Creation of a Secular Clergy
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the overburdened and disillusioned Mexican exiles. They even employed a couple of secular instructors for the College, one being John Ireland, who became Governor of Texas in 1882. Again the response was far from encouraging. By the summer of 1880, there seemed to be little reason for keeping up the unequal struggle. Conditions in Mexico had changed and the Jesuit Fathers were free to return home. The principal reason for main- taining the institution at Seguin-the formation of priests for the Order and the diocese--had been removed. The Jesuit Seminary and College at Saltillo had been reopened, as well as the Novitiate at San Simon in Mexico City. At the end of the school year, in June 1880, the Seminary- College of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Seguin, laboriously maintained for four years by the devoted members of the Mexican Province of the Society of Jesus, closed. All the Jesuits returned to Mexico, only Father Morandi remained as pastor of St. James Parish, and continued to care for the mission in San Marcos. The few diocesan seminarians left were sent to St. Joseph's College in Victoria. 45 St. Joseplz.'s Seminary, Victoria, Texas, 1880. This Seminary has, as the man who kept it alive for over twenty years through sheer will and determination, become almost legendary through the absence of source materials for its history. It deserves the attention of an earnest and inter- ested student to bring out its truly heroic achievements. 46 The Seminary had its informal beginnings in 1868 as a parish school for boys, founded by the zealous Father Augustine Gardet. For years, the devoted Pastor of St. Mary's kept up the little school, which he called St. Joseph's College, with the help of occasional lay teachers. A large portion of the time, however, it fell upon Father Gardet to do most of the teaching himself. In spite of great hardships, the little school for boys grew and the original building was remodeled and enlarged several times to accommodate the increasing number of boarders, as well as day pupils. It served as the rectory of St. Mary's Parish Church and the parish school for boys in Victoria until 1878, when it temporarily went out of existence. The Greenback controversy and the hard days of Reconstruction caused the school to be closed in 1878 in spite of every effort of Father Gardet to keep it going. It looked as if the end had come. But although une Corne, op. cit., 336-339; Archdiocese of San Antonio, Di'1mond /ubi/46, 1874-1949, pp. 86-87, 208. ·"The author has tried to secure more details but without success.
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