The Jesuit Colleges that Weren't: Conewago Latin School and Guadalupe College

Abstract

This article offers a brief history of two obscure and often overlooked Jesuit schools from the nineteenth century: the Conewago Latin School in Pennsylvania and Guadalupe College in Texas. Although neither school ever fully developed into a true institution of higher education, both began life similarly to other Jesuit schools of the 1800s, and under different circumstances they might have evolved, like those other schools, into true American colleges. The purpose of this historical sketch is to preserve the memory of these nearly forgotten Jesuit institutions. In writing the history of Jesuit higher education in the United States, one challenge is determining which institutions “count” as colleges. The definition of a college, and the ages of students considered appropriate for “higher” education, have evolved over time. If a time-traveler from the twenty-first century could somehow visit Georgetown University, Saint Louis University, or any other Jesuit college in the early 1800s, those institutions would seem more like high schools than like any modern-day university. Typical students were in their mid-teens or even younger. The present-day structure of the American education system—a four-year “high school” followed by a four-year “college”—did not become standard until roughly the turn of the twentieth century. It is especially challenging to classify schools that opened and closed in the 1800s, shuttering their doors before they could develop into modern institutions. Catholics (and other religious groups) founded hundreds of denominational colleges in the nineteenth century that did not survive. Historian Edward Power estimates that over 70% of the Catholic colleges founded in the 1800s closed, but this is partly a matter of definition, since many institutions were never legally chartered to grant degrees.1 Many so-named “colleges” in the nineteenth century were only high schools in practice. Nonetheless, some such schools did evolve into modern colleges and universities, eventually obtaining charters from their respective state governments that gave them the legal right to award bachelor’s degrees. Jesuit schools present a special challenge because the traditional Jesuit curriculum, the Ratio Studiorum (in place from 1599 until roughly the 1910s), prescribed a seven-year plan of study comparable to what we today would consider a combined high school/college education. Nearly all Jesuit colleges founded in the nineteenth century originally structured themselves this way. Some Jesuit schools only offered the first few years of the Ratio Studiorum curriculum, after which students were expected to transfer to an established university like Georgetown that offered the full seven-year experience. One example of such a school is St. Joseph’s College (1884-1898) in San Jose, California, which advertised that students could begin a bachelor’s degree program on its campus and then transfer without examination into nearby Santa Clara University or St. Ignatius College (now the University of San Francisco).2 Some nineteenth-century Jesuit schools were neither legally chartered to grant degrees nor affiliated as feeder programs for established Jesuit Rizzi: The Jesuit Colleges That Weren’t Jesuit Higher Education 12 (1): 16-22 (2023) 17 universities. This makes it difficult to consider them “colleges” in any modern sense of the word. For example: in Milwaukee, the Jesuits operated St. Gall’s Academy (also called St. Aloysius Academy) from 1862-1872. This school was not a college in any meaningful or legal sense, but nine years after it closed, the Jesuits opened Marquette University in the same city. Although Marquette claims 1881 as its founding date, the Jesuits were teaching in Milwaukee earlier at the pre-collegiate level. This article will tell the history of two oftenoverlooked Jesuit schools that never made the jump to collegiate status—the Conewago Latin School in Conewago, Pennsylvania, and Guadalupe College in Seguin, Texas. Although both were initially similar to other Jesuit schools that evolved into full-fledged colleges, both closed before they could develop in the same way. As such, they are best considered examples of early Jesuit “high schools.” I therefore chose to exclude them from my recent book on the history of Jesuit higher education in the United States.3 Nonetheless, they remain interesting case studies. The purpose of this essay is to expand upon the narrative in that book and preserve the memory of two Jesuit schools that might have evolved into colleges, but never did. Conewago Latin School (Conewago, Pennsylvania) One of the smallest Jesuit schools in US history was located in Conewago, Pennsylvania, on the outskirts of Gettysburg. Jesuits and other Catholics from Maryland settled in the area during colonial days. (The exact border between the two colonies was formalized in the 1760s, stranding several settlers who considered themselves Marylanders on the