catholic religious life unhampered by embarrassment, complexes or fears of
another's opinion."
"The positive, childlike attitude of American boys in Catholic high schoo/s
surprised me no end, once I began to teach them," states Father Handlbauer.
"Here was no blase, indifferent outlook to the Faith. On the contrary, ques-
tions about religion were taken seriously. The lads were earnest about God's
Commandments and those of His Church. Their attendance at Mass on Sun-
day was a self-evident fact. Their sacramental life — confession and Com-
munion— was fervent without human respect or fear."
Looking for the explanation of what he calls "this edifying reality," Father
Handlbauer asks what brought it about. Who were the effective ministers
of the Holy Spirit and Our Lady in developing this beautiful life of Faith? His
conclusion after careful observation and reflection "pointed to one party chiefly
responsible — the Sisters in Catholic elementary schools." Sisters, take a bow!
Father Handlbauer concludes his statement by saying he is willing to go
along with the proposition that "the Holy Spirit and the sisters maintain the
Catholic Church in the United States." ]
Catholic parents are overwhelmingly in favor of Catholic elementary
schools. They want to be able to send their children to parochial schools. In
my childhood it was traditional for the pastor to preach to parents their obli-
gation to send their children to Catholic schools. I do not recall hearing one
such sermon in the twenty years I have had children in Catholic schools. The
sermons are being preached from the benches today, as Father Neil McCluskey,
S.J., points out, by parents demanding a Catholic education for their children.
There is something drastic and definitive about a move to eliminate the
elementary school. Such moves made as temporary measures have a tendency
to perpetuate themselves. I predict a tremendous cooling off in the enthu-
siasm of parents for Catholic education in any of its forms if we eliminate the
elementary school. Parents will say — and understandably — "Today they say
1 Father Handlbauer's remarks are quoted from "Warning. Don't Drop the Grade School," An
Interview with Very Rev. Alois Handlbauer by Brother Leo Murray, Catholic School Journal,
May 1962, 33.
Debate: Elementary vs. Secondary Schools 441
no elementary school is necessary. Tomorrow it may well be the same for
the high school. Why should we bother?"
In this matter of education the opinion of parents has, it seems to me,
preferred status. Parents have the responsibility for the education of their
children. The Church has always preached this doctrine. It is written into
the very nature of the relationship between parent and child.
With this in mind I took a poll of a group of parents in the Milwaukee
archdiocese. The poll was taken at the March meeting of the League of Home
and School Associations. In the group were representative parents from the
entire archdiocese, from city parishes and small town and rural parishes. The
vote of the parents was 130 to 34 in favor of building new elementary schools
rather than high schools if a choice had to be made.
Parents who by natural law and by canon law are responsible for the edu-
cation of their children are overwhelmingly in favor of and convinced of the
necessity of Catholic elementary schools.
Two years ago St. Sebastian's Parish in Milwaukee had to build a new grade
school. Our pastor, Bishop Atkielski, called a meeting of parishioners to dis-
cuss the plans. I attended the meeting, although our younger children were
then attending the laboratory school at Alverno College and would not thus
be concerned with the new parish school.
There was standing room only in St. Sebastian's Church hall that night.
The parishioners pledged the $800,000 that would be needed for the new
school. They voted also to put up with half-day sessions as an emergency
measure rather than to send some of the children to the public school during the
construction of the new parochial school plant.
Many Vocations Begin in the Elementary School
Vocations begin in the Catholic elementary school. Msgr. Louis Riedel
reports that during the past eight years while he has been principal of the
minor seminary in Milwaukee the overwhelming majority of priests ordained
for the Milwaukee Archdiocese came to the priesthood by way of the minor
seminary. It is the Catholic elementary school that feeds the minor seminary.
Father Kenneth Reed, National Vocation Director for the Society of the
Divine Word, told me that half of the seminarians in the seminary of his
community are the fruit of vocation activity among boys in Catholic grade
schools.
Many of the religious orders of women depend just as much for their voca-
tions on their aspirancies as the diocesan clergy do on the minor seminary. It
is, then, not only in the crucial area of vocations to the priesthood that tamper-
ing with the Catholic elementary school would have disastrous results. Voca-
tions to the religious life of both men and women, vocations vital to all the
varied forms of contemplative and active life in the Church, are at stake.
Most of all, this move to do away with Catholic elementary schools would
aggravate the very condition which is the principal difficulty in keeping our
Catholic schools, namely the shortage of religious vocations.
A survey which I made with the help of a sociology student from Loyola
University, Miss Esther Wey, indicates that the Catholic elementary school is
not only the place where vocations begin but a decisive factor in vocations.
We conducted a survey among the seminarians at the major seminary at St.
Francis, Wisconsin, and also among the novices, postulants, and junior pro-
fessed sisters in the four motherhouses we are privileged to have in Milwaukee.
To the question: "At what school level did you decide to become a sister
or priest?", 162 answered in elementary school and 134 in high school.
442 Elementary School Department
The question: "When did you first think of becoming a sister or priest?"
found 256 had started thinking about it in elementary school as opposed to a
mere 56 in high school.
The question: "What do you think has influenced you in this desire and
decision?" again gave the elementary school an overwhelming majority, 222
to 113.
The question: "What do you think is more important, Catholic elementary
education or Catholic high school education?" found 156 considering elemen-
tary schools more important as opposed to 127 for the high school.
Our final question: "Where do you think most religious vocations originate?"
found 111 saying in the elementary school to a mere 30 in high school.
The remaining votes emphasized the role of the home in promoting vocations.
There is a slogan for a certain car "Ask the man who drives one!" We
have asked the men and women who have made the serious decision to follow
a religious vocation to give us their considered judgment. The verdict is clear
and overwhelming in pointing to the absolute necessity of keeping our Catholic
elementary schools.
The results of our Milwaukee survey are confirmed around the country. The
vocation director of a large Midwestern community in answer to a query wrote:
"Recently compiled statistics indicate that of a total of 1,020 candidates en-
rolled from 1935 to 1950 as beginners in our seminaries, 629 entered at some
time during high school, the vast majority no doubt in first year. This would
indicate that these boys certainly were thinking seriously of the priesthood
during their elementary school days."
For some years the Maryknoll Fathers conducted an annual survey of the
sources from which they derive their vocations. This is their finding in a 1948
publication. "The figures also show that boys begin to think of the priesthood
at a very early age (though they may not actually enter for several years) —
49% think of it between the ages 10-14 (the upper grades in grammar
schools) and 31% between the ages 15-18 (high school). This points up the
value of contacting them early."
Fewer Vocations Come from High School
Now what is the record of the high schools as regards vocations? A large
Catholic coeducational high school in the Midwest last June graduated some
300 girls. How many vocations would you think came out of that group?
Not one! The Silver Jubilee Book of another coeducational high school lists
the graduates who became priests and sisters over the twenty-five year period
from 1926 to 1951. Twenty-eight priests in 25 years is the showing, about an
average of one priest a year. If we add to this 26 seminarians (and assume
that all 26 went on to ordination), plus 8 brothers, the grand total of 62
religious vocations among the boys is still only two and one-half a year. The
girls don't show up much better — 78 sisters in 25 years average just a little
better than three a year.
I have spoken of the importance parents attach to Catholic elementary edu-
cation. Our Archdiocesan Superintendent of Schools in Milwaukee, Monsignor
Goebel, in his annual report, 1960-61, speaks equally strongly against drop-
ping the grades. "The elementary school years are the richest in Christian
formation. During those years the basic habits of prayer and morality are
formed and the frequent reception of the sacraments takes root. ... To delay
Catholic education to the years of adolescence is to begin after moral habits
Debate: Elementary vs. Secondary Schools 443
have been formed. . . . We can neither cut off nor eliminate grades if we hope
to maintain the gains we have made in Catholic education in our country."
We Catholics in the United States have come a long way from our humble
beginnings, from the days of young Father Gibbons building the benches and
begging the books from seminary friends for the school he made in his
attic. We couldn't get by with such conditions today, and I would not for one
minute intimate that we should even try to. But one thing we can try to
recapture from the founding generation is their holy daring.
Something can be known of the value of Catholic elementary schools from
the determined, almost diabolic effort to destroy them that has marked the Com-
munist policy all over the world. During the two years that my husband was
chief of Catholic affairs for our military government in Berlin, he met every two
weeks with the religious affairs chiefs of the other three nations in the
quadripartite government. Practically every session found the Russian religious
affairs representative — God save the mark! — plotting and contriving by fair
means and foul to write into the new constitutions of the German states a
prohibition of private schools.
So important does the Church consider the schools in mission countries that
the Holy Father during this month of April has as his mission intention that the
schools in missionary countries may be upheld or restored. An article in the
April issue of Jesuit Missions states: "If the schools are lost, it is only a
question of time before mission work grinds to an end."
Tell me we can't build schools and staff them with teachers of excellence?
I tell you we can! We lack only the dream, the drive, the confidence. We
have only one thing to fear and that is fear itself, the fear that paralyzes, that
kills all effort, that brings forth, still-born, its offspring. This we must fear,
and fear like the very devil, for that is what it is.
Mother Cabrini, a sickly little Italian sister talking broken English went
through these United States like a whirlwind, like the wind of God that she
was, the strong wind blowing, went on to become the first canonized saint of
our country. We are anticipating another canonization — very soon, God
willing — when Venerable Elizabeth Seton, whose name is inseparably con-
nected with the beginnings of Catholic elementary education in the United
States, will become the first native-born American citizen to be raised to the
altars of the Church. Like Mother Cabrini and Venerable Elizabeth Seton, we,
too, can overcome all difficulties.
What a privilege we are working for — the right to teach children about God.
I can tell you people who would give their right arm for this privilege. I can
tell you of a young priest who gave his tongue for the privilege of teaching
one Our Father. On a recent visit in Milwaukee Elizabeth Reed of the
Grail told of being on hand one day when a gang of Communist hoodlums
visited a catechism class in Hong Kong where a young Dominican was teach'
ing the Our Father to a class of eight and nine-year-old boys. The visitors
asked the priest to repeat for them the prayer he had just taught the boys. He
obeyed. After he had finished, one of them cut out his tongue. They then
ordered the frightened little boys to say again the prayer the priest had taught
them. In fear and trembling the boys repeated their Our Father. Then
the young Communists went through the class and with chopsticks punctured
the ear drums of each little boy. They would not hear again the Our Father.
We who still have our tongues, we who have ears to hear, what are we
waiting for?
444 Elementary School Department
Negative
Sister Ann Virginia, I.H.M.
PRINCIPAL, SAINT MARY ACADEMY, MONROE, MICHIGAN
The ideal for Catholic education in the United States was spelled out in
clear, bold language at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884. This
gathering of bishops set the goals of Catholic education in this country,
envisioned an elementary school next to every Catholic church, and formu-
lated the principle, the clarion cry, "Every Catholic child in a Catholic
school." Today, after less than a century of United States Catholic education,
some Catholic educators seem to have given up that ideal.
We sisters want to go on record today that we have not substituted and
will not substitute any other ideal. Catholic education from nursery through
graduate school: this, then, is our ultimate goal. Some way or other, with or
without federal aid, but with a trust in the continued support of Catholic par-
ents and with a strong conviction that the power of the Spirit will bring to a
practical fruition the mandate of Christ to teach all nations, we will some day
achieve that ultimate goal.
So emphatic a pledge of ourselves to the ideal set by the Third Plenary
Council makes it obvious that we are not arguing against Catholic elementary
schools. We are for Catholic elementary schools, for Catholic secondary
schools, for Catholic colleges and universities. But, given the existing, con-
crete situation in Catholic education today, what are the best means of
attaining complete Catholic education for every child who asks for it? What
are the priorities if we are to bridge the gap from the here where we actually
are to the there where we are determined to go? We must take a close look
at the "here and now" situation in Catholic education, and make specific plans
that will help us move steadily along toward a position where we can offer
Catholic education to all Catholic children.
We see upward of five million Catholic children, approximately one half
of the Catholic school population, not in Catholic elementary and secondary
schools because of inadequate resources. Further, in the day of the junior
college movement when terminal education seems to be extending to include
two years of college, fewer than twenty of the more than six hundred junior
colleges are under Catholic auspices.1
Besides inadequate facilities, there is some serious criticism directed toward
the quality of our existing schools. We would like to ignore the criticism of
over-crowded classrooms, of over-worked sister-teachers, of underpaid or
insufficiently qualified lay teachers. We would like not to hear when parents
ask us what we are doing for their exceptional children, their slow learners,
their gifted, their creative. We like to think we are making adequate pro-
visions for terminal students and offering guidance to meet the varying needs
of our students.
Time does not permit details of trends toward accreditation of elementary
schools, but we have seen some proposed criteria which look formidable: pri-
mary classes not to exceed thirty -five pupils, upper elementary forty pupils, a
B.A. degree for all teachers, an M.A. for all administrators with an additional
year of training strongly recommended for both teachers and administrators.
B«ides accrediting agencies to think about, we have vocation statistics. The
acute sister shortage is definitely a part of the "here and now" situation. The
1 Official Guide to Catholic Educational Institutions (The Catholic Welfare Conference, 1960),
pp. 127-32.
Debate: Elementary vs. Secondary Schools 445
ratio of sisters to lay teachers in our school system has changed phenomenally
in the past ten years with a future possibility of Catholic schools adminis-
tered and staffed primarily by laymen.
We have still another concern, one we ignore at our peril — the growing
dissatisfaction of parents with the unavailability of Catholic education. Par-
ents know we accept some children and not others; they do not always know
nor understand our admission policies. In an era when technological changes
force some men to enter new fields of work several times in their lives, might
it not be a bit upsetting for parents to hear that children in one school are
admitted on the basis of the "old families in the parish"? If preference is
given to families who give generously to the Sunday collection, won't some
question the wisdom of determining the Catholic educated group solely by
those who can pay? On the other hand, if choice is made in favor of those
families who don't contribute to the Church, we will certainly be asked what
has happened to the six precepts of the Church. Perhaps, in one school the
very bright are selected — those with IQ's safely above 110. Has the universal
Church, parents may wonder, become the Church of the gifted? But if we
make the choice in favor of the slow students, parents ask about Catholic
leadership. These criteria do not satisfy parents whose support is essential
to the Catholic school system.
Also, there is the problem of financing. The mounting costs for construc-
tion, operation, and maintenance of schools often assume such proportions as
to set the most generous of parents and the most daring of administrators to
wondering if just to stay solvent we ought to temper our ambitions for
Catholic education.
Here, in capsule form, is the picture of the present situation in Catholic
education in this country. These adverse conditions, threatening to grow
worse, leave us far from the goal of the Council of 1884. One thing is
clear, however. These concrete realities force us to make choices. If we are
determined to reach the ideal, we must set up some intermediate, short-range
objectives drawn from the exigencies of the present situation, accomplishment
of which may set us securely on the road to our determined destination. If
the objectives are accepted, the question of priorities may be easier to handle.
I propose five.
First Objective: Academic Quality
The first objective has to do with parents. We must, at all cost, keep the
good will of parents on two scores. We must work out a fair admission
policy, acceptable to and productive of the common good of the entire
Catholic education system.
We must keep the good will on another score — that of quality. Catholic
parents have sacrificed in the past because they believed in Catholic educa-
tion; they will continue to sacrifice as long as the end product of such education
bears the stamp of excellence. Do we raise doubts about quality when we
justify the retaining of one educational level over another on the basis that
the per pupil cost is less, that teacher salary scale is lower, that requirements
of accrediting agencies are less stringent, that less provision be made for indi-
vidual differences? Do parents really want quality sacrificed to economy?
Quality in our schools should be measured on standards unique to an educa-
tional system which purposes to develop not only an intellectual but a moral
person. If complete education includes both the natural and supernatural end
of man, we must define the end product in such terms. Why are we disturbed
when someone asks us to list our Catholic Einsteins? our Oppenheimers? Why
446 Elementary School Department
don't we ask who sets the standards that equate the end product of quality
education with Einstein? If we understand all that is involved in a Catholic
philosophy of education, won't we be asking where are the Albertus Magnuses
of this century? The Newmans? The Dantes? Catholic parents will be satis-
fied to find us intent upon producing modern Aquinases.
Quality has to be thought through in the preparation of teachers, in the
calibre of administrators, in the curricula, all oriented toward the develop-
ment of excellence in our students. While encouraging a school next to every
Church, the bishops of the Council of 1884 insisted that builders of Catholic
schools ". . . not relax their efforts till their schools be elevated to the highest
educational excellence." 2 In the national examen on quality education, we
are asked to investigate whether our schools are really comprehensive, liberal,
goal-centered, challenging, and integrated. I think parents want us to make
such investigation, to be assured that we are thinking seriously regarding the
quality of each individual school. Only this assurance will keep them want-
ing to make Catholic schools possible. No one can measure the extent to
which parents will sacrifice for what they really want; we may soon find out if
we satisfy them with a fair admissions policy and with a pursuit of scholastic
excellence.
Second Objective: Religious Training
I propose, as a second objective, that we offer the high level of religious
education necessary to prepare parents to teach religion effectively. Religious
teachers cannot now and will not in the foreseeable future be able to reach
all Catholic children. No matter which decision the bishop of Diocese X
makes, some lay persons must be prepared to teach religion to those barred
from Catholic schools by the choice he makes.
Let us suppose the bishop chooses to build secondary schools. In his
diocese, then, children in the first eight grades will attend public schools.
Parents and lay catechists will have to provide for their religious education.
Only men and women who have had religious education on a mature level will be
equipped for such educational responsibilities. On the other hand, if Bishop X
chooses to build only elementary schools, then the Catholic children of high
school age in his diocese will attend public secondary schools. Parents will
take over the job of carrying on religious education where elementary teachers
leave off. Can we envision the sort of religious education such parents of
the future will give if they themselves have terminated their religious education
at the eighth grade? If they have not received mature religious education them-
selves on at least the secondary level, what will they have to transmit to their
own teen-agers?
Third Objective: Intellectual Prestige
1 propose a third objective. We must keep intellectual respect for Catholic
education and guard carefully against any action which will lower that respect
by having Catholic education associated exclusively with the elementary
level. No educational system can scorn prestige. We flinch when a national
publication states: "In no Western society is the intellectual prestige of
Catholicism lower than in the country, which in such respects as wealth,
numbers, and strength of organization, it is so powerful." 3 If we have not
proportionate Catholic representation in American intellectual achievements,
2 Neil G. McCluskey, SJ., Catholic Viewpoint on Education. (Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover
House, 1959), pp. 103-04.
8 "God and Man at Notre Dame," Time, LXXIX, February 9, 1962, p. 48.
Debate: Elementary vs. Secondary Schools 447
if there is a dearth of Catholic contributions to the arts and sciences, will the
situation improve if we go all out for elementary education? Would the bishops
of 1884 suggest that as ideal for 1962?
Fourth Objective: Vocations
Any series of objectives that omits the vocation situation is unrealistic. I
propose a study of the source of vocations and action taken to enlarge the most
promising sources.
Where do vocations begin? Studies indicate that many candidates to re-
ligious life give serious thought to vocations on the seventh and eighth grade
level. A significant study, however, of four thousand religious shows that
9 per cent of them decided to enter religion at the age of twelve; 31 per cent
between the ages of thirteen and fifteen; 41 per cent between sixteen and
twenty; 16 per cent after twenty. It seems to me that we should concern our-
selves much more with decisions about vocations, with those ultimate practical
judgments which move girls to the point of packing suitcases for postulates
rather than with intermediate practical judgments that seventh graders might
make. Psychologists talk significantly about a three-stage process involved in
the ordinary vocational choice, the second of which is the stage from eleven to
seventeen in which choices are determined first by interest, then by interest
and capacities, and finally by values. The realistic third stage begins at
eighteen, according to their studies.
What educational environment is most productive of vocations? Studies
indicate that the highest percentage are drawn from all-girl or all-boy Catholic
high schools. A report of sources of vocations to American sisterhoods from
1956-60 conducted by the Conference of Major Superiors of Women's Insti-
tutes shows striking contrasts between the number of vocations from Catholic
high schools and public high schools and between the number of vocations
from all-girl schools as contrasted with coeducational schools. It is easy to
find fault with statistics. The figures here, however, are so generally over-
whelming— one national study estimates the figure at 75 per cent — on the side
of vocations from all-girl schools to set us quite clearly on the path to the
greatest source of vocations.
Are we taking any steps to widen the sources we find most productive of
vocations? A 1961-62 study of the I.H.M. community shows that we teach
some 62,000 elementary and secondary students. Of the 15,000 secondary,
about 9,750 are girls, 3,300 of whom are in all-girl secondary schools. Actually,
then, our community is supplying teachers for some 62,000 students from a
potential source of 9,750 and from a very promising source of 3,300. On a
national scale, figures from the 1961 Official Catholic Directory indicate that
the majority of sisters are engaged in teaching in schools that are producing the
least number of vocations. The Directory reports 546,000 students in diocesan
and parish coeducational high schools as contrasted with 340,000 in private
all-girl or all-boy high schools.
Moreover, other studies show that vocations to communities of teaching
brothers are increasing much more rapidly than vocations to communities of
teaching sisters — some 31 per cent of their total number as contrasted with
16 per cent for the sisters in the same ten-year period. The brothers are con-
centrated in schools on the secondary level where the greatest number of
vocations are drawn.
If the vocation dearth comes close to being the Church's number one prob-
lem, it seems rather obvious that we must soon take practical steps to increase
the number of students at the level from which vocations generally come.
448 Elementary School Department
Fifth Objective: Education for All of Life
The fifth objective, more important perhaps than all the rest, straddles both
short and long-range planning. We must provide education for life, all of life.
Whatever level we choose to keep, it must be the one on which we can best
provide full education. We are not speaking here of comparative values;
nor of whether elementary education is important or not, nor whether second-
ary education is important or not. The question is: In a time of crisis when
decisions are forced upon us, at what level can we insure the fullest Catholic
education to the necessarily limited number of students we will have for a
limited period of time?
The keyword here is fullness. We have heard Catholic education equated
with religious education, even with CCD education. Catholic education is
religious education; it is also intellectual education, it is social education, it is
education which touches man at every point — religious, academic, psycho-
logical, social, cultural, physical. We have not the time to consider all these
aspects, but we need to pose a few questions to throw light on the priorities
we are considering in this debate.
If we consider religious education — dogmatic, moral, liturgical — for all of
life, we ask: Does a child of elementary school age have sufficient power of
abstraction to understand the rational foundation of his faith? Will not a
public high school student need to justify his beliefs on a level higher than
grade school religious education can give him? Are the attitudes, habits,
virtues of a thirteen-year-old so solidly rooted and so sufficiently formed that
they can survive the secularistic atmosphere of the public school? No matter
what our elementary schools can produce through excellent religious instruc-
tion, be it angels, are we sure they are ready to cope with the amorality, even
the immorality, of teen-age society? Is eighth grade the place to talk about
birth control? abortion? the sanctity of marriage?
Psychology books tell us that a child's character is formed some time be-
tween the ages of four and eight, that if we can have the child during his
earliest years, anyone can take him after that and we need have no fear. I
ask you to move from the psychology books into the realm of your experience.
Do you elementary teachers honestly think that the faith of the children you
are now teaching will survive and mature, their vision be clarified and en-
larged, their interest in the things of God kept alive if their religious educa-
tion is not kept at the level of their secular education? We know how many
boys, products of a public school system which ignores religion and makes scant
provision for education in the fundamentals of survival in a tense and troubled
society, were quite easily brainwashed in Korea. Will elementary religious
education suffice to stave off what one author calls the "slow-growing cancer
of a spiritual vacuum"? 4
And what of intellectual education? We want to insure integration of the
truths of revelation on the same intellectual level as other knowledges: science,
literature, social studies. We want our children to make use of scientific
and experimental methods and to see the limitations of such methods. We
want them to grasp intellectually the revealed and philosophical principles which
form the bases of Christian living. Can Catholic elementary education insure
these things?
When we consider social education, we ask if grade school students can
understand the Christian social principles, can grasp the ramifications of
social justice, social prudence, social charity? Where do we tell a student
* Rev. James E. Noonan, O.M.I., "Collectivism via Approved Textbooks." Homiletic and Pastoral
Review, LIX, January, 1959, p. 330.
Debate: Elementary vs. Secondary Schools 449
about business ethics? the population explosion? world responsibility? Where
and under whose direction does he read the Rerum Norvarum? Mater et
Magistral
Need we question ad infinitum? Suffice it to ask: Where can we best ensure
education for all of life?
Here, then, are five short-range objectives necessary, I believe, for the
preservation of the whole system of Catholic education. We must consider
more than the needs of the individual student. The Catholic system of
education does not exist for the individual per se. It exists for society and for
the Church. Each of the five objectives has a social, a Mystical Body dimen-
sion; each is concerned not only with a Catholic child today, but with the
continuation and growth of the Church tomorrow, and it is this consideration
that is basic to my proposal.
My proposal is twofold: first, that at some level we take all Catholic stu-
dents who ask for admission; secondly, that the level we choose be the terminal
level, whatever the terminal level may be in Diocese X or Community Y.
Universal admission at some educational level may help us achieve the
objective of keeping the good will of parents. I suggest that in areas where
choices have to be made that we accept all students who apply at the terminal
level and extend admission downward as far as the administration of any
individual school can afford to do so. National planning is not possible. Re-
sources differ, and Catholic education should be offered whenever and wherever
we can offer it. Such planning as I propose should be done diocese by
diocese, city by city, parish by parish. A pastor in Diocese X would assess
his resources, determine the number of classrooms and the size of the staff
he can maintain, and as long as terminal level is at the secondary level, begin
by offering Catholic education to all twelfth graders who apply, extending
registration down as far as his resources permit. Affluent circumstances may
permit facilities and personnel at all levels from twelfth through nursery
school in some areas; limited resources may force another pastor to cut off
registration at the sixth or the ninth grade level.
Now, why terminal education? Why begin with twelfth grade instead of
with first? When we speak of terminal education, we are speaking in terms
of another now. Terminal education for the vast majority now is secondary
education, and nothing in the educational scene suggests a regression. Any
change in United States education seems more likely to be in the direction of
a higher level.
In an age when National Merit and Fulbright Scholarships, Advanced Place-
ment, and CEEB scores are common parlance, would parents who have poured
money into maintaining a parochial school system be content to face their
neighbors, the nation, to point to a thirteen-year-old and say "This is the end
product of Catholic quality education. This is the final return for our invest-
ment"? Would we teachers be content never to say "This painstaking research
scholar, this keen debator, this intuitive creative writer is a product of our
educational system"? Yet, if we settle for elementary education, won't we have
to content ourselves to see others claim the finished product?
We believe that the reasons for proposing terminal education as the best,
and perhaps, only immediate practical means of attaining the other objectives
have been suggested in the explanation of the objectives. To prepare parents
to teach religion effectively, we have to prepare them on an adult level; to
keep respect for Catholic education, we must keep that education at the ter-
minal level. Factually, this level of education already has status. The recent
bill for federal aid to higher education passed the Senate and the House. The
motives of the federal government for moving to the education field were to
450 Elementary School Department
raise the level of educational excellence. The bill is now before the Confer-
ence Committee. This indicates a mental climate; it indicates that higher edu-
cation, including Catholic higher education, has status. This gives us some-
thing to think about in helping us determine choices. The conclusion to start
at terminal level is implicit, too, in the objective regarding vocations. If
vocations are more plentiful at the terminal level, then we want more Catholic
boys and girls on that level.
Education for all of life, the fifth short-range objective, is impossible
short of mature level. Only at a mature level can the full intellectual powers
be developed, full social consciousness be instilled, religious education be
rounded out, and a Catholic be equipped, ready to give, to assume the respon-
sibilities of strengthening, increasing, and glorifying the Church.
We may shrink from what such a proposal entails and from the responsible
action that acceptance of its demands. Why? Is it perhaps easier to justify
the status quo? Could any slight ego involvement in our present secure posi-
tion make us unwilling to accept the sacrifice change would demand of us? We
might argue that grade-school teachers are not prepared to transfer to high
school teaching assignments. That may be true, but this is the day of the
Sister Formation Movement. Religious communities have been making an
all-out effort to meet the demands of the future as well as the needs of the
present. I do not know what the statistics in other religious communities
show, but I did make a study of ours. Those statistics show that not more
than 1 per cent of our teaching sisters lack B.A. degrees; that 94 of the 626
elementary teachers hold M.A. degrees, with 149 others in graduate programs.
Further, there has been a policy adopted to keep the number in graduate
school quite constant until every elementary teacher capable of getting a
master's degree holds that degree. The Sister Formation Movement has set
a standard in the education of sisters.
Lest I who represent the secondary schools today be accused of hugging my
own status quo, I need to add that if terminal education moves up to include
the junior college, I would be willing to argue that the Bishop of Diocese X
faced with a financial crisis which forces him to make choices should begin
by accepting all Catholic students who apply for Grade 14 and would hope
that he have sufficient resources to include all children down as far as the
nursery school.
I want to make sure you understand that I am not opposed to Catholic
elementary schools, that I am not opposed to little children. I sincerely want
the day to come when we can ensure Catholic education for all our children
at all educational levels. The bishops at the Third Plenary Council set the
ideal; some eighty years later I propose that, wherever and whenever we are
forced to make choices, we concentrate on terminal level education in order
to approach in the future the realization of the dream of those far-seeing
bishops who convened in Baltimore and declared in council: "Every Catholic
child in a Catholic school."
KINDERGARTEN MEETING
(Arranged by the National Catholic Kindergarten Association)
FOSTERING THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT THROUGH
DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS
Rev. William J. Mountain, S.J.
COLOMBIERE COLLEGE, CLARKSTON, MICHIGAN
Let me begin my talk to you today in the manner of a good kindergarten
teacher with two stories. The first is the story of a teen-ager, the second the
story of a king. The teen-ager is a boy fifteen years old. I will let him
tell the story in his own words.
In an orchard near our home there was a pear tree which belonged to
our neighbor, a farmer. The tree was loaded with pears, but with pears
that were good neither in appearance nor taste. Late one night, when we
had finished our game in the street, the gang and I set out to shake down
and rob this tree. We stole great loads of fruit from it, not for eating, but
to throw the fruit to the pigs. If we did bite into a few of the pears, what
made them taste good was the fact that we were doing something that was
forbidden.
The boy of the story is Augustine. He tells the story on himself in his
Confessions to illustrate the fact that as a teen-ager he deliberately sinned for
the sake of sinning, stole for the sake of stealing. Augustine's comment on
the story: "By a deformed misuse of liberty I sought to imitate God's omnipo-
tence, proving to myself that I could do what I wanted by doing what my
parents said I should not do. I took pleasure in doing what was unlawful for
no other reason than that it was unlawful."
The second story is far different, the story of a king.
Once upon a time, [the story goes] there lived a king who was a very
special kind of king. This king did not remain locked up in his castle, far
from his people. No, he took off his kingly robes, came down from his castle,
and lived and worked with his people. He shared their bread and sweat,
their tears and joys. Then one day this king took one of his subjects apart
and revealed to him his plan for conquest of the whole world. "I am your
king," he said, "and with your help I will make the whole world my kingdom.
I will never ask you to do any work that I have not done beside you; to
bear any burdens that I have not borne with you; to face any dangers that
I have not faced before you. But I need your help. I need you to work and
fight with me. Without your help my kingdom will not come."
This story is told by another saint, St. Ignatius of Loyola, in the prologue
to the second week of his Spiritual Exercises. It is, as we know, a true story:
the story of Christ our Captain King and His invitation to each of us to help
Him in completing the work for which He stripped himself of the glory of His
divinity, becoming man, becoming our friend to lead us back to friendship
with God.
These two stories admittedly seem unrelated. I will show you how they
are related in the next few minutes, in the course of explaining my message
451
452 Elementary School Department
to you this morning. My message is simply this: Your pupils, the kinder-
garten children you teach, need the ecumenical spirit, and you can foster in
them this ecumenical spirit by fostering in their lives the devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus that is the Eucharistic Crusade way of life.
First and, it seems to me, most important: The kindergarten child needs
the ecumenical spirit. But what precisely is the kindergarten child's need of
this big and adult thing we call the ecumenical spirit?
Each year at this time I teach a course to the young Jesuit seminarians at
Colombiere College on The Confessions of St. Augustine. Each year my
students and I find in the first book of The Confessions much that pertains to
the preschool education of Catholic children. Chapters six to eight of the
first book, as you may remember, contain a profound analysis of the psychology
of infancy. A shocking part of this analysis, at least to my students, is
Augustine's analysis of the "sins" of his infancy. He observes infants and
young children in many of the actions we consider natural to infancy and
childhood. He mentions the infant flailing its tiny arms and legs in the
crib when for a moment it is not the center of the family's attention; he ob-
serves the infant whose face is livid with rage and jealousy when another child
is picked up to be nursed first at the breast; the young child angry and sulking
when parents and elders do not do his will; the young child learning to speak
in order that his will may be obeyed. Augustine concludes his observations
with the judgment that he, like the infants he observes, sinned even in the
first days of his life. His first sin, he sees, was a strong inordinate love of
himself above all others, a basic selfishness.
As we follow Augustine through the early books of The Confessions, he
shows us where this first sin led. He shows us how self-love led him to dis-
obedience in the first school he attended — disobedience because he did not
see what he would get out of learning the three R's. It led him, when he did
well at school, to study for the praise of his teachers and the admiration of his
classmates; it led him as a teen-ager to the famous theft of a farmer's pears
just to prove to himself, by doing evil for its own sake, that he could do just
what he wanted. Augustine singles this last incident out, as we have done, as
the blackest example of self-love: he did not sin because of concupiscence or
out of the desire to win the esteem of the gang; his sin was one of self -idolatry,
making himself as big as God. Then we go on with Augustine and see that his
basic selfishness led him eventually to sins of impurity (to live in succession
with two mistresses), and into the heresy of Manicheism (the self-sufficient
rationalism of the fourth century: "Truth is what I understand"). Finally
self-love led Augustine to the brink of despair at the death of a friend, when
in reality, as he saw later, he was too immature to love another. His was
still the infant's notion of love: getting not giving, hurting not helping.
