Catholic Boarding Schools on the Western Frontier

FATHER SHANNON is the newly named president of the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul. The present article is based on his doctoral dissertation, which he has revised for publication by the Yale University Press. Under the title "Catholic Colonization on the Western Frontier," it is scheduled to appear in the spring of 1967. Catholic Boarding Schools on the WESTERN FRONTIER JAMES P. SHANNON TWELVE YEARS after Minnesota entered across the Great Plains to the boom towns the Union and five years after the Civil of the Black Hflls and toward the ports of War, the Red River trails were still the the Pacific. One great hindrance to such only major traces through western Minne expansion, however, was the scarcity of sota. At this late date, in 1870, a huge settlers in the Great Plains region. Gold in triangle of fertile farm land, bounded the Black Hills, wheat in the prairie states, roughly by imaginary lines connecting the and cattle from western grasslands might present cities of St. Paul in Minnesota, provide occasional pay loads for the rafl Fargo in North Dakota, and Sioux City in roads; but rail lines through unsettled re Iowa, remained for the most part unsettled gions could not pay their way. Nor could and uncultivated. they wait for the normal process of settle Then the trans-Mississippi railroads, de ment by gradual infiltration to reach the layed by the war, began building their lines West. Hence the more enterprising lines, especially those financed by federal land grants, undertook to subsidize the settle ^ Harold F. Peterson, "Railroads and the Settle ment of rural colonies.'^ ment of Minnesota, 1862-1880," 31; .Joseph A. Cor rigan, "The Catholic Industrial School of Minnesota," In this work the Iflinois Central and in Acta et Dicta, 7:3-25 (October, 1935); Louis M. Northern Pacific railroads led the way. Hacker and Benjamin B, Kendrick, The United States since 186i, 124 (New York, 1949). The first item is Both lines sought to promote wholesale set an unpublished master's thesis prepared in 1927; the tlement of their lands by inviting religious Minnesota Historical Society has a copy, and other groups to migrate to the West in ' Paul W. Gates, The Illinois Central, and Its Colo colonies. In Minnesota, the St. Paul and nisation Worlc, 224-252 (Cambridge, 1934); James B, Hedges, "The Colonization Work ot the Northern Pacific, the Winona and St. Peter, and the Pacific Railroad," in Mississippi Valley Historical Re St. Paul and Sioux City raflroads adopted view, 13:311 (December, 1926); Humphrey Moynihan, the same plan after 1875, naming Bishop "Archbishop Ireland's Colonies," in Acta et Dicta, 6:222 (October, 1934); Northwestern Chronicle, Jan John Ireland of St. Paul to act as their uary 22, 1876; Winona and St, Peter Railroad, Minute land agent in charge of Catholic colonies Book, p. 384, in the office of the land commissioner of along their routes.^ the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, Chicago, The Northwestern Chronicle was the official paper of Between 1875 and 1885 Ireland settled the diocese of St, Paul from 1866 to 1900. more than four thousand Catholic families September 1956 133 on the newly opened raflroad lands and the in England, who had organized a self-sup homesteads of western Minnesota. His porting industrial school for boys in that colonists claimed and occupied more than city.* four hundred thousand acres of land in five Its course of training, in addition to the counties. Swift, Big Stone, Lyon, Murray, regular academic subjects, offered instruc and Nobles. Contrary to a popular and per tion in various industrial arts. Boys com sistent legend, Ireland's colonies were for mitted or invited to the home could choose the most part highly successful. In one to learn a trade in its shoe factory, printing respect, however, they were a great disap office, tailor shop, joiner's shop, or paper- pointment to their founder and patron. bag factory. After several of his graduates He had hoped to establish a series of Catho had emigrated, Nugent heard reports of lic boarding academies in the settlements their success in Canada and the United to educate the children of the colonists. He States, and decided to sponsor an organized quickly learned that such institutions were program of emigration for children. Times premature and that Catholic farmers on were hard in Liverpool, unemployment was the frontier had little time or sympathy widespread, and resources at the school for his elaborate educational program. were limited — so limited than on occasion As a citizen, Ireland was convinced that it was necessary to send the boys to mass the future of the nation depended on the in relays because there were not enough caliber of education given to