Background
Edward Aloysius Pace was born on July 3, 1861 in Starke, Florida, United States. He was the eldest of eight children (four sons and four daughters) born to George Edward and Margaret (Kelly) Pace. His father, a prosperous plantation owner at Starke and later a merchant and turpentine factor in Jacksonville, was a descendant of Charles Pace, who emigrated from England early in the seventeenth century and settled at "Pace's Panes" on the James River in Virginia. His mother was the daughter of Owen Kelly, comptroller of ports of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Education
Edward Aloysius Pace was educated in the Starke public school, Duval High School in Jacksonville, and St. Charles College, Ellicott City, Maryland, before taking up studies for the priesthood in Rome, where he was ordained on May 30, 1885. In Rome Edward Aloysius Pace was a resident in the North American College, 1880 - 1886, and took two years of philosophy and four years of theology at the Urban University, where he was deeply influenced by Prof. (later Cardinal) Francesco Satolli. He received the doctorate in theology in 1886 after a brilliant course that brought him to the attention of Pope Leo XIII.
Edward Aloysius Pace spent a year of study in Louvain and Paris and two years under the psychologist Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig, receiving his Ph. D. in psychology magna cum laude in 1891.
Career
Although requested for service at the North American College, Edward Aloysius Pace was recalled to America to become chancellor of his native diocese of St. Augustine and rector of its cathedral. In 1888 Pace was chosen for the faculty of the projected Catholic University of America in Washington, D. C.
Edward Aloysius Pace served at Catholic University of America as professor of psychology (1891 - 1894) and of philosophy (1894 - 1935) and in various official positions. Among these were dean of the school of philosophy (1895 - 1899, 1906 - 1914, 1934 - 1935), founder (1899) and director of the Institute of Pedagogy, from which the university's department of education developed; general secretary (1917 - 1924), and vice-rector (1924 - 1935). In 1935 he was named vice-rector emeritus and professor of philosophy emeritus. In 1891 Pace established one of the first psychology laboratories in America; in 1904 he was chairman of the experimental psychology section at the International Congress of Arts and Sciences held in St. Louis. In 1926 he became the first editor of the Catholic University's Studies in Psychology and Psychiatry.
An editor of the Catholic Encyclopedia (15 vols. , 1907 - 1914) and of its later supplements, Edward Aloysius Pace had a most important part in planning and completing that great work. With Thomas E. Shields he founded and was first editor of the Catholic Educational Review (1911). He was commissioned by the Catholic bishops of the United States to write the important Pastoral Letter that they issued in 1919 discussing, among other subjects, capital and labor, marriage and the family, education, and problems in international relations. A founder and first president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Pace was associated (1927 - 1936) with James H. Ryan in editing its journal, The New Scholasticism. In 1925 - 1926, he served as chairman of the American Council on Education, and in 1929 President Hoover appointed him to the National Advisory Committee on Education.
On July 15, 1920, Edward Aloysius Pace was named a Prothonotary Apostolic, with the title Right Reverend Monsignor, by Pope Benedict XV. Although mentally vigorous to the end, he suffered severely from diabetes in his last years. Solidly grounded in philosophy and theology, possessed of a wide culture, and equipped with a thorough knowledge of his subjects, Pace had great powers of lucid exposition as a teacher and writer. He was a pioneer both in scientific psychology and in modern scholastic philosophy in America. Greatly devoted to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, he was, indeed, the ablest American thinker that the neo-scholastic movement had thus far produced.
His bibliography numbers almost 300 titles, including his doctoral dissertation, Das Relativitätsprincip in Herbert Spencers psychologischer Entwicklungslehre (1891), Lectures on Methods of Teaching Religion (1928), his psychological studies, and many articles on religion, education, and philosophy. Among the last are important studies on basic metaphysical problems, treated in a manner that is both traditional and modern.
Edward Aloysius Pace also contributed to education by the advice and encouragement that he gave to other educators and by his own ability and methods as a teacher. Because of its solid and original character, his work has had a deep and lasting influence on American Catholic educational theory and practice. Edward Aloysius Pace died in Washington on April 26, 1938 and was buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery there after funeral services in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the university campus.
Views
Edward Aloysius Pace's goal as a thinker and writer was the integration of Catholic theology, scholastic metaphysics, and contemporary findings in physical science and allied disciplines. In education, in addition to these general aims, his interests included improved methods of teaching religion, the liturgical revival, courses of studies for students for the priesthood, and the development of graduate studies, particularly in philosophy and psychology.
Personality
Edward Aloysius Pace was distinguished in appearance and deeply religious in character, with an attractive personality and great charm of manner. As an administrator, he was cautious and far-seeing rather than strong or adventurous.
