LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Gl FT OF Class nf tye Tjfvesibent nnb J OF THE f UNIVERSITY ) OF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY; THE CELEBRATION OF ITS FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OR GOLDEN JUBILEE, ox JUNE 24, 1879. BY WALTER H. HILL, S. J. ST. LOUIS: PATRICK FOX, PUBLISHER, 14 SOUTH FIFTH STREET. I8 79 . PREFACE. THE following pages do not give a minute history of the St. Louis University; they contain only an outline of its history. The origin of the Jesuit Society in Mis- souri is related briefly, in the opening chapters, as being closely connected with this first college established by the society in the Western States. The gradual spread of its missions to the adjacent States and Territories is also noticed, sufficiently in detail to present a general view of the Missouri province, and of its progress dur- ing the fifty-six years of its existence. Merely to recount the events annually taking place in an establishment of the kind, from its beginning, would be to compose a barren and tedious chronicle of facts that are uniformly the same every year in every such institution. The scope of the undertaking was extended, therefore, so as to include some other mat- ters, both of a local and general character, which it was believed would be acceptable to the reader, though they be but remotely cognate to the principal subject of the book. The writer was for many years collecting and noting down, from conversations with the early missionaries a number of particulars connected with (iii) 1 2245 IV PREFACE. the beginning and progress of the Church, especially of the Jesuit institutions and missions, in the Western country ; and he has aimed herein to give a more per- manent shape to some portions of the materials for history thus acquired : " Gather up the fragments, lest they perish," was our Lord's behest. Let this also be the writer's excuse for introducing, here and there, what may seem to have only secondary and distant relationship to his proper subject. The college began fifty years ago, on its present site, which was in the open prairie, at some distance from the town of St. Louis, as the town was in the year 1829. Such leading facts of its history as could be learned from its somewhat imperfect records are stated ingenuously, and as they actually happened, even when they were not the most favorable ; for God has a hand, either directly or permissively, in real facts, but has no share in things falsely affirmed to have happened. The means employed at different periods by the faculties of the university for the advancement of learning, with more or less good fortune, may be suggestive of some useful thought to minds engaged with questions per- taining to the matter and the methods of collegiate education. Though not free, doubtless, from numer- ous imperfections, yet the work records some things which are, perha s, sufficiently various and significant in their nature to interest the reader that finds pleasure and subject-matter for reflection in the deeds of good men who have gone before us. PREFACE. V This little history of the St. Louis University is more especially intended, however, as a respectful and affec- tionate offering to all the present and former students of the institution, and to the mutual friends of the alma mater and her cherished alumni. There is subjoined to this sketch of the university some account of its "golden jubilee " celebration, on June 24, 1879, w ith its attending events and circum- stances ; and also of the fiftieth annual commencement, which occurred on the following day, or June 25th. WALTER H. HILL, S. J. ST. Louis UNIVERSITY, July 16, 1869. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Right Rev. William Louis Dubourg m de Bishop of Upper and Lower Louisiana His Efforts to promote Education by founding Institutions of Learning Lazarist Priests Ladies of the Sacred Heart Sisters of Loretto Jesuits of Maryland offered a Mission in Missouri I CHAPTER II. Father Van Quickenborne's Works among the People around White Marsh Preparations to start on their Journey to Mis- souri Journey to St. Louis, by Way of Baltimore, Cumber- land, Wheeling On Flatboats to Shawneetown, thence on foot to St. Louis Fragment of History vindicating Mar- quette's Veracity 10 CHAPTER III. They take Possession of their Farm Schools for Indian Chil- dren begun Portage des Sioux and St. Charles They are invited by Bishop Rosati to open a College, which they con- sent to undertake 27 CHAPTER IV. From the Year 1829 to the Year 1836 Organization of the Col- lege in St. Louis, and its rapid Growth Need of Teachers Help sent from Maryland in 1831 Application to the General Assembly of Missouri for Charter of Incorporation, and Text of the Charter, granted by Special Act 40 CHAPTER V. From 1836 to 1843 ^ ev - P- J- Verhsegen made Superior of the Missouri Mission, Rev. J. A. Elet made President of the (vii) yill CONTENTS. PACK University Site chosen for moving the College out of the City Rev. George Carrell Kickapoo Mission Death of Father Van Quickenborne Committee appointed to draw up Course of Studies Donations sent by Father De Smet from Belgium Father De Smet returns to America and begins his Indian Missionary Excursions College at Grand Coteau, Louisiana Pottawatomie Mission Medical Faculty of the University organized St. Xavier Church built and dedi- cated Parish Schools 53 CHAPTER VI. From 1843 to 1854 Rev. James Van de Velde, Vice-Provincial, and Rev. George Carrell, President of the St. Louis Univer- sity Means employed to restore Prosperity St. Mary's College, Kentucky, closed Growth of the City Indian Grammar and Dictionary by Father Diels and Father Gail- land Rev. J. B. Druyts, President of the University, Rev. J. A. Elet, Vice-Provincial Arrival of Jesuit Refugees from Italy and Switzerland St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, Kentucky, accepted Medical Faculty obtain a separate Char- ter Asiatic Cholera Rev. William S. Murphy made Vice- Provincial 65 CHAPTER VII. From 185410 1861 Rev. J. S. Verdin, President Large Num- ber of Boarders Societies among the Students Rev. J. B. Druyts, Vice-Provincial Scholasticate at College Hill Church and College in Chicago Missionary Work of Father Damen and of Father Weninger Commercial Course made distinct from Classical Scientific Course Study of Ancient Classics Removal of Scholasticate to Boston, Mass. Civil War of 1861-1865, its Effects on the University 80 CHAPTER VIII. From 1861 to 1871 Loss of Southern Students Death of Rev. J. B. Druyts, and return of Rev. Wm. S. Murphy to Missouri Members drafted for the Army receive Furloughs Rev. F. Coosemans, Vice-Provincial, Rev. Thos. O'Neil, President The Vice- Province raised to Rank of Province New Con- stitution for Missouri in 1865, its proscriptive Character End CONTENTS. IX PAGE of the Civil War, and Effects of Peace Property on Grand Avenue purchased for the Site of the College Provincial Con- gregation Rev. F. H. Stuntebeck, President of the Univer- sity Death of Rev. P. J. Verhaegen "College View" pur- chased Woodstock College, Maryland St Mary's College, Kansas Different Manners of designating the Classes in dif- erent Colleges 94 CHAPTER IX. From 1871 to 1878 Rev. Thos. O' Neil made Provincial Father Coosemans Rev. Joseph Zealand, President Largest Num- ber of Students ever registered for one Session Golden Jubilee of First Founders of Missouri Province Dr. Moses L. Linton Tabular Statement of Statistics Death of Father De Smet Fiftieth Anniversary St. Stanislaus Novitiate Effect of Financial Crisis, 1873 St. Louis Bridge and Tun- nel Remains of Bishop Van de Velde removed to Floris- sant Rev. L. Bushart, President Centennial of American Independence St. Mark's Academy Pius IX., Golden Jubilee Detroit College Rev. J. E. Keller made Presi- dent Death of Father Van Assche Scientific Course begun, its Results 107 CHAPTER X. From 1878 to 1879 Meeting of College Delegates at Atlanta, Georgia Modern Languages, which most in demand at Uni- versity Number of Students varies more in Commercial than in Classical Course Creighton College, Omaha Bishop Conroy, Papal Ablegate Rev. E. A. Higgins made Provin- cial 131 CHAPTER XI. Year 1879 What the University has accomplished in fifty Years Grown up with the City Its Alumni Its first Professors all dead Growth of the Missouri Province Its Founders were Belgians Their Successors Complete List of Graduates from 1834 to 1879 135 CHAPTER XII. The Ratio Studiorum, or System of Studies Origin of Jesuit Colleges Their Object and Work Catholic Education CONTENTS. PAGE The Idea of St. Ignatius General Plan of Studies The Catholic University Opposition to the System Adaptation of the System to the Times Three Courses of Studies: the Classical Course, the Commercial Course, the Scientific Course Optional Branches: Modern Languages, the Fine Arts Associations for Moral, Mental, and Physical Improve- ment The Preparatory Department Concluding Remarks. 148 THE GOLDEN JUBILEE. I. Preparation for the Jubilee The President's Letter to Pope Leo XIII. The Papal Brief on the Subject of the Fiftieth Anni- versary The Rescript from the Propaganda 169 II. The Day of the Jubilee The Solemn Pontifical Mass Bishop Spalding's Sermon The Music The Papal Benediction. . 176 III. The Alumni Dinner Guests Present 200 IV. The Literary Exercises Dr. Bauduy's Address The Poem Judge Bakewell's Address Governor Reynolds's Address The Reading of the Papal Brief Letter from the Young Men's Sodality Editorial Article from the Republican. . . 203 V. The Fiftieth Annual Commencement The Prologue and Ad- dresses by the Graduates The Conferring of Degrees Dr. Gregory's. Address to the Graduates 237 VI. The Board of Trustees The Faculty for the Year 1878-79 Courses of Instruction 248 CHAPTER I. RIGHT REV. WILLIAM LOUIS DUBOURG MADE BISHOP OF UPPER AND LOWER LOUISIANA HIS EFFORTS TO PROMOTE EDUCATION BY FOUNDING INSTITU- TIONS OF LEARNING LAZARIST PRIESTS LADIES OF THE SACRED HEART SISTERS OF LORETTO JESUITS OF MARYLAND OFFERED A MISSION IN MISSOURI. RIGHT REV. WILLIAM Louis DUBOURG was consecrated Bishop of Upper and Lower Louisiana, in Rome, Sep- tember 24, 1815. Missouri was at that time included in Upper Louisiana. The new bishop, accompanied by some Lazarist priests, proceeded to St. Thomas's Semin- ary, Bardstown, Kentucky, where the priests remained for a time, in order to acquire some proficiency in the English language. He reached St. Genevieve, Mis- souri, on December 27, 1817, in company with Bishop Flaget, who had previously visited and revisited both St. Genevieve and St. Louis, in order to determine which one of them was the more desirable situation for a sem- inary ; these two towns were then about equal in popu- lation, but Bishop Flaget was of opinion that St. Louis would ultimately become an important city, whereas St. Genevieve had little prospect of making great future progress. Bishop Dubourg and party arrived at St. Louis on January 5, 1818, where he determined to reside till a more peaceful condition of things would (i) 2 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. warrant his making New Orleans his home. Although New Orleans was the Episcopal See, yet there were troubles there, both with the priests and people, of a character which made it expedient for him to remain at St. Louis ; accordingly, Bishop Dubourg continued to reside at St. Louis till 1823, annually visiting New Orleans. The Lazarist fathers went on a farm at the Barrens, 1 in Perry County, Missouri, where they built for them- selves a rude home with their own hands. This was the humble first beginning of St. Mary's College and Seminary at the Barrens, which subsequently became so well known in the West on account of the many priests eminent for virtue and learning who there ac- quired their education. Bishop Dubourg spared no exertions to make this institution, which first received students in 1819, a successful undertaking, and his ef- forts actually produced the good results intended by him. The college was finally transferred to Cape Gir- ardeau in 1838, where it still to-day holds its rank among the leading colleges of Missouri ; the institution at the Barrens was made a preparatory seminary for the dio- cese, after the removal of the college to Cape Girardeau. Bishop Dubourg, before leaving Europe in 1 8 1 7, on his return to the United States, had applied to the Superior- General of the Sacred Heart Order, Madame Barat, for 1 This part of Perry County had been originally settled by Catholics from Kentucky, the first of them coming to this portion of Missouri about the year 1797. The name " Barrens " was applied to the prairie land of south-western Kentucky, and the emigrants from Kentucky and Maryland gave this name also to the prairie land on which they settled in Perry County, Missouri. The term "barrens," as thus employed, does not imply absence of fertility in the soil. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 3 a colony of those religious ladies to establish a house of their order in his diocese. His request was acceded to, and in the spring of 1818 five ladies of the Sacred Heart, with Madame Duchesne as superior, were sent from France to the United States, by way of New Or- leans, reaching St. Louis, the place of their final des- tination, August 22, 1818. They proceeded to St. Charles early in September, where they opened a school near the Catholic church of that town; but, through the poverty or indifference of the people, they met with little encouragement. It became manifest to the ladies, after one year's trial, that they could not make even a scanty subsistence by their school at St. Charles, and accordingly an arrangement was entered into with the bishop and the Rev. Joseph Dunand for their removal to Florissant. On September 3, 1819, they removed tem- porarily to the bishop's farm near Florissant, now a part of the St. Stanislaus Novitiate, till a suitable build- ing 1 could be prepared for them in the village. They moved to their home in Florissant on December 24, or Christmas Eve, 1819. In the year 1827 the ladies of the Sacred Heart began an academy on a tract of land comprising twenty-six acres, adjacent to the town of St. Louis ; this land was a conditional donation from Mr. John Mullanphy. There are few of the old families in St. Louis, some of whose daughters were not edu- cated wholly, or as to a part of their training, by these accomplished ladies at "The Convent of the Sacred 1 The erection of this building was the last work of zeal done by this pious Trappist, and he left for France in May, 1820 ; the last entry made by him in the records of the church at Florissant was dated April i, 1820. He was commonly called by the people, who had a high esteem for his piety, " Le Pere Prieur." 4 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. Heart." Previous to this date the ladies had begun academies in Louisiana, one at Grand Coteau, and one at St. Michael's, in the parish of St. James. In 1828 an academy was again begun in St. Charles, Missouri, at the urgent request of Rev. Charles Van Quicken- borne. The colonies founding these new establishments were all sent out from the mother house in Florissant. 1 At the present day the order is spread extensively through the United States and Canada, where it now has many flourishing and even magnificent institutions, all of which owe their prime origin to the piety, the zeal, and the indomitable energy of Madame Duchesne and her companions. Early in 1823, Rev. Joseph Rosati, 2 then superior at St. Mary's of the Barrens, applied, by direction of Bishop Dubourg, to Rev. Charles Nerinckx, founder and supe- rior of the Loretto society of nuns in Kentucky, for a community of his sisterhood to establish a boarding- school for girls near the Seminary of the Barrens, in Perry County, Missouri. This wish of Bishop Dubourg was readily complied with by the saintly father Nerinckx, and in May, 1823, five Sisters of Loretto reached the Barrens under Mother Benedicta Fenwick. They began a school so soon as suitable arrange- ments could be completed; and during the year 1824 they also erected a house for the exclusive use of In- dian girls, but it was burned down by an incendiary 1 The ladies finally left Florissant in July, 1846. Their house was pur- chased from them by the Sisters of Loretto, who began an academy there in the spring of 1847, under Mother Eleanora Clarke, as first superior. 2 In March, 1824, he was made coadjutor of Bishop Dubourg; and in 1827 he was appointed Bishop of St. Louis, which had been erected the previous year into an Episcopal See. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 5 before it was made entirely ready for occupancy. These devoted Sisters of Loretto subsequently established boarding-schools at St. Genevieve, Fredericktown, and Cape Girardeau ; but all except the last named were finally given up by them. They now have flourishing schools in St. Louis, Florissant, and other places in Mis- souri, as well as in many of the Western States and Territories. In 1823 there was a college, in which the ancient classics were taught, attached to the cathedral in St. Louis, and it was conducted by five secular priests. 1 It had been established by Bishop Dubourg, in 1819, with a view of furnishing young men of St. Louis and vicinity an opportunity of acquiring a thorough educa- tion. But, owing mainly to the fact that the priests con- ducting its classes had pastoral duties imposed on them at the same time, the undertaking did not prove a very successful one, though this institution had been kept up for a time by the aid of able lay teachers. This college was finally discontinued in the year 1826. So soon as Bishop Dubourg had come to St. Louis, 1 In 1819, Bishop Dubourg rented the Alvarez residence, a one-story stone house on the north side of Market Street, between Second and Third Streets, for a school. In 1820, a two-story brick house was built, for a college ; it stood south of the old log church, or, as some say, on the site of the old log church. Rev. Mr. Xiel, a French priest, was president; there were a few boarders. Messrs. De Necker, afterwards Bishop of New Orleans, Saulnier, and Dahmen, studied theology there. Mr. Dahmen was the first that was ordained in St. Louis by Bishop Dubourg ; he had been a soldier in Bonaparte's army ; he was for some years stationed at St. Genevieve, Missouri ; and it was at his house that Rev. Charles Xerinckx died, on August 12, 1824. These particulars were collected by a venerable friend, whose memory reaches back to the dates mentioned above. Elihu H. Shepard was professor of languages in the St. Louis College. 6 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. and been made acquainted with the general condition of things in Missouri, then better known as Upper Louisiana, he requested Father Anthony Kohlman, at that time provincial of the Jesuits in Maryland, to send some fathers of the society to establish a college in this part of his diocese, and take spiritual charge of the In- dian tribes that still lingered in Missouri. Owing to the circumstance that there were not more members of the society in Maryland at that period than were strictly required to fulfil obligations which had been previously assumed, Father Kohlman was not then able to comply with the bishop's zealous wish for help. Early in the year 1823, Bishop Dubourg went to Washington City, for the purpose of consulting Presi- dent Monroe, and the secretary of war, John C. Cal- houn, on the subject of devising means for educating the children of Indian tribes within his diocese. He was kindly received by these courteous officials, and during his interview with them Mr. Calhoun, the secre- tary of war, suggested the expediency of inviting the Jesuits of Georgetown to furnish members of their order to assist in that work. The bishop at once laid this proposition before Rev. Charles Neale, who had recently succeeded Rev. Anthony Kohlman in the office of pro- vincial. The bishop offered to donate a fertile farm near the Missouri River, in a north-western direction from St. Louis, and at a distance of seventeen miles from that town, and make over to them his own church and residence in St. Louis. Father Neale believed it might be possible for him promptly to accept the former offer, with the view of getting up a school ; but priests could not be spared, over and above, to take charge of the church in St. Louis. The bishop's kind HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. / offer was made at an opportune time for the Jesuits of Maryland to spare a number of their younger members, as the sequel will show. In the year 1820, Rev. Charles Nerinckx went to Europe on business connected with his missions in Kentucky ; and when he returned to the United States, in 1821, he was accompanied by a number of young men, most of whom were natives of Belgium, who came to America with the intention of devoting their lives to priestly and missionary employments. Among them were F. J. Van Assche, P. J. De Smet, P. J. Verhaegen, J. A. Elet, F. L. Verreydt, and J. B. Smedts, from Bel- gium ; whose aim in coming to the United States was to join the Jesuit Society in Maryland, a purpose which they were encouraged to execute by the pious Father Nerinckx. They were admitted as novices at White Marsh, Prince George's County, Maryland, on October 6, 1821 ; and up to the time of their reception as novices they were under the impression that in taking such a step they were preparing to enter upon a mis- sionary career among the aboriginal savages of America ; for they believed that the Jesuits of Maryland had, or else were to have, a number of Indian tribes under their spiritual care. The master of novices at White Marsh was the Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne, a Belgian priest from Ghent, who had come to the United States in 1817, also with the view of becoming a Jesuit and going to missions among the Indians. At the beginning of the year 1823, Rev. Charles Neale, provincial of the Jesuits in Maryland, and the master of novices, Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne, had determined that it was expedient to transfer the novices from White Marsh, in Prince George's County, 8 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. to St. Thomas's Manor, in Charles County. It had be- come necessary to take this step, owing to the impov- erished condition of the novitiate at White Marsh, and the inability of the province to support the novices. The soil at White Marsh, which was originally fertile, had been exhausted by successive crops of corn and tobacco raised on it for generations, without a year of intermission ; and besides, that farm was burdened with a heavy debt, whereas the land in Charles County was very productive, and the premises unencumbered with any debt. It was under these circumstances, and while actually deliberating about the removal of the novices from White Marsh to Charles County, that Bishop Dubourg, at the suggestion of John C. Calhoun, secretary of war, again applied to the Jesuits of Maryland for a community of the order to settle in Missouri, with a view of founding missions and schools among the In- dian tribes dwelling within his diocese. His request was made at an auspicious time, and his offer of the farm near Florissant was readily accepted, as a provi- dential solution of the difficulties in which the novitiate at White Marsh was then involved. The provincial, Rev. Charles Neale, proposed the wish of Bishop Dubourg to Father Van Quickenborne, novice master, and ex- pressed his own desire for the pious rector of White Marsh to be the leader and superior of a band, includ- ing such of the novices as might freely choose to accom- pany him, and that with them and a few older mem- bers he should start to Missouri, so soon as necessary arrangements for the journey could be made. Father Van Quickenborne gave his cordial approval to the un- dertaking, which he did all the more fully and promptly, HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY 9 as it was a desire of being a missionary among the sav- age Indians that had first prompted him to leave his native land and come to America. Father Van Quickenborne announced to the novices the decision made by the provincial concerning his des- tination for Missouri ; that a community of the society was to be established there, with a view to getting up a school for Indian boys and to sending out mission- aries to evangelize the wild tribes. He also made known to them that any of the novices who desired to accompany him would be free to do so ; whereupon the six young Belgians already named as coming with Father Nerinckx to the United States in 1821, answered enthusiastically that nothing could be more pleasing to them than to be his companions in a journey to the region where the red man dwelt, and his co-laborers in such works ; they were already longing for the time to come when the opportunity would be afforded them of devoting their lives to the conversion and civilization of the wild Indians in the Far West. It was now plain that the pious design of the zealous and far-seeing Bishop Dubourg was at length to be realized, and that his plan for Christianizing the West- ern tribes of Indians was likely to produce some good result. He believed that while the young men were trained in virtue and learning at their new home in Mis- souri, the little community could support itself mainly by the excellent farm the members were to receive ; and that a few years would suffice to fit them for the wide field of usefulness which was even then ready for them in his extensive and growing diocese. CHAPTER II. FATHER VAN QUICKENBORNE'S WORKS AMONG THE PEOPLE AROUND WHITE MARSH PREPARATIONS TO START ON THEIR TRIP TO MISSOURI JOURNEY TO ST. LOUIS BY WAY OF BALTIMORE, CUMBER- LAND, WHEELING ON FLATBOATS TO SHAWNEE- TOWN, THENCE ON FOOT TO ST. LOUIS. FATHER VAN QUICKENBORNE'S great charity and active zeal, with his natural gentleness of manners, made him dear to the people of a large district around White Marsh. He built a church at Annapolis, fifteen miles from White Marsh, where he gave divine service once in every two weeks ; and another one in the vicinity of the novitiate, both of which he quickly freed from all debt. He visited the sick and the poor regularly, not excepting the hovels of the negroes; and all classes of the people looked up to him as a wise counsellor and a beneficent friend, in whom they could confide when misfortune befel them, without fear or hesitancy. Each year of his stay at White Marsh, this laborious priest brought back to the fold at least one hundred persons that had been wandering astray, as his novices after- wards well remembered. 1 It might be naturally ex- pected, then, that when the news of his intended de- 1 He gave a recreation clay, and extra dishes at the dinner, to the novices every year when the number of those conversions to a correct life reached one hundred. (10) HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. II parture, with a portion of the community at White Marsh, for the Far West went abroad, the people of the surrounding country should be pained at the loss they were about to sustain. They contributed money liber- ally towards purchasing the necessary outfit, and gave various articles useful for the journey ; thus a very short time sufficed to complete all arrangements to start for Missouri. The members of the society selected to begin the new mission in the West made up a band of twelve : two priests, Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne, superior, and Rev. Peter J. Timmermans, his assistant; there were seven aspirants to the priesthood, namely : F. J. Van Assche, P. J. De Smet, J. A. Elet, F. L. Verreydt, P. J. Verhsegen, J. B. Smedts, and J. De Maillet; there were three lay brothers: Peter De Meyer, Henry Reis- selman, and Charles Strahan. 1 The day settled on for their departure was April 11, 1823; they started early on that day, and when sunset came they had reached the immediate neighborhood of Baltimore, where they spent the night all together, in one large room. At Baltimore their trunks, boxes, and various parcels for the journey were placed on two large wagons, each drawn by six horses; and these wagons were hired to haul their goods all the way to Wheeling. Besides, they had taken with them from White Marsh a light spring wagon, drawn by one horse, in which were placed some smaller objects needed for the journey; 1 In the party there were also three families of negro servants, who were to work the farm in Missouri : Moses and his wife, their children were left in Maryland; Tom and his wife, Isaac and his wife, the last two couples having no children. 12 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. and on this lighter wagon also they were to ride who became unwell or disabled, for the entire journey to Wheeling was to be made on foot. All things being made ready, the party started from Baltimore, Monday, April I4th, on their way to Wheel- ing, beyond the Alleghany Mountains, far the most painful portion of the long road to Missouri. The young men and the lay brothers had started two days earlier to Conewago, Adams County, Pennsylvania, where they remained five days, in order to transcribe Father Plow- den's Instructions on Religious Perfection, begun at White Marsh, but not finished. From Conewago they went to Frederick, where the rest of the party and the wagons were awaiting them, and they remained there one day. Father John McElroy, who then had charge of the church and residence at Frederick, presented to Father Van Quickenborne a fine roan horse, an excel- lent pacer, which was of much advantage on the long journey across the mountains, and for many years of service after the party arrived in Missouri. They went by way of Cumberland, resting one night in that town, at a boarding-house. They carried their own bedding with them, lodging at night in dwellings or out-houses, according to the exigencies of the case ; and, generally, they cooked their own meals. After a trip of eighteen days from Baltimore, they reached Wheeling, without having met with any serious accident. At Wheeling they were delayed three days, during which they were the guests of Mr. Thompson, a wealthy and hospitable Catholic gentleman, whose worthy daughter, a member of the Sacred Heart order, and lately deceased, has helped to keep her father's HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 1 3 name in honorable remembrance ; x at his house the priests journeying from the diocese of Bardstown to Baltimore, in those early days, were accustomed to stop and rest, as appears by the letters and diaries of Rev. Charles Nerinckx and Father Badin. At Wheeling they purchased two flatboats, one of which carried the negro servants and the larger and heavier portion of the load to be transported ; the other was occupied by Father Van Quickenborne and com- panions, the two boats being securely lashed together. When all was ready, their little vessels floated out upon the placid current of the Ohio, " the beautiful river," about the beginning of May, 1823, with their interest- ing burden, destined for the land of the red man, on the banks of the far-rolling Missouri. Nearly forty years before this time, the first Catholic emigrants from St. Mary's and Charles Counties, Maryland, had passed this same scene, running the perilous gauntlet of Indian ambuscades on both shores of the river, for the new settlements in "the dark and bloody land " of the aboriginal Shawana. 2 Just thirty years before this jour- 1 One of the missioners gave to Mr. Thompson a pious picture, with the names of the party written on the back. This picture was sent by Mr. Thompson to his daughter, then at school in Baltimore, and with it a letter, in which he gave an account of his visitors, explaining the ob- ject of their journey to Missouri. This letter from her father, with the picture, she kept through life, and she reminded Father Van Assche of the incident, fifty years later, as a circumstance that had influenced her entire life. 2 Father Marquette, after discovering the mouth of the Ohio, in July, 1673, described the territory now comprised in Kentucky as inhabited by the Shawanas, called Shawnees at the present day; and Schoolcraft, in his great work on the Indian tribes of North America, says that the Shawnees always claimed Kentucky as their original home. In 1785, sixty Catholic families of St Mary's and Charles Counties, 14 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. ney of the Jesuit missionaries to Missouri, the illustri- ous Father Badin, the first priest ordained in the United States, had travelled down the Ohio on his way to the hundreds of Catholic families in Kentucky, who were then without the sacraments that give peace in life and hope in death. 