SCHOOL MINISTRY

History

Catholic Education III

This is the third in a series of six articles about the history of Catholic elementary education in the United States.   These articles celebrate Catholic Schools Week, January 23 through 30.

The Great Immigration

The Great Immigration, which began in the 1840s, enormously changed the status of the Catholic Church in the United States. Prior to the immigration, Catholics represented a small minority of the population. Their schools were used to help Catholics both preserve their identity and gain acceptance in the evangelistic Protestant context.  

During the Great Immigration, however, between 1840 and 1880, the Catholic population of the United States doubled in size every decade. In 1850 the Catholic population was 1,606,000.  In 1900 it was 12,041,000. Nearly five million of these were Irish fleeing the potato famine and Germans escaping the revolutions of 1848. After 1870 greater numbers arrived from central and eastern Europe.  

These years also marked the opening of the West in the United States. Industrial growth demanded an almost endless supply of cheap labor. Great cities arose throughout the Mid-West and attracted a majority of Catholic immigrants. These years also marked the Second Great Awakening, which enkindled Protestant zeal across the nation, leading them to reform and mission movements. These were also the years that marked the prolonged and tortuous national movement for a free, tax-supported public school system (not yet a completely national program until Mississippi adopted it in 1918).

Change in Catholic Church Organization

When the Third Provincial Council of Baltimore met in 1837, 8 bishops and 1 archbishop represented 15 dioceses in the United States. When the third Plenary Council of Baltimore met in 1884, 12 Archbishops and 58 bishops represented 70 dioceses. This massive expansion mirrored that of the people, priests, sisters and institutions.  

The Establishment of Parochial Schools

The present system of Catholic parochial education dates from the First Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1852.   Concerned about preserving the faith of the immigrants, whose children were left to attend the Protestant-orientated common schools, the bishops decreed: "that schools be established in connection with all churches (parishes) of their diocese ... and to provide from the revenues of the church ... for the support of competent teachers." The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1866 encouraged this policy.  

Some bishops, however, thought the language and resulting practice insufficiently strong given the plight of the immigrants. Consequently, with the urging of Archbishop J. Purcell of Cincinnati and Bishop A. Rappe of Cleveland, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith at the Vatican (the U.S. Church was still missionary territory at that time, and this Roman Congregation was its immediate "superior") issued an instruction in 1875.   This Vatican congregation urged the establishment and improvement of parochial schools, and placed parents under the obligation to send their children to parochial schools.  

When the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore met in 1884, schools were the concern of at least one-fourth of the council's enactments. This council reiterated that each parish must establish a school and that Catholic parents must send their children to Catholic schools.  Exceptions to this policy could be dispensed only by the bishop or by Rome.  

Though for some dioceses the establishment of a school system was simply too costly, bishops and pastors worked valiantly to comply with the council's decrees.

The Faribault Plan

One of the more creative attempts to establish schools and finance them was made by Archbishop John Ireland here in Minnesota. It won national attention.  

Called the Faribault Plan, Catholic schools in Stillwater and Faribault in 1890 were leased to public authorities as public schools publicly funded. The children went to Mass before school and received religious instruction either before or after school. The public school board oversaw their instruction during the school day. The only proviso was that the Archbishop approve all textbook used.  

This plan raised a storm of protest in Catholic circles and significant division.  It was terminated in 1894.

Expansion of the Parochial School System

As the 19th century ended, because the nascent public schools were either sectarian or increasingly secular so as to appeal to a broader range of people, Catholics in the United States aggressively expanded the parochial school system. The Archbishop of New York in the 1870s, John Hughes, implemented in his diocese a program of establishing schools before churches were established, so deep were his concerns about the immigrant population in a Protestant culture. Hughes was widely imitated.

The 20th century has witnessed massive quantitative expansion in parochial schools.  They doubled between 1900 and 1920, when 6,551 parochial schools had 41,581 teachers with 1,759,673 students.  This doubling recurred twice more during the next forty years. Four and one half million children were enrolled in Catholic elementary schools by 1960.

The Teachers:   Women Religious

These schools were staffed by an every-increasing number of women religious whose sole ministry was education of the young. They worked for minimal compensation (to the religious order, not the sisters themselves) and room and board. Women religious, teachers and administrators, were the real heroes of the parochial school system. They not only made if financially feasible, they provided an excellent elementary education to millions of immigrant children. This parochial school system socialized the immigrant population to life in the United States, giving them the necessary tools for success and instructing them in faith.  

The Catholic Enclave

Our own school ministry, originating in our predecessor parishes, began in this national expansion of Catholic parochial schools.  

By the 1930s, the fundamental concern of the American Catholic Church was no longer socializing immigrants and helping them preserve their faith in an aggressively evangelizing Protestant culture. The concerns were, rather, the presuppositions of the Catholic enclave within the larger American culture. Our people needed a quality education to get ahead economically and socially, firm grounding in the teachings of the faith, and a solid commitment to the Church and the parish community. The Catholic school ensured that these concerns, though they diverged from the original purpose of the parochial school, were met.  Catholic schools thrived.