The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1899-10-28
SERMON OF BISHOP SPALDING
HOLY CROSS COLLEGE AT WASH
INGToN DEDICATED.
Coming Universities Must Pay More
Attention to the Promotion of a
Higher Moral Standard.

orator IN the United States, delivered
the following address on the occasion
OF the dedication of the College of the
Holy, Cross at Washington, D. c.. on
October u:
The universities of the past, as those
OF our own day. have but partially full
filled their mission, because they have
failed to foster a deeper and Durer
moral life. Nay often they have been
and still are the nurseries of vice. The
radical failure is moral failure, and the
education which does not promote con-
duct, which does not build character,
| pears within itself a mortal faint. Our
life is controlled and directed vastly
more by what We feel than by what
| we know, and the power to feel and
VIII is as educable as the intellect. We
can be taught to believe hope and love,
to be brave. kindly and helpful, more
easily than we can be taught to think;
and without moral earnestness in the
pursuit of truth it is not possible to
learn to think to good purpose. When
| philosophy is studied as an intellectual
J pastime and conduct is looked upon as
! a matter of policy, no genuine educa-
ton can be given or received.
1t is doubtless the business of a uni
Versity to educate the intellect, to make
mental culture it's direct scope; but
knowledge should not be separate from
| NIGuOAil, llOI HlUIdl IIOnl lDl6lleCludI
| excellence. The primary and essential
aim is to form men, not scholars. The
scholar, like the author or the artist is
an inferior being unless he is also a
noble character-braYe, loving, pure,
upright. Organization, buildings, en-
doWments and privileges cannot make
! a school. There must be an inspiring
idea, a lofty aim a living purpose. ami
mating both teachers and pupils. All
else iG idle If &c 10 1oc In, mi
veTsity founded on religious faith and
principle this truth applies with special
force
Though religious faith is the great
fountain head of conduct religion is
| not always a synonym of morality. On
the contrary, it may associate itself
with every human weakness and vice;
but to have educational value it must
be vital, must have the power to stimu-
/ late and nourish mans moral not less
than his intellectual life. To be the
highest it must be favorable to the
highest life, and the highest life is
found in seeking not the knowledge
which is sterile, but that which fulfills
itself in deeds.
In the university the student finds
men who really know what they are
supposed to know, whose knowledge is
derived from original sources and
habitual self-activity, and who, while
| they teach, continue to drink at these
fountain-heads. They themselves keep
growing, and therefore they have the
power to stimulate growth in others.
Not all, indeed, possibly not many, are
such men; but if there be one or two
they will become known and be fol-
lowed; for the larger liberty granted in
universities tends to bring the seekers
after wisdom under the influence of the
best masters; since students, more than
others it may be, nave a horror of
bores, and will, if this be at all possible.
flee the halls where they set up their
melancholy chairs.
If university students live and die
commonplace men or worse, they never
were in a true university or they never
should have been in any. At the best
the school can but stimulate and guide
in the work of mental and moral disci-
pllne. The decisive thing for each one
if there be any special significance and
value in his life, is not what he is
taught, but what he teaches himself.
The business of education is to
strengthen man with his own mind
and this each one must learn to do for
himself But the young are little able
to abstract for themselves, and if they
are to walk in the light of true ideals,
they must be proposed to them in con-
crete form in the home, in the school,
in the church and in the state. The
feebler their reason the greater their
readiness to follow examples. Hence
the all-impoTtance of character in the
parent, the teacher, the priest and the
ruler Nothing is so delightful and
bracing as the company of the wise
and magnanimouS.
I'VE have come to understand that
education in the true and large sense
of the word is our one means of i'm
proving men; and that it is delusion
to imagine that a reform which is not
based on education can be either deep
or lasting. The church which is not
also a school exerts no vital influence
What is external is perishable. The
source of life is within, and the strong
er, the purer, the more conscious of
itself it becomes, the more is the soul
filled with immortal hopes and loves
This is the root idea of progress, of
the progress which enters as an essen
tial element into our conception of life,
of the progress which is the souls effort
to realize itself. 1t begins, indeed, with
the environment; for they who have no
thought of improving their material
surroundings, rarely have a desire for
intellectual and moral advancement. |
Material progress enables us first to
provide for our physical, existence, for
health and comfort and length of days, |
but its proper human value consists in |
its power to minister to spiritual uses. !
Mere animals can do something for |
their physical well being, but man alone
is able to think and to act in obedi- !
ence to eternal laws of rightness. Where |
there is justice, morality, liberty and !
good Will there is civilization; and |
where these virtues are found in the |
greatest perfection there is the highest
civilization knowledge is power as
money is power; but it is power for good |
only when 1T belongs to rightly trained |
minds and worthy characters. The |
weak, the superficial and the incompe- ]
tent are easily overburdened with |
knowledge as the foolish, the prodigaI |
and the sensual sink beneath a weight !
of gold: and they who hope to obtain |
good results by examining the memory |
are as blind as parents who think it |
enough to make their children rich. A
strong and flexible mind is better than
much knowledge, a, brave and loving /
soul, than mountains of gold !
Here in America we. Catholics have
a two-fold work to perform, and higher /
or holier task God never entrusted to
human agents. We have to upbuiId
and firmly establish in this new world
OF universal opportunity, feverish ener-
sles and tumultuous passions, the /
church which has been handed down to
US through the centuries, and which I
Sprang from the mind and heart of (
Christ, uttering himself on the cross;
and we have to do our part in purifying,
uplifting and civilizing the masses to
which we belong, and who, if they are
to be and to remain capable of self
rule, must be taught by science, moral
ty and religion to govern themselves.
knowledge alone will not suffice.
and merely philosophic morality has
40 significance or efficacy for the multi
-ude. The moral dynamics of a people
lie in its religion. Society rests on con-
science. not on science. Religion edu-
cation says Balzac, lis the great prirl-
,iple of the life of society," the only