1 Their boats drifted on day and night, without tying up. In a few instances, high winds came near strand- ing the unwieldy vessels ; and twice they were driven among brushwood and fallen trees, from which they were extricated with much difficulty ; and on a few oc- casions they narrowly escaped being run into by pass- ing steamboats. The missionaries often related, many years afterwards, how, during one dark, silent night, they saw flaming furnaces at the distance of a few hun- dred yards below them, and concluded that a steam- boat was ascending directly towards them. Brother Maryland, formed a league with the view of emigrating to Kentucky, and settling together for mutual protection against the Indians, and in order that they might have a church. Twenty-five of these families emigrated to Kentucky in 1785 ; and the remaining thirty-five families, joined by others not of the league, followed in the succeeding years. Catholic emigration, thus begun, did not entirely cease before the year 1818 or 1820. This movement was first gotten up mainly through the influence of Basil Hayden, whose bond for land was signed at Balti- more, and was recorded at Bardstown, Kentucky; it was signed by Philip Lee, who kept and left after him a record which was begun in '735- 1 In Major Craig's Letter-Books (see Magazine of American History, Vol. II., p. 300) occurs the folio wing entry, dated June 15, 1793 : "Wheel- ing was laid out in the summer of 1792, and now has eight log houses, with two small stores near the landing. The stockade fort, built in 1774, is entirely demolished. The inhabitants are at present without any place of defence." Previous to the beginning of the present century, the flatboat or keel- boat of the emigrant to the West started on the Ohio from Pittsburgh. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 15 Strahan, who claimed to be familiar with seafaring practices, suggested that, in such emergency, nautical customs should be observed; and, accordingly, good Father Van Quickenborne seized a fire-brand, and whirling the blazing fagot around his head, shouted with much strength of lungs to the huge monster toiling up the current, and, as it seemed, straight to the bows of their clumsy flatboats, " Ship, ahoy ! ship, ahoy ! " His powerful voice echoed far among the hills and dense woods stretching back from the river banks ; but his call elicited no answer, and caused no change in the direction of the bright fires, in a straight line before them. They were soon agreeably relieved, however, by discovering, on nearer approach, that the object which excited their terror was only a steam saw-mill on the main shore in a curve of the river. The travellers had Mass on the boat every morning; and all the observances of community life were per- formed with nearly as much exactness and regularity as in the novitiate at White Marsh. A bell was rung for rising, meditation, examination of conscience, etc., and hence they appropriately styled their boat "a floating monastery." Two days after their departure from Wheeling, their boats passed the mouth of the Little Kanawha River, and the island two miles below it, where a costly pile of decayed grandeur still commemorated the eccentricities of the romantic and unfortunate Irish gentleman, Har- man Blannerhasset. He had built a princely residence on this island in 1798, laid ofif its grounds in parks, and gardens, and grassy lawns ; and his home became a resort of learning and fashion. But in the year 1807 he joined Aaron Burr in his conspiracy to dismember the Union, l6 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. and thereby he lost both his fortune and his reputation. Already in 1823, his once beautiful pleasure-grounds were overrun with wild weeds, and brambles, and vulgar trees; and his dwelling-house, burned down in 1811, was a heap of ruins, giving a peculiar sadness to the surrounding scene of complete solitude. Father Van Quickenborne had procured at Wheeling a " pilot," or guide-book for the river. But even Brother Strahan, with his unquestioned proficiency in the art of navigation, was not able to verify from it all the impor- tant landmarks, or to use with unfailing certainty its bearings, its latitudes, and departures ; and hence, on one occasion, when winding through a group of thickly wooded islands, he and all the party became so per- plexed over the directions given in the " pilot," and the points of the compass, as to conclude that the boats were actually returning up-stream towards Wheeling. In the year 1823 the Western States were but sparsely peopled; there were few towns on the Ohio River which, with the exception of Cincinnati and Louisville, were more than hamlets consisting of a few scattered cabins. In journeying down that river the travellers seldom saw a dwelling, to cause a break in the primeval forests. The scenery on the Ohio is not grand or sublime, like that of the Hudson ; but it pos- sesses beauty which is varied, and is always interesting. The woods then abounded in wild game, not yet driven from their prescriptive home in the tangled thickets. There were no marksmen of the party on the flatboats, and their best efforts to kill a deer were never success- ful, even though it once happened that their boats got near one swimming across the river; but they took their want of the huntsman's skill with much good HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. I/ humor, though not having the luxury of fresh venison once during their trip. The travellers made no stop at Cincinnati. Bishop Fenwick, 1 who was consecrated for that new see only the preceding year, was not then in Cincinnati ; but at Louisville they remained one day. Here their boats were unloaded and their freight was hauled in wagons to Portland, three miles from Louisville, and across a neck of land around which the river flows, making the segment of a circle. 2 Between Louisville and Portland are the Falls of the Ohio, so famous among river men. The empty flatboats were committed to " a falls pilot," to be steered down the rapids, and he was accompanied in the descent, which is perilous in low water, by young Van Assche. But the party had another reason for making some stay in Louisville : it was the presence there of the venerable missionary, Father Nerinckx, with whom most of them had first come to America ; one, Brother De Meyer, had come with him to the United States in 1817, and the 1 Bishop Fenwick was in Europe that year, in quest of help towards organizing his new diocese ; he left for America early in 1824. 2 Schoolcraft, in his great work, "History of the Indian Tribes," Part III., p. 342, quotes a passage from "Memoranda of a Journey in the Western parts of the United States, in 1785, by Lewis Brantz." Brantz, speaking of Louisville as he saw it in 1785, says: "Louisville is located near the Falls ; some houses are already erected ; yet this lonely settlement resembles a desert more than a town. More than 20,000 are already estimated in this region (Kentucky). " In a diary of Major Beattie, paymaster United States army (see Magazine of American History, Vol. L, p. 242), he says of Louisville, which he saw in 1786: "Louisville consists of fifty or sixty houses, a good deal scattered, chiefly log, some frame. * * * Bardstown consists of fifty or sixty log houses, regularly laid out, and pretty well built, the capital of Nelson County, as Louisville is of Jefferson." 1 8 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. seven novices had come with him in 1821. Father Nerinckx had come to Louisville a few days previous, in order to see safe on the steamboat a colony of Loretto nuns going to the Barrens in Missouri; and he awaited the arrival of his Belgian friends, whom he knew to be then coming near, also on their way to Missouri. It was a great gratification for this saintly and austere man of God again to meet these heroic young men, now devoting themselves to a life of privation and toil for the religious welfare of the Indians, in a place where, as they had been led to suppose, they could reasonably expect little of human comfort, with no society save that of coarse, degraded, and ignorant savages, beyond the borders of civilization. Father Nerinckx * contin- ued to the very end of his life to take a cordial interest in these young men, and one of his last acts in life was to visit them at their new home in Missouri. Louisville was then a small town, but it was growing rapidly in business and population. There were few Catholics there ; yet their prospects for the future had improved since the Rev. Robert Abell had come, the preceding year, 1822, to reside most of his time among them. Even at the jubilee of 1826 there were only fifty communions in Louisville. Father Van Quickenborne had his horses and wagon. 1 Father Nerinckx went to Missouri in 1824, there to spend his remaining days on earth. He asked Bishop Rosati, coadjutor of Bishop Dubourg, for the most needy and abandoned mission in his diocese, believing, in his humility, that he was no longer capable of any differ- ent employment. He spent some days with his Belgian friends at their home near Florissant; he also visited the convent of Loretto nuns founded at the Barrens during the preceding year. Death ended all further earthly trouble for this remarkable man on August 12, 1824, at St. Genevieve, Missouri. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. IQ and all goods belonging to his companions reshipped at Portland ; and then, after taking an affectionate leave of Father Nerinckx, their boats were soon again gliding down the Ohio River towards their still distant home on the banks of the Missouri. As they had no special perils to encounter on the tranquil waters of the Lower Ohio, their trip from Louisville to Shawneetown was a pleasant one ; though perhaps less interesting to the young men, from the fact that it was destitute of any but ordinary incidents. At Shawneetown, situated a short distance below the mouth of the Wabash River, and then a small village, their trip on the Ohio River terminated. There they disposed of their flatboats, sent their trunks, boxes, and other heavy luggage by steamboat to St. Louis, and with their light wagon they crossed the prairies of Southern Illinois to St. Louis the young men going the entire journey on foot. Many who travelled by land from Kentucky and other States farther east to Missouri, in that day, crossed the Ohio at Shawneetown, where there was a safe ferry; and thence to St. Louis, which was one hundred and forty miles distant, there was a road that was good in fair weather. Our band of missionaries completed this part of their long journey from Baltimore in seven days ; but, much rain having fallen during the spring, the prai ries were quite wet, the water in many places being over their boot-tops. They were much tormented by the unaccustomed song and sting of mosquitoes, which swarm up from the lagoons of Southern Illinois in warm and rainy seasons. They lodged at the farmers' houses, which, at that period, were there " few and far be tween ;" and when this was not practicable, they would 2O HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. spread their pallets on the barn floor or in stable- loft The travellers reached the Mississippi just opposite St. Louis at one o'clock, p. M., on Saturday, May 31, 1823. They were deeply impressed with the grandeur of the " Great River," as the name " Mississippi " signi- fies, which was then high ; the water being level with its banks, while the main channel was covered with huge quantities of driftwood hurrying onward with the mighty current. 1 Now, after a wearisome journey of just six weeks from White Marsh, in Maryland, through the high mo- tives that impelled them, still dominant in their thoughts, it was a goodly sight to gaze upon St. Louis, with which they were to become, in some manner, identified ; and upon the mighty river down which the illustrious Mar- quette was the first to pass this scene, just one hundred and fifty years before that day, or in i6/3. 2 In the year 1823, St. Louis was merely a small fron- tier town of less than five thousand inhabitants. But from having been a village of Upper Louisiana, possess- ing no definite future promise, it was already giving evidences of new growth and commercial prosperity, 1 The Mississippi, which is now turbid aud muddy at all stages of high and low water, derives this quality of its waters from the Missouri, called Pekitanoui by the Indians ; that is, the muddy river. The muddy waters are contributed to the Missouri itself by the Milk River, whose mouth is about two hundred miles above that of the Yellowstone, and also, but in a less degree, by White Earth River, whose mouth is below that of the Yellowstone. Missouri was the name of an Indian tribe, now extinct, once dwelling on the shores of the river still bearing their name. 3 See appendix at end of chapter. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 21 especially since the purchase of Missouri by the United States, and the advent thither of the busy, restless, con- triving, thrifty Yankee, with the noise of his hammers and the clack of his machinery. 1 The day after the travellers arrived at St. Louis was Sunday, within the octave of Corpus Christi, and there was a procession of the Blessed Sacrament through the streets, with music and firing of cannon. Father Van Quickenborne carried the Blessed Sacrament in the pro- cession. The church was of brick, but it had never been finished. Near the church was the " college build- ing," in which dwelt five secular priests, who carried on a classical school therein, aided, when necessary, by some extra teachers. After the new-comers had dined with the hospitable priests at the college, Father Van Quickenborne rode his noble roan pacer out to Floris- sant that evening, accompanied by Father Lacroix, who had come in to meet him. As already stated, the Ladies of the Sacred Heart had a house and school at Florissant, which they first occupied near the end of the year 1819. Owing to the fact that the cabins on the farm donated by Bishop Dubourg to the Jesuits, about a mile and a half to the north-west of Florissant, were not yet vacated, arrangements were perfected to lodge the new-comers in the building used by the Ladies of the Sacred Heart for a day-school,, till possession of the cabins could be obtained. A day or two later, about 1 The intelligent and scholarly H. M. Breckenridge foretold, after visiting St. Louis in 1811, that its position would ultimately make of it a great city. See his "Views of Louisiana," published at Pittsburgh in 1814. St. Louis was first laid out and named in March, 1764, by Pierre Laclede Liguest. Col. August Chouteau had arrived February 15, 1764. 22 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. half the party went on from St. Louis to join Father Van Quickenborne at Florissant, and they were quickly followed by the remainder, all making the journey on foot, and the last ones reaching their destination on June 3d. They stopped midway to rest, eat a luncheon, and quench their thirst with the water of the historic Maligne Creek. 1 During their stay at the village of Florissant, in a house which served for school purposes and for their meals in the daytime, and for their lodg- ing at night, " the kind Ladies of the Sacred Heart," to use the words of the amiable Father Van Assche, uttered more than fifty years later, "imitated the raven of old, carrying bread to the hermitage of Paul in the desert; with the exception that they gave food three times a day, and not bread alone, as did the raven to Paul the Hermit, but several things besides, both wholesome and palatable." Florissant, or St. Ferdinand Township, was first set- tled shortly after St. Louis was founded. At the be- ginning of this century, the fields around the village supplied nearly all the grain purchased in the St. Louis market. Florissant Valley was famous from the begin- ning for its beauty and fertility. H. M. Breckenridge, whose " Views of Louisiana " were herein cited before, visited this spot in 1811, and speaks of it in terms of admiration : " Between St. Louis and the Missouri, with but trifling exceptions, the lands are of superior quality ; 1 There was a "Maligne River" in Canada, so named, perhaps, by the early missionaries. See this river as mentioned in the American Magazine of History, vol. for 1878, p. 697. The name seems to have been brought from Canada by some of the earlier settlers around Flor- issant, and given to this little stream because, in heavy rains, it rises to a great height, overflowing the adjacent lands and doing much damage; besides, it is then dangerous to ford it, " the maligne " or wicked creek. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 23 there are some beautiful spots, as the village of Floris- sant and the environs. No description can do justice to the beauty of this tract." x When this region was under the government of Spain, or before the end of the last century, and till a short while before it was transferred to the United States, Florissant was for a time the home of the Spanish in- tendant or governor. His dwelling, which was con- structed of cedar logs, planted upright on sleepers, into which they were firmly mortised, was torn down only a few years ago, its timbers being still perfectly sound. Its position was nearly in front of the present church at Florissant, and at a distance from it of little more than a hundred and fifty yards. This house was occupied by the Trappist monks in 1809, who had that year closed their two houses in Kentucky one in Nelson County, the other in Casey County and removed to Missouri. In 1810 these monks again moved, this time to " Look- ing-Glass Prairie," on Cahokia Creek, Illinois, and set- tled upon a mound, six miles from the present bridge at St. Louis, on the Collinsville Plank-road, this mound still bearing the name of " Monks' Mound." Sickness and loss by death, together with misfortune caused by fire, compelled the survivors to abandon this malarial district in the spring of 1813, and they then returned to France, whence they had originally come in 1804. Their prior, Rev. Joseph M. Dunand, remained seven years longer in America, or till 1820, residing most of this time at Florissant. Previous to the year 1805, or 1808, the French set- tlers of Missouri lived in villages, and cultivated com- 1 Views of Louisiana, Book II., chap. 2. 24 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. mon fields, a mode of living which they resorted to tor better protection against the Indians. They established separate and individual ownership of such property soon after Anglo-American emigrants first began to settle among them, and they were gradually intro- ducing the new system when Breckenridge travelled through this district in 1811. A fragment of local history is here appended, which may prove acceptable, however, even to the general reader interested in what concerns the celebrated Mar- quette. Father Douay, belonging to the party of La Salle, who passed this spot some eight years later than Mar- quette did, cast suspicions on Marquette's narrative of his discoveries, endeavoring to show that Marquette's diary was a mere fiction, made up of what he had learned by hearsay from the Indians about the great lakes. Marquette described some figures which he ':aw painted high up on a perpendicular cliff, just above the mouth of the Missouri. Father Douay, Recollet, saw paintings on a rock at what is now known as " Grand Tower," below St. Genevieve, where the river passes through a sort of gate in the original bluff. While there seems to be no tradition that any of the first French settlers of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, or Cahokia ever saw or knew of this painting at Grand Tower, yet the one seen by Marquette remained perfectly distinct till the rock on which he saw it was quarried down, a few years since. Father De Smet often stated that he heard an aged chief of the Pottawatomies, at Council HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 2$ Bluffs, in 1838, tell about this painting : it was a likeness of the piasa, which the chief explained as being, the bird that devours men. An island not far from Alton still bears the name Paysa, or Piasa ; and, according to the chief, it was a favorite haunt of this bird. He went on to tell how, " many thousand moons before the ar- rival of the white men, when the great mammoth that was slain by Nanabush still roamed over the wide grassy prairies, there existed a very large bird that could seize and carry off a full-grown deer in his talons as easily as a hawk could take up a wren. It once pounced upon an Indian brave, bore him off to a deep cavern under the neighboring cliffs, and there devoured him. From that time forth it would feed on none but human flesh'. In its voracity, it depopulated whole vil- lages of Illinois or Peewareas, nor could hundreds of stout warriors destroy it. At length a bold chief named Outaga, whose fame extended beyond the great lakes, was commanded by the great Manitou, who appeared to him in a dream, to single out twenty warriors, with bows and poisoned arrows, and by them the hungry piasa should be slain. They found the huge bird perched on the high rock that still bears his name and figure. All aimed their arrows at once, and the fearful bird, transfixed with twenty arrows, fell dead near the feet of the brave chief Outaga. And to this day, in the dark cavern near the rock Piasa, are heaped the bones of many thousand Indians, whose flesh was food for the insatiable maw of this winged monster." I learned from Mr. J. W. Wise, of Alton, that this rock with the painting was at the upper end of Alton, and it was quarried down for lime-kilns by a stone- mason from St. Louis, in 1866 and 1867. He added, 26 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. that " there was but one figure, a dragon ; it was painted at the distance of about fifteen or twenty feet below the top of the cliff, about sixty feet above the base, and the base was some twenty feet above ordinary high water." Mr. Henry Le Sieur, a native of Portage des Sioux, which is eight miles above Alton, thus writes, December 13, 1873 : " My impression was that the figure represented a griffin or dragon. Mr. Wise says that there was but one figure, although some say that there was a small figure in front of the large one ; I will add to his de- scription, that it was a pale red. It was exposed to the storms coming from the south-west, which must have gradually washed off the paint ; besides, the face of the rock was much marked with bullets. I have heard my father, who often passed it in company with fleets of Indian canoes, say that the Indians invariably discharged all their guns at it when they passed. That was in the latter part of the last century. None of them at that time had any knowledge as to when it had been made. They said it was a Manitou, and they seemed to have a dread of it, as inimical to the Indian, vengeful, and threatening evil." This was, doubtless, the very painting seen by Mar- quette in 1673 : an enduring proof of his truthfulness, and that it was unjustly impugned by some of the early explorers, who were over-anxious to win renown. CHAPTER III. THEY TAKE POSSESSION OF THEIR FARM SCHOOL FOR INDIAN BOYS BEGUN PORTAGE DES SIOUX AND ST. CHARLES THEY ARE INVITED BY BISHOP ROSATI TO OPEN A COLLEGE IN ST. LOUIS, WHICH THEY CONSENT TO UNDERTAKE. FATHER VAN QUICKENBORNE and companions took pos- session of their farm in June, 1823, Mr. O'Neil, mag- istrate of Florissant, having moved from it for the purpose, kindly ceding his right to retain it longer, al- though his lease had not expired. The land lying north- west of Florissant slopes gently upward from Cold Water Creek, near the village, till it reaches the highest table of the bluffs overlooking the Missouri River, two and a half miles away. Commencing at the upland, a mile from the river, and declining south-east towards St. Louis, lay the pretty little farm now to be their home, and on one of the highest and most lovely spots of all of this scene of rich prairie and rolling woodland stood the humble cabin which was to shelter them. The prospect from this elevated position is both extensive and beautiful, reaching far over the charming valley in which the village is embosomed, to the town of St. Charles, on the banks of the Missouri, seven miles dis- tant, and to the white line of rolling cliffs, crowned with trees, that stretch upward from Alton along the Missis- sippi River. Throughout this entire Florissant Valley (27) 28 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. the soil is of inexhaustible richness, rewarding even moderate care and industry with plentiful crops of corn, wheat, timothy, and every variety of garden vegetables suited to the climate ; moreover, it is not only a pleas- ant district to live in, but it is very healthy, as the nu- merous instances of longevity among the people there spending their long lives conclusively show. The dwelling given up to them by 'Squire O'Neilwas a log cabin containing one room, which was sixteen by eighteen feet in dimensions ; and over it was a loft, but not high enough for a man to stand erect in it, except when directly under the comb of the roof. This poorly lighted and ill-ventilated l loft, or garret, was made the dormitory of the seven novices, their beds consisting of pallets spread upon the floor. The room below was divided into two by a curtain, one part being used as a chapel, and the other serving as bedroom for Fathers Van Quickenborne and Timmermans. This main room of the cabin had a door on the south-east side, or front ; a large window on the north-west side, without sash or glass, but closed with a heavy board shutter ; on the south-west side it had a small window, with a few panes of glass ; and finally, on the north- east side was a notable chimney, with a fireplace having a capacity for logs of eight feet in length. At the distance of about eighty feet to the north-east of this dwelling were two smaller cabins, some eight feet apart, one of which was made to serve both as study-hall for the novices, and as common dining-room for the community ; the other was used as kitchen, and for lodging the negroes. These rude struc- 1 There was one opening, or little window, which had the appearance, when seen from the outside, of a port-hole. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 2Q tures were covered with rough boards, held in place by weight poles ; the floors were " puncheons," and the doors were of riven slabs, and their wooden latches were lifted with strings hanging outside. Such were the log cabins of the western pioneer, which were now to be the home, the novitiate, the sem- inary of the first Jesuits who came to Missouri. All these priests and novices had been brought up in plenty and comfort in their native land, and some of them in affluence, with the accomplishments and refinements of highly cultivated society. They renounced all in order to become disciples of our Lord, and teach his saving doctrine to the benighted savages roaming over the prairies of the Far West ; and they prepared for this evangelical work by imitating their Master's poverty and humility. Their journey from Maryland had ex- hausted their money, and but for the assistance given them by the charitable Madame Duchesne, of the Sacred Heart Convent at Florissant, who furnished them food, bedding, and various objects most necessary for the household, their condition would have been that of ex- treme suffering. In front of the house was an orchard of good fruit ; beyond the orchard was a field containing about thirty acres of cultivated land, and at the distance of half a mile still further on was a second field of fertile land, bordering on Cold Water Creek. The portion of the farm to the rear, or north-west of the house, was still covered with primeval forest, extending back to the Missouri River, and the rest of the land was overrun with hazel thickets, interspersed with clumps of stunted oak, and here and there with lawns or small meadows of wild prairie-grass. 30 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY Father Van Quickenborne saw at once the necessity of providing more ample house-room. Accordingly, it was resolved that a second story should be added to the principal cabin, the entire house should be sur- rounded by a gallery, the second story of which could partly be made into rooms, and the work of building- was to be done by themselves. It was determined also that a two-story wing to the house, thus enlarged, should be erected ; and they began to dig a cellar for this wing on July 31, 1823. As the 3ist of July, feast of St. Ignatius, is observed with special religious solemnity by the Jesuit Society, they chose that festival for the cere- mony of religiously inaugurating their work, in order to place it under the auspices of their holy founder. The day was begun with a High Mass in the parish church at Florissant, which was well filled with people ; and during the Mass, or after the gospel, an eloquent panegyric of St. Ignatius was preached by Rev. Mr. Niel, of the college in St. Louis, who had come out to Florissant for that purpose on the preceding day. When divine service was finished, the Jesuits, accompanied by Fathers Niel and Lacroix, adjourned to the new home at the farm, where they sat down to a plentiful dinner, furnished mainly by kind Madame Duchesne, their refec- tory being for that occasion the barn, their only spa- cious room. In the afternoon, each person took one shovelful of earth from the spot where the cellar was to be commenced on the following day. It was sub- sequently remembered, to the honor of Mr. Van Assche, that he was the most skilful with the mattock and shovel, while Mr. De Smet excelled all others with the axe in felling trees and chopping logs in the woods. They went to an island in the Missouri River, a short HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY, 3! distance above the Charbonniere, 1 to cut the timber for their new house and for an additional story to the old one. It was often mentioned afterwards, and even a half century later, by Father Van Assche and others then sur- viving, as a remarkable circumstance, that on the very night after they had hauled away the last load of timber needed for their buildings, this island was totally washed away by the current of the Missouri, not a vestige of it being left. 2 It is well known that this wonderful river, especially when swollen with the waters of the " moun- tain rise," often makes great encroachments on its banks, forms new islands, and sweeps away old ones with sur- prising suddenness. Shortly after the little community was settled at their farm-house, the Rev. Charles De Lacroix made over to Father Van Quickenborne the new church of Florissant, and he departed for Louisiana ; Father Van Quicken- borne was, at the same time, made spiritual director of the Sacred Heart community in the village. The cor- ner-stone 3 of the church at Florissant had been laid by Father De Lacroix, on February 19, 1821, and the stone 1 The Charbonniere is a bluff on the Missouri River, some two hun- dred and fifty or three hundred feet in height, and it is little more than a mile from the novitiate. It is so called from the fact that a stratum of stone-coal underlies it; but as this layer of coal is nearly on a level with the surface of the water in the river, and is also of inferior quality, it has been little worked. 2 Just above the Charbonniere there is visible, in low water, a bed of reddish stone, which extends far out into the river. On this rock, it would seem, the island referred to may have been seated, or, at least, lodged against it. 3 The corner-stone of a brick church had been laid in St. Louis on October 18, 1818, by Bishop Dubourg, to replace the old post or log church. The architect was Mr. Gabriel Paul; the carpenter, Hugh O'Neil, senior. It was never plastered nor ceiled. 