The Confessions, then, teach in strong and shocking terms that in Augus-
tine's view the first big obstacle to maturity, to truth, to holiness, to happi-
ness is the inordinate, predominant love of self we accept as natural in the
preschool child. In his monumental work, The City of God, Augustine ex-
pressed the same theme idea in terms of the whole world and all of human
history: "Two loves," he tells us, "have built two cities: the city of those who
love only themselves, and the city of those who love God first and then their
neighbor and themselves for love of God." Augustine teaches us, it seems to
me, that the preschool children committed to our care need to be educated
out of self-love to love of another: to love of God above self, and to love of
others for love of God.
As a Jesuit I also depend largely upon the insights of St. Ignatius of Loyola
Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit 453
for my insights into the needs of men. That saint too, in a famous meditation
of the Spiritual Exercises entitled "The Triple Sin," prepares our minds for
realization of the hard-to-face truth that basic to every rational creature is
the tendency to fall in love with God's gifts to self, even to the extent of
disobeying God's laws for the use of these gifts. This was the fatal mistake
of the angels who for eternity have only themselves to love; this was the fatal
mistake of our first parents whose first sin brought all pain and shame and
death into the world. This, moreover, says St. Ignatius, is the basic fatal
mistake in every mortal sin committed in the world today: In every sin and
in every sinner, St. Ignatius tells us, over and above the world, the flesh, and
the devil there is the ever present pride of life, inordinate love of self.
The combined insights of St. Augustine and St. Ignatius, then, underline for
us the problem of predominant selfishness as the number one problem we must
solve in the lives of our twentieth century pupils as well as in our own lives.
Our experience, I am sure, confirms this analysis. Most if not all of the
children who come to us when kindergarten opens in September still manifest
the basic selfishness of infants. Spoiled perhaps, willful perhaps, infected
perhaps by their parents' own basic selfishness, they are almost universally,
like their parents, lovers of security, of comfort, of love that means receiving
rather than giving. The selfless, out-going, out-giving child is the very rare
exception, the product of an exceptionally grace-filled home, the child of
exceptionally mature and selfless parents.
This fact does not surprise us; but our duty to change the fact, the child's
need of mature help in growing out of selfish infancy, these are truths we may
not have faced explicitly and squarely before today. St. Augustine comments
wisely: "We expect the child to be selfish, but we cannot tolerate the selfish-
ness of the child in an adult." What can the kindergarten teacher do to help
her pupils take their first steps toward maturity, toward selfless love?
St. Augustine and St. Ignatius agree in their answer to our question, and
their answer brings us right to the point of this talk: the kindergarten child's
need of the ecumenical spirit, and the form of devotion to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus which will fill this need.
St. Augustine and St. Ignatius teach us that the spiritual child, whether he be
six or fifty-six, needs to fall out of love with himself by falling in love with
another, and that other is Jesus Christ. St. Augustine's conversion begins when
he reflects on his mother's love for Christ; it is advanced when he reads St.
Paul's glowing words of personal love for Christ; it is achieved when he will-
ingly gives in to Paul's command: "Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ and take
no thought of the flesh and its concupiscence."
And St. Ignatius — we recall that three quarters of his Spiritual Exercises
are devoted to Christ. After the retreatant has come to the knowledge of
himself and his basic self-love, he is told to "come to know Christ more in-
timately, that you may love him more deeply, and follow him more closely."
The retreatant does this by meditating successively on the hidden life, the public
life, the passion and risen life of our Lord.
In the prologue to these meditations on the life of Christ, the prologue called
"The Kingdom of Christ," St. Ignatius tells the story of the king as we told it
at the beginning of this talk. In doing so, in stressing the king's revelation of
his plan to conquer the whole world and his need for the help of his subjects
in doing so, he reveals the second important part of the complete answer to
the problem of self-love; he reveals, as it were, the divine psychology, the
divine answer to the problem of man's natural selfishness. The king asks his
subject: "Will you help me in my work of bringing peace to men and glory
to God? Will you join me in the campaign where you will play a part no one
454 Elementary School Department
else can play, your important part of the campaign to bring the whole world
to my truth, my love, into my Kingdom, into my Church?" In doing so he
gives God's answer to the problem of man's self-love: make him needed and
make him know that he is needed; needed by Christ for the spreading of His
Kingdom throughout the world; needed by men when Christ leaves the battle-
field to his apostles and makes the salvation of mankind dependent on the
missionary work of man to man.
Pope John XXIII, at the end of the first session of the coming Council's
central preparatory commission, stated that a prime purpose of the Ecumenical
Council is "to nourish a deep missionary spirit, a spirit that will make it clear
to everyone that each and every person is our brother." I believe that St.
Ignatius expressed this missionary, ecumenical spirit forcefully in his "Kingdom
of Christ" meditation. I believe that only this ecumenical spirit can explain
the tireless work of administration, of teaching, of writing, of converting, of
spreading the Kingdom that Augustine undertook after his conversion. Finally,
I believe that Augustine and Ignatius and our reigning Pontiff teach us that
Christ's call to us to take part in the ecumenical, missionary work of the
Church is not something accidental, not something we can take or leave, not
something any Christian can be indifferent to. The ecumenical spirit is the
way God has chosen for children to grow into mature "other Christs"; it is
the only way we and our pupils can lose ourselves in a person and his cause
and grow big enough to have the mind and heart of Christ: to love as He
loves, selflessly.
To grow in the personal knowledge and love of Christ, then, and to see that
loving Christ means continuing His missionary work in the world, these are
the biggest needs of the kindergarten children we teach. The way we help
them fill these needs is the way we help them grow from childhood to the
fullness of their vocation as Christians; mature, vital, active members of
Christ's Body, the Church.
And now let me sketch briefly one way. It is a form of devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus very well adapted to fill the needs of our kindergarten
pupils. It is the Apostleship of Prayer way of life for grade and preschool
children called the Eucharistic Crusade.
The very name Eucharistic Crusade expresses the essentials of this form of
devotion to the Sacred Heart. It is Eucharistic because it is primarily de-
votion to Christ really present in the Blessed Sacrament. This is so because
we find from experience that the young child is drawn easily and strongly to
the knowledge and love of Christ as He is present on the altar. With a
child's complete faith it is easy to believe without seeing: to believe that God's
love is so great that it makes Him present in every church and chapel, present
and eager to give Himself in love and receive a child's love in return.
The Eucharistic Crusade is devotion to the heart of Christ in the Eucharist;
for the child is taught by teachers like yourselves that the central mystery of
Bethlehem, of Nazareth, of the public life, of the passion and risen life is still
being lived: God still loves with a human heart, a heart sensitive to human
fears and joys, a heart sensitive to both human indifference and human grati-
tude, a heart capable of loving each human person totally and personally.
The story of the King is still true: the King remains with his people that he
may still give to each of us from his heart a personal invitation: "Come,
follow me!"
This form of devotion to the Sacred Heart is presented to the children
as a Crusade. As Crusaders, kindergarten children are given three watch-
words: first, "pray"; second, "sacrifice"; and the third watchword expresses
the purpose of the first two; the third watchword is "save souls." (For older
Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit 455
children who have made their first Communion, a fourth watchword is added,
namely, "Communion.")
The young Crusaders are taught, again by teachers like yourselves, the
thrilling mystery of the Sacred Heart's need of our prayers, works, joys, and
sufferings to complete the work which He leaves in our hands. They are taught
how noble is the work of distributing to others in our day, others in our home
and school and parish and city and nation and world, the graces won by Christ
during His life and passion.
The young Crusaders are taught by teachers who understand our Lord's
parables of the mustard seed and the pinch of leaven that the King's work
is best done in hidden, little ways, by the hidden, little sacrifices of one's here-
and-now vocation in life. They are taught the great secret of apostolic effec-
tiveness: namely, that the Sacred Heart does not need things, even great
things or great deeds; the Sacred Heart needs hearts, hearts consecrated to
His Heart, and then every little thought, word, or action of Christ's Crusader
becomes a weapon filled with more than atomic power for the salvation of souls.
This brings me to the final essential of the Eucharistic Crusade: it is a way
of life, the Apostleship of Prayer way of life for children. The Crusaders are
taught a simple form of the Morning Offering, and they are taught that this
is not just a prayer but an act of consecration — an act of consecration which
changes the host of a day's little actions into one perfect act of love worthy
of Christ the King: there is no room for imperfections, for disobedience, for
selfish jealousy in this consecrated host.
At least once a week the Crusaders recite together a decade of Our Lady's
rosary, and they are gradually taught that devotion to the Mother of God means
more than words and beads; it means imitating her in the one big work of her
life: the work of bringing Christ into the world in the shape of our daily
flesh-and-blood lives. Crusaders are taught to make a visit to Our Lord in
the Blessed Sacrament on their way home from school, and they learn to
ask Our Lord to make them the gold monstrance that takes Him from church
to home, to the store, to the playground, "to every person I will meet until I
meet my King in church again tomorrow."
Finally, on the day of his consecration to the Sacred Heart the young
Crusader is given a badge of the Sacred Heart, and he is told simply: "When
you wear this badge, you're on duty, you're at work, the work of saving
souls all over the world." The Eucharistic Crusade as a way of life is, I
believe, the ecumenical spirit as a child in kindergarten can live it and needs
to live it.
If I have not done justice to the Eucharistic Crusade as a form of devotion
to the Sacred Heart which fills the needs of your children, I am sure that
Father Thomas Diehl, the national director of the Eucharistic Crusade, will
gladly provide you with further information and practical help in introducing
your pupils to the Crusade. Especially if the Eucharistic Crusade is already
established for the older children in your school, I urge you to weigh the
possibility that it can fill the needs of your pupils too.
I began this talk with two stories composed by two saints. Let me close with
a scene from the life of another saint-to-be, saint You. It is the afternoon
of April 26, 1971. You are kneeling in your parish church, making a visit.
You are kneeling behind a modern Augustine, a teen-ager of fifteen with all
of the first Augustine's restlessness to do great things. This boy was your
pupil in kindergarten way back in 1962, and because you know him well, you
are able to read his lips and mind as he makes a personal response to an
invitation from his Eucharistic King. Because of the devotion to the Sacred
Heart of Jesus he first learned from you, this is his prayer, the prayer of
456 Elementary School Department
Ignatius the noble knight, not Augustine the rebel: "Lord, teach me to be
generous: to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the
wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for reward
save that of knowing I am doing Your will." His is the prayer of Augustine
after his consecration to Christ: "Lord, this is everything: to want what you
want, and not to want what I wanted." As you kneel behind him in church
you watch a child become a man.
THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN FOSTERING
THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT
Mrs. Charlotte Gmeiner
supervisor of detroit public kindergartens, detroit, michigan
"What can I say to you today?" is the paraphrase of an earlier question:
"What can I ever say to them?" This was my first thought as I was asked to
look carefully at the teacher's role in fostering the ecumenical spirit. Thinking
backward, the lofty title completely blocked my thought process. Sister Agnes
Therese provided the antifreeze: "You work this way all the time," she said.
"The unity in working together with all teachers, all parents, all children —
this is truly the spirit of the Church, which if fostered to a high degree would
bring about what our Holy Father eventually hopes to obtain."
My thought centered around the fact that in the public schools we do not
teach religion. The companion thought was that even though the public
school teacher is obligated not to attempt to indoctrinate his own beliefs, this
had nothing to do with the subject assigned. I began to consider what goes
into good relationships, into positive feelings for others.
Three excellent sources I recommend to you: Self Understanding, by William
C. Menninger, M.D., an SRA Better Living Booklet; Bulletin 364 published
by the Department of Public Instruction under the title A Statement of Basic
Philosophy Regarding Public Education in Michigan; and Moral and Spiritual
Values in the Public Schools, issued by the Educational Policies Commission
of the National Education Association in 1951.
These points of view, together with one's own self-searching, lead us to the
fact that we don't have to tell children that we like them — they know. We need
not meet with the PTA to give them a run down on what we believe — they
know. The principal, your supervisor, other teachers, each sees what you
believe in — because as you believe, you teach. As you believe, you arrange
your room, select your materials, group your children, implement the curricu-
lum. What you believe is the woven plaid of how you work with others.
How you work with others pointedly affects learning. How you work with
others could be our consideration today.
That word "others" is the buckle on this belt. That word others means
everyone . . . everyone even if they differ from us racially, geographically,
religiously, economically, or socially. Our American education has in mind
Role of the Teacher 457
all kinds of people, every race, every creed, every nationality, every potential,
working together, living together, learning together.
Learning says to us that some reaction has taken place. We have "in-
volved" some one mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually — but actively!
Learning insists upon interaction. It is the stimulation of eye, ear, hand,
foot, tongue, and mind. Children learn "all over" when they learn. If they
are completely aroused they hear, see, feel, touch, taste, smell — find out. We
do not teach unless the children learn. We can go through the actions, look
the part, wear ourselves out, but if no one learns, that is all we are doing —
going, looking, wearing.
What we do affects our success, our well being, our relationships, and our
effectiveness. How we behave has impact on everybody. We need not even
be articulate about this. Children feel what we mean. They react to our
frown, our smile, our withdrawal, our warmth, and our frustrations. Some
of their deepest impressions are just that — impressions, but because we all
are products of what we have experienced, these impressions help to shape
personality. Our strengths, our weaknesses, and our attitudes are adopted by
the child. As teachers, we create the environment with the values we hold.
Environment is made up of arranged spaces, materials for use, running
water and heat and light. Environment also is made up of the teacher's
personality. The teacher's personality is her complete person — the anxieties,
the strengths, the imagination, the loves, the hates, the interests, the smile,
the eyes, and the habits. It's the way you walk, the way you talk, and the way
you feel. It's the individual person and the individuality of each person.
It would seem that today we should look at values. Values are the strong
legs of each one of us. Through our values we stand or topple. Because of
our values we are the personages or the changelings of today. Character and
personality are the outcome of the way our needs are satisfied. We began to
select values, the things we want, very early in life. Your place in the family,
your relationships with your family, the attitudes and feelings of your parents,
your interests and adjustments, your training and knowledge. All of these
shape your values. We know that values are continuous learnings con-
ditioned by experience. We are aware that either they are sustained or
are not nourished during school years. As teachers, this is a personal concern.
As teachers, there is concern for our children.
The principal has a tremendous role to play. He is the leader in his school:
one who works tirelessly to stimulate fragile interest, to uncover unknown
strengths, to stretch the understandings of both teachers and children. He is
a teacher leader and a child leader — he has a dual role to play.
In a look at the teacher, we see similar depths. She is the leader in her
classroom: one who energetically makes learning exciting, who opens trap
doors of comprehension, who possesses the heart to tie the affections of
children and other adults.
How do we do it in school? By realizing that the teaching of values is not
a thing apart from general teaching. Values are developed out of all activities:
all in-school and out-of-school experiences — everything contributes either
positively or negatively. We can generalize, however. We do verbalize. We
provide opportunities for discussion. The point to remember, however, is
this: every school, every teacher, every class, every activity makes some con-
tribution to the understanding and appreciation of values.
If this is our concern, perhaps we should clarify moral and spiritual values
upon which most school people agree. One value is probably the base for
all others: the inherent worth of every human being. Most of us believe that
each individual has a sense of moral responsibility and that therefore it is
458 Elementary School Department
our responsibility as teachers to provide materials and methods of education
for the capacity of each child so he may achieve fully the satisfaction of his
intellectual, physical, spiritual, and emotional needs.
We see each as a person, we help each know that he is wanted, that he can
achieve, that he is personally worthy. If, therefore, each person is important
to us, each person must be helped to grow in self -understanding, self-direction,
self -appraisal. From introspection one learns to look outward, and because
one has developed a conscience he can use this in his gradually growing
willingness to be community-minded. As he lives in society, he begins to
see the needs for cooperation, compromise, citizenship. He begins to build
upon ideals as well as upon ideas.
Since we see people as individuals, we know that man must have respect
for truth. He must be taught that activities help him form opinions, make
judgments, ask questions, solve problems. We encourage an inquiring mind
but insist also on orderly ways of rationalizing. This is denied children who
do as they please and children in some countries who suffer under thought
control.
Since we look at individual personalities, we need to educate for leadership
as well as for followship. We must cherish and support superior qualities
of mind, character, and creativity. "All men are created equal," but men do
differ, as we know. We believe in education for everyone — the gifted, the
"late bloomer," those between and beyond.
Since we look at individual personality, we believe that friendliness and
helpfulness are basic rules of living. Not only do the Christians say: "Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," people of all religions have earnestly set
forth this teaching. Buddhism: "Minister to friends and families by treating
them as one treats himself." Confucianism: "What you do not like when done
to yourself, do not do to others." Hinduism: "Let no man do to another what
would be repugnant to himself." Judaism: "And what thou thyself hatest, do
to no man."
Practicing this, we stand firmly in the stream of brotherhood. We have
concern for others' ignorance, lack of opportunity, or distress. We have
sympathetic feelings, desires to assist, inclination to destroy the evils. As
teachers, we help children achieve self-reliance as well as foster with the
group feelings of society.
We concern ourselves with the threads of many cultural heritages, with
beauty in line, shape, color, texture, with virility in social action. How do
we act when we believe these values are important? The snapshot is blurred.
For a clearer picture, something more than "believing" is necessary. When
a teacher believes and puts these values into practice, then the picture comes
into focus. Now, how does she appear?
She is admired by people, loved by God. She is thoughtful of others,
mindful of human needs, able to elicit cooperation; she respects the law,
seeks the truth in making decisions, uses her intelligence for good, practices the
Golden Rule, is civic minded, has utmost integrity, compassion, and reliability.
The snapshot is you — kindergarten teacher!
To you comes a child who has lived almost five years. He probably has
lived within a family group. How his parents get along with each other, how
they feel about him, how he feels about the family, what kinds of things they
think are important, how much emotional closeness he has experienced, the
kinds of activities he has known, the use of language that is his — he brings all
of this with him. We see him after his basic training. We accept him completely.
We see him without a test of any kind. He simply comes to school. Most
children expect to be liked and are liked by the friendly, interested teacher.
Role of the Teacher 459
But for some children there is confusing, conflicting adjustment. His parents
have given him his picture of himself: He is a "good" boy or a "bad" one.
The teacher will "get" him — you know . . . "Just wait until you get to
school," some parents say. He has a picture of himself, brought about by
daily living. But now he lives more widely and he must find personality
fulfillment and security in a group of children like himself. The picture of
self blurs and stiffens in places as he sustains the immense task of living
with others.
He needs help.
You can help him a great deal if you are able to remember the feelings you
used to have. Do you remember the first day of school? Your girl friend
popped you in the door. When the teacher turned around, she said to you,
"Why, how nice, Gloria. You came to school all by yourself." You didn't,
you knew you didn't, but you were too overwhelmed to correct her and you
lived a lie all morning. No wonder at all that the teacher's mind said:
"Hmm . . . one child who won't talk." And do you remember that boy
who took the wagon and walked around the kindergarten putting into it
everything that was portable? You didn't know, but the teacher discovered
that his pack-rat techniques resulted from the fact that toys were not owned,
and in his culture if you wanted something, you took it.
You help a great deal if you realize that how you feel now will give you
insight into how children behave. When things are not going precisely right
you are irritable: when you are angry with George your blood pressure
rises. Understanding helps us live and let live!
When children struggle in conflict because of personality in a particular
environment, some run, some fight; some are helped by a teacher whose guid-
ance leads them to see a value in what they have to accept. The better we
know ourselves the more able we are to improve ourselves, and because of
this have more insight when we work with others. You can make improve-
ments if you look for the probable causes of your emotional response and if
you know how your emotions affect your behavior. In our work with
children we need to see into ourselves continually, a need to change, and a
will to bring it about.
What are some indications of personality stress?
Anxiety — restlessness, sleeplessness, insecurity
Depression — discouragement, feeling "blue"
Excitement — always high pressure — busy, busy, busy, tense, on-the-go
Withdrawal — avoidance of people and groups
Unusual behavior — crying spells — quiet child who suddenly gets noisy —
one who reads all night
Everyone occasionally has symptoms of being unhappy, dissatisfied; vague,
physical complaints; feelings that people don't like him; being in conflict with
children or other adults, finding much to complain about.
Children have these symptoms, teachers have them, but occasionally. If
we have these always, something is out of focus. Maybe there are too many
demands. Maybe we need to look for causes and make changes in thinking,
feeling, behavior. Perhaps we need a new environment. Probably we need
to make changes in both personality and environment.
However, serenity never depends on being free of problems but in facing up
and in finding ways to solve them.
Working with others depends on: relationships with others; a code of be-
havior; sources of satisfaction; emotional security; goals in life.
If good relationships with others teach the values inherent in the spirit of
460 Elementary School Department
the Ecumenical Council, then we measure our capacity to love by our ex-
pression of understanding, sympathy, loyalty. We investigate our own drives,
correct our own attitudes, simply see and do.
If our code of behavior — our way of acting toward others — is important
in the spirit of the Ecumenical Council, we need to realize that the mixture
of conscious and unconscious forces, plus the interaction of a lively conscience,
need to be at work.
If the spirit of the Ecumenical Council points to adult and child satisfac-
tions, we need to do a worthwhile job of suiting the curriculum to the child,
of filling needs in creating with materials, of allowing ingenuity, resourceful-
ness, independence. We need to find better ways to tap imagination, more
ways to stimulate intelligence, better leads in arousing interest.
If working with others depends on our emotional balance, it's great to love
and be loved, to be free of insecurities and guilt feelings, to rely on self-
confidence and the Holy Ghost.
Lastly, we must have goals in life. Even if we never reach them fully,
goals give direction and purpose. The opportunity we have as teachers to help
to build wholesome, cooperative, mature personalities is unlimited. The dis-
charge of that responsibility lies in helping the child do two things: (1) meet
his life expectations; (2) adjust to the world in which he lives.
THE ROLE OF THE PARENTS IN FOSTERING
THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT
Charles and Pearl Pillon
authors OF Teacher's Manuals of Religious Instruction for Four- and
Five-Year Age Level, allen park, Michigan
We think that the parents' role in fostering the ecumenical spirit is one of
the most challenging tasks facing us today. In discussions with our separated
brethren regarding unity, it seems necessary that we as parents understand
a very fundamental point. That is, that the teaching powers of the Church
can be exercised on two levels. First, the Church teaches revealed and in-
spired truths which are called dogma. They include the natural laws and the
Commandments of God and are unchangeable. Second, there are the laws
of the Church, the sacramentals, rules, customs, and ceremonies, which can
vary in the course of time. In the dialogue we as parents must have with our
separated brethren, it is important that we constantly be aware of this
distinction.
We should like to tell you about a program which we feel reflects the
ecumenical spirit. It is the Sunday Pre-school Religious Program. Since my
wife, Pearl, is the person most responsible for the program, I feel it would
be more meaningful if she told you how the program got started, some of its
basic objectives, where it is today, and our hopes for the future. However,
Role of the Parents 461
before she does this I would like to say something about Pearl which I am sure
she would forget to mention. It was only eight years ago that Pearl became
a Catholic.
Pearl Pillon
It is amazing to me that I am standing here before you today. If anyone,
eight years ago, had told me that I would be speaking before the National
Catholic Kindergarten Association I would have said that he was out of his
mind.
I always felt there was a real need for something like the Pre-school Pro-
gram. I had seen so many mothers scarcely able to follow the Mass while
trying to keep their little ones quiet, even reaching the point of having to
spank them, and what a pity this seemed while in God's house. It was
obvious that both mother and child ended up very frustrated before the Mass
was over. I kept thinking how much better it would be if these little restless
ones during this time could be taught about our Lord in a way they could
understand so they could come to know Him and thus come to love Him.
Their mothers and fathers could then actively participate in the holy sacrifice
while their children were learning about the Mass and Our Lord. Many
priests and sisters have told us that the majority of children in the first grade
do not even know how to make the Sign of the Cross. Their parents are let-
ting the most precious years of their children's lives slide by without even a
thought of teaching them about the one most important love, Our Lord.
Children are taught to love Daddy, Mommy, Grandmother, and others, and
yet Our Lord, who should be first from infancy on — well, He could wait until
the sisters could teach them to know Him. Of course, as always, there are
those wonderful devout Catholic parents who sincerely try to bring religion
into their daily lives and teach their children about God. Although they were
trying, they would tell us that they wouldn't know what materials to use or
what their children were capable of learning. It became evident that parents
were looking for guidance and direction in teaching religion to their pre-
school children. With all this in mind and especially after I had spent one
Sunday in the torture chamber politely referred to as the "crying room,"
we felt there was a tremendous need for a pre-school religious training pro-
gram to assist parents.
What we needed at this time was help. We, therefore, suggested to our
Christian Family Movement group that the Sunday Pre-school Religious
Program idea be adopted as an action to be undertaken by the group. With
encouragement from Father Howard, our CFM chaplain, the group adopted
the project. We then spent the next eight months in an extensive study of the
proposed program and in a search for suitable materials. We found little
material available for the pre-school age group, but our greatest source of in-
formation and encouragement came from Sister Mary at Marygrove College,
Detroit, Michigan, who continually stressed the need of teaching pre-school
children about their religion. Due to the limited Catholic material available,
it was necessary for me to develop simple lesson plans. We approached Father
Clare Murphy, pastor of our parish, St. Francis Cabrini, Allen Park, Michigan,
and requested his permission to conduct a pilot program of Sunday Pre-School
Religious classes for three months. We cited the following as the basic pro-
gram objectives:
1. To assist parents in fulfilling their responsibility to teach their children
462 Elementary School Department
about God by providing them with organized material with which they
oould follow up the work of the Sunday Pre-school classes.
2. To provide the children with a means whereby they could participate in
the worship of God on Sunday at a level they could appreciate and
understand, and thus come to know Him and to love Him during their
extremely impressionable and formative years of life.
An announcement of the program was printed in our Church paper and I
received 150 phone calls in three days and the program was under way
with 100 children attending the classes.
At the present time in our parish we have 350 children, ages three and a
half through five, who attend individual classes in the parish school on Sundays
while their parents attend Mass. In addition, the program has been adopted
by nine other parishes in Detroit, eight in Ohio, and others in Texas, Florida,
Louisiana, New York, Oregon, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, as well as
two provinces in Canada. We are continually receiving requests for informa-
tion about the program.
The Teacher's Manuals used today grew out of the accumulated experience
of teachers working in the program. The Teacher's Manuals include source
lists, instruction for children making rosaries, and coloring pictures for each
lesson. There are two individual lesson-plan manuals used in teaching the
courses. The four-year-old level Teacher's Manual, which I wrote, is used
along with the textbook, The Catholic Mother's Helper by Sister Mary, IHM,
and the five-year-old age level Teacher's Manual is used along with the text-
book, All For Jesus by Sister Agnes Therese, IHM. The courses are designed
to follow the liturgical year beginning in September and ending in June.
The four-year-old age level course is organized as follows:
First Semester
The Sign of the Cross, and why we make the "sign," is their first lesson,
followed by stories of the Creation and then the stories leading up to the
birth of Christ and His childhood. During the first semester they also learn
a Morning Offering and Angel of God prayer.
Second Semester
This semester is devoted to stories of the Public Life of Our Lord and His
many miracles. In addition, there are stories of our Blessed Mother, her
Assumption into heaven, and her crowning. They are taught two additional
prayers, Grace Before Meals and the Hail Mary.
The five-year-old age level course is organized as follows:
First Semester
A general review of the Sign of the Cross and stories of Creation. This is
followed by stories of the Joyful Mysteries, during which time the children
make their own rosaries.
Second Semester
This semester is devoted to stories of the Public Life of Our Lord and His
many miracles in greater detail than when they received them in the four-
year-old classes. This is followed by stories of His Passion, Resurrection
and Ascension, the Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary. They
are also taught the "Our Father" and learn how to say the rosary. The major
emphasis, however, during the second semester is on the Mass, in which they
use that wonderful children's missal, Christ In the Mass, which you know
was written by Sister Agnes Therese, IHM. It is marvelous to see how well
Role of the Parents 463
these children learn to follow the Mass and acquire an understanding of it
which is meaningful to them.
We have these children for approximately one hour each Sunday. Their
class time is divided into three periods: (1) religious instruction, (2) coloring
pictures or working on projects, (3) activity — games and music. Since this
is the first contact these children have with any formal religious instruction,
we insist that it be a happy experience for them: this cannot be emphasized
too strongly.
In addition, the program was designed to ensure the maximum participation
of the parents with their young children at home. This has been accom-
plished through the projects parents work on with their children, such as the
Creation Scrapbook, Advent Wreaths, Lenten Hills, and by earning pennies
for the missions. I am sure all of you can see how a program such as this
helps create unity within the home. For example, some parents have told us
that they had not been saying their Grace Before Meals until Johnnie learned
it in class. All of these actions tend to make the home more a place of family
worship, and because of this the family is bound to live a better Christian
life. This is, after all, the basic way in which we as parents can best reflect
the Church more perfectly, for it is through our daily living, the example we
set. that our Protestant friends primarily judge the Catholic Church.
I would like to say that the Sunday Pre-school Religious Program is, after
all, a Sunday school, and this fact is readily understood and accepted by our
Protestant friends and provides common ground on which to begin to discuss
the Church. Let me cite one example, of which I personally know, that oc-
curred in a mixed marriage: The mother was a Protestant Sunday school
teacher; the Catholic father had been trying to take their little four-year-old
girl, who had been baptized a Catholic, to Mass on Sundays. However, the
child did not understand the Mass and was restless and unhappy while in
Church. Since she had little desire to go with her father on Sundays, her
mother decided it would be better if she took her daughter to her Sunday
school. The little girl did enjoy the Protestant Sunday school, and her mother
continued to take her each Sunday. The father mentioned this to our pastor
and said he didn't know what to do. His daughter preferred to go with her
mother rather than sit in Mass. Our pastor said, "Well, we have a Sunday
school and I think you should bring her here." The father told this to the
mother and she agreed, but reluctantly. When the child started attending
the Catholic Sunday school, the mother was apprehensive, but as, time went
on she talked with her daughter's teacher and began to understand something
about the Catholic Church through the child. She later told the teacher how
wonderful she thought the program was and how much her daughter had
learned about Jesus and the Church, and how much, as a result, she had
learned, and more important, un-learned about the Church. As you can see,
this brought us to a much closer understanding with one Protestant friend
and I am sure it will grow. I just recently learned that their four-year-old
son is now attending our Sunday school.
Another true story which demonstrates an unforeseen benefit resulting from
the program which I would like also to tell you about could be entitled "A
little child shall lead them." It concerns a five-year-old boy who was instru-
mental in bringing his parents to the sacraments. The boy, Billy, was enrolled in
the Sunday Pre-school classes through a neighbor whose son was attending
and was Billy's best friend. Billy's mother practiced no particular religion, and
his father was a fallen-away Catholic. After Billy had been attending classes
a while, he began asking his mother many questions about God and th«
464 Elementary School Department
Church and asked her why she didn't attend Church. She felt very badly
when she was unable to answer his questions. She decided to attend the
parish inquiry classes so she would be able to understand her son's religion
and answer his questions. Two years after this happened she phoned and told
me that she had been baptized and that her entire family was now attending
Church together. She wanted us to know how happy they were now, and
said, "She felt they were happy before, but it was insignificant in comparison
to her family's happiness now."
Before I close I should like to say something very basic about this pro-
gram: It is primarily a lay apostolate movement. We all know how busy our
priests and our sisters are; and the laity, to truly reflect the ecumenical spirit,
must become more actively involved in the mission of the Church — that is, in
bringing Christ to the World. This is as much the task of the laity as it is
of the hierarchy.
It is our sincere prayer that this program will spring forth in many other
parishes throughout the United States and Canada and bring more little ones
closer to our Lord.
Charles Pillon
It is our feeling that parents must plant individual ecumenical seeds in their
daily contacts with our separated brethren, both by their example and by their
deeds. Importantly, Catholic laymen must take an attitude of understanding
into the market place, rather than being on the defensive all the time in con-
tacts with non-Catholics. We should try to see their view and accept their
inquiries with an open mind, and admit, where necessary, the mistakes of
Catholics both in the course of history and today.
Catholic parents are finding themselves in a peculiar situation today as a
result of ihe ecumenical spirit in the world. We are being encouraged by the
Church to speak with our separated brethren about our religion, yet it is a
fact of our Catholic heritage in this country that we have been conditioned for
so long not to speak that when we are told to speak we find we have no
voice. Therefore, our task now is to begin to prepare ourselves so that we
can speak sincerely, effectively, and with charity and truth.
I want to stress the word "prepare" for we shall all have to overcome many
long-standing inhibitions. We have to change our attitudes — and this is not
always easy to do. It is important that we understand this, because we as
parents have a unique responsibility in planting the proper attitudes toward
our separated brethren in our children. We must remember that our chil-
dren's attitudes come much more from what we do than what we say. We
cannot implant proper attitudes in our children unless we have the proper
attitudes. Finally, we must recognize within ourselves our own shortcomings
and lack of knowledge about our faith. When our separated brethren ask
questions about our faith, and we are not really sure of the answers, we must
sincerely say that we don't know the answers, but promise to get the answers
and let them know. Then it is necessary to contact one's pastor and put the
questions to him, telling him the circumstances of the questions so that he
may give the answers with proper reference and setting. Let me add here,
that we will have to work closely with our priests until our voice becomes
more sure.
There are two movements we would like to mention that can help prepare
Catholics in finding their voice. The first movement is the Catholic Action
Groups that have come into being and the second movement is the vigorous
Role of the Parents 465
reawakening interest in the Word of God, the Holy Bible, throughout the
whole Catholic world.
First, the Catholic Action Groups, to mention a few, are made up of Young
Christian Students, Workers, Nurses, Agricultural Workers, and two more
that have appeared in Europe, but have not yet arrived in the United States,
the Young Christian Soldiers and the Young Christian Sailors. Please note
the use of the word "young" in all of these titles and the word "Christian."
