American Catholics are becoming increasingly aware of the growing tendency of Catholic colleges to secularize themselves — 这是, to loosen their connection with the teaching Church and to diminish deliberately their Catholic character. 天主教徒的父母尤其对这种世俗化已经或可能对其子女的智力和道德形成产生的影响感到震惊. 这些学院本身也越来越没有能力界定自己，以证明它们作为天主教机构继续存在的合理性.
乍一看，这种趋势的原因似乎是经济上的. 越来越多的管理人员和控制委员会相信这样一种策略，即通过使他们的机构世俗化，他们将提高从教育基金会和政府那里获得资金的资格. 这是值得怀疑的, 然而, 战略是否经过深思熟虑, 因为天主教父母是否会把孩子送到一所自称为天主教大学、但看起来毫无区别的学校，这一点还远不清楚, 除了参加的费用, 从最近的免学费州立大学毕业.
And if Catholic parents should find themselves unable to distinguish between the Catholic college and the secular institution, their confusion would not be without basis in the actual character of the emerging Catholic college itself. 为, 从根本上, the explanation of the growing secularization of American Catholic higher education is doctrinal rather than economic. 一所大学为了金钱利益而愿意将自己世俗化的前提是，它已经将自己的天主教性视为一种可以协商的东西, 这反过来又预设了它已经拒绝了传统教义，即天主教学院的基本目的是在信仰之光下进行教育. 我们发现, 事实上, 天主教大学世俗化的最直言不讳的支持者并不是在争论经济方面的考虑，而是在攻击大学在信仰之光下教育的理念. 我们发现, 进一步, 天主教大学毕业生, 学生和教授, 总的来说, 不能也不愿意抵抗这些攻击的. 事实上, the most virulent attacks now being made on 天主教教育 — as well as on the Church itself — emanate from some of these graduates, 学生, 和教授. That this should happen points to a grave deficiency in 天主教教育; institutions whose essential purpose is to combine Catholic wisdom and secular learning have given birth to a generation of teachers and learners who in large part reject such a purpose as irrelevant or contradictory. 不可避免的是认识到天主教学院并没有忠实于它的目的.
然而这种认识, 虽然它可能是阴沉的, 这没什么好惊讶的, for a brief look at the American Catholic college as we have known it in the past reveals fundamental flaws which, 给他们时间去结出果实, 使目前的危机不可避免.
There was a time when the Catholic college justified its existence by saying that it gave its 学生, 几乎都是天主教徒, an education which had as some of its components courses in Catholic philosophy and religion. 这就意味着所有的学生都必须学习这些学科的必修课程, 的真理, 这是希望的, 会渗透他们并塑造他们的生活吗. 其余的课程都是模仿世俗学校的课程模式放在一起的，并被认为是为了达到与世俗教育相同的目的. Hence it was the boast of the Catholic college that it had all that secular education had and more; it was Catholic without ceasing to be secular, 事实上，它被认为比其他学校更能让学生为这个世界做好准备，因为它给了他们一种哲学形态，无论他们选择什么样的生活状态，都能支撑他们.
But there were certain anomalies: a) While the college was boasting that its curriculum was up-to-date, 它开设了社会学和现代心理学等最新学科的课程, 牛顿力学是谁的范式, 它还提出了基于一般现实概念的哲学课程，与社会学和现代心理学的哲学前提相反. 类似的, 它的物理和化学课程是预设的, 毫无疑问, a philosophical view about the nature of matter and motion which contradicted what was taught in the philosophy courses. b)但即使在哲学课程本身也存在异常现象. 学生们的哲学形成在本质上是错误的，因为教师们在究竟有哲学还是仅仅有哲学这个问题上存在着根本的分歧. The effect of this division was to propose to the 学生 that philosophical education would at once lead to a certain understanding of reality, which understanding was at the same time relative basically to the changes of time and place. This opposition was in effect between those who claim something can be known and those who are skeptics — and the resultant effect on the 学生, 是谁很自然地试图整合这两个立场, 是怀疑. 怀疑, 当然, 否定认识任何事物的可能性，从而破坏了知识生活的目的. c) The proponents of perennial philosophy sought to be true to the nature of 天主教教育 as traditionally understood by the Church and, 尤其是, 自利奥十三世以来，教皇通谕一再强调这一点, 但即使在这里，美国天主教大学也被另一项失败所困扰. Where the papal encyclicals made it plain that the perennial wisdom was to be studied through the works of the great masters themselves, 最重要的是通过圣. 托马斯·阿奎那, it has been more often the case that 学生 have rather become ac作为inted with this wisdom through textbook versions. In this attempt to proportion such wisdom to the modern student’s mind so as to minimize its intrinsic difficulties, 这种智慧的正确性质被以各种方式歪曲和歪曲. 这种误解部分是由于不可能简化这些困难，部分是由于试图通过当代哲学的思想和语言来重申传统教义，而这些思想和语言实际上是以与这种智慧不相容的方式理解现实的. 就这一点而言，永恒的哲学已不复存在. d)更严重, 宗教课程是孤立的, 而且在课程的其他部分没有发挥任何智慧的作用, 满足于肤浅地重申天主教的真理. No attempt was made to ac作为int 学生 with the greatest Fathers and Doctors of the Church, 或者加深他们对天主教遗产的理解. 神学没有被当作科学来对待, 作为一种通往知识分子的途径, 以及对学生的道德成长. 他本可以洞察到最崇高的真理，但很少有人意识到这一点. Yet, all the while, the religion courses claimed to be the important part of 天主教教育.
