Negotiating Assimilation: Chicago Catholic High Schools' Pursuit of Accreditation in the Early Twentieth Century
At the Catholic Educational Association's (CEA) annual meeting in 1911, Reverend John E Green, president of St. Rita College Prep, an academy for boys on the southwest side of Chicago administered by the Augustinian Fathers, argued against Catholic schools' seeking accreditation from non-Catholic institutions. He called the practice “a heterodoxical spectacle” and “a stultification of our claim of the necessity of Catholic education.” Reverend Green opposed accreditation by both state agencies and professional associations, but just five years later requested assistance from the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, David E. Shanahan, to pursue state recognition for St. Rita. Speaker Shanahan called on the Illinois Superintendent of Public Instruction and asked him to respond to Reverend Green's request to dispatch the Illinois High School Supervisor to St Rita. What motivated a staunch opponent of recognition and accreditation like Green to go to such lengths to procure it? While accreditation by non-Catholic institutions did not negate the need for Catholic education, as Reverend Green feared, how did it contribute to the assimilation of Catholic schools and hence Chicago Catholics in the early twentieth century?