La Salle University - Explorer Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 10 text:

In a world not yet freed from the chains of i inor- ance, doubt and mistrust, St. John Baptist de La Salle and Cardinal Newman stand as two beacons lighting the way to intellectual franchisement and religious certitude. History often belies the meaning of the word progress , and it is only in the field of education that it can be accurately measured; for science has a way of destroying itself and men have a way of per- vertin their religion.

Page 9 text:

a tnc our age have made intensive technical training, par- ticularly in the fields of science and business, an es- sential element of the modem educational program, and that the techniques of such training should in- evitably modify our thinking on the subject. But we feel that in the course of this modification it has be- come habitual with us to regard the cultivation of the whole of human nature, as such and for its own sake, as secondary to the cultivation of some single func- tion of human nature, inquisitive or acquisitive. It is against precisely this inversion of value that a careful attention to Newman ' s ideas on education would be able to protect us; and we hope that one effect of this publication will be a stimulation of interest in those ideas among Catholic students.

Page 11 text:

Over two hundred and fifty years ago, St. John Baptist de La Salle began to bring education to the masses held ignorant by law lest they rise up to wreak havoc on a system that enslaved them. This was the start of an educational process destined to stimulate learning throughout the world. The group-teaching principle of St. John Baptist de La Salle made pos- sible the wider spread of ideas and truths, primary weapons in the eternal war against injustice and oppression. To these sons of St. John Baptist de La Salle on their completion of a century of devotion in behalf of Catholic youth and in grateful appreciation for what they have accomplished for the Church of God in Am erica by keeping alive the ideals of their founder and of giving life to the lofty conception of educa- tion fostered by Cardinal Newman, we respectfully dedicate this book. lie C xnlorer S tail