Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW Jesuit activity in Spain ramified in all parts of the educational field. The high adult illiteracy of the country—at least 25%—directed their attention to primary education. Thus, at Madrid, the Colegio Chamartin de la Rosa had organised a free elementary school for two hundred children; at Murcia, the Casa de San Jeronymo included an orphan school; at Malaga, there was a school for the Marengos, the poorest of the fisherfolk of that harbour; in Barcelona, more than two thousand children were being educated gratis by societies under Jesuit direction; there was similar activity at Burgos, Valladolid, Santander, Bilbao, Seville, Alicante, and Palma; in Madrid there was the famous Instituto de Artes е Industrias with its evening classes giving about five hundred students a complete course in mechanical engineering. In all it has been calculated that as many as 98,000 children owed their education to Jesuit schools or schools under Jesuit direction. In secondary education the Jesuits had twenty-one colleges with ten thousand ppa The fifty-eight state-controlled Institutos had only ten thousand pupils, espite their advantage of controlling their own examinations and giving entrance to the universities. Non-Jesuit Catholic colleges had about twenty-thousand pupils. All Catholic colleges were taxed as trading organisations; the state schools were tax-free. In higher education the Jesuit institutions had no recognised status as univer- sities but were none the less much frequented. The engineering school at Madrid, burnt in the riots last summer, had 1,200 students; the men it trained hold most of the leading posts in Spain to-day; after the destruction of the institution, the director, most of his professors, and many of the students went to Liege; the Belgian govern- ment has already recognised their degree. Further, there were the four Colegios Maximos at Sarria, Ona, Comillas, and Granada, where ecclesiastical studies and special scientific studies in chemistry, biology, experimental psychology, and astro- nomy were pursued, which had alumni from every country and which sent men to every continent. It would be impossible to name the savants in Biblical study, history, moral and dogmatic theology, palaeography, entomology, and the scientific subjects already mentioned; they are men whose achievements are known to special- ists the world over. The apostolic work of the Jesuits, in their seventy residencias and ten retreat houses scattered across the country, deserves large mention but is not easily des- cribed. But we all know what that work is. In this connection, however, may be mentioned the model leper-home at Fontilles, near Alicante, founded in 1908; the clinics, patronados, and free kitchens found in several cities; the home of correction at Malaga; the missionary work in China, India, and South America; the following reviews and periodicals: La Educacion Hispano- Americana, Razon y Fe, Estudios Eclesiasticos, Iberica, the Spanish Mensajero del Corazon de Jesus, El Siglo de las Misiones, and various smaller publications chiefly for Catholic girls and boys. This brief conspectus makes it possible to say why the Jesuits were expelled; their work was Catholic. Freemasons, Continental Liberals, Socialists, and Com- munists in Spain all agree in opposing what is obviously and greatly Catholic. Granted that the founder of the order was a Spaniard, granted that the order worked harmoniously under any form of government whether that of Germany, France, England or the United States, granted that the work done was undoubtedly bene- ficent, granted that there was nothing to hand that would replace the loss, granted that the decree was a violation of the citizen’s right of freedom of action and speech, granted that it was flagrantly unjust to despoil a group of men of the fruit of years of labour—yet the great objection remained. All this work had on it the stamp of Him with Whom the world cannot be reconciled, Who said Моє unto you when all {3}

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW dependencies. A feature of the structure which will add considerably to its beauty is that the chancel itself will be raised some three feet above the floor of the nave. The plan provides four built-in confessionals, a vestibule of generous proportions, and three entrances, on the south, east, and west, of which the сан ары; will be the most imposing. In its interior, the chapel will have tile, or terazzo floor, with walls of that sand-finished plaster which has become so popular in church construction. The ceiling will be composed of heavy wood ribs, and purlieus, which will carry out very harmoniously the general Tudor conception. The assembly hall will be just such as is required by a college for lectures, debates, plays, etc. In all divisions it will be amply spacious, for all our varied requirements. It will accommodate eight hundred and fifty people іп comfort; the stage is large, and fronted by an orchestra pit, while trap, and dressing rooms will be planned beneath it. The body of the hall has been designed with a sloping parabolic floor, which will insure an unobstructed view of the stage from every angle and position. There will be no direct connection between the entrance to the auditorium and that to the chapel, the entrance to the auditorium being on the East side of the building. This will lead into a roomy lobby, providing check-rooms, wash-rooms, etc. Thoroughly up-to-date in every department, the plan includes а motion- picture booth, kitchen, fan-room, heater-room, ample storage space for properties, and a further exit to