July 2022 Print

By Robert Wyer

Most of us could probably readily agree on what we are against in education, but consensus on what we are for is another matter. Few disagreements are more acrimonious than this one; it is something akin to a family fight or a lovers’ quarrel. Just about everyone considers himself an expert on education, perhaps because most of us have spent so much of our lives in school. And, to be sure, parents are meant to be terribly invested in their children’s well-being; the years devoted to their children’s schooling occupy a considerable part of their concern and cash. Any division about what those schools for their kids ought to look like stems from different ideas about what a school is and what it is meant to do, and the answers to these questions necessarily involve an accurate appreciation of the students we have and the time in which we live. A school is, by definition, a place of perennial things, but how we prudentially craft the Catholic school in our day, given the realities involved, may represent something that appears innovative, though it replicates timeless elements. Here, we are concerned with the so-called “parish school,” one that strives to welcome all (or the majority of) children associated with a particular place.

Obviously, any school lives by certain principles, and these principles are worth some attention. Beyond these principles, the realties that distinguish the parish school require a closer look for our purposes. What remains, finally, are practical considerations in the life of the school that predominates in SSPX priories—how we might do well to structure them to best serve the children entrusted to our care and the families we seek to assist in the raising of their children in a challenging age.

One of the first principles of any school is the presupposition that everyone ought to know certain things. These things are worth knowing for their own sake, because they reflect (in greater or lesser measure) the goodness, truth, and beauty that is ultimately God Himself. Knowing these things makes us more of what we are: creatures, body and soul, caught up to heaven but rooted in the earth—the unique human place between purely material creation and the spiritual world of the angels.

     For I will behold thy heavens, the works of thy fingers: the moon and the stars which thou hast founded.
     What is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man that thou visitest him?
     Thou hast made him a little less than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour: and hast set him over the works of thy hands. (Ps. 8)

Though some of these things learned might prove useful, that is not the reason we learn them.

One corollary—because we are human—is that teachers are more important than the curriculum. Ultimately we learn from others who know and teach us. Knowledge per se does not exist in books; it must be known by a knower, exist in the mind of someone. That person, much as the angels of the various hierarchies do for each other, communicates to and enlightens others. When an author communicates by means of written language, he is conveying what is in his mind to another, and even then, it often takes a teacher, like St. Philip for the Ethiopian, to ask: “Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest?” And the student echoes the eunuch: “And how can I, unless some man shew me?” (Acts 8) Teachers are the heart of the school. If what Plato calls the divine spark is not leaping to and fro in the minds of the faculty in the conversation within that circle of friends, it is unlikely it will be firing in the minds of the students.

From this, it follows that much of educating involves the cultivation of relationships. Plato calls teaching “a species of friendship,” and Garrigou-Lagrange says, echoing St. Thomas’ commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics: “the perfection of anything is that it become similar to its cause ... thus, the perfection of the student is that he become a master.” Or, as one master put it:

The gratitude a student has towards his teacher, according to St. Thomas, comes from the fact that his learning is a “becoming”; the teacher is the cause of a “similitude” of himself in his knowing, analogous to a father generating a similitude of himself in his son.

Offspring, in the physical realm but also in the intellectual and spiritual realm, is the fruit of knowing. “And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived.” Con-ception, the quickening of ideas (concepts) in the mind of another, requires the intimacy of knowing the other. The teacher must love his students, and they return this love. Ultimately, of course, it echoes and reflects the knowing and loving that is the eternal life of the Holy Trinity.

What happens in the classroom itself is not enough then, partly because of the necessity of forming these relationships, but there is more to it. A great deal of the “stuff” of learning exists outside of the school building. One could insist, for instance, that without a prolonged exposure to the natural world, beyond the classroom windows, much of what is attempted inside will not bear lasting fruit. The cultivation and exercise of the senses, imagination, and memory necessarily precede and accompany any intellectual activity. The scholastic dictum nihil in intellectu nisi prius in sensu (“there is nothing in the intellect unless it is not previously in the senses”) is not reserved to describe the earliest stages of childhood development.

Teachers must meet students where they are. There is always something of returning to a beginning or an earlier point in the teacher’s own journey (because he can only give what he has first received). The goal, the point the teacher hopes the student reaches (even surpassing the teacher), is real, but so is the starting point. Again, this requires coming to know the student. For Socrates, this involved conversation, asking questions, probing what the student knew but also countenancing dreams and passions, even tolerating a certain youthful silliness. Humans are symphonic beings; they live on many levels—physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Helping another achieve harmony among these aspects of his being means knowing something of his story. Talking is how we come to know another, and close friends never exhaust this conversation.

