Official proceedings of the annual meeting: 1923

234

THE CHURCH

to me while I was a student there that America would never be a strong military power
because it was impossible to get below the rank of colonel in the American army. If
all of the members of the army of social workers were colonels, the poor would fare
badly. We do need imperatively in our priests sympathetic understanding of the field
of social work, great respect for the achievements there, and a freedom from intolerance
or prejudice in respect of it. Furthermore, we look for the development of laymen and
laywomen in the field, but this is beyond the present question. My first point is, then,
specialized preparation for social work as a form of graduate activity after ordination.
I note next that the social work point of view is carried into the faculty by individual professors who occupy the traditional chairs in the seminary. I cannot recall a
single faculty wherein we may not find one or more who have this adapted social vision
and who exercise a wholesome influence in the faculty and upon the student body by
giving to the appeal of social work a certain welcome authority. When it is possible,
this type of professor gradually selects a group of students who wish to do extra work
along sociological lines. In this way classes in economics, sociology, and social psychology are formed and much valuable work is done. As an illustration I might mention Dr. Ryan who was for many years professor of moral theology in Saint Paul Seminary before he came to the Catholic University.
In the next phase of this process we find it customary to invite specialists in the
field of social work to lecture regularly or occasionally to the entire student body.
This arrangement does very much in presenting the general point of view of social work,
as it bears on the theological courses on the one hand, and upon life on the other. The
department of sociology in our university, for instance, has been asked to conduct a
three-hour course for a year in sociology as an organic part of the theological course in
one seminary.
This method of introducing specialists to lecture has been developed in recent years
by a new arrangement. The Bureau of Social Action of the National Catholic Welfare
Council carries a list of lecturers, both lay and clerical, who enjoy general or special
authority in the field of social work. This bureau sends out to all of our theological
seminaries a list of lecture topics and of lecturers available. The seminary selects
topics and lecturers as it wishes and the lectures are furnished without cost.
When the seminary is in or very near a large city, groups of students are formed by
volunteers. They devote one afternoon a week to the visiting of hospitals, prisons,
institutions, and agencies for the threefold purpose of observation, service, and training,
These societies enjoy very great prestige in the seminary and they are much encouraged.
They are left free to invite lecturers who may interpret their experience and work
to them.
I think that the development on the whole is promising. It is slow perhaps, as so
many social readjustments are slow. But the methods that I have outlined are natural, quiet, and uncontroversial. They are found generally in our seminaries and their
development promises definite fruit.
While it has taken much time to say these things and they appear to be important,
it is necessary to note that in an examination of the reports of the last ten annual seminary meetings, I found only three papers urging the development that I have been
describing. This shows how far ahead of formal definition, the quiet ordinary processes
of adjustment advance.