A NEW UNIVERSITY.

Plans that have been under consideration by the church authorities for some time looking towards the establishment of a National Catholic University in the vicinity of New York city, have recently been made public. The design is large and comprehensive, and it is expected that the result will be the foundation of a sectarian university "that shall equal Yale and Harvard in equipments, finish and range of studies, while it shall surpass them in thoroughness and depth." Such is the project now under consideration. Its chief promoter, with, it is understood, the consent and encouragement of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States, is Bishop Spalding, of Peoria, one of the youngest, most brilliant and most energetic of American Catholic bishops.

There is a large and constantly increasing class of wealthy Catholic laity, it is stated, to whose sons at present a university career is not open in this country, as the sense of the Catholic Church is averse to Catholic youth procuring their education in Protestant establishments. This is the leading motive of the establishment of the university. The sanction of the Holy See to the undertaking, as well as the co-operation of the entire Catholic Church in the United States, has been secured. It is understood that Bishop Spalding has been promised in advance $1,000,000 to begin the work, one person offering to subscribe $700,000. The foundation is designed to be somewhere along the Hudson river, within easy reach of New York city.

It is intended to allow an opportunity of gaining the best scientific training, so that the Catholic youth shall be able to meet the great questions of the day, more especially in purely secular departments. The best professors are to be chosen in philosophy, theology, the physical sciences, history - in a word, in all the subjects treated at a liberal university. If such professors can not be found or can not be spared in this country, they will be called from Europe - Louvain, Rome or Paris. Under such masters it is hoped students will be impelled to a love of the deeper and higher studies in all branches, and thus the school will be made a great centre of life and intelligence.

The Catholic schools of the country are to feed the colleges and seminaries, and these in turn the university. It is intended that students shall not be admitted to the university without passing a preliminary examination which shall show that they are fitted by knowledge already acquired to enter on the higher course. Such an institution, it is hoped, must give Catholics quite a new standing in the intellectual life of the country.