Xavier University Exhibit Father Francis J. Finn, S.J. Books Archives and Library Special Collections 1929 Father Finn, S.J.: The tS ory of His Life Told by Himself for His Friends Young and Old Father Francis J. Finn S.J. Xavier University - Cincinnati Father Daniel A. Lord S.J. Follow this and additional works at: http://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/finn Recommended Citation Finn, Father Francis J. S.J. and Lord, Father Daniel A. S.J., "Father Finn, S.J.: The tS ory of His Life Told by Himself for His Friends Young and Old" (1929). Father Francis J. Finn, S.J. Books. Book 3. http://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/finn/3 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Archives and Library Special Collections at Exhibit. It has been accepted for inclusion in Father Francis J. Finn, S.J. Books by an authorized administrator of Exhibit. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Father Finn, S. ]. Father Finn The Story of His Life TOLD BY HIMSELF For His Friends Young and Old Edited, and with a Preface by DANIEL A. LORD, S.J. NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO, SAN FRANCISCO BENZIGER BROTHERS PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE 3Jmprimi ~otest J. J. O'CALLAGHAN, S.J. Prrepositus Provincialis Pro11incire Chicagiensis, S.J. ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S.T.D. Censor Librorum !mprima:tur ~PATRICK CARDINAL HAYES Archbishop of New York NEw YoRK, September IO, 19::19 FATHER FINN, S.J. COPYRIGHT, 1929 BY BENZIGER BROTHERS. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Preface IX I. The Beginning of All l I I. The Troubled Sea of Lea1 wing - 14 I I I. Happy Days as a Novice - 35 IV. Five Months' Banishmnit - 46 V. My Second Entrance - 51 PI. First Experiences in the Classroom - 59 Pl!. The Rocky Road - 65 VIII. Pioneer Work - - 80 IX. The Small Yard - 89 x. My First Year of Philosophy - - 98 XI. Back to St. Mary's - - III XII. "Tom Playfai"r" Appears - 120 XIII. My Companions at WaodJtock - 13 I XIV. Two Years in Milwaukee - 139 xv. The Publishers Meet My Heroes - - 144 XVI. I Am Ordained - l6o XVII. Varied Employments - 165 XPIII. Leisure to Write . 175 XIX. Thoughts on Authorship - . 188 xx. The Little Flower Library - 198 xxr New Work in Cincinnati - 207 XXII. The Free Parish School - - 215 XXIII. The Commercrnl Department - - 224 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Father Finn - FRONTISPIECE. Facing Pa.qe The House in which Father Finn was born 2 "! would hide myself away with a book" 20 "He told me to weed the bed" 40 "! was called upon to act as prefect in the yard" - 66 "Seated at my desk, I read while the boys got them- selves into bed" 92 ''I was ready with that chapter of 'Tom Playfair' which describes the hero's attempt to exorcise Jimmy Green" 126 " •• on the street car I met a dainty little fellow"' 132 " . he raised his priestly hand" 152 Fat her Finn at the time of his ordination 162 ". the cry of boys and girls . begging for more" 180 Father Finn, friend of children - 220 PREFACE RIENDS of Father Finn (and surely every F Catholic who ever read one of his books is a loyal and grateful friend of his) will always re­ gret that death cut short his eagerly awaited mem­ oirs. Undoubtedly, had he lived, other chapters would have been added to the book-precious chap­ ters on his associates, the army of friends who filled his life, the children whose careers he helped to shape, his beautifully optimistic philosophy of life. A rough outline of some of these chapters was found among his papers. But it was almost with his dying breath that he dictated the last chapter of the mem­ oirs as they now stand; and God wrote the "Finis" which was to terminate the last written work of His devoted author. In editing the memoirs, Miss Florence Moran, Father Finn's faithful secretary, and I have kept in all cases Father Finn's own words. The memoirs stand essentially as Father Finn wrote them. The intrusion of an editor into the book would be an impertinence. So in these memoirs the reader will find Father Finn speaking to him of his early years, of St. Louis University in the days when it was hardly more than a small high school, of old St. Mary's emerging from its period as an Indian school, of remote origins and the final creation of his famous fictional characters, of his varied life as a Jesuit, of his labors in the classroom and the ix x PREFACE parish, of his splendid quarter-century at St. Xavier's, Cincinnati. When I say that he speaks to