One Who Knows ...

At 27, John J. Cavanaugh (Notre Dame '23) was one of the fastest-rising young executives in the Studebaker Corp. Then, one day, "I suddenly had a desire to do something for other people." A few weeks later, he was back at Notre Dame to enter the priesthood. And, he says: "I haven't had an unhappy moment since."

This week Father Cavanaugh had reason to feel more proud than happy. At "Universal Notre Dame Nights" across the world, hundreds of alumni banqueters were paying him special tribute. Since his old Studebaker days, Cavanaugh had risen steadily--from philosophy teacher to vice president and finally to president. But next June, he will have served as president six years, and in accordance with canon law, he will have to leave his post for good. "It's been marvelous," he says, "but I've run out the string."

Notre Dame will have a good deal to remember him for--a kindly priest who could scarcely take ten steps along his campus without stopping to chat with as many students. Between morning Mass at 5 and bedtime at midnight (sometimes after a quick rubber of bridge), he seemed to have time for everyone. He also had time to give Notre Dame one of the most prosperous and productive administrations it had had in all its 110-year history.

In six years as president he added $7,000,000 to its coffers, quadrupled the size of its graduate program, saw undergraduate enrollments jump from 3,200 to more than 5,000. He saw the rise of a new science building, a fine arts building, the big Fred and Sally Fisher Memorial Residence Hall. He turned the Laboratories of Bacteriology (LOBUND) into a fullfledged institute with a special laboratory for the study of germ-free life. He founded a Medieval Institute, where scholars could study the Christian culture of the Middle Ages in the hope of applying part of that culture to the problems of modern life.

To Cavanaugh, the major problem of modern life--"in fact, the problem facing all educators since ancient times--is to find a method by which the proper moral habits may be formed." One method he has tried is an experimental great books program for 50 selected students. As Father Cavanaugh sees it, the purpose of the course is to provide more than a mere speaking acquaintance with the great ideas. "We accept as valid the Christian tradition," says he, "and in the great books we show that tradition at work in the history of Western thought."

If all goes well, Father Cavanaugh hopes that the great books will become a part of the whole curriculum, and if not, at least the idea behind them. After more than a quarter-century at Notre Dame as student and teacher, his own definition of a truly educated man is the same as it was on the day he first entered the priesthood --"One who knows what God wants him to do and has the discipline to do it."

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