The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1920-10-23

the nation is in its schools, The time
has come when Catholic colleges must
be enabled to offer to our youth adj
vantages and opportunities such as
Protestant colleges are 9avishing up
on their people. Properly equipped
and endowed they will not only kindle
ia new and widespreading interest in
higher education among Catholics, but
they will bring superior intellectual
training within reach of hosts Of bright
minds now debarred from our col
leges. They will win back to their
halls numbers of those who pursue
their studies in institutions in which
their religion is either openly fiouted
or ignored with silent scorn.
If Catholics are to hold their own,
and If the Catholic religion IL to win
and retain the regard of the American
people, it must be able to Joint to a
generation of men and women who by
education, standing, character and
ability to represent the Church credit
ably will win respect for themselves
and honor for their, religion in world
of waning faith.
The necessity of placing Catholic
colleges on higher plan of efficiency
is brought home to us by the merciless
scrutiny to which they are now being
subjected, and the invidious COMPARE
sons made between them and schools
more fortunately situated. Our col
leges are under suspicion. The quail
| ity of work done in them is under
rated. The paucity of their resources
is made the excuse for calling their
right to exist into question. Hostile
| legislation is in the air.
Why We Need Help.
Higher standards are demanded, and
| to them Catholic schools must conform
on penalty of being eliminated from
the field of education. If they are
to do the work that must be done,
they must have the means to do it.
Too long. have they been crippled by
cramping conditions of all kinds. They
can no longer be allowed to stagger
under the incubus of poverty, which
L lldS ulLuCI W pol dly Ecu thCAl CIVIL SiCo
| manned their hopes, and frustrated
the purpose that gave them being
They have done splendid things in
| spite of their grinding poverty and the
sordid economies poverty entails
| splendid things that men and insti
tations will do under the impulse OF
a heroic cause-and what they have
achieved is an earnest of what they
will accomplish when with energies
fully depleyed, they will take the
place that is rightfully theirs among
the colleges of the country. Happily
the. Catholic people are awaking tt
/ the situation of their colleges and The
| dangers that beset them. They are
/ girding themselves for the task o
! saving their schools. Already here
and there they are rallying to thei
colleges, bringing to- them the supper
and sympathy for which they have
long been starving, and which will
now endow them with a new lease D
life and new potency for good. Thu
sacrifices the new movement will i'm
pose will not be light, but they will
be as nothing to the sacrifices tina
founded and fostered a NATIONWIDE,
system of Catholic education whe1
our numbers were much fewer ant
our resources far more scanty.
Here is an opportunity for all on
Catholic people to work with the con
certed action that isNirresistible whel
directed by holy purpose. Here is
rare opportunity for those to who's
hands God has committed tho mean
of doing great and fruitful things TO
a cause so closely bound up with tn
progress and expansion of the religion
of Christ. Alas, slight is the scroll
bearing the names of Catholics, who
with. enlightened generosity, great.
4 fostered higher Catholic education. Il
\ the new and fateful era which is upol
us who can doubt that the gloriou
story of our schools, adorned with s.
many pages of inspiring sacrifices
will be worthily completed? The low
of the Church and the generosity Q
soul that made things possible in tn
past will, surely, save our Colleges t
: the Church and the Country, whic
} need them so sorely, and which the
can serve well.