its youth. For Sunday suits to go around.'' survival, the democratic state needed a Father Nugent made his first trip to population thoroughly educated and ca America in 1870. On August 18, accom pable of raising up a variety of public serv panied by twenty-four boys and girls, the ants trained to meet the complexities of former from his Refuge and the latter from modern government, and an electorate able his Night Shelter for girls, he safled to recognize and choose such leaders at the from Liverpool aboard the "Austria" for pofls. But as a priest he was equafly cer Montreal. He succeeded in placing each of tain that the Catholic school was the best the children in a private home or a school agency for instructing children in the duties in Canada and then spent nine months lec of rehgion and in habits of personal piety. turing in the Dominion and in the United He believed that "The Catholic school . States, "pleading the cause of Nobody's is the most fruitful of all institutions for Chfldren and their right to be welcomed" the preservation and perpetuation of the in America. After attending the Indian faith in this country." ^ apolis Immigration Convention in Novem ber, 1870, the English priest toured several GIVEN THESE convictions, it is not sur prairie states in the hope of estabhshing prising that as soon as his first colonies were some kind of self-supporting agricultural firmly established Ireland embarked on an school and home for children on the western ambitious program of buflding Catholic farm lands." boarding academies in western Minnesota. One of his lecture stops was St. Paul, This phase of his colonization program be where Nugent met Bishop Thomas L. Grace gan auspiciously with the aid of several religious teaching orders. The best-known 'Northwestern Chronicle, September 4, 1896, and least successful of his educational pro ' Edward K, Bennett, Father Nugent of Liverpool, 79, 100 (Liverpool, 1949), jects was the Catholic Industrial School 'Bennett, Father Nugent, 82; Rescue Notes, 16 for boys at Clontarf in Swift County. It is (Liverpool, 1905), The latter is a pamphlet issued on more than likely that the original plan for the occasion of Father Nugent's death, A copy is among the Ireland Papers in the archives of the St, this establishment came from Father James Paul Seminary. Nugent, a priest of the diocese of Liverpool "Bennett, Father Nugent, 95. 1.34 MINNESOTA History and Father Ireland for the first time. The that it would thereafter receive and edu idea of an industrial school impressed Grace, cate each year sixty Indian children from and on January 4, 1874, the Catholic In reservations in Dakota Territory. The gov dustrial School of Minnesota was estab ernment paid a hundred dollars a year lished on a farm just outside St. Paul. The for each chfld. With an average enrollment project was never a success. At no time did of a hundred and thirty, the school received its students number more than twenty enough from the subsidy to meet its mini boys. In Liverpool, Nugent's wards had mum financial obligations. supported their school, and had even shown Everyone involved in its operation, how a small profit, by printing the Liverpool ever, was aware that the school was not Catholic Times on their school presses. The fulfilling the hopes of its founder. Educa St. Paul school, lacking such regular in tion of the Indians was a commendable come, was in financial straits from its foun project, but the obstacles to its progress dation. In 1877, after Ireland had become were more numerous and more serious than a bishop and opened the western colonies, the usual hazards involved in conducting the industrial school was moved to Clontarf schools. The Indian children went back to in Swift County. Ireland reasoned, as Nu their respective reservations each summer gent had, that a school on a farm could and were absent from the school during the support itself or at least produce its own harvest season when they might have food. He purchased a tract of two thou learned the skills necessary for successful sand acres from the St. Paul and Pacific farming. Many of them stayed at the school Railway in 1879 and made it the site of only one term. Few showed any interest in the industrial school. To staff the insti learning the industrial arts, which were tution and teach its classes, he secured supposed to be the basic curriculum of the three brothers from the Brooklyn monas school. Several of the brothers became dis tery of the Order of St. Francis.'' couraged with the work, and at one time The new advantages of supervision by a Brother William Osbelt was left to admin religious order and a rural location, how ister the school alone. Furthermore, John ever, were not enough to revive the project.

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