Excerpt from Personal Reminiscences of Cardinal Newman

He took an immense interest in the Latin plays which for some years were performed by the boys of the Oratory School at the midsummer breaking-up. Their introduction was originally due to Father St. John, who brought the tradition from Westminster; but the idea was taken up with something like enthusiasm by Newman, who edited several plays of Terence and Plautus - transforming the broad Eunuchus into What he named the Pincerna - and writing prologues and epilogues appropriate to the new circumstances of their performance. On several occasions these performances were admitted by competent judges to be about as good as possible. No trouble or expense was spared to make them perfect in every detail; and inmates of the house, who knew the somewhat shaky condition of its finances, were dismayed at the recklessness which brought wig-makers and costumiers to the Oratory so that the get up of each player might be correct. The somewhat stiff traditions of Westminster were certainly improved upon, and the performances were made as intelligible and as enjoyable as possible; but only the actors knew how much Newman himself had contributed to make it a genuine histrionic success. He coached nearly every one privately, and astonished them not a little by the extraordinary versatility and dramatic power with which he would personate for their imitation a love-sick Roman exquisite or a drunken slave. Perhaps there was never any more remarkable testi mony to the attractiveness of the drama than Newman's eagerness about the performance of these classical plays, at a time when, by his position as an ecclesiastic, he was excluded from witnessing any theatrical performance of a public kind. And this eager interest he retained when he was over eighty years of age.

Some reference to the Oratory school is necessary; as through this, more than in any other way, Newman has undoubtedly influenced the English Catholic body. It was begun in 1859, and its genesis may be ascribed to Newman's innate love for young men and their training, which he needed in some way to satisfy after he had withdrawn from his work as rector of the Catholic Uni versity of Dublin. It was the jealousy of the Irish bishops which thwarted him there; and jealousy from other quarters beset the establishment of the school at Edg baston. It was natural that Oscott, which had possessed something like a monopoly for central England, should resent the setting up of a new school for the same class of boys within the distance of an easy walk; and it was natural that the Jesuits should look with suspicion on an establishment which it was understood would be con ducted on principles more liberal and less un-english than their own. But in this school Newman achieved his most genuine and lasting success, unless we so describe his being made a prince of the Catholic Church. As a boys' school Oscott has now ceased to exist, and the Jesuit system in England has been modified in a liberal direction while meanwhile the school at Edgbaston, which was to combine the traditions of an English public school with Catholic safeguards and surroundings, and did so with marked success for many years, has turned out some of the very best among Catholic priests and laymen. It never had anything to boast of as regards buildings, nor distinguished names in its teaching staff but it will live in the loyal affection of its old boys, who are rightly jealous of the good work it has done for higher Catholic education in England.

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