490 SISTER M. OLIVIA 



Saint Xavier Plan is a total program; it courageously includes 

 all levels of education, elementary, secondary and collegiate. 

 The history of Catholic education in Chicago finds Saint Xavier 

 College a pioneer not only in its historic foundation, but also 

 in its modern curriculum planning. Students of the '80 's and 

 '90's enjoyed the advantages of a non-graded school, while the 

 advanced placement program of today operated in embryonic 

 form between the college and high school as early as 1934. 



General education became the pattern of the college cur- 

 riculum in 1932, but continuous self-study for the purpose of 

 revision and revitalization led the faculty toward a growing 

 conviction that this reordering could not be limited to the 

 collegiate level but must permeate the total educational sys- 

 tem. Reform, to be effective, must embrace the school system 

 in its entirety and it must envision the education of the indi- 

 vidual as an organic whole, not as a fragmented trinity of 

 grade school, high school and college. 



Fortunately Saint Xavier College, conducted by the Sisters 

 of Mercy, is part of a school system that consists of over 60 

 elementary and secondary schools, and includes over 800 

 teachers. The college, therefore, could elaborate a program 

 embracing education from first grade through college, and carry 

 it out in practice with all desirable control and jurisdiction. 

 The initial endeavor soon found financial support from the 

 Ford Foundation for the Advancement of Education and from 

 the Carnegie Corporation of New York. 



Members of the Albertus Magnus Lyceum under the able 

 direction of Father William H. Kane, O. P., collaborated with 

 the faculty of the college and its associated schools in the initial 

 investigation. First grade teachers, college professors and theo- 

 logians all had a role to play in the preliminary theoretical step: 

 the formulation of a coherent and concise set of theological, 

 philosophical and psychological principles as guides for the 

 ideal education of a Christian person. The pattern set at that 

 time was the " vertical approach " — an attempt to see each 

 specific educational problem in the context of the entire con- 

 tinuum of formal education. As a result of these discussions, a 