For they, too, shall have to plant many ecumenical seeds in the future. There
is one other action group, the Christian Family Movement, which is designed
especially for married couples. In its simplest terms C.F.M. is an action
program with two primary objectives: first, to bring Christ into the home; and
second, to take Christ into the community. As Father Bernard Meyer in his
book, Lend Me Your Hands, says, "We are not fulfilling Christ's command
to convert the world."
Second are the discussion clubs under the Confraternity of Christian
Doctrine devoted to Bible Study. Since one of the best bridges we have with
our Protestant friends is the Bible, Catholics should become intimately ac-
quainted with it. The Bible is of little value to Catholics unless we really
know and understand it in terms of our Catholic faith. St. Jerome once said
something that should make us all stop and think: "Ignorance of the Scriptures
is ignorance of Christ." How can we grow more Christlike in our own
lives if we don't know Christ.
While we have talked of Catholic Sunday schools, Action Groups, and
Bible Study Groups, we do not mean that to fulfill our responsibility in fos-
tering the ecumenical spirit we should all rush out and join these organiza-
tions. The best contribution we can make is through our daily example, but
each of us should nevertheless make a sincere effort to be an informed and
active Catholic, and to the degree that these programs would assist you in
that, we recommend them to you.
Changing of attitudes has to be a two-way street. Let me tell you a little
story that happened with an associate of mine at work shortly after we
had just met each other. We were discussing religion at lunch one day and I
happened to mention that I was a Sunday school director. A few weeks later
he asked me if I would like to attend a dinner meeting on Saturday night.
I said I would like to go but could not because my wife and I were attending a
Bible study meeting that night. It wasn't until later that I told him I was a
Catholic. Well, I got the oddest reaction to that statement that I have ever
had from anyone in my life. As you can see, this person, who, incidentally,
is a Protestant, just didn't visualize a Catholic doing this kind of thing.
In a sense all of us must be bridge builders between our faith and our
separated brethren, and if it is required of us that we must become nails
hammered into the bridge to give it strength we should gladly accept the
opportunity.
In conclusion we should like to quote His Holiness Pope John XXIII from
his address at the closing session of the Ecumenical Council Preparatory
Commissions at the Vatican on June 20, 1961:
To put it briefly, but completely, it is the aim of the council that the clergy
should acquire a new brilliance of sanctity, . . . that attention be given to
the social apostolate, and that Christians should have a missionary heart,
that is to say, brotherly and friendly toward all and with all . . . Our
language, serene and calm, must enlighten, dispel misunderstandings and
remove errors with the force of truth. . . ."
466 Elementary School Department
Finally, we would like to leave with you some thoughts for fostering the
ecumenical spirit:
1. Pray for unity.
2. Prepare to talk intelligently and charitably with our separated brethren.
3. Discuss similarities, repress differences.
4. Become intimately acquainted with the Bible.
5. Don't be afraid to discuss religion.
6. Realize that most ideas that our Protestant friends have about the
Catholic Church they get from us.
7. Be sure what you are saying is true before you speak about the Church.
8. Recognize that the uninformed and unthinking Catholic reflects the
Church as much as the pious ones.
9. Remember what happens to the Church happens to us.
10. Assist the clergy, they cannot accomplish the task alone.
1 1 . Be active. The laity must become more involved if the Church is to be
the force it should be in the world today and in the future.
In short, all of us must develop as parents and teachers a missionary spirit.
Each of us, priests, sisters, mothers, fathers, teachers, Catholics and non-
Catholics, must give life to the ecumenical spirit for that spirit lives or dies
with us.
FILM SLIDES ON A KINDERGARTEN INTERNATIONAL UNIT
(Summary)
Sister M. Agnes Therese, I.H.M.
PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CATHOLIC KINDERGARTEN ASSOCIATION, DETROIT
As our present world becomes smaller and smaller because of TV, pictures,
films, and jet travel, our pupils have to be prepared as never before in history
to know and accept and love children and peoples of other nations. That is
why it is so important that they make the acquaintance of non-Western children
and learn to understand their respective roles as early as possible.
All teachers have ways of introducing their children to people of other lands.
Some are fortunate enough to have many nationalities in their own class-
rooms. Some struggle along with the problems of different languages, different
costumes and customs, and perhaps long for an interpreter in their dealings
with the parents. Others are, may we say, unfortunate in having been blessed
with pretty much of a homogenous group of children who speak only English,
are used to American ways and culture, and know little about those outside
their family or community circle. All teachers, however, have the opportunity
and privilege of acquainting their children with much of the world's cultures
and customs.
There are books about children of other lands in classrooms, school libraries,
and neighboring public libraries. There may be public museums with special
displays on foreign nations. But the best approach I have found in teaching
this unit is: Make the kindergarten room a real hotbed of foreign songs, stories,
Filmslides on a Kindergarten Unit 467
costumes, dances, foods, records, peoples: a place where Japan and France
and China and Ireland, and as many countries as we can manage, take over
a display corner; a place where children live vicariously the roles of these
different peoples.
Following the schedule in the Religion Permeated Kindergarten Curriculum,
which our association printed last year, the children are ready for this unit
around March. To achieve any success, the parents have to be notified that
such a unit is being carried out. Explain what types of materials would be of
greatest interest, when to send them in, and so forth, and you will find that the
most interesting surprises come from the most unexpected places.
Slides used are as follows:
Slides 1, 2, 3: Dolls from as many foreign countries as we can collect.
Slide 4: Chinese clothing. Also clothing from Japan, Korea, Lithuania,
Poland, Spain, Alaska, Greece, Mexico, Scotland, India, Africa, Hawaii,
Switzerland, the Fiji Islands, and Italy.
Slide 5: Japanese clothing.
Slide 6: Polish clothing.
Slide 7: Rack of costumes from many lands.
Slide 8: Bulletin board displaying a Spanish dress, a Lithuanian costume,
Japanese pajamas, Scottish kilt, and the Hawaiian lei.
Slide 9: Hungarian display.
Slide 10: Wood carvings and other hand-made objects.
Slide 11: Chinese display: scenes, fans, books, abacus, and other items.
Slide 12: French corner.
Slide 12a: Bulletin board covering many areas of interest: painting, table-
cloths, scarfs, postcards, stamps, letters, and other items.
Slides 13, 14, and 15: Lithuanian dancers from the first and second grades.
Slide 16: Eighth-grade Lithuanian dancer.
Slide 17: Irish singer.
Slides 18 and 19: Spanish dance.
Slide 20: Activities. Making hats, fans, Dutch shoes, adobe houses, drawing,
painting murals, and so forth.
Other classes from the school and parents were invited to visit us. The
children showed them around, and sang, danced, and played in the rhythm
band.
The ecumenical spirit is the spirit of oneness. What could be more instru-
mental in making our children feel this oneness than giving them the oppor-
tunity of intimate contact with other peoples and an appreciation of their
music, their culture, their dress, and their customs?
PLAY ALONG WITH RHYTHM BANDS
(Summary)
Sister Mary James Louis, B.V.M.
HELP OF CHRISTIANS, CHICAGO 51, ILLINOIS
The music program in the kindergarten is a combination of listening, sing-
ing, interpreting, rhythmic activities, and rhythm band. All these facets blend
together to develop a rich musical environment. Although it is difficult to
separate one phase from the others, our time and attention will be devoted
primarily to the rhythm band.
Many desirable attitudes and aptitudes pertinent to a successful school
career may be developed during the music period. The power of concentra-
tion, self-control, ability to follow directions, and auditory discrimination
grow; responsibility, sharing, and group participation are encouraged; poise,
gracefulness, and muscular control improve. These attitudes are the outgrowth
of a variety of musical and rhythmic activities, not of formal drill and prac-
tice. The ideal situation would be to continue rhythm band throughout the
primary grades.
A feeling of uncertainty and inadequate preparation causes many teachers to
neglect rhythm band activities. It is my privilege to acquaint you with some
new material which will give you the know-how of an enjoyable and successful
rhythm band.
Melody Midgets' Music for Rhythm Band consists of a 12" LP record, a
manual of instructions, and picture-number scores to accompany the record.
The count-along, clap-along, play-along directions on the record familiarize
you with various rhythmic patterns. These are repeated in a variety of
arrangements. The melody "Swanee River" is played with rhythm instru-
ments to demonstrate how the scores and music are worked out. The illustrated
manual contains detailed instructions for placing and handling the instruments,
suggestions for developing rhythmic patterns and rhythmic sense, activities and
exercises which will be helpful not only in forming a band but will enrich
your entire music program. The picture-number scores accompany the
twelve melodies on the record and show in a simple, concise way which instru-
ment and rhythmic pattern is to be played. By repetition in various exercises,
these patterns become so familiar that these scores enable a child-director to
lead the band. This culminating activity is not achieved by formal drill but
is the outgrowth and climax of the enjoyment experienced in a well-balanced
music program.
Since we learn to do by doing, let us "Play Along With" rhythm band in-
struments and get that "at home" feeling with Melody Midgets' Music,
I. Rhythmic Activities
II. Rhythmic Patterns
III. Instruments
IV. Director's Cues
468
Proceedings: Officers 1962-63
469
PROCEEDINGS
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DEPARTMENT: OFFICERS 1962-63
I 1959-63
President: Rt. Rev. Msgr. William E. McManus, Chicago, 111.
Vice Presidents:
Very Rev. Msgr. Ignatius A. Martin, Lafayette, La.
Brother Arthur Philip, F.S.C., Yonkers, N.Y.
Sister Marie Theresa, S.C., New York, N.Y.
Sister Mary Edward, P.B.V.M., Dubuque, Iowa
Very Rev. Msgr. James B. Clyne, Los Angeles, Calif.
Secretary: Sister Jean Clare, O.P., Rockville Centre, N.Y.
General Executive Board:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. John Paul Haverty, New York, N.Y.
Brother Bernard Peter, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Department Executive Committee:
Ex officio Members:
The President, Vice President, and Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. John Paul Haverty, New York, N.Y.
Brother Bernard Peter, F.S.C., New York N.Y.
Sister Mary Richardine, B.V.M., Washington, D.C., Associate Secretary
Sister Mary Nora, S.S.N.D., Washington, D.C., Assistant Secretary
General Members:
Very Rev. Msgr. Leo E. Hammerl, Buffalo, N.Y.
Rev. John Sweeney, Peoria, 111.
Rev. Wm. O. Goedert, Chicago, 111.
Brother Albert William, F.S.C., Bronx, N.Y.
Sister Euphrasia, O.S.F., Tiffin, Ohio
Sister Stanislaus Marie, S.N.J.M., Alhambra, Calif.
Sister Leonella, C.S.C., Salt Lake City, Utah
Sister Petrine, S.S.N.D., Irving, Tex.
Sister Mary Esther, C.P.P.S., St. Louis, Mo.
Sister Anne Louise, C.S.J., Los Angeles, Calif.
Very Rev. Msgr. James B. Clyne, Los Angeles, Calif.
Rev. Joseph Stremel, Dodge City, Kan.
Very Rev. Msgr. H. Clinton Teacle, Alexandria, La.
Brother Celestin George, F.S.C., Yonkers, N.Y.
Sister Barbara, C.P.P.S., Cincinnati, Ohio
Sister Helen Julia, S.N.D., Waltham, Mass.
Mother Frances Theresa, C.C.V.I., San Antonio, Tex.
Sister Jeanne Marie, F.C.S.P., Issaquah, Wash.
Sister Mary Rose Esther, B.V.M., Chicago, 111.
Sister Loretella, C.S.C., Boston, Mass.
Miss Alberta Beeson, Tucson, Ariz.
Very Rev. Msgr. J. William Lester, Fort Wayne, Ind.
Rev. Armand E. Cyr, Portland, Me.
Rev. J. F. McManus, Charleston, S.C.
Brother Basilian Amedy, F.S.C., New York, N.Y.
Sister Mary Edward, S.S.J. , Pittsburgh, Pa.
Sister Eugene Joseph, S.S.J., Philadelphia, Pa.
Sister Francis de Sales, H.H.M., Cleveland, Ohio
Sister Francis Eileen, S.L., Denver, Colo.
Sister Jean Clare, O.P., Rockville Centre, N.Y.
Mrs. Nancy McCormick Rambusch, Greenwich, Conn.
Very Rev. Msgr. Thomas W. Lyons, Washington, D.C.
Sister M. Celine, O.S.B.. Miami, Fla.
Sister Sarah, S.C.L., Helena, Mont.
Sister M. Virgine, I.H.M., Detroit, Mich.
1960-64
1961-65
1962-66
PART 9 SPECIAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
IMPLICATIONS OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S PANEL
ON MENTAL RETARDATION
Very Rev. Msgr. E. H. Behrmann
ASSOCIATE SECRETARY, SPECIAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, NCEA,
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
One of the truly memorable days in the national history of mental retarda-
tion in the United States was Wednesday, October 11, 1961. On that day
President John F. Kennedy issued a statement to the press on the need for
a national plan in mental retardation. Said the President:
The manner in which our nation cares for its citizens and conserves its
manpower resources is more than an index to its concern for the less
fortunate. It is a key to its future. Both wisdom and humanity dictate
a deep interest in the physically handicapped, the mentally ill, and the
mentally retarded. Yet although we have attacked on a broad front the
problems of mental illness, although we have made great strides in the
battle against disease, we as a nation have for too long postponed an
intensive search for solutions to the problems of the mentally retarded.
That failure should be corrected.
The frontal attack on the national problem of mental retardation began
immediately with the formation of a Presidential Panel on Mental Retardation.
Presidential invitations to serve on this panel went out to twenty-three men and
three women, representing thirteen states, and fashioned from the various
disciplines of medicine, psychology, science, law, education, industry, and
rehabilitation. The invitations to serve the American people in the area of
mental retardation were enthusiastically accepted by the prospective panelists;
they were all summoned to the White House in Washington on October 18,
1961, where the dimensions of their staggering task were outlined to them.
The Mandate
This was the sweeping order of President Kennedy to the panel:
We must undertake a comprehensive and coordinated attack on the
problem of mental retardation. The large number of people involved, the
great cost to the nation, the striking need, the vast area of the unknown
that beckons us to increased research efforts — all demand attention.
It is for this reason that I am calling together a panel of outstanding
physicians, scientists, educators, lawyers, psychologists, social scientists
and leaders in this field to prescribe the program of action. I am sure
that the talent which has led to progress in other fields of medicine and
470
President's Panel on Mental Retardation 471
the physical sciences can enlarge the frontiers of this largely ignored area.
It shall be the responsibility of this panel to explore the possibilities
and pathways to prevent and cure mental retardation. No relevant disci-
pline and no fact that will help achieve this goal is to be neglected.
The panel will also make a broad study of the scope and dimensions
of the various factors that are relevant to mental retardation. These
include biological, psychological, educational, vocational and socio-cultural
aspects of the condition and their impact upon each state of development —
marriage, pregnancy, delivery, childhood, and adulthood.
The general panel was subsequently subdivided into the following task forces:
1. Prevention (combining the clinical and institutional problems)
2. Education and Habilitation
3. Law and Public Awareness
4. Biological Research
5. Behavioral and Social Research
6. Coordination.
These task forces were each given specific problem areas of mental retardation
to explore and research, as well as to recommend possible solutions and pro-
grams. They are presently meeting independently in the prosecution of their
charges. A final complete coordinated report of the entire panel is due to
be presented to the President in June 1962.
Historical Background
What lies behind this call? What are some of the significant historical and
statistical factors which fashion the background for this urgent mandate?
In a sense, the history of the United States is the history of the education
of exceptional children and youth. Certainly this is true as one traces the
changes that have occurred in attitudes toward handicapped people. In every
decade and in every culture there have been a few people who have been
outspoken in behalf of certain causes, resulting in a breakthrough from the
plateau of static public action. Such a situation was found in the early
part of the nineteenth century. It was then that Horace Mann and Samuel
Howe spoke out in behalf of the retarded child. It was then that Dorothea
Dix pleaded for the socially maladjusted children of the young nation. The
Rev. Thomas Gallaudet laid the cornerstone for a vast program for deaf
children as early as 1817. Later on, programs for crippled children came
into being.
The result of these efforts was the creation and maintenance of many
residential schools or institutions for variously handicapped children and
adults. The unfortunate result, however, was that a state of lethargy developed
in the minds of most people. It is easy to build an institution and to place
it miles away in a locality selected on political considerations. Once completed,
children could be sent there; they were cared for. At that point the conscience
of society often ceased functioning; society's guilt feeling was assuaged;
society had met its obligations; and handicapped children could be forgotten.
They were out of sight and out of mind; they were in isolation from the life
of the community.
Yet there is more involved in providing for handicapped cihldren than
the mere construction of a building, more than passing a law, more than
listening to an annual report. Fortunately other breakthroughs occurred after
the turn of the twentieth century which have continued to gain momentum
472 Special Education Department
until today. There have been the organization of parent groups; the estab-
lishing of private and public schools and classes; the creation of many new
Departments of Special Education throughout the country, including our own
Special Education Department of the NCEA in 1954. Among the many
happy objectives to promote the over-all welfare of handicapped children has
been the emphasis on family responsibility and community integration, with
special schools and classes offering programs to fit the retarded academically
and vocationally for adult community living insofar as this is possible.
The Scope of the Problem
1. General Statistics
At the end of the nineteenth century a movement to operate special day
classes in the public school districts began: Providence, Rhode Island, in
1898, New York in 1900, with many urban school districts following in their
wake. Today, 3,700 local public school systems report enrollment in special
education programs of approximately 200,000 educable and 17,000 trainable
retarded children.
It is reported that there are 2,331 Catholic children enrolled in Catholic
residential schools for the retarded. At the same time, there are 2,092 Catholic
children enrolled in special day classes administered under Catholic auspices.1
The number of mentally retarded enrolled in special education classes has
been doubled over the past decade. In spite of this record, we are not yet
meeting our existing requirements, and more such facilities must be provided.
Less than 25 per cent of our retarded children have access to special educa-
tion. Moreover, the classes need teachers specially trained to meet the
specialized needs of the retarded. To meet minimum standards, at least 75,000
such teachers are required. Today, there are less than 20,000 and many of
these have not fully met professional standards.2
2. The Numbers of the Retarded
The American Association on Mental Deficiency thus defines mental retarda-
tion:
Mental Retardation refers to subaverage general intellectual functioning which
originates during the developmental period and is associated with impairment in
adaptive behavior.3
There are presently no available data which permit a precise statement of
the numbers of mentally retarded persons in the United States. The estimate
of the mentally retarded in the total population usually range from 1 to 3
per cent depending upon the age-groups studied. Approximately 3 per cent
of the school population are found to be mentally retarded.4
This would mean that between five and six million United States citizens
are retarded. It means further that mental retardation disables 10 times
as many as diabetes; 20 times as many as tuberculosis; 25 times as many as
muscular dystrophy; and 600 times as many as infantile paralysis. Put
1 William F. Jenks, C.SS.R. (ed.), Catholic Facilities for Exceptional Children in the United
States (Washington, D.C.: National Catholic Educational Association, 1958).
3 Cf. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, O.E.-35019, Exceptional Children and
Youth: Special Education Enrollments in Public Day Schools (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1961).
» Rick Heber, A Manual on Terminology and Classification in Mental Retardation. A Mono-
graph Supplement to American Journal of Mental Deficiency, Second Edition, 1961, p. 3.
* A Manual on Program Development in Mental Retardation, prepared by Wm. I. Gardner and
Herschel W. Nisonger, p. 18. Monograph Supplement to American Journal of Mental Deficiency,
January 1962, Vol. 66, No. 4.
President's Panel on Mental Retardation 473
another way, it means that the combined totals of the blind, polio, cerebral
palsy, and rheumatic heart diseases will equal only one-half the number of
mentally retarded. Again, it means that 126,000 babies are born every year
who will be mentally retarded, or approximately 340 mentally retarded babies
born every day.
3. Diagnostic and Clinical Services
The identification and evaluation of mentally retarded children and adults,
as well as realistic recommendations, depend largely upon the availability
of diagnostic and clinical services. These are still woefully short of minimal
standards. There are more than 80 clinics specializing in services to the
retarded, and well over half of these were established in the past five years.
4. Residential Institutions
Today there are more than 200,000 mentally retarded patients in residential
institutions, approximately 10 per cent more than there were five years ago.
But the average waiting list continues to grow, and the quality of the service
often suffers from limited budgets and salary levels. In the public institutions
there are less than 500 full-time physicians for 160,000 patients. The limited
resources of the state institutions have been taxed beyond the breaking point.
Additional increase in both facilities and manpower are necessary.
5. Rehabilitation
The preparation of the mentally retarded for a useful role in society and
industry must receive more attention. In the past five years the number of
mentally retarded rehabilitated through state vocational agencies has more
than tripled — going from 756 to 2,500 — but in terms of potential it is little
more than a gesture. The problem is complex. Neither special education
nor special rehabilitation procedures furnish the complete answer to employ-
ment of the retarded. New knowledge and new techniques are needed for
over 25 per cent of those coming out of the special classes still cannot be placed.
Until 1954, no state health department offered any special services for
mentally retarded children or their families. The welfare services were directed
largely to long-term institutional care. Today, almost every state has a special
demonstration, service, or training project in mental retardation as a part
of its maternal and child health service program. Last year the National
Institute of Mental Health spent over $2,500,000 on research, technical
assistance, and grants in the mental retardation area, and the National
Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness spent over $8,000,000 on
mental retardation. Next year's budget requests will double these figures —
and the number of mentally retarded persons rehabilitated should also increase.8
Conclusion
And yet the essential impact and importance of the President's confrontation
of the problem of mental retardation lies not in statistics — in the appalling
number of these people, the dearth of professional information and adequate
service facilities, the lack of dedicated trained personnel to help the retarded,
and so forth.
What are vastly more important are the implications of the mandate. Presi-
dent Kennedy has declared: "The manner in which our nation cares for its
citizens and conserves its manpower resources is more than an index to its
concern for the less fortunate. It is a key to its future."
That the most powerful nation in the world takes time in the midst of
BNews release, October 11, 1961, White House, Pierre Salinger, Press Secretary to the President.
474 Special Education Department
pressing international problems of war and peace to plan for its retarded has
terrific impact in underscoring the pivotal American principle of the dignity
of every individual. This concern for the least members of our nation shows
America at its best.
Thrillingly reminiscent of this great ideological principle are the eloquent
words of Richard Cardinal Cushing:
The Christian inspiration in dealing with exceptional children and adults
might be summed up in the proposition, that the measure of the degree of
a community's civilization as Christians understand civilization is what we
may call — the test of the least. What provision does a civilization make for
its least members? What advantages does it offer for those least able to take
care of themselves? Jesus Christ has said: For as much as ye have done it
unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.
The least may be least in any way: the least fit, the least competent, least
able, the least well born, the least endowed. Certainly when any one or any
group of these limitations be combined with the least years of a child, then
the acid test of a community's worth by Christ's standards is present.
That is why it is fair to say that the best index to the civilization of a
community is what is done for exceptional children, for they are usually
least in so many ways: least in years, least in endowments, least in privileges,
least in all the things that people covet for their children.6
Standing off the shores of New York is the thrilling Statue of Liberty, a gift
of the French people to the people of the United States. Holding aloft the
beacon light of liberty, it stands as the symbol of hope and happiness to the
underprivileged and oppressed millions who have come from all over the
world to find a peaceful haven of opportunity and a land of freedom.
The Statue of Liberty symbolizes the dream of America so beautifully
described by James Truslow Adams:
But there has also been the American dream, that dream of a land in which
life should be better, and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity
for each according to his ability or achievement.
In some little way, it is our determined hope and fervent prayer, that through
the President's Panel on Mental Retardation, for millions of retarded children
and adults the dream of America will become a wonderful living reality.
• Sermon of Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, Dedication of St. Coletta's Chapel, Jef-
ferson, Wisconsin, June 30, 1953.
GUIDING HANDICAPPED YOUTH TOWARD EMPLOYMENT
(Summary)
Joseph Hunt
assistant director, office of vocational rehabilitation,
department of health, education, and welfare, washington, d.c.
One summer at Castelgandolfo, Pope Pius XII said to a group of American
visitors, "In a broken body, a soul which strives for greatness can define its
best qualities."
In this single sentence the late Pontiff declared an unlimited trust in the
individual's capacity to restore himself and held up to him one of the
greatest of gifts — the virtue of hope.
The seal of our Department has the words Spes Anchora Vitae (Hope, The
Anchor of Life), and the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation feels a special
affinity for this motto because we offer the skills and services which bring
to the handicapped the hope that they may build for themselves a more
productive and happy life.
We feel a special attachment to all those like yourselves who devote their
lives to the special education of the handicapped child and the handicapped
young man and young woman.
Our office has entered into several promising projects with school systems
in several cities and states. These projects are in addition to the day-by-day
work with the schools in setting up individual rehabilitation plans for handi-
capped high school students. While our services, under law, are restricted
to adults of working age, we are able to offer services to handicapped children
who are within reasonable reach of the statutory working age, which is
usually considered to be sixteen, or perhaps as young as fourteen in special
cases.
I was most surprised when reading a recent copy of the Association's
Directory of Catholic Facilities for Exceptional Children in the United States
to discover that over one million Catholic school children are being served
by these facilities. As Father Jenks said: "Catholic educators have done an
exceptional job for the normal client and will continue to do a normal job
for the exceptional client."
The Office of Vocational Rehabilitation and its ninety cooperating state
agencies are prepared to assist you in formulating rehabilitation plans for
many of these young men and women. The services offered include: counseling
and guidance, all necessary medical examinations, hospitalization, surgery,
psychiatric treatment, training on the job or in school (including college or
university), and maintenance and transportation during the rehabilitation
process. Some of these must be paid for by the handicapped person if he can
afford to pay, but many valuable services are offered regardless of financial
status.
No category of disability is barred. The physical condition must, however,
not be acute. It must be relatively permanent.
The history of the Catholic Church has been one of deepest concern for
those who are helpless or in distress or in need of counsel. I congratulate you
475
476 Special Education Department
on your magnificent work for the handicapped student. We want very much
to help you and we invite all Catholic educators to discuss their programs of
special education with the Director or other official of the rehabilitation
program in each state.
REFLECTIONS ON RESEARCH IN REHABILITATION
(Summary)
Louis J. Cantoni
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION; COORDINATOR, REHABILITATION
COUNSELOR TRAINING PROGRAM, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY, DETROIT, MICHIGAN
Research in vocational rehabilitation is where you find it, and it ought to
flourish in universities and rehabilitation agencies. Much needed research goes
undone because many university and agency people regard research as an
effort that must be of contract proportions if it is to have substance. By con-
tract research I mean research sponsored financially by a private or govern-
mental organization after such an organization approves an applicant's detailed
statement of problems, goals, costs, and so forth.
Many research ventures lie fallow, waiting to be quickened by an eager
husbandman. Often the husbandman is near, he is eager, the kind of person
who awakens ready for a full day's activities, but he is beset with doubts regard-
ing his readiness. He has been emasculated by a cloud of indecision that hovers
over research in the social sciences. He senses vaguely that his tentative formu-
lations, though tantalizingly viable, do not bear the stamped approval of a con-
tract-granting organization, nor are they likely to, and he is disturbed.
To entertain doubts, to be indecisive, are human characteristics. They are
characteristics that pervade research endeavors, from the writing of term papers
purporting to be research, through master's theses and doctoral dissertations.
They are characteristics that carry over beyond that, and many a student who
completes a graduate program flees research the rest of his days. Yet, research-
able problems lie all around him, awaiting his attention, his care. Such
problems are especially abundant in rehabilitation: the field of rehabilitation
thrives on problems and problem solving. Practitioners at various levels of
preparation are likely husbandmen to attend and solve these problems.
University and agency people, individually and in partnership, sometimes
with the benefit of contract research, and more frequently not, should inquire
into problems that lie at hand. Only through a continuing search for honest
answers to real problems can professionals in rehabilitation smooth the futures
of their clients as well as their own.
THE PSYCHIATRIST VIEWS THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER
Aloysius S. Church, M.D., F.A.P.A.
ADMINISTRATIVE PSYCHIATRIST, BOARD OF EDUCATION, CITY OF DETROIT;
PSYCHIATRIST, RECORDER'S COURT, DETROIT
Twenty years ago I was asked to talk about personality disorders in children.
The request further stipulated that the discussion include the subtopics of
causes, nature, and treatment. Twenty years have passed. Listen to a brief
portion of a letter from your program chairman — a letter received this year
in January: "May I ask you to discuss 'Personality and Behavioral Disorders
in Children.' " He suggested the subtopics of causes, nature, and treatment.
This request of 1962, word for word similar to one made in 1942, strikes me as
being more than a mere coincidence. It may well be a reflection on our inability
as clinicians to communicate. With clinic and institutional files bulging with
facts we have a stock of material that could be more effectively communicated
to teachers and parents. With more than a million children coming into contact
with police each year in this country, just think of all the useful data that is
recorded. Similarly the data on morbidities other than delinquency is abundant
and apparently dormant in our files of child and adult clinics and institutions.
Twenty years have passed and fundamental questions remain unanswered
in this age of superb communications. It is my personal opinion that clinicians
have failed and are failing to give teachers the facts of mental hygiene. A
prevalent but dangerous style of thinking is that of rejection of the child and
considering his needs as second to the needs of grown-ups. This may account
for the poor communications. We, in this white man's Anglo-Saxon culture of
ours, do not give the child the significance he deserves. This in itself accounts
for the abundant records not being used or communicated effectively.
To understand the subject of today we need to be aware of the following:
(1) that school enrollments are rising; (2) that facilities are outmoded; (3)
that classes are getting larger; (4) that the teacher supply is lessening; (5) that
there still is continued attention to the average child to the exclusion of the
retarded, delinquent, gifted, or emotionally disturbed child; (6) that there is an
obvious lack of teachers trained in special education.
Other more generic and cultural considerations that we need to be aware of
to cope with our topic are:
1. That there is a gradual and progressive relinquishing of the family's
natural roles. Families are abandoning their instinctual roles to agencies.
Families now expect someone else to refer the child for treatment.
2. That the style of rejection of children contributes to placing more and
more responsibility on the teachers.
3. That education in this culture, being universal and compulsory, places
the teacher in a key position to help the child.
As the emotionally disturbed or socially maladjusted child comes to the
attention of the teacher, there are these important considerations: (1) Each
problem is multifaceted and always there is a multiplicity of etiology.
(2) Each child must be considered from a holistic point of view and yet viewed
in terms of: (a) organic factors such as sensory efficiency, encephalitis, glandu-
477
478 Special Education Department
lar imbalance, malnutrition, etc.; (b) intelligence factors. Example: limited
native endowment, or special intellectual defects; (c) emotional factors.
At this point we need to define these factors. What do we evaluate when we
say we are studying the emotional factors operative in a problem child? It is
the study of the quality of interpersonal relationships from birth on. We need to
know the experiences the child has had with the mother from birth on. Was
there rejection, hatred, over-indulgence or over-fearfulness? To utilize these
definitions we are compelled to understand the "dynamic unconscious." All of
the child's interpersonal experiences at such significant levels or areas as eating,
toileting, dressing, socializing, are a part of his unconscious, and are dynam-
ically operative in the child's present life. Attitudes of hostility, defiance,
rebellion are then interpreted as motivated by or derived from a poor quality
of interpersonal relationship from birth on, not as being caused by one, two,
or even three unfortunate incidents in the child's life. Past experiences sub-
merged in his unconscious are dynamically influencing our present behavior.
There are experiences of specific quality for the character disorders. There are
specific quality experiences for the hostile child, for the delinquent, and even
for the schizophrenic.
The teachers in the classroom may function in two ways as far as therapy
and mental hygiene are concerned:
1. Primary mental hygiene orientation would involve her in setting up a
general psychodynamic program in the classroom and school, aimed at
strengthening ego function. The parents would necessarily be a part of the
program. To develop such, the teacher needs to set up goals — more specific
than goals so often talked about in our schools. She needs to know that the
goal of psychiatry is maturity: a mature person is defined as one who can
cope with the realities, natural and supernatural, most effectively, according
to the child's potential.
2. Secondary mental hygiene involves the teacher in early recognition and
detection of emotional problems or mental illness. This will permit her to do
on-the-spot counseling or referral to the proper agency.
In the main, the cross section of our classrooms is no different than a cross
section of our society. These general groupings can be made: the hostile, the
apathetic, and the fearful.
Our appreciation of the dynamic unconscious will tell us that hostility did not
come by heredity, physical environment, or one or two unhappy experiences.
Knowledge from charts will tell us that this hostility is the acting out of inner
feelings influenced by a certain specific quality of interpersonal relationships,
namely, brutality, hatred, rejection, neglect. A person having submerged such
experiences will be defiant, hostile, truant, will steal, lie, be incorrigible, ungov-
ernable, and so forth.
A fearful, timid, shy, self-conscious, and day-dreaming child (who is too
often overlooked as ill by teachers) is the product of another but specific
quality of early interpersonal relationships. Here, too, we cannot blame heredity
or physical environment but as unconscious feelings of a mother's over-fear-
fulness, over-anxiety, and pathological possessiveness. Here, too, we have
another quality of interpersonal relationship which did not give the child
courage to face realities. Instead, these experiences made him face life as
being full of calamities, pain, hazard, forcing him to withdraw, and, too often,
into the morbid and dread world of schizophrenia. Hostility and fearfulness
in children are major classroom problems.
Resources for problem children are not sufficiently available. Should the
already over-harassed teacher be expected to take care of the referrals?
Impact of Maladjustment on Learning 479
Should the teacher become a psychotherapist? A school psychologist certainly
could be most helpful, firstly by arranging the referral, and secondly, by
making his dynamic records available to the teacher.
