Marquette University - Hilltop Yearbook (Milwaukee, WI)

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college or university. The “self-educated man can accomplish much, but he necessarily does it in a slow and fragmentary manner. The systematic learning supplied by a good college enables us to make intelligent, reasonable religious choices, causing rules of suppression to lx unnecessary. Education aids the cause of religious liberty in still another way. In learning to seek truth, we also learn how difficult tliat search is. If the religious choices of another seem misguided to us. we realize tliat any human being can attain the truth only after much effort. Our inclination, then, is to attempt to move the other by reasoning and prayer, ratlier than by force. Marquette University, therefore, with its high educational standards, prepares its students both to be free and to respect the freedom of others. A specific-ally Catholic education, moreover, is especially valuable in promoting freedom. • Many schools of our day. though they may be quite advanced in their teaching of secular knowledge, are content to leave their students with a rudimentary concept of Cod. Catholic schooling, on the other hand, keeps Cod in our intellectual life. We are therefore encouraged to see the world and mankind in their proper relation to God. instead of falling into tlx habit of making all our judgments in worldly terms. In addition, a Catholic education aids freedom because of its results in the moral character of the students. Having become convinced of our obligations to Cod, and consequently to men. wo will need fewer laws to make us perform our duties to God; and we will lx aware that we are morally bound to treat our fellows with justice and charity, however disagreeable tbeir religious profestations may appear. Tliat these claims are true of Marquette may lx seen by the attitude of its directors toward conscience and religious duties. Many Marquette students are non-Catholics. Though they are welcome to take theology courses, they are not forced to do so. Moreover, they need not attend any sort of Catholic religious services. Yet they are encouraged to worship God actively in whatever way is theirs. Catholic students, too, are not forced into worship. Nobody checks on how often they attend Mass or go to confession. Nobody attempts to investigate the amount of virtue in their private lives. It is taken for granted that the)- know what things they ought to do. and are capable of freely choosing to do them. Thus Marquette, following its purpose of increasing and communicating tlx knowledge of truth, prepares its students well to lx guardians of religious freedom.

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Freedom of Religious Belief )p ALL mans liberties, freedom of religion is flu highest. Since a freedom is concerned with the unforced choice of a good, and since the greatest of all goods is Cod, the greatest freedom is the freedom to worship Cod and to make one’s own choices in regard to that worship. Marquette University, as a Catholic institution of learning, upholds this vital right both in the educating of its students and in its everyday attitudes and practices. Religious liberty, like all human liberty, is based on free will. Cod has made us such that we do not just do blindly what is proper to us. Unlike the rest of earthly creation, we have reason and free will. We are therefore expected to make our own choices, guided by reason. Man's greatest dignity lies in this fact. Thus Cod does not force man to worship Him. He commands it, but we ourselves must choose to obey. Nor does Cod make it inevitable that we shall honor Him in a particular way. True, we are required to reach Cod by using the means which He wills us to use. but it is our privilege to recognize by reason just what that means is. and freely to decide to follow it. So, in its essence, religions freedom simply can not lx taken away from any man. Whatever forces are brought against him. his convictions and his will are untouchable. All a suppressor can do is to hold him back from the external expression of his religion. Only in that manner is it possible to curtail freedom of religion. Such suppression is immoral except when the expression of one person’s religion is grievously harmful to another individual, or to the community. Since we are social beings, our external acts affect the lives of others who come in contact with us. If this influence is bad. then the state, which has the charge of protecting its members, may put an end to the dangerous practice. If our religious acts hurt no one, however, there is no earthly power which can rightfully call a halt to them. Our right to the free expression of our religious liberty may not be violated. Every educational institution should aim, at least indirectly, at enabling each man to keep his right to worship Cod, and to worship Him as his conscience directs. A school can help promote such a situation, because our religious choices depend on our reason. In choosing according to conscience, we are following our reason. Should our intellect be mistaken, and our choices actually lx unreasonable, the chances are far greater that we will harm others by our religious acts, and so lose our freedom of worship. Our reasoning power needs training in forming correct judgments, and needs a store of truths on which to base its views. Education alone can provide these things to the intellect, and this learning is best acquired at a

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Academic Freedom F REEDOM characteristically belongs to those who possess reason. Since what man chooses as a means to an end is viewed as good, and since good is what he desires, freedom of choice belongs to the will which is enlightened by the knowledge possessed by the intellect. Because the object of both the rational will and its liberty is the good which conforms to reason, possible error and actual error are defects of the mind. Man, acting according to reason, acts of himself and in conformity to his free will—and this is liberty. In academic freedom, which is a particularized form of freedom, there is involved, in addition to one’s choice of his own good, the choosing of what will be good for others. Upon teachers rests the responsibility of conforming to right reason so that what they present to their students is true. Academic freedom means the right to learn the truth and to teach the truth. A teacher has the right to impart what is suitable to the student's mind, wliat will provide for the well-being and perfection of each intelligent nature. But along with that right, the teacher also has an obligation. It is his duty to bring knowledge to those who lack it anti to keep and further it in those who have it. The teacher’s duty' coincides with the right of man to know and increase his knowledge of the truth. Teachers are generally associated with some educational institution. Possessing the truth, the facility of that institution is obliged to teach it, and should do so without restriction. That is one phase of academic freedom. A university can encourage her teachers to proceed to conclusions resulting from their own thought and study. She can direct them to self-advancement by means of research on her time as well as on the individuals’ time. She can encourage their progress by granting leaves of absence for further study or experimentation. She can invite these men to make permanent records of their findings to her walls, a university can urge their widespread publication. By so doing, she will exhibit pride in her members and through their success, advance her own reputation. Marquette University’s aim in education is in accord with the fundamental purposes of Jesuit education—to outfit the human intellect with wisdom and knowledge which will attract the human will to the ways of achievement which God designed for man. Marquette believes that “to the extent that intellectual activity is not free, man is not free.” Her statutes say, “The natural sacred right of freedom of expression is, of course, recognized by Marquette University as a requisite for effective and intelligent dissemination of ideas. Marquette fosters her l»eliefs by permitting her faculty members to present to their students their thoughts and ideas on subjects in which they are specialists. Marquette has granted leaves of absence to numerous instructors for advanced work in philosophy, history, language, science, journalism. She has welcomed publications of her faculty and has promoted them enthusiastically. She has encouraged and made facilities