Catleolic Edttctztionnt Endeavors
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for San Antonio. They were accompanied by Father Dubuis, who was to be their Chaplain and had come to Galveston to take them to San Antonio. Hardly had the brave pioneers set out on the lumbering stage coach for San Antonio than a terrific hurricane transformed the level coastal plain into an endless bog that slowed their progress. That night the travelers were forced to seek shelter in an abandoned hut. Five days later, exhausted with fatigue, the founders of the first girls' school in San Antonio arrived at their destination and were placed in posses~ion of the home purchased for the new Ursuline convent. The mansion, which had never been oc- cupied, was bare of furnishings. Father Dubuis quickly procured mattresses en which the tired daughters of St. Ursula were glad to sleep on the floor for almost six weeks. The new convent of the Ursulines was thus for- mally established on September 14, 1851. 15 It took four months to secure enough secondhand furniture to enable the good Sisters to open their school. The building was divided into seven apartments, those on the lower floor were used as classrooms, refectories, and recreation rooms. The largest room on the ground floor was converted into a Chapel. The dormitories were in the second story. There was nothing fancy. Everything was plain, simple, but neat. When the school opened every classroom was filled to capacity. A student, who entered the new school in 1851, has left us a picture of her experience still fixed in her mind more than seventy years later. The unpretentious little Academy appeared to the child to be "a beautiful place, for it had the big pecan trees of the river for a fence." She remem- bered the astonishment that the extensive vegetable garden on the north side had caused her, and the delight of the orchard and the flower beds that dotted the grounds. "The first families of the Southwest were repre- sented at the Ursuline Academy," she declared with justifiable pride. adding, "for it was the only school of its kind, and much closer than Galveston." The day was divided into hours. An hour was dedicated to penman- ship, an hour to language, an hour to reading, an hour for arithmetic, and an hour for each of the other subjects. There was also "a special hour every week for politeness or etiquette," said the old student, with a know- ing smile. She also gave testimony to the thoroughness with which the languages were taught. Among other advantages, the Ursuline Academy 15 Sister M. A. Ursulina, "The Ursulines in San Antonio," typed excerpts in C. A. T.; Friesenhahn, op. cit., I 7-19; U,-sulitte A cadem,y of Galveston, C ent11nniaJ, ,s.,1-1947 [7].
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