32 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. for the purpose was presented by Madame Duchesne ; it contained the following record, but it was expressed in the Latin language: "On this February 19, A. D. 1821, I, Charles De Lacroix, by permission of Right Rev. Bishop Valentine Louis William Dubourg, laid the corner-stone of this church, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, under the invocation of St. Ferdinand and St. Francis Regis ; Madame Duchesne, superioress, having donated the said corner-stone, Madame Octavia Berthold and Madame Eugenia Aude being present, as also the pupils, and many persons from the village." This church had not been finished in 1823; it was finally dedicated by Bishop Rosati, on September 5, 1832. St. Charles 1 congregation and that of Portage des Sioux had already been committed to the care of Father Timmermans before the departure of Father De Lacroix from Florissant. The first entry made by Father Timmermans at Portage des Sioux was dated June 13, 1823; on that day he baptized Francois Rive, and on the same day he joined in wedlock John C. Evans and Theresa Saucier. The first record at St. Charles was that of a funeral, on July 14, 1823; the first baptism, that of William Manley, July 29, 1823. Mr. Francis Maillet and Brother Charles Strahan sepa- 1 There is a tradition that the now extinct tribe of Indians named Missouri formerly had their chief village where the town of St. Charles is at present. The Missouris, having learned that the Sioux were to attack them, formed an ambuscade at the mouth of the Missouri River, expecting their enemies to pass that point. The Sioux crossed the Mis- sissippi at the place now called Portage des Sioux; then passing over the portage, or narrow neck of land between the two rivers, destroyed the village of the Missouris ; thence going down the river, they attacked the ambuscade, and on this occasion the fierce Sioux nearly exterminated the entire race of Missouris. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 33 rated from the Jesuit Society shortly after their arrival in Missouri, and entered a different walk in life ; discour- aged, it may be, by the hardships and the extreme pov- erty endured at the new St. Stanislaus Novitiate, near Florissant. 1 Father Timmermans died on June 1st of the following year, or in 1824 ; and thus the number in the community was reduced to nine members. In 1825, Father De Theux and Brother O'Connor, from Maryland, were added to the little household ; the former having been sent to teach theology and give as- sistance to Father Van Quickenborne in various priestly offices. In 1827, James A. Yates and George Miles, both natives of Kentucky, were admitted as novices, and they were the first novices received in the new mission. No scholastic novice there entered till after the separa- tion of the Missouri mission from the province of Mary- land, which took place, by a decree of the General, Father Roothaan, dated September 25, 1830, when the Missouri mission was made subject immediately to the General of the Jesuit Society. This new arrangement was not actually perfected, however, till the beginning of 1831, or on February 24th of that year, when Father De Theux was installed superior of the Western mis- sion. It was manifest that before any important work could be undertaken among the Indian tribes, it was neces- sary first to train and educate the young men, now six in number, for the priesthood. Yet Father Van Quick- enborne was of opinion that, while pursuing their studies, the young men could, not only without injury, but 1 In the immediate neighborhood this place still retains its original name, "The Priests' Farm." 3 34 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. even with some advantage to themselves, devote a por- tion of their time to teaching Indian boys; and since the United States government had agreed to allow a compensation in money for each Indian boy boarded and taught, this occupation would, at the same time, increase their scanty means of living. Accordingly, two Indian boys, Aloways, were received from St. Louis in 1824; and a little later, three others from the wild tribes in Missouri were placed under their charge by the superintendent of those tribes. In order to provide for a still greater number, Father Van Quickenborne erected a two-story frame building, about forty by thirty feet ii dimensions, for the exclusive use of Indian boys. An arrangement was also made with the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, in Florissant, to take charge of Indian girls; and thus, in the year 1825, two schools were opened for the reception of Indian children, wherein they might learn the principles and the manners of civilized and Christian life. In 1827 there were fourteen Indian children at the seminary for boys ; and there were about an equal number of Indian girls with the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, at Florissant. The majority of these chil- dren were half-breeds, and they belonged to the Chero- kee tribe, bands of which still remained around Portage des Sioux and St. Charles. 1 Messrs. J. B. Smedts and P. J. Verhaegen were raised to the priesthood near the beginning of 1825, at the Seminary of the Barrens, in Perry County, Missouri, by Bishop Rosati; and in September, 1827, Messrs. P. J. 1 Kenry Schoolcraft, on his way to Chicago, in 1821, where Gov. Cass was to meet the Pottuwatomie and Ottawa Indians in council, to form a "treaty" with them, found a large number of the Fox Indians encamped near Portage des Sioux, on August 4, 1821. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 35 De Smet, J. F. Van Assche, J. A. Elet, and F. L. Ver- reydt were ordained priests by the same prelate, in the church at Florissant. As there were now eight priests at St. Stanislaus Novitiate, it was decided that Fathers Verreydt and Smedts should reside at St. Charles, where a new stone church, begun in 1825, had just been completed ; and from this residence they were to at- tend Portage des Sioux, Hancock Prairie, Dardenne, and other small stations. During this year, 1 827, Father Van Quickenborne went on his first missionaiy excur- sion to the Osage tribe of Indians, beyond the borders of Missouri, and at an estimated distance of five hun- dred miles from Florissant. He subsequently paid two other visits to this tribe, one in 1829, and the other in 1830, with a view of starting schools and a missionary residence among them. It was not till the spring of 1847, however, that the Jesuits actually began to reside among the Osage Indians. They then founded a school for Indian boys, and one for the girls, of which the Sisters of Loretto in Kentucky took charge. This mis- sion was established by Rev. John Schoenmakers and Rev. John Bax, with three lay brothers, first arriving at the spot on April 29, 1847. In the year 1827 the Provincial of Maryland, Father Dzierozynski, made an official visit to the house near Florissant ; he was most favorably impressed with the prospect of the " Indian Seminary," and the similar school for girls conducted by the Ladies of the Sacred Heart in Florissant, and he commended both of them highly to Father Van Quickenborne, and in his letter to the General of the Society, Father Fortis. A few of the most respectable white families of St. Louis, as 36 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. well as some of other localities, sent their sons to the "Indian Seminary" in 1828, for want of any better school accommodations at that period. But both these schools for Indian children had already reached the acme of their prosperity. Despite all their persevering efforts to make these Indian schools a success, there were never more than fourteen children in either of them at one time. As they rather declined than im- proved after the year 1828, the one for boys was finally closed for good in the year 1830. Though the special purpose of Father Van Quicken- borne and companions in coming to Missouri had been to spend their lives in the work of civilizing and Chris- tianizing the Indian tribes dwelling within the Territory, under the spiritual jurisdiction of Bishop Dubourg, yet a few years sufficed to convince them that no great or permanent results could ever be accomplished among the indolent, wandering, and indocile aborigines of the woods and prairie, which would at all compensate for sacrificing all their energies and resources in exclusive attention to the savages. They came to the conclu- sion, therefore, that more solid and lasting good might be done among the white population than with the wellnigh indomitable red man. It was then they first began to consider the feasibility of establishing a college in St. Louis for higher education; and this project was still more pressed on their attention after the " St. Louis College," conducted by secular priests, had been altogether discontinued, in the summer of 1826. It was not then, nor was it subsequently, their intention to give up their original design of having schools and missions among the Indians ; but they now HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 37 came to the conclusion that works of zeal among the white population might be even advantageously com- prehended within the scope of their aims. After the Ladies of the Sacred Heart had arranged to commence an academy in St. Louis, where they first went to reside on May 2, 1827, a desire was generally expressed among the people of the city, and throughout the State of Missouri, that the Jesuit Fathers should likewise start a college in St. Louis for the education of young men. Many urged that the fathers should not confine their efforts for the welfare of -religion and sound education to the Indians, for whom little genuine and enduring good was at all likely to be effected. Bishop Rosati also concurred in this view of the mat- ter, and insisted on the expediency of their beginning a college in St. Louis, where, he assured them, an institu- tion of the kind was much needed, and, moreover, the undertaking was sure to prove successful. These various considerations definitively and finally determined the Jesuit Fathers, in 1828, to open a col- lege in St. Louis so soon as necessary preparations for such a work could be completed. The beneficent gen- tleman, John Mullanphy, who had donated twenty-five acres of land in the southern limits of St. Louis to the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, for an academy, to which he annexed the condition that they should support per- petually twenty orphan girls, made also an offer of de- sirable property in St. Louis to Father Van Quicken- borne for a college, and the proposed gift was coupled with a like condition ; but Father Van Quickenborne was not willing to receive property, even as a donation, that was subject to any condition which would bind his successors in office, and which it might afterwards be- 38 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. come difficult or odious to fulfil in a college designed for higher education. The bishop of the diocese made over to the Jesuit Fathers a lot on Ninth Street and Christy Avenue, which had been given by Jeremiah Conners, then de- ceased, towards founding a college in St. Louis. The remaining portion of the square west of Ninth Street, bounded by Washington Avenue and Christy Avenue, together with about two-thirds of the next square im- mediately west, between Tenth and Eleventh Streets, was subsequently purchased for the college ; the entire premises having a front on Washington Avenue of four hundred and seventy-five feet. The only impediment to their beginning the proposed college in St. Louis at this time was the smallness of their number; for, in the year 1828, there were belong- ing to the Jesuit Mission of Missouri only eight priests and six lay brothers, of whom three were novices. 1 Two of the priests were then residing at St. Charles, and the services of the remaining ones were needed for the seminary near Florissant, the congregation in the village with its annexed stations, and for missionary ex- cursions to the Indian tribes, for whose spiritual welfare they were very desirous to provide, since it was princi- pally with a view to such employment they had come to the West. But despite all discouraging circum- stances and difficulties in the way of their new under- taking to promote the interests of education, they finally 1 In the year 1832 the number of members had increased to nineteen, of whom eleven were priests, one was a scholastic, and seven were lay brothers. In 1834 there were twenty-four members, twelve priests, six scholastics, and six lay brothers, James Yates, having died Febru- ary I, 1833. > OF THE *^V NIVERSITY 1 OF J ^ i ~-^^ HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 39 determined to begin the erection of a building for the college. The foundation was commenced, in the au- tumn of 1828, of a building fifty feet in length by forty feet in width, and three stories high, besides a basement and attic ; it fronted south, towards the public road lead- ing out of the town to St. Charles. The site of the col- lege was then surrounded by weedy ponds, groves of sorry oak, and suburban farms ; the city at that time scarcely extending beyond Third Street, the " Rue des Granges," or the Barn Street of primitive days. During the session of the "Indian Seminary" near Florissant, 1828-29, there were about fifteen white boys, sons of respectable parents in St. Louis, and some from other localities, who were placed there to be educated. The register of the St. Louis University includes the names of the students who entered the seminary at Florissant, as they were transferred to the college in St. Louis, when it was ready for the reception of stu- dents, in 1829. The first name was recorded June 12, 1828, and it was "Charles P. Chouteau, aged eight years." The records begun at the " Indian Seminary" also contain the names, Francis Cabanne, Julius Ca- banne, Du Thil Cabanne, John Shannon, William Boil- vin, Bryan Mullanphy, Francis Bosseron, Julius Clark, Howard Christy, Alexander La Force Papin, Edmond Paul, Edward Chouteau, Thomas Forsyth, and Paul A. F. Du Bouffay. CHAPTER IV. FROM THE YEAR 1829 TO THE YEAR 1836 ORGANIZA- TION OF THE COLLEGE IN ST. LOUIS ITS RAPID GROWTH NEED OF COMPETENT TEACHERS, ES- PECIALLY FOR THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE HELP SENT FROM MARYLAND GIVES A NEW IMPETUS APPLICATION TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MIS- SOURI FOR A CHARTER OF INCORPORATION. THE building was completed sufficiently for use, and all preparations were perfected in time to organize classes in the new college on Monday, November 2, 1829. Rev. P. J. Verhaegen was chosen to be the first "president of the St. Louis College ;" and among the staff of professors and officers appointed to aid him in the new enterprise were Rev. P. J. De Smet, who be- came so illustrious in succeeding years as a missionary among the Indians of the Rocky Mountains, and Rev. J. A. Elet, whose affability and pleasing manners made his presence always agreeable to the young men under his care. As Fathers Verreydt and Smedts were then residing at St. Charles, and Father Van Assche was in charge of the congregation at Florissant, 1 only three of 1 The first baptism there registered by Father Van Assche was en- tered on April 19, 1829. He resided at the novitiate, where Father De Theux was then superior; he walked to the village on Sundays, to say Mass and do other parochial duties, and then walked home to (40) HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 4! the young priests could be spared for duty in the col- lege. Brother James Yates taught some rudimentary classes, and at a later date Rev. Peter Walsh, then a novice, taught some of the higher branches. During the first few years after the college was opened, several extra teachers were engaged to take charge of the classes in English and mathematics ; they were Thomas B. Taylor, John Servary, Benjamin Eaton, Bartholomew McGowan, and Jeremiah Langton. On the first day there entered ten boarders and thirty externs, or day-scholars ; within a few weeks the number of boarders was increased to thirty, and the number of day-scholars enrolled was one hundred and twenty ; or, there were one hundred and fifty pupils in all, a num- ber rather more than sufficient for their limited room. 1 After this time there was little variation in the total number of students for two years, or till the year 1831. Meanwhile it had become manifest to all that ample room should be provided, and it was also apparent to the president and his advisers that additional strength was required in the faculty of teachers. Before the end of 1831 it was decided to erect an additional house, 40x40, at the east end of the main building already oc- cupied, and work was begun on this wing early in the year 1832. The new house was ready for occupancy at the beginning of the next summer. breakfast, returning on foot to the village for vespers in the evening. This practice was changed in 1832 by Father Kenny, visitor, and thence- forth Father Van Assche resided at Florissant. 1 Mr. Peter Poursine, of New Orleans, Louisiana, in a letter of Feb- ruary I, 1879, says, referring to himself : " The writer was the first student from Louisiana to enter the St. Louis College, his arrival dating February 2~, 1830, at which time the college building was not yet finished, the students having to ascend to the different stories by means of ladders." 42 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. On October 24, 1831, Rev. James Van de Velde reached St. Louis, preceded a few days by Father Van Lommel and Mr. Van Sweevelt, a scholastic ; they had been sent from Maryland to assist in the new college, as professors. 1 Father Van de Velde had as compan- ions from Maryland, Father McSherry, Provincial of Maryland, and Father Kenny, visitor. Father Kenny was a pious and sagacious man, and one remarkable for his goodness and charity to all persons ; he was sent by the General of the Society to inspect the affairs of the Western mission, and give counsel and direction in per- fecting the organization of its different establishments, then growing rapidly in importance and influence. Father Van de Velde soon became prominent in St. Louis as a pulpit orator, and as a highly cultivated scholar. At the beginning of 1832 he was deputed to visit Louisiana, with a view of making the institution more generally known, especially in that State, and in the towns and cities along the Mississippi. His journey through Louisiana and Mississippi produced the effect intended ; for during the following spring, and before the close of the session, in July, 1832, there were registered twenty-one additional boarders from Louisiana alone, while the number of boarders at the beginning of the next session, on September 7, 1832, had augmented far beyond all anticipation. The num- ber of day-scholars was found to be diminished, in comparison with what it had been at the opening of the previous session ; this difference arising, no doubt, mainly from the circumstance that other good schools were established in St. Louis during that year, but in 1 After the accession of this reinforcement there were at the college, in all, ten members of the Jesuit Society. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 43 part, also, from the fact that the classes and collegiate exercises were arranged exclusively with a view to the boarders. After the organization of classes for the session begin- ning September, 1832, the faculty was convinced that the " St. Louis College " supplied a want in the valley of the Mississippi, and that its permanent success as an institution was reasonably assured. Encouraged by this conviction, the president and faculty decided to petition the General Assembly of Missouri for a charter, making the institution a perpetual corporation, and empowering it to confer the usual collegiate honors and degrees. In order to give it capability of the greatest usefulness in promoting higher education, it was deemed expedient by the president and faculty of the St. Louis College, and it was also the counsel of their friends, to secure, if practicable, a university charter, which would enable them to combine under it the faculties of law, medi- cine, and theology, with the literary and scientific de- partments, if at some future day so comprehensive a system of studies should be found advantageous. The Legislature of the State, after maturely deliber- ating over each provision, finally granted the charter, substantially as in the petition of the faculty, by a special act of that body, signed by the governor of the State, on December 28 ,1832. The petition was signed by P. J. Verhaegen, Theodore De Theux, P. W. Walsh, C. F. Van Quickenborne, and James Van deVelde, and they constituted the first corporation. The charter, of St. Louis University, 1 as approved by the State Legislature, is as follows : 1 Laws of Missouri from 1824 to 1836, Vol. II., p. 298. 44 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. "An act to incorporate the St. Louis University. " Whereas it is represented to the General Assembly that a literary institution, called the St. Louis College, has for several years past been in successful operation near the city of St. Louis, sustained and conducted by the voluntary association and private resources of indi- viduals, without the aid of government : And whereas the president of the said college, in behalf of himself and the other professors and managers thereof, has solicited an act of incorporation, by the name and style of the St. Louis University: Now, in order to encourage learning, to extend the means of education, and to give dignity, permanency, and usefulness to the said institu- tion, "Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, That P. J. Verhaegen, Theod. de Theux, P. W. Walsh, C. F. Van Quickenborne, and James Van de Velde, be and they are hereby constituted and ap- pointed trustees of the said literary institution, by the name and style of the St. Louis University, and by that name shall be a body corporate, shall have per- petual succession and a common seal, may contract and be contracted with, grant and receive, sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded, in all courts and places. SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, That when a vacancy shall happen in the board of trustees, by death, resigna- tion, removal, or otherwise, the remaining trustees, or a majority of them, shall have full power and authority to appoint a suitable person to fill such vacancy ; and may at their discretion appoint an additional number of trus- tees, whenever in their judgments the exigencies of the institution may require such an increase ; and all trustees HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 45 so appointed shall have the same rights, powers, and privileges as if they were named in this act. SEC. 3. Be it further enacted, That the person first named herein, or, in case of his absence, the next named, shall give notice of the time and place of the first meet- ing of the board of trustees ; and, on the attendance of a majority thereof, they shall appoint a president, and adopt such regulations for their own government as they may deem expedient. SEC. 4. Be it further enacted, That the board of trus- tees shall have full power to receive, hold, manage, and govern all the property of the St. Louis University, real, personal, and mixed ; to appoint all such officers and servants as they shall judge convenient and useful, and to displace the same ; to remove a trustee for any cause which they may deem sufficient, two-thirds of the whole number concurring; to define the qualifications of a trustee; to enact and enforce all such statutes and ordi- nances as they shall judge convenient and useful, as well for the better management of the revenues and pro- prietory interest of the university as for the advance- ment of learning, so that the same shall not be repugnant to the la\vs of the land nor injurious to the rights of conscience; to distinguish merit by such literary honors and rewards as they may judge proper; and generally to have and enjoy all the powers, rights, and privileges usually exercised by literary institutions of the same rank. SEC. 5. Be it further enacted, That a majority of the whole number of trustees for the time being shall be a quorum, and be capable of exercising all the powers and transacting all the business of the board. SEC. 6. Be it further enacted, That the said board 46 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY of trustees shall keep a fair record of all its corporate acts, and shall lay a copy thereof before the General Assembly, or either house thereof, whenever required so to do. And the General Assembly reserves to itself the right and power to alter or repeal this charter whenever it shall be of opinion that the said university has failed to accomplish the beneficent purposes for which it was created. " This act shall take effect and be in force from and after the passage thereof. "Approved December 28th, 1832." " State of Missouri. " I certify that the foregoing is a correct copy of the original roll now on file in the office of Secretary of State. " In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my official seal, at the City of Jefferson, the 1 8th of Jan., A. D. 1833. i , [Signed] "JOHN C. EDWARDS, " Secretary of State" The following amendment was made to this act of incorporation by the Legislature of Missouri, in the year 1851 : "An act amendatory of 'An act to incorporate the St. Louis University,' approved December 28, 1832. "Be it enacted by t/ie General Assembly of the State of Missouri, as follows : "SEC. I. That the said 'St. Louis University* shall be in law capable of holding, purchasing, and conveying any estate, real, personal, or mixed, for the use of the said corporation for educational purposes ; and shall HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 4/ hold, use, and enjoy, in its corporate capacity, all the property, real, personal, or mixed, which the said uni- versity or its trustees now have, or may hereafter acquire, for the purposes aforesaid. " SEC. 2. The General Assembly reserve the right to repeal or modify this act, and that of which it is amend- atory, whenever it believes said St. Louis University has failed to accomplish the beneficent purposes of its institution. "This act to take effect and be in force from and after its passage. 1 " Approved 28th February, 1851." The sections of this amendment were drawn up by A. J. P. Garesche, of St. Louis, Missouri. A regular faculty was finally organized under the charter, on April 3, 1833, w ^h Rev. P. J. Verhaegen as " rector of the St. Louis University," that being the style by which the institution was incorporated. Among the people of St. Louis, however, the university is commonly known, even at the present day, only by its original name, " The College." It was in 1832 that the Asiatic cholera first made its appearance in some of the Western States, as an epi- demic, signaled beforehand by sporadic cases. At its first visitation to St. Louis, in 1832, it was of a virulent type ; it was of a milder character when it returned, in 1833. During the period of its greatest fatality, the boarders were removed from the St. Louis University to the novitiate near Florissant. The ravages of this terrible scourge were severe in St. Louis ; it was all the more dreaded, because even the most experienced phy- Laws of Missouri, 1851, p. 439. 