Pennsylvania side of the line.) The Jesuits founded what is now the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Conewago in 1730. It is believed to be the oldest church in the western hemisphere with that name. At various points before they left the parish in 1901, the Jesuits attempted to start a school on the site. Although the operation was always bare-bones, it resembled, on a smaller scale, the early days of many successful Jesuit colleges. Some teaching likely took place at the parish around the turn of the 1800s. The first unambiguous records show that five boys enrolled between 1835-1838, and a total of four Jesuit brothers operated a school on the site from 184448 and again from 1856-61.4 The fact that the teaching staff consisted of Jesuit brothers, rather than priests, implies that the school focused on lower-level education and perhaps trades. While this would not qualify it as an institution of “higher” education even then, other Jesuit schools with similar characteristics did eventually develop into true colleges. Jesuit brothers operated several primary schools and trade schools for Western Indigenous peoples in the 1840s and 1850s. Some of these, like St. Mary’s College (1848-1931) and the Osage Manual Labor School/St. Francis Institute (1847-1891), both in Kansas, were eventually chartered to grant degrees. While the Conewago school never was chartered as a “college” by the Pennsylvania state legislature, in the 1840s it was at a similar stage of development to those future Kansas colleges. The Civil War and the nearby Battle of Gettysburg paused Jesuit education at Conewago. The closest the school ever came to achieving true collegiate status was in the late 1860s, when a Jesuit, Father Francis X. DeNeckere, implemented its most ambitious curriculum. Roughly around 1868, there were five teachers (three Jesuits and two laymen), and the school began to look something like the prep division of a typical Jesuit college of the day. It offered typical features of Jesuit college life like theater and intramural sports. According to one account, “The course of studies was strictly classical, and coincided to the letter with the catalogue of Loyola College, Baltimore Maryland.”5 It was around this time that the name “Conewago Latin School” seems to have come into use. That name and the lack of a collegiate charter clearly mark the school as a pre-college prep program, but the student experience would have been similar to the first year or two in the lower divisions of any Jesuit college. Rizzi: The Jesuit Colleges That Weren’t Jesuit Higher Education 12 (1): 16-22 (2023) 18 Unfortunately, the Jesuits of the Maryland Province were expanding elsewhere at the time, and Jesuit faculty were in high demand at rapidly growing Boston College, Loyola College in Baltimore, Georgetown, and Holy Cross. The rural Latin School at Conewago fell behind those priorities. Sacred Heart Parish continued to sponsor a successful elementary school run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, but the Jesuit prep school for older boys deteriorated. Between 1881-84 and 1887-89, there was only one teacher—a layman named D.C. Smith. From 1890-92, another layman, Ignatius Langley, constituted the entire teaching staff.6 In between those years, the prep school seems to have been dormant. The Jesuits withdrew from Sacred Heart Parish in 1901, but diocesan clergy assumed control of the church and the Sisters of St. Joseph continued to teach at the parish elementary school, which has survived under various names to this day. Now known as St. Teresa of Calcutta School, it is sponsored by a consortium of local parishes, serves students in preschool through eighth grade, and still maintains one of its two campuses in Conewago.7 Guadalupe College (Seguin, Texas) Records on Guadalupe College are sparse, partly because it was never affiliated with the mainstream Jesuit provinces or missions operating in the United States. Instead, it was a project of the Mexican Province, and during its brief life it functioned essentially as a side project for Mexican Jesuits forced out of their own country for political reasons. While it was never chartered as a college and unambiguously operated for only one academic year, it was still a Jesuit school on US soil. William McGucken, S.J., who wrote a comprehensive history of Jesuit high schools in the United States in 1932, dismissed Guadalupe College with only a passing reference: “The Mexican Jesuits had a college for Mexicans at Seguin, Texas for a time (1878-79), but this has no place in a history of American Jesuit education.”8 That statement likely reveals some level of 1930sera prejudice, since there was nothing objectively un-American about the school. The fact that it enrolled Mexican students alongside U.S. citizens was not unusual; many established Jesuit schools—from Saint Louis to Santa Clara—also enrolled Mexican citizens in the nineteenth century. (The numbers are relative, since many schools had fewer than 200 total students at the tim