Jesuit Education under Siege: The Harvard Law School Controversy

An analysis of the issues surrounding the founding of Boston College Law School requires an understanding of the evolution of Jesuit education at BC and the social status of Boston Catholics from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. Central to this history was the public controversy over Harvard’s decision to remove Boston College from the elite group of schools automatically accepted into its law school. Though the Harvard Law School controversy highlighted both the strengths and weaknesses of Jesuit education, it ultimately forced Boston College to reform its educational policies to appeal to the changing needs of its’ catholic base. These reforms laid the ground work for the founding of the Law School roughly thirty years later.

Immigrants to Americans: How Jesuit Education at Boston College helped Irish Catholics enter Boston’s Middle Class
By the late nineteenth century the catholic population of Boston had skyrocketed, changing the very nature and culture of the city forever. While in 1830 Catholics only represented about 2 percent of the nation’s population, by 1930 the Catholic population in Boston rose to over 70%. Fleeing a homeland that was ravaged by a potato famine, it was estimated that nearly 130,000 Irish immigrants settled in Boston during the decade of 1846-1856. The famine had regulated these immigrants to the bottom of the social class. With little money or education, the Irish population was forced to settle in crowded tenement houses and accept bottom feeder jobs that allowed them to do little more than put food on their table. Yet, though they were poor in economic terms, the ambitions of these increasing Irish-catholic immigrants threatened the protestant control over the city. Fearful of the religious influences of these catholic foreigners, lower class Yankees and the elite Boston “Brahmin” classes worked together to try to prevent these immigrants from transcending their economic and social status. By placing “No Irish Need Apply” signs on their factories and shop doors, anti-catholic Protestants limited the avenues for immigrants to succeed in Boston. Out of this movement sprung the notorious “Know-Nothing” party, a group Protestants organized to push for discriminatory laws designed to prevent Catholics from voting or participating in the public and economic life of the state. Through theses movements Protestants tried to all but eliminate the catholic population.

The discrimination and bigotry that spread across the East-Coast during the mid-to-late 19th century forced Catholics to create their social networks to support themselves. By 1859, Protestant and Catholic tensions had reached a boiling point. In response to a highly publicized incident where a public school teacher punished a catholic student for refusing to recite the protestant version of the Ten Commandments, many Catholics turned inward to their church to provide a safer environment for their children’s education and religious growth by enrolling in catholic schools. Catholic schools soon became institutions where first and second generation immigrants gained confidence in their faith and culture and valuable social support network for the future.

Boston College was founded as part of this movement to help further the ambitions of an Irish catholic population in a largely hostile puritan city. Boston College opened in August of 1864, in Boston’s South End on a plot of land on Harrison Avenue between Newton and Concord Streets. Boston College was conceived of as far back as 1842 when then popular Boston Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick, S.J. Fenwick consulted with a close friend at Georgetown University, John McElroy S.J., about establishing a day school. However, early plans to start a college were thwarted by powerful Protestants who prevented the Jesuits from securing the necessary permits to construct a site on Levrette Street in Boston. Determined not to be blocked by a vehemently anti-catholic faction of Boston’s Brahmin class, Father McElroy continued the Jesuit tradition of seeking alliances with tolerant civic members in the local society. McElroy was able to forge such a relationship with a number of liberal Bostonians, including former President of Harvard and Massachusetts governor, Edward Everett, who was instrumental in the purchase of the South End site. As a result, it was ironically through the help of Harvard University, the center of elite protestant power, that Boston College was eventually established.

The success of the Jesuit founders in seeking out assistance from other community members was born in part out of the unique character and philosophy of the Jesuit sect. Officially recognized by the church in 1545, the Jesuits, formally know as the Society of Jesus, were founded by soldier turned educator/missionary, Ignatius de Loyola (1491-1156). Educated in Europe’s most prestigious and privileged universities of the time period (University of Alcala, University of Salimanica, and University of Paris where he eventually graduated), Loyola, left the university with a group followers determined to help souls find the “ the greater glory of God” through education. In the late 1540’s the Jesuits decided to fulfill their mission by establishing schools near universities where they would provide access to common laymen and non-Catholics. The decision was revolutionary at the time. While education would later prove to be one of the central callings of catholic religious authorities, providing a formal education to the public was not considered part of the duties of the church in the mid-sixteenth century.

The Jesuits were a distinctive breed of Catholics, determined that education acted both as means to bringing laypeople closer to God and the more practical ends of creating a better more civic minded society. As Juan Aphonso de Polenca, an early Jesuit educator, wrote in explanation of the Jesuits deep commitment to education, “all the well-being of Christianity and the whole world depends on the proper education of our youth.” Thus, the Jesuits viewed scholarly education as a “path to God” for both Jesuit leaders and their followers. After the success of the first Jesuit College founded in Messina in 1548, the Jesuits began to extend their schools throughout Europe and eventually the world.