48 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. sicians knew neither the true pathology of this destroy- ing plague from the East Indies, nor any certain reme- dies for the relief of those attacked by it. During the prevalence of the cholera in the city, the reverend gen- tlemen of the college were unremitting in their exer- tions to aid and comfort those stricken by the strange ailment, visiting the houses of the afflicted, and afford- ing such relief and encouragement as they best could. No inmate of the college was attacked by the disease ; a preservation for which they offered public thanks to God when the pest had disappeared. During this gloomy period, when the Asiatic cholera was raging in St. Louis, one of those remarkable tor- nadoes which now and then cause so much ruin in the Western and Southern States passed over a wide belt of Missouri, then taking St. Charles and St. Louis in its track towards the north-east. Its path through the forests was marked by an opening covered with trees levelled to the ground, uprooted by the wind, or riven to splinters by the lightning ; and across the farms by grain-fields made bare, by houses unroofed, or else razed to the foundation, without a vestige left to mark the spot where they had stood. This cyclone did much havoc in St. Louis ; but though the college building rocked to the storm's terrific force, yet it suffered no damage, save the loss of one chimney-top. The students, who were overcome with fright, had hud- dled together into one group, when Father Verhaegen, whose first thought was of them, hurried from his room to their presence, where his fatherly voice at once calmed their fears, and emboldened them to await the issue resolutely. Despite these and other calamities, making the year HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 49 1833 memorable, the Rev. P. J. Verhaegen and the trustees of the university saw at the opening of the next session, in the following September, that even the additional building, which had been completed during the year 1832, did not afford room sufficient for the increasing number of their boarders. In order to sup- ply this want, the western wing was begun towards the end of this year, and it was made ready for use by the beginning of the next summer, that of 1834; and this, despite the inauspicious circumstance that a portion of its walls tumbled down just when preparations were made to put on the roof timbers, the accident being caused by defective masonry. This necessitated an entire renewal of the faulty walls from their very foundation. Kind benefactors in St. Louis had contributed nearly five thousand dollars towards erecting the first build- ing. a large sum of money in that day. In erecting the additional buildings the eastern wing and the western wing they were helped by the Association for the Propagation of Faith, then recently established at Lyons, in France ; and also by generous friends of the faculty and professors in Belgium. The records show that in January, 1834, there were twenty-four Jesuits in the Missouri mission ; of these, twelve were priests, six were scholastics, and six were lay brothers. Of the entire number, ten were at the St. Louis University ; there were at that time fifteen pro- fessors and tutors engaged at the university, and of these, eight were members of the Jesuit Society, and the remaining seven were externs receiving compensa- tion for their services. During the year 1834, the British government donated 50 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. to the library of the St. Louis University nearly a hun- dred large folio volumes, containing the ancient statutes of the realm, various state papers, the famous Domesday Book, with its index, etc., all reprinted from their origin- als by order of the government. The following injunc- tion is printed at the beginning of each volume : "This book is to be perpetually preserved in the library of St. Louis University. C. P. Cooper, Sec. Com. Pub. Rec., March, 1834." Early in the spring of 1834, Rev. J. A. Elet was sent from the university to the South, in order to spread information concerning this institution, its special ad- vantages for boarders, etc., and to obtain additional students, especially from among the French population of Louisiana. He returned, reaching St. Louis on April 9th, accompanied by thirty-three students, and these were speedily followed by seventeen others, making a total increase of fifty students, nearly all from Louisiana. At the beginning of May, there were at the university one hundred and forty boarders. When the annual commencement took place, on July 31, 1834, the first graduates of the institution received their diplomas ; the degree of Bachelor of Arts was then conferred on Messrs. Paul Auguste Fremon Du Bouffay and Peter A. Walsh ; the degree, Master of Arts, was conferred on Mr. John Servary : all three were citizens of Missouri. There was a further accession to the staff of Jesuit teachers and officers at the St. Louis University for the session beginning September, 1834; these additional members were Messrs. M. Pin and J. B. Emig. Mr. Emig, afterwards Father Emig, long remained at the institution, where he was eminently efficient, both as an HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 5 I officer and a professor ; it was through his influence that the Greek language was first introduced into the course of study. It was now seen by the directors of the institution that it was necessary still further to increase their house room; and accordingly a new building was projected, which was to stand on Washington Avenue. This ad- dition was made ready by the summer of 1835 ; the first story was used as a public chapel till the completion of St. Xavier church, in 1843; and after that time, service was still held in this chapel, for the benefit of the Ger- man Catholics, till St. Joseph's Church, on Biddle and Eleventh streets, was finished, in 1845. The trustees of the university, at a meeting held on September I, 1835, resolved to petition the United States government, through the Hon. Thomas H. Benton, for a grant of land towards establishing the in- stitution on a solid and permanent basis. Their request was not acceded to at Washington City ; and indeed, this establishment never received any public aid, nor has it an endowment derived from any source, but it is entirely dependent for its support on the regular fees of its students. At the same meeting of the trustees, held September I, 1835, it was also resolved that the rector of the uni- versity should confer with some gentlemen eminent in the medical profession, concerning the feasibility of forming a medical faculty and attaching the same to the St. Louis University. This project of having a medical faculty attached to the university was approved by the most eminent physicians of St. Louis, and by friends of all avocations in life. There were several pre- liminary consultations between the Medical Society of $2 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. St. Louis, represented by B. G. Farrar, H. Lane, and B. B. Brown on the one side, and the rector of the uni- versity, Rev. P. J. Verhaegen, on the other. It was not till October 5, 1836, that they finally came to a mutual agreement that there should be a medical faculty of the university. A constitution was drawn up in writing and sanctioned by both parties, after which the Medical Soci- ety selected the following eminent physicians as its first faculty: C. J. Carpenter, M.D., J. Johnson, M.D., Wm. Beaumont, M.D., E. H. McCabe, M.D., H. Lane, M.D., and H. King, M.D. But, though the medical faculty was appointed, and the prospectus of their lectures was pub- lished annually, with that of the university for the lit- erary department, the design was not actually carried into execution till the autumn of 1842, when the medi- cal department inaugurated its first course of lectures in a building erected for its use on Washington Ave- nue, west of Tenth Street. CHAPTER V. 18361843. ON March 24, 1836 Rev. P. J. Verhaegen was made superior of the Jesuit mission in Missouri. From this time forth, the superior of the mission no longer resided at the mother house, near Florissant ; but he made the university his home henceforth, as being more central and more easy of access. This arrangement continued after the mission was erected into a vice-province and a province ; and it is adhered to at this day. Besides the communities and residences to which the mother house at Florissant had already given origin, at St. Charles, in the village of Florissant, Portage des Sioux, and St. Louis, during this year 1836, the Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne established a residence and small com- munity among the Kickapoo Indians, on the Missouri River, at a point eight miles north of the spot on which Leavenworth City is built. The number of members attached to the Missouri mission at that time was thirty-seven. Several young men of ability and supe- rior education joined during the years 1835 and 1836, giving increased strength and efficiency to the corps of teachers in the university. Rev. P. J. Verhaegen having been appointed superior of the mission, the vacancy thereby caused in the office of president or rector of the university was filled by Rev. J. A. Elet, who became president at the opening (53) 54 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. of the next session, or in September, 1836. The scho- lastic year then beginning proved to be fully as pros- perous as any preceding one, the number of students being one hundred and forty-six. The board of trustees, at a meeting convened on May 3, 1836, resolved that Rev. P. J. Verhaegen, Rev. J. A. Elet, and Rev. Theodore De Theux should be con- stituted a committee to select and agree upon a suitable site outside of St. Louis, on which to erect buildings required for transferring the university thereto. The reason assigned by them for taking this step was, that the necessary quiet of the institution was about to be interfered with, since some houses had been put up recently in the very neighborhood of the university, and additional ones were likely to be erected in the near future. The locality chosen for this purpose by the committee was a farm, containing three hundred acres, on the Bellefontaine Road, three and a half miles from St. Louis, which had been purchased a short time previous by the university. They prepared the plan of their proposed buildings, and let out to a mason the contract for constructing the basement. When the foundation had been dug, this mason died, whereby the work stopped, and the contract with him became null. The execution of their undertaking was postponed to a future year, and at a later time the project was aban- doned altogether. The purchase of the land proved a fortunate investment of their money, however, for it became valuable in subsequent years, enabling the university to make many costly improvements on its premises in the city, to purchase valuable additions to its library, philosophical apparatus, and museum of natural history. The spot on which it was then decided HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 55 to build a new institution is now within the city limits, and is by no means a situation which possesses the advantages of that retirement or complete seclusion for the sake of which they at that time determined to move away from St. Louis. The excavation then made for a basement is still to be seen at a conspicuous point on " College Hill," in North St. Louis It was at the opening of the session in September, 1836, that the Rev. George A. Carrell became a member of the faculty, and was made professor of English literature. While each one among the first founders and professors of the university deserved a meed of praise, and of gratitude from friends of the institution, yet the Rev. James Van de Velde and the Rev. George Carrell were preeminent among them for superior literary attainments, and for their influence in giving a more elevated and learned tone to the college. Among the surviving students at the university in their day they are still remembered and honorably named, for the refined taste and polished scholarship manifested in all their lectures before the higher classes in the college halls, and in all their speeches to the general public. Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne, to whom, above all others, is due the credit of establishing the Jesuit mis- sion in Missouri, returned, in 1837, from the Kickapoo mission started by him the preceding year, near the grounds of the present Fort Leavenworth, and he went, to recuperate his strength, to Portage des Sioux, where Father Verreydt then resided. 1 But the hardships of 1 Father Verreydt built a brick church at Portage des Sioux in 1834 ; this church was burned down on January 9, 1879. The Jesuit fathers had charge of this church from the first part of June, 1823, till Septem- ber, 1875, when it was made over to the archbishop of St. Louis. 56 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. several years spent by him in border-life among the Indians had so shattered his constitution that no medi- cine and no kind attention could revive him, and he died at Portage des Sioux, on Thursday, August 17, 1837. His remains are interred on a little mound in the garden at St. Stanislaus novitiate, and they are now surrounded by those of nearly all his early companions in Missouri. A plain slab for a headstone, with a Latin inscription on it, serves both to mark his last resting-place and to record the main events of his very commendable life. The trustees of the university, at a meeting which was held on May 6, 1837, appointed a committee, of which Rev. James Van de Velde was made chairman, which was instructed to take time, and considerately " to specify what studies and acquirements shall hence- forth be deemed necessary for finishing the classical course, and being found qualified for taking the degree of A.B. in the St. Louis University." The committee offered their report on the 8th of the following Decem- ber; but it was amended and recommitted, with instructions to report also on the conditions to be prescribed for obtaining the higher degree of A.M., or Master of Arts. The report, as finally adopted by the board of trustees, on July 28, 1838, was as follows: "First, that the classical course shall comprehend a competent knowledge of the Greek, Latin, and English languages; of geography, use of globes, ancient and modern history, logic and principles of moral phi- losophy, including ethics and metaphysics ; of rhetoric and mathematics, including arithmetic, algebra, plane and solid geometry, trigonometry, surveying, mensura- tion, conic sections, and the principles of natural phi- losophy." It had been determined in a preceding year, HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 5/ and it was published in the prospectus of the institu- tion, that "the degree of A.M. is given to the alumni who, after having received the degree of A.B., shall have devoted two years to some literary pursuit." It was now further provided, "as to graduates of other colleges or universities that shall apply for the degree of A.M., it shall be required that they produce the diploma of A.B., and testimonials that, after their graduation, they have devoted at least two years to some literary pursuit." A knowledge of the branches specified in this schedule of studies was generally regarded, at that day, as essential for a liberal education ; and, therefore, they were then taught in all institutions professing to impart superior learning. But from what cause soever the change may have proceeded, it is an obvious and generally recognized fact that the present generation is far from esteeming so highly a knowledge of the Greek and Latin classics in the original tongues; whereas much more value is now set on the thorough study of applied mathematics, the physical sciences, the useful arts, and all the branches of positive and practical knowledge which contribute to the material progress of human society. In the year 1832, it had become necessary for Rev. P. J. De Smet, on account of protracted ill-health, to withdraw from the Jesuit mission of Missouri and return to his native land, Belgium, for change of air. After reaching his friends and the scenes of his youth in Brabant and East Flanders, he was mindful of his former companions in America ; he procured many valuable instruments for the department of physics in the St. Louis University, as also many volumes for the 58 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. library, and sent them as a donation: they were received on March 7, 1835. Although it was not his expectation, when leaving for Europe, ever to see the United States again, yet, his health having been com- pletely restored, he returned to Missouri in 1837, and, as is well known, made St. Louis his home during the entire remainder of his extraordinary life. Whilst he was absent in Europe, and after his donations were received, the trustees of the university entered on their records the following honorable tribute to him as a benefactor: " Whereas the board and faculty of the St. Louis Uni- versity are highly indebted to the liberality and exertions of the Rev. P. J. De Smet, for the splendid apparatus of physical and chymicai instruments received at the university on the 7th of March, 1834; " Resolved, That besides the special thanks already tendered by the board and faculty of the St. Louis University to said Rev. P. J. De Smet on receipt of the above-mentioned apparatus of physical and chymicai instruments, the register of the contributions to the Museum of St. Louis University be opened with a copy of this resolution, and his name be placed at the head of the list of contributors to the museum. " P. J. VERH^GEN. " JAMES VAN DE VELDE, Secretary. " ST. Louis UNIVERSITY, Sept. 5, 1836." Father De Smet's donation included, also, " a collec- tion of minerals, classified according to the system of Dr. Hauy," as mentioned in the " list of contribu- tors." The date of their arrival at St. Louis was not 1834, but 1835, and they were brought over to America HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. $9 along with the above-mentioned instruments, by Messrs. M. Oakley and P. Verheyden, who arrived in 1835. The register of the students for the years 1837 and 1838 shows that more than half of the entire number then at the institution were from the State of Louisiana ; and during the first ten years, dating from the begin- ning, in 1829, there were twelve graduates. The num- ber of members in the Jesuit mission of Missouri at the beginning of the year 1838 had increased to sixty-one, twenty-six of whom were at the mother house near Florissant, and nineteen at the St. Louis University. It was during this year, 1838, that Father De Smet began his remarkable career as a missionary among the Indians, his first work being to establish a residence among the Pottawatomies ' dwelling in the vicinity of Council Bluffs, which is in Iowa, and directly opposite the city of Omaha. The line of bluffs in Iowa, which are there distant about four miles from those in Ne- braska, on the opposite side of the river, was washed by the Missouri at that period. In the autumn of this year, several priests and scho- lastics were sent from the Missouri mission to Louisi- ana, to conduct St. Charles College, at Grand Coteau. 2 That institution remained attached to Missouri till the year 1848, when, such assistance being no longer neces- sary for the mission of New Orleans, the members who 1 They were a division of the Pottawatomie tribe, known as " Prairie Indians ;" they had hitherto been nomadic, and they had acquired no habits of civilized life. 2 The Ladies of the Sacred Heart had established a school near that place in 1821, on a spot donated for the purpose by Mrs. Charles Smith, in accordance with her husband's will. He was a Catholic, who had come from Maryland in 1803, and settled in this portion of Louisiana. 6O HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. had been sent thither returned to the Western mission. In January, 1839, Rev. Christian Hoecken and a com- panion took spiritual charge of the Pottawatomie In- dians, who had the previous year been transferred by the United States government from Michigan to Sugar Creek, about fifteen miles west of the Missouri border, in what is now the State of Kansas. Rev. Mr. Petit, a secular priest from Vincennes, Indiana, had accompa- nied the tribe from Michigan to their new home, in 1838, but he took sick, got as far as St. Louis on his return to Indiana, and died at the university, about the beginning of January, 1839. A suite of class-rooms was erected on Christy Avenue during the year 1 839, to accommodate the increased num- ber of students; the building was made one and a half stories, the attic being used temporarily as a dormitory. On December 3, 1839, the mission of Missouri was raised to the rank of a vice-province, and the official title of the superior was thereby changed to that of vice-provincial. During the year 1839, and the two or three years next succeeding it, the number of members in the vice- province increased rapidly, reaching one hundred and thirteen at the end of 1841. They were able, therefore, greatly to enlarge the field of their usefulness. It was in the year 1840 that Father De Smet made his first journey to the Rocky Mountains, and through Oregon, where he prepared the way for the numerous mission- aries who, in succeeding years, did so much for the wild tribes wandering over those regions. In the year 1840 the vice-provincial of Missouri agreed to accept from Bishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, the HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 6l Athenaeum, a college which had been established by Bishop Fenwick, and first opened for classes October 17, 1831. It having been made over to the vice- province of Missouri by Bishop Purcell, in 1840, Rev. J. A. Elet was installed its first president under its new organization. Accompanied by a body of professors, he had gone to Cincinnati and gotten all things in readi- ness to begin classes at the Athenaeum about the first of October. The name of the institution was changed to that of St. Xavier College ; it has retained this name to the present day, and under that name it was rechar- tered by the General Assembly of Ohio in 1869. In the spring of 1840 the corner-stone of St. Xavier Church, St. Louis, or, as it is better known to the pub- lic, " The College Church," was laid with solemn cere- mony, Rev. George A. Carrell addressing the people from the eastern balcony of the college. The church was dedicated and first opened for public service on Palm Sunday, 1843. When Rev. J. A. Elet was removed to Cincinnati, in 1840, Rev. James Van de Velde succeeded him as president of the St. Louis University. He remained in this office till the year 1843, when he was made vice- provincial of the Jesuit Society in Missouri. The literary culture of the superior classes in the university had never risen to so high a standard as it did during his term in office. Besides being thoroughly master of the Greek and Latin classics, he was able to speak and write several modern languages with elegance. But the best efforts of his life as a student had been spent in acquiring the English language, by the aid of its recognized models of taste and style, an undertaking which he accomplished with great success. His few 62 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. published essays and lectures might be proposed as samples of purity and accuracy of language, as well as of good taste, beauty, and refinement in the art of composition. Schools for the education of the Indian children at the mission on Sugar Creek, near the head-waters of Osage River, were established in 1841. The school for the Indian boys was taught by members of the Jesuit Society. In order to provide for the proper training of the girls, Father Verhaegen, who was the vice-provincial, applied to the Ladies of the Sacred Heart Society to delegate some of their members for this work, promising them, as inducements, much hard- ship and little human comfort. These were decisive motives for the zealous ladies, and in July, 1841, four of them, with Madame Lucille Mathevon as superior, went to the Pottawatomie mission, at Sugar Creek, and began a school for the Indian girls. Instead of teaching courtly manners to the children of the rich and great, as they could have done had they preferred it, these self-sacrificing religious women there spent many years of their lives, training sulky and indocile young savages in the first elements of human thought. During the year 1842, there occurred one of those financial crises which, in the United States, periodically disturb commercial employments, destroy general con- fidence, and produce that stagnation of all trades which often results in so much misery to the mass of the people. In order to accommodate themselves to the altered circumstances, the board of trustees, with the advice of Father Verhaegen, vice-provincial, reduced the fee for board and tuition at the university to $130 per session often months. Despite the stress of "hard HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 63 times," the classes were all full, the institution losing none of its wonted prosperity. The first lecture to the medical department of the St. Louis University was given to the students and a numer- ous audience of the public on March 28, 1842, by Pro- fessor Hall. The medical faculty was composed of able men ; but it was, perhaps, mainly through the influ- ence of the gifted and learned Dr. Moses L. Linton, and the eminent surgeon, Dr. Charles Pope, that the medical college became so successful, attracting numer- ous students from all the Western States. The following list of professors composed the medi- cal faculty for the session 1842-43: Daniel Brainard, M.D.; Joseph W. Hall, M.D. ; H. Augustus Prout, M.D. ; James V. Prather, M.D. ; Moses L. Linton, M.D. ; Joseph J. Norwood, M.D. ; Alvin Litton, M.D. The completion of St. Xavier Church, and its final dedication on Palm Sunday, 1843, st iM further aug- mented the moral power of the university in St. Louis and vicinity, where that influence was already great ; thus additional ties were formed, more closely binding to the establishment the affection of the older families in the city and county. It is worthy of mention that Father Van de Velde had insisted, when it was first decided to build St. Xavier Church, that it should front on Washington Avenue, foreseeing that, although Washington Avenue was then but a road leading out of the town, it would, in future time, become a principal street of the city; as all subsequent improvements made by the college would naturally have their front on this street, the entire property could be sold to better advantage, should it ever become necessary to move the institution 64 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. to another locality, further away from the stir and noise of business. The event proves that his counsel was sagacious, though it did not prevail. In 1843, St. Vincent's school for girls was estab- lished, on the corner of Tenth and St. Charles Streets ; it was started as a parochial school, but it became neces- sary, in order to subsist, to raise the school to a higher grade ; it was long known as " Sister Olympia's School." The property on which the school stood was given for the purpose by Mrs. Ann L. Hunt. On July 14, 1843, Rev. Dr. Martin J. Spalding, of Louisville, Kentucky, afterwards Archbishop of Baltimore, gave an eloquent lecture in the new church of St. Francis Xavier, St. Louis, for the benefit of its parochial schools. CHAPTER VI. 18431854. REV. JAMES VAN DE VELDE was appointed vice-provin- cial of Missouri on September 17, 1843, and he was succeeded in the office of president by the Rev. George A. Carrell. Father Carrell had been professor of mental and moral philosophy during several years next preced- ing his elevation to the chair of rector, and for some sessions he had also been professor of rhetoric and English literature. In both these positions he had been eminently successful. He was peculiarly happy in his language, and in imparting his own ideas to others with force and clearness, whether in the pulpit or in the class-room. As president of the university, he was austere even unto severity. During the first two years of his rectorship there was a marked decline in the number of students, there being less than eighty for the scholastic year ending in the summer of 1845, including both the boarders and the externs ; a result which was attributed by his friends, but, no doubt, erroneously, to the stern notions of rule and authority with which he governed. It was found necessary, in order to improve this condition of things, really brought about by the unprosperous times, for one of the pro- fessors to be sent to the Southern States to canvass for students ; and accordingly, Rev. John Gleizal was despatched to New Orleans, early in the spring of 1846, 5 (65) 66 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. to accomplish this work. His visit to the South proved highly beneficial, realizing the most sanguine expecta- tions from it ; for a large number of students came up from the South, some accompanying him, others follow- ing him after his return, in the early autumn of that year. 1 An occurrence which caused some increase of number for the session beginning in September, 1846, was the closing of St. Mary's College, in Marion County, Ken- tucky. It was during the summer of that year that the Jesuits who founded the present mission of New York and Canada left Kentucky, to take charge of St. John's College, at Fordham; and a number of the students who were with them at St. Mary's College, in Kentucky, came to St. Louis University after the fathers had abandoned that place. Thus it happened that the ending of the session 1845-46, was fully as auspicious as that of any preceding one. In 1846, Father Carrell erected a large building, three stories high, on the south line of Christy Avenue ; the first story was to be used for wardrobe and infirmary purposes, the second for the parochial school, and the third as a dormitory for the boarders. The institution had at this time an imposing list of professors and tutors, as the vice-province had steadily and rapidly increased the number of its members since 1 The corner-stone of St. Joseph's Church, corner of Eleventh and Biddle Streets, was laid April 14, 1844. St. Joseph's soon grew to be one of the largest congregations among the German Catholics of St. Louis. Work on this church was actually begun March I, 1844, and work on St. Mary's Orphan Asylum was begun March yth of the same year. The lot on which St. Joseph's Church is built, and also that on which St. Mary's Asylum stands, were given by Mrs. Biddle. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 6/ the year 1839; and from the circumstance, also, that the scholasticate for the study of theology and philosophy had been transferred, in 1843, fr m tne country-place now known as College Hill to the university. That portion of North St. Louis usually called Lowell is built on a part of the farm then belonging to the university. A certain number of members resided at this suburban home from 1837 to 1847, under the superiorship of Rev. John Schoenmakers ; he was sent, in the spring of 1847, to begin the residence at the Osage Mission, in South-eastern Kansas, Rev. Ignatius Maes taking his place at College Hill ; but only for a short time, as it was closed that year. At this period, the city of St. Louis took a new start in growth and prosperity, so rapid and so remarkable as to leave no doubt of its destiny soon to become a great city ; and that such would be its future, Capt. Marryatt had predicted, after visiting St. Louis in 1838. Fourth Street was pretty well built up with dwellings in 1846, from Market Street eight or ten squares north- ward ; and dwelling-houses were going up rapidly on Fifth and Sixth Streets, on Franklin Avenue, and on all streets leading east and west, from Market to Locust Street ; but there was, as yet, little improvement made on any street west of Tenth Street. The Planters' House, then the only great hotel of St. Louis, had been finished in 1841 ; and the present court-house was going up in 1846. During the year 1846, the Rev. John Diels, having previously spent several years among the Pottawato- mie Indians at the Sugar Creek mission, prepared with much care, and completed, a grammar and dictionary of their language ; and the Pottawatomie language was 68 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. accounted by the missionaries one of the most beauti- ful among the tongues of the aborigines. This compo- sition was the groundwork of an extensive and elaborate grammar and dictionary of that language, which Rev. Maurice Gailland, assisted by Father Diels, subsequently spent many years in perfecting. In 1870 this work was offered to Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, for publication ; but Professor Henry would not accept it unless as an unconditional gift, to be pub- lished or not, at his own option. Since this proposition was not acceptable, the work was not given to the Smithsonian Institute. It was borrowed by Father De Smet, when he made his last trip to Europe, in 1871, to show it to some learned friends in Belgium ; it was left by him in Belgium. 