For Managers & Molders

When Dominican Father Felix Morlion first visited the U.S. in 1941, he did not think he would like it one bit. But to his own surprise, burly (6 ft. 11n., 240 Ibs.) Father Morlion, who had escaped from Belgium when the Germans took over, found himself enchanted. He began using such phrases as "shoot the works," learned to count his calories, and started studying U.S. political history. Gradually, he came to the conclusion that whereas "democracy has no philosophy in Europe, Americans have more philosophy than they know. We must do on a world basis what the founding fathers did in the U.S. To do this, we must study and then make a quiet revolution."

New Professions. Last week, in a four-story building in Rome, Father Morlion's revolution was going on apace under the name of the International University of Social Studies, generally known by its motto, Pro Deo. To many an Italian academician it is a shocking place that bears no resemblance to a regular university at all. Nevertheless, Pro Deo has been growing at a rapid rate. In 1945 it had 80 students. Today it has a faculty of 90 and an enrollment of over 1,000.

The idea behind Pro Deo is to combine a thorough background in Christian philosophy with training in what Father Morlion calls the "new social professions" --journalism, the movies, business administration, labor relations. By concentrating on these, Father Morlion thinks, the university will be influencing the most active managers and molders of the future. As undergraduates, students move on from philosophy to economics, labor, and political science, can later specialize in their chosen careers. Their work is anything but orthodox: cinema students actually help shoot Italian films; journalists work as legmen for Rome reporters.

Age of Reason. One of the few universities that has no government subsidy, Pro Deo is still able to afford such lecturers as Roberto Rossellini and U.S. Economist Peter Drucker. Students from 26 different countries have studied there, and gifts have come in from such far-flung sources as the family of the late Czech industrialist Thomas Bata and U.S. Cardinals Spellman and Stritch. Last week Father Morlion was making plans for a new institute of European studies. The man slated to take charge of it (on a part-time basis): Alcide de Gasped.

To some critics, Pro Deo seems to experiment so fast that it cannot do anything well. But Father Morlion, 49, intends to go on experimenting. "We are," says he, "a baby university, barely at the age of reason. But in Rome, if you can establish something and keep it going for seven or eight years, it will last forever."

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