The teacher should be imbued with the theory of the dynamic influences of
the unconscious so that the keyword in the therapy becomes meaningful and
effective. The keyword in treatment is empathy. It means putting ourselves
into the child's boots, walking his pathway, seeing his realities through his
eyes. This is how empathy is generally defined, but actually there is more
to it. We must be mindful of the genesis of the child's point of view as
developing in the presence of certain quality of interpersonal relationships.
Hostile children from one set of experiences and the fearful from another
and almost antithetic set of experiences. These experiences, in general, are
insecurity, hatred, neglect, overanxiety and fear. The antidotes to be given
slowly and patiently, are attention, understanding, affection, and security.
These are the main ingredients of the remedy in primary preventive or
secondary preventives of mental illness or social maladjustment.
Allinsmith and Goethals conclude in their book Role of School in Mental
Health, "If anything is to be done about emotional disorders among American
youth . . . then teachers must be called upon to assist. No adequate number
of other personnel will probably ever be available."
The Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health reports "There is a
growing concern with the state of the nation's mental health and an undeniable
awareness that the educational system stands in a unique position to condition
the mental well-being of future generations for the good."
THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONAL-SOCIAL MALADJUSTMENT
ON THE LEARNING PROCESSES OF CHILDREN
Helmut P. Hofmann
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, MERCY COLLEGE, DETROIT
Learning is the essence of the process of becoming human. Through his
ability to learn, man acquires continuously new ways of behavior which enable
him to adapt to, to face, and to challenge the tasks of life. Learning frees
human potentials, spawns action on progressively higher levels, and leads
the human being out of a status nascendi and complete dependence on parents
and other adults to a status liberandi, in which he exercises personal autonomy
and responsibility.
Any phenomenon of life which involves the totality of the person to this
extent must of necessity be complex in nature, and its processes, therefore,
cannot be adequately described with a simple formula. The many facets of
learning have indeed presented a challenging task to research in the behavorial
sciences. Emerging from a sizable body of experimental work, numerous
theories have been proposed which have thrown light on many issues of the
learning processes. They range from predominantly mechanistic S-R-Models
480 Special Education Department
(1) (Thorndike, Hull, Reinforcement-Theory) to Gestalt psychologists' em-
phasis on insight and structure on the part of the learner. They found
expression in Mowrer's (2) bi-f actor drive induction and drive reduction
theory as well as in Lewin's (5) considerations of field and life space factors
and their importance for the learning process. Motivational studies (4) and
clinical evidence of analytically oriented researchers have pointed to the
importance of unconscious components in the learning situation and called
attention to the role of attitudes, emotions, and pre-established sets in the
learner. The rapid developments in programmed learning and some striking
similarities in the functioning of human and computer "brains" have opened
new avenues and fresh approaches for the understanding of the intricate
processes of human learning. Last, not least, startling recent discoveries in
the field of genetics and biochemistry promise spectacular breakthroughs
for a comprehensive theory of learning and of the underlying biological proc-
esses (5). The multiplicity of theories confirms that the term "learning" entails
many meanings. Yet a common denominator can be discovered: "Learning
in its most general sense refers to the process by which experience leads to
change" (6, p. 858).
For the purpose of this discussion the above cited definition will be used.
It implies several axiomatic syndromes which are listed as follows:
1. The key concept for the understanding of the learning processes is the
relationship expressed in the phase "by which experience leads to
change." We cannot conceive of learning without experiences on the
part of the learner. Opportunities for such experiences therefore become
sine qua non conditions for all learning processes.
2. Most theorists speak of learning when observable or measurable change
in behavior has resulted from the exposure to the motivation. While
the general validity of such an approach shall not be disregarded, the
all-inclusiveness of such statements must be critically scrutinized. Many
"hidden" learning processes do, indeed, occur and their presence in the
learner is often evidenced much later in significant situations when
appropriate behavior patterns are elicited. A great amount of learning
in school cannot be readily measured and observed and yet the occur-
rence of such learnings can easily be demonstrated when the adult recalls
"learned" behavior which at the time of the actual learning situation in
school constituted neither a measurable nor an observable change.
3. Any change in behavior affects the total person, or, to use Olson's phrase
"The whole child is learning" (7). It is precisely for this reason that
emotional and social maladjustments have impact and bearing on the
learning process. For those who like to disregard such ideas as modern
slogans, a statement by Plato through the mouth of Charmides may
illustrate the idea of the "wholeness" of persons from the medical view:
"This is the greatest mistake in the treatment of disease that there are
doctors for the body and doctors for the soul when neither one can
be separated from the other. But this is precisely what Greek doctors
overlook and that is why so many diseases escape them. In short they
never see the whole. But it is the whole which should command their
attention, for if the whole is sick it is impossible for any of the parts
to be healthy."
The Learning Processes in the Classroom
Learning as a universal phenomenon occurs at all times and in all situations
Impact of Maladjustment on Learning 481
in which human beings operate. In addition to accidental and daily learning
by living, all civilized nations have created special institutions in which the
young generations are exposed to organized patterns of learning. Learnings
of these kinds are stimulated and guided by the activities and influence
techniques generally referred to as teaching. Teachers, from this point of view,
are responsible for motivating, actuating, and organizing experiences and
situations in which behavioral changes in the direction of desirable goals can
occur. In order to be successful in this enterprise a teacher needs to be con-
cerned with multiple areas of functioning by which a child's learning can be
influenced both favorably or unfavorably. Frandsen (8) recognizes seven
important processes which have bearing on the student's learning:
1. Readiness, including sufficient mental potential and specific talents.
2. Motivation.
3. Opportunities commensurate with or slightly above the student's ma-
turational level.
4. Emotional freedom to learn under conditions favoring confidence and
mental health.
5. Repeated trials, in which most effective patterns of behavior become
established.
6. Clear perception of the effects of new learnings in order to create
fuller understanding of correct solutions and the necessity of revisions
of errors in learning.
7. Application of new learning and the subsequent behavioral changes in
such activities as generalization, organization, and application in the
student's life.
Fortunately, for the great majority of children these processes combine
favorably and create stimulating sets in which learning becomes a delight and
positive attitudes toward schools and teachers are created. In contrast to these
"happy" learners, there is a large group of children in whom specific emotional
and social disturbances interfere persistently with learning. Rabinovitch (6,
857) points at this unfortunate group when he emphasizes: "The commonest
single immediate cause for referral to our guidance clinics today is behavioral,
academic or social difficulty experienced by children in school." From the
background of this disturbing fact, two questions arise:
1. What are inhibiting psychological factors which prevent children from
successful engagement in the major learning processes?
2. What kind of remedies in the form of psychological services are available
to those children which will alleviate some of the learning difficulties?
Inhibiting Psychological Factors
Any list of factors which singly or in combination reduce learning behavior
would swell to phantastic dimensions if completeness and coverage of all
classroom situations were the goal of the endeavor. An eclectic approach will,
therefore, be used stressing those factors and conditions which occur with
higher frequency and for which sufficient research evidence is available. The
following six areas were selected for this discussion:
1. Developmental readi- Learning becomes inhibited if a lack of readi-
ness ness exists for the tasks to be accomplished.
2. Emotional disturbance Learning is reduced by excessive fear, anxiety,
depression, self-denial and self-punishment.
482
Special Education Department
3. Cumulative failure
4. Low intelligence
5. Deprivation and lack of
opportunity
6. Interest and motivation
Learning is thwarted by cumulative failure ex-
periences.
Learning decreases proportionately to decrease
in the level of functional intelligence.
Learning is negatively influenced by lack of
opportunities and suffers from conditions of
prolonged deprivation.
Learning without interest and motivation oper-
ates on inefficient levels.
1. Developmental readiness. Great emphasis has been placed by educators
on the concept of readiness as a prerequisite for successful learning. The
Child Development movement has amply demonstrated the wide differences
in maturational patterns of individual students, and has shown how rigidly
applied standards are detrimental to the students' welfare and mental health.
Longitudinal studies evidence that no methodological tricks can abandon these
differences in students and that the short-circuit solution of pushing them
harder produces negative learning effects. A closer look at students with a
developmental readiness lag reveals the following causative patterns in many
cases:
a) generally delayed maturational pace: these children are called the "slow"
learners.
b) traumatic experiences ranging from brain injuries to shocks, loss of home
or family, and prolonged illness.
c) Deprivation in early childhood. The studies by Spitz (11) throw abundant
light on the deterioration of learning due to a lack of mothering and emo-
tional care.
2. Emotional disturbances. This wide area of learning difficulties has re-
ceived increased attention from teachers and psychologists since almost every
classroom is inhabited by one or several children of this kind. Among the
emotional causes for maladjustment in learning the following are most preva-
lent:
a) Insecurity
b) Inferiority
c) Hostility and ag-
gression
d) Guilt feelings and
feelings of self-
punishment
<?) Rejection by
adults or children
Insecure children do not learn well, one reason being
their fear to change to new behavior patterns.
Children with strong feelings of inferiority are shy
in the competitive climate that persists in most group
situations.
Children who are loaded with these feelings find it
extremely difficult to subject themselves to the disci-
pline of the learning process.
Such children are deprived of the spontaneity of
behavior which forms a substantial basis for all
learning. The self-punishing child lacks in ego-
strength, since he cannot conceive of himself as val-
uable for what it is.
Children's whose needs for belonging somewhere
are not met usually do not learn at their maximum
capacity. A feeling of being "at home" in a class-
room supports the case and relaxation from which
concentration and attention on the subject can be
expected.
Impact of Maladjustment on Learning 483
3. Cumulative failure. Statistics of dropouts, juvenile delinquents, and chil-
dren who have gotten in conflict with the law speak a clear enough language
for the negative effects of cumulative failure on learning toward desirable goals.
There is yet to be produced a sound and verifiable research study which would
prove that the failing of students contributes to their further learning. The
evidence in the other direction is overwhelming and no "get tough attitude"
with children can change these facts — however stubborn they may be for some
people.
4. Low intelligence. It is often overlooked that low intelligence is not only
a limiting factor for all academic learnings, but that it also reduces the total
adjustment of human beings to life situations. This unfortunate phenomenon
can be so clearly observed today when the bulk of unskilled workers (95 per
cent of which are of low -normal intelligence) find it almost impossible to adapt
themselves to a world rapidly advancing in automation. In the classroom these
children frequently find themselves in losing positions from first grade on since
they cannot jump the often vicious circle — low intelligence, failure, lowered
response to learning, renewed failure, no appreciable gain in intelligence.
5. Deprivation and lack of opportunity. The recent publication by Conant
Slums and Suburbs (9) has pointed to this vital issue and learning in schools.
Further evidence for the negative influence of deprivation on children is pre-
sented by Allison Davis (10) and his coworkers from the University of Chi-
cago, who have convincingly demonstrated how lack of opportunity and de-
prived socioeconomic conditions combine to be a powerful deterrent for
learning. Opportunities for individual unfolding and learning are constantly
thwarted when administrative circumstances force the herding of 50 or more
children into one classroom. The French psychologist Le Bon expressed the
consequences of such action distinctly when he wrote half a century ago,
"Whenever 30 or more people are put together in a group, the laws of mass-
psychology take over." One can only add: Learning rarely occurs in masses.
6. Interest and motivation. Shakespeare has epitomized the essence of this
phenomenon and its influence on learning when he says in the Taming of the
Shrew "No profit grows where is no pleasure taken, in brief, sir, study what
you most affect." Indeed, little profit of learning results when the learner's
interest and motivation are not directed toward goals which teachers and
society consider important. Rabinovitch (6) shows how conditions of the time
very often cause negative motivation toward study and learning, when he says:
At a time when expediency is at a premium, when affluence is more prized
than integrity and when the headlines are more gruesome than the comic
books, it is not surprising that many children are having difficulty in finding
motivation for hard work and devotion. The major crisis in education today
is to find ways to offer children personal relationships and community values
that will generate at least some intrinsic motivation for learning for the sake
of the too oft-forgotten inner life.
Stimulating interest and providing for sustained motivation is a major task
of every conscientious classroom teacher who has recognized the operational
importance of these factors in the learning processes of students. The identi-
fication of all these numerous conditions and psychological factors which can
inhibit learning will perhaps cause many a teacher to be overwhelmed by the
possibilities of things that can go wrong in her classroom. Fortunately in
many of the described situations she can master ample resources of her own
by which she can at least alleviate some of the "here and now" factors in the
classroom. In addition, an ever increasing number of psychological agencies,
484 Special Education Department
child guidance clinics, psychiatric centers, social service units, and other com-
munity resources can help her carry her load. The last part of this paper deals
with some of the psycho-educational therapies and other psychological services
which are at present available in communities.
Psychological Services Which Can Help
Teachers and Students in School Learning
The first service psychologists can render to teachers who refer students
for examination is a thorough psychometric evaluation of the child. The re-
sults of such a procedure do not produce a panacea for all educational problems
but they enable the competent teacher to vary her approaches according to
the revealed facts. The knowledge that a particular child may have a dis-
crepancy of 30 or more points between his Wechsler Verbal or Non-Verbal
Scale will indicate to her that more potential is available than performance in
language studies would reveal. It might also suggest that such a child's verbal
deprivation should become the specific target of instructional efforts in order
to alleviate some of his intellectual problems.
A more elaborate approach is needed to discover and pinpoint personality
disorders which inhibit learning. Various techniques are used for the evalu-
ation of such cases, such as Rorschach Test TAT, Bender-Gestalt Test, World
Test, and others. The observations during such testing situations, combined
with the careful evaluation of the results, provide the psychologist or psy-
chiatrist with a broad sample of facts from which he can recommend educa-
tional practices to teachers.
Playing in the form of play-therapy is used by a great number of child
guidance clinics to free a youngster from emotional blocks to which he is
unconsciously subjected. In all these efforts, communication between parents,
psychologists, teachers, and children is of utmost importance, since only a
united team achieves lasting therapeutic success.
In all cases where a psychological examination or treatment leads to a
suspicion of underlying neurological disorders, a thorough psychiatric and
neurological evaluation is called for. This is especially true also for the group
of mentally ill children, who as psychotics cannot remain in normal class-
rooms. School programs such as the Lafayette Clinic in Detroit and the
Hawthorne Center have developed promising help for such cases.
Perhaps a word from the philosopher Spinoza can encourage all who are
troubled and worried about the disturbing multitude of learning inhibitors
which work on children. He recommends that we use reason whenever our
emotions suffer: "Affectus qui passio est desinit esse passio simulatque eius
claram et distinctam formamus ideam" (Emotion which is suffering ceases to
be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it).
References in Text
1. Hilgard, E. R. Theories of Learning. New York: Appleton-Century-
Crofts, 1956.
2. Mowrer, O. H. "Learning Theory and the Neurotic Paradox," American
Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 18:571, 1948.
3. Lewin, Kurt. Field Theory in Social Science. New York: Harper & Bros.,
1951.
Mental Hygiene in the Classroom 485
4. Bindra, Dalbir. Motivation, A Systematic Reinterpretation. New York:
Ronald Press, 1959.
5. Gerard, Ralph. "The Biological Basis of Learning," Scientific Monthly
(1946), 62, 489-98.
6. Rabinovitch, Ralph. "Reading and Learning Disabilities," American
Handbook of Psychiatry, ed. Silvano Arieti, M.D. New York: Basic
Books, 1959.
7. Olson, Willard. Child Development. Boston: Heath, 1959.
8. Frandsen, Arden N. Educational Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1961.
9. Conant, James B. Slums and Suburbs. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.
10. Davis, Allison. "American Status Systems and the Socialization of the
Child," in Personality in Nature, Society, and Culture, ed. by Clyde K.
Kluckhohn and Henry A. Murray. New York: Knopf, 1948; rev. 1953.
11. Spitz, R. A. "Hospitalism," The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Ruth
S. Eissler et al., Vol. I. New York: International Universities Presses,
1946.
MENTAL HYGIENE IN THE CLASSROOM
(Summary)
Sister M. of St. Benno, R.G.S.
PRINCIPAL, VISTA MARIA SCHOOL, DETROIT, MICHIGAN
Emotionally disturbed children can be therapeutically handled in a wide
range of school settings. The majority of them can be treated in community
clinics while attending a regular school class, most of them without separation
from their own homes. Some may need foster-home or benign institutional
placement during treatment.
Children who are having difficulty in personal and social adjustment within
the regular school setting may have their needs met through individualized
services. Special classes take care of children who cannot adapt in the regular
large groups. Specially programmed private schools offer education for chil-
dren who are able to remain at home but cannot do well in an ordinary
community school.
There are other children whose emotional problems are so intense and
pervasive that temporary separation for treatment is necessary. For these,
there are the multi-discipline programs of total -treatment centers, which may
include some or all of the following: psychiatry, pediatrics, social casework,
psychology, recreation, nursing, occupational therapy, remedial language
therapy, and special education. The needs of the potential or active norm-
violating juvenile, who is often also a disturbed child, are met through reedu-
cation centers which offer therapy and schooling in a closed environment.
486 Special Education Department
Special educational facilities for emotionally disturbed children are related
to certain basic principles.
1) It is important that all children, including the emotionally disturbed,
attend school regularly.
2) A good school program for disturbed children fulfills its appropriate role
in the treatment life of the child.
3) It is good mental hygiene to help these pupils develop positive attitudes
toward learning.
4) The special education program must appeal to the disturbed youngster
mainly through individualization and remediation.
5) The school may properly point out to each child his own assets and
limitations that he may have a healthy concept of himself and his en-
vironment.
6) The daily school program should offer each child opportunities for
success and approval.
7) Education of the emotionally and socially maladjusted must produce
changes in each child's behavior patterns, initially from without, even-
tually from within himself.
8) Social, moral, and religious training must be part of the whole school
atmosphere, so that true ideals and sound principles of conduct may
be developed.
9) Every child must be accepted and helped as a worthy individual.
10) Only those teachers who have appropriate professional and personal
qualifications should work with disturbed children.
In practice, these principles affect the various details of school and classroom
management, creating a healthy emotional atmosphere in which each child
can be helped to make a wholesome adjustment to life and its problems.
THE IMPORTANCE OF MUSIC READING
FOR THE BLIND CHILD
Sister Mary Mark, I.H.M.
IMMACULATE HEART COLLEGE, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
The chairman of the Music Education Research Council has stated: "The
plain fact is that music is not a research discipline, in the sense that the various
natural and social sciences are; music education is essentially a practice . . ."
And, as a practice, the teaching of music reading as a specific part of music
education has been discussed by authorities in the field.
Pace has set the tone for a discussion on the importance of music reading
by stating: "Literacy and competence can never diminish pleasure. On the
contrary, they increase it through greater understanding and appreciation."
Holtgreve said: "We must bear in mind that the purpose for teaching boys
and girls to read music is the same as that for teaching them to read words —
Music Reading for the Blind Child 487
to enable them to enjoy the literature that is their heritage."
"If music is taught fully," stated Nye and Nye, "learning to read music
notation is an integral part of it . . . Failure to gain reasonable skill in reading
music bars children from important growth — social and cultural as well as
musical."
Thus, though important for the sighted child, the learning of music reading
is of much more importance for the blind child whose developmental
needs require a more complete participation in music. The blind child will
learn to read his music in Braille. Mursell, in discussing music reading in
general, has said of Braille music, "The great and central difficulty is that the
Braille notation does not yield any kind of direct musical symbolism. The
musical patterns are not directly represented, but only indirectly conveyed.
This makes it difficult to read, and difficult to remember."
How then will we teach a subject which is of much value, and, at the same
time, unwieldy and difficult? The primary factors involved in successful teach-
ing of music in Braille are a thorough preparation of the child for reading, a
judicious choice of a time to introduce the notation system, and a method of
instruction which will be at least the equivalent of the many beginning piano
series for sighted children.
A cumbersome, horizontal system of symbols with its own terminology,
Braille notation can too easily be introduced without a readiness program or
taught as a series of drill exercises. With a logical and imaginative teaching
approach, however, Braille notation can be made attractive to the child.
Just as with any other subject, a readiness program for music reading is
important to the learning process. Such a program, presented through both
group and individual instruction, should so thoroughly prepare the child for
reading that he need only learn the symbols for what he already knows. Im-
portant for the sighted child, a readiness program is much more so for
the blind child, who has the added complexity of learning music symbols which
also will have a literary meaning.
A comprehensive readiness program for Braille music reading will include
Braille notation terminology, the theory necessary for music reading, memory
training, and fundamentals of the piano. The understanding of the elements
of theory essential to Braille music reading, such as intervals, rhythmic values,
and key signatures, can be combined successfully with ear-training and mem-
ory-training games. Emphasis can be given to improvement of relaxation and
coordination at the keyboard and to the development of rote memory, which
directly affects the successful learning of Braille music notation.
As valuable as a rote-readiness period is, care must be taken not to delay
unnecessarily the introduction of music reading. The child may become too
dependent upon rote learning, or there may be too great a discrepancy between
his pianistic ability and the level of beginning Braille music.
At this time consideration may be given to interesting methods of presenting
notation. One can obtain Braille copies of various beginning piano books;
but these may be unsuitable for several reasons. Print music books for chil-
dren are made more interesting by the inclusion of literary material (directions
for playing, stories about the composer, et cetera). This can be confusing
to the blind child who cannot so immediately distinguish between music and
words. Similarly, the blind child cannot skim over the Braille characters he
does not yet understand but must read each one. Therefore, music symbols
should be as few as possible at first. Most important, the manner of presen-
tation of music reading in the available teaching methods is necessarily closely
488 Special Education Department
related to our system of print notation, which differs radically from Braille
notation.
What the blind child needs first, rather than Braille copies of beginning
methods intended for sighted children, are attractive short pieces which present
the Braille music symbols gradually and logically. Whether composed by the
teacher or selected from published materials, these pieces should be for one
hand at a time, without unessential literary material on the page.
The child should be able to locate the music symbols easily and quickly,
and transfer what he is reading to a musical sound. He should be encouraged
to learn his music in several ways: by singing as he reads, by reading with one
hand and playing with the other, and by memorizing silently away from the
piano before playing.
Music for two hands should be introduced without too much delay. The
difficulty of the piece will determine whether it is more easily learned a few
measures at a time, or according to phrases or larger sections. The notation
is so cumbersome, and accurate reading and memorizing is so essential, that
it seems pointless to insist on the child's following any one learning process.
The best equipment the teacher can give the child in the matter of learning
Braille music is an understanding of music construction. The blind child, to
whom the elements of harmony and form are second nature, can read and
memorize quickly and effectively. He has been given the key to success for
his entire musical life by intelligent guidance in the process of understanding
Braille music notation.
MUSIC FOR THE BLIND CHILD
Lenore McGuire
immaculate heart college, los angeles, california
The exceptional child has been variously defined in the literature according
to needs, both physical and emotional, according to his place in a competitive
society, and according to the measurement of attitudes toward the particular
handicap.
Langan defined the exceptional child as "one who is basically handicapped
in his social relationships with others as a secondary result of a physical
handicap." General adjustment studies of handicapped children have, in gen-
eral, delineated motivating behavioral factors.
Cruickshank stated: "There is an important influence exerted on motivation
of children by the occurrence of a physical disability." Of particular impor-
tance to our consideration of the handicapped child was Cruickshank's ob-
servation of the child as having a basic need to "conceive of himself as equal
to his normal peers." He further stated: "Upon being realistic the handicapped
child realizes his physical inadequacies. The reality of the situation coupled
with his concept of comparison on a physical basis serves in combination to
create an unsolvable conflict situation."
Music for the Blind Child 489
The sensory deprivation of total blindness, severe as a physical handicap,
is equally as debilitating from a behavioral point of view. Loutitt stated: "Of
all the senses, two — vision and audition — are of probably greater significance
in adjustment than any of the others." Thus, we may see that social behavior
patterns, educational achievement, and vocational adjustment may all be in-
fluenced by defective vision.
In classifying abnormalities observed in studies of the blind, Cutsforth has
offered insight into the psychological effects of blindness. Phantasies observed
in studies of the blind may be classified with three categories:
1) those in which the individual eradicates the source of social annoyance;
2) those in which the individual attains marked superiority or security;
3) those in which the individual withdraws from the active situation in a
surrender to a simple, regressive preoccupation, largely emotional in nature."
Anastasi stated that "the daydreaming frequently encountered among those
with serious visual handicaps is no doubt closely related to their inability to
participate freely in many social activities." Barker found that the depriva-
tions of blindness are perceived primarily in terms of their physical-social
meanings.
The preponderance of research which concerns the effects of limited ex-
perience and activity on the general development of the blind child is found
in the area of motor development and in changes of intelligence quotient
scores. In studying the motor performance of the visually handicapped child,
Buell measured the gross motor performance of blind and partially seeing
children. He found that on all levels of the Iowa Brace Test the scores of the
visually handicapped fell far below those of seeing children. The weakness
seemed to be general rather than specific.
Komisar and MacDonnell studied the effects of limited experience, prior
to the beginning of school, on the Binet and other standardized measures of
intelligence, and the differences which occur in retesting as experience broad-
ens. There was found to be an average gain of 6.3 intelligence quotient points
for groups tested at least four years after their admission to the school. The
investigators concluded that changes in intelligence quotient scores may proba-
bly indicate that initial retardation is brought about by inadequate contacts
with environment. It was further concluded that an enriched program which
would meet experiential needs would make it possible for blind children to
utilize more fully previously undeveloped capacities.
Music as an Influence on Behavior
We have surveyed some of the literature concerning the psychological
adjustment and effects of limited experience of the handicapped child in gen-
eral, and of the blind child in particular. Let us now examine music as a
source of influence on human behavior in general, and, in particular, as a
major art form through which the blind child may express himself. Taylor
and Paperte have stated: "Music cannot be separated from perceptual, sym-
bolic, and personal processes — particularly emotional and physiologic, if one
is to understand how music induces and modifies human behavior. Musical
experience emerges from these processes. Music cannot be studied as an
isolated phenomenon, but involves all processes simultaneously. Also, there
is the growing realization that music is not merely related to pleasure, relaxa-
tion, and leisure but is a fundamental force which can be instrumental in
stimulating personal and social growth."
The values of music as a behavioral influence have been set forth in the
490 Special Education Department
literature. Masserman stated: "Listening to music ... in a purely physiological
sense — is equivalent to being exposed to a great multitude of sensory stimuli
. . ." Taylor and Paperte found the "similarity between harmony and musical
development and integration are more than apparent." Studer placed music
in a "linguistic framework involving the expression and crystallization of
personal experience in musical form." Ramana has shown how music can
function to neutralize unconscious anxiety and then express it in disguised
symbolic form. Masserman viewed the symbolic role of music as expressing
deep personal needs for beauty and harmony, or of an equilibrium which the
individual may not be experiencing in his daily life. According to Taylor and
Paperte, the proper use of music can be of inestimable value in reducing
personal and interpersonal discomforts. "At more elaborate levels of inter-
action," says Masserman, "music can be combined with every other potent
influence at our command to restore man to a happier and more productive
role in his own social milieu."
Masserman notes that sound is one of the few senses which the individual
can neither exclude nor escape from with ease . . . and the particular modalities
of sound we call music contain, despite the wide range of cultural variations,
the nucleus of a universal language understood by all of mankind. This renders
our tool all the more penetrating and pervasive; how then, he asks, shall we
wield it? When we consider music as a form of social empathy, as a potent
influence in restoring the person to a more productive role in his own social
milieu, as a lexicon of communication, as a powerful sensory and psychological
stimulus, how, indeed, shall we wield it? In particular, how shall we wield
it in the education of a child who has developmental needs arising from a
physical handicap? How shall we wield it in the education of the blind child?
We pose these several questions.
How do we approach a music program which both meets the blind child's
particular needs and takes full advantage of an art form which is deeply in-
volved in perceptual, symbolic, and personal processes? How can this potent
influence of music be used most successfully with a child who has such potent
needs? How can music as a force for stimulating personal and social growth
be used most successfully with a child who is inclined to use music as a sub-
stitute for experience and activity?
The tool of music must be carefully wielded. To the blind child the world
of sound is an all-absorbing phenomenon which constantly challenges the mind
for identification and imitation. Anyone who has worked with blind children
has observed their intense preoccupation with sound, their undivided attention
and response to the sounds of music. It would follow, then, that the "penetrat-
ing and pervasive" tool of music, of which Masserman speaks, may be all the
more so with the child whose sensory reactions are not divided between the
visual and the auditory, the child who is able to give himself completely to
audition.
Active participation in music appears to be the answer for the blind child
to partake fully of the wealth of music and yet meet the needs arising from
his handicap. Active participation in music will allow the child freedom for
psychological and sensory stimulation, for experiencing equilibrium, and for
social, intellectual, and physical development, and yet restrain him from
passivity of mind, from substitution of activity and experience. Perhaps we
may find one answer in examining the tools of music education, in particular,
one which permits the utmost participation in music, and yet is greatly neg-
lected in the education of the blind child, that of teaching the child to read
music in Braille.
Proceedings: Officers 1962-63 491
PROCEEDINGS
SPECIAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT: OFFICERS 1962-63
President: Rev. Daniel Kirwin, Wheeling, W.Va.
Vice President: Rt. Rev. Msgr. Sylvester J. Holbel, Buffalo, N.Y.
Secretary: Sister Serena, New York, N.Y.
General Executive Board:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Felix Newton Pitt, Louisville, Ky.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. James E. Hoflich, St. Louis, Mo.
Department Executive Committee:
Ex officio Members:
The President, Vice President, and Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Felix Newton Pitt, Louisville, Ky.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. James E. Hoflich, St. Louis, Mo.
Very Rev. Msgr. Elmer H. Behrmann, St. Louis, Mo., Associate Secretary
General Members:
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Henry C. Bezou, New Orleans, La.
Sister Joseph Mary, S.N.D., Washington, D.C.
Rev. Thomas J. O'Brien, Kansas City, Mo.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. John J. Voight, New York, N.Y.
Rev. Francis R. LoBianco, Newark, N.J.
Sister Celine, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Sister Ann Columba, Jamaica, N.Y.
PART 10 SECTION MEETINGS
VOCATION SECTION
THE CHALLENGE OF GOD'S CALL TO OUR YOUTH
Most Rev. Alexander M. Zaleski
AUXILIARY BISHOP OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN
We are all familiar with St. Paul's frequent preoccupation with the mystery
of salvation, God's grand design to bring all things to Himself through His
own son made man. St. Paul speaks of it as God's great secret progressively
revealed in the course of human history to the patriarchs and the prophets and
finally in the fullness of time announced to all men by His divine Son, Jesus
Christ. In Him, however, it is more — not only a much clearer revelation of
what the plan of God is but the beginning of the execution of the plan of
salvation — the renewing of all creation.
This, however, is not the full revelation of the mystery. Part of it remains
to some degree still hidden. This hidden part is not only the full understanding
of God's love and mercy, the Incarnation and suffering of Our Lord, but also
the role that God has assigned to man himself in the grand design of salvation.
For to men also, those called to membership in the Body of Christ, a role is
assigned to supply those things that are lacking in Christ. The totality of God's
plan of salvation includes not only the coming of the Savior but also the
Church as the herald of God's message and the instrument through which
God renders salvation. Baffling to our human reason which seeks a pat answer,
we find God seeking man's cooperation to achieve even divine results in the
world. Here is God's challenge to man. Because all of us here have responded,
however feebly and imperfectly to God's invitation, we dare to probe our own
experience in this session in an effort to examine "the challenge of God's call
to our youth" to carry on the work of announcing to all men God's mystery
of love and salvation.
Obviously, when we pause to listen to the voices coming from every corner
of the globe lamenting the need for priests, religious, and dedicated lay people
to carry on God's work in the world, we cannot but feel humble in the face
of our failure to present the challenge of God's call in a way that would elicit
a more generous response of our youth.
In our very praiseworthy eagerness to promote vocations we have tried to
emphasize the attractiveness of religious life and the priesthood. Of course,
in dealing with human beings, it is good psychology to make our objective a
pleasing one, but in this area we can exaggerate and present a shallow concept
of the truth. If we are to learn from God's own way of inviting men to fol-
low him, we should examine God's manner of drawing men. Certainly, all
492
Challenge of God's Call to Our Youth 493
was not attractive in God's call to Abraham to leave his country and his
father's house, to Moses who found a ready objection; "who am I that I should
go to the Pharaoh." Isaiah's reaction to the vision of God is "Woe is me," and
we remember Jeremiah's stammering response. We can recall our Lord's
simple and unpretentious invitation to his apostles "Come follow me." Ob-
viously there was nothing humanly attractive in the life of a wandering
teacher, poor and having no home. Whence the response to this call? Of
course the movement of God's grace is present, acting on the mind and will
of the one to whom the call is directed. But beyond that there is a vision
and promise of something noble to be achieved, of being associated with God
in the work of saving souls: "I will make you fishers of men. . . . And straight-
way they left their boat and their father and followed him."
The truth of the matter is that we will not attract our young people to God's
work by emphasizing the beauty of a vocation on the natural level but by
presenting it as a cooperation with God on the supernatural plane of removing
sin and bringing grace to the hearts of men.
Another important consideration and a consoling one that should be under-
scored is that God's call to us is initiated by God and not by ourselves. "You
have not chosen Me but I have chosen you." As in the case of St. Paul, it is
God who sets aside his elect "from the womb of his mother." Because it is
God's free gift, the person who is giving serious thought to an answer to God's
call need not be unduly occupied with his lack of perfection or talent. The
response should be one of grateful humility and deep reverence expressed in
prayer. Vocations, as all of God's gifts, come in answer to such prayer. Such
was the attitude inculcated by Our Lord Himself before choosing the twelve.
This was exactly what the early Church did before selecting one to take the
place of Judas, in choosing the first deacons and sending forth the first mis-
sionaries to announce the good news — Barnabas and Saul.
