BURNS, JAMES ALOYSIUS

Educator; b. Michigan City, Ind., Feb. 13, 1867; d. Notre Dame, Ind., Sept. 9, 1940. Burns entered the vocational school at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, to learn the printer's trade, but in 1883 he transferred to the college department and in 1888 entered the novitiate of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. In 1889 he was sent to Watertown, Wisconsin, where he spent two years in teaching and theological study. He returned to Notre Dame for more theology, and was ordained on July 21, 1893. Thereafter, as a teacher of chemistry at Notre Dame, he noted the general lack of preparation among Catholic college instructors and argued that they should pursue advanced studies before starting to teach.

Burns did not have a major role in promulgating this idea until 1900 when he was appointed superior of Holy Cross College, Washington, D. C., the house of studies for seminarians of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. There, in addition to directing the seminarians, he continued his own research. The Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C., awarded him the Ph. D. degree in 1906. He was instrumental in founding the National Catholic Educational Association in 1904 and became its first vice president. During his 19 years in Washington, he wrote three basic studies of Catholic education in the U. S.: Principles, Origin and Establishment of the Catholic School System (1908), Growth and Development of the Catholic School System (1912), and Catholic Education—A Study of Conditions (1917). In these works he sought to promote the concept of quality in Catholic education.

In 1919 Burns was elected president of the University of Notre Dame. He closed its preparatory (high school) department; reorganized the university into the four distinct colleges of arts and letters, science, engineering, and law; appointed deans and department heads in the colleges; and raised the salaries of lay professors. After increasing the enrollment, he inaugurated a campaign to match funds offered to the university by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation. In 1922 he was named president emeritus, but he continued to direct the fund raising activities of the university. In 1926 Burns was returned to the office of superior of Holy Cross College in Washington, D. C., and, in 1927, was appointed provincial of the Indiana Province of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. He was elected first-assistant superior general of the congregation in 1938.

[e. j. power]