As the first catholic order to take on formal education as their mission, the Jesuits soon gained a reputation as the teaching order. Jesuit schools became centers of culture where they were placed. Moreover, the Jesuits policy of educating rather than indoctrinating encouraged an earlier sense of religious, ethnic, and class tolerance that would define Jesuit schools throughout their history. Unlike missionaries of other christian faiths in the 16th and 17th century, the early Jesuits did not try to overtly convert their students to the Catholic faith. Rather, the Jesuits believed that by leading through example and by transferring knowledge to their students, they would be better able to find the path to God.

A letter drafted by early Jesuit Polenca in the sixteenth century illustrates this point. Explaining the benefits of teaching to a fellow Jesuit, Polenca cited five major benefits of teaching for the Jesuit educators:

“1. Jesuits learn best from teaching others
2. They profit from the discipline, perseverance, and diligence that teaching requires.
3. They improve their preaching and other skills needed in the ministry.
4. Although the Jesuits should not try to persuade anybody to enter the society, especially not young boys, their good example and other factors will, nonetheless, help gain laborers in the vineyard”

This teaching by example rather then indoctrination approach allowed Jesuits to flourish where past missionaries had failed. For example, at one of the founding schools in Germany, Lutheran students were exempted from reciting the numerous catholic saints in order to make them feel more comfortable. Furthermore, by providing quality educational services to large segments of the populations they encountered, the Jesuits were better able to cross religious and class lines to gain the confidence of new communities.

The ability of Jesuits to adapt to their surroundings proved essential for the early Jesuits. By 1551 Jesuits had begun opening educational institutions throughout Europe at a rate of four or five per year. By the late 16th Century Jesuits had established vast network of schools, and expanded internationally to Japan, India, Brazil and Ethiopia. The creation of this vast network of schools enabled the Jesuits to exercise a significant amount of influence and social control throughout the world. Through education, the Jesuits found a tool to strengthen the bonds of the church with wavering Catholics and to build a highly educated articulate base of supporters capable of leading the church in the future. Moreover, the Jesuits realized that by reaching out to non-catholic youth, they were able to subtly convert a new generation of Catholics.

Likewise, Jesuits believed that offering higher education gave them the unique opportunity to shape the moral and intellectual foundations of the future leaders of society. As one early Jesuit explained, “those who are now only students will grow up to be pastors, civic officials, administers of justice, and fill important posts to everybody’s profit and advantage.” By educating the power brokers of the future the Jesuit education gained a reputation for advancing both the spiritual and professional interests of their students. In addition, the Jesuits were able to capitalize on the strong relationships they had built over the years educating community members who held influential positions in society. Therefore, through education the Jesuits discovered a remarkable way to ensure the preservation of the order and increase their authority over time.

Key to the development of these leaders, the Jesuits believed, was a strict educational program that “mixed the sciences of man with the science of God”.

While a Jesuit education was accessible to many non-Catholics, the structure of the Jesuit education was designed to help develop the moral foundations of their students to see God in all things and to encourage them to “help souls” in their spiritual and civic roles. As such, during the founding years the Jesuits rejected forming schools that stressed more practical skills such as basic reading and calculation necessary for business and trade. Instead, the Jesuits perfected a rigid pedagogical structure drawn in large part from the humanist influences of Loyola’s education at the University of Paris known as the Ratio Studiorium.

This strict curriculum required subjects to be taught one at a time increasing in levels of difficulties. The typical student would begin learning basic grammar and move up to the humanities, rhetoric, philosophy, and theology. Students were required to learn the ancient tongues of Latin and Greek, as many of their upper level courses in theology required students to be taught in the ancient languages. Moreover, as masses were held in Latin, learning the ancient languages proved to be a special right of passage that allowed students to feel closer to God and an accepted member of the church. Thus, the strict makeup of the Jesuit curriculum was designed to both further the principles of the Catholic/Jesuit faith through its emphasis on moral philosophy and theology as well as provide an academic foundation to take part actively as members in the church and intellectual community at large.

The conformity of the Jesuit education helped the Jesuit schools thrive throughout the world by providing a consistent set of expectations and practices that Jesuit missionaries could carry with them as they ventured into new territories. By 1572, the Jesuits brought their unique educational practices with them to the New World. Establishing an initial outpost in Mexico, the Jesuits expanded north into eastern Canada by 1610. From Canada, the Jesuits commenced their famous 17th century missions into North America traveling along the Great lakes and Mississippi among the Huron and Iroquois tribes. As the Jesuits expanded across North America they came into close proximity with the Puritans of New England, who arrived in the New World in 1640. Retaining a fear and hatred of Catholics from the Old World, these deeply religious Puritans were wary of the influence these Jesuits might bring as Europeans competed to define the character of the New World.