Perhaps the most attractive feature of God's challenge to our youth is that
in His infinite mercy He has made himself dependent on human beings to
bring to fruition His grand design to bring salvation to all men. Man had
nothing to do with formulating God's plan nor with the content of the great
mystery of salvation through Christ, but God asks men to participate in the
execution of this plan expressed in his desire "that all men be saved and come
to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2,4). Christ, the son of God made
man, is a historical fact. He brought us the message of reconciliation from
His Father and paid the price of our salvation. Yet, it is also a fact that he
committed the continuation of his work to the Church and gave to men the
assignment of saving men and bringing them to the knowledge of the truth.
It is in this area, I believe, that we can expect the most generous response
of our youth to God's challenge. If we are able to show them the great dignity
of being chosen to work with God on the supernatural level, if we are able
to point out that God has made himself dependent on them to have his word
of life announced to all men, if they can see themselves as God's chosen
instruments of the grace of salvation, if, finally, we heed Christ's injunction
to pray the heavenly Father to send laborers into his vineyard, I am sure that
we will be taking the most effective steps to meet the crying need of today —
more young men and women dedicated to the mission of the Church in a
troubled world. Here is God's greatest challenge — God's need for men to
achieve divine results.
THE IMPACT OF THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
ON THE VOCATIONAL APOSTOLATE
Most Rev. Nicholas T. Elko
APOSTOLIC EXARCH, BYZANTINE RITE, EXARCHATE OF PITTSBURGH
The Ecumenical Council will arouse educators to positive action. Bishops
from all corners of the world will be present at this one central universal
forum to deal with the challenging problems that face the Church. The plead-
ing need for vocations will have a priority. Complacent Catholics will be
challenged to join the Apostolate for Vocations. Those in an educational field
must show the way to others. The battle for the minds of men has long been
on, and the Church in some areas has been losing this battle and the anti-
Christian groups claim they have been winning it. In a world where Christ
nearly two thousand years ago predicted that there would be one shepherd and
one flock there is now only 18 per cent Catholic. We have failed in a sustain-
ing apostolate.
Countries formerly 90 to 100 per cent Catholic might bewail the condition
in the words of St. Augustine: "too late have I loved you, O Eternal Beauty!"
Too late in these countries have the faithful come to understand the obligation
of sustaining the call to the priesthood and to the religious life. Since social-
istic errors have encompassed so much of Catholic thought in South America,
the anti-Christian forces are loudly proclaiming the exit of the Church from
the active life of those baptized in the Church.
In France, dioceses have actually closed seminaries for lack of students,
and this, if you please, is in a country that in the past produced more saints
than any other. There are areas in this country in which a new church has
not been built for over two hundred years. In a country like Czechoslovakia,
which was once 93 per cent Catholic, the Byzantine Rite has been outlawed.
The priests that remained loyal to the Church have gone underground, and
as in the days of the catacombs offer up Mass secretly.
Just this side of the iron curtain, an official from a Communist legation
said "hello" to an American bishop: "This is Sunday, and believe it or not, I
was at Mass. Do not ask me my name; for I could never go to Mass in my
own country, neither can my wife nor children." The bishop inquired, "Why
is your country persecuting priests, why don't you have them?" He replied,
"We never worried about getting priests."
Catholics who never worried about future priests and religious are late in
acknowledging the eternal beauty of the Catholic Church. At the Ecumenical
Council every bishop will be able to report two things: (1) the attacks made
on the Church, and (2) the lack of priests and religious. They will return
to their country confirmed in the fact that the attacks on the Church must be
counteracted with firmness. The former age of conciliation and concession
will definitely be in the past. This century will be awakened to the fact as
St. Joan of Arc said, "We must do battle before God gives a victory."
In some countries where anti-Christians have been firmly entrenched, there
are already groups of educators planning counteraction. Small, secret but
determined, they plan to reestablish the Church in the position that it origi-
nally had — giving the light of instruction to souls. In one area, well known
to us, a group of intellectuals for more than five years have embarked on a
494
Impact . . . on the Vocational Apostolate 495
program "to defend the Church." They achieved little or no success. So they
reconvened and said the Church doesn't need defense because it is eternal.
Their second plateau of approach has been "Let's exalt the Church, let us
indicate how much it has done, and that no one will be able to destroy it, not
even the gates of hell." This program failed, too! It was presumptive. Minds
of men cannot be won where good will is not involved; where they fail to be
a part of progress.
Finally, this patient group of experimenters said, "If our first method of
exalting the Church was not effective, then what must be done to continue our
apostolate? Bravely an inspired member of the group said, "All the Church
needs is to be explained. The Deposit of Faith is there. All we have to do is
what Christ reminded us to do: teach!" This, indeed is the method. Do not
expect the Ecumenical Council to change the dogmatic beliefs that have bound
Catholics for centuries. Rather, expect the Council to bind us to a greater
and more zealous apostolate in spreading these truths. Now how else can this
possibly be done? Unless today's perplexed world can be lifted up to a definite
certitude about Christian teachings, the Council will prove that the passage
of time has not changed the truth. What was good and pronounced good by
Christ is good and is pronounced as good by the Vicar of Christ in our time.
Just as the first Pope, St. Peter, expressed in his First Epistle: "The Word
of the Lord endures forever." So, Pope John, the 263rd pope, reechoes the
same words.
In a world where some educators have been wavering Pilates, they must
become firm and uncompromising. They must echo an assurance, and a
spiritual security to those who hunger for it. There must be a foundation of
incontestable truth. If Communist teachers have successfully affected nearly
two-thirds of the population of the entire world with falsehood, surely Christ's
teachers can recapture the minds of people with the truths of Christ. The
teachings of the Church are strong enough to combat atheism. A united
militancy will have to characterize those within the Council. May I refer you
to the first Ecumenical Council in the year 325. At that time the ever-popular
Bishop of the East, St. Nicholas, found it proper to even physically raise his
hand and slap just one dissenting heretic, Arius, who could not be convinced
of the unchangeable teaching of Christ. We do not expect pugilistics at this
Council, but we believe that the descendants of the apostles, of the bishops,
will stand firmly with two feet anchored on the truths that Christ taught. This
united and firm stance, in itself, will be a figurative slap at those who, as Arius,
would compromise the integrity of Christ's teachings: "Teaching them to ob-
serve all that I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:20).
Christ needs our sincere apostolate. We can best participate in the Ecu-
menical Movement by moving others to vocations; by moving them to a sin-
cerity of purpose. We must inspire others to appreciate the fountain of re-
freshment for the soul that is found only in the Catholic Church. In so many
countries the formality of religion rather than the sincerity of faith has brought
on the anti-Christian attacks and the lack of vocations. Some who might have
been drawn to serve Christ were not attracted by the true devotion of those
who taught them. Do you recall the first time that you recited the catechism
so glowingly before embarrassed adult Catholics who had forgotten it? Your
honest and simple fervor took the mask off the people who were only using that
part of their facial expression that pleased them. Unfortunately, all over the
world many are wearing masks. Many try to cover up the truth that they failed
to live by. Divorcees, former Catholics, agnostics, remind us of the ancient
dramas, when the actor in the play never came on the stage unless he wore a
496 Vocation Section
mask. The audience in the crowd never cared what was under the mask, except
that the actors played their part. Those days are gone! Today the delinquent
youth, the neglectful parent, the affected Christian must be unmasked! Lip-
service Catholics will no longer be acceptable. Why? Because the audience
in Heaven disapproves: the Holy Trinity, in whose name we make the sign of
the cross; the Blessed Mother whom we ask to be our intercessor; the guardian
angels; the saints whose names we carry. All of these are part of the Mystical
Body of the Church. And thunderingly they echo to our century: "If you are
not with Christ, you are against Him." How do we dare to say that we are fit
members of the Mystical Body of Christ if we do not live a life that fits His
teaching. Those in Heaven want to know what is under the mask.
Herein lies our assignment. We must have a zealous apostolate for voca-
tions. We need candidates who will assume the office of teachers and priests
that Christ has reserved for them. They must be as dedicated and militant as
Christ and His apostles were twenty centuries ago. We, together with them,
must point out false teachers. We must be courageous, for even a Maccabean
courage may be demanded of us: to denounce the coming anti-Christ and
show by positive action that we can lead people to God as effectively as others
are leading them away from God.
SISTER FORMATION IDEAL AND INTERVIEWING
THE CANDIDATE
(Summary)
Sister Miriam Therese, M.M.
DEAN, MARYKNOLL TEACHERS COLLEGE, MARYKNOLL, NEW YORK
First of all, a sister must be real. She is very much a human person and
remains so all her days. She is also a woman who lives, loves, and serves in
the ways of women since the beginning of time. This requires balance; it im-
plies maturity; it demands love because, without genuine love, no woman is
ever truly herself. It adds up to wholeness — to fulfillment in ever deeper, wider
and higher scope, to the complete person, living freely within the framework
of her nature and her environment; at home with God, secure in His love,
happy and at peace in doing His Will.
There are some contributing factors on which depend to a large measure
the steady growth of our sisters. These run the entire gamut of life — from
interesting and interviewing the candidate to the complete formation of our
sisters and the day-by-day ascent to God. How essential it is that the inter-
view be a two-way process in which both sister and girl communicate one to
the other exactly what each is trying to learn! It should also be clearly obvious
to the girl that the primary intent of the sister-interviewer is to help her dis-
cover God's Will and that she is not dominated by the thought of community
need.
Clarification of the Brother Vocation 497
The psychological assessment of candidates calls for the statement of certain
principles concerning the validity and contribution of these tests; the proper
interpretation of results and the responsibilities accepted by the community
in initiating such a program.
The field of formation encompasses the entire life of the religious. Begin-
ning in the postulate, each of these potential sisters needs to be treated as an
individual and loved as a person. Our training must be geared to her nature
as a human being, a woman, above all, as a whole person. The important
area of motivations should be explored in order that she discover the spurs
which initiate actions and to enable her to help herself to a true inner motiva-
tion.
I would suggest the positive teaching of the vows as true liberating forces
which bring the sister to complete fulfillment, as well as the acceptance of
the precious gift of suffering in union with the Master. All this reiterates the
wonder of the Magnificat — that God deigns to notice His lowly handmaid
and, using her human nature, works strongly and joyously for His Glory.
CLARIFICATION OF THE BROTHER VOCATION
Rev. Quentin Hakenewerth, S.M.
DON BOSCO HIGH SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN
The fact that the brother's vocation is not entirely clear to many of us is
perhaps one of the best indications of its greatness. In some minds, the brother's
vocation is confused somewhat with that of the priest. These people can't
understand why the brother didn't "go all the way." For them, he has what
the priest has up to a certain point, and they think it is a shame that he stopped
where he did. But others consider the brother very much like any other layman
— only he doesn't get married and prays more.
This natural tendency to unite the brother's vocation with both that of the
priest and that of the ordinary layman is really a strong indication of its im-
portance. Such a natural tendency to fusion with both is possible only because
the brother's vocation is the religious perfection of the layman's life and the
apostolic complement of the priesthood. The brother, by his very vocation,
belongs close to the layman and close to the priest.
But when we want to clarify an issue, we try to separate it from other ideas
with which it tends to fuse. So if we isolate the brother's vocation a bit today,
it is only to try to see it in its full purity. It is not because his vocation
is so easily isolated in reality. Some of the comparisons that we will use will
be just a bit over-simplified for the same reason.
It is important that we look at the brother today with the eyes of Christ.
Our Divine Savior looks at the world and sees His Mystical Body. He looks
on a confused mass of people and His Sacred Heart cries out for unity. All
over this globe of ours Christ is fighting for life — for His own life in souls —
struggling to grow in them and become fully mature as one Body. Every
498 Vocation Section
vocation that is given by God is given for this one reason: to help Christ be
born in men, to grow in them, to become fully mature in them. To see the
true meaning of any vocation, we must see the needs of Christ in His Mystical
Body. Vocations follow these needs. In this sense, a vocation is not what one
likes to do or chooses to do but rather what has to be done. We are not speak-
ing of the brother this afternoon simply because we feel that he deserves recog-
nition, or that he has a beautiful vocation. We are speaking about him because
the Mystical Body needs him. When we fail to recognize the brother for what
he really is, Christ is hindered in His Mystical Body.
Christ left to men the tremendous responsibility for the welfare and growth
of His Mystical Body. He left in His church His truth and His life, and with
these precious gifts He left two important tasks: (1) to teach His truth, and
(2) to live and to communicate His life. These are the needs of the Mystical
Body today. Unless these tasks are done well and completely, Christ remains
weak in His Mystical Body.
The office of teaching is nothing new. We have always recognized that the
Church has the mission to teach. But we have not always seen the brother's
role in this mission. We have ordinarily fused the brother's call to teach Christ's
truth with the priest's role as teacher. But there are really two distinct elements
in this teaching mission of the Church. There is the function of jurisdiction in
teaching and the function of execution. Jurisdiction decides what should be
taught and what is true or false in the things that are being taught. Christ
gave the Church the authority to do this and the safeguard of infallibility to
preserve and interpret His message. But execution takes what authority decides
should be taught and communicates it to men. Father Anastasio Gutierrez,
C.F.M., separates these two functions very clearly in his article "Teaching
Brothers in the Church" in the Review for Religious, July, 1961.
Once authority determines what should be taught, this message of Christ must
be presented and explained in a way that can be grasped and accepted by men
through an act of faith. The power of the brother to teach, therefore, is the
power of execution. The brother does not decide what should be taught, nor
does he decide what is right or wrong in things that are taught. That is the
domain of the hierarchy. But once these things are decided, the brother com-
municates them to souls starving for the truth. The Church has always carried
out very well its mission of formulating its teaching on all phases of faith and
morals. But who is communicating this teaching? Who is taking these official
statements of the Church and explaining them to the man in the street? Our
greatest need at present is not so much one of jurisdiction as one of execution.
It doesn't take a great number of men with authority to decide on what is to
be taught. It takes thousands to put these truths into the millions of minds
waiting for them. Up to the present, we have looked to the priest to do the
whole job of communicating. He has done a wonderful job of execution in
the pulpit, in the confessional, in convert classes. But we have forced him
also into the classroom, into discussion circles, into the editor's chair, even
into the locker room. Wherever we wanted the message of Christ to penetrate,
we have brought the priest there. We have placed the whole burden of teach-
ing on him instead of seeing the brother as the perfect complement to the priest
in this question of execution. Many of the things which the priest does today
really take him from the proper work of his ministry. The brother is called
to competently relieve him, but we have never considered the brother in this
role. However, it is his role. It is his vocation to teach what ecclesiastical
authority decides must be taught.
Clarification of the Brother Vocation 499
Because Christ wants to dwell in souls by faith as truth — as the Word of
God — the Church has the mission to teach. The priesthood, in a sense, em-
bodies the truth of Christ; the brotherhood diffuses it. But Christ also wants
to dwell in souls by sanctifying grace, as their divine life. And so the Church
has also the mission to sanctify, to communicate this life to souls. And here
the vocation of the priest and the brother seem to be reversed. The priesthood
diffuses the life of grace, the brotherhood is a total dedication to living, to em-
bodying this life in its most complete form.
The priest, by his ordination, obtains the power to dispense the Christ-life
through the sacraments. This is fundamental. There is no supernatural life
in the Church without it. This communication of life is the basis of our whole
Christian economy of grace. But unless this sacramental life is activated by
a personal response of the one receiving it, it can easily remain sterile. Have
you ever seen baptism or frequent Holy Communion remain without much
effect? Why? Surely it is because there is no human response to complete
the sacramental operation. The sacrament works of itself. It suffices that
there be no positive obstacles. But the personal response is not automatic. It
must be stimulated in order to even exist. Both the sacrament and the personal
response are necessary for a vigorous Christ-life. Ordination gives the priest
the power of the sacraments, the power to implant the Christ-life. Religious
vows give the brother the perfect conditions under which to furnish the most
complete response — to live this Christ-life and to communicate his experience
of it to others.
Many of our concepts of grace and of the Christ-life are too abstract. We
treat Christ like an idea or an argument rather than a living person. Much of
our sacramental ministry consequently becomes routine and automatic. What
the Church needs to make the sacraments dynamic are some living examples
of what this life of grace really means. The brother gives himself to be this
living example of what the ministry is supposed to produce. The brother
should be the priest's most prized "product," because the brother represents
the end of the ministry. The priest gives Christ to souls by the sacraments;
the brother shows Christ to men by his life.
We have always looked for this example of Christ in the past, but we have
looked for it in the priest. Certainly we can find it in the priest. But the
brother, because of his vows, can bring a much fuller life to the Church. He
can discover certain riches of the spiritual life that others without religious
life would not discover. The profound depths of the Christ-life must be
brought forth by interior communication with Christ. The brother has put
himself in the best conditions to foster such a life. There are many facets of
the Christ-life that are impossible to experience without the framework of
religious life. In order to fill up in the Mystical Body what is lacking of Christ
living there, the brother becomes for the Church a strict necessity. No one
reduplicates the integral morality of Christ so completely as the brother. Even
the priest, by vocation, does not reach it. He might arrive at this complete
reproduction of Christ's personal conduct, but he has no strict juridical obli-
gation to do so. The priest can live it, the brother must.
From what has been said, we can see that many aspects of the brother's
vocation are not included essentially in that of the priest. But couldn't the
ordinary layman do these same things? Couldn't the laity teach what au-
thority decides must be taught? Couldn't the laity live the Christ-life to the
full? In short, is the brother really any different from the rest of the laity?
500 Vocation Section
The brother certainly is a layman, but he is definitely different from the
ordinary layman. The difference is this: The brother's whole being is a con-
secrated being. It is the difference between the host and a salted cracker,
between the sanctuary lamp and a stoplight. The brother doesn't just give his
time and attention — he gives his whole being.
Joe, the mechanic, has a family to feed; his house needs repairs, he has a
hospital bill to pay, and he fears he will be laid off from work in a month.
It is hard for Joe to experience that the poor are blessed because theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. It is even hard to preach this to him. But you can show
him that the poor are blessed — if there is someone to point to. The brother
who has nothing, yet possesses all things, is just the one to bring to the Church
the experience of Christ's poverty.
Mr. America might be a very good Catholic, active in Catholic Action work.
Suppose he is married to a wonderful person and has a fine family. He cer-
tainly knows what love is. He knows its expansive effects, its uplifting power.
But his love is an interested love, a love that must be exclusive in order to be
perfect. He may love no one else as he loves his wife, and he is obliged
to be quite attached to his children. He brings to the Mystical Body all the
goodness of conjugal love. But Mr. America will never experience the rich-
ness of the paradoxical love of Christ in which both perfect detachment and
total possession of the beloved are pushed to the limit. He must look to the
brother for the living proof that such a love is possible. The brother lives
that transcendental love of Christ which loves so personally and yet passes
beyond attachment to individuals.
The brother is a layman, but he is not an ordinary layman. He is conse-
crated to the fullest Christ-life in the Church.
Christ's Mystical Body is moving forward toward completion. All vocations
must be fully developed, not fused and confused into one. Christ calls men
to be priests in order to continue His sacramental sacrifice and communica-
tion of grace through them. He calls others to be brothers in order to con-
tinue His personal morality in them. The rest of the laity forms the mass in
which this leaven works.
SUCCESSFUL RECRUITING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Rev. Norbert C. Burns, S.M.
VOCATION DIRECTOR, SOCIETY OF MARY (MARIANISTS), DAYTON, OHIO
All of us are acutely aware of the need for vocations to God's service in
the world of today. We can be certain that when God allows a need to be
present, He also gives the answer. Vocations are in our midst. Of this we can
be sure! It is up to us, the educators of the young, to cooperate with God's
graces in bringing these vocations to fruition.
Perhaps no better locale can be found for this development of the seed of
vocations than in our secondary schools. Here the more serious of our young
Recruiting in Secondary Schools 501
people are giving thoughtful consideration to their future. In the midst of
their reflections they see before them, in the concrete, the men and women
who incorporate a way of life that is appealing. The secondary school
teacher is ideally situated for reaping in abundance these vocations that God
has put in his or her presence. We might profitably examine the features
of successful recruiting in our secondary schools.
The Spiritual Life of the Recruiter
To enjoy the privilege of working in the vocation field is to experience
keenly the mystery of God's grace. For this work is above all others a super-
natural undertaking, so completely dependent on the graces of God. We are
aware through the teachings on the doctrine of the Mystical Body that our
lives of love for God overflow unto the lives of other humans, particularly
those who are the closest to us. We can be rather certain that the success of
an individual recruiter is some indication of his personal spiritual life, or at
least of some member of the Mystical Body who is gaining the needed graces.
Sufficient grace every man has but it is within our power to win for others
those additional graces that will often spell the difference in the maturation
of a vocation. If the depth of our love for Christ and His Mother is experi-
enced by the young person considering the service of God there can be every
guarantee that a vocation will be won. The recruiter must often meditate on
the absolute need for a solid religious life if he is to succeed in his special
work.
If such stress must be put on the importance of the individual recruiter's
spiritual life, what cannot be said for the power of a group's sanctity. When
a religious community or a group of dedicated priests is living the spiritual
life to the hilt, the power of attraction that flows from this example to the
alert observances of the young is without measure — the power of community
charity: a great secret to successful recruiting in secondary schools!
The Professional Life of the School
The natural basis for recruitment work in secondary schools is a well-run
school. If the professional spirit of the educators is up to par, the school
will breathe a well-disciplined air that will provide the atmosphere needed for
vocational work. The development of a vocation often starts with a high
regard for the life of the professional man as embodied in this respected
teacher in the classroom. It is not difficult for the intelligent student to make
the jump from the man to his vocation. If the teacher is seen as a dedicated
man, happy in his chosen work and successful in its daily demands, the student
in his better moments finds grace prompting him to reflect, "I would like to
be like my teacher." It has been my experience that the most professional
schools produce the most and best vocations. The religious educator who
endeavors to talk about his vocation to God's service when he is not respected
for his vocation to man's service will often do more harm than good. First
things must come first! And the vocation man must first be a man. Grace
builds on nature; the supernatural vocations flow from the environment of a
good, well-run school.
Vocation Contact Work
Now we come to the specific work of recruiting in secondary schools, always
presupposing the previous two points of the sanctity of the recruiters and the
professionalism of the schools.
502 Vocation Section
a) Organization. Any successful business man today will attest to the im-
portance of organization. Life is too complex in this hectic world of 1962
to allow results to depend on the haphazard workings of chance endeavors.
Our schools are big business; they demand a similar well-organized approach
to their professional life, and, in this case, to the vocation endeavors.
A diocese or a religious community should have one person who carries
the over-all responsibility. This vocation director is the general coordinator
for all policies, undertakings, and plannings. Then the individual school should
have its carefully appointed recruitment coordinator, who is given an im-
portance even greater than that of the debate coach, the yearbook moderator.
This coordinator is chosen for an ability to organize the efforts of the school
vocation moderators and to keep them working at top effort.
Working under this school coordinator are the divisional moderators. This
school council can meet weekly to feel the vocation pulse of the school. Each
division moderator has his council composed of those teachers in the division
who are actually doing contact work for vocations. These divisional meetings
can occur biweekly with perhaps a monthly meeting of the entire staff of in-
terested workers.
All possible techniques should be used to coordinate and encourage the
efforts of each worker. A contact card system should be arranged to avoid
the unhappy conflicts of cross-interviewing. Questionnaires and bulletins should
appear periodically as a means for blowing fresh air through the problems.
The hierarchy of line authority permits constant checking and spurring to
avoid lamentable cases of complete bogging down.
b) Interviewing. Anyone interested in vocation work must be convinced
that the price of vocations is the blood and sweat of long hours of contact
work on a personal level. Constant interviewing both before and after any
decision is taken, often forming itself into a format of spiritual direction, is
the hallmark of successful recruiting. In most cases these hours of contact
work are "over and beyond the call of duty." Vocation work must be a work
of love. Most principals will ask questions if a teacher fails to appear for a
class; few will even inquire if a teacher fails to do contact work.
Yet this personal approach, teacher to student in the intimacy of a personal
encounter, is the only finally effective manner for the development of a vo-
cation. The vocation program of any school must be founded on formal and
informal contacts. Most vocations just do not come; we must go after them.
The vocation director must, therefore, put the emphasis on the quality and
quantity of the contacts, constantly asking the question: "How powerful is
the contact work here?"
c) School vocation atmosphere. An interested observer could spend five
minutes in any school and have a fairly good idea of the staff interest in vo-
cations. Today's world puts great emphasis on the subconscious influence
of advertising. The TV sports scene covered by the oft reiterated beer symbol
will soon send the interested spectator to the ice box. The bulletin boards of
the school and classrooms, the "soft sell" of well-timed recruitment tidbits
might eventually send the student for the search of more satisfying quench
to his spiritual thirst. We must not overlook any healthy approach to our
goal, while avoiding at the same time a brutal assault on the individual's right
to make his own decisions.
d) Techniques. For dioceses and religious communities that are enjoying
success in their vocation endeavors, certain techniques have been found to
work well. These should not be abandoned. Most of us will agree that closed
retreats and specially conducted Days of Recollection are most effective, al-
First International Congress on Vocations 503
though they presuppose both the personal contact work and the school atmos-
phere. Well-chosen vocation talks, featuring, if possible, young candidates of
the diocese or religious community, surely have their place. A year's vocation
calendar, drawn up in September, will give the proper spacing to undertakings
and allow the staff to gear its work accordingly. An annual vocation workshop
can prove a powerful stimulus to the staff. Vocation clubs have their place in
a school although they must be handled with considerable tact. Visits to houses
of formation and particularly well-thought-out retreats at such places can offer
to the young person an inside glimpse of the life in God's service. We must
not forget that it is the rare vocation that is suddenly cultivated in the senior
year. The seed must be planted early in the underclass years through the con-
stant soft sell. Parents are an important factor in this matter, as we all know
only too well. Leaflets and simple explanations mailed home with the report
card; a well-planned PTA meeting dealing with the topic; immediate contact
with the parents once a boy is nearing the decision stage — these and other
approaches have their place.
The alert vocation director and his staff are constantly searching for new
ways and means that will help the over-all results. A school goal for the year,
even divisional goals might help.
Conclusion
God normally brings His ministrations to souls through the instrumentality
of His representatives. The world today is starved for the answers that God's
message brings. Ours is the great task of assisting in the cultivation of the
future missionaries of this message. God is giving the vocations. We must not
fail to do our part. Successful recruiting in secondary schools has its solution —
we must be certain that we have it!
REPORT OF FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON
VOCATIONS TO THE STATES OF PERFECTION
Rev. Godfrey Poage, C.P., Chicago, III.
From December 10 to 16, 1961, the Pontifical Organization for Religious
Vocations sponsored the First International Congress of Vocation Specialists.
The theme for all discussions was "Vocations to the States of Perfection in the
World Today."
The Domus Mariae, a beautiful new convention center in west suburban
Rome, was the site of the congress. Forty-one nations were represented at
this assembly, and twenty-six nations through their Conferences of Major
Superiors demonstrated their materials and techniques used in the promotion
of vocations. Also, fifteen of the most prominent publishers of vocational ma-
terials had displays.
In preparing for this congress letters were sent to all superiors general of
orders, congregations, and societies in the world, as well as to 761 selected
504 Vocation Section
fathers and brothers provincial. These were invited to participate in the work
of the congress, as well as delegates from all Conferences of Major Superiors
in the various nations. Specialists in sociology, psychology, theology, and
allied subjects were invited from the principal universities of Europe. Also
directors of all Vocation Associations and Youth Centers were invited. Of this
number, 1489 attended the congress, making it the largest gathering of author-
ities in the history of the Church to study one specific problem: namely, the
recruiting of more priests, brothers, and sisters.
One Million Masses Offered
A month prior to the congress all religious communities in the world and all
dioceses with vocation offices were asked to make a spiritual contribution. Over
one million Masses were offered for this intention, together with prayers, sac-
rifices, and good works from the religious and faithful. This tremendous num-
ber of prayers and Masses — more than anything else — accounted for the graces
and blessings so evident at this congress.
Special Masses for Vocations
Five special Masses were prepared by the Sacred Congregation of Rites and
released just prior to the congress for insertion in the Roman Missal. They are:
1) For the Day of Profession of Religious Men;
2) For the Day of Profession of Religious Women;
3) For the Increase of Ecclesiastical Vocations;
4) For the Preserving of Ecclesiastical Vocations;
5) For the Seeking and Fostering of Religious Vocations.
Copies of these Votive Masses may be obtained from your local ecclesiastical
bookstores or from the Vatican Press. All five Masses are printed in one folio
and the price at the Vatican Press is 300 lire per folio (or 50 cents).
Opening of Congress
The solemn opening of the congress took place on Sunday evening, Decem-
ber 10, 1961, at the Basilica of St. Mary Major. His Eminence, Valerio
Cardinal Valeri, offered the special Mass, assisted by officials of the Sacred
Congregation of Religious. Since thousands of posters had been distributed
throughout the city, asking the laity to participate with prayers and attendance
at Mass, the Basilica was filled to overflowing for the function and sermon.
As the bishops, major superiors, delegates, and specialists arrived at the
Domus Mariae on Monday morning, December 11, they were directed by a
corps of professional ushers to registration desks, identified by position, tagged,
and given lapel flags, programs, and copies of the addresses in the language of
their preference.
It was planned to have copies of every address available to the participants
for every session, but it was impossible to obtain all manuscripts. Conse-
quently, at some sessions only limited copies of the speech were available; and
at others there were only notes. However, multilingual translators were on
hand for discussion periods. All sessions began and concluded promptly on the
designated times, and the addresses of the principal speakers were carried by
Vatican radio.
In his opening address Cardinal Valeri pointed out that a generation ago
Em-ope furnished 85 per cent of the foreign mission personnel. Now, European
dioceses could not even maintain their own institutions, much less send out
missionaries. "To find ways and means of remedying this situation," he ex-
First International Congress on Vocations 505
plained, "all present had been invited to discuss the problems involved and
suggest a program for the Pontifical Organization to promote."
The first speaker was Father Francis Houtart, director of the Brussels Cen-
ter of Social Research. He pointed out that while there is a slight increase in
the numbers of priests and religious being currently recruited and trained, it
is not sufficient to keep pace with the progressive growth of the world's popu-
lation. The annual birthrate of the world is now forty-seven million — or
approximately the total population of Italy or Great Britain. Of this number
the Catholics are able to reach or influence only 18 per cent.
In the discussion that followed, Father James Forrestal of England, author
of a number of statistical studies on vocation, gave the percentiles of priests
and religious in various parts of the world. In the past year, for example,
there were 4,238 priests ordained in the world. Exactly 50 per cent of that
number were in America (2,119) and just slightly over half of all the priests
ordained in the American continent were in the United States (1,149). This
point gave special emphasis to the reports of the Americans present (65).
The area of greatest need, as evident from the statistics given by the dele-
gates of the nations represented, is South America. They have 4,461 Catholics
for each priest, and to obtain the desired ratio of priests to people, which is 1
priest per 800 souls, there is an immediate need for 130,000 priests.
Ways to More Effective Recruiting
I gave an address on the subject: "Recruiting and Recruiters of Religious
Vocations." I explained not only all the means that have been used in the
different countries by various recruiters to obtain prospects, but also how to
develop new techniques — how to "brainstorm" for more effective recruiting
procedures. The discussion was led by Father Bertrand de Margerie, S.J., sec-
retary of the Conference of Major Superiors of Brazil. He pointed out that
two great handicaps of the recruiters in South America are ignorance and preju-
dice. These can be overcome only by proper advertising and public relations.
Some of the more conservative delegates felt there was no place for "Madison
Avenue" techniques in winning souls for Christ and a very spirited debate
ensued.
On Tuesday morning Father Raymond Izard, director of the Vocation Cen-
ter in Paris, spoke on "Pastoral Practice and Religious Vocations." He ex-
plained the role of the diocesan priest in fostering vocations, and then ex-
plained how the French Center united both diocesan and religious recruiters
for a most effective apostolate.
In the discussion directed by His Excellency, Joseph Carraro, Bishop of
Verona, emphasis was put on how to achieve greater collaboration between
diocesan and religious recruiters. Then in the afternoon began a series of
theological discussions which defined all aspects of the question of vocations
to the States of Perfection. Several of the sessions were like a dress rehearsal
for the Ecumenical Council in that the foremost theologians of the world
joined in debate with one another, cardinals, bishops, and major superiors.
On Saturday, December 16, His Holiness Pope John XXIII gave a special
allocution in the Hall of Benediction at the Vatican. The subject of his address
was "Religious Vocations," and he began by saying: "This Congress has ac-
cented a very delicate and urgent problem, which is the daily thought of the
Supreme Pontiff who is speaking to you; it is the sigh of his prayers and the
ardent aspiration of his soul. It is also the special intention which We give to
506 Vocation Section
the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, when We meditate on how Mary
presented to the Father the Priest of the New Law."
The Holy Father then lamented that so many young people, who are at first
attracted to the religious life, are so easily distracted by the triple concupi-
scences so cleverly promoted by press, radio, and television. But with the
specialists present he hoped that ways would be devised to use these same
media to win more youths to follow Christ. He then went on to explain the
appeals of the various apostolates and the rewards that await the sacrifice of
one's energies, talents, and capabilities. He also spoke strongly in support of
the contemplative communities and reminded all recruiters that they have a
tremendous challenge to meet in the coming year, for "history teaches that
there is always a period of extraordinary spiritual fecundity after an Ecumeni-
cal Council."
"Continue, therefore," His Holiness urged, "your combined efforts to en-
courage religious vocations by every means, presenting to the youths the beauty
and attraction of your life in ways that are more appealing. Make use of the
extraordinary means which the press, the radio, and television offer for spread-
ing these great ideas. Moreover, remember it is necessary to work together with
order and mutual respect, having always in mind the greater welfare of the
Universal Church in which there is room for all ... In a word, exert every
effort to increase vocations everywhere."
The allocution concluded with a special plea for prayers for the Church in
the Congo, and urged that those who can do so intervene in the cause of peace.
Finally, the Holy Father's special Apostolic Blessing was granted to the direc-
tors of the congress, all religious of the world and their blood relatives, as well
as all youths in aspirancies and novitiates.
