Creation of a Scct1lar Cler g~,
2 57
have the college granted a charter. His petition was favorably considered by the Legislature. By an act of the House of Representatives passed on July 26, 1856, and by the Senate on August 12 of the same year, the Seminary-College was incorporated as St. Mary's College and empowered to confer academic degrees. 14 The original name had been College of the Immaculate Conception. 15 That same year Father Gaudet, O.M.I., from Canada, was named Superior and President of the College. With him came a young scholastic, Brother J aines McGrath, destined to become years later the Provincial of the Oblates in the United States. For the next year, the College flour- ished, in a sense, but the Seminary proper languished. Although the enthusiastic Bishop of Galveston could report to Bishop de Mazenod in May 1857, "The College is in a flourishing condition; there are some ninety to ninety-five pupils. There is not one penny debt on the College. The parents are full of confidence and the College gives promise of be- coming one of the greatest in the country," the fact remained that the number of prospective students for the priesthood was pitifully small. 16 St. i11ary's Semina,·y and College Ret1m1cd to t!te Bishop, 1858. With a sincere tinge of regret the saintly Bishop of Marseilles informed Odin in June, 1858, of the decision taken by the General Administrative Council of the Congregation to give up the work at the Seminary in order that the priests might dedicate themselves more fully to missionary work. Frankly, he pointed out the basic reason for the grave decision, "It seems," Bishop de Mazenod declared, "that the Galveston College is and shall he for a long time nothing but a Commercial School, where the students of Latin, and especially those destined for the clerical state are in a very small number." The restless Father Parisot found the work at the College boring. "Three years in the saddle," he writes in his Remi11isce11ces, "now three years in the chair of mathematics, but with nothing worth relating beyond the daily routine of college life." One can feel the boredom of a man of action cooped in a classroom with a few equally restless young- sters that have no interest in mathematics. Father Verdet was equally disappointed. The second year, after the initial enthusiasm had worn out 14 Sister Mary Clarence Friesenhahn, Catholic Secondary Educatio,, in tl,e Province of San Anto11io (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1930), 22. 15 Sister Mary Angela Fitzmorris, Four Decades of Cat!,olki.rm in Texas_, 18:10- 1866 (Catholic University of America, 1926), 76. 16 Bishop Odin to Bishop de Mazenod, May 15, 185;, Arc/rives of llte Provincial Hou.se, San Antonio, Texas.
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