The
Age of Schlesinger - Reflections on Bruno’s retirement
By Ann Leonard Molenda ’58
After
60 years of teaching humanities at Saint Mary’s College, Professor
Bruno Schlesinger was named Bruno P. Schlesinger Chair in Humanistic
Studies Emeritus April 18, 2005, during a ceremony in Carroll Auditorium.
President Carol Ann Mooney ’72 gave an address calling Dr. Schlesinger
“a Renaissance man with his abiding interest in music, art, philosophy
and history.” In the tribute, President Mooney said, “Dr.
Schlesinger’s devotion to Saint Mary’s College for the last
six decades is matched only by his students’ devotion to him…If
Sister Madeleva dominated the middle third of the 20th century at Saint
Mary’s, it is fitting that we call the second half of the century
‘The Age of Schlesinger.’ His influence on Saint Mary’s
has been that strong.”
President Mooney called Bruno “a one-man alumnae association keeping
up with former students through countless letters, telephone calls and
visits.” President Mooney went on to say “though most students
know him as a much beloved and inspiring teacher, he has also made his
mark on this campus by founding one of its most distinctive and successful
programs.” 1 Speech
The fall of 1956 I was one of the fortunate students to enter this innovative
program in its first year. The brand new department was called Christian
Culture with Dr. Schlesinger as Chairman. Bruno devised both the sequence
of courses and the content, plus taught the classes. The brilliant English
historian Christopher Dawson (1889- 1970) inspired the interdisciplinary
major and was keenly interested in the program, visited the campus with
his wife in 1962 - but never offered a blueprint for what was a risky
and bold undertaking for Schlesinger and Saint Mary’s.
Bruno had written his doctoral dissertation at the University of Notre
Dame on “Christopher Dawson and the Modern Political Crisis”
and was convinced of the all-important role of religion in every great
culture. He explained: “Dawson made the relation of religion and
culture the central theme of a lifetime of study. He held consistently
that religion was the vital formative element in any higher culture,
and in several of his best known works he traced the influence of the
Christian religion in the making of Western culture.” 2
(Bruno Schlesinger P 12 Sesquicentennial Issue Courier 1994)
Contemporary education had failed to enable man to control the forces
he had created through science and technology, and was not the guarantee
to universal progress as liberals of an earlier generation had hoped.
Furthermore, there was a general decline in the study of the traditional
liberal arts and education had become too detailed and too superficial.
3 (John P. Gleason A Program of Christian Culture, Religious Education
July-August, 1960 p. 257) Dawson wanted to reawaken an appreciation
of the richness of the Christian religion through an historical examination
of the dynamic role Christianity has played in molding the institutions
of Western Culture and shaping the values of Western man. Dawson argued
we should systematically study our own Western Culture as scholars studied
the cultures of Greece and Rome.
In the introduction to a 2003 reissue of Dawson’s The Making of
Europe, Alexander Murray called Dawson a “historian prophet”
in the mold of the great Dutch historian J. Huizinga, author of the
masterpiece The Waning of the Middle Ages, 4 (p. XVIII) and Murray went
on to write “Dawson defended ‘meta history’ –
as the jargon came to call it - as a genre; history was too important
to be left to narrow specialisms.” 5 (Ibid. p.XIV) Dawson used
the term “culture” in the widest possible sense, as embracing
the whole way of life of a community. Even though it was taken for granted
that Europe was “post-Christian,” Dawson thought it was
necessary to understand Europe’s immensely rich Christian inheritance
in order to comprehend its current society.
Dawson feared that Western civilization was becoming increasingly secular,
and “subordinating the moral law and still more the higher truths
of religious faith to social conformity and social convenience.”
6 (The Crisis of Western Education p. 139) Pope John Paul II also was
very concerned about the loss of Europe to secularism and Pope Benedict
XVI has now called for a “re-evangelization” of the continent,
which makes Dawson even more relevant today.