the north. In composition the building is to be of fire-proof construction, the structural frame being of reinforced concrete. The walls, in harmony with the other build- ings, will be of light brick with lime stone-trimmings. The windows, similar to those of the first floor of the Administration Building, will be of leaded glass framed in stone and wooden mullions. All in all, it would appear that though we have waited long, our patience will be rewarded in the eee of the ideal we have so often desired. God speed and prosper the work! о ми 2 But while we think of а chapel to Бе built, the Jesuits of Spain have only regret- ful memories of what was. Ours is the pleasure of seeing an institution grow; Th : theirs the pain of seeing the unceasing work of thousands of men e Jesuits during the last fifty-cigh brought to a violent termination је Shake uring the last fifty-cight years brought to a violent termination, a vast organisation of beneficent enterprise and co-ordinated en- deavour paralysed, and a government, which tolerated the rioting, the looting, and the arson of last summer, executing a decree that is at once brutishly unjust and commended by neither reason nor policy. On the face of it, there is no explanation. One might as well argue for the suppression of the Y.M.C.A. because it possessed many club-houses as argue for the suppression of the Jesuits because of their wealth. Bismarck was aptly quoted in this connection by Canon Pildain of Vitoria in the Spanish Cortes on February 4th: “I have not been minister for twenty-five years without learning something. After twenty-five years I have learned something about the alleged wealth of the Jesuits, and I will tell you that the wealth of the Jesuits in every land where they are to-day is not half what a single multi-millionaire or Jewish capitalist possesses. And I have yet to learn that these multi-millionaires are doing one-tenth of what the Society of Jesus has done by its schools, its colleges, its various institutions. чак

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW men shall s peak well of you’’ and ‘‘Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute уди. I said the Jesuits of Spain had sad memories. But they have found consolation in the charity of those who have received and provided for them; they have found joy in the verse from the Acts of the Apostles, ‘Апі they indeed went from the 26 of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach or the name of Jesus. ' Kur For the last two years the leaders of the world have been clinging to an intang- ible, delusive phantom, hoping that some miracle would happen to reclaim human- The Imperial ity from the presa morass of economic depression. Out of Тунг Соц нийг the murky clouds of social and economic distress—like a beacon light to a fast-foundering ship—comes the proposed Imperial Economic Conference. Is it practical? Is it beneficial to the component parts of the Sri peris What are the possibilities of its success? These are the questions we will attempt to answer briefly. Our Mother Country comes into this Imperial Conference, bereft of her tra- ditional free trade policy, as a tariff-protected Britain, equipped to offer the Dominions advantages impossible in the old Cobdenite England. The Empire's population of four hundred and fifty millions supplies an enticing market. The resources of the component parts are to a large extent com lementary. However, it is ventured that the Empire 18 not actually self-sufficient. ite true. Buta policy of reciprocal tariffs does not necessarily mean isolation or the loss of all foreign trade; nor is it inconceivable that we may be some day self-sufficient. Thus we have the requisites necessary for the working of the proposed system. We realize, also, that the Dominions and Colonies would be compelled to limit some pe of their agricultural, industrial or financial development. But the mutual advantages accruing from the integration of the Empire would more than counterbalance any disadvantage arising from such limitation. Moreover, there is today a growing tendency towards the establishment of economic units. In the next generation, it would not be surprising to see the economic world composed of four or five such units. М. Briand had in mind the unification of Europe's economic forces, when he оя а United States of Europe . However, because of the divergence of political interests and the distrust existing between European countries, his proposal was demonstrated to be impracticable. These conditions are happily absent in the Empire. Union would strengthen rather than weaken our political positions. The prosperity of the United States is directly traceable to its self-sufficiency. Thus we unhesitatingly say that such a union would be beneficial to all concerned. We cannot, however, give any definite answer to our last question. The success of the parley will depend ultimately upon the attitude taken by the various repre- sentatives. If they аге guided by the idea of obtaining 'concessions, then the conference is doomed to failure. There must be a spirit of Imperial co-operation, a seeking for mutual advantages, a spirit of Опе for all and all for опе”. If this be the atmosphere, then success will crown their efforts. Let us not delude ourselves by thinking that the success of the conference will immediately usher in an era of unparalleled prosperity. Such a result would undoubtedly precipitate us into a more dangerous cataclysm than the present one. True success—the success that withstands the buffeting winds of time—is the success arising from a slow but irresistible force moving against adversity. 44}