Intellectual Formation for Professionalism in Catholic Education: Catholic Sisters' College, Washington, D.C.

Abstract

The campaign the U.S. Catholic hierarchy mounted in the late nineteenth century to promote Catholic education resulted in a significant increase in the number of Catholic elementary and secondary schools. Catholics now needed to demonstrate to the U.S. public, Catholic and otherwise, that a student educated in a Catholic school received an education comparable, if not better, than that received in a public school. Rev. Dr. Thomas E. Shields, an innovator in Catholic education, convinced the trustees and administrators of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., to found Catholic Sisters' College for the training of sisters to be teachers or school administrators .