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Prep News Volume 76, Issue 12
FEATURE
November 18, 2011
Before the Backer: the beginning days of St. Louis U. High BY Jack STAFF
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verything is shaped by its beginning. Over the course of 106 years, St. Louis University High School and St. Louis University evolved from being one combined institution to two institutions simply affiliated with each other, and finally, into two independent schools that have resided in the city of St. Louis for 193 years. To completely understand how St. Louis U. High and St. Louis U. came to be what they are now, one needs to know the early history of these two schools, particularly the time period from 1818 to 1924, before the two schools became independent of each other. St. Louis Academy was founded in 1818 by Bishop Louis DuBourg, months after DuBourg came to St. Louis to run the diocese of Louisana and the Floridas free from the pressure of a popular New Orleans priest, Fray Antonio, who held the sway of the Catholic community in New Orleans. According to Capture the Dream, a book by William Barnaby Faherty, S.J., where the information for this feature comes from, at the time of St. Louis Academy’s founding, St. Louis was very small for a city, extending only three streets from the river. St. Louis Academy was not a Jesuit school, and it would not become one until 1828, ten years after its founding. DuBourg placed Fr. Francois Niel, the first priest ordained in St. Louis, in charge of the school, and staffed it with three other priests. Classes began on Nov. 16, 1818, in the house of a Mrs. Alvarez, which was located on Market Street between Second and Third streets and across from the first cathedral in St. Louis, which no longer stands. (The Old Cathedral was not built until 1834). Tuition was twelve dollars a quarter, and books and other supplies were not included in the cost. Under Niel, St. Louis Acade-
my grew rapidly, outgrowing both its location and name. In 1820, St. Louis Academy became St. Louis College and moved from Mrs. Alvarez’s house into a two-story building in essentially the same location as the Alvarez house. Even though the school was now a college, the name St. Louis Academy remained to refer to the high school portion within St. Louis College. According to Dr. Robert Bannister, consultant to the president and expert on St. Louis history, in addition to being a name for a school, the word “academy” specifically meant a high school or college institution, and also distinguished it from the college for older students. By 1821, there were 65 students enrolled at the school, which continued to flourish. In 1823, St. Louis College added two teachers well-known in the St. Louis area, Francois De Maillet and Elihu Shepard. Because of the reputations of De Maillet and Shepard, enrollment began to rise rapidly. In addition to the flourishing of St. Louis College, 1823 was also the year that the Jesuits, led by Charles Van Quickenborne, S.J. came to Missouri to start St. Regis Indian School and St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant. Almost immediately after the Jesuits arrived, DuBourg and Joseph Rosati, who would become the first bishop of St. Louis in 1827, began discussing the possibility of having the Jesuits run St. Louis College. Although the Jesuits initially refused, DuBourg and Rosati continued negotiations with the them throughout the decade. “The Bishop wanted to keep his priests from dealing with (the school),” Bannister said. In 1824, Niel made an agreement with the City of St. Louis to pay the tuition of boys who could not afford the cost. This agreement made St. Louis College the first college west of the Mississippi to receive tax support from a city, in addition to starting a long tradition of financial aid for both photo | courtesy of Robert Bannister
1818 Building: The circled building is the original location of the school, then known as St. Louis Academy. They stayed in the location for two years before moving into a new building nearby. The large building to the right of it is the first cathedral of St. Louis, which preceded the Old Cathedral. photo | courtesy of Robert Bannister
1820 Building: This building was the second location for the school, which was now known as St. Louis College. The building was used from 1820 to 1828, the last year it was run by the diocese of St. Louis.