如果对天主教教育的批评忽视了天主教教育与所有美国大学在自由教育领域所共有的纯粹教育上的弱点，那么对天主教教育的批评将严重达不到其目的. 美国大学早就放弃了真正的博雅教育. In its place it has in part substituted vocational education for what once was an education for man simply as man. 在另一部分，它保留了某些研究，这些研究并不会导致一些实际应用，它这样做只是因为它们能让学生更好地欣赏他的文明的“学习”和“文化”. 第二部分的名字是 人文主义 so as to designate its subjects precisely to be those things that are from man as distinguished from those things that come from nature. 这两部分不分青红皂白地组成一个整体，都被称为教育. This profound confusion which is now bearing its unhappy fruit in the irrational academic uprisings and revolutions, 他们没完没了、漫无目的的改革建议, 已经被收养很久了吗, 有点不知不觉地, 由天主教学院自己.
更具体地说，美国世俗学院的普遍衰弱, which served as the model for the Catholic college in areas other than philosophy and theology, 有这些影响. 世俗学院在文科教育的某些领域确实保留了一些残留的要求, 但很久以前就确定了，大学的主要功能是通过满足专业学院和研究生院的要求来培养专业人才. The student had to begin specialization early in his college career lest he fall behind in the race toward professional success. 教育工作者并不总是对日益增长的专业化趋势感到高兴, 但假设这是大多数学生想要的是现实的. 教育工作者可以从工具主义教育学的教条中找到安慰，即成功的教育与学生的兴趣成正比，而学生的兴趣被认为是在入学之前就存在的，并且已经完全确定了. 最后, 因为很少有教育家愿意为这样的命题辩护，即一门教学课程本身可能比另一门更有教育意义(或者在现有学科之间存在可发现的秩序)。, no one was able to resist the deluge 当然 proliferation which created the modern college catalogue. 事实上, 很少有人站出来反对, 也有人坚持认为学生的学术自由, 在某种意义上, 被摆在他面前的多种选择强化了. 直到20世纪60年代末的无政府主义事件, 似乎很少有人意识到，学生自己才是对哪些课程与他的智力发展最相关的最佳判断者，这一原则可能带来灾难性的后果. Nor was it noticed how undergraduate dialogue would be restricted by full specialization of interests on the part of both faculty and student body. The professor in his specialty becomes more and more insular and removed from both his 学生 and his fellow educators. 他在演讲厅接见学生, 他在学术期刊和会议上与他的同事见面, 虽然这些职能并没有完全耗尽他的责任, 这些当然是界定他的角色的职能. The very excellence of specialization itself multiplies and widens the divisions of academia.
天主教学院曾希望克服选修课制度和过早专门化的不利影响，把哲学和神学置于智慧或综合学科的地位. 从某种程度上说，这个项目是成功的, 但总体效果不如预期. 哲学系和神学系是各自专业化的牺牲品, 也没有准备好与其他学科进行对话. 此外, 由于选修制度，文科普遍衰落, philosophy and theology could not often be taught with sufficient emphasis on their inner structure 作为 知识的学科. 因此，他们经常采取一种不必要和不相称的专制立场, 这使得他们很少不受欢迎. 压力现在存在于大多数天主教大学的学生团体中, 如果不是在大多数院系, 抛弃哲学和神学的传统要求. 大多数大学已经减少了要求的学时数.
这并不奇怪, 因此, 在不断扩大的职业主义和人文主义的压力下, 天主教教育, 沉浸在这潮水中, 是倾覆. 视线模糊, it cannot well distinguish and justify true liberal education apart from vocational and professional training, in a time when technical and technological progress seem to be everything 这是 commonly regarded as worthwhile. 与人类对技术的希望相关联的，是人类对了解现实真相的绝望, 是哪一种绝望最初导致了人文主义. 甚至反对现代“博雅教育”的人文部分,"在那里，人为了一切事物的意义而转向自己, 哪一种观点总是倾向于“世界”而不是上帝, 人与造他的主为敌, 愚昧的天主教学院发现自己毫无防备. This capitulation shows on the one hand the general lassitude and dullness to which we are all heir, but on the other hand it shows more importantly what was noted above: the Catholic college 从来没有 really understood itself, 从来没有, 这是, thought out the exigencies of a liberal education which is undertaken in subordination to the teaching of the Church, and which has as its aim an intellectual perfection which is possible and proper to the Catholic alone. 这种教育要求课程的所有部分不应以技术问题为目的，而应以理解天主教信仰为目的, 信仰本身应该是指导课程的明灯.