Boston College - Sub Turri Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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The Reverend Joseph R. N. Maxwell, S.J. Dean of Boston College

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fje Clasg of 1939 Dedicates This Volume of the Sub Turri to REV. JOSEPH R. N. MAXWELL, S.J. Dean of the College oj Arts and Sciences who, in the faithful fulfillment of his trust has won the esteem and gratitude of the men of Boston College

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I tstorij of tl|0 CoU g i HE HISTORY of any noble triumph is at once a memorial of achieve- ment, and then a tale of failure. It is a record of the past in which ennoblements of a high order have been conceived, sometimes heroi- cally realized, but more frequently tragically frustrated. It is a huge panorama across which slowly move great men and greater deeds, and from which we derive new hope for future endeavor. Therefore history cannot con- tent itself with a summation of dates, wars, and rehabilitations; with Caesar and Constantine and the fall of their empire; it must also chronicle those activities from which spring the beauty, the joy, and the truth of life. These will be found only where consummate ideals are fostered and encouraged; these will live, grow, and produce still greater ones because they are perennial — more perennial than the everlasting hills — for they are a reflection of the Supreme Ideal. Thus the history of Boston College is not a mere register of dates; it is the story of an ideal. This ideal was not new, for its originator had died eight- een hundred years before, and though it had been tarnished by both friend and foe, it had lost none of its original brilliance. It was the ideal of truth. Here in Boston the phenomenal development of Boston College is syn- onymous Avith the persistently spreading influence of the Society of Jesus in its determination to oft ' er ample opportunity to all for Catholic Education. As early as 1847 the Reverend John McElroy, S. J., in accordance with the wishes of the Right Reverend John B. Fitzpatrick, the then bishop of Boston, assumed the rectorship of St. Mary ' s in the North End. Struck with the realization of the local need for Jesuit training, Father McElroy apparently derived the seed of the ambitious undertaking, of establishing a collegiate institution, from his own life which was a constant application of personal effort against pressing odds. He had entered the Society as a laybrother but by singular aptitude rose to the high office of the priesthood. For the next few years the existence of Boston College rose, fell, and rose again intermittently as one obstacle after another opposed its way. The Hancock schoolhouse was purchased but financial inadequacy as well as the scarcity of Jesuit professors doomed this attempt; the city of Boston sold the Otis School to Father McElroy yet here again, as previously, the lack of sufficient faculty inevitably resulted in delay; then followed the purchase of [10]