The final session of the congress was devoted to an address by Father Ger-
main Lievin, C.SS.R., of the Pontifical Organization for Religious Vocations.
He explained the business of the Vocation Office and outlined the role that the
Pontifical Organization will fulfill in the future.
In all there were forty-four complete hours of recorded speeches and dis-
cussions. This material is now being transcribed, translated, edited, and
abridged. On my return to the office next month I am to prepare immediately
for the publication of these Proceedings.
REPORT ON INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF
VOCATION SPECIALISTS
Rev. Michael McLaughlin
rockville centre, l.i., new york; ncwc representative to the
international congress in rome
Of the fifty-nine archbishops and bishops who made quinquennial reports
to the Holy See on conditions in their dioceses last December, fifty-seven re-
ported that it would be possible to do so much more for the honor and glory
International Congress of Vocation Specialists 507
of God, the salvation of souls, and the service of mankind, if only there were
more priests, brothers, and sisters.
Since similar reports had been coming in for some time previously, it was
decided that there should be a congress of specialists of all nations to study
this problem. From their deliberations would then be developed a new program
for the Pontifical Work for Religious Vocations, a department of the Sacred
Congregation of Religious established by the late Holy Father Pope Pius XII
in 1955.
At this congress it was quite evident that the reason more than half of the
world is still pagan two thousand years after Christ gave the command to His
followers: "Go, teach all nations," is that we have not had enough teachers
and missionaries to send forth. Unless apostles are sent to these people, there
will be no converts, and at the present rate of population growth the non-
Christians are increasing faster than the Christians. The only possible way of
stemming this tide is to train more priests and religious who will go forth like
St. Francis Xavier, St. Boniface, St. Patrick, and the host of other saints who
converted whole nations.
"This is not just a dream," Cardinal Valeri told the assembled delegates and
specialists, "but something that can become a reality." Already the Holy See
has pointed out what must be done to increase religious vocations. In Sedes
Sapientiae, for example, it has been explained that "first there must be prayer
to the Lord of the harvest that He send laborers into His vineyard." The first
emphasis of the congress, therefore, was to increase prayers for vocations.
"The second directive of the Holy See for the increase of vocations," we
were told, "was that we show the world the resplendent example of religious
virtue. As our divine Lord urged His followers: 'Let your light shine before
men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father Who is in
heaven.' " So during the congress study was made of those means by which
various religious groups could improve their advertising and publicity. Only
when youths and their parents understand and appreciate the States of Perfec-
tion can we expect an increase of applicants for such a life. Assisting in these
discussions on publicity and public relations were specialists in these fields.
"The third and final directive of the Holy See was 'that we utilize those
techniques for inducing youths to follow Christ in one of the States of Perfec-
tion, which have been proven by prudent and holy experience in various
areas.' " This is the reason, we were told by the directors of the congress, for
inviting the foremost recruiters of the world to a meeting. From their studies
and discussions will come a monumental volume on the present vocation crisis
in the Church, due for release sometime this summer.
PROCEEDINGS
VOCATION SECTION: OFFICERS 1962-63
Chairman: Rev. Myles Colgan, O.Carm., Chicago, 111.
Vice Chairman: Rev. William J. Martin, Toledo, Ohio
Secretary: Brother Thomas Caffrey, S.M., Mineola, N.Y.
Advisory Board:
Brother Eymard Salzman, C.S.C., Notre Dame, Ind.
Rev. Vincent Howard, Detroit, Mich.
Rev. Michael McLaughlin, Rockville Centre, N.Y.
Rev. Francis A. McKay, M.M., Maryknoll, N.Y.
Sister M. Patricia, R.S.M., Omaha, Neb.
Sister Mary Rita, C.S.J., La Grange Park, 111.
NEWMAN CLUB CHAPLAINS SECTION
THE ROLE OF NEWMAN CLUB EDUCATION
IN AMERICAN CATHOLICISM
Prof. William J. Whalen
DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS, PURDUE UNIVERSITY, LAFAYETTE, INDIANA
Perhaps we can establish the importance of the educational program of the
Newman movement at the outset by making the following observation: If the
great majority of Catholics in United States colleges and universities are going
to grow in knowledge of their faith they will do so through the efforts of the
Newman movement.
Only a minority of Catholic students are now attending Catholic colleges
and universities. We estimate about 540,000 Catholics in state, municipal, pri-
vate, and Protestant church-related schools. The total enrollment of our 265
Catholic colleges and universities is about 300,000, of whom many, especially
in metropolitan universities, are Protestants and Jews. Father John A. O'Brien
of Notre Dame predicts that by 1970 three out of four Catholic college stu-
dents will be enrolled in secular institutions and by 1990 this will grow to nine
out of ten Catholic students.
It seems perfectly clear that if these hundreds of thousands of Catholic
graduates are going to enter the mainstream of American life with a religious
background comparable in breadth and depth with their mastery of secular
disciplines they will have to receive this background under Newman auspices.
The reasons, financial and otherwise, why most Catholics now choose secular
campuses is not our topic this morning although it is a topic worth serious
investigation by Catholic counselors and educators. The superiority of a Christ-
centered education under Church auspices is not questioned, certainly not by
the Newman chaplains who in their statement of policy have declared: "The
best place for the Catholic student ordinarily is the Catholic college." I know
of no Newman chaplain who would not prefer a system of Catholic colleges
and universities for all Catholics if the financial resources and manpower were
available to accommodate all applicants and to provide a first-rate education
in whatever field they wished to enter.
Nor will we be concerned in this discussion with the many activities of the
Newman apostolate outside of the educational one. I refer to the spiritual,
social, and cultural programs carried on by Newman foundations. We will con-
fine our remarks to what can broadly be considered Newman education.
The Newman Club educational program is carried out under the highest pos-
sible mandate. This mandate was given by a pope and a saint in 1905. St.
Pius X in his encyclical Acerbo Nimis ("On the Teaching of Christian Doc-
trine") decreed:
Where there are public academies, colleges and universities, let religious
doctrine classes be established for the purpose of teaching the truths of our
faith, and the precepts of Christian morality, to youths who attend such public
institutions wherein no mention whatsoever is made of religion.
508
Role of Newman Club Education 509
Earlier, when the Holy See had been asked about the propriety of Catholics
attending Oxford and Cambridge in 1895 permission was granted for such
attendance under several conditions. Among these were: that a resident chap-
lain be appointed, and that courses of lectures be given in Catholic philosophy,
church history, and theology.
Following the mandate of St. Pius X, the Newman movement has attempted
to provide, often with inadequate manpower and facing in many instances
apathy and opposition on the part of college authorities, a program of Catholic
education for students on the secular campus. In no case is completion of
these courses required for graduation as it may be in Catholic institutions.
The Newman chaplain or lay teacher can only encourage Catholic students to
take advantage of the educational opportunities so offered; he cannot compel
enrollment or regular attendance.
Several arrangements have been worked out for instruction in theology on
or near the secular campus. The most common arrangement is undoubtedly
the offering of noncredit courses during the late afternoon or evening hours at
the Newman Center. On a small campus with relatively few Catholics this
course may be simply a general introduction to Catholic theology taught by the
part-time chaplain. On a larger university campus the Newman Center may
sponsor a variety of courses such as theology, Thomistic philosophy, church
history, social encyclicals, marriage and family life, Sacred Scripture, compara-
tive religion, Christianity and Marxism, and so forth.
Some of these efforts are quite informal; others demand regular class attend-
ance, purchase of a text, assigned reading, and examinations. The drawback
in these voluntary, noncredit arrangements is clear: the student is already
carrying a full load of course work, required and elective courses. He must
complete these courses with acceptable grades. The religion course is extra.
If he falls behind in a credit course or has to prepare for an exam or complete
a term paper he will probably skip the noncredit religion course. The mortality
in most of these noncredit courses as the semester goes on is very high.
Another type of arrangement is the one in which the Newman Center ob-
tains accreditation for its courses through a cooperating Catholic college or
university. Ordinarily these transfer or extension credits will be accepted by
the secular school as elective credits. The courses themselves are taught by
instructors carrying faculty rank in the sponsoring Catholic institution. Course
requirements are at least as demanding as those for other credit courses. The
University of New Mexico Newman Foundation has worked out such an ar-
rangement with Xavier College in Chicago. Some chaplains foresee an exten-
sion of this cooperative arrangement between Newman Centers and Catholic
schools, especially with the chain of Jesuit universities.
A third arrangement is typified by the Newman Center at the University of
Illinois. In this case, the Newman Center itself obtains a charter from the
state as an educational institution. It accredits its own courses and these credits
are accepted by the University of Illinois and other institutions. The students
can register for these religion courses as part of their regular program of study.
Since the start of this program at Illinois in 1920, more than 20,000 students
have completed courses at the Newman Center. Somewhat similar solutions
have been adopted at Indiana University and at the Universities of Wyoming
and Tennessee. Local nonsectarian schools of religion are affiliated with these
three universities and their courses in Protestant and Catholic theology, as
well as general courses in such subjects as comparative religion, are accepted for
credit by the universities. These separate institutions are chartered by the state.
They occupy buildings adjacent to these campuses but operate under their
510 Newman Club Chaplains Section
own boards of trustees and raise funds from private sources and foundations
to pay for salaries and other expenses. Some of these schools began as inter-
denominational Protestant enterprises but have broadened to include Catholic
priests on the faculty. The Indiana School of Religion, for one, plans to add
courses in Judaism when the demand warrants this.
Finally, at an increasing number of state and private universities the insti-
tutions themselves offer credit courses in dogmatic theology. These courses
are listed in the official catalog, taught in university classrooms by professors
who hold university rank. To forestall any crank law suits, the denomination,
instead of the state, provides the salaries for the ministers, priests, and rabbis
who teach the courses.
A recent survey by the National Newman Club Federation indicates that
there are at least eighteen state universities and ten privately endowed ones
which offer credit courses in Catholic theology. Another thirteen such schools
offer courses in medieval or Thomistic philosophy.
At the University of North Dakota, the Newman chaplain teaches such
credit courses in university classrooms but also observes a state law against
the wearing of religious garb in a public school by substituting a shirt and tie
for his Roman collar.
Among the universities which now offer such credit courses in religion are
Michigan State University (which lists twenty-two religion courses in its cur-
rent catalog), New York University, Columbia, Bradley, Youngstown Univer-
sity, and the University of Toledo. The pioneer in this area is the State Uni-
versity of Iowa, which organized its School of Religion in 1927 and offers
courses leading to undergraduate majors and to M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. It
currently offers eleven courses in Roman Catholic theology.
Prof. Paul G. Kauper of the University of Michigan has written:
... in view of the intellectual climate that prevails at the university level,
there is no compelling reason why a specific religious faith, whether it be
Christianity (either in its general aspects or by reference to the various
denominations and movements within it), Judaism, Islam, or Hinduism,
cannot be taught fairly, objectively, and temperately for the purpose of pre-
senting the doctrines, history, and the nature of the ecclesiastical organization
in the same way that the university may properly offer courses in the history,
platforms and organization of political parties without being subject to the
charge that it has involved itself in partisan politics.
Obviously, the state university cannot lend its classrooms and name for the
purpose of evangelization and proselytizing. These credit courses in theology
should not seek or demand commitment on the part of the students, but in
this they would not differ from those offered by Catholic colleges and univer-
sities. If we were expecting commitment in theology courses at Marquette
and Loyola and St. Mary's, we would have to ask each non-Catholic who
elected these courses to join the Church or flunk the course.
We should also add that many other state universities offer courses about
religion but not courses in substantive religion. These courses carry titles such
as the Sociology of Religion, the Psychology of Religious Belief, the Bible as
Literature, Comparative Religion, et cetera. They obviously differ from sub-
stantive religion courses. After all, a course in the history of mathematics is
not a course in mathematics.
Apparently the same interest in credit courses in theology in non-Catholic
schools is seen in England. Recently the Catholic Education Council for Eng-
land and Wales told a government committee investigating higher education
Role of Newman Club Education 511
that it would like to see the creation of chairs or lectureships in Catholic
theology in a number of English universities.
Beyond the formal courses in theology, credit or noncredit, the Newman
Clubs engage in a variety of other educational efforts. Most Newman Centers,
even the smallest, maintain a library of Catholic books. These libraries shelve
the standard Catholic reference works as well as some of the recent titles of
Catholic scholarship. A few such libraries are staffed for certain hours of the
day by Newman personnel or salaried Newman Center staff members. An-
other project of some Newman Clubs has been the donation of Catholic books
to the general college library and the compilation and publication of lists of
Catholic titles in the general library for the use of Catholic students and
others.
Public lectures to which Catholics and non-Catholics, students, faculty, and
townspeople are invited form a part of the Newman educational function. For
example, during the past academic year at my own university, Purdue, the
Newman Club has sponsored lectures by such people as Father Gustave Wei-
gel, S.J., Dr. George N. Shuster, Father Martin d'Arcy, S.J., Sister Madeleva,
C.S.C., and Father Barnabas Ahern, C.P.
In the larger Newman Foundation you will also see a number of small dis-
cussion groups. One group might be discussing the Great Books, another the
problems of religion and technology, a third Mater et Magistra. These pro-
grams may last for a month or a semester and the number of participants may
vary from three or four to twenty or more, but all of these groups foster the
work of the intellectual apostolate.
We might briefly mention certain educationally related activities as New-
man-sponsored publications such as the national Newman News and the
individual club periodicals of such high caliber as the Newman Annual of the
University of Minnesota, the Newman Review of Wayne State University, and
the Harvard Current. Several workshop programs known as the Newman
Schools of Catholic Thought are scheduled each summer around the country
and attract serious students interested in learning more about the intellectual
apostolate, the liturgy, the Church's social teachings, et cetera. The conven-
tions of the national federation are increasingly concerned with lectures, dis-
cussions, and other educational offerings instead of simply politics and social
activities.
Although we have usually made reference to Catholic students, we should
add that many of these educational programs are open to non-Catholic students
and to members of the faculty. The emphasis in Newmanism seems to be to-
ward a campus-wide program and the involvement of students, chaplains,
faculty, alumni, townspeople, and others in the work of the Newman move-
ment.
As the post- 19 64 tidal wave laps at our colleges and universities and the
lopsided proportion of Catholic students in non-Catholic colleges and univer-
sities becomes even more evident, what are some of the trends in Newmanism's
educational program?
First, we may agree with Father O'Brien when he states:
The hope for the future . . . lies with the continued spread of the plan for
credit courses. This is because of the greater opportunity it presents of
conducting the courses with the same academic thoroughness as obtains in
the university proper and of enabling a much larger number to enroll.
Efforts to obtain accreditation for theology courses are under way on many
state university campuses. Sometimes it takes years to convince the faculty
512 Newman Club Chaplains Section
and administrators of the need for such courses and to cut through the red
tape. Local circumstances, prejudices on the part of the dominant secular
humanists, and personality conflicts may call for different solutions on differ-
ent campuses, but many Newman chaplains see accreditation as the only way
to provide systematic theological instruction to any significant number of
Catholic students.
The genuine legal barriers to such accreditation are few. To the best of
my knowledge, no court has ever interferred with religious instruction on the
college level. None is likely to do so.
This does not mean that every campus or professor will welcome the intro-
duction of religion courses. Some professors are committed to the view that
religious knowledge is really not knowledge at all and should not be dignified
by being given shelter under the university roof. Some college presidents
would not mind courses taught by qualified priests, ministers, and rabbis, but
shudder at the thought of giving university rank to every preacher who knocks
at the door. Of course, the college or university can set up and maintain re-
quirements to guarantee the level of instruction and professional competence
just as it can for any academic department. Sometimes only one or two cam-
pus religious foundations display an interest in credit courses and the college
hesitates to give the green light to these since this might antagonize the others
or raise the charge of preferential treatment. But all these problems are not
insurmountable, and have in fact been overcome on a number of campuses.
They do exist and must be approached with tact and patience.
Secondly, I believe that a greater degree of professionalization will be seen
among Newman Center personnel on the larger campuses. Chaplains them-
selves know that the vocation of a theology professor is one which requires
graduate study, adequate time for lecture preparation, hours for student coun-
seling, some leisure, and the opportunity to publish. If the man assigned to
teach theology believes he can maintain his position on the faculty and uphold
the academic respectability of his particular discipline by a smaller effort than
that expended by the chemistry or nuclear engineering instructor, he is mis-
taken. Therefore, the expansion of credit programs in theology will require
a division of labor with Newman staff members specializing in parish admin-
istration or teaching or counseling. Only a handful of priests in the country
can do justice to more than one of these vocations at one time.
Thirdly, since the number of priests now assigned to Newman work is rela-
tively small — only 170 of the 850 assigned Newman chaplains are engaged
in full-time Newman work — the expanded Newman apostolate will require
a far greater allocation of manpower. Two or three Catholic universities
together now employ the services of more priests on a full-time basis than the
entire Newman movement which is charged with the care of more than half a
million Catholic college students. The NNCF recommends one full-time priest-
chaplain for the first 300 students on a resident campus and an additional
priest for every 500 to 700 Catholic students.
But since most dioceses and religious orders will not have that many priests
to spare, and since the crash program in Latin America may take 10 per cent
of the order priests, some other partial solution to the chaplain shortage must
be found. The only recourse, as I see it, will be the employment of profes-
sionally qualified laymen and laywomen. Such people can teach credit and
noncredit courses in philosophy and theology, engage in certain types of per-
sonal counseling, handle administrative details as business managers of New-
man Centers, deliver series of lectures, maintain the library, engage in public
relations and fund raising work, et cetera.
Adult Education for Catholics 513
Finally, it seems imperative to develop closer working relations among
Catholic colleges and universities and the Newman Centers. The avenues of
cooperation are unlimited: exchange of speakers, accreditation of theology
courses, joint student meetings, collaboration between Catholic faculty mem-
bers on different campuses, combined seminars, et cetera. The deeper involve-
ment of the Society of Jesus in the intellectual work of the Newman movement
would benefit all, as has the past and present involvement of the Paulists,
Dominicans, Benedictines, and other religious orders.
American Catholicism will reflect the Catholic intellectual contribution to
the extent that our college-educated Catholics combine their secular disciplines
with a mature understanding of their religious faith. To supply this religious
dimension, the bishops, following the mandate of St. Pius X, have designated
the Newman movement as the official organization for Catholics on the secular
campus. If the Newman movement falters, the Church may have to become
resigned to speaking in a feeble voice amid the din of secular humanist propa-
ganda. If it succeeds, as I am confident it will, the Church will be able to
bring the message of Christ to the classrooms, laboratories, halls of govern-
ment, and editorial offices through a corps of informed, zealous Catholic laity.
In conclusion, let me add this one thought. Newman Club education does
not compete with Catholic education. It is Catholic education. It happens to
have a specific purpose — the religious education of Catholic students on secular
campuses — which differs from the purposes of our seminaries, grade and high
schools, and Catholic colleges and universities. But the goal of all these edu-
cational arms of the Church are the same and all should cooperate to achieve
this goal.
NATIONAL CATHOLIC ADULT EDUCATION COMMISSION
ADULT EDUCATION FOR CATHOLICS: THE NECESSITY
AND THE CHALLENGE
Most Rev. Paul J. Hallinan
ARCHBISHOP OF ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Everyone who has struggled through high school senior English is aware
of Cardinal Newman's famous definition of a gentleman: "one who never
inflicts pain." But most of those who quote it are not aware that it is not a
definition at all. It is a satire, almost a joke. As part of his little joke, Newman
warns us that it is "almost a definition." To bring it to the full measure of
satire, he carries it out to two full pages — his mirror of the Oxford type of
man who concurs with others rather than take the initiative himself; avoids
what would jar or jolt their minds; looks upon all forms of faith with an im-
partial eye; in fine, says Newman, he might even pass for a disciple of Chris-
514 National Catholic Adult Education Commission
tianity itself. This mild and bland creature is what happens when the culti-
vated intellect operates without religious principle.
I introduce Newman's little joke right at the beginning, not because I intend
to inflict any more pain than is ordinarily connected with listening to conven-
tion addresses, nor because I have a low regard for gentlemen. But it is
refreshing to learn that complacency is not just our contemporary problem.
Newman's times knew it well, and so do we. We still like to take our liturgy
as we take our athletics — from the comfort of a grandstand seat. Our educa-
tional process has developed with that same occupational disease. We want
philosophy without tears, theology without dogma, poems in anthologies, and
novels in digests. Are we willing today to struggle with ideas, sacrifice for
ideals, suffer for consequences? Certainly when put to the test, many of us
are quite willing, but the tide of complacency is strong and full and persuasive.
This involvement in struggle is part and parcel of the whole process of adult
education. To learn is to expend energy, to engage in that work, both pleas-
ant and painful, by which pieces of the unknown are chipped off, digested,
made part of our own self. The soul groans while it grazes, whether it be the
ten-year-old who would rather watch television; the teen-ager who would
rather watch another teen-ager, or the college student who has more joy in
one class that is cut than in ninety-nine others dutifully attended. But at no
point on the academic spectrum is there more struggle than at the point of
adult education. This is not because adults do not want to learn; they would
not otherwise have enrolled. Nor have their minds hardened against the
thrill of new ideas. It is simply that we live in a busy, distracting world, and
it is no mean accomplishment for the workingman, the housewife, the young
executive, or the nurse to complete an evening course in anything. Against
this round of duties and distractions, we must, of course, set the determination
to learn and the fascinating prospect of opening up new roads of mental
adventure. That this is going on all over the United States, and that Catholic
adults are taking their fair share of the benefits, is a decided plus in our educa-
tional scales. That we have advanced to a point where a national Catholic
organization meets annually to find out how it can be better planned and more
widely carried out is good news of the very first order.
May we simply state the necessity of adult education and then go on to
what is called the challenge? May we not take for granted that most mature
Catholics capable of adult education are well aware that it is necessary? Must
we stress that Catholics should be well informed in this Joannine year of 1962
when John Glenn went round the world, John Kennedy went round Big Steel,
and the ghost of John Birch still goes round the anxious precincts of the fear-
ful and the insecure? As the year goes on, it will become Joannine in an even
more profound sense (indeed, a papal sense) as contemporary historians record
for later times the General Council called for October by our valiant and
vigorous Holy Father, Pope John XXIII. These are not ordinary times. They
call for all mature Catholics to seek fresh insights into their own mental
inventory, and fresh approaches to the agenda of disorders that history is
always setting before us.
The Reconsecration of the Intellect
The challenge, the great opportunities, the situations full of hope and prom-
ise— these strike me as more compelling than the need. Men marry, not only
because of need but because of the hope of happiness in marriage. Medical
students study not only because there is disease to be treated but because they
Adult Education for Catholics 515
hope to cure it by their skill. So Catholic men and women enroll in evening
courses not primarily because there is need of an informed Catholic laity, not
just because of their own need to pass the time profitably, but because the
challenge of the unknown is one of the most compelling in the experience of
man. There is a joy in truth, a gaudium de veritate, as St. Augustine said.
There is a purpose in education beyond the immediate practical use to which
it can be put, as John Henry Newman said. There is a link, a cause-and-effect
bond between truth and man's cherished freedom, as Our Lord Himself said.
And although He was speaking primarily of that truth which only faith can
reveal when He said that it would make us free, it is proportionately true of
all knowledge. Man's freedom grows as he learns the truth from any source.
The challenge, however, of adult education has certain dimensions. It is
not our task in this field to reform the world, nor to hunt out Communists,
nor to aid and abet, nor to say "Cease and desist!" to the United Nations. It
is a task much more modest, but for all that, much more demanding. Newman
called it "the reconsecration of the intellect." If that term seems pretentious
today, it is because we have grown accustomed to the mediocre mind. We
have sneered too long at the "brain trust," the "quiz kid," the "egghead." We
cannot expect excellence in life unless we have excellence in education.
We pay little honor to journalists who think, critics who criticize, churchmen
who judge. We want journalists, critics, and churchmen who soothe and con-
sole, we pay high royalties for their positive thinking and their adjusted com-
placency. Ideas have become cheap, and in our college and university world
we are far more concerned about a free market for all kinds of thoughts than
about the value of the thoughts themselves. Newman's phrase, the reconsecra-
tion of the intellect, strikes us as embarrassing. Too many intellects have been
bought and sold. We are aware that there is a sin of simony when sacred
things are put into commerce. But the practice has dulled our conscience.
We have forgotten that the intellect, too, is sacred, and falls under the same
prohibition.
The Dimensions
Adult education has taken up the formidable job of reconsecrating the mind.
And the range of human problems stakes out the dimensions of the task. How
deep shall we probe? How far out shall we range? How high shall we reach?
An exploration of our boundaries should prove worth while for the men and
women responsible for the national growth of the post-academic, post-formal
pursuit of wisdom known today as Adult Education.
1. How deep? Deep enough to get to the strata of ideas, far below the sur-
face of opinions, feelings, prejudices, old mental habits, and odd personal
views. In his Essay on the Idea of a University, Newman exploded the thing
he called "viewiness," the preoccupation of a man who has a view about
everything, a grasp of nothing. Yet those who found Newman hard going a
century ago have descendants today who are just as superficial. Much of our
modern conversation today is merely an exchange of assorted prejudices. What
passes for thought is only a search for the newspaper or magazine which
agrees with one's likes and dislikes. There is a certain pleasantness in all this;
it reminds us of the definition of the gentleman, polished, inoffensive, no
edges, all surface. But this surface knowledge can be found in partisans as
well as in gentlemen, the stalwarts of the extreme right and the extreme left.
There is a curious affinity in their thinking, an extreme simplicity on both
sides. On the right, there are the Matt Dillons of the status quo, grim and
516 National Catholic Adult Education Commission
determined, with only one enemy, the Communist, and only one heresy, that
which is new. On the left, there are the Chesters of the far, sophisticated left —
confused, naive and whining — with only one answer to every charge: "Mc-
Carthyism." One need not sympathize with either Khrushchev nor the late
senator from Wisconsin to disdain both approaches. They are just too simple,
just too superficial. The educated Catholic adult distrusts "viewiness" wher-
ever it is found. In the new world that Father Weigel says has replaced the
old world of 1914, a great deal of wisdom must be put to work. Wisdom is
a gift of the Holy Spirit that gives point to facts, gives meaning to ideas. Opin-
ions are important because they are the stuff from which ideas come. But
opinions untried by facts, untested by experience, undisciplined by courses of
logical study can suffocate us all. The first dimension of adult education must
be to deepen our learning, to dig for wisdom, to sift out the dross of today's
headlines in the search for things that are true because they have been touched
by eternity.
2. How far shall we range? Keep in mind that we are speaking here not of
the professional intellectual, the scholar. We are talking about the average
man, that human specimen subjected in our times to the sociological probing
of popular scientists like Dr. Riesman and Dr. Packard. A dozen years ago
each of us were ciphers in Riesman's Lonely Crowd. Now we have been
assigned our proper ladder and bar in the jungle gym of Packard's Status
Seekers. There is something of the comic in all this: What about the lonely
fellow who has never been examined by these scholars? How anonymous he
must feel! He gets written up in nothing more exciting than the decennial
census. While thousands of Ph.D. candidates are plotting the profile of the
average American, he waits at home in obscurity for the doorbell that never
rings, for the knock that never comes, with the gnawing fear that no one will
ask him about his politics, his religion, his income after taxes, or even his pref-
erence in comic strips. But if the anonymous cipher is comic, there is tragedy
in the life of the man for whom the sociology bell has tolled. Once he has
been assigned to his proper bulge on the graph, or his status rung on the ladder,
what happens to him then? Certainly, he is "upper-middle-class" or "substand-
ard low." But is he content, hugging his status symbol? Is he happy? Is he
virtuous? Is he even alive? In the quiet murmur of his conditioned reflexes,
isn't there room for one unconditioned yelp of pain? Doesn't he sometimes
want to cry out: "I know all that. But I am tired of all this wall-to-wall monot-
ony. My question is simple: How do I get out?"
How far should adult education range? Far enough to draw the average
American out of his statistical niche, to call him down from his precarious
rung of status. Knowledge is inexhaustible, and the range of courses possible
is almost without limit. Some will like the direct approach: philosophy, history,
psychology, the languages, the classics, theology, Scriptures, Liturgy, Social
Action. Others will start with "gimmick" courses, but they can be led by
package-deals to the well — springs of honest learning. The point is to offer
a curriculum that will make a man want to break out of his tight circle of
boredom, a syllabus that will lead to the mastery of a subject, or even more
than a subject. Here the Catholic school has a tremendous advantage because
nothing should be considered foreign to the Church. There is something im-
mediately odd about a Christian Scientist studying medicine, or a Jehova's
Witness studying government. But to be a full Catholic means to be universal.
The courses may have to be departmentalized for convenience, but in the
Catholic institution there is no reason for them to be cut up into narrow, air-
Adult Education for Catholics 517
tight compartments. If our depth must touch wisdom, our range should reach
out to the whole horizon of man's concerns.
3. Finally, how high shall we reach? The human intellect itself points to
the answer: "the calm, clear, accurate vision and comprehension of all things,
as far as the finite mind can embrace them, each in its own place, and with
its own characteristics upon it." If knowledge is a pyramid that leads to God,
the senses and the intellect dig down and stretch out far. In man's more
enlightened moments they also reach up. But the infinite can be exasperating,
and for some tragic souls it can be full of despair. We must have God's
assistance. It comes through faith. And once God has spoken, not only does
the fact of God become more clear, everything else does, too. Faith unlocks
the tower of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Redemption. But it is not
only a tower; it is a lighthouse. These mysteries, revealed by God, cast a fine
light over human affairs, and biological facts and psychological theories, and
everything else.
"Admit a God [said a man who did], and you have introduced among the
subjects of your knowledge a fact encompassing, closing in upon, absorbing
every other fact conceivable."
The speaker was Newman. Although he is usually associated with the uni-
versity mind, he had the concern of both a priest and a layman for the non-
university mind, the education of all those who really want to learn. He would
have grasped and applauded the objective of your association — the point that
brings you here.
Conclusion
That point is to restore a beautiful old Christian word, the term "witness" —
to restore it as the role of the adult Catholic. To be informed, responsible,
loyal, and apostolic — these are the hallmarks of the Christian witness. It is
not necessary for him to be a scholar, only that he love to learn. It is not
necessary that he preach on street corners, or be active in a cell. There is a
place for that in the contemporary Catholic scene, but there is a more pressing
need for the witness. Simply put, the Christian witness knows his faith and
lives his faith. He is an ordinary citizen, an ordinary workman, an ordinary
parishioner, but he is extraordinarily concerned about the present and the
future of his Church and his world. He studies the liturgy, learning how to
live out the worship of his God. He studies Mater et Magistra, and the other
papal directives, that he might measure his own community by the social
teaching of his Church. He follows the coming Vatican Council and sees
Christian unity in a new light, not only as a problem for the Fathers of the
Council, but as his own personal and social problem too.
In apostolic terms, he is a witness to the faith. He is aware that he is a
witness to his Church at one of the most critical moments of her history.
Perhaps the main step that he took was his enrollment in Catholic adult edu-
cation. As a Catholic, he learned the secret of knowledge, that to be fully
educated he must have grown to adulthood, that to be fully adult he must
continue his education.
518 National Catholic Adult Education Commission
REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON ADULT EDUCATION
The meeting of the National Catholic Adult Education Commission was
held on Thursday, April 26, 1962, in Room 2048 of Cobo Hall, at 10 a.m.
Rev. Mark Heath, O.P., of the Dominican School of Theology for the Laity,
in Philadelphia, presided as chairman. Rt. Rev. Msgr. Francis W. Carney,
president of the Commission, opened the meeting with prayer, and welcomed
the members and visitors.
Father Heath then introduced the speaker, Mr. Cyril O. Houle, professor
of education at the University of Chicago, and for many years an officer of
the Adult Education Association of the United States. Mr. Houle's topic was
"The Nature of Adult Learning." Over the years he has conducted several
experimental studies in this field, and he gave the group the benefit of his
findings. The talk was followed by a discussion period which was fruitful and
interesting.
The afternoon session opened at 2 p.m., and was chaired by Monsignor
Carney. He presented the speaker, Most Rev. Paul J. Hallinan, Archbishop
of Atlanta, Georgia. The title of the Archbishop's address was "Adult Edu-
cation for Catholics: The Necessity and the Challenge." It called forth much
profitable and stimulating discussion of the place of adult education in our
system and related problems.
The meeting was adjourned at 4 p.m.
Two business meetings were held, one Wednesday evening, April 25, at the
Statler Hotel, and one on Thursday at noon. They were attended by the mem-
bers of the Executive Committee of the Commission.
Respectfully submitted,
Sister Jerome Keeler, O.S.B.,
acting as Secretary
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Francis W. Carney,
President
PART 11 SPECIAL SESSIONS
REPORT OF THE MEETING OF CATHOLIC LAY PERSONS
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan
SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, ARCHDIOCESE OF CINCINNATI
The Executive Board of the NCEA, at its meeting in June, 1961, authorized
a meeting for lay people to be held in connection with the 1962 convention in
Detroit. This meeting was to be primarily for lay people who are not profes-
sionally engaged in education. A committee was named to work out the details.
The committee was Monsignor Ryan (who had made the proposal), chairman:
Monsignor McDowell, and Monsignor Egging.
Since Monsignor Egging was not at the meeting due to illness, Monsignor
McDowell and myself discussed the program in broad outlines during the
meeting of the Executive Board. I later submitted to Monsignor McDowell
the first draft of a letter to be sent to the superintendents. The letter was
revised in accordance with Monsignor McDowell's suggestions, and then sent
to all the Catholic school superintendents in the country.
The superintendents were asked to send in the name of one or two persons
who had been active on behalf of Catholic education in the diocese, and to
whom an invitation would be sent to come to a meeting in Detroit on Wednes-
day, April 25, 1962.
The letter to the superintendents initially brought in about thirty-five names.
