SPALDING, John Lancaster, Catholic prelate: b. Lebanon, Ky., 2 June 1840; d. Peoria, III., 25 Aug. 1916. His preliminary studies were pursued at Saint Mary's, Kentucky, and sub sequently he attended Mount Saint Mary's, Emmitsburg, and Mount Saint Mary's, Cincin nati, afterward entering the American College at Louvain, Belgium, and being there ordained to the priesthood in 1863. He then devoted a year to special studies in Rome, Italy, and hav ing returned to America, was assigned to duty in the cathedral of Louisville, Ky. In 1866 he was accorded the honor of preaching at the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, a rare privilege for one so young, and despite many obstacles, he founded in Louisville a parish for negroes. Requested to be the biographer of his illustrious uncle, Archbishop Spalding, who died in 1872, Father Spalding repaired to New York for the purpose, and upon completing his labor of love, became assistant to Father Don nelly at Saint Michael's Church, New York, where he soon established a reputation as a preacher of extraordinary ability, being called thence to the episcopal dignity and consecrated first bishop of Peoria, Ill., in Saint Patrick's Cathedral, New York, 1 May 1877. He was associated with Archbishop Ireland in found ing the Catholic Colonization Society, and in him higher Catholic education has had one of its most ardent promoters. Long before the
Catholic University at Washington assumed ma terial proportions, it had been conceived in the mind of Bishop Spalding, who was tireless in planning for its foundation; and the elaborate Catholic educational exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, of which he was president, was prepared largely at his instigation. President Roosevelt ap pointed him one of the board of arbitration for the settlement of the great anthracite coal strike in 1902. Columbia University conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., in June 1902. Bishop Spalding was twice stricken with paralysis and failing to recover full vigor resigned his charge 10 Sept. 1908. In 1909 he was made titular archbishop of Scythopolis. His writings are among the most scholarly contributions to American literature, 'Education and the Higher Life,' 'Things of the Mind,' 'Thoughts and Theories of Life and Education,' tunity and Other Essays,' 'Religion, Agnosti cism and Education,' 'Socialism and Labor and Other Arguments' and 'Religion and Art, and Other Essays' (1905), being some of the most notable of his works. Bishop Spalding is also the author of poems.