Morning journal and courier., 1881-07-01
COMMUNICATIONS.
Catholic Graduates of Yale.

To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: The annual meeting at our university has come and gone. We as an alumnus were struck with the presence and remarks of the gentleman who represented the class of '61, the Rev. MT. Frisbie, S. J., of New York city To us it seemed 8 step towards the
 much -to-be desired unification of the efforts of Protestant and Catholic scientists against
 modern infidelity. In this materialistic age
 the appearance of Jesuit at Yale, his GEa1aG
 mater has, among scientific men at least, an
 evident significance; surely with one ac-
 quainted with the teaching of it's eminent
 men.
 Chemistry and Physics and Anthropology,
 as such, are the same for all whether
 pounded by Huxley or Mivart, Darwin or De
 Quatrefages, but the philosophy of these
 teachers is vastly different. The Catholic
 student who comes to Yale although drilled
 in the philosophy of the schoolmen and in
 the later and better of Tongiorg1 and Liber-
 atore, both Jesuits at Rome, and imbued with the grandeur of the dogmas of his faith as
 expounded by Perrone and Mazslla, turns not
 aside from the philosophy of Porter and the
 theology of Bacon and Fisher to accept that of such men as Compte and that of Straus,
 Renan ct id genus ona1ae.
 We have in the past of Yale Silliman and Olmsted at present Dana, Wright, Silliman, Sanford and White, men eminent in the nat uraI and physical sciences, but who, unlike Tyndall and Huxley in England and Helm holtz and Haeckel in Germany, did not and do not cross the boundary line and sever the physical from the metaphysical; who held and do hold that thought is not molecular action; that it can never be studied with the microscope and balance; but that in man there is an Ego -an entity apart from matter that thinks and feels and acts. The appearance of Father Frisbie was notable, as he is member of an order at all times the most learned in the l Catholic Church, and which alone, if we ex- cept a few laymen like Hall of Albany and O'Ieary of New York; in conjunction with 1 the professors of this and 8 few other Prot estant universities, can Save this country l from the curse of materialism and it's legitl- mate consequences-the denial of personal l God of all moral obligations and the over throwal of all civil order. When the young medical or scientific student, after reading the works of Haeckel and of others less noted, begins to speak of plastidulic souls and conscious-molecules it is time for the metaphysicians both Protestant and Catho- | lie to arise and speak in unison. In Europe this has been done to some extent, the uni yersity of Louvain, perhaps, taking the lead on the Catholic side. In this country we l have not noticed any determined showing, with the exception of a few works and occa- sioual articles in reviews. President Porter has written against Spencer Father Jouin, s. J., against TyndalPs philosophy ex- pressed in the Belfast address but the war must be continued. It may be objected that I these materialistio and ipso facto atheistic or at least theistic tendencies remain among | the learned few and can never in wade the masses. But recollect the contest in Germany when Prof. Virchow, of Berlin, resisted with all his forces-and his | forces are considerable introduction | into the schools of Germany of the teaching | of the theory of Evolution-an hy- pothesis it is not. I mean Evolution 1 as taught by Haeckel, who would | include man and make him only little of 1 Professor Huxley's Bathybius Haeckelii con- siderably evolved. What if it were intro duced into the schools of Germany? What if | it were introduced into the schools of the United States? Though this last is not now talked of, how 8 decade from this | time?
 These thoughts came to our mind as we listened to Father Frisbie's remarks to the alumni-himsef scientist of | no mean abilities We seemed to see Silli- man and Dana unite with Frisbie against the
 common enemy infdelity old feuds are for gotten the living present being all import ant; all graduates of old Yale, all believers elation to man; in Christ j; and
 in the substantially of the human soul. We are alive to these ten- dencies, for we have met many 1 who scout the idea of the supernatural, - very superficial students it is true, but men
 who will lead the future thought of our re-
 public.
 All honor to old Valet It has learned or | will yet learn that on the Catholics and 1 especially on the much misrepresented Jesuits, depends, in not inconsiderable de- gree, the integrity of Christianity to this country, and as a correlative the integrity of 1 the State.
 CHARLES E. W. McGowAN, M.D., l Valo Mad ,Q0