Carroll College - Hilltopper Yearbook (Helena, MT)

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tary Science and Tactics until the discontinuance of the Unit in June, 1920. The contribution of Mount St. Charles to the Great War is not measured alone by the establishment of the S. A. T. C. Young as was the College at the outbreak of the war, it numbered among its alumni commissioned and non-commissioned officers who deserved well the promotions that came later to them all. A host of our former students responded to the call for volunteers, and served in all branches of the service. The first Montana soldier to fall in battle. Private Ray Brent, and the first Montana officer to give his life in France, Lieutenant Harold Joyce, were both former students of Mount St. Charles. September, 1919, marked the appointment of the Reverend John J. Tracy, Ph.D., as president of the College to succeed the Reverend Peter F. Macdonald, who was transferred to parish work. In January, 1920, the Reverend John J. O’Kennedy was placed at the head of the drive for funds with which to erect the new college building, the need of which had become imperative to accommodate the growing numbers of students of the College. The citizens of Helena responded in a generous manner, and the princely gift of fifty thousand dollars given by Senator T. C. Power in the name of the members of the Power family enabled the College to proceed further with its plans. Ground was broken for the new building to the south of the main building in the spring of 1920. The R. 0. T. C. was discontinued with the close of the College in June, 1920. Classes were again resumed, but without the military in September, 1920. At the conclusion of the program on the eve of the Christmas vacation in that year, the announcement was made of the appointment of the Reverend X. C. Hoff to succeed the Reverend John J. Tracy as president of the College. The next few years of the college life were uneventful, being marked only by the gradual growth in student enrollment and constant application to the improvement of the courses. In September, 1923, the department of education was added to those already existing, and immediately became popular with a number who anticipated teaching as a life’s career. On Sunday, May 20. 1923, the cornerstone of the new library and Residence Hall to the north of the main building was laid in the presence of a number of friends of the College. The dedication of the new building took place on June 1, 1921, and the building was opened in September, 1924. Almost immediately all its facilities were utilized. Storming the tide of trial of youth and early expansion, Mount St. Charles is now finishing its twentieth year, has assumed a leading place Page thirty-five

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BREAKING GROUND FOR NEW GYMNASIUM the Great War militated somewhat against a much larger student body. The pre-professional courses were a success, and from their beginnings to the present have been ever growing. The fall of 1918 was significant in the growth of the institution. At that time the United States established with us a unit of the Students Army Training Corps. Major George W. Edgington, U. S. A., assisted by Lieutenants Marvin B. Robinson, Claude E. Ncihart, and Arthur Raymond and Sergeant Reavis of the United States Army, were in charge of the Unit. Quarters in the residence sections of the building were not sufficient to care for the enlisted men, and for that reason, the Great Northern Railway generously permitted the use of their station for dormitory quarters. The end of the War announced the end of the Students Army Training Corps, and in December, 1918, the Unit was discharged. Captain Clarence McDonald, who had come to the College in the fall of 1918, had prepared the way for the establishment of the S. A. T. C. so that the work of organization was well under way at the time of the arrival of the regular army officers. After the discharge of the regular Army unit. Captain McDonald took charge of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a unit of which had been approved by the War Department on January 15, 1919. Captain McDonald conducted the Unit until the arrival of Captain Harry K. Adams, U. S. A., who was in charge of Mili- Pagc thirty-four

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among the educational institutions of the Northwest, and gives promise of an ever-increasing growth. It has fulfilled the visioned hopes of its founders and the promises of its early years. Over a score of its former students have been ordained to the priesthood, now serving in dioceses in Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, Colorado, Idaho, and Montana. Two of them have become members of religious orders, and nine of our graduates are priests of the diocese of Helena, four of whom are members of the Faculty of their Alma Mater. Scores of the younger members of the legal, medical, and engineering professions of Montana and her sister states received their foundation with us, and the splendid strides they are taking forward they ascribe in no small measure to the training they received at Mount St. Charles. In their success we take no little pride; on their example in accomplishment, in ambition, in the splendid qualities of sterling Christian manhood we build our hopes for the future of their successors in the halls of Mount St. Charles. Twenty years is not a long span in the life of an educational institution. Yet, twenty years accompanied by the struggles that must necessarily be the portion of every infant undertaking, and accomplishing with such fruitful results the formation of so many young men who have attained success, is no small reason for boasting. The curious seek the last resting places of those who have attained success; the thinkers seek the place wherein were built and moulded, “Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands.” These virtues invariably find their source in the home, in the kindly and wise guidance of self-sacrificing parents, but their development in no small degree is the work, and. if accomplished, the pride of the Alma Mater that sends forth its graduates with sound consciences, with lofty standards, with high ambitions, with the firm foundations of moral and intellectual training. Such have been the young men whom Mount St. Charles has sent forth on life’s journey; such is the pride of Mount St. Charles in her sons who have gone forth from her halls and in those who still are the fond objects of her fostering care. Page thirty-six