Having been reminded of some principles common to all schools worthy of the name, we now turn our attention to the parish school. In schools run by the Society of Saint Pius X in the United States, most are attached to priories but all at least to a chapel; in other words, families choose to locate in particular areas because they want the Mass and desire a school to help them give their children a Catholic education. These places of learning represent the parish school, which exists to serve all of its families. Despite exceptions for students with special needs beyond what these schools can provide, they are meant to take all comers.

Here again, we should pause to consider certain realities that are part of this kind of school. Two factors seem paramount: size and diversity of students, and these two factors are related. The larger the student body, the more likely there will be a broader range of abilities among its members. Typically, the parish schools do not set admissions criteria based on academic performance or aptitude, though obviously the expectation exists that students admitted can handle the coursework demands. (Obviously some attrition occurs as the level of study increases.) Other factors could be involved; some schools may take boarding students, for example. A variety of settings also exist, ranging from rural or small town to quite urban. For the present consideration, however, we will concentrate on size and student aptitude, which relate to the question of academic curriculum.

We expect all students to learn certain things. They should know the truths of the Faith, be able to read and write, learn something of the history of the world and the place of Christ and His Church in it as its central event, be adept at computation, and know some basic science that helps to illuminate the world we live in. I would argue that some familiarity with Latin is crucial because it’s the language of the Church. From there, one can add the significant subjects of music and art. Then, too, physical education is important. The question is: how much of each, especially of the core subjects, is the right amount for particular students? Literature can reach far and high, depending on the texts selected. Math can venture beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions into geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and even into calculus. Natural history and physical or earth science can quickly progress to biology, chemistry, and physics.

We want to provide a rich, and even challenging, exposure to all students, taking them as far as they can go, developing to the fullest the minds God has given them, but we ought also to remember that, while all students possess intellects, not all are destined to become intellectuals. In the history of the world, a relatively small number of people make up the thinking elite who shape society in that way and add their share to that aspect of human endeavor and the Church’s mission to “go and teach all nations.” (True geniuses are even rarer.) If one of the first principles of rhetoric is an awareness of one’s audience, it behooves us to bear in mind the true diversity of young minds who present themselves in our schools.

The Church has always made schools wherever it has gone in promoting salvation. Why? At least in part because of this truth, which is remarkably expressed in the words of a Carthusian novice master:

God knows very well how to bypass this intellectual formation with simple souls, but it seems that the work of grace is seriously hampered—at least in raising the level of life— if it does not at least find a clear and honest mind… in which grace can find a home. But all things being equal (and often this is precisely the question!) a certain culture of the mind almost always offers a richer earth in which grace may work. At least a certain minimum of culture.

Is it surprising then that the Church has so assiduously sought to cultivate the soil for the good heart by nourishing the mind, given that man is a rational being? We are most like the angels and God in our intellect and will. This realization of how grace perfects nature rises to the level of principle when we undertake the task of education, informing all that we do. This attempt to provide “a certain culture of the mind” is not a mere add-on in the Church’s mission; it is an essential part of its mission.

The issue is one of degree. Striving to be “all things to all men” does not mean being the same thing to all men. If Christ, as The Teacher, shows us anything, He always goes out to meet the individual soul where it is. Every soul is unique, though souls fall into certain classes. Consider for a moment the marvelous richness in the history of the Church’s religious orders. Not only does this diversity reflect the varying aspects of the Catholic Thing in meeting the various needs of mankind (teaching the young, caring for the sick and dying, taking in orphans, cultivating the mind, providing haven for contemplation and so on), but it also reflects a recognition that souls differ; the path to sanctity is not the same in the details of its modus vivendi. In the work of cultivating minds, an appreciation of this ought also to inform what we teach and how we teach it.

Deciding what to teach certainly depends on the aptitudes of the students, but also on the age we live in. If we live in a culturally poor time, we cannot merely fill the deficit by drowning them in the best thinkers. One approach would be: give all of them the very best; the brightest will hopefully get something enlightening and permanent—truly formative—from the experience, and those not up to the challenge, well, perhaps some bits will stick with them. However, does this mindset truly serve the majority of the class? If education is, in some sense, a “drawing out of” students what they are capable of, is this the best way to accomplish it?

