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 SULPICIANS

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SULPICIANS

St. Mary's College, Baltimore. — The impossibility of getting students for the seminary led the fathers to teaoh Latin to a few boys in 1793-94, in the hope of recruiting vocations; but this was discontinued through fear of injuring the Georgetown Academy. Father Dubourg re.-^igncd the [iresidency of George- town in 1799 in order to found a college at Havana. Unsuccessful in the attempt, he returned to Baltimore in .\ug., 1799, with three ynung Sijaniards; the.se, with a few French boys, he Icidgcd and instructed at the seminary. In the fuUnwing year a building Wiis erected for them alongside the seminary, and the in- stitution was named St. Mary's College. In defer- ence tothe wishesof the bishop, no American boys were admitted, but many students came from Cuba, San Domingo, Jamaica, and Porto Rico, besides French boys from the United States. In 1803 the doors were opened to American students, without distinction of creed ; and in 1805 the college was raised to the rank of a university by an act of the legislature. The stu- dents numbered then, or in the following ^-ear, 106, which was considered a remarkable success; for the history of all higher education in Maryland up to that time had been, almost without exception, a record of failures. It drew students from the whole country, but chiefly from Maryland and the neighbouring states, north and south. Many were non-Catholics. Some continued to come from the West Indies and from Central .\merica. The college had vicissitudes, chiefly financial, but it maintained a high standard and enjoyed a high reputation, for it was conducted by able men who brought the culture of France to a country where education was still in a very crude con- dition. Its student roll ro.se at times to two hundred or over. Among its eleven presidents are numbered Archbishops Dubourg and Eccleston, and Bishops David, Brute, and Chance; and the names of many bishops and notable priests and citizens are found on the list of its professors and students.

Despite its half-century of useful and distinguished work, it did not adequately fulfil the main purpo.se of its foundation; a college, frequented by .sons of rich parents, and containing man}' non-Catholics, w;i8 found unfavourable to the fostering, and even to the preservation, of priestly vocations. Accordingly it was resolved in 1848, on the occasion of the official visit of Father Faillon from Paris, to suppress St. Mary's College and start an ecclesiastical college. In the autumn of that year, St. Charles' College was opened (see below) ; and in 1852 St. Mary's College by order of the superior-general. Father de Courson, was closed at the height of its prosperity. By an under- standing with the Jesuits, Loyola College suppUed its place.

Mount St. Mary's, Emmitsburg. — The necessity of a strictly clerical school had forced itself upon the mind of Father Nagot in the first years of St. Mary's College. In 1806 this saintly old man of over seventy gathered about a dozen boys around him at Pigeon Hill, .\(lams Co., Pennsylvania, in a Catholic re- gion that had long been ministered to by the Jesuits. After two years of instruction, they were transferred to the care of the Rev. John Dubois (q. v.), pa.stor of Emmit.sburg, Maryland, who himself was already in- structing a few boys. In ISOS Father Dubois, who had become a .Sulpician, acquired land and built Mount St. Mary's College, in the name of the Society of St.-.Sulpice. He did heroic work, single-handed, aus teacher and as pastor. In 1812 he was joined by Father Brute. "Together they were the main factors in creating a flourishing college where the spirit of Catholic piety reigned and was very fruitful in voca- tions. Mount St. Mary's, founded to supply voca- tions to St. Mary's Seminary, became a rival by force of circumstances, for it could obtain teachers only by retaining the graduates of the college who taught the younger boys at the same time they pursued their

clerical studies. It also became a rival of St. Mary's College when it began to admit boys who did not as- pire to the priesthood, and even non-Cat holies. For these, and al.so for financial re.a.sons, the Society of St.- Sulpice in 1826 made an amicable separation from Mount St. Mary's, which has continued the noble spirit of Bruti? and Dubois and done invaluable ser- vices to the Church of America.

iS(. Charles' College, EUicott City. — Persisting in the effort to establish a purely clerical college, accord- ing to the spirit of their vocation and the mind of the Church, the Sulpicians, in 1831, laid the cornerstone of St. Charles' College, near EUicott City, Maryland. The ground, together with a small sum of money, had been donated by Charles Carroll of CarroUton, who survived to witness the cornerstone laj-ing. Lack of funds long delayed the completion of the college. It was opened in 1848 with four students by the Rev. Oliver Jenkins, who became its first president. In ten or twelve years the students numbered over a hun- dred. Here, at last, was a strictly clerical college, firmly established, giving a solid classical education and maintaining the purest traditions of clerical dis- cipline and spirit. St. Charles' became well known throughout the country, no section of which has not been well represented among its student body. The enrolment for 3'ears has been about two hundred. It has trained over fourteen hundred priests for the American Church and pointed the way to the clerical colleges now becoming numerous and most helpful. Father Jenkins remained president till 1869, though he had been temporarily replaced by the ReA's. G. Raymond (1849-51) and S. Fert<5, D.D. (1851-52). His successors have been Father Fert6 (1869-76), Revs. P. P. Denis (1876-86), F. M. L. Dumont (1886-94), Charles B. Rex (1894-97), Charles B. Schrantz (1897-1906), and F. X. McKenny. To the older generations of students the best remembered of the professors is Father J. B. Menu, who for forty years (1849-88) "hammered Latin and Greek into the most stubborn heads". The best known to the outside world is Father John B. Tabb, a true poet, whose exquisite Ij'rics have won him a secure place in English literature. The spacious building, with its beautiful chapel, its libraries, and valuable docu- ments, was destroyed by fire on 16 March, 1911. Classes were resumed in a few weeks in temporary quarters at Cloud Gap, near Baltimore. On that spot the fathers have now begun (1912) the con- struction of a new and greater St. Charles.

Si. John's Seminary, Brighton, was opened in 1884 and entrusted by the Most Rev. John J. WiUiams, Archbishop of Boston, to the care of the Sulpicians, whose pupil he had been at Montreal and Paris. Its presidents have been the ^'ery Revs. John Hogan (1884-89, 1894-1901), Charles B. Rex (1889-94), Daniel E. Maher (1901-06), and Francis P. Havey (1906-11). In June, 1911, at the request of the Most Rev. William H. O'Connell, Archbishop of Boston, the Sulpicians withdrew from the seminary.

St. Joseph's Seminary, Yonkers. — Archbishop Hughes, who had been their pupil at Mount St. Mary's, had desired the Sulpicians, in 1862, to assume charge of the seminary about to be opened at Troy, New York. This wish was carried out only in 1896, under Archbishop Corrigan, when St. Joseph's Sem- inary Wis transferred to Dunwoodie, Yonkers, New York. The first rector was the Verv Rev. E. R. Dyer, 1.S96-1902. Called to the presidency of St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, he was succeeded by the Very Rev. Janies F. Driscoll. In January, 1906. Father Driscoll and four of his associates withdrew from the Society of St-Sulpice, and were .accepted by Archbishop Farley into his diocese, continuing their work in the seminary, which thus passed from the charge of the Sulpicians.

St. Patriek's Seminary, Menlo Park. — The Sul-