The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1921-11-19
HOW REFORMATION RESTRICTED
ENGLISH SCHOLARSHIP.

"Can we have no hope for the fu-
ture?" said Cardinal Gasquet, speak
Eng at Oxford at the laying of the foun-
dation stone of the new Dominican
church and priory. The Cardinal had
Just before outlined the devastation
which had fallen upon Oxford and the
whole of the country when the Catho-
lie Church was swept out by Henry
VIII.
SIT is'-Cardinal Gasquet went on.
with vision of the time to come
that our thoughts are busy today as
we assist at this interesting ceremo.
ny, and i will be no gloomy prophet.
This is what l seem to see.
when England was one in faith
with the rest of civilized Europe, his
tory shows us that there was a con,
slant living interchange of teachers
and scholars between this England of
ours and France, Italy, and Spain. Ok
ford sent it's best students to the
schools of Paris, to Rome, Bologna,
Salamanca, and other European GEN.
tiers of culture, while students and pro-
fessors of foreign universities found a
hearty welcome in our English centers
of learning, to the obvious advantage
of true scholarship and of the fellow
ship of letters.
"In those far-off days. there was
none of that insular isolation which
was quickly manifested when this
country was rent from the rest of
Christendom in the sixteenth century.
The ideal commonwealth of learning,
which was based upon the Catholic
unity of religion, quickly disappeared
in the religious revolutions of that
time, and there appeared in it's place
a spirit of nationalism even in the
fields of learning.
Such restriction of general schol-
arship was detrimental not only to our
English universities, but, as see it,
to the Church itself. The rolls of
scholars, say, at Padua, Bologna, Rome
and Paris, no longer record the names
of English students and teachers.
Englishmen ceased to lecture in their
schools, and, when returning to this
country, no longer brought back with
them the learning of other lands and
the breadth of spirit, which intimate
contact with other nations produced.
"Who can deny that this was a bad
thing for England, and it was like
wise, as it seems to me, grave loss
70 the philosophical and theological
schools of Catholic Europe, in which
the sound, practical, common sense of
the northern mind had for generations
exercised wholesome moderating eff.
feet upon the special type of the Lat
in method of thought.
Gam l wrong in seeing in this foun-
dation of the Sons of Saint Dominic
at Oxford possible revival? If l may
express my full mind, l have today a
vision of what may come to pass at
no very distant date. Dare we not
hope that here at Oxford, with all
the help which connection with the
university affords, we may see for
Catholic students of England school
of Philosophy and Theology, with the
best professors drawn from the Domin-
leans and Franciscans and the Sons
of Saint Ignatius, from my own Bene-
dictine brethren, from the ranks of
the English secular clergy, and not
alone from those already in this coun.
try, but from the great teachers these
orders possess in other lands and who
would contribute to make the Cath.
olic schools of Scripture and Ecclesi
astical History, of Philosophy and The
ology, at Oxford power of good for
the Church in this country and, ]
would add, to the world at large.
Am too sanguine? This, at least
is my vision today and my hope for
the success of the work initiated by
the ceremony at which we are assist
ing"