SLU and SLUH. 1824 was the last successful year for St. Louis College before the Jesuits took over. Niel stepped down as headmaster and went back to his native France to raise funds for the college. In 1825, Edmund Saulnier took over as superintendent, and things began to take a turn for the worse. The first hit came in September 1825, when the city of St. Louis revoked its subsidy for the school due to the city’s economic struggles, effectively ending the first form of financial aid for the school. Shepard and De Maillet also left in 1825, which led to the classics department of the college being suspended. Shepard started his own school in 1826, and many students left St. Louis College to enroll there. By 1827, St. Louis College only had 12 students and one teacher. While St. Louis College was running on fumes, the possibility of St. Louis College becoming a Jesuit institution was becoming more of a reality. The Indian School was not as successful as the Jesuits had hoped, and the noviates at the seminary had all become priests, giving Van Quickenborne enough teachers to run St. Louis College. Van Quickenborne agreed to take over St. Louis College in 1828, ten years after the founding of St. Louis Academy, and quickly acquired a new building for the school on Ninth and Washington. Though the Jesuits agreed to take over the school before the 1828-1829 school year, the building was not ready for the school year. While the building was being prepared for St. Louis College, the Jesuits taught students at their seminary in Florissant. St. Louis College’s first year as a Jesuit college began on Nov. 2, 1829. When classes started, there were 30 day students and ten boarders. There were two different types of courses: the English course, which dealt with subjects such as writing, history and basic mathematics, and the Classical course, which taught courses such as Latin, Greek, and metaphysics. The Jesuits also instituted stricter rules, expelling students caught in taverns, and outlawing wrestling, playing cards, and carrying “sharp instruments” according to Dream by the River. The Jesuits also invited St. Louisans to a demonstration of the students talent in singing, acting, and speaking, which was very popular with the public. In 1831, Peter Verhaegen, S.J., became the first president of St. Louis College, and under Verhaegen, St. Louis College took a turn for the better. In 1832, only a year after Verhaegen’s appointment, St. Louis College became St. Louis University. This made St. Louis University the first university west of the Mississippi. Even as SLU became a university, it still kept the St. Louis Academy for high school aged students After becoming a university, clubs began to pop up in the school. In 1832, St. Louis University started a speech club, and in 1834, the Sodality of Our Lady was formed. One hundred seventy-seven years later, a Sodality and a
photo | courtesty Robert Bannister
This building was the home of St. Louis University from 1829, the first year it was run by the Jesuits, until 1887, when SLU moved to its current campus in Midtown. photo | courtesy Robert Bannister
This is DuBourg Hall, which currently houses the St. Louis University adminstrative offices. From 1888 to 1924, when St. Louis U. High and Loyola Hall were merged into SLUH’s current location at 4970 Oakland, St. Louis U. High was located here.
Speech team still exist at St. Louis U. High. Though the Sodality and Speech Club are not direct ancestors of the current clubs, SLUH’s tradition in those extracurriculars is older than all the Catholic high schools in St. Louis. In 1834, SLU awarded its first bachelor’s degrees and also its first master’s degree, which were the first bachelor’s and master’s degrees west of the Mississippi. In 1838, St. Louis U. hired its first music professor, William Robyn. Under Robyn, St. Louis U. started its first school band, the St. Louis University Philharmonic Society, and also started a choir. Four years later, in 1842, SLU started a medical school, which was not only the first medical school west of the Mississippi, but also the first Catholic medical school in America. While St. Louis U. was growing and flourishing from its campus on Ninth and Washington, anti-Catholic tension was starting to grow in America. The tension resulted in an anti-Irish riot in 1852, and a worse riot in 1854 after an Irishman stabbed a boy. Then the mob turned to arson. The mob eventually reached the St. Louis U., burning a few restaurants along the way. Though nothing was damaged, the riot unnerved the medical school enough that they ended their affiliation with St. Louis U. Athletics for St. Louis U. were practically non-existent until the formation of a baseball team, the St. Louis University Pickwicks, in 1867. The Pickwicks first major victory was against their crosstown rivals at Washington University, the Olympics. The Pickwicks also achieved success in 1869, winning a baseball tournament in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The first football game in the history of St. Louis U. was actually the first game for SLUH. Ten students from St. Louis Academy, coached by a college sophomore against students from the Washington U. prep school, faced off
in 1889. Neither side completely knew the rules of the game, and the sophomore who coached the St. Louis Academy team was the only one with a grasp of the rules, so it is fair to assume that St. Louis Academy was the victors. In 1888, St. Louis University, and St. Louis Academy as well, moved westward from their downtown location to the Midtown campus where St. Louis University is still located today. The campus was blessed on July 31, 1888, the feast of St. Ignatius, and classes began on Sept. 3 of that year. In addition to the new building, St. Louis U. also brought in a bumper crop of new students, over 200 of them. The new students made up almost half of the 435 students that year, a new high at the time. In their new location, student life at SLU was lively. SLU started a football team, which would be very successful, with the first forward pass in the history of football in 1906. The baseball and track teams were very successful during this time period as well. The turn of the century also marked the evolution of St. Louis Academy from a European “sixth form” school into an Americanstyle high school, St. Louis University High School. A sixth form school is a twoyear school for high school senior and junior level students that is a seamless part of a six-year university. In addition to the lower two years being turned into a fouryear high school separate from the university, the upper four years became known as freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior, as opposed to the European designations—humanities, poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy—that had been used prior to the Americanization. Universities like these are still around today in Europe, and also in some places that were formerly British colonies, according to Theology teacher Ralph continued on page 11