Cat/1olic Educational E11dea11ors
347
Odin, C.M., in 1951. The Most Reverend Wendelin Nold, Bishop of Galveston, successor to Bishop Byrne, placed the Diocesan Seminary at La Porte in their care in 1951. Seven Vincentians then took over the Seminary under the rectorship of Father William Barr in September.m i11 arist Brot/1ers, I906. The Society of Marist Brothers, originally founded in France in 1816 by the Venerable Fr. Marceline Champagnat, came to Brownsville in 1906 to take charge of an old school for boys. The foundation of the Marist Brothers in Brownsville was established by Brothers Anthony, Albert, Emphrasius, and Paul Aleman, in answer to an urgent call of the Very Reverend Father Provincial Constantineau. O.M.I., to take over the old College of St. Joseph. Ever since its founding, St. Joseph's had had difficulties. It was Father Parisot, O.M.I., who started it in 1836. The city had donated to the parish a whole city block for the purpose. Two years later Father Gaudet, O.M.I., at great sacrifice, put up a permanent brick building to make the dream of a school for boys become a lasting reality. The structure remained the sole school building in Brownsville for twenty-four years--excepting the Incarnate Word girls' Academy-until the old Grammar Public School building was erected in 1890. St. Joseph's College, buffeted by storms, cared for successively by the Oblates, the Brothers of Christ of the New York Schools, Holy Cross Brothers, and the Sisters of the Incarnate Word, closed for short intervals. continued its halting existence until the Marist Brothers took over in 1906. Upon their arrival, they reorganized the school and have continued to work zealously through good and hard times to keep it in operation ever since. From an enrollment of thirty in 1906, it has grown to more than a hundred; the grammar school division has been expanded to include a four-year, fully accredited high school department of the first class, and its physical plant enlarged to care for the increased enrollment of day and boarding students. In 1930 the original name was changed to St. Joseph's Academy. Today it has one hundred and forty students. The Marist Brothers extended their labors to Laredo, Texas, in 1936. where they founded another St. Joseph's Academy. Today there are twenty Brothers in the two foundations. In the summer of 1951 a juniorate wa!'i established under the direction of Brother Paul Aleman, one of the founders, for those who aspire to enter the Brotherhood. They had pre- 110 The writer is indebted to Reverend Ralph F. Bayard, C.M., author of T/re Lo11e Star Vanguard, for the data here summarized concerning the return of the Vincentians in J 90 s and their activities ~ince. Letter to the Author In C. A. T.
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