1 At the close of the scholastic year, in July, 1847, Rev. John B. Druyts was appointed president of the St. Louis University. The institution had then recovered entirely from the depression brought on it mainly by the financial troubles of the country, beginning in 1842. Father Carrell went to Cincinnati, where he was appointed president of St. Xavier College, on June 29, 1851 ; he was elevated to the more exalted rank of Bishop of Covington, Kentucky, in 1853. After filling that important office, as first Bishop of Covington, for fifteen years with much success, and with the complet- est satisfaction to priests and laity, he died in 1868. His refined manners, his grace and ease in conversation, and his cultivated scholarship, all joined to genuine and even tender piety, caused him to be much esteemed by 1 Father Gailland died August 12, 1877, at St. Mary's College, Kansas. v^V^ ^**i>^ f OF THE H X I UNIVERSITY } HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 69 all that knew him in St. Louis, Cincinnati, in Coving- ton, and where, er he had acquaintances. Father Druyts had been employed, either as pro- fessor or as disciplinarian, in the university for twelve years next preceding his promotion to the office of president, in 1847. The experience which he was thus enabled to acquire, together with his natural aptitude for such a position, made him one of the most popular, and at the same time one of the most successful, among all that had thus far filled the office of president in the university. No trying or adverse event could disturb his perfect equanimity, or lessen his complete self-pos- session. His temper seemed never to be ruffled : yet he could be severe or gentle ; he could be exacting, or could blandly yield to the most lowly, according as de- mands of duty, expediency, or the good of others might happen to require of him. His term in office lasted till the autumn of 1854, and he was even then relieved of his burden with reluctance, though he had almost en- tirely lost his hearing. His entrance into the office of president gave a new impulse to the institution, and it then began that career of genuine and solidly founded prosperity which, down to the present day, has met with no serious reverse. On June 3, 1848, Rev. James Van de Velde retired from the office of vice-provincial, and he was succeeded by Rev. John A. Elet. Father Van de Velde remained in St. Louis but a short time, when information reached him that he was appointed Bishop of Chicago. Arch- bishop Eccleston received the bulls appointing him to this See on December I, 1848, and he was consecrated on February 1 1, 1849. He was subsequently transferred to the See of Natchez, Mississippi, first reaching that 7O HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. place on November 23, 1853; he died of yellow fever on November 13, 1855, at his residence in Natchez. The revolutionary troubles of Europe, which broke out into open violence towards the end of 1847, and culminated in 1848, made it necessary for the Jesuits, in places where they were ejected from their colleges and their property was seized upon, to seek for shelter in other lands. Many of these refugees came to the United States, seventy-six of them finding homes in the vice-province ot Missouri. Most of these exiles had been driven from Italy and Switzerland, and about forty of them received hospitality at the St. Louis Uni- versity. Some of these expatriated Jesuits never re- turned to Europe, but remained afterwards permanently attached to the vice-province of Missouri, where they became useful auxiliaries to the various missions and col- leges of the West ; the great majority of them, however, returned to the Old World within the two years next succeeding. Of those remaining in the United States, some went to the Indian missions of the Rocky Moun- tains, where they have since died under the hardships and privations of a life among homeless, wandering savages. Others of their number began, in 1854, under Rev. Nicholas Congiato as superior, the present flourish- ing mission of California, which still remains annexed to the province of Turin, Italy. The great addition made to the number of members in the vice-province of Missouri during the first half of the year 1848, by the causes above stated, was an in- ducement for Father Elet and his consultors finally to perfect an arrangement, which had been under con- sideration several months, for taking charge of St. Joseph's College, at Bardstown, Kentucky. The ven- HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. /I erable Bishop Flaget had already invited the Jesuits of France to accept that college, in his diocese, as long ago as the year 1829, or nineteen years before the present offer.' But, by some misunderstanding, the French Jesuits did not come to the United States until two years after the time appointed for delivering the col- lege into their hands ; and, meanwhile, obligations had been contracted with other parties. St. Mary's Col- lege, in Marion County, Kentucky, was transferred to these Jesuit fathers from France, at the death of its founder, Rev. William Byrne, which occurred June 5, 1833. They laid the foundation of another college, in Louisville, during the summer of 1845, but early in 1846 they made an agreement with Bishop Hughes, of New York, to take charge of St. John's College, at Fordham, and also to establish a college for externs in New York City. They left the Diocese of Louisville in July, 1846, returning St. Mary's College to the bishop, and at the same time disposing of the property owned by them in the city of Louisville. St. Joseph's College, at Bardstown, after many years of depression, had become prosperous again under the able administration of Rev. Edward McMahon, aided by the efficient cooperation of Rev. John B. Hutchens. But in the year 1848, both of these reverend gentlemen had grown tired of such employment, and they longed to pursue a different course of life, in which their occu- pations would be exclusively those of the priesthood ; hence they, as well as the priests of the diocese in gen- eral, favored the proposed plan of passing St. Joseph's College under new control. It was under these circum- stances that Bibhop Flaget, whose years then exceeded 72 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. four score, urged on Father Elet, vice-provincial of Missouri, his earnest desire to welcome the Jesuits back again into his diocese before his days were ended, in- sisting that they would accept St. Joseph's College, at Bardstown, with a view of retaining it permanently, and of starting a college for externs in Louisville. July 24, 1848, six members of the society left St. Louis on the steamboat " Ocean Wave," for Bardstown, by way of Louisville, to take possession of St. Joseph's College ; Rev. P. J. Verhaegen, the first president of the institution after it changed hands, having gone there about the end of the preceding month. St. Joseph's College was exceedingly prosperous under the fathers' management, until the year 1 86 1, when it became neces- sary to suspend all classes, in consequence of the war between the Northern and Southern States, which then began. The institution was never afterwards reorgan- ized by the Jesuits, and it was finally delivered into the hands of the bishop in December, 1868, twenty years after it had first been accepted. A college had been started in Louisville about the beginning of 1849, and its success was also highly satisfactory, but it was closed in 1857. The transfer and the acceptance of these two institutions had been made subject to conditions by the contracting parties, which did not subsequently prove to be mutually satisfactory, nor were they adjusted by mutual concessions. In 1847, the larger and smaller students at the St. Louis University were separated from each other, and assigned distinct play-grounds, dining-rooms, study- halls, etc. The purchase, made in 1849, of the building on Washington Avenue, west of Tenth Street, previously HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 73 used by the medical department, rendered this judicious arrangement for the welfare of the students both easy in practice and commodious. On October 5, 1848, the medical faculty requested the trustees of the university to have the connection of the medical department with the university dis- solved, with the right of retaining the name under which the medical college was started ; and this re- quest was repeated on January 24, 1849. The reason assigned by the medical faculty for desiring to take this step was fear of injury to the medical depart- ment, arising from religious prejudices among the people at large against the Catholics and Catholic insti tutions. The board of trustees did not then consent for the separation to take place. When the " Know- Nothing " excitement arose and began to spread over the land, in 1854 and 1855, it was again decided by a majority of the medical faculty that it was expedient for the medical department to be separated from the university, and be henceforth conducted under a distinct charter of its own ; and this time, by mutual consent, its connection with the St. Louis University finally ceased, but without any unfriendly feeling or hard thought on either side, since the peculiar circum- stances of the times seemed to compel the medical department to adopt that course. It should have been stated in another place that the law department of the St. Louis University began its first session in November, 1843. But despite the efforts made by Hon. Richard A. Buckner to sustain it, the law school met with only limited success, and the or- ganization was soon dissolved. About the beginning of May, 1849, the Asiatic chol- 74 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. era again made its appearance in St. Louis ; and its visitation at this time was not less disastrous than it had proved to be in the years 1832 and 1833. Its ravages were greatest in the narrow streets and alleys, and in hovels and tenements crowded with the poor ; yet no class of the people was entirely spared by this fearful scourge, coming all the way from the sickly lowlands of India. No case of the disease occurred in the univer- sity, which preservation then, as had been done in 1833, was gratefully accepted by the entire establishment as a special favor of Divine Providence. During the month of May, all the students having as- sembled in their chapel for religious exercises, made a promise, by way of pious vow, with the advice of Rev. Isidore Boudreaux, that they would adorn the statue of the Blessed Virgin in St. Francis Xavier's Church with a silver crown, provided all the inmates of the university were preserved from cholera. This vow was faithfully performed, and the crown was placed on the statue of the Blessed Virgin, October 8, 1849. The following record was at the same time inscribed, in let- ters of gold, on a marble slab attached to the south wall of St. Xavier's Church, near the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary : - s. M. o. P. N. In memoriam insignis beneficii per Mariam accepti. A. D. 1849, grassante hie peste, qua prope sex millia civium, paucos intra menses, interierunt, Rector, Pro- fessores, ac Alumni hujus Universitatis in tanto vitae discrimine constituti, ad Mariam, Matrem Dei, Matrem Hominum confugerunt votoque sese obstrinxerunt decorandi imaginem ejus corona argentea, si ad unum HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. /$ omnes incolumes servarentur. Placuit Divino Filio tanta in Divinam Matrem fiducia. Etenim exitiosa pestis, vetante Maria, muros Universitatis invadere non fuit ausa ; et tota mirante civitate, e ducentis et pluribus convictoribus, ne unus quidem lue infectus fuit. GRATI MARINE FILII. ^Translation.^ In memory of the signal favor conferred through the intercession of Mary. A. D. 1849, while the pestilence was raging in this city, whereby, in the space of a few months, six thousand citizens perished, the rector, pro- fessors, and students of this university, finding them- selves in imminent danger of death, had recourse to Mary, Mother of God and of men, and by vow bound themselves to place a silver crown upon her statue, if every member of the university were preserved from the infection. This great confidence in the Mother of God pleased her Divine Son ; for the devastating scourge, through the intercession of Mary, was not allowed to enter within the walls of the university; and to the ad- miration of the entire city, not even one, out of two hundred and more boarders, was infected with the plague. THE GRATEFUL SONS OF MARY. Still another calamity befel St. Louis during the same month of May, 1849, an extensive fire, by which twenty-seven steamboats were destroyed at the wharf; and, the flames having been communicated to some neighboring business houses, fourteen squares, all solidly built up, were burned to the ground before the conflagration finally ceased. /6 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. These public misfortunes caused no perceptible dimi- nution of prosperity at the university, and when the ses- sion opened, in September of that year, the number of students in the classes was fully up to the highest aver- age. On May 19, 1851, the Church of St. Francis Xavier, which is on the property originally donated by Jere- miah Conners to Bishop Dubourg for a college, was transferred by the vice-provincial of Missouri to the control of the St. Louis University, which assumed an uncancelled debt on the church of thirty-eight thou- sand seven hundred and fifty dollars ($38,750). This church, which has always been, from its beginning, as a centre at which numerous throngs of people collect for divine service on Sundays, became, by this change in the government of it, an additional and important factor in the great moral power which " The College " has possessed in the city of St. Louis during the half- century of its existence. The Young Men's Sodality > which was first instituted by Father Damen, in 1846, and the Young Ladies' Sodality, established in 1847, attracted a large number of the youth belong- ing to many of the principal Catholic families ; and for them these associations proved to be an efficacious means of solid and lasting good. The good influence of these sodalities, especially over the Catholic youth of the city, was still further increased after their hall, library, and reading-rooms were completed, in I855. 1 Rev. William S. Murphy became vice-provincial of Missouri on August 15, 1851. Father John A. Elet was 1 The hall was erected for the Young Men's Sodality, but they gen- erously consented, in the year 1865, for the Young Ladies' Sodality to occupy one story of their building. This building is on the south-east- ern corner of Ninth Street and Christy Avenue. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. // then in a precarious state of health, and had petitioned to be relieved of that onerous office. But Father Elet did not recover his health, and he finally died of his sickness, on October 2, 1851. Along with a high de- gree of administrative ability, Father Elet possessed a union of amiable qualities that made him loved by all that knew him. He had a facility in rendering himself "all to all," by which he could be learned with the learned, and simple with the simple ; he could converse on the high questions of philosophy or theology, or he could explain the details of practical duties in life to children, so as to hold their attention captivated. In conciliating the good-will of others for their own advan- tage, nature helped him with a voice that was bland and winning, at the same time that it was fatherly, and inspired reverence ; his countenance, his whole figure, which was that of faultless manly symmetry, all spoke to the eyes of his hearers. All the vice-province and his friends among the laity deeply regretted his death, as the loss of a member who, then at middle age, had just fairly entered upon the period of his life that prom- ised to be the most bright and useful as a Jesuit and as a priest of God. Father Murphy, when appointed vice-provincial, was attached to the New York and Canada mission ; he had originally come to the United States at the beginning of 1836, and was at St. Mary's College from that time till the year 1846, when the Jesuits left Kentucky and went to New York. He Avas president of St. Mary's College, in Kentucky, from the year 1839 till it was given up by the Jesuits, in 1846. He was a keen ob- server both of men and things, and he was remarkable for his knowledge of human nature, and the correctness /8 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. with which he could read personal character. Exten- sive and varied reading of the best authors in the ancient classics, in French, and especially the best writers in English, had cultivated his taste and stored his unfailing memory with an inexhaustible fund of the wise and beautiful thoughts and utterances which made his conversation peculiarly instructive and interesting > never tiresome, and always fresh, even to those who had lived with him for many years. Father Murphy filled the office of vice-provincial in Missouri from 1851 to 1856; he performed the duties of his position effi- ciently, and at the same time in a manner highly accept- able to his brethren. In the year 1853, Rev. J. B. Druyts, president of the university, with the concurrence of his council, decided to begin the erection of ample and commodious build- ings, fronting on Washington Avenue, which, when the plan agreed upon was executed, would furnish all necessary room, at the same time that it would possess a becoming style of beauty and grandeur. This build- ing was to extend from Ninth Street to a point one hundred and thirty feet west of Tenth Street. The erection of the east wing was commenced in 1853, an< i it was finished in 1855. The public entrance to it is on Ninth Street ; the building is sixty feet wide by a length of one hundred and thirty feet on Washington Avenue. It is three stories high, the first and second stories being each sixteen feet in the clear, arid the third being thirty-five feet. The first, or lowest story, contains the students' chapel and the study-hall ; the second con- tains the library and museum ; and the third is a public exhibition hall, which easily seats twelve hundred per- sons. It is, perhaps, now fortunate that the magnifi- HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 79 cent design, of which this east wing forms only a part, was not afterwards carried out ; for the subsequent di- rection taken by the city's growth has since resulted in drawing the centre of business to the neighborhood of the university, thus creating a necessity for its removal, at no distant day, to some more quiet district of the city. In the year 1854, St. Xavier College, of Cincinnati, ceased to be a boarding-school, owing to insufficiency of room, the vicinity of nuisances, and to the narrow- ness of the premises. It thenceforth struggled on as a small day-school, but progressing gradually towards better things, till the session of 1863-64, when, princi- pally through the energy and ability of Rev. F. P. Gar- esche, it resumed its rank as a first-class college, and from that time to the present it has enjoyed uninter- rupted prosperity. The progress made by the St. Louis University in the number of students, during the period which this narra- tive has now reached, is clearly presented in the follow- ing tabular statement: Number of Year. Students Registered. 1851 218 1852 266 1853 2 9i 1855 300 1856 321 CHAPTER VII. 18541861. AT the beginning of the session 1854-55, Rev. J. B. Druyts was succeeded in the office of president by Rev. John S. Verdin; yet Father Verdin did not actually enter upon the duties of his new position, nor was his appointment formally announced, till October 2, 1854. While affable and kind to all, Father Verdin was firm in maintaining collegiate discipline ; and thus he won the esteem and confidence both of students and of professors. During his term in office, which lasted till the year 1859, the institution made rapid progress, and at the same time all things went on peacefully, and without the occurrence of any disturbing incident. In the autumn of 1855, there was the largest number of boarders at the university there were ever at the same time in the establishment, there being one hundred and eighty-eight ; and this, despite many untoward events in the Southern States, from which a majority of the boarders had always been received. The yellow fever epidemic of 1855 was, perhaps, fully as virulent as it had been in 1853, when it assumed a malignant type that was new to the most experienced physicians, baf- fling the best skill in their profession. The loss of life by its visitation during the year 1855 was very great especially in New Orleans and adjacent cities, in Charleston, South Carolina, and in Norfolk, Virginia. (80) HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 8 1 Among the victims struck down by the terrible de- stroyer that year was Bishop Van de Velde, formerly president of the St. Louis University ; he died of yel- low fever at Natchez, Mississippi, on November 13, I855- 1 Not even at any subsequent period was the number of boarders in the St. Louis University ever so great as it was during the session of 1855-56. It is a fact generally observed that, perhaps with no exception, in all Catholic boarding-schools, both male and female, throughout the United States, the number of boarders has been gradually diminishing for many years. This change may be accounted for, at least in part, by in- creased facilities for education in better local schools than formerly existed ; and thus, boarding-schools being less of a necessity, are also less in public favor than they once were. But, while the number of boarders at the university, after reaching its highest, thenceforth de- clined somewhat, on the other hand, the number of externs increased in a much greater proportion dur- ing the same period. A gloom was cast over the entire city of St. Louis by the railroad disaster which happened on November i, 1855, when a numerous party of citizens, by invitation, went out on the Missouri Pacific Railroad, then just com- pleted to a point beyond the Gasconade River. When the train was on the approaches to the bridge over that stream, the trestle-work gave way, and nearly all the cars were precipitated to the declivity of the banks be- low, killing more than thirty persons, and wounding, 1 His remains were removed to St. Stanislaus Novitiate, near Floris- sant, Missouri, and there reinterred on November 20, 1874. 6 82 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. more or less seriously, a hundred. Among the killed or wounded were many prominent citizens, and of these some had sons then at the St. Louis University. Mr. Henry Chouteau, Capt. O'Flaherty, and Dr. Bullard were of those who lost their lives by this sad catas- trophe, and were, perhaps, the ones most generally known to the public. In November, 1855, the "Students' Library Society" was instituted, with the view of securing a collection of suitable works on branches of polite learning, which could be made accessible to all the classes on easy con- ditions. The members of the association were required to pay a small fee for the right of using the books. This library, which was a successful undertaking from its very beginning, has proved to be a boon, especially for the more advanced classes of the institution ; and, despite losses by the wear and tear of twenty-four years* time, it has grown to be a large and well-selected library of the standard works which are best adapted for culti- vating taste and style of composition in youth, and at the same time storing their minds with useful knowledge on many learned subjects. The " Philalethic Literary and Debating Society " was first organized in 1832. It was always prosperous ; it always was, and it still is, a means of developing and cultivating students more advanced in their classes, which, perhaps, could not be otherwise supplied at all. In 1838, the "Philharmonic Society" was begun among the students, with the aim of developing a taste for the higher style of music, and at the same time to furnish the young performers an opportunity of acquiring the art of music under the direction of skilful masters. This society also fully realized its object. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 83 During the intervening period from 1832 to the pres- ent time, various other societies were started at differ- ent dates among the students, and had a temporary existence ; but, because they supplied only an acci- dental and passing want, they ceased to exist when the reason or necessity for beginning them had passed away. But, as if by the theory of " natural selection and survival of the fittest," only the three societies above named and described have permanently en- dured, in spite of all contingencies and changing cir- cumstances ; whence it seems to follow that they supply a common want, and are a necessary means of good for the students of the St. Louis University. On July 6, 1856, Rev. William S. Murphy retired from the office of vice-provincial, which he had filled from August 15, 1851, and he was succeeded by Rev. J. B. Druyts. Father Druyts made it a chief aim of his administration to educate thoroughly the young n>en destined to replace the older ones, then soon to pass away, and he spared no efforts to have them duly cul- tivated in those sciences and those virtues which would fit them to perform the future duties awaiting them as professors in colleges, missionaries, and pastors of con- gregations, to the best advantage. He instituted a full course of study for them in the scholasticate on " Col- lege Hill," or theological department of St. Louis Uni- versity. This was an important step forward in the work of advancing the vice-province ; and so completely did he imbue the minds of all with his own convictions concerning what was the wisest and best for the inter- ests of Jesuit colleges and missions in the West, that his undertaking met with cordial and universal cooperation, and it was executed in succeeding years as planned by 84 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. him. Father Druyts, whether as president of the uni- versity or as vice-provincial of Missouri, had the rare gift of so using his authority as both to secure perfect government of the charge intrusted to him, and to win the heart of every individual person subject to his direc- tion or control ; and it is extraordinary for one exer- cising power over others so to do his whole duty as yet to be loved by every one. As already stated in a previous chapter of this sketch, a farm of three hundred acres was bought by the uni versity in 1836, with a view of moving the institution to that locality, and that after the foundation had been dug the project was abandoned. When Father Verdin became president of the university, in 1854, more than half of this farm, now within the limits of North St. Louis, had been sold. Father Verdin divided a portion of the remainder into town lots, in 1855, and most of them were subsequently sold, after a church had been erected in a central position, which was completed in 1857. Amid the groves which then covered a portion of this land, a brick house three stories high and nearly a hundred feet long was put up in the year 1857, to serve as a country resort for students and professors, especially during the oppressive months of summer. In the spring of 1858, an addition was made to this house, and other buildings were erected, with a view of placing there the theological department of the university, or the scholas- ticate. All things being made ready, the scholasticate was begun there on September 1 1, 1858, with four profes- sors, Rev. F. X. Wippern being the superior. Suitable cart-roads, and walks for the students and professors, were completed ; the young men set out ornamental trees in due season, and laid out a vegetable and flower garden, HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 85 which they adorned with an " Indian mound " at its centre. This was a delightful place of abode, till it was encroached on by rendering establishments, with their " two and seventy stenches, several and well defined ; " and by foundries and rolling-mills, whose tall, volcanic chimneys loaded the air with black clouds of suffocating bituminous smoke. In the year 1857, Bishop O'Regan, of Chicago, 1 Illi- nois, invited the Jesuits of Missouri to establish a house of the order in that city. In compliance with his wish, Father Arnold Damen and Father Charles Truyens were sent to Chicago, reaching that city on May 4, 1857. Father Damen, immediately after his arrival, contracted for a frame church and residence, to be built on the corner May and Eleventh Streets, he and his companion residing with Bishop O'Regan till the 7th of the following July. The corner-stone for the Church of the Holy Family, fronting on Twelfth Street, and east of May Street, was blessed by Bishop O'Regan on August 25, 1857, and the church was dedicated by Bishop Duggan in August, 1860, Archbishop Kenrick, of St. Louis, preaching in the English language, and Bishop Henni, of Milwaukee, preaching in German. A brick dwelling was built on the corner of Twelfth and May Streets in 1861 ; on September 24, 1867, St. Igna- tius College, Chicago, was begun, and classes were first organized therein about the beginning of September, 1 The following well-known distich may occur to the reader's mind, but what it conveys does not always hold true now : " Bernardus valles, monies Benedictus amabat; Oppida, Franciscus, magnas Ignatius urbes." Bernard preferred the valleys ; Benedict the high lands ; Fran- cis loved the small towns, and Ignatius the large cities. 86 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 1870, under the general direction of Rev. John S. Verdin. The eloquent Father Cornelius Smarius was sent to Chicago, in the summer of 1861, to aid Father Damen in giving missions. These missions had first been un- dertaken in the autumn of 1857, an d the zealous and inde- fatigable Father Damen, with a number of assistants, has continued them down to the present day, or for twenty- two years. Some estimate of the work done by Father Damen and companions during that period may be made from the results accomplished. Father Damen has per- sonally conducted 208 missions, averaging two weeks' time for each. He travelled, on an average, 6,000 miles each year; or during the twenty-two years, he travelled 132,000 miles. He and his different bands of companions, together, gave 2,800,000 communions within the twenty-two years; and in that period they made 12,000 conversions to the faith. 1 It will serve to convey a still more comprehensive notion of the work actually done on these missionary journeys, here to add a few general facts as to what has been done by the illustrious Father Weninger during the thirty-one years spent by him almost exclusively in such employment. He began giving missions of eight or ten days' duration to German congregations, and oc- casionally to mixed German and English congregations, in 1848. During the thirty-one years from 1848 to the present year, 1879, he conducted over eight hundred missions, preached over thirty thousand times, giving his 1 At a mission given by Rev. John Coghlan and his associates, at St. Stephen's Church, New York, lasting for four weeks, during the past spring, the number of communions given, as published in the Catholic newspapers, was 42,000. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 8/ sermons, when to mixed congregations, both in English and German. The number of communions given by him at each mission varied from three hundred to one thou- sand, and the number of conversions to the faith made by him during that period was between two and three thousand. He travelled through all parts of the United States to give these missions, journeying a total distance of over two hundred thousand miles. In all that time his voice never failed him, and in all his journeying he never met with a serious accident. By these results we may estimate the magnitude of the work done by this mission- ary, who, though now nearly seventy-four years of age, still retains both the vigor of his health and the freshness of his primitive zeal for this laudable occupation. At the opening of the session 1858-59 in the uni- versity, the classical course and the commercial course were entirely separated from each other and assigned to distinct class-rooms, and distinct teachers were ap- pointed for them. The former course was made to comprise six classes, or six years ; and the latter, four classes, or four years. It was also arranged that the professor in each class should teach all the matter, or all the branches of study, assigned to that class. Ex- perience has shown that this plan works well, in practice, for the intermediate and lower classes. As regards the learner, there are exceptional cases of students far ad- vanced in their knowledge of English and mathematical branches who are only beginners in the ancient classics, and they must be provided for accordingly. The final examination of candidates for graduation in the classical course was to be in logic, general and special metaphys- ics, including ethics or moral philosophy, and the higher mathematics. Candidates for graduation in the com- 88 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. mercial course were to be examined in rhetoric, elements of logic and moral philosophy, algebra, geometry, sur- veying, chemistry, and physics, including astronomy. After nearly twenty years of observation, it was found expedient and advantageous fora certain number of young men in the commercial course to give them an additional year, or a fifth class, in which they might pursue their study of mathematics, the physical sciences, logic, general and special metaphysics, including ethics or moral philosophy, much further; and it seemed that they might enjoy the advantage of attending the lectures and discussions in the class of philosophy, which had heretofore been limited to graduates of the classical course. Successful examination in these additional branches of higher study would entitle the candidate to the degree of B.S., or Bachelor of Science. This fifth class, for the degree, Bachelor of Science, was first introduced into the course of study at the university in the year 1877, and the results reached by the two classes that have now finished show how exceedingly greac are the advantages of this arrange- ment for those young men who aspire to a good English education without study of the ancient classics. It cannot be legitimately doubted by the learned scholar that the mastering of the best Greek and Latin authors, in their original languages, has a peculiar effect in refining one's literary taste and elevating its stand- ard ; nor can this result be so perfectly accomplished without the aid of these primitive and best of all models. Neither can the language of higher learning, or of science, as clothed in the cultivated vernaculars of modern nations, be easily or even thoroughly mastered without a sufficient acquaintance with the tongues HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 89 which are the original groundwork of nearly all scien- tific terminology. On the other hand, there are some who condemn the study of the Greek and Latin classics, on the alleged principle of conscience that they are ethnical, or pagan, and they may, therefore, taint Christian manners, especially in the young. This opinion seems to rest on a narrow view of the subject, and is, perhaps, when held on the ground of conscience, prompted by zeal that is not according to knowledge ; indeed, the prac- tice which has been prevalent in the Christian schools, from the earliest ages, of reading for their style the poetry of Homer, the writings of Plato and Aristotle, the speeches and essays of Cicero, the poems of Virgil, etc., is not at all the thing which is at fault; it is the theorizing that is at fault. 