St Marys College High School - Peraltan Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

Page 8 text:

The History of Saint Mary's College High School The year was 1863 and the United States was only 87 years old. The President, Abraham Lincoln, was facing a desperate point in this young coun- try's history: Civil War. Meanwhile, a smaller war over a new school was being waged out West. California was 13 years old, the 31st state to enter the Union. It had little of anything in the way of cities, Los Angeles, maybe, and a small town built on a hill by the bay: San Francisco, population 35,000 The town had a school, built under the supervision of Archbishop Sadoc Alemany of San Francisco, called Saint Mary's College. Established to educate young men at the grammar school, high school, and college levels, it was never- theless unsuccessful in the first five years, and its closure was seriously considered. One of the main problems was tuition: in order to make the schooling affordable, it was low, and was not covering the operating expenses. So, the college made a financial agreement with the city to have the deficit covered ifthe school accepted young delinquents in the hope they would become educated young men. The faculty staged a strike. Things were simply not working out. At this time, the Christian Brothers had been around for nearly 200 years, and were respected educators with schools the world over. Archbishop Alemany had spent the past few years writing to and visiting with several of their superiors, pleading to have a group of Brothers take over running Saint Mary's. His efforts finally payed off. On August 10, 1868, a group of Christian Brothers, led by Brotherjustin McMahon, arrived in San Fran- cisco. What they found was not encouraging, an enrollment list of no more than thirty students. But that was exactly why they'd come, to help, and by 1875, the enrollment was up to 240. The Christian Brothers followed a philosophy of education that went beyond teaching basic academics. A student was trained to go into certain lines of work and how to function in society. For instance, the Brothers introduced business and banking courses to Saint Mary's. They also felt that learning to Compromise was an important Part of education and real life' Br. juitin MtMabon, Saint Maryir College jiri! Cbrirtian Brother principal. Instead of corporal punishment, the Brothers sat down with the student to 4. show what he had done wrong and how to correct the situation. Students learned how to deal with their problems, not ignore them. This was the kind of total education the Christian Brothers brought to Saint Mary's. In 1879, Brother-justin, who had served as principal since the arrival of the Brothers, was asked to go to the East Coast and become the visitor of New York, the superior in charge of all Brothers in the district.-Iustin's replacement was Brother Bettelin,justin's actual blood brother. His first assignment was to organize the bicentennial anniversary of the Christian Brothers, which culmi- nated in a High Mass celebrated by Archbishop Alemany with the Saint Mary's choir. During his administration, Brother Bettelin brought about two significant changes to Saint Mary's: the first was the idea of feeder schools, which had been originally proposed by Brother justin. This involved scrap- ping the grammar school program at Saint Mary's and setting up parochial schools: one in San Francisco, five in Oakland, and one in Portland, Oregon. The second change was very significant indeed: moving the Saint Mary's campus, which was simply too small at its present location to facilitate the growing school. Also, the annual rent of 31500 was more than the Brothers could handle. In 1889, an acre tract of land along Broadway Avenue, between 30th Street and Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, was purchased and the new Saint Mary's campus was established. 3350,000 was needed to fund construc- tion of new buildings, and Brother Bettelin resolved to raise the money. He tried a number of fund raising methods, including circulating letters to anyone if ever involved with Saint Marys, telling of the financial hard- ships. Despite the lack of funds, construction for the new campus proceeded. , 6 . A i 7 iis. il failfiiltliif ,- sit 'I r-gZfgQl2...1 1e . 1 44 4 A . M s ., . it 'ltr 3 ' . z ,-' .ii Lk' ,I li 8 . 2 ' 7 lv ' T .Jw-'ig Q-gataw. ' Y R

Page 7 text:

. Q . I K f 'f ki l .355 ' -2 , ,, 1 ,Qs v A . P , G. by Saint ary's College h School Pemlmn 1988 our tradition's history . . , tl . E yg 34 'X 498' Q ow 1' fl 'C' ,I w-.-...N

Page 9 text:

ANDOVER AV. I I I I agfim CD l xx villlfvw WW' fn NX I wc 1 .P WEST vasw AV G 2 4 J X' C 1 zh ldS :MU S F puJ.Nzrh bllbp fzh zz If