Our Catholic Heritage i11, Texas
440
ment. The Supreme Council's plan included ten-day Boyology Institutes in the principal cities of the United States and Canada and a special program to be offered for the training of volunteer leaders in charge of Columbian Squires. The Holy Cross Fathers and Brothers of St. Edward's University, acquainted with the work of their confreres in boy guidance at Notre Dame, introduced a similar course in their university at Austin, making Texas the first state in the Union to adopt and put in execution the plan sponsored by the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus. Brother Barnabas was more than pleased with the response with which the movement met in Texas. At the Sherman Convention in May, 1925, he spoke eloquently of how much could be accomplished by the Boy Guidance movement in building up the character of the Catholic youth in the State through its program. Next February, he returned and spoke in the principal cities of Texas on his favorite topic: Boy Guidance. El Paso Council, the oldest in the State, was likewise the first to organize a Texas Circle of Columbian Squires, on October 24, 1926. It was preceded in converting the proposed plan into a working reality by only five other councils in such distant and scattered places as Duluth, South Bend, Portsmouth, Quebec, and Montreal. The La Salle Circle of Squires of El Paso was the sixth in order of founding and the first one west of the Mississippi. In keeping with its tradition of missionary zeal, the El Paso Council went to Las Cruces, New Mexico, and instituted there the Bishop Lamy Circle for the local Council on September 1, 1940, the first in that State, as the Bishop whose name it bore. Unfortunately, the initial enthusiasm displayed by St. Edward's Uni:- versity and the El Paso Councils in the new movement of boy guidance found but a weak echo throughout the State. Every effort was made by the officers of the State Council of the Knights of Columbus to help spread the movement. A survey of Councils in the State revealed, how- ever, that there were only 992 boys under Catholic guidance in the Columbian Squires in Texas, leaving more than 15,000 others untouched as yet. Without any intention of reflecting upon the Columbian Squires Boy Guidance movement, attention was turned at this time to the Boy Scout organization. "Your committee wants it clearly understood that ... all recommendations here made are ... to insure and not retard the success of the Columbian Squires proposed by the Supreme Council," it was declared at the Sherman Convention in 1925. It was felt that the Boy
Powered by FlippingBook