1 There are others who are opposed to the study of the ancient classics, with less inconsistency, for less objec- tionable reasons : as, first, they who desire only that education which can be acquired in a shorter time; secondly, those who are to pursue the walks of life in which a good English education will answer all practi- cal purposes ; and, finally, those who believe that one can acquire perfect education without the ancient classics or the dead languages. The commercial and scientific courses in the St. Louis University were 1 Some account will be given, in a succeeding chapter of this volume, of the " Ratio Studiorum," or "Plan of Studies," as proposed by St Ignatius Loyola, in the rules and constitution of the Jesuit Society made by him. The method of teaching proposed by him directly regards the Latin language, the only learned tongue in his day ; but it is capable of being applied as well to instruction in any cultivated language of the present time. 90 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. designed to realize these ideals, so far as they are some- thing feasible. It is sure that the thoroughness or perfection of mental education does not intrinsically, or of its own nature, depend on the knowing of Greek and Latin classics in their original languages ; but it is also true, as the experience of centuries proves, that thorough study of the ancient classics has, as a fact, refining effects on one's literary taste and style which are not actually produced so perfectly by any other means of culture. On March 19, 1859, Rev. Ferdinand Coosemans was installed president of St. Louis University, succeeding Father Verdin, who was afterwards stationed at St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, Kentucky. At the beginning of September, 1860, the scholas- ticate was transferred from College Hill to Boston, Massachusetts, owing to special advantages possessed at that time by Boston College for the conducting of the theological and philosophical studies. The young men and their professors who had spent two years at College Hill, then just beyond the northern limits of St. Louis, ever afterwards preserved among the most pleasant remembrances of their lives the two happy years spent by them at that spot, then embosomed in shady groves and gardens ; but now bald, bereft of all its natural charms, and environed with petty factories. Shortly after the beginning of 1861, Rev. J. B. Druyts, vice-provincial of Missouri, whose health had long been declining, became incapable of any official duty, from softening of the brain. Early in February of that year Rev. William S. Murphy, who had formerly been vice- provincial of Missouri, from 1851 to 1856, was recalled to the West from New Orleans, where he was then HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 9! residing, to resume the position temporarily, which had already been held by him in Missouri, until the regular appointment of Father Druyts's successor could be made. Father Murphy retained the office till July. 1862; meanwhile, Father Druyts lingered till June 18, 1 86 1, when he breathed his last. The events accompanying the presidential election of 1860, the angry debates and inflammatory speeches in the national Congress which afterwards assembled, left no doubt that serious troubles, which had been brewing for a number of years, were now about to break out into open violence. It had long been foreseen by wise persons that the existence of African slavery in the United States was, sooner or later, to test the durability of the American Union. The sagacious Father Mur- phy had predicted, many years beforehand, that this war between the Northern and Southern States was sooner or later to take place. In 1844, when a mob of lawless ruffians, instigated by fanatical zealots, burned the churches and convents of Philadelphia, some timorous citizens even then augured revolution as cer- tainly to ensue in the near future. " I fear no disastrous consequences to the nation," said Father Murphy, " from violence of this kind, since it will be emphatically condemned by all good citizens throughout the land; but if the Union is ever to be dissolved, it is far more probable that it will result from that civil war which must ultimately spring from the difficulties presented by the existing slavery." When this was spoken, Father Murphy was president of St. Mary's College, in Ken- tucky. This war actually began, in the spring of 1861, with an attack on Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor. For 92 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. the magnitude and strength of the armies engaged in this struggle between the two sections of the country ; for the determination with which both parties contin- ued the deadly contest; for the consequences of the long and eventful fight for victory, by which the entire military art itself, if not revolutionized, was at least greatly modified, no war, perhaps, in the history of the world presents a parallel. The effects of this great occurrence in the United States on the institutions under the control of the Mis- souri province were important, and some of them per- manent. St. Joseph's College, at Bardstown, Ken- tucky, was closed at the beginning of June, 1861, in consequence of the war. Classes were resumed in the following September, but the number of students was small, from the fact that its communication with the Southern States was entirely cut off. As there was no security against straggling bands from passing armies and marauding guerrilla parties, the students remaining at St. Joseph's College were transferred by Rev. John S. Verdin, then president of the college, to the St. Louis University, towards the end of December, 1861. The Jesuit fathers never again organized classes at St. Joseph's College ; and, as heretofore stated, they finally made over the college and all the property there owned by them as a donation to the Bishop of Louisville, in December, 1868, and departed from that diocese. After the Camp Jackson affair, at St. Louis, which happened on the loth of May, 1861, the warlike feeling in St. Louis, and throughout Missouri, daily grew more and more intense. Many of the students at the uni- versity were from the Southern States ; the excitement among them, and thei impatience to get home before HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 93 it was too late to cross the military lines, suggested the expediency of allowing them to depart about the end of April. All the classes were suspended, and the remaining students were started home to their parents and guardians on May 24th, excepting a small number who preferred not to leave the university. CHAPTER VIII. 1861 1871. DURING the session which was prematurely closed May 24, 1 86 1, on account of the civil war, there were at the St. Louis University sixty-three students from the Southern States, most of them being from Louisiana. During the next session, 1861-62, there were only nine students registered as coming from the Southern States, and several of these had remained at the close of the preceding session only because unable to communicate with their parents. A large proportion of the boarders were from the Southern States, at all times anterior to the civil war of 1861-65 5 an d this was true of most Catholic boarding-schools, both male and female. A marked change has taken place since the war, owing to losses caused by that long and ruinous struggle. Few Southern families have been able since its termination to send their children to boarding-schools, as they did formerly. On this account, and partly from the multiplication of good day-schools in the cities and smaller towns throughout the nation, the number of boarders in all such institutions has been gradually but steadily diminishing, down to the present period. In the early days of the St. Louis University the number of extern students, or " day-scholars," was small, and they occupied separate apartments from the boarders. The case has become very different in recent times; (94) HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 95 full t \vo-thirds of the students, all counted, are now externs. Rev. J. B. Druyts, vice-provincial of Missouri, died Tuesday, June 18, 1861, at the St. Louis University, aged fifty years. It was on the previous day, or June I /th, that a regiment of raw recruits for the army, while passing a crowd of laboring men collected on a vacant lot east of Ninth Street, between Morgan Street and Christy Avenue, where the mayor was to meet them and give them work, was seized with a panic, and after reaching the corner of Seventh and Olive Streets, fired their muskets on the people who had gathered there out of curiosity. This occurrence served still further to exasperate public feeling in St. Louis against the army and its commanders. Classes were resumed at the university in the follow- ing September, but the number of students was reduced much below what it had been during previous years, owing to the circumstance that the "border States" already at that early period of the war were overrun by vast armies; and the struggle itself was one which there caused confusion and division, even in many pri- vate families, some of their members sympathizing with one side, and others favoring the opposite side in the contest. St. Louis was placed under the government of provost-marshals ; the main approaches to the city had rifle-pits, breastworks, and the like, commanding them. At a later date, a numerous army was encamped around the Fair Grounds, and on the lands of the St. Louis University, extending to the Bellefontaine Road. The professors, including priests, were subjected to the military draft, and several of them got notice that the lot had fallen on them for service in the army. But, g6 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. principally through the influence of Father De Smet, the secretary of war, Mr. Stanton, so far respected their unwillingness and their unfitness for public duties of the kind as to grant them indefinite furloughs. On July 16, 1862, Rev. Ferdinand Coosemans was appointed vice-provincial of Missouri ; Rev. Thomas O'Neil succeeded him as president of the university. The session of 1862-63 began with an increased num- ber of students, despite the evils and disasters of the time, which had caused the institution the loss of all its Southern patronage. 1 The annual commencement which terminated that session took place July 2, 1863; on that occasion three students received their degree of A.B., or Bachelor of Arts, and four received honorary certificates for completion of the commercial course. The total number of students registered for that scho- lastic year was two hundred and ninety. In the spring of 1864, a building for class-rooms was begun, and it was made ready for occupancy by the following autumn. It is four stories high, is eighty feet by forty feet in dimensions, and it contains ten ample and commodious class-rooms, a dormitory in the fourth story, and the Philalethic Hall in the third story. This building faces eastward on Ninth Street, and thus the main front of the institution was finally determined to that street, instead of Washington Avenue, as con- templated in the plan of 1853. The vice-province of Missouri was elevated to the rank of a province December 3, 1863. It began as a mission attached to Maryland in 1823, which condition 1 The news that Vicksburg had been taken was finally confirmed on July 7, 1863. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. gj it retained till February 24, 1831, when it ceased to be subject to Maryland, and became immediately subject to the general's authority. On December 24, 1839, it was erected into a vice-province, and, as said, it became a province December 3, 1863. At this last date, or at the end of 1863, there were belonging to the Jesuit Society in Missouri one hundred and ninety-three members. In 1865 a State Convention, holding its meetings in St. Louis, drew up a new Constitution, which was after- wards adopted by a vote of the people. This Constitu- tion was subsequently called, among the people, " the Drake Constitution," from the circumstance that its most remarkable provisions were originated by Charles D. Drake, who was a prominent member of the Con- vention that framed it. While devised with the view of crushing out obnoxious political adversaries, it also had for its aim, as avowed by its principal author in his speeches before the Convention, to do away with Cath- olic churches and institutions by means of oppressive measures. It imposed a heavy burden of taxes on churches, schools, hospitals, orphan asylums, and even on the graves of the dead. 1 The tax paid by St. Louis University on its buildings, church, and grounds for one year reached the total sum of $10,000. The Legislature having subsequently empowered the city to remit gen- eral municipal taxes on all such property, the univer- sity was at once relieved of a burden under whose 1 This harsh style of constitutional legislation was strenuously opposed at the time by Dr. M. L. Linton, who was a member of the Convention, but his reasoning in favor of moderation was lost on that body, the majority of whose members were swayed not by argument, but by passion. 7 98 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. weight it must otherwise have sunk. This now in- famous " Drake Constitution," the work of a spirit evoked to the surface in evil times to rule for its day, was finally abolished altogether, by a large popular vote on October 30, 1875. After the surrender of the Southern armies, in the spring of 1865, and the murder of President Lincoln, on Good Friday night, in a theatre at Washington City, the more exciting events of this dark period at last ended with the cruel execution of Mrs. Surratt and the impeachment of President Johnson. Then the blessings of peace gradually returned to the nation. This change to a better state of things restored to the university its pristine prosperity, the number of students registered for the scholastic year 1865-66 being three hundred and seventy-six. At the annual commencement of 1866, two candidates received the degree of A.B. in the classical course, and seven won the honorary certificate for completion of the commercial course. Towards the end of July, 1866, there were a few spo- radic cases of Asiatic cholera in some of the crowded and less cleanly districts of St. Louis, and about the same time its presence was manifested in other Western cities. It reached its greatest violence this year about the middle of August, its aggravated symptoms showing it to be of a malignant and deadly type, and the ratio of deaths among those attacked by it this year was fully as great as it had been in 1849. There was no case of the disease at the university, though all the priests attended the sick and dying, by day and by night, an exemption from the dreadful scourge like to that with which the institution had twice before been blessed, namely, in 1832 and in 1849. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 99 At the termination of the scholastic year, on June 26, 1867, the degree of A.M., or Master of Arts, was conferred on three gentlemen who had formerly been students of the university; the degree of A.B. was con- ferred on four candidates for graduation, and eleven received the testimonial given at the completion of the commercial course. Property on Grand Avenue, between Lindell and Baker Avenues, was purchased by the university, May 25, 1867, with a view of removing the institution ulti- mately to that locality. Though the expense of carry- ing out such an undertaking, which would necessarily be great, and fear of the risk to be incurred, have thus far caused hesitancy and delay in taking the step, yet each additional year seems to make the reasons for the change both more manifest and more cogent. This property on Grand Avenue that has been secured for the purpose is four hundred and forty-six feet on Grand Avenue by three hundred and sixty feet on Lindell Avenue, and the price paid for it was fifty-two thousand six hundred dollars ($5 2,600). The great advantage to be sacrificed by abandoning the present position occupied by the university is, that it is near the point in the city towards which all the street-car lines converge, and it is thereby made easy of access to people living in all districts of the city. Notwithstanding this considera- tion, the establishment will be transferred to a spot more eligible, in view of other advantages, whenever arrangements for executing the design can be clearly perfected. At the conclusion of the session of 1867-68, which took place June 25, 1868, the register for that scho- lastic year contained three hundred and forty-six names 100 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. of students. Four young gentlemen received the de- gree of A.M. ; there was no candidate that session for the degree of A.B. Testimonials for completion of the commercial course were conferred on thirteen can- didates for the honor. On June 30, 1868, a provincial congregation, com- posed of professed members belonging to the Jesuit province of Missouri, met at the St. Louis University, and it was the first time that such congregation was ever convoked in the province of Missouri. These provincial congregations have no legislative authority ; they are purely consultorial, and they choose a repre- sentative whose title is procurator of the province, who is deputed to bear a report of their proceedings to the general of the society; they can demand that a general congregation, having authority over the whole society, be convened, if they judge such assembly of its chief members to be necessary. The sessions of this congre- gation concluded on July 2d, on which day Rev. Francis H. Stuntebeck was installed president of St. Louis Uni- versity, to succeed Rev. Thomas O'Neil, who had re- tired. Rev. P. J. Verhaegen, who was prevented by sickness from attending the provincial congregation, died at St. Charles, Missouri, on July 21, 1868, having just com- pleted the sixty-eighth year of his age. Father Ver- haegen had filled many distinguished positions in the mission and vice-province of Missouri ; he was the first president of the university ; the first president of St. Joseph's College, at Bardstown, Kentucky, after it passed under control of the Jesuits, in 1848; he was superior of the Missouri mission from 1836 to 1839; was the first vice-provincial of Missouri; and in 1844 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. IOI he was made provincial of Maryland, which office he filled till the spring of 1848. Father Verhaegen was one of the original colony from Maryland, that came to begin the Jesuit mission of Missouri in the spring of 1823. He was the best educated of all the young men, and on that account he was their chief guide in their study of philosophy and dogmatic theology. It was he, mainly, that planned and perfected the first organization of the " St. Louis College," a name that was changed to that of the " St. Louis University," when the institution obtained its charter from the State Legislature, in 1832. As a teacher, Father Verhaegen had all those qualities which make one successful in conveying his knowledge to others. He had read instructive books extensively, and he possessed an in- exhaustible store of general knowledge on nearly all learned subjects. His varied accomplishments rendered him a pleasing and an interesting lecturer, whether in the college hall or before the miscellaneous public. His sermons in the pulpit were earnest, clear, and prac- tical ; his kindly and generous character caused every one to regard him as a friend, and hence all that knew him loved him. His wit and vivacity, joined to his extensive learning ; his imposing figure, his happy power of conversation, quickly made him the centre of every circle, whether duty led him to travel on the steamboat, to converse at the hotel, or to treat with any gathering of persons. But he never failed, on any occa- sion when his office or civility carried him into the society of laymen, to mingle with the subjects of his conversation the wholesome truths of religion which it was his vocation to teach. There were three hundred and forty-six students reg- istered for the session of 1868-69; f this number one IO2 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. hundred and six were in the classical course; the re- maining two hundred and forty were in the commercial course or in the preparatory classes. At the termina- tion of the scholastic year, June 24, 1869, one young gentleman received the degree of A.M., five candidates received the degree of A.B. in the classical course, and twenty received their diplomas in the commercial course. Early in the year 1869, the trustees of the uni- versity decided that it was necessary to take steps for moving the boarders at the institution to a suitable locality in the country, and at some distance from the city. Various spots in Missouri, on the different rail- roads diverging from St. Louis, were visited, with a view of selecting a desirable site for the proposed boarding-school ; and the one finally chosen was that now known as " College View," nine miles from the city, and on the St. Louis, Kansas City, and Northern Railway. It is a farm, containing three hundred and seventy-six acres, and it cost $76,000. Plans for an extensive establishment were subsequently made out, at an expense of $7,500. But before all ar- rangements were completed for actually beginning work on the buildings, it was ascertained that the rail- way company had determined to make a deflection of their road from Ferguson Station, two miles beyond " College View," so as to enter the city at the Union Depot, thus leaving the situation chosen for the new boarding-school deprived of proper communication with the city. The design of building at that place was thereupon abandoned altogether, and the whole project of a college in the country was, for the time being, indefinitely postponed. Woodstock College, Maryland, was solemnly inaugu- rated by Rev. Joseph E. Keller, then provincial of HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. IO3 Maryland, on September 23, 1869. This institution is designed for the education of the young Jesuits who are afterwards to be employed in the colleges, missions, and other works conducted by the society throughout the United States. They are there carried through a thorough course of philosophy, physical science, mathe- matics, theology, etc., with a view of preparing them for all priestly ministrations, and for teaching the higher branches of learning in the different colleges. The Jesuit provinces and missions of the United States unite to sustain this common scholasticate, both for the sake of economy and for the advantages of more sys- tematic and perfect training of their young members. The average number sent each year from the province of Missouri is thirty. Towards the end of December, 1869, St. Mary's Col- lege, Kansas, was incorporated under a general law of the State, and with the rights and immunities then con- ceded to such institutions of learning. The Pottawato- mie tribe of Indians having sold their reservation on the Kansas or Kaw River, and the Kansas Pacific Rail- road having been extended through it, the white popu- lation was already, in 1869, rapidly filling the fertile "Kaw Valley" with the activity and prosperity of a civilized community. During the following spring and summer a large four-story brick building was erected for college purposes, and immediately after its com- pletion it was occupied by a numerous boarding-school. 1 The Ladies of the Sacred Heart, during the same 1 St. Mary's College, Kansas, was destroyed by fire at noonday, on February 3, 1879, and there was no insurance on it. On April 10, 1879, at eleven o'clock, P. M., the stables, together with twenty-three horses, were destroyed by fire ; on this property there was no insurance. IO4 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. year, erected an academy equally large. As before related, the Indians had been transferred by the United States government from Sugar Creek, near the Missouri border, to this locality in 1848. When the white settlers commenced to encroach on their hunting- grounds, in 1 86 1, they were induced to sell their reservation, with a view of going, at a later period, to the Indian Territory ; and the Kansas Pacific Railroad first reached St. Mary's Mission in 1866. Only a por- tion of the Pottawatomies went to the Indian Territory, bands of them wandering off in various directions; and the tribe is in danger of losing its autonomy, and its beautiful language is likely soon to be extin- guished. At the St. Louis University, the register for the year ending June 30, 1870, contained the names of two hun- dred and ninety-seven students; the degree of A.M. was conferred on three young gentlemen, that of A.B. on seven, and diplomas were conferred on eight candi- dates in the commercial department. During the year ending June 29, 1871, there were three hundred and seventeen students ; at the annual commencement, five candidates received the degree of A.B., and eight re- ceived diplomas in the commercial department. The conductors of St. Xavier College, Cincinnati, at the opening of the session 187071, introduced an addi- tional class, or prolonged the course of study then pur- sued by one year ; and the divisions of the course were thenceforth designated according to a different system of nomenclature. The classical course was made to comprise two departments, first, the collegiate, in- cluding philosophy, rhetoric, poetry, and humanities; second, the academic, including three grammar classes, HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 10$ styled first academic, second academic, and third aca- demic. The classical course in the St. Louis University com- prises six classes, each requiring a year for its comple- tion; they are styled philosophy, rhetoric, poetry, first, second, and third humanities. The non-Catholic colleges in the United States gen- erally divide their course of corresponding studies into four classes, the " freshmen," or novices ; the " sopho- mores," a term of uncertain etymology, imported from Cambridge University, England, where it is now in dis- use ; "juniors," and "seniors." These institutions re- quire preparatory studies as a condition to be fulfilled before candidates are admitted into their regular courses. The term "humanity," "humanities" (Jmmaniora), according to its generally received and most proper meaning, signifies polite learning, under which are in- cluded rhetoric, poetry, and grammar. Therefore, it is not a strictly correct use of the term either to style grammar " humanities," as contradistinguished from rhetoric and poetry, or to style poetry " humanities," so as to exclude from its comprehension rhetoric and grammar, for " humanities " includes all those branches of polite learning. In the St. Louis University, since "grammar" classes are taught both in the classical course and in the commercial course, one being Greek and Latin, and the other being English, the term " hu- manities " is arbitrarily limited to the grammar classes of the classical course, and the corresponding classes of the commercial courses are styled grammar classes. These names are thus applied in order to avoid confu- sion arising from distinct classes having the same names. IO6 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. Some other institutions resort to a like unscholarly use of the term "humanities," in order to avoid ambiguity of language or misconception of things, by applying the term exclusively to the class or division of studies usu- ally styled " poetry." This is done in such institutions because the term " poetry " expresses only one subject or branch taught in the class so called, whereas the simple elements of rhetoric, easier species of prose com- position, together with style and higher grammar, are also taught in that class. CHAPTER IX. 1871 1878. ON July 31, 1871, Rev. Thomas O'Neil succeeded Rev. Ferdinand Coosemans as provincial of Missouri, Father Coosemans having filled the office for nine years. He had governed with much practical good sense and administrative ability, though he was more remarkable for piety and humility than for brilliancy of mind or extent of learning. Father Coosemans was kind and just as a superior, and, therefore, he was both loved and respected. His sermons in the pulpit and his familiar instructions were earnest, pious, and impres- sive. During his long term in office the province of Missouri grew much, both in the number of its mem- bers and in the magnitude and usefulness of its works. Father Coosemans died at St. Ignatius College, Chicago, on February 7, 1878, aged fifty-five years. Rev. Joseph Zealand was installed president of the St. Louis University on August 8, 1871, succeeding Rev. F. H. Stuntebeck. The names of the students registered for the session 1871-72 show a remarkable increase of the number over that of any former session, there being a total of four hundred and two. At the annual commencement, June 27, 1872, one young gen- tleman received the degree of A.M., five received the degree of A.B., and seventeen received their diplomas in the commercial department. 108 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. Six of the young Jesuits accompanying Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne to Missouri, in 1823, had first entered the society as novices at White Marsh, Mary- land, on October 6, 1821 ; they were P. J. Verhaegen, J. F. Van Assche, P. J. De Smet, J. A. Elet, J. B. Smedts, F. L. Verreydt. As the 6th of October, 1871, was the fiftieth anniversary of their entrance into the Jesuit Society, it was determined by the president and the faculty of the St. Louis University to commemo- rate in a becoming manner the occurrence of their "golden jubilee," and to invite the survivors among those pioneers to meet for the purpose at the St. Louis University. This tribute to their memory from the university was deemed appropriate, because they, with their novice master, Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne, had established the institution, their first important work after founding the mother house, near Florissant; and they, too, were the first officers and professors of the university. The only members of the original band who were then living were Rev. P. J. De Smet, absent at the time in Europe collecting funds for the Indian missions, Rev. J. F. Van Assche, and Rev. F. L. Ver- reydt. 1 From the circumstance that the 6th of October, in the year 1871, came near the end of the week, and on that account was an inconvenient day for those liv- ing at other institutions to leave home, the celebration was transferred to Tuesday, October loth, the feast of 1 Brother Peter De Meyer, who had come to the United States with Rev. Charles Nerinckx, the illustrious missionary of Kentucky, in the year 1817, \\asalso still alive; but he was too feeble, under the weight of age, exceeding four score, to take any share in the observance of this happy occasion. Brother De Meyer died, full of days and merit, on September I, 1878, at the mother house, St. Stanislaus Novitiate. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. IOO, St. Francis Borgia. Many of the other members from the different houses of the province were present on the appointed day, principal among them being Fathers Van Assche and Verreydt, whom the rest met to honor. The party from Chicago left that city for St. Louis on Sunday evening, October 8, 1871 ; and it was shortly after their departure from the depot in Chicago, or at ten o'clock in the evening, that the terrible fire broke out which raged all that night and throughout the next day, destroying the finest portion of the city. The fathers coming from Chicago first learned news of this remarkable disaster only after reaching St. Louis, next morning; and on that same day two of the num- ber, Father Verdin and Father Oakley, returned by the evening train to Chicago, in order to render such assistance as might be in their power to sufferers by the calamity. As mentioned above, the only original pioneers of the province present on the occasion were Father Ver- reydt and Father Van Assche ; and at this writing, June 10, 1879, the venerable Father Verreydt still survives, the only one now remaining this side of the grave, and he is in the eighty-second year of his age. At ten o'clock, A. M., Tuesday, October loth, there was a solemn High Mass, the Rev. Father Van Assche being cele- brant, with the aged Fathers Helias and Busschotts as deacon and sub-deacon, Father Verreydt, with many of his Jesuit brethren, being in the sanctuary. Among those in the sanctuary, the following were named by the newspapers of the following day: Rev. Thomas O'Neil, provincial of Missouri; Rev. Joseph Zealand, president of St. Louis University ; Rev. F Coosemans, I IO HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. late provincial ; Rev. L. Bushart, president of St. Xavier College, Cincinnati; Rev. Isidore Boudreaux, novice master; Rev. F. H. Stuntebeck, late president of St. Louis University; Rev. J. De Blieck and Rev. J. Schultz, of the Holy Family Church, Chicago ; Rev. S. Lalumiere, of St. Gall's Church, Milwaukee ; Rev. J. Roes, of St. Charles, Missouri ; Rev. P. Tschieder and Rev. D. Niederkorn, of St. Joseph's Church, St. Louis ; Rev. William Niederkorn, of Westphalia, Missouri; Rev. F. Braun, of Washington, Missouri. At a convenient hour in the evening all assembled in the university library, where a collation had been spread for the venerable guests and their friends. An interesting conversation on the various events in the history of the province, going back through the preced- ing half century ; narratives and anecdotes, now serious and now amusing, together with songs from younger members and brief speeches from the older ones, filled up several hours of time with unmixed pleasure for the party there collected to honor the first founders of the Missouri province of the Jesuit Society. The address given by the amiable Father Van Assche, in answer to a toast, abounded in that wit, pleasantry, and pathos, happily blended with deep and moving piety, which none other than this good and wise old man could have uttered. A special effect was added to all he said by his reverend locks, white as the snow; by his manners, simple and ingenuous as those of a child ; while his countenance beamed with unfeigned cheerfulness and the goodness of his heart. On June I, 1872, Dr. Moses L. Linton died at his country residence, College Hill, St. Louis. He had been HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. Ill the family physician at the St. Louis University for nearly thirty years. Dr. Linton was, on the whole, far the most influential professor of the St. Louis Medical College in his day ; and he has left his impress on the profession in St. Louis. He was not only master of the medical science and art, but he was a scholar of exten- sive and varied learning on many subjects. His lectures to his class were remarkable for their clearness and the thoroughness with which they exhausted the subjects treated, leaving little else for his listeners to learn con- cerning them. He was a self-made man, of strong convictions and decided opinions, which he declared and defended firmly, but not offensively to others. He was an original and deep thinker ; and, according as the occasion demanded, he was an orator, and even a poet, whose verses were far above mediocrity. Dr. Linton was born in Nelson County, Kentucky, April 12, 1812. He studied medicine in Springfield, Kentucky, under the direction of Dr. Polin, a Catholic physician of that town. He graduated at Transylvania University, and on October I o, 1 837, he married Ann Rachel Booker, daugh- ter of Judge Paul J. Booker, of Springfield, Kentucky. He went to Paris, France, in order to further perfect himself in his profession, and returned to Springfield in September, 1840. He became a Catholic in February, 1841, and he was assailed for taking this step by Rev. Robert Grundy, a Presbyterian minister, who published pamphlets on the occasion. Dr. Linton's replies, full of learning, and written in a spirited and pleasing style, were much admired by all parties. He became a mem- ber of the medical faculty of the St. Louis University in 1842, and he moved his family to St. Louis in 1844, with 112 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. the view of making this city his permanent home. He was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention which assembled in 1865. Dr. Linton was, in more re- spects than one, an extraordinary man. His uprightness of purpose was admitted by all, even the most opposed to his opinions on various public questions. He neither feared nor flattered any man, but did his duty to God and to his fellow-men from the highest and purest mo- tives. His death was that of the faithful servant, after accomplishing his task, in the hope of a bright immor- tality; and the honors paid to his remains and his memory showed how highly Dr. Linton was esteemed by all classes of citizens, how sincerely he was regretted, especially by the poor, to whom he had ever been a friend in their distresses. The following characteristic letter, written in Dr. Linton's own hand a few days previous to his death, may appropriately conclude this brief outline of his life : "ST. Louis, Mo., May 14, 1872. " DEAR FATHER O'NEIL, I wish to say a few things to the Jesuit fathers of St. Louis. Since I entered their hospitable doors, thirty years ago, up to the present hour, I have been the recipient of their kindness and benefactions. I cannot express my gratitude, and there- fore shall not attempt it ; I wish merely to record it. If Almighty God has an heroic and faithful vanguard in the church militant, it is most surely constituted by the Society of Jesus. The more I think about this organi- zation, the morel am convinced that there is something miraculous about it. Contemplate the life of St. Francis Xavier, whose canonized relics are religiously guarded HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 113 at Goa, who wrought more miracles than the adored Man-God himself and all His apostles. This assertion was made by one of Mr. Seward's party in their recent visit to the shrine of the saint, and it is the general belief, in that part of India, of those of all creeds. This order checked, hurled back, and forever crippled the confident and advancing hordes of Protestantism. A. M. D. G. Who invented this motto, I should like to know? The grandest four words, the greatest thought that mortal language affords. They embrace heaven and earth ; they apply equally to the most august hierarchs in the presence of God, and the humblest denizen of our globe ; they include what is sublimest in eloquence and song ; they indicate what is holiest, worthiest, and best in eternity, as well as in time. Please do not call this raving ; for if it be, then I have been a lunatic, with- out lucid intervals, for several years. I am very thankful to God for my long acquaintance I may say, my intimate association with the Jesuit fathers. Most of them whom I first knew have pre- ceded me to the grave, though much younger than I am now. How often do I recall and gaze upon their famil- iar faces, and ask myself why such men should die so soon. I believe in the Catholic Church, every article of her creed, from the divinity of Christ to the infalli- bility of the Pope. I want a firm faith now, as the time for my going hence approaches; I beg of all the Jesuit fathers, and the brothers, too, an occasional prayer. If I live, I shall go to my country residence this week ; and I never expect to leave it, until I am removed to another residence, which I have provided for myself and family, near the foot of the cross in Calvary. And now, 114 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. my dear fathers and friends, with a heart full of grati- tude, yea, deep and abiding love for you all, I bid you adieu. " M. L. LINTON." At the annual commencement held June 25, 1873, three young gentlemen received the degree of A.M., and three received that of A.B. ; twenty-three candidates received diplomas in the commercial department. The total number of students registered for the scholastic year then ending was four hundred and thirteen, the highest number ever at the institution during one session ; the greatest number in actual attendance at the same time was three hundred and seventy-four, which was reached on November 13, 1872. The records show that the number of students varies up and down, with increas- ing or waning prosperity among the general public, in commercial and industrial pursuits ; but it is influenced also by the coming or going of officers and professors of greater or less celebrity and popularity, as would naturally be expected. The financial crisis of 1873 caused a sudden and extraordinary reaction in business of every kind, and its depressing effects are still plainly visible at the present day. A tabular statement of results for ten years is here ap- pended, which will serve to show how the university, now relatively an old institution, and one which has always retained its hold on public favor, yet follows up and down the changing fortunes of the business com- munity. The table presents statistics of a kind that may suggest interesting or useful reflection, especially to those whose attention is given to questions pertaining to the advancement of education. It is believed that the HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. period often years embraced in the statement will pre- sent results sufficiently comprehensive, as a sample. The numbers given are taken by actual count from the published catalogues for the respective scholastic years specified : Number of /'..\ terns Classical.... ci Total No. .S ^ 5 N to Commercial years ending .>/>.( VOij 1 | b | 5" J 8- g $ j 5i j June 30, 1870 93 1 20 84 2 97 7 3 8 June 29. 1871 93 155 60 317 c 8 June 27, 1872 194 ?r>8 140 180 8? 402 c j 17 June 25. 1873 229 163 180 70 413 3 3 23 June 24, 1874 T58 158 CO 374 IO 17 Tune 30, 1875 I 32 221 109 9 353 4 3 12 Tune 26 1876 III 23Q Tl8 1:3 7Q 3"O 7 2 21 Tune 27. 1877 IOO 227 122 68 327 3 2 II June 26, 1878 1 06 I 34 144 18 J*-< 334 3 2 27 June 25, 1879.. 117 245 I 5 S 140 64 362 9 21 15 3 ,6 It will be observed that the total number of students was increasing till the financial crisis of 1873, when it began to decrease, reaching the minimum during the session ending June 27, 1877 ; and since that date there has begun an increase, which is greater for the year just ended, June 25, 1879. Within that period fifty-six young gentlemen received the degree of A.B., twenty- nine that of A.M., and one hundred and forty received their diplomas in the commercial course. Five re- ceived the degree of B.S., or Bachelor of Science, within the two years elapsed since the scientific course was introduced. Il6 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. On May 23, 1873, at half-past two o'clock, A. M., Rev. P. J. De Smet, the illustrious Indian missionary, died at the St. Louis University. Perhaps no Jesuit since the restoration of the Jesuit order, in 1814, has gained so widespread a celebrity as Father De Smet. As long ago as 1843, a volume of his letters, in which, with his own peculiar power of narrating and describing events and scenes witnessed by him, he gave an account of his first journey to Oregon, and among the Indian tribes of the Rocky Mountains, was read extensively and with avidity in the United States and throughout Europe. On the various trips undertaken in order to advance the welfare of the Indian missions, Father De Smet trav- eled over one hundred thousand miles ; he collected, principally in Belgium and Holland, one million of francs in money, and in valuable objects for the altar, which were devoted to the various missions of Kansas and in the Rocky Mountains ; during the period of forty years he induced a hundred young men to offer them- selves to the province of Missouri, most of them with the view of going on the Indian missions ; and finally, not here to estimate the amount of good done for the Indian race through these different means, he baptized many thousands of these aborigines with his own hands. His name is still in benediction, and his love for the red men is still gratefully remembered among the tribes of the Rocky Mountains, with whom his influ- ence was so great that the United States authorities more than once used his moral power over those sav- ages to pacify them, when irritated into violence by the cupidity and injustice of dishonest agents, or by sharp traders that had swindled or robbed them. Father De Smet received from the government at HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. I I/ Washington the exclusive right of nominating all Indian agents for Catholic tribes, or Catholic sections of tribes ; he exercised this office till a few months before his death, when he was compelled, by ill-health, to resign the trust. Father De Smet's remains were buried on the little mound, shaded by the tall black-thorn trees, by the catalpa, and the weeping willow, in the garden at St. Stanislaus Novitiate, near Florissant, Missouri, where are now buried all except one of the party who first reached that spot, in June, 1823. On July 31, 1873, St. Stanislaus Novitiate, the mother house of the province, celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. Although Father Van Quickenborne and companions actually moved into their new home be- fore the end of June, I823, 1 they began to dig the cellar for an addition to their little cabin on the 3 1st of July, the feast of St. Ignatius Loyola. From this latter cir- cumstance, July 3 ist was chosen, in 1873, as an appro- priate day for celebrating the golden jubilee of the novitiate. The president of the St. Louis University, with some of the professors, as also some Jesuit fathers from St. Joseph's Church, St. Louis, and other neigh- boring residences, participated in the observance of the day, the venerable Father Busschotts pronouncing be- fore the assembly an elegant and feeling discourse in the Latin language. The session of 1873-74 did not begin under favorable auspices, owing, first, to the general panic caused by the financial crisis, the banks closing in St. Louis on 1 On the last day of June, or possibly the first day of July, 1873, i l was just two hundred years since Marquette, also an Indian missionary and a Jesuit, first passed by the site of St. Louis, the first white man who saw the mouth of the Pekitanoui, or the Missouri River Il8 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. September 26, 1873, and, indeed, the banks in nearly all cities of the United States closed almost simultane- ously ; secondly, throughout August, September, and a great part of October, 1873, the yellow fever was pre- vailing in those Southern States from which usually a number of students come to the university. During that season, this scourge of the Southern cities was very destructive in Memphis and Shreveport; but it was also more or less fatal in all the towns situated on the Lower Mississippi, and on Red River. From these causes, the number of boarders at the university during this session fell considerably below that of the preced- ing session. Yet, relatively to the unpropitious cir- cumstances, the school was large, there being three hundred and seventy-four pupils registered for the scholastic year. Ten candidates received the degree of A.B. at the annual commencement, June 24, 1874, the largest number ever receiving that degree at the same time in this institution. The completion of the bridge over the Mississippi at St. Louis, and the tunnel under the city, during the summer of this year, 1 together with the opening of other commercial avenues to and from St. Louis, served to check the rapidity with which all business was hasten- ing downward into confusion. The change for the bet- ter was noticeable at the university in 1874, especially through the increased number of students from St. Louis that were then registered. On November 20, 1874, the remains of Right Rev. 1 By the entries in a private diary, it appears that the bridge first joined the two shores on December 19, 1873 ; it was first open for foot- passengers on May 23, 1874, for vehicles on June 6th, and on June 9th the first train of cars crossed over the bridge. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 119 James Van de Velde, Bishop of Natchez, Mississippi, were reinterred at St. Stanislaus Novitiate, near Floris- sant. Rev. James Converse had removed them for the purpose from Natchez, where Bishop Van de Velde died of yellow fever, on November 13, 1855. His re- mains now repose beside those of Father De Smet and those of Father Meurin, translated in 1849 by Bishop Van de Velde himself from Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, where that missionary of the old society died, February 23, 1777; and thus, as Bishop Van de Velde observed on the occasion, the restored society is thereby in some manner united to the old society. Bishop Van de Velde's grave was the sixty-third grave on the little mound at the novitiate. 1 An additional house, erected to supply the wants of the novitiate, was religiously dedicated on June 9, 1874, and it was finally occupied on the 2d of July. It is a large brick house, containing a dormitory for the novices and juniors, a chapel, study-halls, refectory, and infirmary. It is at the rear of the main building, parallel with it, and distant from it about seventy-five feet ; the second stories of the two buildings are con- nected by a covered passage resting on pillars. At that date there were at the novitiate thirty-seven scho- lastics, the entire community then numbering sixty-four members. Rev. L. Bushart succeeded Rev. Joseph Zealand as president of the St. Louis University, on November 22, 1874. At the commencement on June 30, 1875, three young gentlemen received the degree of A.M., four that of A.B., and twelve received their diplomas in the 1 The number has now, July I, 1879, reached eighty-two. 120 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. commercial department. The roll of students for the year contained three hundred and fifty-three names. At the termination of the next scholastic year, on June 28, 1876, the degree of A.M. was conferred on two- young gentlemen, that of A.B. on seven, and diplomas were conferred on twenty-one in the commercial de- partment. The year 1876, being the one hundredth anniversary of American independence, was commemorated in a becoming manner at the close of the session, and dur- ing the summer vacation of that year a number of the students visited Philadelphia, the cradle of American independence, where, by general consent, the centen- nial was celebrated in a special manner by the nation. The patriotic festivals of our country, as February 22d, or Washington's Birthday, and the Fourth of July, were always publicly commemorated at the university; but within the last twenty-five years the 4th of July always came during the summer vacation, when classes had been suspended and the students had returned to their homes. In earlier times the summer vacation did not begin till the end of July, and sometimes not before August 1 5th; but experience ultimately showed the ne- cessity of suspending classes altogether during the en- tire months of July and August, owing to their extreme heat. For a few years past, the summer vacation at the university has extended from the last Wednesday in June to the first Monday of the following Septem- ber. In the autumn of 1876, a number of Catholic young gentlemen, most of them former students of the univer- sity, through the influence of Rev. J. M. Hayes, associ- ated themselves together for the purpose of establish- HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 121 ing a society styled by them the " St. Mark's Academy," which, as declared in the preamble to its constitution, "has for its object the development of an active Catho- lic spirit by philosophical, literary, and scientific cult- ure." With the view of realizing this design, its mem- bers aim to study further and more thoroughly the branches of higher learning best fitted for effecting their purpose, more especially by acquiring knowledge of those superior subjects in their relations to the Catholic religion. They hold their meetings bi-monthly, in the Philalethic Hall, at the university, and they are pre- sided over by one of the professors. The enrolled members number twenty-nine, and there is an average attendance at their meetings often. This undertaking, which was first inspired by Rev. J. M. Hayes, has met with encouraging success, and it gives promise of effi- caciously and fully supplying an important desideratum for the educated young gentlemen of St. Louis. At the annual commencement, which took place June 27, 1877, the degree of A.M. was conferred on two young gentlemen, that of A.B. on three, and di- plomas were conferred on eleven successful candidates in the commercial department. The total number of students registered for the year then terminating was three hundred and twenty-seven. On April 18, 1877, a number of the students per- formed a drama in the public hall of the university, for the benefit of the sufferers by the burning of the South- ern Hotel, in St. Louis. This disastrous fire broke out just after midnight on the morning of April II, 1877, raging with much violence for several hours, and en- tirely destroying the magnificent building. Eleven per- sons were known to have perished in the flames, and 122 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. much distress was caused by the calamity to the ser- vants and various employees of the hotel, many of whom lost all they possessed as means of living. The students answered a call made on public charity, and chose this means of contributing to the relief of the un- fortunates. It may be added that a similar work of beneficence was performed by the students on Septem- ber 25, 1878, when a public entertainment of the same kind was given by them in favor of the sufferers by the yellow-fever epidemic, which, under an unusually viru- lent type, was then producing much misery in several of the Southern States. The golden jubilee of Pius the Ninth's consecration to the episcopal dignity was celebrated in St. Louis on June 3, 1877, witn much enthusiasm and display. A procession of twelve thousand persons marching in line, six abreast, passed near the university, where it was joined by the students, and by five hundred additional young men, who also filed out from the premises and united with the main body of the procession. It was on the same day, June 3, 1877, that the province of Missouri actually took possession of the former cathedral and adjoining residence in the city of Detroit, Michigan, with a view of there establishing a college, the arrangement having been previously agreed on be- tween Right Rev. Bishop Borgess and Rev. Thomas O'Neil, provincial of Missouri. Rev. J. B. Miege received principal charge of this new undertaking, being ap- pointed first superior of the residence after it had passed under control of the Jesuits. On September 2, 1877, a few classes were organized, as a first step towards establishing " Detroit College." On June 26, 1877, Rev. J. F. Van Assche died at St. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 12$ Stanislaus Novitiate, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and just fifty-four years after his first arrival at the same place. He was buried at the novitiate on June 29th, the solemn Requiem Mass and other funeral rites taking place in the church at the village of Florissant, of which he had long been pastor, and to which his remains were conveyed in order that his congregation might witness the ceremony. The crowd that was pres- ent on the occasion exceeded in number, perhaps, any collection of i eople ever before assembled at St. Fer- dinand's Church, Florissant ; nearly one hundred vehicles accompanied his remains back to the novitiate for inter- ment. Father Van Assche was exceedingly modest as to his natural gifts and his acquired good qualities, and he ranked himself below all his companions; but he seems actually to have been one of the most correct in judg- ment, and at the same time one of the most remarkable of all those sterling and excellent pioneers, for numer- ous and amiable virtues. The following extract from a sketch of his life, fur- nished the St. Louis Times of June 27, 1877, will interest the public of this city and vicinity, where he was held in high esteem by all that knew him ; and at the same time it will add some facts concerning the original founders of the St. Louis University, not contained in the foregoing chapters of this volume : " Rev. Judocus Francis Van Assche, S. J., departed this life yesterday, at twelve o'clock, noon, in the seventy- eighth year of his age. On the 26th of last May he started on horseback to visit the sick, carrying with him the Blessed Sacrament. When two miles from Florissant, out on the Cross Keys Road, he was suddenly attacked with paralysis, falling from his horse. The faithful 124 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. animal stood still, seemingly waiting for him to rise and remount. He lay helpless on the ground, till a gentle- man, happening to pass that way, assisted him upon his horse. He wished to go on to the house of the sick person ; but after riding a short distance he felt that he could proceed no further, and he turned about and returned to his home at Florissant, which he reached with much difficulty. Dr. Hereford being called, found the attack to be a serious one, that offered little hope of recovery. The patient was removed to the St. Stanis- laus Novitiate, where, despite all that medical art and kindness of friends could do for him, he gradually sank until he breathed his last, yesterday. " The word rapidly travelled to the village, and through the surrounding country to this city, that 'good Father Van Assche is dead;' and perhaps none that knew him personally ever knew another person to whom the epithet ' good/ in all its meaning, could be so appropriately given ; for Father Van Assche was a man of remarkable goodness, both by nature and from every amiable virtue. He never had an enemy, and an unkind word was never spoken against him. He had the simplicity of a child ; he was so cheerful, so kindly in his manners, so ready to serve others, and to give the preference to any one over himself, that no man knew him that did not love him, and no one could meet him without desiring again to see him and con- verse with him. Every member of his congregation looked upon him as a special friend, and all revered him as a wise and saintly man. He was a father to the poor and those in sorrow, and he never turned away a beg- gar from his door without giving something, even when having little for himself; 'for/ he would say to his HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 125 friends, ' even if the beggar be an undeserving drunkard, he must be in great need, if he will come and ask a small pittance of me.' Father Van Assche realized, in his whole life and conduct, the ideal of a Christian pastor, made perfect beyond all ordinary men, by a charity that was unfeigned, because it knew no exception, it refused no work, and it feared no sacrifice. His zeal was not like that of the Pharisee, fiery and intolerant, even of the person ; it was persuasive and gentle, like that of the Redeemer, making duty a pleasure, not an insupportable burden. He was distinguished for his practical good sense and the solidity of his judgment concerning all the affairs of human life ; he was ob- servant and thoughtful ; his opinions showed so much wisdom and prudence, on all matters falling under his notice, that his advice was sought for and most highly valued, even by most learned acquaintances. It was instructive to hear him express his thoughts on public and social questions. Having spent in the United States fifty-six years of his long life, he had become attached to the country and its institutions, as if he had known no other. He often said pleasantly to his young friends that were born here : ' I am more of an American than you, for two reasons : one is, I am here longer than you have been ; and the other is, that I am an American by choice and you are one by accident.' He lamented the rapid growth of avarice among our citizens during late years, saying: 'Now the people no longer work for a living, but all are now working to become rich.' He first began to minister at the altar in 1827, now fifty years ago ; he baptized, in their infancy, the grandparents of many now living in this city and in St. Louis County. ' Good Father 126 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. Van Assche,' as he was, for many years, styled by every one, will be buried to-day on the spot a little mound where repose the remains of Father De Smet, the illustrious Indian missionary, and those of Father Meurin, who died at Kaskaskia in 17/7. Fifty long years ago, Father Van Assche heard the whippoor- will's nightly song from its perch on the tall trees cover- ing the ground beneath whose sod he will now sleep his last long :-leep. " Father Judocus F. Van Assche was born at St. Amand, which is on the banks of the Scheldt, and is five leagues above Antwerp. His father, Judocus Van ^Assche, dealt in spun cotton and flax. Young Van Assche wished to be a sailor, and his father applied to a captain, known to be a good man, to receive him ; but the captain whom he applied to declined to accept any more boys. The youth was sent to school at Mechlin. His playfulness caused his teacher, by not rightly estimating the innocent vivacity of a boyish nature, to request his father to recall him from school ; his father declined to do so, till his son was given further trial. The youth soon became distinguished for his diligence in study, obedience to rules, success in his classes, and all virtues becoming his age. " In 1816, the illustrious Kentucky missionary, Father Charles Nerinckx, went to his native country, Belgium, in the interests of his various missions in the Diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky. On his return to the United States, in 1817, he was accompanied by James Oliver Van de Velde, who joined the Jesuit Society at George- town College, D. C. In Belgium, the latter was tutor of French to young Judocus F. Van Assche, who would have accompanied him had not his youth and the lack HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. I2/ of means rendered such a step impracticable at that time. His desire to join his friend at Georgetown he, however, kept, and he only waited for an opportunity to go to America. In 1820, Father Nerinckx again visited Belgium, and, passing by way of Georgetown, he was made the bearer of a letter from Mr. Van de Velde to young Van Assche, which was delivered to the parents of the youth. Young Van Assche resolved to accom- pany the Rev. Mr. Xerinckx on his return to America, and revealed his intention to his schoolmate, John A. Elet. He, too, determined to go with the missionary to America. A little after, John B. Smedts joined them in their proposed journey, and then P. J. De Smet, Felix Verreydt, and P. J. Verhaegen also determined to join the party. In order to raise the funds necessary for the trip, they disposed of their books and furniture, pawning their pianos and watches for redemption by their parents. After overcoming many difficulties, they collected together on the Texel, a small island off the coast of North Holland. Near the island the ship ' Columbus, ' on which they were to sail, rode at anchor, waiting for them. They boarded her, and went quietly out upon the main sea. They seemed to have cast no lingering, longing looks back upon the shores which most of them were never to see again ; for their firmly determined purpose was to give up all that was nearest and dearest to the human heart, in order to de- vote their lives to the Indian missions of America. " They reached Philadelphia on Sunday, September 23, 1821, whence they proceeded at once, by way of Baltimore, to Georgetown. " They were received as novices, and sent at once to the house of probation at White Marsh ; the place was so named in commemoration of the illustrious Father White, 128 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. S. J., who accompanied the first colony of English Catho- lics, who, leaving their country for conscience sake, settled in Maryland. " In 1 832, Father Van Assche began to reside at Floris- sant. He lived a couple of years at Portage des Sioux, but in 1840 he was required by his physicians to leave the place, which was subject to malarious influences on account of the low, wet lands surrounding it. He returned to Florissant, and, with the exception of three years' residence at St. Charles, Father Van Assche made Florissant his home till his death. He lived fifty-four years of his long life in Missouri; and, except for two short visits, one to Cincinnati and one to Chicago, he never in that time went beyond St. Louis and St. Charles Counties. He has now gone to the reward of a long and useful life, followed by the praises and the benisons of all that knew him. He was a man of God, who gave up native country, a home among loved ones, and all that is near and dear to the human heart, in order to make himself useful as a missionary in a strange land. He set the example of a pious and blameless life ; and full of days, and full of merit, he expired calmly on yesterday, June 26th, at St. Stanislaus Novitiate, at about noon. He bore his last illness without one mur- mur or complaint, and seemingly without any pain. No one knowing him personally will fail giving assent to the prayer, May he rest in peace ! and may my last end be like to that of good Father Van Assche ! " On August 2, 1877, Rev. L. Bushart resigned his office as president of the university, and was suc- ceeded in the position by Rev. Joseph E. Keller. Under the placid rule of Father Bushart, the university had then passed safely and prosperously through the most critical financial and business troubles of the HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. I2Q country, which began with Jay Cooke's ruinous failure in 1873. It was at the opening of the session 1877-78 that the scientific course was first commenced, the students of that additional course attending the philosophy class of the classical department, in which logic, general and special metaphysics are taught, the lectures and discus- sions being in the English language. Experience has taught that while it is advantageous always to use Latin text-books in the class of philosophy, yet it is advisa- ble, and even practically necessary, for young men, how well soever they may be trained in the Latin, to be accustomed to the formulating of their philosophical knowledge in the English language, the only tongue in which most of them will have any occasion actually to express their thoughts during after life. In the abstract, or speculatively, it were perhaps better even for lay- men to think and study philosophy and enunciate their reasoning only in the Latin tongue, but in practice this is not feasible for all ; and, besides, the cultivated vernaculars of this day abound in philosophical writings, that are either good or bad, and such matters are dis- cussed among the people, and shape their thought. On this account, it is of practical advantage for young men who are educated for the callings of purely secular life to acquire the power of communicating their knowl- edge of philosophical subjects with distinctness and fluency, in discussing them in the vernacular tongue. The board of trustees, at a meeting convened March 26, 1878, determined to confer on those of the scientific course who shall have passed a satisfactory examina- tion in philosophy a parchment diploma of the degree B.S., or Bachelor of Science, provided they shall have I3O HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. also given satisfaction in their other classes. At a subsequent meeting of the trustees, it was decided that henceforth a medal should be bestowed on the student of the scientific course winning the highest honors of the class at the annual commencement, like to that given in the class of philosophy. Since the cost of living had become much lessened, through the increased value of money, before the begin- ning of the scholastic year 1877-78, a reduction of twenty per cent was then made in the total charge for board and tuition. 