Boston College - Sub Turri Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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c fi H on HISTORY FACULTY CLASSES SPORTS ORGANIZATIONS FEATURES

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-HIS BOOK is at once a memorial and a guide. Il is a memorial to those men who, in the sphere of education, have by their selfless striving reared monuments of lasting fame; it is a guide, we trust, to future achievements in the realm of high ideals and unfaltering en- deavor. Thus gratcfnilv we give you the foimders of Boston College who blazed the trail for Catholic education in this vicinity, and the Reverend Joseph R. N. Maxwell. S.J., who bv the force of his inspiration has built for Boston College further roads lo glorv.

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HISTORY OF BOSTON COLLEGE A MILKSTONK has Ix-cn n-a(li (l. Ii was scvcnly-five years ago in 1868 thai pioneering Jesuit scholars, hy secur- ing a college charier from the State of Massacliusetts. poitileil liopeliillN loward lo(la . U l v( celehralc the (liatnoiiil Juhilee of a college not envisioned in the most Imo anl ho|)es or amiiilions of tlie founders. And like all iTicti. wiio from lime to time stop to take an account of their hooks, look o er liie past, and record the progress they have made, we halt and hold our lantern high so that the light it shcfls can reveal to us the early years already passed. But we must look farther hack than seventy-five years, for the real foundations of Boston College were laid hefore this time. It was when Catholicism was just organizing in a higolcd Boston that the first impetus was given to Catholic education. And in this impetus were implanted the seeds of vitality which were to grow into Boston College. At that time Bishop Cheverus. in imitation of bishops of antiquity, started a Cathedral School which he conducted himself in his own dwelling. The succeeding Bishop Fenwick continued the idea, and thus did a handful of Catholic young men imbibe the classics and philosophy when Catholics in Massachusetts were few. scattered, and for the most part, poor. Farseeing Bishop Fitzpatrick. in 1847. invited the Jesuits to make a foundation in Boston. The Church of St. Mary in the North End was assigned to them with the hope that they would establish a high school and college. The immediate fulfdlment of this ambition was restrained only by the scarcity of funds and the fewness of Jesuits. But the Jesuit superior in Boston. B . John McElroy, S.J.. was an extremely zeal- ous and remarkable man. for he entered the order as a brother, but became a priest when his exceptional talents refused to be suppressed and came to the surface. This man. to whom, as founder, we owe so much, lived not only a scholarly but also a most practical life for ninety-five years, and left Boston College as his greatest memorial. The year after his arrival in F3oston, Fr. McElroy purchased the Hancock school- house with the intention of beginning a college there. However, he was handi- -ap[)ed l)y a lack of professors and an unsatisfactory financial status. Four years later, he made another attempt when he bought the Otis schoolhouse on Lancaster Street, but again the dearth of faculty prevented any establishment from being made.