A personal letter was sent to each of these people inviting them to attend the
meeting. A description of the program was prepared and sent with the letter
and a reply card, in which the person would indicate whether or not he would
attend the meeting and be prepared to make a brief report on his activities on
behalf of Catholic education. Additional names came in from time to time,
and on April 3, 1962, a list was prepared of the people who had indicated
they would come to the meeting. There were 43 names on the list, of whom,
34 agreed to make a report. People came from as far away as Massachusetts,
New Orleans, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and other states in the
East and Midwest.
When the meeting opened on April 25, there were about one hundred people
in the room. Many came who had not registered. They were, of course, wel-
comed, but were not on the original list of those who were to report.
After a few remarks, I turned the meeting over to Dr. Raymond McCoy,
dean of the Graduate School of Xavier University in Cincinnati, who was
chairman of the meeting. The morning session, which lasted from 10 a.m.
to 12 noon, was taken up with the reports from individuals. They were limited
to three minutes each. This part of the program was completed by noon.
The afternoon session was devoted to a general discussion, first, to ques-
tions discussed by the speakers in the morning, or to amplify their remarks.
519
520 Special Sessions
Then the discussion drifted off to various aspects of Catholic education and
efforts on behalf of lay people working for Catholic education.
While the meeting was intended primarily for lay people not directly en-
gaged in Catholic education, several of those present were professional edu-
cators. This was fortunate for they had some real contributions to make to
the meeting. From all reports, at the time, it would seem that the people were
very well pleased with the program.
Prior to closing the meeting, I announced that a rating form would be sent
to all the people who had registered for the meeting and to others who might
want to receive a copy of this form. Some ten or twelve people present handed
in their names. A copy of this form was then sent to all these people and they
were asked to rate the meeting from several different points of view.
A total of forty responses were received. A summary of their reports is as
follows: (Not all persons answered all the questions.)
1. How do you rate this first meeting of lay persons held at the NCEA Con-
vention?
Excellent 20 Good 18 Fair 2 Poor 0
2. Do you think that additional meetings such as this should be held in connection
with future NCEA Conventions?
Yes 38 No 0
3. Is a one-day meeting adequate? Yes 20 No 17
4. Were you able to attend some of the other sessions of the NCEA Convention?
Yes 18 No 20
5. Were these of any apparent value to you? Yes 17 No 1
6. Did you visit the exhibits? Yes 33 No 4
Two other questions were asked. They were:
7. If future meetings are held, how could they be made more beneficial?
8. Are there any topics you think should be on the agenda for discussion if
there is a meeting next year? What are they?
Naturally, a wide variety of recommendations and suggestions was made
in answer to these questions. On the basis of the answers received, plus my
own observations of the meeting, I should like to make the following recom-
mendations:
1) In view of the unanimous opinion of these who answered the question
that a similar meeting be held next year, I make such a recommendation to
the Executive Board.
2) That the format of the meeting be changed from that of the first meet-
ing, possibly as follows:
The opening session consist of two or three talks by experts on some phase
of Catholic education and its problems that would be of especial interest to
lay people.
The afternoon session would be devoted to smaller group discussions of the
topics of the morning session. The speaker of the morning would lead the
discussion in the afternoon, and the people could go to the meeting of most
interest to them. The day's meeting could end with a short general meeting
to summarize the results of the group discussions.
3) Some of those who were present at the first meeting recommended that
a few representatives of Catholic education — priests, brothers, and sisters —
The Classroom and Teaching in Holiness 521
be present at the meeting to answer questions. Some of those present felt they
were not talking to the people who were deciding policy or practice in Cath-
olic education. I report this fact without necessarily recommending that it be
followed.
4) That specific recommendation be made to those sessions of the conven-
tion which might be of interest to the members present. While some could
not spend an extra day at the convention, others could, and 18 said they did
attend some regular sessions. Others said they were not sure they were wel-
comed and did not go into any other meetings at the convention.
Furthermore, some of the topics suggested for future meetings were of the
type that are treated in the regular meetings of the Association.
5) That the problem of the lay teacher in the Catholic school be specifically
excluded from this program, on two grounds, first that this meeting is not for
people professionally engaged in Catholic education, and secondly, the lay
teachers should be encouraged to attend the departmental meetings according
to their interests.
6) If the convention hall facilities permit, an effort should be made for the
group to have luncheon together. I am not thinking of a luncheon at from
$3 to $5 a person, but rather that a section of the cafeteria be reserved for the
group, where they would pay for their own lunch.
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan
Chairman of the Committee
THE CLASSROOM AND TEACHING IN HOLINESS
(Summary)
Rev. Paul Aronica, S.D.B.
SAINT DOMINIC SAVIO CLASSROOM CLUB, NEW ROCHELLE, NEW YORK
Beyond the obvious reason of safeguarding the faith and morals of her chil-
dren, the Church has always had a deeper and more meaningful aim in pro-
moting and providing for her vast network of parochial schools. Pope Pius
XI, in his masterful treatise Divini Illius Magistri ("The Divine Teacher"),
states it thus:
The proper and immediate end of Christian education is to cooperate with
Divine Grace in forming the true and perfect Christian, i.e., to form Christ
Himself in those regenerated by Baptism . . . For the true Christian must
live a supernatural life in Christ. (Par. 81)
Thus, the aim of the Catholic educator is clear: he must actively help
form the personality of Christ in his pupils. The classroom must become a
place of sanctification, not merely of learning. It must not only teach reli-
gion; it must instil religion into the pupils as the daily nourishment of their
spiritual life.
The parochial school is the ideal environment for producing what Pius XI
522 Special Sessions
calls "the true product of Christian education: the true and finished man of
character." (Par. 82)
St. John Bosco, the great religious educator of the past century, insisted
on this aspect of Catholic education. Every lad who came to his school would
be taken aside and told that the main purpose of his schooling was to save
his soul. "You've got to help me in a task that is most dear to me," he once
told a school assembly, "to save your souls. That is the only reason I am here."
Don Bosco was a practical educator. He insisted that — without prejudice
to academic excellence — the classroom was the place to sanctify youth. "Let
teachers be frank in urging their children to be good Christians. This is the
great secret to win their confidence. Any teacher who is too self-conscious
to exhort to piety is unworthy of his position."
Along with his model and patron, St. Francis de Sales, Don Bosco held
the ascetic principle that each person is to sanctify himself by keeping the
duties of his state of life, and that such sanctification is not a bitter, harsh
experience as much as a joyful expression of the fondest yearnings of the soul.
Don Bosco proved beyond doubt that the Catholic classroom can produce
saints, in one of his own pupils — St. Dominic Savio. Dominic lived with Don
Bosco three years until his death at the age of fifteen. By an exquisite sense
of chastity, devout use of the sacraments, and an active apostolate for good
among his schoolmates, this boy became a canonized saint. His one merit
is this: he is a model schoolboy.
The aim of the Savio Club, now found in some two thousand schools, is to
sanctify the classroom by the imitation of Dominic's virtues. The method to
be followed by the moderators is that of Don Bosco — understanding a pupil's
needs and urging a frequent, devout use of the sacraments. Without under-
standing there is no education; without the sacraments there is no sanctifi-
cation.
All Savio Club activities are centered on a youngster's duties at home and
in school. They are meant to integrate classroom duties, make them pleasant
by the "club idea," and foster a deeper and more active spiritual life. The
results so far are very encouraging. Even problem classrooms have become
model ones under the inspiration of a saint who was only a schoolboy! Yes,
and some classrooms have already produced their saints, in whom, says Pius
XI, "is perfectly realized the purpose of Christian education." (Par. 84)
FORMING THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT THROUGH
BYZANTINE RITE AND CHURCH HISTORY
Rev. Patrick Paschak, O.S.B.M.
ST. NICHOLAS SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
It is that wonderful trait within the Catholic Church which embraces all
peoples and all races that contributes to its great universality. Through past
centuries the Church has constantly shown a live interest in all its faithful.
Byzantine Rite: Forming the Ecumenical Spirit 523
The pontiffs through the years have emphasized this through encyclicals and
the creation of new dioceses, ranging from the recent Ukrainian diocese in
Chicago to the newly emerging diocese in the Congo. Our own Pope John
XXIII enhances this universality by announcing the intention to convoke an
Ecumenical Council on October 11th of this year, and to dedicate a part of
it to study the plight of the millions of dissident brethren who, though Christian,
are separated from the true Church. It is in the light of this pronouncement
that millions of Catholics will attempt to come closer to the mysterious and
often enigmatic peoples of the East, and perhaps search for means and ways
to bring them closer to us.
With this in mind, it is our purpose at this convention of educators to be-
come an active part of this great movement and contribute our share, however
small, to the success of the Pontiff's determination. Our tools are unique. We
are to give to little children the love and knowledge that we possess toward
our Ukrainian Rite and mold them into worthy carriers of the symbol of
unity into the great Catholic family of the world. The uniqueness stems from
the fact that we are Catholics of the Ukrainian Rite while thirty-five million
fellow Ukrainians are our separated brethren of the Orthodox faith. Our
different position is also increased in that we live in the United States where
Catholics of the Latin Rite are predominant and have little knowledge of the
various Catholics different from Latin Rite Catholics.
Catholics in the United States are a vital part of the Catholic Church.
Perhaps even the most vital part. Why? We are rich. We are free. We are
advancing in knowledge, in culture, and, with the years, in experience. There
are forty million Catholics in this country. This makes us the third ranking
Catholic population in the world. Amongst these forty million, perhaps three
to four million are Catholics of Eastern Rites. Obviously, such proportions
make contact between the Latin and Eastern Rite Catholics very insignificant,
and knowledge of the vital Eastern branch of the Church is very limited.
And yet, supposing that Catholics of the United States were to play a promi-
nent part at the Ecumenical Council in deciding relations of the schismatic
Church with the Mother Church, are these Catholics equipped to handle ex-
pertly this controversial and often historically distorted problem?
To be frank, at this late date it is quite difficult to catch up with the
gross negligence of the West in the study of the East, much less to grasp their
religious convictions. Of course, with the emergency of the Soviet Union as
a mighty power, the efforts of conciliation have increased — seminars, speciali-
zation, foreign languages, Slavic departments, dialogue meetings, reunion cen-
ters, a stream of articles about Church unity; observers are hurriedly whipped
together to study the mentality and the problems of the East. But, alas, all this
research draws one conclusion: How little we know about these people!
I believe that the fostering of ecumenical spirit in our pupils is vital in our
present day. It is more so since whatever we give them, they, in turn, can
offer to others in those schools where they continue their education. The more
so since the majority of our elementary school children will enter Catholic
secondary schools and acquaint other boys and girls, and, yes, teachers with
our Rite. That is why it is important to instill within them a loyalty toward
this Ukrainian Rite by teaching them to know and to cherish this ancient form
of worship. This, indeed, would be a truly ecumenical spirit if these children
will leave our schools and take with them this precious knowledge into high
school. Happily, this is being done now, and many of our young boys and
girls are doing a tremendous job of informing their school friends about our
524 Special Sessions
Rite. Our colleagues of the Latin Rite are realizing more and more that there
are other Catholics besides Latin Rite Catholics, and are frequenting our
churches more than in the last three decades.
It is the purpose of this convention to stimulate us in continuing to teach
our children more and more about our glorious religious past, to make them
more active in religious participation, and above all, to instill in them a deep
love for their own suffering Church. And this can be done only when the
educators themselves profess such a love for their own rite, and are genuinely
willing to share this precious treasure with the student.
How can this be done? Well, we must give them knowledge. Our specific
target is Ukrainian children. These were born of Ukrainian parents, and are
reared in a Ukrainian atmosphere. They must know much about their Ukrain-
ian religious and national background — not just something vague, or confused.
Oftentimes, press releases confuse the Ukrainian Catholics with the Orthodox.
The variety of terms applied to the Ukrainians has led to much confusion,
not only amongst people in general but even in the younger Ukrainian gener-
ation. So give them a clear picture. Tell them why they are misleadingly
called Russians, Rusins, Ruthenians, instead of Ukrainian. Perhaps this ex-
planation will lend itself to a proper understanding of the national name of
the Ukrainians.
In early Ukrainian history, the name "Rus," of uncertain origin, was the
official designation of the land settled by various Ukrainian tribes. In time,
the name Rus was extended to the regions now known as Russia and Byelo-
russia. However, the difference between these peoples was always noted, and
to differentiate from the Russians or Muscovites, the Ukrainians called them-
selves "Little Russians" and in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy they were
named "Ruthenes" or "Rusins."
Since the Western World accepted the habit of designating the Muscovite
people as Russians, Ukrainian patriots in the last century decided to re-
linquish the old usage of Little Russians, Ruthenes, and Rusins, and adopted
the national name of Ukrainian which had already been in usage since the
Middle Ages.
Certainly, a simple explanation of this type to a child will clear the air of
confusion which stems from ignorance. Then we must explain why the
Ukrainians tend to be nationalistic, even blending their national and religious
convictions into an inseparable unity. It seems proper to feel that way if one
is a member of a forty-million nation which has lost its independence. Other
ethnic groups in this country may not be as concerned with problems of na-
tionalism as long as they see their country of origin clearly defined on the map
of Europe. A newcomer Ukranian to the United States who has seen his
country submerged under alien domination and has suffered the ravages of
World War II, and who has been shuttled about the face of a continent before
arriving in America, may be understandably nationalistic while adapting himself
to his new homeland. I am convinced that the Holy Father, as a papal
diplomat to Eastern countries, is very much aware of the Catholic Church in
national surroundings. On December 1, 1961, Francis Cardinal Spellman
spoke about Pope John XXIII at Dallas, Texas, in this manner:
Ever has He [the Holy Father] been insistent, throughout his long and distin-
guished career as a papal diplomat, that love of God and service of country
go hand in hand, that a good Catholic must be a first-class citizen. In
Bulgaria, in Turkey, and in Greece, in almost every speech he delivered at
public functions, he constantly emphasized that a Catholic must be a good
Bulgarian, a good Turk, a good Greek. Pliny was not sure that a Christian
Byzantine Rite; Forming the Ecumenical Spirit 525
could be a good Roman citizen, and Trajan echoed his doubt. This ancient
accusation is forever repeated. Even today, when the blood is not yet dry
on the answer given by thousands of Catholic Americans who have offered
their lives on the altar of patriotism, there are still those in our midst who
repeat the doubts of Pliny and those who suggest the answer of Trajan.
Thus, Cardinal Spellman has given us an eloquent insight into the senti-
ments of Pope John XXIII. And it is reassuring to know that within the
thoughts of the Father of Christendom, he remembers our Ukrainian Church,
and somewhere within his Vatican office keeps a photograph of our suffering
Metropolitan Joseph Slipy to recall to him the plight of the Ukrainian Church.
Should not all this prompt us to greater fervor in imparting a sound knowl-
edge of our own Ukrainian Church to our children? Let us be generous in
our teachings. Today, it does not suffice to tell the students that we have a
different language, that the Pope is also our spiritual head, that our Rite
recognizes a married clergy; but we should acquaint them with our past
history, how our customs developed through the centuries, and we must today
write in a new chapter about our Church in the United States. We must
tell them how many years the Ukrainian Church has been in the United
States, who was our first bishop, our first metropolitan, where our first church
was built. All this is part of our heritage, and can no longer be confined
to a cursory treatment in a souvenir booklet or a jubilee almanac. I
believe it is the time to bring this knowledge to the children in the class-
room. Spreading this knowledge will equip the child to speak easily of his
or her own Ukrainian Church. And as the child speaks out, it will reach the
ears of non-Ukrainians. This will be an ecumenical movement for it brings
others closer to us, and closer to unity. This will be the ecumenical spirit
of the child.
But, before all this can be done, and before knowledge can be given to
others, not only does it presuppose knowledge in the educator, but the efficacy
of this training lies in something deeper, more sensitive, and more spiritual.
Success of this program will only be certain when the teaching of this pro-
gram emanates from a deep, genuine, all-embracing love of the Ukrainian
Church. We must take a hard look at ourselves and decide whether the
subject matter that we give to the child flows freely and abundantly from a
heart that deeply cherishes these ancient traditions. Ever so often one
witnesses those who surrender themselves to that limp conviction that there is
nothing ahead — assimilation will end all. To go through the mere techni-
calities of teaching Rite and Church history as if expounding a wornout
arithmetic formula defeats the purpose. Such a presentation merits a similar
acceptance. It is only when we truly deliver our material with a tender love
that it will catch on. A child must develop love for his Church and Rite. This
cannot be forced upon him. Therefore, if we will be persistent and teach the
children to love their Ukrainian church, their heritage, their language — given
with love, it will be accepted with love — the effects will be significant and mani-
fest themselves in later life. Truth is important, but "it must be expressed
without offending Christian charity." With these words, Pope John refers to
the discussions on the ecumencial council level. That is the attitude to assume
in approaching the child. This love must be such that one refuses to be dis-
couraged by disappointments, refuses to be offended. If he is unable to do
so, then he is falling short of St. Paul's description of charity: "Charity is
patient, is kind; charity feels no envy; charity is never perverse or proud,
never insolent; does not claim its rights, cannot be provoked, does not brood
526 Special Sessions
over an injury; takes no pleasure in wrongdoing, but rejoices at the victory of
truth; sustains, believes, hopes, endures, to the last."
A more accurate description of true charity will not be found. The passage
is so very full of thought that it is worth many meditations. Notice particu-
larly: charity is patient, is kind; charity is never proud, never insolent; does not
claim its rights . . . How greatly is the need of these qualifications in the
true educator in this modern day. This formula in our everyday teaching of
truth, plus understanding, plus patience, plus charity, equals unity of all
Christians. Thus is produced an ecumenical spirit. In some manner, this
attitude must be given to our children. Can there be a finer means than to
utilize our own Eastern Rite background for this cause? Through our chil-
dren, a bridge is being formed to reach our Catholic brethren who have not
been instructed about the Eastern branch of the Church. The more they are
aware of the millions that worship in another manner, the more conscious will
they be of the tens of millions who are so close to the truth and yet we must
call them "our separated brethren."
The entire year of 1962 is lived under the sign of a historic Church
Council. We are living in that time. It has been one hundred years since
that last Vatican Council, and over four hundred years since the Council of
Trent. While the past has had its various problems which the eminent
scholars of the councils have discussed and ruled upon, this Second Council of
the Vatican impresses one with its significant concern about the cause of
Christian unity. It will speak the truth, but "it must be expressed without
offending Christian charity," in the words of the Pontiff. As members of the
Ukrainian group, we lament the cause of seeing the majority of our beloved
people as separated from the true Church, and we grieve for our Catholic
Church in Western Ukraine which wears the badge of honor to be the first
to suffer martyrdom under Soviet rule. Our own contribution can be to in-
crease our zeal in the teaching field by furthering this ecumenical movement
that was initiated by a man who was sent by God, and his name was John.
In conclusion, may I turn to the clergy in the words of Pope John: "Hence
we invite prayers, according to our intentions, for this great undertaking. We
look for special response from our clergy."
To the religious: "Beginning with our religious, all must unite their prayers
with their works."
To the students and scholars: "In order that the Council may have fruitful
results, give your best efforts to your work which will produce providential aid
for our efforts. We trust much in your work, in your science, in your prayers."
And, finally, to the children: "For this undertaking which we have so
much at heart, may all our children, in the innocence of their hearts, raise
their supplications."
EFFECTIVE TEACHING OF THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE
IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
(Summary)
Mother Raymond de Jesus, F.S.E.
ASSISTANT DEAN, DIOCESAN SISTERS COLLEGE, PUTNAM, CONNECTICUT
Twenty years ago, or maybe even ten, the pupils graduating from your
elementary schools spoke Ukrainian reasonably well; they could read and
write it with as much ease and proficiency as English. Today, you are
dealing with second- and third-generation children who do not speak Ukrain-
ian, or very little, when they come to school. Some may even develop a
dislike for the language. Their parents speak Ukrainian to them and they
answer in English.
Should the parents abandon the mother tongue and speak only English
to their children? By no means. The child should be taught the two lan-
guages from almost the very start of life. English is essential for their
adaptation to the social life of this country; but there is a still more cogent
reason for the development of fluency in the Ukrainian language: The
younger generations must understand and love it if they are to remain
faithful to the Church Rite which has given them Christian life.
The problem confronting a bilingual group interested in the vitality of its
language program is chiefly one of rejuvenation, not of innovation. The
changed conditions of the language status in the home, brought about by the
gradual assimilation of the ethnic group in its country of adoption, necessitate
a reorganization of the school program and an adaptation of its content.
This readjustment to be successful requires:
1) a humble acceptance of the fact that, to a large extent, past methods
can no longer be effective.
2) a staunch conviction that, despite the altered language status in the
home, the school can achieve worth-while results.
3) a concrete realization that the first stages of language development
previously assured by the home must now be provided for at school, thus
obliging the postponement of reading and writing.
4) a provision for continuity, without which any language program,
however appealing it may seem temporarily, does not reach a really pro-
ductive maturity.
It is with such requirements in mind that The Holy Ghost French Series,
from which The Ukrainian Primary Program is translated, was conceived ten
years ago and continues to be developed. The series consists of books for
elementary school pupils and teachers' editions including the children's text
combined with a complete manual for the instructor. There are now five books
in the series; the sixth is to be published shortly; the seventh and eighth are
scheduled for 1963 and 1964 respectively.
527
528 Special Sessions
Among the chief strengths of the series are:
1) its linguistic approach, which according to modern research favors free
expression more than does situation conversations.
2) its psychological recognition of the interests of the child at the various
stages of development.
3) its attractive format, which readily pleases children.
4) its continuity. All the vocabulary and sentence structures of the preced-
ing books are repeated in the succeeding one and progressively enlarged
upon.
5) its flexibility, which permits teachers to adapt their teaching to the needs
of particular groups.
6) its cultural content, selected for its meaningfulness to children.
7) its complete teachers' editions, indicating what to teach and how, plus
providing additional games, songs, poems, and background materials for
the teacher.
8) its accompanying audio-aids, tapes and records for each of the pupils'
texts and teachers' editions.
The entire series represents a coordinated effort to make the study of a
foreign language appealing and basically constructive.
In conclusion, may I express my fervent wish that your teaching of the
Ukrainian language be increasingly successful and rewarding, that it may con-
tribute powerfully to the vitality of the Byzantine Rite in this country, and
thus may lead more effectively to the fulfillment of Christ's prayer "that all
may be one."
FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING OBJECTIVES
AND METHODS
(Summary)
Sister M. Bohdonna, O.S.B.M.
MANOR JUNIOR COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
In 1958 the United States Congress passed the National Defense Education
Act. This act embodied the concern of our government with methodology of
teaching science and languages. To this day, the United States Office of Edu-
cation sends questionnaires to our parochial schools requesting information
concerning the Ukrainian program, its growth and effectiveness, the syllabi
and long-range plans. In line with this concern, our bishops have intensified
their efforts to develop the Ukrainian program along recognized pedagogical
methods.
Seven competencies are recognized in language method aims:
1) listening comprehension
2) oral expression
3) reading
Teaching Ukrainian History 529
4) writing
5) applied linguistics
6) cultural analysis
7) professional preparation
Intensive research coupled with practical application has set a pattern for
foreign language teaching in the United States. This pattern is known as the
FLES method (Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools). To develop
the above competencies, definite methods and sequences have been worked
out by professional linguists of the Modern Language Association, who are
the guides in the FLES program.
It would be a fallacy to divorce teaching of Ukrainian from these methods.
As in all subjects, proper preparation is imperative. Children learn by imita-
tion and repetition. In preparing the lesson, teachers must vary the methods
of repetition. Binding the vocabulary with grammatical construction in sen-
tence patterns is certainly more appealing than grammar exercises to a young
child. Long remembered are competitive reiterations rather than rote repeti-
tion. Boys against girls, the point system, move up a place, who won? — these
are examples of competitive reiterations.
To demonstrate the FLES method we shall now present three lessons on
three grade levels following the Archdiocesan syllabus.
[Demonstration followed.]
LESSON PLAN FOR TEACHING UKRAINIAN HISTORY
IN OUR ARCHDIOCESAN SCHOOLS
(Summary)
Sister M. Salome, O.S.B.M.
ST. BASIL'S SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
It is superfluous to enter upon any lengthy explanation and presentation of
the purposes, reasons, et cetera, for the work being done on the unit for the
teaching of the history of Ukraine as you have it before you. In reviewing
the various outlooks of the speakers and of the presentations made at last
year's institute, a piece of work of this nature is the logical and only step that
could be taken in continuing the task placed upon us as educators of Ukrain-
ian youth.
A few years ago, what seemed to be unfathomable chasms, unsurmountable
difficulties, and what actually were tremendous gaps in the field of Ukrainian
studies for the elementary and secondary levels, now, in certain areas, are be-
ing bridged by some outstanding engineering, almost beyond the fond hopes of
those involved and interested. This bridging, however, is a vast, long, grueling,
time-consuming task, and the reality of the vastness and depth of the mission
placed upon us does not escape any of us.
So, to maintain a continuity in the development of the undertaken projects,
530 Special Sessions
an entire unit of work has been prepared for the teaching of the history of
Ukraine, which should make it easier to follow the syllabus of the subject.
Definitely, this is not a final product, perfected in all its divisions. The
development, improvement, and perfecting are a lifetime work in this as in
every subject taught in the elementary and secondary schools, and in general,
in learning. However, it is more complete, by far, than the ordinary syllabus
outline; and, since it is patterned upon the more common systematic units
used in teaching the history of other European countries, it gives a "more
certain uniformity of presentation and logical development" of the subject
matter.
A cursory review of the unit gives one an immediate, over-all view of the
subject: "History — The Ukrainians."
The time allotment according to the syllabus issued last fall calls for history
in the eighth grade to be taught twice a week — Thursday and Friday having
been suggested — until the material is covered.
Whether or not this schedule will prove effective in presenting the material
of this unit depends largely on the receptiveness and the responsiveness of a
particular group of pupils. With some groups it may prove more beneficial to
have daily lessons for five to six consecutive weeks (the average estimated
time). With other groups it may be more profitable to follow the proposed
two-lessons-a-week allotment made last fall. The divisions are sufficiently
adaptable to either system. Far be it from me to suggest a digression from an
established regulation in regard to the time allotment proposed; however, it
must have flexibility, especially since in teaching the Ukrainian subjects we
must include the knowledge of the Byzantine Rite, music, grammar, literature,
geography, comprehensive reading, and other subjects.
Since to date, the history books used in the United States do not have sepa-
rate coverage for the history of the Ukrainian people (except in rare cases a
casual mention in those texts which include the study of Russia), a brief text
has been drawn up covering the entire unit, including references and suggested
readings.
It behooves us to consider this point intelligently and objectively in view of
the fact that the study of Ukrainian history in our schools would have made
greater strides had we not been restricted and limited to the use of histories
written only in the Ukrainian language in a style beyond the comprehension of
most of our youth. It is only recently that histories have been published in
the Ukrainian language on a level more adaptable to some of our youth, and
that several volumes of history have appeared in the English language. All
these provide very interesting and detailed information for both teacher and
scholar. It is our hope that the very near future will see a good, complete,
authentic, precise English textbook written for use on the elementary-grade
level.
We trust that the preparation of this text and unit study will be of assistance
to our teachers of Ukrainian history. We also hope it will present our students
with an interesting, attractive, and direct approach to the studying of this
subject with which the history of our Church and our Byzantine Rite is so
closely interwoven.
LESSON PLAN FOR TEACHING UKRAINIAN GEOGRAPHY
IN OUR ARCHDIOCESAN SCHOOLS
(Summary)
Sister Michael, S.S.M.I.
ST. JOHN'S SCHOOL, DETROIT, MICHIGAN
Since Ukraine is the country from which have immigrated the parents, grand-
parents, or relatives of most of the students in our parochial schools, a study
of her geography and her people is of importance and interest. Since the
average American geography text does not include Ukraine when treating the
countries of Europe, it was seen necessary to supply this lack with a lesson
plan on "Ukraine: Her Land and People."
Ukraine, a country of about 42,000,000 people, is situated in southeastern
Europe. She is bound on the south by the Black and Ozov Seas, on the north
and east by Russia proper, and on the west by Poland. She has a temperate
climate. The Carpathian and Krymski Mountains, and the Caucasus are the
chief mountains of Ukraine. The most important rivers are the Dnieper, the
third largest river in Europe, and the Dniester; others are the Buh, Dinetz,
the Kuban. There are very few lakes in Ukraine. The Black and Ozov Seas
border Ukraine on the south.
The chief religions in Ukraine are Catholic and Orthodox. The people are
are a religious people as can be seen from the customs observed at Easter an,d
Christmas.
The Ukrainians are primarily an agricultural people, and so from 80 to 90
per cent of the people live in villages. Others live in cities where they are
occupied in business, professions such as teaching, medicine, and so forth, or
work in factories. Lumbering, fishing, mining, and oil are also prominent
industries.
After World War I, Ukraine gained a short-lived independence. Her natural
resources began to be developed by the nations who ruled her. Manufacturing
has been highly developed and huge factories are found at Dnepropetrovsk,
Kryvy Rih, and in the Don Basin.
Ukraine's five largest cities are Kiev, Kharkiv, Odessa, Dniepropetrovsk,
and Lwiv.
Traveling facilities in Ukraine are similar to those in the United States,
although the building of good roads is at a slower pace. The horse and wagon
are still widely used in the villages, but the automobile, chiefly trucks and
buses, are common forms of transportation. The railroad is widely used. Lwiv
is an important terminal in Western Ukraine; Kharkiv in Eastern Ukraine. Air
travel to Kiev, Lwiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa is available.
Because Ukraine has been denied her place among the free nations of the
world, and information on her people and country has been distorted because
of her proximity to Russia and her seizure by the U.S.S.R. after World War
I, justice dictates that as a separate ethnic group a knowledge of her people
and her geography be known in the free world. To the children of our pa-
rochial schools who study the countries that make up the continent of Europe
from where their ancestors stem, it is essential that this information be made
an integral part of their geography program.
531
APPENDIX I
CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE I. NAME
Section 1. The name of this Association shall be the National Catholic
Educational Association of the United States.
ARTICLE II. OBJECTS
Section 1. It shall be the object of this Association to strengthen the con-
viction of its members and of people generally that the proper and immediate
end of Christian education is to cooperate with divine grace in forming the
true and perfect Christian.
Section 2. In addition this Association shall emphasize that Christian
education embraces the whole aggregate of human life, physical and spiritual,
intellectual and moral, individual, domestic and social, with the goal of elevat-
ing it, and perfecting it according to the example and teaching of Christ.
Section 3. To accomplish these goals the Association shall encourage a
spirit of mutual helpfulness among Catholic educators by the promotion of
the study, discussion and publication of matters that pertain to religious
instruction and training as well as to the entire program of the arts and
sciences. The Association shall emphasize that the true Christian does not
renounce the activities of this life but develops and perfects his natural faculties
by coordinating them with the supernatural.
ARTICLE III. DEPARTMENTS
Section 1. The Association shall consist of the following Departments:
Major Seminary, Minor Seminary, College and University, School Superin-
tendents, Secondary School, Elementary School, and Special Education. Other
departments or sections may be added with the approval of the Executive
Board of the Association.
Section 2. Each department or section within a department, although
under the direction of the Executive Board, retains its autonomy and elects
its own officers. There shall, however, be nothing in departmental or sectional
regulations inconsistent with the provisions of this Constitution or the By-
laws adopted in pursuance thereof.
Section 3. It shall be the responsibility of the President of each Depart-
ment to report to the Executive Secretary the time, place, and proposed program
of all regional meetings.
ARTCLE IV. OFFICERS
Section 1. The officers of the Association shall be a President General;
Vice Presidents General to correspond in number with the number of Depart-
ments in the Association; an Executive Secretary; and an Executive Board.
In addition to the above-mentioned officers, the Executive Board shall include
three members from each department — the President and two other members
specifically elected to represent their department on the Executive Board.
Section 2. All officers shall hold office until the end of the annual meeting
wherein their successors shall have been elected, unless otherwise specified
in this Constitution.
532
NCEA Constitution 533
ARTICLE V. THE PRESIDENT GENERAL
Section 1. The President General shall be chosen annually in a general
meeting of the Association.
Section 2. The President General shall preside at general meetings of the
Association and at the meetings of the Executive Board. Meetings of the
Executive Board shall be called at the discretion of the President General and
the Executive Secretary or whenever a majority of the Board so desires.
ARTICLE VI. THE VICE PRESIDENTS GENERAL
Section 1. The Vice Presidents General, one from each Department, shall
be elected in the general meeting of the Association. In the absence of the
President General, the Vice President General representing the Major Semi-
nary Department shall perform the duties of the President General. In the
absence of both of these, the duties of the President General shall be per-
formed by the Vice Presidents General representing the other Departments in
the following order: Minor Seminary, College and University, School Super-
intendents, Secondary School, Elementary School, and Special Education.
In the absence of the President General and all Vice Presidents General, a
pro tempore Chairman shall be chosen by the Executive Board on nomination,
the Secretary putting the question.
ARTICLE VII. THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
Section 1. The Executive Secretary shall be elected by the Executive
Board. The term of his office shall be three years, and he shall be eligible to
re-election. He shall receive a suitable salary in an amount to be fixed by the
Executive Board.
Section 2. The Executive Secretary shall be resource officer of the general
meetings of the Association and of the Executive Board. He shall receive
and keep on record all matters pertaining to the Association and shall perform
other duties consonant with the nature of his office.
Section 3. The Executive Secretary shall be the custodian of all moneys
of the Association. He shall pay all bills authorized under the budget approved
by the Executive Board. He shall give bond for the faithful discharge of
these fiscal duties. His accounts shall be subject to annual professional audit
and this audit shall be submitted for the approval of the Executive Board.
Section 4. Whenever the Executive Secretary, with the approval of the
President General, finds that the balance in the checking account maintained
by his office is in excess of the short-term requirements of the account, he is
authorized to deposit the excess funds in savings accounts of well-established
banks or building and loan associations; provided only that the amount on
deposit with any one such institution shall not exceed the amount covered by
Federal Deposit Insurance.
