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 STORK

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STOSS

doyen of the foreign military attaches with the Russian army during the Russo-Japanese War; General Sir Charles Chichester, brigadier-general under General De Lacy Evans in the British Auxiliary Legion in Spain in 1835; Admiral Arthur Jerningham, who was attached to the personal guard of Queen Victoria during the alarms of the Chartist disturbance; the late Mr. Justice Walton; Edward de Romana, a former president of Peru; Thomas Francis Meagher, the orator of the Young Ireland movement and sub- sequently a general on the Federal side during the American Civil War. To this selection may be added in the domains of hterature and art Mr. Percy Fitz- Gerald, F.S.A., a personal friend of Charles Dickens, and author of many literary works; Father John Gerard, S.J., the widely known writer on scientific, historical, and controversial subjects; Bernard Part- ridge, the "Punch" cartoonist; Alfred Austin, the Poet Laureate.

The fame of the Stonyhurst Observatory, built in 1838, has been kept ahve in scientific circles by a suc- cession of distinguished astronomers, several of whom have been at various times selected by the British Government to take charge of important astronomical expeditions. The latest of these was the British Solar Eclipse E.xpedition to the Tonga Islands in 1911, which was placed under the charge of Father Cortie, one of the directors of the Stonyhurst Observatory. Perhaps the best known of the Stonyhurst astronomers is Father Stephen Perry, F. R. S., Francis Thompson's "starry amorist", who met his death in 1889 while en- gaged on solar observations for the Government in the West Indies. Among the contributions to Cath- olic literature the best known are the Stonyhurst Series of Philosophical Textbooks, written by mem- bers of the professorial staff: Father Harper's pro- found work, "The Metaphysics of the School"; and Father Gerard's various writings on natural science and evolution, the Gunpowder Plot, and his remark- ably successful reply to Haeckel's "Riddle of the Universe": the works of Father Joseph Rickaby on philosophic and ascetical subjects and the liturgical and historical writings of Father Thurston.

Stonyhurst, which is to-day the largest of the Catholic colleges in England, is the parent of a number of other flourishing schools in Great Britain and Ire- land, of which the following is a list together with the approximate number of boys in each: Beaumont College near Windsor, and Mount St. Mary's College in Derbyshire, with more than 200 boarders each; St. Francis Xavier's College, Liverpool, a day-school with nearly 400 boys; St Aloysius' College, Glasgow, with over 300 day scholars; Wimbledon College with some 150 scholars; St Ignatius' Day College, Stam- ford Hill, London, with about 250 boys; the day col- leges at Preston and Leeds with about 150 boys each; and Clongowes Wood College, in Ireland, with 250 boarders. Including the Philosophers and the younger boys at the ijri'ijaratory school, the total number of boarders at Stonyhurst to-day is 345, with a pro- fessorial staff of 40. At the training college the stu- dents number about 70, with 8 profes.sors. The col- lege buildings, which are very extensive, are furnished with hbraries and museums, numerous lecture rooms, physical and chemical laboratories, observatories, recreation and music rooms, a theatre, swimming bath, carpenter's shops and covered drill-hall. In the large library, which contains over 40,000 volumes, there is a very valuable collection of incunabula, numliering 250, of which .some are unique; a First Folio Shakespeare; some priceless manuscripts; and very complete geological, entomological, and other scientific collections. In the nuiseums and other parts of the building are a larg<' number of valuable engravings by Rembrandt and Diirer, together with art treasures in ivory, alabaster, and precious metals; relics of the days of persecution; paintings by some of

the Old Masters; and vestments of great intrinsic and historical worth.

Gerard. Stonyhurst College Centenary Rrr.ir.l iR.lf^qi l-iQ4> Gruggen and Keating, History of Ston'^>> ' inti

Memorials of Stonyhurst College (Londni i~iiN.

Stonyhurst College Past and Present {Prest'M,. \li-.

Saxonhurst: a Story of Schooldays (London, i'-' -..L ._ .1 "tui- tion Excursion to Stonyhurst and Whalley (.Suuthpurt, 1903); The Stonyhurst Magazine (school periodical): Stonyhurst and its Tercentenary (Clitheroe) : three articles in Country Life (Lon- don, October. 1910): Moral Instruction and Training in Schools^ ed. Sadler, I (New York and London, 1908), the articles ' 'Jesuit System of Education'*, and "Stonyhurst", by I^Lvher in The Teachers' Encyclopedia (London, 1911).

Francis Irwin.

Stork, Ambrose. See Pelargus, Ambrose.

StOSS, Veit, sculptor, b. at Nuremberg in 1438; d there in 1533. In 1477 he established a large work- shop at Cracow, Poland, but in 1496 he returned to

Death and AssnMPnoN op the Blessed Vibgin

Veit Stoss, Church of Our Lady, Cracow. I477-S4

Nuremberg. With Adam Kraft and Peter Vischer, he is considered the most important representative of the late Gothic sculpture in Germany. A quick, skil- ful workman, of great technical :ibility, in his youth he carried naturalism to the extreme, wliile often there was a lack of spirituality. Perhaps this may he traced to a trait of his own character as in the docu- ments of the same era he is spoken of as a "restless, unquiet citizen ". A certain hick of repose is evident, esije(^ially in his treatment of the drai)ery, while in his entire handling of the figure he is very independent of the Gothic style and carries out his designs in his own manner tliroughout. Ilis kiter works, however, show an undoubtetl depth of feeling. Moreover, the question as to the number of his jiroductions is not yet satisfactorily .-iettled; the latest investigation re- gards him as the cre;itor of most of the works of the celebrated \ischer, whom it represents as merely the bronze-fo\inder who carried out Stoss's designs. His e:irliest work (1477) is the celebrated altar of the Blessed \'irgin in the Church of Our Lady at Cracow, which is made in three parts, ;is an alt:vr with wings. In the centre is seen the almost life-size figure of the