CHAPTER III

THE EDUCATION OF THE LAYMAN

NE of the questions left unsettled, and yet clamorous

ON

for settlement, at the time of Cardinal Manning's death was that of the relation between the Catholics of England and the national Universities. While there was breath in the old Lion no one stirred-but many waited. Certainly when Herbert Vaughan came to Westminster he had no illusions-he knew that the truce was at an end. An assenting party to the disastrous attempt to found a Catholic University College in Kensington, under Mgr. Capel, he must share the responsibility of its failure, but the scheme was not his scheme. Among his papers is an elaborate memorandum addressed to Cardinal Barnabo in 1867 on the claims of Catholics to send their sons to Oxford and Cambridge. He was not yet a Bishop, but a simple priest, fresh from his wanderings in the Americas. What was he doing at that time, addressing the Holy See upon large questions of ecclesiastical policy? It is easier to ask the question than to answer it.

At any rate the arguments against the attendance of Catholic students at the Universities are arrayed with great confidence, but they are familiar to us as those of W. G. Ward and Cardinal Manning. What may be described as the preamble of the paper is the echo of the words of others; but the constructive part of it is the

writer's own. It was quite clear to Herbert Vaughan that a merely negative policy could not suffice. If admission to Oxford and Cambridge was denied, some alternative must be offered. The plan he proposed may seem inadequate, but at least in its large outlines it was broad and simple, and might have been tried with the minimum of risk. He pointed out that there were already in existence twelve Catholic Colleges. Most of them were what we should now speak of as secondary schools, but some of them were something more, and in the standard of studies and the age of the pupils approached those of the Universities. Herbert Vaughan proposed that the governing bodies of these schools—the Bishops and the Religious bodies-should unite to found an Examining University under a Charter from the Holy See. All the twelve Colleges were to be represented on the Examining Board, and to unite in granting degrees and offering scholarships. Whatever else may be said of this scheme, at least it had this merit, that it would have united the whole of the Catholic body in one effort. What was the fate of the memorandum, or even if it was ever presented, I do not know. Cardinal Manning had made up his mind that the Hierarchy should not be helped or hampered by any alliance or co-operation with the Religious Orders. The Kensington College was begun with Mgr. Capel for Rector, and so jealously was it guarded from any contact with the Religious Orders, that when a young Jesuit, Father Bernard Vaughan, presented himself as a student, anxious to attend the course of chemistry lectures given by Professor Barff, he was refused admission. That incident represented much -it was typical of the disunion upon which the whole

scheme made shipwreck. Half the Catholic schools were conducted by the Religious Orders-Jesuits, Benedictines, and Oratorians-and to exclude them from all share in the University College was to alienate the sympathies of a large part of the Catholic laity. The failure to secure the active co-operation of Cardinal Newman was in itself a blunder for which nothing could atone. The so-called University College would perhaps have failed in any case, but it failed primarily because those who planned it at the outset deprived it of any chance of success.

During the rest of Manning's life-some fifteen years -intermittent attempts were made to reopen the question of Catholic attendance at the Universities, but they came to nothing in the face of the resolute opposition of the Archbishop. And it was a bitter disappointment to the old man when, for good reasons alleged, individual Bishops, and sometimes even the Pope himself, granted special permission to this or that youth to go to Oxford or to Cambridge. Among the Bishops the leaders of the party who in this respect played a prominent part in opposition to Cardinal Manning were the Bishop of Clifton, the Hon. and Right Rev. Dr. Clifford, and the present Bishop of Newport. Among the laity the most consistently active was Lord Braye. The attitude of the Catholic body as a whole during the last half-dozen years of Manning's life may be fairly described as one of sombre acquiescence.

For more than twenty years Herbert Vaughan had stood by Manning's side in this quarrel. As recently as 1889 he had addressed the Holy See on the subject, and with his usual directness had put his finger on the weak spot in the Papal Admonition. As long as the prohibition was made to rest upon the duty of avoiding the proximate

occasions of sin, it would always be open to parents to try to convince this or that Bishop, or the Pope himself, that for their exceptionally gifted sons this danger did not in fact exist. He saw that the growing system of exceptions and special permissions had to go if the prohibition was to be effective-that it must not be a question whether attendance at one or other of the Universities would be likely to imperil the faith of this or that young man, but whether it would be dangerous for the average Catholic youth.

Something of this comes out in the following memorandum: "(1) We need a restatement of the principles and doctrine laid down in the Propaganda letter of August 6th, 1867. (2) Some direction which will prevent individual Bishops, with perhaps little knowledge and little experience of the danger, counteracting the instruction of the Holy See by giving leave to young Catholics to go to the Universities. (3) A detailed and emphatic instruction to provide a course of Catholic Philosophy for the laitypointing out that among the reasons why the national Universities are unfit places for the education of Catholics, is that a Catholic course of Philosophy cannot be obtained in them, and that Catholic youths ought not to be exposed to the dangers of rationalism and infidelity during the course of their education. (4) It should be observed that the instruction of August 6th, 1867, was based upon the intrinsic danger of mixed education, and on the necessity of avoiding proximate occasions of mortal sin. May I suggest that in addition to these considerations an appeal might be made with great advantage to higher sentiments and aspirations? It ought not to be a mere question as to whether the danger of perversion to an individual Catholic

in frequenting the national Universities can be made remote. It is only too easy to find priests and even Bishops, not to speak of parents, who will declare that the danger for this or that individual is not proximate but remote. As long as this is the only consideration put forward by the Holy See the Universities are practically open to Catholic youth. It is not merely a question of rendering a danger remote for an individual; the most serious question is the effect of his example on others. Thus parents would be moved by such considerations as the following: (1) That the presence of Catholics of position at the Universities becomes a danger to the Church by the attraction which their example offers to others; that it is impossible to distinguish between the moral capacity of one character and another; that Catholic parents must bear in mind the grave injury they may inflict on others by their example in sending their sons to the Universities.

"(2) That the Catholics of England have been willing to suffer for centuries much worse privations than this of not going to the Universities, and that their noblest and best traditions should therefore make them willing still to suffer some slight privation for the purity of their faith, and to secure the immense boon of a system of purely Catholic education; that they should look forward to the time, and prepare, as Catholics in other countries have done, for a Catholic University, or at least for a Catholic system of higher education. An effort was made some years ago. It failed; but a time may come when the Catholics of England may make a united effort and either develop what they have or found something new. We need encouragement from the Holy