Saint Mary's College

SAINT MARY'S COLLEGE will begin offering this Fall (our fifth year!) a two-year certificate program. The goal of a four-year college has not been abandoned and we will continue to gear up for this possibility in the next few years. But, the last few years at the College have demonstrated that the majority of students stay in our program for about two years—either going on to other colleges, getting married, or pursuing a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. Therefore, we have decided to emphasize a two-year course of studies, concentrating all our efforts on making this the best formation possible. However, any student completing the two-year program may elect to continue at the College and enroll in some of the tutorial or independent study courses.

In addition to this announcement, and after consultation with our Rector, Father de la Tour, we have decided to require all students to enroll on a full-time basis, taking the five classes each semester. (Certain exemptions from this rule may be granted in some special cases.) Most classes will meet five times a week. The reason for this policy is simply to insure that a certain commitment and academic seriousness attend the life of our students. Since some students have chosen to enroll part-time because they have not had the financial resources to enroll full-time, we have also decided to lower tuition at the College. The College will continue to accept adult parishioners on an audit basis who take one or two classes.

It has been determined that St. Mary's College is no longer seeking accreditation through the state and national agencies. In fact, we are unable to do so if we desire (as we must) to maintain the full integrity of a traditional Catholic college. There is a real gap between what the state and national accrediting agencies would require us to change in our curriculum and what we now have in place with our high principles of Catholic education. We are also certain that traditional Catholics would not want us to make these concessions. We would cease to be what we are, just as Archbishop Lefebvre's seminaries, if they conformed to the current formation offered in conciliar seminaries, would cease to be a bulwark against the modernist crises in the Catholic priesthood.

This last announcement should not be alarming or cause undue concern. Lack of accreditation for St. Mary's College does not mean the work here is meaningless in the eyes of secular colleges or in the market place, and certainly not in the eyes of God! For example, in transferring to other colleges, especially in those basic studies of geometry, logic, grammar, composition, literature, philosophy, and the humanities, the students have the opportunity at many colleges and universities to demonstrate their knowledge of those subjects by way of an interview and/or "testing out" in the various departments, whereupon they would accept the credits from Saint Mary's. In some cases, we have had students going directly to other colleges whose transcripts from St. Mary's were accepted without question. But it must be understood that it is not our intention to offer classes at St. Mary's that are a direct match-up with classes in secular colleges. We cannot abandon our tradition and responsibility that "all classes must be imbued with Christian piety," as our Popes have taught. These other colleges will quickly see that the level of achievement gained at St. Mary's exceeds their own standards.

As far as the market place is concerned, there seem to be many job opportunities for students with two years of well-rounded education. But, above all, there is an additional consideration for Catholic students: He or she must consider, in these times, what is and what is not honorable work. For example, a sales or marketing position with a pharmaceutical company may offer the potential for a high salary, but what if that company is also a manufacturer of birth control pills? Or, advancement with a certain popular manufacturer may be a great responsibility, but do they knowingly cut costs by actually producing inferior products while advertising their wares as the highest of quality? Alas, many situations such as these present themselves to the graduate these days, particularly painful for young Catholic men, who decide to be married, since it will be their duty, a religious duty, to be the provider for a family—to obtain work to maintain a living for a decent existence for a home and family; to build up the Mystical Body of Christ in a world largely hostile to the Catholic principles of honorable work. The formation at St. Mary's can be directly applied to making such difficult decisions because it is steeped in the moral traditions of Western civilization and Christendom. In fact, such a formation for youth is the only hope for ever establishing an universal moral code in society. However, more and more, businesses are looking for employees who have the reasoning and analytical skills, the ability to work with others, and, most importantly, good moral character. St. Mary's College offers the opportunity for the student to develop all of these. In the business world, the "degree" is not enough, as many employers will now admit. Business has learned by loss of production, if nothing else, that the employee without the above skills and good personal qualities is a liability to their operation.

We welcome students who are interested in business-oriented fields, believing that our two-year program will be the best formation for them before going on to particular studies. We will continue to advise them (after earning their certificate) and will suggest visits to nearby Washburn University, the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, or introduce them to the information and catalogues of other colleges and universities throughout the country. Not a few of our former students have gone on to attend these area universities while remaining on campus to take advantage of our religion class (or some other course), and to live in the healthy Catholic atmosphere on campus with access to daily Mass and the Sacraments. We highly encourage this option at the end of the two-year program for students.

We have added a computer and computer applications course to the tutorial list of classes it being obvious that this instrument has become a modern business tool. That does not prevent us from continuing to point out the dangers of a machine-conscious age, even a dangerous "computer mentality," that too often tends to reduce education and the true dignity of man as a child of God, with a unique, mysterious, beautiful, eternal soul, to no more than another kind of machine. We will never stray from our original mission with its attending Catholic spirit that has brought forth teachers in Society schools, vocations to the seminary and convent, and Catholic marriages. We are extremely proud of this and view these results as a clear sign that God is blessing our efforts.

