The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1900-06-27
JESUIT COLLEGES
The Rev. Dr.. Brann Up
holds Them Against
Harvard.
REPLIES TOPRESIDENTELIOT
Address Made to Graduates
of St. Peters Last Night
Medal Winners.

The Commencement Exercises of st.
Peters College took place last evening,
at St. Peters Hail. The programme
opened with an overture by the orchestra
which played Zimmerman's Morning
star, Mans Social Nature and Duties
was the general theme of discussion
among those who read theses. George
E. Cutley gave an grafton on fhe m
d:vidualv John P. Egan discussed The
Family Richard L, Behan. the vaiedle-
torian of the Glass of 1900, discussed Inc
State This programme was anter-
spersed with classical selections by the
orchestra, the awarding of medals and
the comforting of degrees. The address
TO the graduates was made by the Rev.
Henry A. Brann, rector of St. Agnes
Church. New York City. who said
1T gives me special pleasure to ADDRESS
YOU in this place endeared to me by some
of the tenderest and holiest associations
of my early years. A few yards from TINS
soot 1 first learned to know and love the
Jesuit Fathers; and was one of the frsl
Jersey City boys to cross the Hudson 10
study in ever dear and venerated ST.
Francis Xavier College. New York. we
were prompted to go there by one of the
most jealous and exemplary priests of this
or any diocese, a devoted friend of the
Society of Jesus, the venerable Father
John Kelly, for over twenty-five years
the pastor of ST. Peters Parish the build
er of St. Peters Church and parochiai
school. the founder of ST. Mary's parish
and of the first church and school there,
&c mar Sh
the builder of its first church, the chief
promoter of the German parish, in which
he laid the corner stone of St. Bonifaee's
Church in tn eearly sixties; and the hrst
promoter of the Orphan Asylum which
now feurishes in St. Mary's parish His
sainted remains rest in old st. st. Peters
Cemetery, surrounded by the graves OF
his old friends and parishioners.
ssThose were stormy times, gentlemen,
in which the Catholic boy had often to
fight his way on both sides of the river,
ard sometimes he was badly beaten; for
physical foee and material resources are
only sometimes, though reason and logic
are always on the side of truth
How fortunate we are brother gradu-
ates of Jesuit college, to have been
educated by gentlemen of polished man.
ners. by Christians formed by all the v1r-
tues, and by scholars of cultured intelli
gence and reliable erudition, sacred and
profane. Among our professors there has
been on doubling sgnostic to ask like
plate, what is truth?' without being
able to answer the question. Under them,
we learned to know the truth, and
the way to find it by certain in
falible methods This is what makes
received in all Catholic colleges. 1t is an
education formed on the only true ideal;
an education based on belief in God, and
in the immortality of the soul-two truths
that denominate and ennoble the whole
encyclopaedia of human knowledge God
is the source and centre of truth and,
consequently, of science and art. His ex-
istence is the fundamental truth, the sun
which eliminates all that is true, good
or beautiful in creation. The truth that
the human soul is spiritual and immortal,
holds in the subjective rank similar to
that of the existence of God in the OBJ
jective order. The human soul is angelic,
not animal Hence the Jesuit educator
sees God and his yestiges in all the sci
ences which he teaches. He spiritualizes
them all and reduces them to unity in
God In the soul of his pupil,
the Jesuit sees an intellect to be trained
to think according to the laws of logic;
an Imagination to be pruned and chasten-
ed by the dictates of good taste. He sees
an Intellect to be guided by the laws of
truth memory to be burdened only with
the useful and beneficial and will to be
regulated by the laws of morality. Re
ligion and philosophy, which form the in
tellect and conscience are his pointers in
education showing where God, the Polar
Star, is in the sky. Educators with such
ideals must necessarily eurpass those who
are agnostics or materialists or both.
These, like Pilateg wash their hands of
the crime while they send out from GER
tain colleges and universities bands of i'll
trained young men to sail the sea of life
without a compass, without faith, with
out conscience without good taste; with
an education, lame, broken winged and
lopsided.
THAT this is the kind of education inn
parted in some of our well known uni
versities is notorious, and is clearly shown
in the answers to the recent attack upon
the Jesuit colleges made by President
Eliot of Harvard. He has made the most
sridiculous of all the false charges against
the sons of Loyola since they first en-
tered the battlefield as champions of
truth. By it he has injured the reputa-
ton of Harvard. I am almost glad that
he has made the mistake, for it has
brought out Fathers Brosnahan and
Campbell in such brilliant and logical re-
plies that the American public now knows
the Jesuits better, and has discredited
President Eliot as writer, a logician or
man of reliable information. No one can
add force or authority to what those two
clever writer's have so ably done. Yet
would like to enter my protest also, as an
alunnus of Jesuit college. having also
had some experience as an educator,
against the fault finding Harvard presi-
dent.
'sHe does not attack the Jesuit method
of teaching. No one has yet been fool
enough to do that. That method of daily
questioning, Of frequent repetitions of de-
bates, interrogations by the professor. and
constant stimulation Of the attention
and Of the spirit of emulation of the stu
dents is far superior to the Harvard sys-
TEN, in which a mere duh and monotonous
attendance at the professors lecture is