The Society of Saint Pius X currently has around 20 parish schools in the United States. About half are kindergarten through twelfth grade. They range from 22 to 900 in terms of students. A number of these have 100 or more students. St. Mary’s Academy, the largest, has a number of unique opportunities because of its size, but such a large school also presents its challenges. In all of the schools, limited resources remain an issue. Most importantly, large schools require more teachers, and the key here is managing class size because more can be done with smaller groups of students.

Small is beautiful, in so many things. There is a scale that seems best suited to human endeavors, particularly teaching and learning. Our Lord chose only twelve men to form that intimate association of those who would witness, hear, and transmit the revelation of His Father. Big schools simply do not afford the optimal amount of contact and influence between teachers and students. While we might disagree about that magic number, there seems little room for disputing that smaller schools permit the personal interaction and attention best suited to learning. Ultimately, it is an encounter between an individual teacher and one (each) student... cor ad cor loquitur.

Another aspect of the cross section of students within the typical parish school is that it reflects two categories of the lives that students will lead after, the distinction between the (broadly speaking) intellectual and the “maker” (to borrow a term from one old definition of man, homo faber.) Anyone who spends time teaching the young readily discovers that some students seem more suited for, and delighted by, the exercise of their minds, while others flourish in the exercise of their hands. The Lord God has simply fashioned them in this way—and glory to Him in doing so.

Generally speaking, any student’s aptitude (especially in the sixth through twelfth grades) becomes more pronounced as the child matures. Something of a primary disposition emerges; it is revealed in the things he is attracted to (though obviously it is not a hard-and-fast division.) He senses a greater fulfillment in, naturally gravitates towards, one activity or the other, without one entirely eclipsing the other. There is something beautiful—a kind of richness—about those who maintain a balance in both worlds, adept at the exercise of mind and body, knower and maker.

In the parish school, because of its distinctive diversity, both types of students will be present, and the school and its teachers owe it to them to work with and foster both kinds. In large groups, on a day-to-day basis, doing so can present challenges (again, more so in the high school years.) In growing and discovering, the student becomes more of what he is; the gifts he was born with emerge more clearly and hopefully flourish. Watching this unfold delights the admiring teacher.

The other broad division, looking farther into the students’ future lives as adults, concerns the path of vocation: marriage, religious life, and priesthood. Most will marry and raise families. In a healthy Catholic society, probably about a third would become monks, brothers, nuns, or priests. It seems true to say that there ought to be more monks and brothers (among male graduates) than priests. Priests, as a rule, will come from the smaller percentage of the more academically-inclined students, possessing the mental aptitude for the study of philosophy and theology required in a seminary.

This being true, one might wonder how this future reality ought to be reflected and nurtured during the years in the parish school. Given that fewer students will be intellectuals (remember: we are talking about that broad division that will be found in a school that has to try and serve all children of the parish), how should the school, in its life and curriculum, correspond to this fact? If most will marry, or embrace the life of monks, brothers and sisters, ought the parish school to be ordered to this eventual reality, especially in the upper grades?

It has become somewhat common to recognize the existence of “multiple intelligences,” meaning that intelligence is not limited to the more abstract, “book smart” caricature. Equally true, to maintain that a curriculum for some students ought to be perhaps less academic does not mean that such an education is anti-academic—it remains a question of degree or focus. “In My Father’s house, there are many mansions” (John 14:2).

Practically speaking, what do these realities about the diversity of students mean in terms of size, curriculum, approach, and the school’s daily life? What follows, because it is a consideration of how Society schools might better serve the families who rely on its priests for their spiritual needs, will be primarily proposals—a series of possibilities or questions. Here, we will not be talking about principles in the same way but struggling to suggest a vision of how things might look and a brief glimpse at their possible merits.

For one thing, we might need more schools which would be tailored more to the different kinds of students, rather than simply trying to do even more in schools whose size already makes learning less than ideal.

Not having to expand existing schools because of increasing enrollment (as in St. Mary’s), which often presents itself in larger budgets with growing financial stresses and costs of additional construction on site or renovating older, existing structures, might provide some breathing room to increase faculty salaries and eliminate logistical demands of finding adequate space for classrooms and programs.

Another possible benefit: if some Society schools could then concentrate on more rigorous academic matters for those students so inclined, it might actually permit fostering priestly vocations that would necessarily come from the boys and young men in those schools. Part of the Society’s reason for existing (and a duty explicitly delegated to priors) is precisely this fostering of vocations to the priesthood. Other schools (including perhaps some overseen by the Society) could be less challenging in their academic curriculum. Doing so might thus serve the other (and larger) population of students not so inclined towards intellectual endeavors.

