The People of Our Parish; Being Chronicle and Comment of Katharine Fitzgerald, Pewholder in the Church of St. Paul the Apostle

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900. Excerpt: ... XVII BOARDING-SCHOOL AND COLLEGE MR. TRAVIS had remarked with pardonable pride that his son John, expected home shortly for the holidays, had carried off the first honors in an oratorical contest at Notre Dame. Then Captain Claiborne, who is a distant relative of the Travises, and therefore privileged to be disagreeably frank, asked if Travis did not think a denominational school handicapped a boy in the race with modern life. Forthwith there was a Babel, --a nice sort of Babel, with the accompaniments of tea, cushions, easy-chairs, and an open fire in Mrs. Driscoll's pretty drawing-room. The discussion once turned on schools kept upon them, for the Catholic school in all its ramifications, from parochial to post-graduate, is the especial hobby of old Dr. Mordant. Catholic colleges, and institutions calling themselves by that name, are, I fancy, pretty much like other things in this world, easily separated into good, bad, and indifferent, put in Horace Norrison. One hears a great deal of adverse criticism of this and that college, and comparisons with Harvard and Yale, the carpers never seeming to see how illogical they are in thus comparing totally distinct classes. They take a struggling little school, purporting to give everything, from the classics down to preparatory branches, unendowed, unknown, the veriest makeshift in a wilderness, so to speak, and send a boy there simply because it is ridiculously cheap--two hundred dollars for ten months of board and tuition, and perhaps laundry. Then they complain because all the advantages of a great Eastern University, with its millions of endowment and its high charges, are not forthcoming. It is not always easy to make a selection, said Mrs. Hartley. We had catalogues from a score or more when Broth...