St Edwards University - Tower Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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THE ARTS FAIR Centennial 1974

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of the In honor 1974 Holy Cross Centennial, we present here an article by our own Brother William Dunn, which paints a vivid po rtrait of the early years of St. Edward’s University and the Holy Cross Order in Texas. Historically a Roman Catholic school, this institution is quite an old timer in Austin. Its antecedents here go back one hundred years, and it looks forward to its own Centennial in 1981. The antecedents of the institution go back to the Great Revolution in France, whose impact on the religious life of the country gave birth to a number of new religious orders, including one called the Congregation of Holy Cross. A small band of religious of Holy Cross first came to America in 1841 under the leadership of Fr. Edward Sorin C.S.C. In the following year they founded the institution in northern Indiana now known as the University of Notre Dame. Thirty years after the start in Indiana, the French-born institute, now reenforced with a goodly number of Irish—and Ger- man-Americans, was operating schools in Texas, at Galveston and Brownsville. Bishop Clause Marie Dubuis of the Galveston Diocese was interested in the progress of Catholic education in his diocese. Accordingly, when the opportunity arose to get land at Austin two miles from the Colo- rado River for a school, he was enthusiastic about such a development in that part of his jurisdiction. He raised the question whether the Congregation of Holy Cross would be interested in the Austin Project. As a result Fr. Sorin, then Superior General of the Con- gregation, went to Austin in April 1872 and completed negotiations with Mrs. Mary Doyle and Col. W. L. Robards for two adjacent tracts of land. But by 1873 the Congregation had not even sent people to take care of the farm. This delay was the 6 result at least in part of an agreement between Sorin and the bishop that the Con- gregation would be given charge of St. Mary’s parish if it committed itself to a school south of the river. But the diocesan pastor did not retire from the care of St. Mary’s until the spring of 1874. The first Holy Cross priest to serve as pastor of St. Mary’s was Irish-born Fr. Daniel Spillard, who arrived in Austin in Mid-1874. A Brother Maximus arrived from Notre Dame and joined Brother John of the Cross already in Austin, the two went out to the farm about September 20, 1874 to become the pioneers of the South Austin Venture. | Brother Philip, the teacher, arrived soon after, but did not find things ready for school work on the Doyle property. A report made by the provincial superior at Notre Dame in November 1878 refers to the farm “over the River” in Austin with four brothers and a priest living on it. Nothing is said of a school. There are indications, however, that there were students at St. Edward’s in that year. A memior written by an old student in 1926 states that there were eight day students. What ever educational initatives at the Catholic farm in the pro- ceeding years, St. Edward’s has from early on taken 1881 as the date of its founding. By then the frame buildings had been put up on the Doyle property and a formal beginning could be made. In November of that year Fr. John Lauth was named Presi- dent of the school with hearty words of encouragement from his provincial superior at Notre Dame. The thin annals of the early eighties indicate, however, that the pro- vincial was not able to send as much per- sonnel as the infant establishment needed. “Try to sail along with the few sails you have,” he wrote to Fr. Lauth, “and I hope no storm will overtake you till help reaches you.” So the note of percarity which is heard by all things mortal was sounded early for St. Edward’s. In 1883 the first Presidency of St. Edward’s College came to an end. Fr. Lauth was succeeded by the:witty but somewhat irresponsible Fr. Michael Robinson. Fr. Robinson did not particularly like the job and wrote to the provincial superior to say that it would be agreeable to him to be replaced. “And I believe,” he added “‘it would be as agreeable to the greater part of the community here as to myself.” He may have underestimated himself, for old student Joy Byrne more than forty years later remembered him as “a scholarly man of magnetic and lovable personality.” Byrne also remembered that “those were stirring days in Texas and the deeds of Frank and Jesse James, Cole Younger, and — Sam Bass had a much stronger appeal for the average boy than had ...Noah Webster or Sam Johnson.” Taking badmen rather than lexicographers as their models, the students were, Byrne suggested, a bit trying at times. SEER oA Ey é es