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

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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.

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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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V the hundred years He had relented twice in the past and permitted the acaddmy to be named in turn St. Aloysius and St. Gall, after being assured that lwhen the academy grew in stature and had gained some assurance of permanency it would be renamed according to his wishes. Now, in 1880, though the school was beginning anew ancl stature and assur- ance of permanency were still a hope for the future, Bishop Henni insisted that it be named Marquette Academy. For the Bishop realized his days were drawing to a close, and he wanted this one consolation-arid, it may be sus- pected, this one omen and guarantee of future eminence for his school. The teaching Jesuits, along with their Bishop, cherished high expectations of a large enrollmentl when the school opened in the fall of 1881. Rash prom- ises and exultant hopes had led them to expect at least onei hundred pupils on the very first day. But only thirty- five, enough for one class, enrolled. And there were six Jesuits waiting to teach them. The days that followed were struggling onesg each ring of the door bell at the academy meant either a bill or a boy, usually the former. And on September 7, a few days after classes began, Bishop Henni died. The initial shock of discouragement and the great loss of their benefactor soon gave way to better conditions and the realization that another heavenly intercessor could be counted on. Be- fore the year had run its course, the Fathers acknowledged that a small be- ginning was providential, since it en- abled them to lay a solid foundation for the work to follow. Their Work was blessed. In 1907 the college moved out of its old quarters to its new building on Twelfth and Wis- consin Avenue, and the academy came and State streets which housed