116 A Baccalaureate Discourse
of men since the beginning of civilization, could not accom-
plish the mission we are advocating. Besides, we education-
ists consider it our duty to shield the young minds entrusted
to us from dangerous intellectual experiences, to which their
lack of maturity would surely expose them. Therefore, a
doctrine, a system of thought is necessary: the Catholic uni-
versities have selected the philosophy of St. Thomas of
Aquinas, which is, as you know, the philosophy of Aristotle,
christianized, considerably augmented, and fully adapted to
the needs of our day. This system is not purely ecclesiastical :
it can be described as the “natural philosophy of the human
mind.”
There is a danger for many students, that of clinging to
the sensible without ever rising to the thinkable. Philosophy
will show them how this can be avoided. “The soul and life
of university training lies in this process. A university is a
laboratory of thought, the home of abstract science, pure
theories, fundamental principles, rethought and examined in
all the breadth of their spiritual dimensions : there, we can
learn what is the hierarchy of essences, what is the being,
unfolded in all its modalities and measured according to its
limits generically, specifically and differentially.”
I must apologize for so obscure a phraseology. But let
me, once more, use this abstract language to give a few ex-
amples of the practical utility of philosophy. Without it, I
cannot see how a student could judge of materialism, prag-
matism, and phenomenism, for instance ; of naturalism in
pedagogics; in mathematics and physics, what could he think
of Einstein’s relativism and the theories of evolution; in
psychology, what of determinism; in social economy, what
of the new forms of Marxism; in political science, what of
so many systems, fascists, or others?
Natural sciences become more and more popular amongst