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 FLORIDA

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FLORIDA

university faculty numbers 15, Experiment Station staff 14, enrolment (1908) 103. The Florida Female College, Tallahassee, also includes a normal school, and has 22 professors and instructors and 240 students. The coloured normal school, Tallahassee, reports a faculty of 24 and an enrolment of 307. Institutions of higher education under denominational auspices: The John B. Stetson University (Baptist), Deland, in- corporated 1889, affiliated with Chicago University, 1898. Its productive endowment funds amount to $225,000, while it has been the recipient of munificent gifts and legacies; enrolment (1908) 520, faculty 49. Rollins College (undenominational evangelical), Win- ter Park, incorporated 1885, possesses an endowment fund of $200,000, faculty 20, enrolment 148. The Southern College (Methodist), Southerland, founded 1902, faculty 19, enrolment 216. The Columbia Col- lege (Baptist), Lake City, was established in 1907; its faculty numbers 12, enrolment 143. St. Leo College (Catholic), St. Leo, incorporated 1889, is conducted by the Benedictine Fathers, faculty 9, enrolment 75. The Presbyterian College of Florida, Eustis, opened in 1905 and has at present 9 professors and 63 students. There is a business college located at Tampa and two — Massey's and Draughon's — at Jacksonville.

Catholic institutions, beneath college grade but maintaining a high standard of instruction, are the Academies of St. Joseph at St. Augustine, Jackson- ville, and Loretto — the latter a boys' preparatory school — of the Holy Names at Tampa and Key West, and of the Sisters of Mercy at Pensacola. The num- ber of children under Catholic care is 3704. Denomi- national institutions of high grade for the education of negroes are the Cookman Institute (Methodist), en- rolment 487; the Edward Waters College (Methodist) ; and the Florida Baptist College, all situated at Jack- sonville. In all the non-Catholic institutions co-edu- cation obtains.

Religion. — Early Missionary Efforts. — The perma- nent establishment of the Christian Religion in what is now the United States dates from the founding of St. Augustine in 1565. The previous fifty years exhibit a record of heroic though fruitless attempts to plant the cross on the soil of Florida. The solicitude manifested by the Spanish Crown for the conversion of the Indians was sincere and lasting, nor was there ever wanting a plentiful supply of zealous Spanish missionaries who brought to the spiritual subjugation of the Western World the same steadfastness of purpose and un- flinching courage that achieved within so short a space the mighty conquests of Spanish arms. Priests and missionaries accompanied Ponce ( 1 52 1 ), Allj'on (1526), De Soto (1538), and De Luna (1559). In 1549 the Dominican Father Luis Cancer de Barbastro, hon- oured as Apostle of Central America and Protomartyr of Florida, in attempting to establish a mission, was slain by hostile Indians near Tampa Bay. Having secured Spanish supremacy by ruthlessly crushing out the French and planting a permanent colony at St. Augustine in 1565, Menendez with indomitable energy and zeal devoted himself to the evangelization of the Indians. Of the twenty-eight priests who embarked with him from Spain, four only seem to have reached Florida, of whom Martin Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales became first parish priest of St. Augustine, the first established parish in the United States. Pend- ing the arrival of regular missionaries, Menendez ap- pointed soldiers possessing the necessary qualifications as religious instructors to the Indians. The Jesuits were the first to enter the missionary field ; three were sent by St. Francis Borgia in 1566 and ten in 1568; the few who survived the martyrdom of their brethren were recalled in 1572. In l.')77 the Franciscans ar- rived. The good progress made by 1597 was severely checked by a gcni-i-:il massiicre of the missionaries in- stigated by a youTin chicr cliafing under merited repri- mand. In 16!» several Indian cliiefs sought baptism

at St. Augustine, and the Florida missions entered the palmy period of their existence, which lasted till well past the middle of the century. In 1634 the Francis- can province of St. Helena, with mother-house at St. Augustine, contained 44 Indian missions, 35 mission- aries, and 30,000 Catholic Indians. By 1674 evidences of decline begin to appear. Bishop Calderon found his episcopal jurisdiction questioned by the friars, and although he confirmed many Indians, he complained of the universal ignorance of Christian doctrine. The arbitrary exactions of successive governors provoked resentment and rebellion amongst the Christian In- dians, while the English foe on the northern border menaced their very existence. In 1704 the blow fell. Burning, plunder, carnage, and enslavement is the recortl of Moore's raid amongst the Apalachee missions. Efforts at re-establishment partially succeeded, there being in 1720 six towns of Catholic Indians and several missions, but owing to the ravages of persistent con- flict between the Spanish and English colonies, these in 1763 had languished to four missions with 136 souls. The cession to England in 1763 resulted, not merely in the final extinction of the missions, but in the complete obliteration of Florida's ancient Catholicity.

Formation of Dioceses. — St. Augustine began its existence as a regularly constituted parish of the Diocese of Santiago de Cuba. Its church records, dating from 1594, are preserved in the archives of the present cathedral. The first recorded episcopal visita- tion was made by Bishop Cabeza de Altamirano in 1606. In 1674 Bishop Gabriel Diaz Vara Calderon visited the Floridian portion of his diocese; he con- ferred minor orders on seven candidates, and during an itinerary of eight months, extending to the Caro- linian confines, confirmed 13,152 persons, founded many mission churches, and liberally supplied others. The permanent residence of Bishops-Auxiliary Resino (1709-10), Tejada (1735-45), and Ponce y Carasco (1751-55) at St. Augustine, shows that despite the waning condition of the colony and missions at this period, the Church in Florida was not deprived of episcopal care and vigilance. Bishop Morell of San- tiago, exiled from his see during the English occupa- tion of Havana (1662-63), remained four montlis at St. Augustine, confirming 639 persons. When Horida in 1763 passed under English rule, freedom of worship was guaranteed, but the illiberal interpretation of officials resulted in the general exodus of Catholics, so that by 1765, the bi-centenary year of the Church in Florida, a few defaced church buildings presented the only evidence of its former Catholicity. Five hun- dred survivors of the New Smyrna colony of 1400 Catholics, natives of Mediterranean lands, settled at St. Augustine in 1776 and preserved the Faith alive through a trying epoch. In 1787 Florida became sub- ject to the newly constituted See of St. Christopher of Havana, and the following year Bishop Cyril de Barce- lona found the church at St. Augustine progressing satisfactorily under the care of Fathers Hassett and O'Reilly, who had arrived on the retrocession of Florida to Spain in 1783.

In 1793 Pius VI established the Diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas, appointing the Right Rev. Luis Penalver y Cardenas, with residence at New Orleans, as first bisliop. After Bishop Penalver's promotion to the Archbishopric of Guatemala in 1801, no successor having been appointed, Louisiana, which was annexed to the United States in 1803, came under the juris- diction of Bishop Carroll of Baltimore in 1806, the bishops of Havana reassuming authority over Florida until the appointment of the Rev. Michael Portier in 1825 to the new Vicariate of Alabama and Florida. Bishop Portier undertook single-lianded the work of his vast vicariate, not liaving a single priest, until at his request Bishop England of Charleston sent Father Edward Mayne to St. Augustine in 1828. In 1850 the See of Savannah was created and included that part of