Old and New (#36)

Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical On Christian Education, helps us connect our studies of today with what we have received from our Catholic heritage:

These noble traditions of the past require that the youth committed to Catholic schools be fully instructed in the letters and sciences in accordance with the exigencies of the times. They also demand that the doctrine imparted be deep and solid, especially in sound philosophy, avoiding the muddled superficiality of those "who perhaps would have found the necessary, had they not gone in search of the superfluous." In this connection Christian teachers should keep in mind what Leo XIII says...:
"Greater stress must be laid on the employment of apt and solid methods of teaching, and... on bringing into full conformity with the Catholic faith, what is taught in literature, in the sciences, and above all in philosophy, on which depends in great part the right orientation of the other branches of knowledge."

Some Qualities of a Good Catholic School (#35)

Pope Pius XI speaks to us across the ages in his 1939 encyclical On Christian Education in which he describes some of the qualities of a good Catholic school:

In such a school... the study of the vernacular and of classical literature will do no damage to moral virtue. There the Christian teacher will imitate the bee, which takes the choicest part of the flower and leaves the rest, as St. Basil teaches in his discourse to youths on the study of the classics. Nor will this necessary caution... in any way hinder the Christian teacher from gathering and turning to profit, whatever there is of real worth in the systems and methods of our modern times, mindful of the Apostle's advice: "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." Hence in accepting the new, he will not hastily abandon the old, which the experience of the centuries has found expedient and profitable.