As radical Islam attacks the West under the guise of religion, and many
European public intellectuals become “Christophobic,” and
Europe commits demographic suicide, it is crucial for the West to protect
itself with more than materialism and military power. A successful defense
of Western civilization requires a recognition of the essential role
of Christianity in Western civilization’s commitments to human
rights, democracy and the rule of law. Dawson himself wrote: “The
great question of the present century is whether Western civilization
is strong enough to create a world order based on the principles of
international law and personal liberty that are fruits of the whole
tradition of Western political thought… “ 7
(Ibid p. 102)
“…the human mind has always been conscious of the existence
of an order of spiritual values from which its moral values derive their
validity. This is also an order of spiritual realities which finds its
center in transcendent being and divine truth. All the great religions
of the world (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism)
agree in confessing this truth - that there is an eternal reality beyond
the flux of temporal and natural things which is at once the ground
of being and the basis of rationality. The Christian faith goes much
further than this. It and it alone shows how this higher reality has
entered into human history and changed its course.” 8
(Ibid. p.161)
George Weigel in The Cube and the Cathedral agrees with Dawson, “that
the deepest currents of history are spiritual and cultural, rather than
political and economic. …history is driven, over the long haul,
by culture - by what men and women honor, cherish, and worship; by what
societies deem to be true and good and noble; by the expressions they
give to those convictions in language, literature, and the arts; by
what individuals and societies are willing to stake their lives on.
9 (The Cube and the Cathedral George Weigel p.30)
Weigel calls Christopher Dawson the “most distinguished exponent
of this culture-driven view of history.” 10 (Ibid.
p. 32)
Dawson thought the decline of the study of classical humanism had led
to a chaotic education at once too detailed and too superficial. He
argued that the Christian educationalist was the one person who was
in a position to bridge the gulf between the private world of religious
faith and spiritual values, and the public world of technology, scientific
positivism and social conformism. 11 (The Crisis of Western
Education p. 164)
In 1955, at a conference of Deans of Catholic Liberal Arts Colleges
held at the University of Notre Dame, participants discussed Christopher
Dawson’s ideas for the study of Christian Culture - though interested,
most were discouraged by the practical difficulties of implementing
the program. Still, Dawson’s ideas had enthusiastic supporters
like: Thomas Merton, John Courtney Murray, S.J.; Leo Ward, C.S.C.; Jaroslav
Pelikan and Bruno Schlesinger. 12 (Bruno Courier Sesquicentennial Issue
1994 p.12)
Bruno Schlesinger was born in 1911 in a small town near Vienna and reared
in the Jewish faith. He studied political science and law at the University
of Vienna, but in 1938 was forced to flee the Nazis before he earned
his degree. He had converted to the Catholic faith earlier around the
age of 26, led to his conversion through two friends’ interest
in the Catholic religion, and his own great love of art, especially
that of the painter Giotto who “personalized Christ” for
Bruno. It is interesting to note, that Dawson was also an adult convert
to Catholicism, but from High Anglicanism.
Bruno met his wife Alice, an artist who came from his hometown, at an
evening discussion group focused on the gospels. After leaving Austria,
Bruno moved around Europe in hiding and eventually reached the United
States in August 1939. He and Alice married in California in 1940 and
while Alice could earn money through her art, without a degree Bruno
was forced to work at unskilled jobs: selling brushes door to door,
cleaning vegetables at a grocery store and working at a soda fountain.
13 (South Bend Tribune Margaret Fosmoe May 4, 2005)
“My future looked pretty hopeless.” For intellectual stimulation,
Bruno frequented the Los Angeles Public Library and ran across a copy
of the University of Notre Dame’s Review of Politics. Schlesinger
saw an ad on the back cover offering fellowships to graduate students
in political science and history. Bruno applied and received a scholarship
and says, “Notre Dame saved my life.” He and Alice moved
to South Bend and Bruno became part of what he wryly calls the “Department
of Fractured English” because there were so many refugee intellectuals.
Alice continued to free lance and after Bruno finished his course work
in 1945, he began to teach Art History and Western Civilization at Saint
Mary’s, completing his dissertation in 1949. The 1950’s
were the hey-day of the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, and Saint Mary’s
College had a very strong History Department with Sister Maria Renata,
C.S.C. Chairman. Some at the college thought there was no room to add
Dawson or anyone else to the curriculum.
Originally, Bruno thought Christian Culture could be part of the History
department, and put a proposal on the desk of Sister Maria Renata. After
not receiving an answer, he put the proposal on the desk of college
president Sr. M. Madeleva Wolff. Sr. Madeleva never discussed the idea
with Bruno, but several months later in the Spring of 1956 she called
Bruno and told him to prepare his courses for the coming September.
Frank Sheed, who was the founder of the publishing house Sheed &
Ward with his wife Maisie Ward, published some of the finest Catholic
literature of the early twentieth century, and was a great street-corner
speaker explaining and defending the Catholic faith. He was an outstanding
lay theologian and philosopher, a major figure along with G.K. Chesterton,
Evelyn Waugh, Hilaire Belloc and Ronald Knox in the “Catholic
Intellectual Revival” - and most important for the Christian Culture
program, Sheed was a very good friend of Sister Madeleva. In a recent
conversation Bruno said, “I think Sr. Madeleva was waiting to
discuss my proposal with Frank Sheed who was to visit her during that
time. In retrospect, I think Sheed advised her to institute the program
as he was a close friend of Christopher Dawson and also was his publisher.”