his reader, I mean just that. Father Finn did not, in the strict sense, write his memoirs. He spoke them aloud to his friends. They were the memories of a full and rich life which he had again and again rehearsed to at­ tentive listeners, and which now he spoke to the thousands of unseen friends whom he could not meet, but for whom he felt a deep personal attach­ ment. He talked his memoirs, and the swift pencil of Miss Moran or one of her assistants caught the spoken word and imprisoned it for the interested reader. This fact is enough to explain the easy, familiar, conversational tone which one finds throughout the book. The sixty-odd years covered by the memoirs were years of staggering world transition. We are far­ ther away, someone has declared, from the eighties and nineties of the last century than we are from the Renaissance or even the thirteenth century. Ac­ tually, as one reads these memoirs, the St. Louis University and St. Mary's College of Father Finn's early days seem to belong to another period of history. One can hardly associate these pioneering schools with the huge, modern, educational insti­ tutions which have grown out of them. That in itself brings clearly to our minds the fact that Father Finn was still of the race of pio­ neers. When he calls those early days at St. Mary's pioneer days, he selects precisely the right word. Undoubtedly we can be grateful that he lived PRf!:FACE Xl in pioneer days. Out of the brave pioneering which was not far removed from the pioneering of the early Jesuits who came to Missouri because the In­ dians still needed first lessons in civilization, was born in Father Finn a spirit which to the end con­ tinued to be the courageous spirit of a pioneer. He pioneered in Catholic literature at a time when Catholic literature in the United States was at a dismally low ebb. He pioneered in Catholic edu­ cation and built his school on an ideal. Other Jesuits have been proud of the fact that they could walk in his pioneering footsteps. No one will ever know how many young Jesuits, for instance, have been fired to high enterprise and noble achieve­ ment by the example of his brave experimenting and adventuring. Throughout the memoirs one comes upon hint after hint of Father Finn's self-depreciating mod­ esty. In the midst of the chorus of modern self­ advertisement this note sounds almost out of tune. There is, however, to anyone who knew Father Finn, nothing forced or false about it. Father Finn seemed not to have an ounce of conceit in his make-up. Perhaps that sadly broken course of studies and the incessant recurrence of illness and pain were given him by God as safeguards for his humility. He seemed to feel that, because his studies had often been sketchy and always hampered by ill health, he was badly equipped for his work. He seemed to regard himself as a broken instru­ ment used by God to show that in His might He did not need the perfect, polished tool xii PREFACE It never seemed to occur to Father Finn that his triumph over his physical hardships, the fact that he was so sound a scholar in spite of his most dis­ couraging course of studies, was the clearest sign of his great natural gifts. Almost without the opportunities or health of an ordinary Jesuit, he wrote a small library and carved for himself last­ ing monuments. Perhaps he has unconsciously given us the secret of his successful life in one simple passage of the memoirs: "From the earliest days of my novice­ ship to the present I have always thought that if we cast our cares upon the Lord He will not fail us." The thing which makes that passage noteworthy is that Father Finn lived absolutely in accord with what he believed to be the perfect rule of life. The result seems to have been that the Lord lifted this delicate young man, with his broken and dis­ organized training as a Jesuit, to heights of dis­ tinguished achievement. Like his father St. Ig­ natius, whom Francis Thompson refers to as one of the world's famous dyspeptics, Father Finn, by his implicit trust in the grace of God, rose above physical disabilities. He was another of the world's great sick men. One needs to know Father Finn well and love him deeply to get a proper estimate of his com­ ments about his character and its disagreeable an­ gles. But even the chance acquaintance will, when he reads the passages in which Father Finn speaks of himself as an unpleasant young Jesuit, be moved to honest incredulity. No doubt Father Finn sin- PREFACE xiii cerely believed the words he wrote; no one else ever will.