Fordham University - Maroon Yearbook (New York, NY)

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Robert Fulton's Clermont on the Hudson in 1807. olis would be the most effective center of Jesuit activity was destined to be fulfilled. 4 Many loose strands were woven together in the making of Fordham. Had it not been for the excellent work and reputation of the band of exiles at Kentucky, for the strange animosity of Bishop Chabrat, for the opportune presence of Father Boulanger, for the unfortunate failures of Nyack and Lafargeville, for the diocesan demands upon the secular professors at St. John’s, for the tremendous will of a pioneer bishop who refused to surrender his ideal of making Catholicism a respected force in America, St. John’s College and Fordham University might never have existed. By some marvelous and divine chemistry, the right men met at the right time under the right circumstances; there was a combination, analogous to the mighty combination of the American nation. Hughes the indomitable Irishman, Thebaud the prudent Breton, Murphy the precise scholar, Larkin the impressive Englishman, Maldonado the great Spanish theologian, men of many races united by Providence, hardened by adversity, were secretly and separately prepared for Cod’s service and then pushed forward into history. Fordham did not merely happen. It was part of the Divine Providence for the Church and her children in this new, wild, restless America. A number of the Jesuit community, laden with baggage, weary with travel, straggled up the main path from the New York and Harlem Fordham Station in August 1846. One might have recognized huge Mr. Gockeln, the scholastic, and tiny Father Legouais, the spiritual father; the ample Father Larkin with the brow of a Webster and the dignified walk of an Archduke; Mr. Schianski who had been a famous opera singer and Mr. Driscoll who had been a workman. It was truly an extraordinary community It was to become an amazing one in a few years with the addition of men like Fathers Jouin, Duranquet, Daubresse and others; former noblemen, doctors of law from Paris, of divinity from Salamanca, men who could rightfully aspire to chairs at great universities, come to do whatever was required of them. The celebrated Maldonado 23

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outstanding Jesuits like P. F. Dealy, and David Merrick, who were Presidents of the Colleges of Fordham and St. Francis Xavier respectively, lawyers like Judge Dodge of Ohio, merchants like Mr. Paid Thebaud of Yonkers and New York, Hocked to the new college. Rapid growth, divided responsibility and faulty administration nullified the advantages of a zealous faculty and student body. Father Villanis, the superior of the seminary, which was practically independent of the college proper, was replaced by a fellow Lazarist, Father Penco in 1832. With him were two other Italian Vincentians, Fathers Borna and Rainoldi. But since there were already thirty-one theological students by 1843, varying in their natural acquirements and previous preparation, the faculty had more than the ordinary difficulties. Additional teachers, particularly those with some command of English, could not be provided by the Italian Vincentians. Some students were discouraged and left. Misunderstandings which might easily have been explained grew into resentments. Charges that the seminary was teaching Ontol-ogism and Occasionalism, not as yet formally con demned, added to Bishop Hughes’ difficulties. The system employed in the college itself was not as satisfactory as it might have been. Modeled on the r curriculum and practice of Mt. St. Mary’s, courses were conducted by professors of special subjects instead of bv class teachers. Students wasted time adjusting schedules and changing classrooms, while the professors presided over five or six sessions ranging from elementary drills to advanced lectures in their respective subjects. The faculty was, moreover, too fluid for an educational institution. There were three presidents and one acting president, Father Manahan, during a five-year period. Priest teachers were often recalled suddenly to fill pastorates and to perform other ecclesiastical offices. The Bishop obviously had motives for making a change. 11 is experience with St. John's strengthened his conviction that Catholic education must be entrusted to a permanent personnel whose main work lay in the field of instruction. While he was abroad in 1839 he had invited the Religious of the Sacred Heart, the Christian Brothers and the French Jesuits to come to his diocese. He had always desired to entrust the work of higher education to the Jesuits, but, in view of the interest, of the Maryland fathers in Georgetown, he preferred to enlist a separate community of the order for work in New York. Precisely at the time when the allairs of St. John's were in a most awkward state, Bishop Hughes heard of the failure of St. Mary’s Kentucky. Father Boulanger, S.J., the official visitor of the French Missions, was in New York. The Bishop seized this opportunity. Letters were sent, arrangements made, and in a remarkably short time an agreement was reached. The contract put St. John's College and seminary in control of the Kentucky community. Fathers Thebaud and Murphy hastened from Kentucky in April 1846 to prepare lor the next year. At the commencement in June Bishop Hughes formally announced the inauguration of the Jesuit administration. In 1847 his pastoral letter extolled the Jesuit order as a teaching body and recommended St. John’s to his entire diocese. During the spring and early summer of 1846 the community in Kentucky packed books, scientific equipment, clothes, an accumulation of twelve years residence. Their real work, the most important Jesuit educational enterprise in North America, was before them. Father Kohlman's prophecy that the new metrop- New York Literary Institution. Latin School of the Jesuit Fathers, at Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street in i8o(j, on the site of the present Cathedral.

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Scene along the Erie Canal in 1825. was to teach small boys Spanish and deacons theology; Legouais was to guide freshmen and novices alike. These forty-seven, ol whom only sixteen were priests, were to staff not one but five institutions, a preparatory and college course, a diocesan seminary, a scholasticate and a novitiate. They were to administer a parish Church, to aid plague-infested, famine-stricken immigrants, to supply chaplains for hospitals and later on for the army, to conduct retreats, to write books and, at the same time, to manage a business enterprise. It is naive to imagine that the members of this band had any clear sense of the future. If they were conscious of anything save the weight of their baggage or the deadening heat of August, they most probably thought of the goodness of God. But there was one humble brother who seemed to know that Fordham meant, in a way, the end of the journey for him and his brothers in Lhe Lord. 5 Brother William Hennen had been pressed into the King of Bavaria's army in 1800. In 1810 he was released and he began to search for his “place in creation.” Attracted to the religious life, he spent eight years studying in Belgium without, however, achieving the inner assurance of his vocation. Prayer and fasting over a long period of time finally yielded only a strange dream in which he saw his “place in creation embodied in a beautiful house with a Church nearby. So circumstantial and compelling was this vision and so ardent was his nature, that he began to search for the house. He wandered through Germany and the lowlands, crossed into France, took ship at Havre for America, and walked the streets of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Louisville. He visited the Church and College at Bards-town without success. As he was about to despair of what then seemed an utterly foolhardy adventure, an old man approached him, touched his elbow and as though reading his thoughts, said, “I will show you your place in creation, which you have sought long and well The old man led the former soldier to Father Chazelle, then rector of St. Mary’s, explained his mission and then disappeared. St. Mary’s was not the house William Hennen sought, but he stayed, as novice, as scholastic, finally as lay brother, because he had been too long away from his studies. He was one of the band which came to Fordham. When he first saw Rose Hill with its old mansion and its new and lovely church he recognized it immediately as the “place” of his vision. Brother Hennen could hardly contain himself. He felt happy enough to die. He lived to serve the “place” with utter joy for forty-four years. The old chronicle which tells this tale concludes by saying that he died, still in his “place in creation,” with beauty and peace, showing the wonder of God in his Saints. IF you looked into the office of the President of man seated behind a great desk listening to a tall young St. John's College on an afternoon in May Jesuit scholastic who appeared to be finishing a long 1870, you might have seen a bespectacled little story. If you watched the older man’s face closely, you 24