Sacred Heart College - Gradatim Yearbook (Belmont, NC)

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the cultural rather than on the commercial and scientific phases of education. Yet the curriculum as formulated for the Academy in those early days carried the student further than does the four-year high school of today. Besides Music and Art, Literature and Dramatics in which students strove to excel, excellent advanced courses in Latin, Philosophy, and Evidences of Christianity were given. In due time the Academy became fully accredited by the North Carolina State Department of Education. Later it was admitted as a member school of the Southern Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges. Then in August, 1935, came the announcement that the Sisters at Sacred Heart were prepared to extend their field of education. They were ready to supply needed academic, physical, and moral training of young high school graduates in two-year standard college courses. The Sisters proposed to give their stu- dents either of two courses: the classical course leading to the bachelor ' s degree, or a cultural secretarial course in preparation for a business career. Thus with the passing of the years, Sacred Heart has been richly endowed with temporal blessings that have brought forth in abundance spirit- ual fruit in the lives of those intrusted to her care. And looking back over a stretch of fifty years. Alma Mater is deeply grateful for the blessings that have been hers. Lovingly she fingers her rosary of golden memories as she muses, and from out the past she recalls cherished names of those who through all the years have given generously of their time and talents that i ' • ■ : ' ' U ■ ; n

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In 1899 Academy space for students became more adequate when a new Convent and Novitiate brick building was erected and Professed Sisters and Novices moved from the frame Convent and Academy building, the first home of the Sisters at Belmont. The frame building was henceforth to be used entirely for the students. The dearest privilege granted them by this change was the converting of the Sisters ' Chapel into the school study hall. Still other changes for greater accommodations were made in 1 9 M when the Academy building was enlarged by the addition of a gymnasium, practice music rooms, and several private bedrooms with open sun porches. Then in 1922 the completion of Victory Hall — named in honor of Our Lady of Victory through whose intercession the building was made possible — was an event of genuine pleasure for students and teaching staff. Here were ample room and scope enough, for the time, for the growing needs of the school. The spacious auditorium, elegant single and double bedrooms, artistic music rooms, attractive art rooms, and interesting museum heightened the students ' joy and the teachers ' delight in the grand work of education. Again in 1928 the Sisters undertook still other enlargements. At this time the old gave way to the new. when the Academy frame building was torn down and in its stead the more adequate, more accommodating, and more imposing brick Admin- istration Building was erected. In this building the students were given greater facilities in class room space, in science laboratories, in library, periodical room, and reading room, and in recreation halls and dormitories. Unstinted outside recreational facilities, too, were provided in the large pavilion, the rose-covered summer-house, the rolled tennis court, and the concrete court marked for volley ball, badminton, and paddle tennis. These together with the expansive lawn have been the scenes of happy outdoor events, and gay, colorful parties that have become traditional in the life at Sacred Heart. Then who would attempt to estimate the influence for good that has been effected within the class rooms and study halls at Sacred Heart during all these years? Since its foundation fifty years ago, Sacred Heart Academy has endeavored to inculcate those principles and attitudes, those fine character- istics that are the essence of cultured womanhood. Using these as their norm, students and teachers have sought to keep pace with educational demands. With ever-increasing joy and enthusiasm they have acquitted themselves nobly of their duty to advance in age and wisdom before God and man. In its earlier years the Academy was not a high school in the strict sense of the word as it is today with its affiliations with school associations. It was, rather, a Southern finishing school in which emphasis was placed on

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Sacred Heart might endure. Passing before her today are those revered Religious whose names are most closely associated with the earliest years in Belmont: Bishop Leo Haid. Father Felix. Mother M. Augustine. Mother M. Teresa. Sister M. Catherine, and Sister M. Agatha. Then follow other Community Superiors: Mother M. Cecilia, Mother M. Scholastica. Mother M. Bride. Mother M. Raphael, and the present Mother Superior. Reverend Mother M. Maura. Sacred Heart is mindful too of the self-sacrificing service of her several Directresses: Sister M. Agatha. Sister M. Cecilia. Sister M. Gen- evieve. Sister M. de Sales. Sister M. Angela. Sister M. Helen. Sister M. Stan- islaus. Sister M. Columba. and the present Directress. Sister M. Hildegarde. Gratefully she acknowledges her indebtedness for spiritual guidance to the zealous Benedictine Fathers who served as Chaplains: Father Felix. Father Alphonsus. Father Charles, and the present Chaplain. Father Sebastian. And today, in this the Golden Jubilee Year of its foundation, from out the peace of her halls. Alma Mater. Sacred Heart, sheds her benedictions on all her cherished ones: on loyal graduates, past and present: on revered Chaplains: on devoted Sisters and Superiors, on all those who have had the privilege of sharing with her at one time or another the joys, the triumphs, the manifold blessings of her fifty years. And humbly mindful of the sources of all these blessings, she turns to the Divine Giver and with deeply grateful heart intones that jubilant hymn of praise — Te Deum Laudamus.