(Before venturing farther, in honesty, I have to give something of a disclaimer about what will follow: many of the practical suggestions I am going to propose focus on the education of boys because that is what I do and have reflected on more. This is not to say that girls do not need or have a way that is appropriate to them. On the contrary, it may be even more important, and someone needs to be thinking seriously about the parish school in terms of the realties that wait there for those future mothers and nuns, for those with a more intellectual bent and for those inclined otherwise. It simply is not something I will elaborate on here and now.)

We could end up with something like this for boys, at least: a K-12 (or at least 6-12) school that spends less time in the classroom, and, as students enter junior high and high school, includes experience on a working farm. Part of the school day could be geared towards exposure to activities that are hands-on: leathercraft, woodworking, animal husbandry, gardening, and beekeeping. During the high school years, they might begin serving some sort of “junior apprenticeship” in the afternoons a few days a week, after Mass and a morning in the classroom for English, religion, Latin, and history; math and science could be learned outdoors in the context of building projects and natural history in addition to the work of cooperating with nature in the cultivation and raising of produce and animals.

Such a school would not be a trade school—not mere job training, by any means. It would maintain an academic (intellectual) element, but likewise provide the opportunity to participate in (at first just seeing) arts and trades that might one day provide personal satisfaction in the performance of skills that could provide a livelihood for families or add to the monastery or the brotherhood. Students could acquire ennobling skills that would provide what Belloc calls “status” not mere “contract”—in other words, they could escape the plight of the wage-slave who does a mere job, something another could easily be hired to do in his stead. (They could also actually study the social teaching of the Church—a woefully neglected subject, since this would be the world they would inhabit and practice in.)

Among possible entities for these nascent apprenticeships, one might find carpentry, masonry, agriculture, metalwork, plumbing, and electrical work. Even the more artistic crafts (the province of the artisan) might be nurtured: things like sculpture, painting, and stained glass making. When the Society is building (or restoring) churches, it might be one avenue of securing the craftsmen needed to contribute to the beauty of sacred architecture; instead of searching for those proficient in disappearing skills, the schools might help to fashion them.

A school along these lines could be a place where businessmen from the parish could happily be involved in a program for a day school.

Future monks and brothers might grow in number from such schools. We might see a new dawning of that happier age when a larger percentage of youth gave their lives to The One Thing Necessary. Labora, one half of the Benedictine life (along with Ora), could receive its due because boys who learned during their school years the necessity and dignity of manual labor would be better disposed to a life that honors and embraces this element.

In his sketch “The Saxon School: The Summer of 1002,” Hilaire Belloc depicts a monastic school, “Our Lady of Good Knowledge,” attached to Hyde Abbey near Winchester. It is a place of only 20 or 30 students, “for such as would learn more than was necessary to every Christian man”—that is, more than the basic catechism. At the end of the piece, the monk who teaches the boys lingers to speak with a youngster who has reached the culmination of his studies and will enter the abbey. The priest tells him, “But if you would come now, first show me what you know.” The boy (because “no pupil of his had been so word-perfect since the child of the London woman had died in the green Christmas of five years before”) replies at length... “till it was plain that there was no end to his learning.”

The old man was ready to take him away, and they went together over the water meadow towards Hyde and the city, talking in the Latin tongue, and without one word in the vulgar, upon divine things, until they came to the gate of the Abbey, where Brother Porter, who had been warned, asked them, as ritual would have it, in the name of Alfred [King Alfred the Great, whose bones rest in the Abbey], “whom he brought there.” The Tutor answered: “One who would be a priest,” Then the porter said: “What will he do for his priesthood?” And the boy answered in reply: “I will forge in the Abbey forge.” When he had said this they led him in, and they shut the gates behind him, as though to cut him off from the world.

Such would be the happiest of outcomes for all involved and for the world at large, if many of our students did likewise. There will be nothing like a Christian culture again until the contemplative life, the first thing, becomes first again.

More could be said, but—for now—my hope is that some questions have been raised, a few seeds planted, some possibilities envisioned.

The parish school is an ancient and venerable institution. It has existed in European villages, in the hedges of Ireland during times of persecution, in the neighborhoods of American cities, and in the mission fields from Africa to Alaska. It is a worthy endeavor, noble in its effects, and doubtless near to the Heart of Christ. We owe the superiors and teachers of the Society’s schools an infinite debt of gratitude for their heroic labors and solicitude.