CATHOLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. Historical.— The first schools within the present limits of the United States were those founded by the Franciscans in Florida and New Mexico. Saint Augustine, Fla., had a classical school as early as 1606, and there were a number of schools in existence for the natives of New Mexico in the year 1629. Schools for the natives were likewise established in Texas and California, with the foundation of the missions in those regions. Ursuline nuns from France established a par ish school and academy in New Orleans in 1727, a few years after the foundation of the city. French schools, for both white and native chil dren, were also opened at Saint Louis, Detroit and other settlements to the north. In general, it may be said that Catholic school work usu ally began in a place, whether it was a white or an Indian settlement, as soon as there was a sufficient Catholic population and organiza tion to furnish support for the school. In the East, the Jesuits in Maryland had opened schools by the year 1650, and a college or "school for humanities," was established there in 1677. Later on, a boarding school was opened at Bohemia, on the eastern shore of Maryland; among the famous pupils at this institution were John Carroll and Leonard Neale, who subsequently became archbishops of Baltimore, and Charles Carroll of Carroll ton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Georgetown College was founded in the year 1789. A more favorable opportunity for educational work was offered to the Jesuits in Pennsylvania, owing to the tolerant attitude of the Quakers, and, with*the organization of the first Catholic parish in Philadelphia in 1730, the foundation of schools as a regular and permanent feature of parish work may be said to have begun. Philadel phia had a larger Catholic population than any other town in the country, and the system of schools that was gradually established there and throughout Pennsylvania as new parishes were organized became a model to Catholics elsewhere. A new impulse was given to Cath olic education by the American Revolution. Catholic immigrants came in increasing num bers, and learned priests, exiled by the French Revolution, arrived opportunely to take up the work of organizing parishes, schools and col leges. In 1791 the Sulpicians founded Saint Mary's Seminary at Baltimore. Foremost in Catholic educational work west of the Alle ghenies were Fathers Stephen T. Badin and Charles Nerinckx in Kentucky, Father Ga briel Richard in Detroit and Michigan and Father Edward Fenwick, a Dominican, first bishop of Cincinnati, in Ohio. What was ac complished in these three States had a very important influence in the development of Catholic education throughout the whole Mid dle West later on. During the period 1800-40 the progress of Catholic education, while slow, was steady and solid, and corresponded with the growth of the Church. Catholic text books began to appear, and, more important still, religious sisterhoods were organized to carry on the work of teaching in the schools.
The first teaching sisters in the English-speak ing States were the Poor Cares, who opened a school at Georgetown in 1801. This order soon discontinued educational work; but in 1812 an American branch of the Visitation Order was founded at the same place by Bishop Neale. Mrs. Elizabeth A. Seton, under the direction of Father Dubourg organized the Sisters of Charity at Emmittsburg in 1809; this commu nity grew rapidly and furnished teachers to Catholic schools in all parts of the country. Shortly afterward, three teaching communities were founded in Kentucky the Sisters of • Loretto, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth and the Sisters of Saint Dominic. These five teaching communities rendered it possible for Catholics to carry on their schools and acad emies without aid from the state, and to ex tend the educational system to new centres of Catholic life as fast as these became organ ized. Among, the religious orders of men, the work of the Lazarists and Jesuits during this period deserves particular mention, the latter having laid the foundations of Saint Louis University in 1828. Another great forward movement in Catholic education originated in the tide of immigration that set in about the year 1840. Hundreds of thousands of Catholic Irish and Germans made their way to the Mid dle Western States and beyond. Zealous priests and bishops of the newly-created dio ceses labored to erect everywhere not only churches but schools. After the failure of Bishop John Hughes of New York to secure for the Catholic schools of that city a share of the public educational funds, although his efforts were warmly seconded at Albany by Governor Seward, it was more keenly realized Catholics that it had become -a matter of re ligious necessity for them to erect and main tain their own schools and that, as Bishop Hughes declared, "In this age and country the school is more necessary than the At the instance of the bishops many new teaching communities came from Europe, and their membership was rapidly augmented under the favorable conditions offered for religious and educational work. The result was that, while in the year 1840 there were only about 200 par ish schools in the country, this number was multiplied several times over during the en suing decade. Academies for girls were estab lished by the Ladies of the Sacred Heart and other sisterhoods while the Christian Brothers took the lead iu the field of secondary educa tion for boys. • Colleges and seminaries also sprang up. The Jesuits carried their work of higher education into every section of the country by founding colleges and preparatory schools. A later phase of the immigration movement resulted in the establishment of schools for French-Canadians, Poles, Italians, Bohemians and other nationalities. Of these, the Polish schools are the most numerous.