This skepticism of Jesuit educators would continue among puritan Bostonians nearly a century later as Jesuits in Boston attempted to build a prestigious college. Despite the anti-catholic sentiment that existed in Boston, the founding of Boston College was extremely well received in the Catholic community and soon began to function as a vehicle to launch ambitious Catholics into the middle class. The founding of a catholic college an anomaly for the time period, for by late nineteenth century nearly two dozen Jesuit colleges were established across the country. The initial founders prescribed a curriculum for Boston College that was very similar in form to the founding Jesuits Ratio Studioruum. Accordingly, the curriculum stressed similar ideals of Christian humanism through a seven year course load that required students to take “Latin, Greek, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Natural Philosophy.” The Goal of the stated course of studies, the catalogue, announced was to promote the “principles and practices of the Catholic faith.” As one of the founding teachers and later president described, Boston College provided education, “In its completest sense, as the full and harmonious development of all those faculties that are distinctive to man.” Through an almost wholly required course load Boston College students were to develop as moral and intellectual beings to better serve God on this earth.

While the stated reason for establishing Boston College might have been to “promote the principles and practice of the Catholic faith” many catholic students were interested in a Boston College education for the tools it provided them to advance their social and economic status. Thus, as the founding Jesuits were able to thrive off the self-interest of students who turned to the church to receive a quality education in late 16th century, the Jesuits at Boston College were able to thrive on the same self-interests of students who turned to the church to gain an education that allowed them access to jobs beyond manual labor. Boston College started with an enrollment of only 48 students in its founding year, 1864. However, by 1870 enrollment had more then tripled and Boston College was gaining an impressive reputation. By the 1890’s, Boston College was on a fast pace to outgrow its South Boston facility and was actively searching for new sites, including the Chestnut Hill property where the school now stands.

With this increased enrollment at Boston College came an increased number of college educated men able to take on leadership positions in the city. In fact, out of the nine students in the first Boston College graduating class, one went on to become a physician, while the others became leading priests in the archdiocese. By 1880, the success of Boston College graduates prompted the The Pilot (the official newspaper of the archdiocese) to remark on the President’s departure from the college that, “Boston College has grown into splendid promise, and the influence of his Order has become respected throughout the city and state.” In addition, by the 1880’s as the number of students who had graduated from Boston College increased, alumni members began to organize to support their classmates personal and professional endeavors.

These alumni functions instantly became a way for new Boston College graduates to network with what was soon becoming the Irish-Catholic elite. As an editorial writer from the Boston College stylus wrote in 1884:

“We feel that if these alumni would organize, it would materially aid us by making the college more widely known and esteemed, and by infusing a lively and kindlier interest among the older students for of the present.”

Doctor Eugene McCarthy, a member of the first graduating class from Boston College, along with fellow alumni responded to the student’s plea by establishing the first of many alumni reunion/networking event at Young’s Hotel on June 28, 1884. These events helped further the emergence of new catholic elite capable of braking into traditional Brahmin vocations.

By the 1890s Boston College was beginning to establish itself as a place where Irish Catholics came to become American Catholics. As one early alumnus described, Boston College was originally a “poor man’s school”. However, the success of Boston College alumni made many in Boston’s poor immigrant population aspire to attend Boston College because it provided a stepping stone for economic success and social acceptance. Michael Spillane, an 1897 graduate of Boston College explained this phenomenon:

“My companions and fellows at Boston College in those days were an exceptional group of earnest young men anxious to better their station in life. We were just one generation away from our hard toiling fathers and were the first generation of what was then called the collar and cuff generation. Many of them rose to high positions, in church, State, medical and legal professions. In the halls of legislation, state and Federal, they have all given a good account of themselves.”

Indeed, of those students who graduated from Boston College from 1891 to 1900 43% went on to careers as either a doctor or a lawyer. Thus, as Boston College prepared to enter the 20th century it seemed that the Jesuits had perfected the same symbiotic relationship with their community. The Jesuits at Boston College followed the tradition of the founding Jesuits-increasing their influence and prestige by attracting students interested in advancing economic and social interests. Nevertheless, just when Boston College began to relish in its new found status, its position in the larger academic community and within catholic society was directly challenged by Harvard University.

Next: Keeping the Faith: Boston College’s Reaction to the Harvard Law School Controversy