1 1 At six o'clock, p. M., on December 8, 1877, the occultation of the planet Venus was seen to much advantage from the observatory of the St. Louis University. To one observing the phenomenon with the unaided eye, it was striking, especially by the suddenness with which the planet disappeared behind the moon, its obscuration not taking place gradually, but almost instantaneously. CHAPTER X. 1878 1879. THE trustees of the university, at a meeting convoked February 4, 1 878, concurred in the opinion that it was ex- pedient for the president of the institution, Rev. Joseph E. Keller, to attend a convention of college presidents and delegates to be held during that month in Atlanta, Georgia, for the purpose of consultation on matters per- taining to the common interest of educational establish- ments. The meeting took place, but it seems to have been productive of no important results. Meetings of capable men, representing different colleges, convened for deliberation on questions of education and methods of teaching, should prove mutually beneficial to such institutions. But it too often happens that delegates sent to such assemblies go to them rather with the aim of propagating some preconceived notions or theories of their own than of increasing their knowledge by means of the good sense and experience of others. In early times, the students of the St. Louis Univer- sity all studied the French language, and at certain stated hours all were required to speak only in French, though the English was always the ordinary language of the institution. There were then, also, classes of Spanish, attended by a number of students desirous to acquire that language for commercial reasons. At a later date, the German language came into requisition, (131) 132 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. the number who studied it gradually increasing as the German population in the city and vicinity became more numerous. No class for the study of the Italian language was ever organized at the university, it never being required. The French language had ceased, several years before the late civil war, to be universally studied, and no Spanish class has been taught at the university since the session of 1 860-61. On March 26th of the current year, 1879, there were three hun- dred and forty-two students actually attending classes ; there were then fifty-four pupils in the German classes, and nineteen in the French classes. Hence, since the civil war began, in 1861, there has been no class of the Spanish language; the study of the French language during that period has greatly declined, and the study of the German has increased, till about one-sixth of the students now attend the German classes. It is found, on examining the records of the institu- tion, from the time at which the commercial course was first separated from the classical course, in 1858, that fluctuation in the total number of students registered mainly affects the commercial classes ; or, there is less variation occurring at different times in the total num- ber of students following the classical course than there is in the number that follow the commercial course, the latter rising and falling more readily with general busi- ness prosperity. Previous to the year 1836, the annual exhibitions before the public were held in the third story of the original building, which was erected in 1829. In 1836, and for some years thereafter, these exhibitions took place in the chapel, on Washington Avenue and HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 133 Tenth Street. The audiences becoming too large to enter this chapel, a stage was prepared in the play- grounds of the students, and the crowd was seated under the shade-trees which then adorned the premises. In 1855, and thenceforth, these exhibitions took place in the University Hall. The public always manifested much interest in these commencement exercises, and hence the hall, which seats twelve hundred persons, was crowded on all such occasions. In order to pre- vent the assembling of throngs that are too miscellane- ous, single tickets are now given, and only to the parents of the students and to some special friends of the institution. On March n, 1878, Right Rev. Bishop Conroy, Papal Ablegate to Canada, paid a complimentary visit to the university. The students gave him a formal reception in the college hall, and addressed him as representing the head of the Church. He replied in a handsome and very appropriate speech, but he dis- claimed any official character in his visit to the United States. At the annual commencement which took place June 26, 1878, three candidates received the degree of A.B. in the classical department, two received the degree of B.S. in the scientific, and twenty-three received their diplomas in the commercial course. The number of students registered for the session beginning Septem- ber 7, 1878, exceeded that of any session since the one ending June 27, 1873, which is some indication that more prosperous times are returning to the business and industrial community. On September 5, 1878, Creighton College, at Omaha, Nebraska, was first opened for the admission of pupils. 134 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. The college building, which is in the English Gothic style of architecture, is one hundred and twenty-six feet by fifty-six feet, with three stories and a basement, and it was erected by Mr. John Creighton, as executor of Mrs. Edward Creighton, his sister-in-law. Mr. Ed- ward Creighton died November 5, 1874, and his widow died January 23, 1876. This noble couple had mu- tually agreed to bequeath a portion of their large for- tune towards founding a Catholic college in Omaha, or near that city, and it was to be known as " Creighton College." The execution of this design was left by Ed- ward Creighton to his devoted wife, who survived him. Mrs. Creighton provided in her last will that $100,000 of her estate should be set aside to establish this col- lege, one-half the amount to be spent on the building of the college, and the remaining half to be invested securely for its support. Work on the building was begun in May, 1877, and it was made ready for occu- pancy by July 15, 1878. On July 23, Right Rev. Bishop O'Connor, with the priests of his vicariate, began the exercises of a spiritual retreat in the new building, which concluded July 3ist. Classes were begun therein on September 5th, Rev. R. Shaffel being president, and Rev. H. Peters, three scholastics, and two lay teachers conducting the classes. There were, at the beginning of February, 1879, one hundred and eighty-five pupils in actual attendance. Rev. Edward A. Higgins was installed as provincial of Missouri on January I, 1879, succeeding in that office Rev. Thomas O'Neil, who had filled the position from July 31, 1871. CHAPTER XI. 1879. THE year 1879 completes the golden cycle measuring the age of St. Louis University, and a brief contrast between its present condition and what it was, and what its surroundings were at its first beginning, will make it easy to estimate the results accomplished during the fifty years of its existence. It actually began in the rude log cabins near Florissant, Missouri, built according to primeval pioneer style, with a small number of boys from St. Louis and vicinity, sons of well-to-do families, who were removed to St. Louis when the college build- ing there erected in 1829 was made ready for occu- pancy. The university now has eleven buildings, whose combined length is about eight hundred feet, put up at a total cost of $250,000, to say nothing of large addi- tional sums spent in repairing or improving them. Though possessing no endowment, or other revenue except what it derives from the fees of students for board and tuition, it has a select and valuable library of twenty-five thousand volumes, a museum of natural history, a collection of instruments for the classes of physics and chemistry, including many curious and costly objects. When the college began its first session, after the transfer from the " Indian Seminary " to St. Louis, in 1829, there were fourteen members, all told, belonging to the Jesuit mission of Missouri, eight priests and six lay brothers. At the beginning of the (US) 136 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. year 1879, the number had reached three hundred and thirty- four. The average number of students for each of the last ten years was three hundred and fifty-two ; the average number of new names or new-comers annually regis- tered during the last fifty years was nearly one hundred and fourteen, or the total number of names registered (some of the students remaining at the institution several years, in some instances seven or eight years) was five thousand six hundred and seventy-four. The total num- ber receiving degrees in the literary and scientific depart- ment was : of A.B., one hundred and thirty-eight ; A.M., eighty-one; LL.D., seventeen ; B.S., five ; diplomas given to candidates completing the commercial course, two- hundred and seventeen. Many among the most eminent and useful citizens of St. Louis, and of a large district around it, in Missouri, Illinois, and other Western States, as well as many in the Southern States, re- ceived their collegiate education, either wholly or else in part, at the St. Louis University. This may be veri- fied by inspecting the catalogue of its alumni ; but not all, by any means, of its students who, in the higher walks of life, have done honor to their alma mater are mentioned in that honorable list. Not a few physicians, now at the head of their profession in St. Louis, received their degree of M.D. at the university, as did many others who became eminently successful in other locali- ties there receive their medical diplomas during the time not an inglorious period of its history when the St. Louis Medical College was under the charter of the university, and its diplomas were conferred by the president of that institution. The university has grown up with the city itself of HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. I3/ St. Louis, which, when the college began, in 1829, was as yet only a frontier town, a principal outpost on the border of the "Far West." The time is still remem- bered by elderly persons when " The College " was one of the chief objects pointed out to the stranger visiting the city ; hence it was that, in 1836, Daniel Webster had a formal reception at the institution, given by request of citizens friendly to the establishment; and a like occurrence happened some years later, when Vice- President Richard Johnson was an honorable guest of the city ; as also when the fastidious Charles Dickens visited St. Louis. The city has now greatly outgrown its former size, as well as outgrown what it was to become, as its future was painted in the most sanguine expectations of the inhabitants constituting its popula- tion fifty years ago ; and while the university has not kept pace with the giant, compared to which it is now so insignificant, yet it, too, has grown to be a giant, in comparison with what it was when it came into being, a half century since. During that long period it was never under any dark cloud ; it never forfeited the confidence or lost the esteem of its friends ; and it was never, even but for one session, bereft of its substantial prosperity, the number of its students being always relatively large. All the officers and professors by whom the institu- tion was first organized and conducted are now dead. Of its twelve presidents, only six are living ; few of the professors who occupied its chairs previous to the year 1850 still survive; and but one remains, Rev. J. B. Emig, 1 who taught at the university before the year 1 Father Emig, who now exceeds the good old age of three score and ten, is at Conewago, Pennsylvania, where he attends to parochial duties. 138 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 1836. There have sprung from the mother house, near Florissant, Missouri, still the nursery of its young members, with a community of seventy-six members, six flourishing colleges for higher education ; x one boarding-school in the country, where elementary branches are taught; twelve churches in the large cities of the West and North-west, with their attached parochial schools ; eight churches with residences, not here to enumerate the various missions established among the Indian tribes, or the congregations organ- ized, with churches and pastoral residences built and paid for, after which they were committed to the ordi- nary having jurisdiction over the district in which they were situated. Although the Jesuit mission of Missouri was originally an offshoot of the Maryland province, it having been accepted from Bishop Dubourg in 1823 by the pro- vincial of Maryland, to whom it remained subject till February 14, 1831, yet the Jesuit members who first came to the West, being all Belgians, naturally kept up correspondence with their friends and acquaintances in Belgium and Holland. It thus happened that they received much aid from their native land, after the new college in St. Louis was started by them. 2 This help was given to them in the shape of money, books for the library, instruments for the class of physics, utensils and ornaments for the church, etc. ; and, at a later 1 There are not included in this enumeration the college at Grand Coteau, Louisiana; St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, Kentucky; or St. Aloysius College, Louisville, Kentucky. 2 Prominent among their benefactors was Charles De Neff, of Turn- hout. Mr. De Neff had grown rich as a linen-draper; after the death of his wife, he devoted a portion of his fortune to the establishing of a college at Turnhout, in which young men were educated for the foreign missions. HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 139 period, young men came from Belgium and Holland to join the Jesuit mission of Missouri, one hundred of these postulants making their application for admission through Father De Smet. The great majority of Jesuits in the Missouri province of the society were Belgians and Hollanders, till recent years; and even yet a large proportion of them belong to those nation- alities, though they are no longer in the majority. The natives of Holland and Belgium I have peculiar facility in acquiring the English language, with its exceptional idioms and grammar, its accent and pronunciation, so difficult for most Europeans to acquire in any high degree of perfection ; and those missionary pioneers to the West were likewise specially felicitous in adapting themselves to the social manners and customs of the people, and to the laws and institutions of the United States, as if actually the most congenial to them. Among these Belgians and Hollanders who for many years filled the offices, professorships, and pulpits under control of the Jesuit Society in Missouri, some may be named whose reputation lives after them, and who dis- tinguished themselves, not only for their acquirements as priests and professors in the colleges, but also for those accomplishments that rendered them acceptable and useful likewise to the general public : as, Rev. P. J. Ver- haegen, Rev. James Van de Velde, afterwards Bishop of Natchez ; Rev. Cornelius Smarius, one of the ablest pulpit orators in the United States, of his day ; 2 Rev. 1 St. Francis Xavier, in writing from the East Indies to St. Ignatius for some assistance, added to his request, " Mitte Belgas." 2 A published volume of Father Smarius's lectures has gone through many editions. His lecture on "The Christian and the Pagan Family" was universally admired in St. Louis, where it was several times repeated, by request. 140 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. Louis Heylen, whose lectures, so much admired by many discerning persons for the solidity of their learning, the newness and beauty of their thoughts, and the faultless elegance and the manly strength of their language, were republished in England, where they were also highly prized ; Rev. Joseph Fastre, who, though he con- fined his literary undertakings to the humbler task of translating excellent works from the Latin and French languages into English, was so thoroughly master of all those tongues that the authors whose productions he rendered into English lost nothing, and some of them gained in literary perfection by being clothed in Father Fastre's pure and classical English. As for Father De Smet, his fame is world-wide. Many of his published writings were originally composed by him in the French language, owing to the fact that they were addressed to friends in Belgium, where French is the tongue spoken in polite society ; yet his diaries, letters, and addresses, which were written by him in the English, are correct and vigorous in style, at the same time that they are exceedingly interesting, and oftentimes charm- ing, for the beauty of their matter. Thus, these found- ers of the Missouri province acquired the language and thought of the people, and caught the spirit of the country, which they used for noble aims, at the same time that they fulfilled the apostle's behest of making themselves " all to all." It must be said that those who have followed after the early Belgian pioneers, and are still living, are not unworthy successors of those apostolic men ; but an account of their merits will pertain to the history of the university's centenary. Since the year 1858, when Rev. J. B. Druyts, then vice-provincial of Missouri, estab- lished a scholasticate or seminary for the higher educa- GRADUATES. 141 tion of young aspirants to the priesthood, the members joining the society in Missouri have enjoyed advantages of cultivation in science and literature never possessed by those who had been previously educated in the Western province. The permanent advancement thus made justifies confiding expectations that the next half century will also show a due proportion of growth in the St. Louis University, as well as in all other zealous works of the Missouri province ; and, therefore, that the centenary of the St. Louis University will display a progress in development as much beyond what it is now, as the institution is now beyond what it was when it first began, fifty years ago. Names of all ivho received degrees in ' the literary and scientific department of the St. Louis University, and of those, also, on whom was conferred the honorary degree of LL.D. 1834. Year. Degree. Names. Professions. Residence. I834J A.M. A.B. ct *John Servary *P. A. F.du Bouffay * Peter A. Walsh Literature Baltimore, Md. St. Louis Co., Mo. St. Louis, Mo. 1835 j A.M. n *Bryan Mullanphy *Benjamin Eaton *Barthol. McGowan *Jeremiah Langton Literature St. Louis, Mo. Ireland. it I8 3 6 | A.B. ii *Joseph Puch y Bea *John Shannon . . Campeche, Mex. Natchez. Miss. I8 3 8 | A.M. A.B. *Jas. W. Sunderland Valsin Dupuy *Theophilus Littell Professor . New England. . llberville, La. . jOpelousas, La. * Deceased. 142 GRADUATES. J 'ear. 1 Degree Names. Professions. Residence. 1840 J A.B. *Wm. X. Guilmartin Jos. G. H. Kernion . {Pennsylvania. New Orleans, La. 1841 J A.B. Payton Spence *John J. Morgan . St. Louis, Mo. Madison, La. r A.B. Henry B. Kelly . .... New Orleans, La. 1842 J " Alex. J. P. Garesche .... Wilmington, Del. 1 " *Theodosius Barret . . . . Kentucky. A.M. *Wm. X. Guilmartin Professor Pennsylvania. A.B. J. Richard Barrett ... Kentucky. " Fred. P. Garesche ... Wilmington, Del. *Isaac Cooper .... St. Louis Co., Mo. " *Edward J. Carrell . . . . Louisville, Ky. r A.B. Thomas M. Finney .... St. Louis, Mo. 1844 J 4< Didier Guyon *F. Leavenworth . . . . Mt. Vernon, Ind. I " Ferd. L. Garesche .... Wilmington, Del. r A.M. *Edward J. Carrell Law . Louisville, Ky. A.B. Ellsworth F. Smith ... St. Louis, Mo. 845 1 " J. S. B. Alleyne . . . . . " " 1846 { A.M. A.B. Henry B. Kelly . Lucien Carr Law . New Orleans, La. St. Louis, Mo. (. r A.M. *John J. Morgan Madison, La. 1847 \ * Ellsworth F. Smith Medicine St. Louis, Mo. ( " J. S. B. Alleyne . " " " 8 8 / A.M. Alex. J. P. Garesche Law . St. Louis, Mo. 1 4 I " *Philip McKeever . . . . New Orleans, La. r In consequence of t ic cholera, the students were sent 1849 j home before the us ual time; henc * no degrees were l given. 1850 { A.B. ft *Thomas R. Harvey John Harty .... Siline Co., Mo. St. Louis, Mo. L r A.B. John I. Coghlan . Ireland. Edward T. Parish .... Woodville, Miss. g " Ed. I. Fitzpatrick . St. Louis, Mo. 5 2 *William Linton .... n " *Homer Mille . . Manchac, La. " Sdmond Trepagnier . . . . St. Charles, La. * Deceased. UNIVERSITY GRADUATES. Year. Degree. \ Xanies. Professions . Residence. r A.M. *Thos. A. Lonergani Medicine St. Louis, Mo. 1853 ] " jFrancis L. Haydel tt St. James, La. ( " Frederic Ihmsen A.B. . . .* Pittsburg, Pa. r A.M. |E. Doumeing, A.B. Medicine New Orleans, La. 1 " Edward T. Parish ILaw . St. Louis, Mo. 1854 -j " *\Villiam Linton . Literature Chicago, 111. A.B. *Wi!liam Kenny . . . Ireland. I " *Adolph Menard . . . . Galveston, Texas. A.M. *Charles A. Pope Medicine St. Louis, Mo. " *Moses L. Linton 14 a ft o - - " Robert A. Bakewell Law . ft l8 55 A.B. *George J. Hood . tt ft " * Edward A. Leavy ... n a " ,*Henry B. Murphy .... Old Mines, Mo. r A.M. -William Kenny . .... St. Louis, Mo. I A.B. Earth. M. Chambers ... tt ft i8 5 6 " Robert Corcoran . it tt " John H. Reel . . n ft " Emile Webre . St. James Par., La. V. 1857 { A.M. *Theodosius Barrett " J. Richard Barrett : : : : St. Louis, Mo. ft ft r A.B. *James A. Kelly . .... St. Louis, Mo. 1858-^ 11 *Geo. A. Dickinson . ft ft L " : *Adolph Webre . . . . . St. James Par., La. r A.M. Frederic W. Elbreg Cincinnati, O. 1859 J A.B. James A. Kennedy .... St. Louis, Mo. I " *Thomas Grace . .... ft tt r A.B. Aloysius Averbeck Cincinnati, O. " Fugene H. Brady .... Louisville, Ky. 1860 -1 " *James Keenan . . St. Louis, Mo. " Thomas Lyons .... ff .4 I " Patrick O'Reilly . . . . t f ft r A.B. Rod. W. Anderson .... Collinsville, 111. '* M. M. Boissac . . St. Gabriel, La. 1861 - " Francis X. McCabe . St. Louis, Mo. " *John Moynihan . . tt ft . " *Bernard M. Rice .... n t * Deceased. 144 GRADUATES. Year. ! Degree. Names. Professions. Residence. \ A.B. John Broderick . .... St. Louis, Mo. < *John H. Ketterer . . . n 1862 \ < *FrancisX. Lamotte . 1 *John Langton . . a I " Louis S. Tesson . . . . < r A.B. Andrew J. Kennedy .... St. Louis, Mo. 1863 J f| J. F. Conroy . ** w o < (I Gerald L. Griffin .... Madison, Ind. A M. *John H. Ketterer Law . St. Louis, Mo. < ^Francis X. Lamotte 1 1 u (i Patrick O'Reilly . Divinity . K (i ( J. A. Timmons, A.B. Literature Bardstown, Ky. i Julius S. Walsh, A.B. . St. Louis, Mo. 1864 . A.B. Santiago Belden . *James A. Butler . . Monterey, Mex. Cincinnati, O. Jules J. Desloge . .... St. Louis, Mo. G. W. Fichtenkamp ... u tt George H. Loker .... ( it James A. Walsh . .... 11 r< Jos. W. Rickert . . . . . Waterloo, 111. LL.D. Alex. J. P. Garesche Law . St. Louis, Mo. *Moses L. Linton Medicine < A.M. Francis X. McCabe Law . A.B. Francis E. Bonnet . . . . < 1865 - H. O. Collins . .... < (i Charles W. Knapp ... < Charles C. Lamotte . . ' tt Lewis C. Smith . . . (i . t Francis L. Stuever . . . . H r A.M. fames A. Kennedy Literature Waterloo, 111. rRfifi J it j. W. Fichtenkamp Law . St. Louis, Mo. 1 OOU -< A.B. Wolsey W. Collins . a I Bernard Finney . . . . . r A.M. H. O. Collins . Law . St. Louis, Mo. Chas. W. Knapp H ( f U < < Francis L. Stuever Medicine (1 < 1867 j A.B. Shepard J. Barclay .... (I tl 1 Don Alonzo Burke . Carlinville, 111. < Charles F. Loker .... St. Louis, Mo. [ohn B. O'Meara . . . . ii ft * Deceased. GRADUATES. 145 Year. Degree . J\ \ i >nes . Professions . Residence. A.M. A. J. Cecil, A. B. | Professor Elizabetht'wn, Ky. 1868 ' 1868 Jeremiah F. Conroy Law . St. Louis, Mo. Gerald L. Griffin "... Memphis, Tenn. I Andrew J. Kennedy "... St. Louis, Mo. r A.M. *Felix McArdle . Medicine St. Louis, Mo. A.B. George H. Backer " '* 1869 tt Charles A. Fanning . < ( it Leon Greneaux . . Natchitoches, La- i << Robt. J. Holloway Louis L. McCabe . . Shelby ville, 111. St. Louis, Mo. A.M. Montrose A. Fallen Medicine St. Louis, Mo. " John F. McDermott Literature u n Joseph W. Rickert Law . Waterloo, 111. A.B. Daniel D. Burnes ; Weston, Mo. 1870 " M. T- McLoughlin St. Louis, Mo. 1 " Joseph A. Mulhall .... " * *Geo. E. Wilkinson . Yazoo City, Miss. " Louis A. Lebeau . Hermitage, La. " Benj. T. McEnery . Monroe, La. I " Jefferson L. Mellon . . . . Claysville, Mo. r A.B. Louis R. Bergeron Hermitage, La. (4 William T. Humes St. Louis, Mo. 14 Chas. A. Laforge . . . . (New. Madrid, Mo. " P. Wm. Proven chere . St. Louis, Mo. " Valle F. Reyburn .... < 1A.M. Louis A. Lebeau Medicine Hermitage, La. A.B. Eleuterio Baca . Las Vegas, N.Mex. " John M. Breard . i Monroe, La. " Robt. M. Breard a M Callender J. Lewis '. Frankfort, Ky. I " Edmund R. Lynch . . . . St. Louis, Mo. A.M. Louis R. Bergeron Literature Hermitage, La. " Daniel D. Burnes Law . Weston, Mo. 1873 - M A.B. Jno. A. McMenamy James N. Burnes "... St. Joseph, Mo. Weston, Mo. " *Henry S. Garesche .... St. Louis, Mo. ft Ralph W. Humes .... u r A.B. Alfred Bouvier St. Louis, Mo. i8 7 4 ;; Matthew F. Burke Louis J. Hornsby ; Washington, Ind. St. Louis, Mo. I " Francis J. Lutz . . . . " " * Deceased. 146 GRADUATES. Year. Degree Names. Professions. Resilience. A.B. A. F. McAllister . St. Louis, Mo. Thos. ], Reyburn . a 1874 - George P. Miron Amedee V. Reyburn K ( ( (i ]. Gaston Soulard . <( (( i< Michael Courtney Professor < ,- A.M. *Henry S. Garesche Medicine St. Louis, Mo. < Wm. A. Garesche Law . f Edward Walsh, Jr. Civil Engineer'g K ( 1871; A.B. Tames Boro Memphis, Tenn. lo / D - Louis H. Jones . Eugene C. Slevin . . . . St. Louis, Mo. Louisville, Ky. f< Solomon A. Link . . . . St. Louis, Mo. r A.M. R. G. Frost, A.B. Law . St. Louis, Mo. ti Francis J. Lutz . Medicine (( <( A.B. Thos. H. Coppinger .... Alton, 111. " Wm. E. Furlong .... Milwaukee, Wis. 1876 . James W. Garneau ... St. Louis, Mo. " G. Edmund Graves .... Lebanon, Ky. r Jas. J. Harrison . .... St. Louis, Mo. il Alfred H. Kernion . New Orleans, La. . u J. Henry Koetting .... Milwaukee, Wis. A.M. Louis J. Hornsby Law . St. Louis, Mo. K J. Gaston Soulard Medicine it A.B. James A. Cain . Louisville, Ky. ft Ashley C. Clover . St. Louis, Mo. < t Joseph Solari .... (t < f A.B. Andrew Duggan .... St. Louis, Mo. James E. Hereford .... Florissant, Mo. 1878 - John J. McNamara .... St. Louis, Mo. B.S. Russell K. Price . Louisville, Ky. . Harry D. Wilkes .... < ' LL.D. J. S. B. Alleyne . Medicine St. Louis, Mo. Hon. R. A. Bakewell Law . Hon. J. R. Barrett it Q w it Jerome K. Bauduy Louis C. Boisliniere Medicine 1879 - ii Hon. H. A. Clover Law . Emile Doumeing Medicine New Orleans, La. 14 Edward T. Farish Law . St. Louis, Mo. I* Hon. A. H. Garland U. S. Senator Arkansas. " Elisha H. Gregory Medicine St. Louis, Mo. * Deceased. GRADUATES. 147 Year. Degree Natnes. Professions. Re* idence. \ ' LL.D. Hon. Jas. Halligan Hon. Henry B.Kelly Law . . . Union, Mo. "... New Orleans, La. <' Timothy L Papin Medicine . St. Louis, Mo. it Hon. T. C. Reynolds Law ... " " Ellsworth F. Smith Medicine . " " A.M. < R. W. Anderson Walter J. Blakely . Collinsville, 111. Literature . St. Louis, Mo. Matthew F. Burke Law . . . Washington, Ind. < James A. Cain Literature . Fairfield, Ky. Lucien Carr . Liter. & Science Cambridge, Mass. < B. M. Chambers . A.B. ... St. Louis, Mo. < < Ashley C. Clover Law . H (( Wolsey W. Collins " . . . San Francisco, Cal. Thos. H. Coppingeri " Alton, 111. a Wm. A. Hard away Medicine . St. Louis, Mo. " Michael F. Healy Law . ei K Ralph W. Humes Literature