Bruno said, “It took courage not only on Sr. Madeleva’s
part, but also on the part of the original 12- 13 students who enrolled
in the course” which took the form of a major field of study for
juniors and seniors, that could be combined with a double major in an
established discipline like history, English, Foreign Languages, Education,
Sociology, Philosophy, etc. “No attempt was made to provide encyclopedic
coverage of so vast and complex a subject; instead certain key periods
were selected for intensive examination.” 14 (TCOWE
Gleason p. 193)
From the first, the students were excited and eager for the series of
courses and loved the format which included reading primary texts and
the colloquium or discussion method. Bruno led the class by asking probing
questions, directing the discussion and keeping it “on track.”
He encouraged students to defend their points of view and to argue using
clear and consistent explanations. One might call it the iron fist in
the velvet glove approach to teaching. For my own part, I loved all
the courses, but especially Early Christian Writers, Medieval Christendom
and Christianity and American Culture.
There are many “Brunoisms” we remember like: “I may
be wrong, but I’m usually not;” “Excuse me for interrupting
my fascinating account;” “It is a preparation for what you
call life.” If you don’t go into a coma, read the next text”
and “You have to respect my madness.” Exam time always found
him reading the New York Times as we slaved over our blue books.
Mary Ellen Stumpf ’74 described Bruno as mythical, intense and
enthusiastic, with a crooked grin and concentrated stare, tousled hair
and a gleam in his eye.15 (Courier Spring 1982 pp. 17-18) He still has
all these traits, but he is thinner and is less jaunty with his cane.
His modesty and reticence about his life and his work conceal a passionate
attachment to his faith and his vocation of teaching. Unfailingly courteous
and always interested in his students past and present, many of us alumnae
find Bruno is the person we feel most in touch with at Saint Mary’s.
College reunions always find him surrounded by his former students or
those who know him by reputation.
Bruno and Alice have four grown children, Mary, Cathy, Tom and John
and four grand children. In the early years of the program, students
were aware of the serious medical condition affecting both Tom and John,
and Alice and Bruno’s many trips to the University of Chicago.
Thankfully, parents and children weathered that period and Bruno went
on to well-deserved honors. He was the first faculty representative
to the Board of Regents, in 1958 the first recipient of the Spes Unica
award for his contributions to the College, and the first holder of
an endowed chair at Saint Mary’s - named The Bruno P. Schleninger
Chair of Humanistic Studies. He has also received the President’s
Medal and an honorary degree from Saint Mary’s College.
For 24 years Bruno ran the well-known lecture series featuring such
distinguished scholars as Robert Speaight lecturing on Mauriac, Eric
Heller on Kafka, and Hanna Gray on Machiavelli, to mention a few. In
the early years, the Lilly Endowment provided two grants to help finance
the series. For some years these lectures were sustained by generous
donations by Mr. And Mrs. James T. Bolan, Mr. And Mrs. Robert Podesta,
Paula Lawton Bevington ’58, and Mr. Paul Duncan. 16
(Courier February, 1976 Mary Griffin Burns ’62)
When the Board of Regents decided to keep Saint Mary’s a Catholic
liberal arts college for women, Bruno “splendidly and poignantly
answered the Regents’ riddle of what is the Catholic nature of
a college in these times” with his paper Toward the Catholic College
Renewed.17 (Mary Ellen Stumpf ’74 Courier Spring 1982 pp. 18-19)
This paper remains a challenge to the college to fulfill its mission
to put before the student the Christian ideas of great writers and artists
in their tradition, in order to initiate a genuine dialogue with modern
secular thinkers.…It is not solely a return to the past; the religiously
vital educational community, carrying out its task with intelligence
and tenacity, could be, itself, the beginning of a genuine and lasting
renewal from within. 18 (Schlesinger, Toward the Catholic
College Renewed)
Bruno Schlesinger’s and Sr. Madeleva’s brave experiment,
Christian Culture, continues to flourish as Humanistic Studies, graduating
between 12 – 20 majors a year. Together with all the Saint Mary’s
College community, but especially the students and teachers, and graduates
of Humanistic Studies, I want to thank Bruno publicly for giving us
the privilege of studying under him in a superb course that deepened
our appreciation of our Christian past, opened our eyes to other major
civilizations, and, still challenges us to go out and use that knowledge
to “become the salt of the earth.”
We
salute you Bruno.
