Marquette University High School - Flambeau Yearbook (Milwaukee, WI)

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1-he hundred years were recalled to St. Louis, and the little academy was entrusted to lay teachers, who saw the enrollment continue to dwindle. Milwaukee, with a population of 44,- 000, could not support a school of ad- vanced learning. Within a short time, even the public schools closed their doors. The Jesuits were right, the Bis- hop had to admit, Milwaukee was not yet ready for the type of education the Society offered. The frontier outlook on education, the Bishop began to re- alize, was not easily dispelled. But the Jesuits tried again in 1863. A young and vigorous man, Father James Hayes, was assigned to head the faltering school, and met with such suc- cess that by 1864 his successor, Father John T. Kuhlman, opened his office in a new brick building with a capacity for 400 students. The school was renamed St. Gall's Academy. But just as it seemed that the dream of Bishop Henni had at last become a reality, word came from the Jesuits' Missouri headquarters in 1872 that it was imperative that the priest-teachers again be Withdrawn from Milwaukee. And their departure meant the end to St. Gal1's Academy. Was this the answer to Bishop Henni's thirty years of prayer? Three years passed. Within those years, 1872-75, Milwaukee was begin- ning to take rank among the prospering cities of a prosperous nation, and its population was rapidly increasing with expectant immigrants from Germany, Poland, Italy and Ireland. Now, surely, reasoned the Bishop, the Jesuits will agree with me that there is a need of a college for my people. He had not forgotten that the Society had pur- chased, several years earlier, some hill- top property on Tenth and State Streets, an ideal location for a new

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The statue of ST. lgnofius dominates The entrance To The foculfy building. L eral of the Society in Rome and to the Provincial Head in St. Louis. Refusal after refusal he received with the regret that Jesuits could not be spared for the purpose and with the implication that Milwaukee was not yet ready for a school of higher learning. Finally in 1856 the bishop's persistent pleas obtained their reward. Three Jesuit priests arrived in Milwaukee, not exactly with the intention to start a college, but to improve conditions in Milwaukee's central parish, St. Gall's. The Jesuits were greeted by a dilap- idated building, swampy grounds, and, what is worse, spiritless parishioners. The historian of St. Ga1l's reports: Snakes, toads, and lizards have their dwelling here. Much sickness prevails, not only bodily but also spiritual. Within two years, however, the church was remodeled, the swamp filled in, and the fervor of the true Christian life was renewed in the hearts of the people. Time could now be devoted to the es- tablishment of a college. Bishop Henni sighed a prayer of thanksgiving, but his secret rejoicing was somewhat prema- ture. Trouble began the first year the Jes- uit school opened its doors. St. Aloysius Academy it was named, a college in the European sense: a six year course of instruction in the humanities, with some electives in the commercial arts, a con- cession to American - and frontier - practicality. Fifty students, ranging in age from six to twenty-five years, were on hand for the opening session in Sep- tember 1857. They paid tuition of thir- ty dollars. When, however, two public high schools also began operation, many of the promising boys withdrew from the school on Third and Michigan to take advantage of the free tuition at the newer institutions. Soon the Jesuits

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school. Again the Jesuits heard the pleas of the Bishop and returned to Milwaukee, with plans to reopen St. Gall's Academy. But the Bishop had long been pon- dering about the name which the school of his dreams and prayers should even- tually bear. When he arrived in Mil- waukee, the Bishop had visited the site where a Jesuit missionary and his ex- plorer-companions had encamped more than 150 years ago for three days dur- ing their travels of exploration and con- version. He recalled with awe and rev- erence the work of this French Jesuit, Pere Jacques Marquette, among the In- dians of the West. An indefatigable zeal had fired Marquette to bring Christ to the heart of a new continent and the people of the new continent to Christ. His adventurous spirit had revealed to the Old World not only the presence of a mighty river in the heart of the hem- In l857 Marquette High was no more them this shaky wooden structure on Third and Michigan. If was Then called St. Aloysius Academy. isphere but the potentiality and the needs of the mid-continent. The Bishop could not but compare his own destined work with that of his great predecessor. He, too, as bishop of a new struggling diocese, would have to make known to his benefactors in the Old World the po- tentiality and the needs of his midland see. He, too, as pastor of a frontier peo- ple, would have to bring the cultural and spiritual wealth in which they were in such great want. Overlooking the blue waters of a Great Lake into which flowed the river that had borne Pere Marquette to his people, the Bishop of Milwaukee invoked the intercession of the French Jesuit, that like him he might with zeal, humility, patience, and courage succeed in his work. And it was on the same site that the Bishop had determined to call the crowning achievement of his work Mar- quette Academy.