It appears to me that every student who feels a call to work for England should go through his theological studies at the Seminary of Bruges or Ghent, in case there is no room for him at the English college. The primary difficulty will perhaps be in the way for some students. We must meet this the best way we can under our present difficulties.p2Our College Fund (made up by yearly collections & subscriptions) is wholly taken up with the students at our English colleges, & cannot be well used at other colleges, for this reason: the entire pension at Ushaw including every thing, is £ 50. Of this the parents have to make up £ 25, more or less according to their circumstances. So that you could not easily withdraw any portion of what is now paid annually for these half-burses. Whenever the English boy has been sent to Belgium to study for the church, his pension has been paid from some private charitable donation.p3Our present evil is that children of 12, 13 years of age, whose vocation is necessarily uncertain, become chargeable to the fund for a portion of the pension. This we strive to avoid, by getting up, as in Belgium, a collegiate Institute, to bring up students as far as rhetoric at the expense of the parents.
I fear that your proposal of paying for younger students would bring in little by little the very evil that we suffer under in England.
When a student goes to the Seminary with a considerable increase in his expenses, it is very proper that he should be helped out by whatever diocese he destines himself for. p4But this help could never be given on a large scale, on account of all educational funds being engaged. But if every diocese were to help out but one, it would already admit 12 candidates.
Ergo: I could not give 600 frs for the student you speak of. If by any means you can get him to finish his humanities & if at that time there is no room for him at the English College, I will contrive from some charitable source of other to help him out for his theological studies.
Crombleholme will pay you a visit, Deo dante[1] after Easter-week; you will confer with him about Karel Deghelder[2]