We must also recall that in this labor or re-establishing the tradition of the best education, that the graduate of such a course of studies emerges not so much as one who can do a particular thing, but as one who has become, as a result, a better person. This principle has been recently recognized as true outside Catholic circles, most recently by Secretary of Education in the Reagan Administration, William J. Bennett, who said: "In education we need a renaissance in common sense." Secretary Bennett condemned the argument that "assumes the purpose of education is exclusively to prepare for jobs. Education is to prepare for life." Education, we add, if it is worthy of the name, has the ability to draw our character, moral and virtuous, for life. This is our task. Furthermore, the modern world is saturated with the seemingly endless details of information and knowledge. No one, even in several lifetimes, could ever amass all these details; and, considering how much of this is like so much extra baggage on a tedious journey, who would really want such a load? It remains true that what was necessary for a good education in the past—that quality of education that prepared us for life and for eternity—actually amounts to a small number of books and sources in comparison with the jungle of information that has now grown up in modern colleges and universities. Therefore St. Mary's College retains the treasury from our past—in mathematics, logic, philosophy, literature, humanities, grammar, composition, and the Latin language. We hold fast to the Catholic mandate in education so beautifully expressed recently, and directed to St. Mary's College, by Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, Father Franz Schmidberger: "The thoroughly Catholic education we are giving to our students consists in forming their whole being to the supernatural life: in order that the whole person is submitted to the reign of Jesus Christ in the spiritual, moral, intellectual, and physical sphere."

Being a truly Catholic college, the intellectual life is always hand-maid to the spiritual life, while admitting of no contradiction between the two. The spiritual life at St. Mary's stands to be the richest religious life a person can lead outside a seminary, monastery or convent. Along with required attendance at a Holy Mass each day, the student is able to participate in the work of God (always geared to their station in life as students), by singing one or more of the hours from the Divine Office: Prime, Sext, Vespers (on Sundays) and Compline. Because we have now experienced over twenty years of liturgical rebellion in the Church, sometimes Catholics ask, "What is the Divine Office?" It is a selection of the Psalms sung at different times throughout the day in praise of God, the Creator of the universe, the Creator of all that is. These Psalms are the expressions of man speaking to God in every mood possible: longing, sorrow, joy, wonder, love, and hope. By participating in one or more of these hours with the priests, sisters and brothers and parishioners (among whom are several third order and oblate groups), the student is taught the joys of holiness, the delight in the company of the saints praising God with His angels, in such lessons of the heart no earthly teacher could ever master.

It should also be mentioned that St. Mary's College is an ideal environment—educational and spiritual—in which a young man or woman may find a Catholic spouse—where the education, because of its broad nature, is excellent for the future Catholic mother and father. We must recall on this point that Catholic parents are the primary educators of their children, and must be able to initiate and complement all Catholic school efforts in the "school of the home."

Finally, the recreational life at St. Mary's College is never neglected. It is a great error of our times to place all educational efforts on the intellect. Man is a substantial union of body and soul. Those aspects of the human being that properly pertain to the body and healthy emotions deserve to be cultivated and expressed. This is accomplished, in part, by those simple, wholesome, and even ordinary activities proper to college life. For example, the congenial and relaxed atmosphere of the college lunchroom where the meal is often taken with members of the faculty; the student lounge, The Crown and the Sword, where ample time is set aside for songs, games, a warm fire on winter nights, and lots of conversation; seasonal sports such as volleyball, basketball, softball, canoeing, and square dancing; the annual college variety show.

Reasonable curfews and lights-out time to insure proper rest and study time are established in the separate men's and women's dormitories, consistent with other rules and regulations associated with good Catholic colleges or the past. For example, "cutting class" is unacceptable; only illness should prevent a student from not attending all their classes each day. Such rules only follow when one considers the serious duty of being a student of higher education in a Catholic environment.

Prospective students and inquiring parents should note that St. Mary's College exists in grand and beautiful austere buildings, not "new" in comparison to the facilities found on more modern campuses. It is true that we lack the frills and so-called conveniences of modern colleges. We also lack generous grants and scholarships and must rely almost totally on students' tuition to pay the salaries of our dedicated professors, all of whom hold Master's degrees and course work above a Master's with many years of teaching experience. We are certain that this life at St. Mary's is rich in blessings by way of our high purpose of education, our loyalty to the traditional Mass of the Church, and our opposition to modernism in all its forms—theological and cultural.

St. Mary's College functions under the administration of the Rector, Father Herve de la Tour, assisted by Father DeLallo and Father Hunter; the President, James S. Taylor, and Dean, Dale Neeck.