What Is Our Idea of a University? 121
at least to a certain extent. Besides, it is now impossible to
compete, in certain fields, with neighboring universities, mag-
nificently endowed and equipped with perfect laboratories
and boasting of exceptional staffs of professors. The require-
ments are not exactly the same all over the country; there-
fore, universities have to select which of them must be fully
answered to. If I understand well, this is what your institu-
tion has been doing for years, and it has become famous in
the field of pure and applied science, with notable under-
takings in letters and art.
What is our own position in Quebec and Montreal? We
alone on the American continent teach all the subjects of
university courses in French. Our faculty of letters com-
prises Greek, Latin, and English, but specializes in French
and French-Canadian literature. Our faculty of law trains
its pupils to apply the laws of the country which are twofold;
the French regime laws which we have preserved, and the
English laws brought to us in 1763. Our civil laws are
French, and any one wishing to get familiar with them has
a splendid opportunity to do so in Montreal. I have spoken
lengthily of theology, philosophy, and social science : Mon-
treal, Quebec, and Ottawa are the only three universities
where the Catholic view in these all-important domains of
thought can be secured. It is our aim steadily to develop
the teaching of letters, law, social science, philosophy, and
religious doctrine, in order to make of our universities Latin
centers of culture on this Anglo-Saxon continent. Such was
the mission our French-Canadian ancestors contemplated
as early as 1770, when they attempted the foundation of the
Royal George College, whose name alone remained. This
mission is still our goal.