ARTICLE VIII. THE EXECUTIVE BOARD
Section 1. As mentioned in Article IV, the Executive Board shall consist
of the general officers of the Association therein enumerated together with the
Presidents of the Departments and two other members elected from each
Department of the Association.
Section 2. The Executive Board shall determine the general policies of
the Association. It shall supervise the arrangements for the annual meetings
534 Appendix I
of the Association.
Section 3. It shall have charge of the finances of the Association. The
expenses of the Association and the expenses of the Departments and Sections
shall be paid from the Association treasury, under the direction and with the
authorization of the Executive Board.
Section 4. It shall have power to regulate admission into the Association,
to fix membership fees, and to provide means for carrying on the work of the
Association.
Section 5. It shall have power to form committees to facilitate the dis-
charge of its work. It shall authorize the auditing of the accounts of the
Executive Secretary. It shall have power to interpret the Constitution and
regulations of the Association, and in matters of dispute its decision shall
be final. It shall have power to fill all interim vacancies occurring among its
members until such vacancies can be filled in the annual elections.
Section 6. The Executive Board shall hold at least one meeting each year.
ARTICLE IX. MEMBERSHP
Section 1. Under the direction of the Executive Board, anyone who is
desirous of promoting the objects of this Association may be admitted to
membership on payment of membership fee. Memberships shall be institutional
or individual. Payment of the annual fee entitles the individual member
to copies of the general publications of the Association issued after admission
into the Association but not to departmental publications. Payment of the
annual fee entitles the institutional member to copies of the general publica-
tions of the Association issued after admission into the Association and to
publications of the department of which the institution is a member. The
right to vote in Departmental meetings is determined by the regulations of the
several Departments.
Section 2. Benefactors of the Association shall be individuals, institutions,
or organizations interested in the activities of Catholic education who con-
tribute one thousand dollars or more to its financial support.
Section 3. Individuals interested in the activities of the Association who
contribute an annual fee of twenty-five dollars or more shall be Sustaining
Members of the Association.
ARTICLE X. AMENDMENTS
Section 1. This Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the
members present at an annual meeting, provided that such amendment has
been . approved by the Executive Board and proposed to the members at a
general meeting one year before.
ARTICLE XI. BYLAWS
Section 1. Bylaws not inconsistent with this Constitution may be adopted
at the annual meeting by a majority vote of the members present and voting;
but no Bylaw shall be adopted on the same day on which it is proposed.
1 . The Executive Board shall have power to fix its own quorum, which shall
not be less than one-third of its number.
2. Publications of the Departments may be distributed only to institutional
members of the Departments.
APPENDIX II
FINANCIAL REPORT OF
THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION
GENERAL ACCOUNT
Washington, D.C., December 31, 1961
RECEIPTS
1961
Jan. 1 Balance on hand $ 95,825.69
1961 Receipts:
Convention receipts $ 50,000.00
Donations 16,338.36
Membership fees:
Sustaining members $ 1,000.00
Major Seminary Dept. — Inst 2,950.00
Minor Seminary Dept. — Inst 3,165.00
College & University Dept. — Inst 14,700.00
School Superintendents Dept 1,665.00
Secondary School Dept— Inst 8,579.00
Elementary School Dept.— Inst 42,882.00
Special Education Dept. — Inst 705.00
Special Education Dept. — Indiv 280.00
Supervisors Section 4,185.00
Vocation Section 396.00
Newman Chaplains Section 28.00
General members 3,503.00
Total membership fees 84,038.00
Income on Reserve Fund 5,982.39
Reports and Bulletins 2,067.20
Royalties 129.03
Subscription to the Bulletin 513.19
Superintendents Public Education Project 835.00
Miscellaneous receipts 122.35
Total receipts during 1961 $160,025.52
Total, January 1, 1961, Balance plus 1961 receipts $255,851.21
535
536 Appendix II
EXPENDITURES
Operating expenses of the National Office:
Salaries $ 86,272.81
Printing:
NCEA Quarterly Bulletin:
November 1960 $ 1,984.50
February 1961 1,422.90
May 1961 1,965.90
August 1961 (Proceedings) .... 17,239.14
November 1961 2,110.00 $24,722.44
"Calendar of Meetings, 1961-1962" 882.20
Pamphlets, stationery, office forms, etc 8,015.76
Total printing 33,620.40
Mimeographing and duplicating 7,052.42
Postage 5,296.80
Rent 15,268.75
Operating expenses of Staff House 2,767.11
Telephone and telegraph 2,603.54
Office supplies 3,879.22
Office equipment 3,433.80
Repair and upkeep of equipment 567.58
Equipment for Staff House 296.70
Insurance 1,562.83
Books, magazines, miscellaneous publications 754.23
Petty cash fund 331.69
D.C. Personal Property Tax 430.86
Miscellaneous office expense 1,942.85
Total operating expenses of National Office $166,081.59
Membership in Professional Organizations 599.00
Contributions to Other Professional Associations 975.00
Expense accounts: Executive Secretary, Associate Secretaries, and
professional staff on assignment 15,805.67
Financial Report 537
EXPENDITURES— (Coni.)
Departmental Expenses during 1961:
(Departmental printed publications and field expenses only)
Seminary Departments —
Eastern Regional Meeting $ 801.26
College and University Department —
Newsletter $ 2,798.52
Regional Unit expenses 500.00
Secretary's Office 1,700.00
Total College and University expenses . 4,998.52
School Superintendents Department —
October Meeting 2,168.61
Secondary School Department —
Catholic High School Quarterly Bulletin,
Reprints and Postage $ 2,906.16
Other publications 382.00
Regional Unit expenses 309.81
President's and
Secretary's Office 61.00
Total Secondary School expenses .... 3,658.97
Elementary School Department —
Catholic Elementary Education News 2,145.92
Total Departmental expenses $ 13,773.28
Committee expenses:
General Executive Board $ 4,393.34
Problems and Plans Committee 3,736.70
Total Committee expenses 8,130.04
Legal and other professional counsel 1,667.20
Gabriel Richard Lecture 1,000.00
Sister Formation Project 1,800.00
Total expenditures during 1961 $209,831.78
Balance on hand, December 31, 1961 46,019.43
Total: 1961 expenditures plus balance on hand, December 31, 1961 . $255,851.21
INDEX
Accreditation in a Large Liberal Arts College, Experience in Securing NCATE,
Sister M. Cuthbert, I.H.M 244
Accreditation of a Small Liberal Arts College for Women, Sister M. Virginia
Claire, S.N.J.M 241
Accredited by NCATE, Catholic Institutions, Urban H. Fleege 231
Adult Education Commission, National Catholic 513
Adult Education for Catholics: The Necessity and the Challenge, Most Rev.
Paul J. Hallinan 513
Adult Education, Report of the Commission on 518
Agnes, Sister Mary, R.S.M., The Ecumenical Spirit in the Curriculum: The
World Viewpoint. Summary of Discussion 159
Agnes Therese, Sister M., I.H.M., Filmslides on a Kindergarten International unit 466
Ann Virginia, Sister, I.H.M., Debate: Elementary vs. Secondary Schools (Nega-
tive Position) 444
Appleton, Walter, DEEP— The Detroit Experimental English Program 339
Aronica, Rev. Paul, S.D.B., The Classroom and Teaching in Holiness 521
Barricelli, Jean-Pierre, The Foreign Student in the United States: The Wien
Program at Brandeis University 218
Barrett, C. Dale, M.D., How Can the Elementary School Meet Its Physical
Fitness Requirements? 432
Bea, Letter from Augustine Cardinal 215
Behrmann, Very Rev. Msgr. E. H., Implications of President Kennedy's Panel
on Mental Retardation 470
Bernard, Brother H., F.S.C., An Approach to Present Vocational Problems and
Their Solutions 118
Bigger, Rev. Hugh L, A Remedial and Developmental Reading Program in the
Minor Seminary 131
Biology, The BSCS Program for the Teaching of, Evelyn Klinckmann 301
Blind Child, Music for, Lenore McGuire 488
Blind Child, The Importance of Music Reading for the, Sister Mary Mark, I.H.M. 486
Bohdonna, Sister M., O.S.B.M., Foreign Language Teaching Objectives and
Methods 528
Borders, Rev. William D., Newman Clubs and Ecumenism on the Secular
Campus 184
Brandeis University, The Wien Program at, See Barricelli, Jean-Pierre
Britt, Very Rev. Laurence V., Summary of 1962 Meeting 35
Brother Vocation, Clarification of the, Rev. Quentin Hakenewerth, S.M 497
BSCS: One Teacher Speaking to Another, Sister M. Ivo, B.V.M., 309
BSCS Program for the Teaching of Biology, The, Evelyn Klinckmann 301
Burke, Rev. Eugene M., C.S.P., Developing an Intellectual Tradition in the
Seminary 58
, What Is the Catholic Church? 363
Burns, Rev. Norbert C, Successful Recruiting in Secondary Schools 500
Bylaws
NCEA 534
Proposed Amendment: Minor Seminary Department 138
Proposed Amendment re Newman Clubs: College and University Depart-
ment 257
Byrne, Most Rev. Leo C, Developing Spiritual Maturity in Thought and Action 286
Byzantine Rite and Church History, Forming the Ecumenical Spirit Through,
Rev. Patrick Paschak, O.S.B.M., 522
Camera to Screen, From, Kathleen N. Lardie 329
Camille, Sister M., O.S.F., NCATE Criteria, Policy, and Implications 232
Campbell, J. Arthur, CHEM Study — An Experimental Approach to Chemistry 323
539
540 Index
Cantoni, Louis J., Reflections on Research in Rehabilitation 476
Carney, Very Rev. Edward J., O.S.F.S., Celibacy: Motivation and Some Problems 83
Catholic Church? What Is the, Rev. Eugene M. Burke, C.S.P 363
Catholic Colleges and the Emerging New Nations. Thomas P. Melady 160
Summary of Discussion, Sister Marie Christine, G.N.S.H 164
Catholic High School Quarterly Bulletin 361
Catholic Institutions Accredited by NCATE, Urban H. Fleege 231
Catholic Lay Persons, Report of the Meeting of, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan .... 518
Catholic, Protestant, Jew — A Basis for Understanding, Philip Scharper 377
Catholic Scholarship, The Open Tradition in, Philip Scharper 172
Summary of Discussion, Sister Joan Marie, O.S.U 174
Catholic School Story and the Press, The, Harry Salsinger 426
Catholic School Story — the Public, The, Jerome G. Kovalcik 423
Catholic University and Ecumenism, The, James P. Reilly, Jr 227
See also Heinrich A. Rommen 223
Catskill Area Project in Small School Design (CAPSSD) 317
Celibacy: Motivation and Some Problems, Very Rev. Edward J. Carney, O.S.F.S. 83
Celine, Sister M., O.S.B., Successful Grouping for Teaching and Learning 411
Chaminade High School, Dayton, Ohio, Team Teaching at, Members of the
Faculty 314
Charitina, Sister M., F.S.P.A., Orientation and Post-Orientation for Junior Sisters
from Mission Countries 198
Chemical Bond Approach to the Teaching of Chemistry, The, Helen W. Crawley 299
CHEM Study — An Experimental Approach to Chemistry, J. Arthur Campbell 323
Christine, Sister Marie, G.N.S.H., Catholic Colleges and the Emerging New
Nations 164
Church, Aloysius S., M.D., The Psychiatrist Views the Role of the Teacher 477
Cody, Archbishop John P., Remarks of Acceptance of Office of President General 39
College and University Department: Proceedings and Reports 257
College Registrars and High School Counselors and Administrators, Cooperation
Between, Brother Lawrence McGervey, S.M 248
College Theology and the Ecumenical Spirit: Preparation for the Dialogue, Rev.
Bernard J. Cooke, S.J 166
Committee on Graduate Study 223
Communications Program in the Seminary, The Nature and the Purpose of the,
Very Rev. Msgr. Leonard J. Fick 52
Community Educational Conferences for Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit, Utiliz-
ing, Sister Mary Magdalene, O.P 208
Community Relations, The Catholic School's Role in, Sister M. Licinia, O.S.F. 417
Conley, William H., The Lay Teacher in Catholic Education 25
Considine, Rev. John J., M.M., The Elementary School and the Unity of the
Human Race 370
Constitution of the National Catholic Educational Association 532
Cooke, Rev. Bernard J., S.J., College Theology and the Ecumenical Spirit: Prep-
aration for the Dialogue 166
Crawley, Helen W., The Chemical Bond Approach to the Teaching of Chemistry 299
Cullinan, Very Rev. John F., What the Lord Said to Israel 251
Curran, Rev. Charles A., Basic Principles in Guidance for the Elementary School 438
Curriculum Advisory Committees, Report on 348
Curriculum of the Small Secondary School, Enriching the, Frank W. Cyr 317
Curriculum, The Supervisor and the, Sister Mary Joan, S.P 270
Cuthbert, Sister M., I.H.M., Experience in Securing NCATE Accreditation in a
Large Liberal Arts College 244
Cyr, Frank W., Enriching the Curriculum of the Small Secondary School 317
Davis, Thurston N., S.J., Christian Higher Education Faces the Future 154
Dearden. Most Rev. John F., D.D., Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit 31
Index 541
Debate: Whereas, Diocese X Does Not Have Sufficient Funds for New Schools
on Both Elementary and Secondary Levels, Be It Resolved, That Diocese
X Favors the Building of Elementary Schools
Affirmative: Mrs. John O. Riedl 439
Negative: Sister Ann Virginia, I.H.M 444
DEEP — Detroit Experimental English Program, Walter Appleton 339
Dennis, Sister Mary, S.S.J., Today's Child — Tomorrow's World: The Multisen-
sory Aids 394
Departmentalization, Successful, Sister Mary Ernestine, R.S.M 402
Diocesan Priests for Teaching in High Schools and Colleges, Preparation of,
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Robert H. Krumholtz 45
Diocesan Spirituality, Formation of Seminarians Toward a, Rev. Sergius
Wroblewski, O.F.M 76
Dogma Course, Teaching the, Very Rev. Edward J. Hogan, S.S 65
Donohue, Francis J., Ecumenism and the Community Spirit: Preparing Students
for Intelligent Lay Leadership 180
Dulles, Rev. Avery, S.J., Ecumenism as a Catholic Concern 142
Ecumenical Significance of the Sister Formation Fellowship Project, Sister
Margaret, S.N.D 212
Ecumenical Spirit: Preparation for the Dialogue, College Theology and the,
Rev. Bernard J. Cooke, S.J 166
Summary of Discussion, Sister Stella Maris, O.P 170
Ecumenical Spirit in the Curriculum: The World Viewpoint, The, Sister Mary
Agnes, R.S.M 159
Ecumenical Spirit, Fostering the, Most Rev. John F. Dearden 31
Ecumenical Spirit, The Role of the Parents in Fostering the, Charles and Pearl
Pillon 460
Ecumenical Spirit, The Role of the Teacher in Fostering the, Mrs. Charlotte
Gmeiner 456
Ecumenical Spirit, The Supervisor's Role in Fostering the, Brother Majella
Hegarty, C.S.C 259
Ecumenical Spirit Through Byzantine Rite and Church History, Forming the,
Rev. Patrick Paschak, O.S.B.M 522
Ecumenical Spirit Through Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Fostering
the, Rev. William J. Mountain, S.J 451
Ecumenical Spirit, Utilizing Community Educational Conferences for Fostering
the, Sister Mary Magdalene, O.P 208
Ecumenism and the Community Spirit: Preparing Students for Intelligent Lay
Leadership, Sister M. Stephanie Stueber, C.S.J 175
Summary of Discussion, Francis J. Donohue 180
Ecumenism as a Catholic Concern, Rev. Avery Dulles, S.J 142
Ecumenism on the Secular Campus, Newman Clubs and, Rev. George Garrelts 181
Ecumenism, Scriptural Formation and, Mother Kathryn Sullivan, R.S.C.J 202
Ecumenism, The Catholic University and, James P. Reilly, Jr 227
Ecumenism, The Catholic University and, Heinrich A. Rommen 223
Elementary Mathematics, The Pros and Cons of Modern, Sister Mary Petronia,
S.S.N.D 381
Elementary School and the Unity of the Human Race, The, Rev. John J. Con-
sidine, M.M 370
Elementary School, Basic Principles in Guidance for the, Rev. Charles A.
Curran 438
Elementary School Department: Proceedings 469
Elementary School Meet Its Physical Fitness Requirements? How Can the, C.
Dale Barrett, M.D 432
See also Miriam Joseph, Sister
Elementary Teachers, National Science Foundation Institutes for, Sister M.
Seraphim, C.S.J 382
542 Index
Elementary vs. Secondary Schools, see Debate
Elko, Most Rev. Nicholas T., The Impact of the Ecumenical Council on the
Vocational Apostolate 494
Emerging New Nations, Catholic Colleges and the, Thomas P. Melady 160
Summary of Discussion, Sister Marie Christine, G.N.S.H 164
English Program, DEEP — The Detroit Experimental, Walter Appleton 339
English Teacher and His Student, The, Floyd Rinker 332
Ernestine, Sister Mary, R.S.M., Successful Departmentalization 402
Executive Board, Meetings of the 1
Executive Secretary, Report of the, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt 14
Fick, Very Rev. Msgr. Leonard J., The Nature and the Purpose of the Com-
munications Program in the Seminary 52
Filmslides on a Kindergarten International Unit, Sister M. Agnes Therese, I.H.M. 466
Financial Report, NCEA 535
Fitness for the Sixties, Fred V. Hein 443
Fleege, Urban H., Catholic Institutions Accredited by NCATE 231
Foreign Language Teaching Objectives and Methods, Sister M. Bohdonna,
O.S.B.M 528
Foreign Student in the United States, The: The Wien Program at Brandeis
University, Jean-Pierre Barricelli 218
Formation of the Sister for Her Apostolic Mission in the Church. Rev. Ronald
Roloff, O.S.B 185
Fournier, Rev. Edmond A., Sermon. Solemn Pontifical Mass 22
Garrelts, Rev. George, Newman Clubs and Ecumenism on the Secular Campus 181
General Meetings (1962): Minutes 41
Summary of, Very Rev. Laurence J. Britt, SJ 35
George Deinlein, Brother, S.M., Team Teaching: Organization 315
Gillis, Very Rev. James R., O.P., Background and Preparation Needed for the
Office of Spiritual Director 98
Gmeiner, Mrs. Charlotte, The Role of the Teacher in Fostering the Ecumenical
Spirit 456
God's Call to Our Youth, The Challenge of, Most Rev. Alexander M. Zaleski 492
Grouping for Teaching and Learning, Successful, Sister M. Celine, O.S.B 411
Guidance for the Elementary School, Basic Principles in, Rev. Charles A. Curran 438
Hagmaier, Rev. George, C.S.P., Today's Religious Candidate: Psychological and
Emotional Considerations 110
Hakenewerth, Rev. Quentin, S.M., Clarification of the Brother Vocation 497
Hallinan, Most Rev. Paul J., Adult Education for Catholics: The Necessity and
the Challenge 513
Handicapped Youth Toward Employment, Guiding, Joseph Hunt 475
Hangartner, Rev. Carl A., S.J., NCATE and the Large University 240
Hegarty, Brother Majella, C.S.C., The Supervisor's Role in Fostering the Ecu-
menical Spirit 259
Hein, Fred V., Fitness for the Sixties 443
Higher Education Faces the Future, Christian, Rev. Thurston N. Davis, S.J 154
Hilda Marie, Sister, O.P., What the Supervisor Does for Public Relations 266
Hochwalt, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Frederick G.
Meetings of the Executive Board: Minutes 1
General Meetings: Minutes 41
Report of the Executive Secretary 14
Hofmann, Helmut P., The Impact of Emotional-Social Maladjustment on the
Learning Processes of Children 479
Hogan, Very Rev. Edward J., S.S., Teaching the Dogma Course: Scripture and
Authority of the Church 65
Index 543
Holiness, The Classroom and Teaching in, Rev. Paul Aronica, S.D.B 521
Hospital Sisters in Professional Organizations, An Experiment in Promoting
Participation of, Sister Madeleine Clemence 211
Hunt, Joseph, Guiding Handicapped Youth Toward Employment 475
In-Service Help Through Professional Programs, Sister Marie Celine, F.S.PA. 268
Institutes for Elementary Teachers, National Science Foundation, Sister M.
Seraphim, C.SJ 382
Intellectual Tradition in the Seminary, Developing an, Rev. Eugene M. Burke,
C.S.P 58
International Congress of Vocation Specialists, Report on, Rev. Michael Mc-
Laughlin 506
International Congress on Vocations to the States of Perfection, Report of
First, Rev. Godfrey Poage, C.P. 503
International Student Program 218
Ivo, Sister M., B.V.M., BSCS: One Teacher Speaking to Another 309
James Cosgrove, Brother, S.M., Student Evaluation of Team Teaching 316
James Louis, Sister Mary, B.V.M., Play Along with Rhythm Bands 468
Joan Marie, Sister, O.S.U., The Open Tradition in Catholic Scholarship 174
Joan, Sister Mary, S.P., The Supervisor and the Curriculum 270
John Schneider, Brother, S.M., Origins and Aims of our Experiment in Team
Teaching [Dayton, Ohio] 314
Judging the Character of a Seminarian, Most Rev. John F. Whealon 103
Junior Colleges, Meeting for 251
Killeen, Lt. Comdr. James J., U.S.N., Training Leaders 437
Kindergarten International Unit, Filmslides on a, Sister M. Agnes Therese, I.H.M. 466
Kindergarten Meeting 451
Klinckmann, Evelyn, The BSCS Program for the Teaching of Biology 301
Kovalcik, Jerome G., The Catholic School Story — The Public 423
Krumholtz, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Robert H., Preparation of Diocesan Priests for Teach-
ing in High Schools and Colleges 45
Lardie, Kathleen N, From Camera to Screen 329
Lay Persons, Report of the Meeting of Catholic, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J. Ryan .... 519
Lay Teacher in Catholic Education, The, William H. Conley 25
Leaders, Training, Lt. Comdr. James J. Killeen, U.S.N 437
Learning Processes of Children, The Impact of Emotional-Social Maladjustment
on the, Helmut P. Hofmann 479
Lenore, Sister M., O.P., Social Consciousness and Global Responsibilities: The
Necessary Skills 393
Library Program, The Successful [Elementary School], Sister Mary Sarah, S.C.L. 405
Licinia, Sister M., The Catholic School's Role in Community Relations 417
Loretto Bernard, Mother, In-Service Formation of Sisters for Understanding Dif-
ferent National Groups 192
McCoy, Raymond F., Catholic Higher Education and the Ecumenical Spirit 150
McGervey, Brother Lawrence, S.M., Cooperation Between College Registrars and
High School Counselors and Administrators 248
McGuire, Lenore, Music for the Blind Child 488
McLaughlin, Rev. Michael, Report on International Congress of Vocation Spe-
cialists 506
Madeleine Clemence, Sister, An Experiment in Promoting Participation of Hos-
pital Sisters in Professional Organizations 211
Magdalene, Sister Mary, O.P., Utilizing Community Educational Conferences
for Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit 208
544 Index
Major Seminary Department: Proceedings and Reports 92
Manuel Juan Ramos, Brother, S.M., Experiment in Spanish [Team Teaching] .... 317
Margaret, Sister, S.N.D., Ecumenical Significance of the Sister Formation Fel-
lowship Project 212
Marion, Sister, S.C.H., Social Consciousness and Global Responsibilities: The
Teacher's Background 389
Mark, Sister Mary, I.H.M., The Importance of Music Reading for the Blind
Child 486
Mater et Magistra — The Last Chance Encyclical, Donald J. Thorman 289
Mathematics, The Pros and Cons of Modern Elementary, Sister Mary Petronia,
S.S.N.D 381
Melady, Thomas P., Catholic Colleges and the Emerging New Nations 160
Mental Hygiene in the Classroom, Sister M. of St. Benno, R.G.S 485
Mental Retardation, Implications of President Kennedy's Panel on, Very Rev.
Msgr. E.H. Behrmann 470
Michael, Sister, S.S.M.I., Lesson Plan for Teaching Ukrainian Geography in
Our Archdiocesan Schools 531
Miller, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Ralph M., Notes on Discussion of Papers (Minor Semi-
nary Department) 136
Minor Seminary Department: Proceedings and Reports 137
Miriam Joseph, Sister, O.P., How Can the Elementary School Meet Its Physical
Fitness Requirements? 436
Miriam Therese, Sister, Sister Formation Ideal and Interviewing the Candidate 496
Mountain, Rev. William J., S.J., Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit Through De-
votion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus 451
Multisensory Aids, Today's Child — Tomorrow's World: The, Sister Mary Dennis 394
Murphy, Rev. Thomas, The Spiritual Nature of Today's Religious Candidate .... 123
Music for the Blind Child, Lenore McGuire 488
Music Reading for the Blind Child, The Importance of, Sister Mary Mark, I.H.M. 486
National Catholic Adult Education Commission 513
Report of 518
National Catholic Educational Association
Constitution 532
Executive Board, Meetings of the 1
Executive Secretary, Report of the 14
Financial Report 535
Officers iii
National Science Foundation Institutes for Elementary Teachers, Sister M.
Seraphim, C.S.J 382
NCATE Accreditation in a Large Liberal Arts College, Experience in Securing,
Sister M. Cuthbert, I.H.M 244
[NCATE] Accreditation of a Small Liberal Arts College for Women, Sister M.
Virginia Claire, S.N.J.M 241
NCATE and the Large University, Rev. Carl A. Hangartner, S.J 240
NCATE, Catholic Institutions Accredited by, Urban H. Fleege 231
NCATE Criteria, Policy, and Implications, Sister M. Camille, O.S.F 232
Newman Club Chaplains Section 508
Newman Club Education in American Catholicism, The Role of, William J.
Whalen 508
Newman Clubs and Ecumenism on the Secular Campus, Rev. George Garrelts .... 181
Summary of Discussion, Rev. William D. Borders 184
Orientation and Post-Orientation for Junior Sisters from Mission Countries,
Sister M. Charitina, F.S.P.A 198
Paschak, Rev. Patrick, O.S.B.M., Forming the Ecumenical Spirit Through Byzan-
tine Rite and Church History 522
Index 545
Patterson, Dorothy F., The Case for Television in the Catholic High School .... 324
Petronia, Sister Mary, S.S.N.D., The Pros and Cons of Modern Elementary
Mathematics 381
Philomene, Sister, S.L., What Should Be Done To Prepare Students for High
School with Respect to Study Skills? 272
Physical Fitness; see Hein, Fred V.
Physical Fitness Commitments? How Can the Elementary School Meet Its,
C. Dale Barrett, M.D 432
See also Miriam Joseph, Sister
Pillon, Charles and Pearl, The Role of the Parents in Fostering the Ecumenical
Spirit 460
Poage, Rev. Godfrey, C. P., Report of First International Congress on Voca-
tions to the States of Perfection 503
President Kennedy, Letter from 42
President Kennedy's Panel on Mental Retardation 470
Press, The Catholic School Story and the, Harry Salsinger 426
Proceedings and Reports
College and University Department 257
Elementary School Department 469
Major Seminary Department 92
Minor Seminary Department 137
School Superintendents Department 274
Secondary School Department 344
Special Education Department 491
Vocation Section 507
Psychiatrist, Views the Role of the Teacher, The, Aloysius S. Church, M.D. 477
Public, The Catholic School Story — The, Jerome G. Kovalcik 423
Public Relations, What the Supervisor Does for, Sister Hilda Marie, O.P. 266
Raymond de Jesus, Mother, F.S.E., Effective Teaching of the Ukrainian Lan-
guage in the Elementary School 527
Reading Program in the Minor Seminary, A Remedial and Developmental, Rev.
Hugh J. Biggar 131
Recruiting in Secondary Schools, Successful, Rev. Norbert C. Burns 500
Regional Units, Report of the Committee on 344
Rehabilitation, Reflections on Research in, Louis J. Cantoni 476
Reilly, James P., Jr., The Catholic University and Ecumenism 227
Religious Candidate, The Spiritual Nature of Today's. Rev. Thomas Murphy .... 123
Religious Candidate, Today's: Psychological and Emotional Considerations, Rev.
George Hagmaier, C.S.P 110
Resolutions
Major Seminary Department 97
Minor Seminary Department 137
School Superintendents Department 284
Rhythm Bands, Play Along with. Sister Mary James Louis, B.V.M 468
Riedl, Mrs. John O., Debate: Elementary vs. Secondary Schools (Affirmative) 439
Riley, Very Rev. Edward F., CM., An Analysis and Evaluation of Seminary
Administration 69
Rinker, Floyd, The English Teacher and His Student 332
Roloff, Rev. Ronald, O.S.B., Formation of the Sister for Her Apostolic Mission
in the Church 185
Rommen, Heinrich A., The Catholic University and Ecumenism 223
Ryan, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Carl J., Report of the Meeting of Catholic Lay Persons .... 519
Ryan, Very Rev. Donald J., CM., Seminarian Responsibility: Scope and Means 128
St. Benno, Sister M. of, R.G.S., Mental Hygiene in the Classroom 485
Saint Dominic Savio Classroom Club; see Aronica, Rev. Paul
546 Index
Salome, Sister M., O.S.B.M., Lesson Plan for Teaching Ukrainian History in
Our Archdiocesan Schools 529
Salsinger, Harry, The Catholic School Story and the Press 426
Sarah, Sister Mary, S.C.L., The Successful Library Program [in the elementary
school] 405
Scharper, Philip, Catholic, Protestant, Jew — A Basis for Understanding 377
The Open Tradition in Catholic Scholarship 172
School Superintendents Departments: Proceedings and Reports 274
Secondary School Department: Proceedings and Reports 344
Secondary School, Enriching the Curriculum of the Small, Frank W. Cyr 317
Seminarian Responsibility: Scope and Means, Very Rev. Donald J. Ryan, CM. 128
Seminary Administration, An Analysis and Evaluation of, Very Rev. Edward
F. Riley, CM 69
Seraphim, Sister M., C.S.J., National Science Foundation Institutes for Ele-
mentary Teachers 382
Sermon. Solemn Pontifical Mass, Rev. Edmond A. Fournier 22
Sister Formation 185
Sister Formation Fellowship Project, Ecumenical Significance of the, Sister
Margaret, S.N.D 212
Sister Formation Ideal and Interviewing the Candidate, Sister Miriam Therese,
M.M 496
Social Consciousness and Global Responsibilities — The Necessary Skills, Sister
Mary Lenore, O.P 393
The Teacher's Background, Sister Marion, S.CH 389
Social Studies Survey Conducted by the History Committee of the National Cath-
olic Educational Association 360
Special Education Department: Proceedings 491
Spiritual Director, Background and Preparation Needed for the Office of, Very
Rev. James R. Gillis, O.P 98
Spiritual Maturity in Thought and Action, Developing, Most Rev. Leo C Byrne 286
Spiritual Nature of Today's Religious Candidate, The, Rev. Thomas Murphy 123
Stella Maris, Sister, O.P., College Theology and the Ecumenical Spirit: Pre-
paration for the Dialogue 170
Stephanie Stueber, Sister M., C.S.J. , Ecumenism and the Community Spirit:
Preparing Students for Intelligent Lay Leadership 175
Study Skills? What Should Be Done to Prepare Students for High School with
Respect to, Sister Philomene, S.L 272
Sullivan, Mother Kathryn, R.S.C.J., Scriptural Formation and Ecumenism 202
Supervisor and the Curriculum, The, Sister Mary Joan, S.P 270
Supervisor Does for Public Relations, What the, Sister Hilda Marie, O.P 266
Supervisor's Role in Fostering the Ecumenical Spirit, The,
Brother Majella Hegarty, CS.C 259
Supervisors Section: Officers, 1962-63 285
Teacher Education 231
Teacher, The Psychiatrist Views the Role of the, Aloysius S. Church, M.D. 477
Teaching in High Schools and Colleges, Preparation of Diocesan Priests for,
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Robert H. Krumholtz 45
Teaching the Dogma Course: Scripture and Authority of the Church, Very Rev.
Edward J. Hogan, S.S 65
Team Teaching at Chaminade High School, Dayton, Ohio, Members of the Fac-
ulty 314
Television in the Catholic High School, The Case for, Dorothy F. Patterson ....... 324
Thorman, Donald J., Mater et Magistra — The Last Chance Encyclical 289
Training Leaders, Lt. Comdr. James J. Killeen, U.S.N 437
Ukrainian Geography in Our Archdiocesan Schools, Lesson Plan for Teaching
Sister Michael, S.S.M.I 531
Index 547
Ukrainian History in Our Archdiocesan Schools, Lesson Plan for Teaching,
Sister M. Salome, O.S.B.M 529
Ukrainian Language in the Elementary School, Effective Teaching of the, Mother
Raymond de Jesus, F.S.E 527
See also Bohdonna, Sister M.
Virginia Claire, Sister M. S.N.J.M., Accreditation of a Small Liberal Arts Col-
lege for Women 241
Vocation Section: Officers 507
Vocation Specialists, Report on International Congress of, Rev. Michael Mc-
Laughlin 506
Vocation Apostolate, The Impact of the Ecumenical Council on the, Most Rev.
Nicholas T. Elko 494
Vocational Problems and Their Solutions, An Approach to Present, Brother H.
Bernard, F.S.C 118
Vocations to the States of Perfection, Report of First International Congress on,
Rev. Godfrey Poage, C.P 503
Whalen, William J., The Role of Newman Club Education in American
Catholicism 508
What the Lord Said to Israel, Very Rev. John F. Cullinan, V.F 251
Whealon, Most Rev. John F., Judging the Character of a Seminarian 103
Wien Program at Brandeis University, See Barricelli
Wroblewski, Rev. Sergius, O.F.M., Formation of Seminarians Toward a Diocesan
Spirituality 76
Zaleski, Most Rev. Alexander M., The Challenge of God's Call to Our Youth .... 492
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