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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
Orestes Brownson (1803–1876), preacher, journalist, editor, philosopher and controversialist, was born in Stockbridge, Vt., 16 September 1803. At the age of nineteen he became a Presbyterian, but two years later a Universalist. He married in 1827. From 1826 to 1831 Brownson preached in New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. He became a Unitarian, and was ordained a Unitarian minister in 1834. In 1836 he organized ‘The society for Christian Union and Progress’ and began to preach the ‘Church of the Future’. In the same year he became acquainted with Emerson, Alcott, Ripley and others who were labelled Transcendentalists. The latter were the dominant intellectual figures in American life until the middle of the century.
1 In a review of Newman's book in Brownson's Quarterly Review in July 1846 Brownson wrote: ‘It is therefore due both to the Church and to Protestants to say, expressly, and we do so with the highest respect for Mr. Newman, … that his peculiar theory is essentially anti-Catholic and Protestant’ (The Works of Orestes A. Brownson (Detroit; H. F. Brownson 1906), XIV, 5).Google Scholar This was followed by another attack in an article of January 1847, in which Brownson repeated the charge that Newman's view of Christian doctrine is sufficient to condemn his essay as essentially repugnant to Catholic faith and theology’ (Works, XV, 71).
2 See Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, XII, 77,98.
3 Letter from Brownson to Newman, 12 September, 1854. See ibidem, XVI, n 4; and BQR. 11 (1854), 535.
4 See Thomas, R. Ryan, ‘Newman's Invitation to Orestes A. Brownson to be Lecturer Extraordinary at the Catholic University of Ireland,’ Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 85, Nos. 1–2 (March-June 1974), 29–47,Google Scholar and Theodore, Maynard, Orestes Brownson: Yankee, Radical, Catholic (New York: Macmillan, 1943), pp. 205–208.Google Scholar See also Ryan's Orestes A. Brownson: A Definitive Biography (Huntington; Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1976), pp. 500–12.Google Scholar
5 The most notable exception is the ‘Tamworth Reading Room,’ Discussions and Arguments on various Subjects (London & New York: Longmans Green, 1891), pp. 254–305.Google Scholar
6 Idea of a University (London: Longmans Green, 1887), pp. 152–3.Google ScholarPubMed
7 For example, Thomas, Vargish, Newman: The Contemplation of Mind (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), pp. 129–30:Google Scholar ‘Newman excluded from his ideal university the teaching of practical secular knowledge, useful or “utilitarian” training of any sort, at a time in Ireland when professional men were badly needed.’
8 Idea, p. 166.
9 Ibidem. p. 111.
10 For example, Nathan, N. Pusey, ‘The American University, I960,’ Newsletter of the Harvard Foundation for Advanced Study and Research, December 31, 1960, p. 3.Google Scholar
11 Hugh, A. MacDougall, O.M.I., The Acton-Newman Relations (New York: Fordham University Press, 1962), pp. 94–95, 127.Google Scholar
12 Idea of a University, p. 472. Concerning a series of articles on ‘Religion and Modern Philosophy,’ published in the Rambler, Newman commented in a letter to the editor, J. M. Capes, November 14, 1850: ‘We ought not to theorize the teaching of Moses, till philosophers have demonstrated their theories of physics. If “the Spirit of God” is gas in 1850, it may be electro-magnetism in I860.’
13 ‘What is a University?’, Historical Sketches III (London & New York: Longmans, Green, 1896), p. 16.Google ScholarPubMed
14 Idea of a University, pp. 471, 476.
15 ‘A Letter Addressed to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., On Occasion of His Eirenicon,’ Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, 2 vols. (Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics), II, 79.Google Scholar
16 ‘Prospects of the Anglican Church’, Essays Critical and Historical, 2 vols. (London & New York: Longmans, Green, 1887), I, 277.Google Scholar
17 An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (London & New York: Longmans, Green, 1903), p. 377.Google Scholar
18 Idea of a University, p. 478; see also ‘Milman's View of Christianity’, Essays Critical and Historical, II, 232.
19 Idea of a University, pp. 478–79.
20 BQR 2 (1839), 395.
21 Ibidem.
22 Works, XIX, 97.
23 Works, XIX, 219. (See also XIX, 65–87, 431, 431–46). BQR, 3 (1840), 158–59.
24 Works, II, 209.
25 Observations and Hints on Education,’ BQR 3 (1840), 159.
26 Ibidem p. 150.
27 ‘Liberal Studies’, Works, XIX, 433.
28 ‘Necessity of Liberal Education’, Works, XIX, 97.
29 ‘The Scholar's Mission’, Works, XIX, 77.
30 ‘Every Catholic, then, indeed every man who loves truth and wishes to conform to it, must be in favour of Catholic Schools and Catholic education, if they are Catholic in reality as well as in name’. (Works, XII, 496–514; see also XII, 200–16).
31 Works, XII, 503–04.
32 Works, II, 210.
33 For Brownson's views see Edward, John Power, ‘Brownson's Views on Responsibility for Education’, Records of the American Catholic Historical Association, 63, pp. 242–52.Google Scholar
34 ‘Memorandum about my connection with the Catholic University’, Autobiographical Writings, ed. Henry, Tristram, (London and New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956), p. 320.Google Scholar