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Reproduced by kind permission of the Crosby Herald
Date: October 4, 1924
OCR Transcript:
The magnificent ground of St. Mary’s College Great Crosby, were most beautifully decorated on Sunday last, the occasion being the visit of his Grace, the Most Reverend Dr. Keating Archbishop of Liverpool, to officially open the new College building. In addition to his Grace. The Rev. Brother M.P. Duggan (Principal of the College), Captain F. N. Blundell, M.P., Councillor A. G. Jamieson, J.P. (Chairman of the Waterloo-wi1h-Seaforth U.D.C.), (Councillor J. Clancy, J.P. (Liverpool City Council), the Rev. Brother Hennesy (Superior General of the College), the Rev. Brother Leahy (Superior General off St. Adver’s College), the Rev. Brother Fall St. Joseph’s, Blackpool), the Rev. Dean WaJm1ey, the Rev. Father Cahill (Southport), the Rev. Father Etherington, the ‘Coy. Father Noblett, the Rev. Father Sherin, Dr. Bark, Dr. Webb, Dr. McCormick, Dr. Flanigan, Mr. Ellis (architect), Mr. T. F. Cain, and many clergymen and others were also present.
The Christian Brothers, who commenced activities in September, 1919, at the request of the late revered Archbishop of Liverpool, the Most Rev. Dr. Whiteside, up to the present time have carried on their valuable wont in the rooms of their residence, ‘Claremont’, Liverpool Road, Great Crosby, but the accommodation was soon found to be insufficient owing to tho increasing number of pupils. The Brothers were, therefore, faced with the task of having to build a new Secondary School, end flow after much hard work and difficulties the building had been completed at an initial outlay of £20,200. Accommodation has been provided for 330 day pupils and the number already enrolled exceeds 170, parents all along the line from Bootle to Southport taking advantage of the institution.
The opening ceremony commenced with several patriotic songs, ably rendered by a choir of the College Pupils, following which the Rev. Brother M. P. Duggan presented the College report.
Rev. Brother Duggan, Principal of the College, said: May it please your Grace, very Rev, and Rev. Fathers, Ladies and Gentlemen, on my: own part and on behalf of the staff of St. Mary’s College, I beg to offer you a most cordial – welcome and to ask your acceptance of our most sincere thanks for so kindly honouring us with your presence on this most important occasion. I may well say ‘most important for this day is to us one of much anxiety, as on it we take on our shoulders, financially and otherwise, a great responsibility; but it is also one of great hope, for, under your distinguished patronage and kind encouragement we have every confidence it will prove a Red Letter Day in the history of our College.
Just five years ago, his Grace, the most Rev. Dr. Whiteside, late revered Archbishop of Liverpool, invited us to open a Secondary School in your midst. ‘To many the work seemed unpromising as most pioneer work, a beginning was made under difficulties, due entirely to want of proper class-room accommodation and suitable facilities for developing our work. Nevertheless, through the kind patronage of the Clergy - and the support, accorded to us by the Catholic people of Great Crosby and the surrounding districts, the success of our undertaking soon placed it beyond the experimental stage and, owing to greatly increasing numbers, we were gradually but inevitably forced to the conclusion that the only satisfactory way of meeting the demands made upon us was that an entirely new building should be erected for the adequate accommodation of our pupils. This solution involved needless to say, very great expense, yet such was the confidence with which our friends inspired us that we have never felt misgivings about the success of so great an undertaking.
The obvious advantages of a building designed in the light of the soundest views on hygienic requirements and the widest study of the best types of educational buildings, were calculated to excite no little enthusiasm even in timorous breasts. Here indeed was a rare opportunity to erect a structure that would embody the most modern conceptions of the perfect School. Our architect, Mr Anthony Ellis, Dale street, Liverpool, rose nobly to the occasion and was ably seconded by our builders Messers Tomkinson and Sons, Dansie street, Liverpool. I take the opportunity of publicly expressing to these gentlemen our very sincere thanks for the highly satisfactory manner in which the work had been planned and executed. You have had some opportunity of judging of its merits, but what may assure you more fully than a merely passing view is the fact that the plans are in strict accordance with the requirement of the Board of Education. You have, therefore the highest guarantee that in construction and equipment and in all that belongs to sanitation and to recreation facilities, the building is fully abreast of the times and well worthy of those who in the past unhesitatingly entrusted their children to our care and enabled us to carry out successfully the initial stages of our work.
I would like to place before you now a brief statement of our financial position, so that you may be the better able to judge of the magnitude of the work we have undertaken. Prior to our commencing work here five years ago, we had an outlay of about. £4,000 on the purchase of the premises and furnishing and making necessary alterations in the existing house. Later on, when we decided to erect a new building, it was essential that, we should acquire the strip of land in front of the College and thus obtain an entrance from Everest road. This was purchased for a sum of £1,200. Up to quite recently our boys had no regular sports field in which to carry on their games. This want was very keenly felt as the boys were deprived, to an extent, of that form of recreation winch would be most beneficial to their health and most necessary for their physical development.
Early this year a suitable field became available and was secured at a cost, including legal expenses, of £1,000. Lastly the building of our College during the past year at a cost of about £14,000 has brought our total debt at present up to the very large sum of £20,200. From this you can see we have incurred a very serious financial responsibility, yet serious though it be, it does not dismay nor dishearten us. The work was undertaken entirely in the interest of Catholic education; we have put our trust in God and in the generosity of the people and we feel sure financial help will be forthcoming in God’s good time when our needs, our efforts and our difficulties become known. It now becomes our solemn duty to impart an education in this School which shall he worthy of the Shrine; to that great task we shall bend all our energies. Hitherto, the School was of necessity more or less, of a preparatory nature; our new curriculum will include every subject usually taught in the best. Secondary Schools and in our highest form the standard will be that required for entrance to the Universities. Opportunity will he afforded to pupils who have matriculated to prepare for the Higher School Certificate and to qualify for University Scholarships. Our Lay Masters will be selected with the greatest care and the equipment of our classes will contain every appliance necessary for the illustration of the subjects taught.
It is hardly necessary to assure you that the importance of organised games and physical training is fully recognised by us and that particular attention will he paid to the athletic development and manly bearing of our boys. It is our hope that when our pupils go forth from this School, whether they enter the University or at once joining the busy, thronging ranks of Commerce - far from being satisfied with the knowledge they have acquired, they will still be a thirst for deeper and deeper draughts of the Pierian Spring. In proportion as this hope is realised shall we be content with our labours. Though our scheme deals largely with the higher classes, it will still he our care to provide specially for those of tender years, to see that the happiness of those blissful years of early boyhood is preserved in all its beautiful bloom; that learning is not made to appear with frowning face nor, apparelled in gloomy garb and that the classroom shall be the counterpart, as it is the complement of the ideal home.
It shall he our duty to see that the young minds are not taxed with the severer forms of study before they are sufficiently mature, and that the lighter subjects such as drawing singing, music and so forth are en- encouraged, so that hand and eye and ear may he trained from their earliest years. It shall be our endeavour that as far as is compatible with steady work and necessary discipline, the special tastes and talents of our pupils will be fostered and their individuality as far as possible allowed expression.
As they progress, their programme both as regards time and subjects shall be arranged with a view to their general education, while at the same time coordinating with subsequent programmes. When they have secured this general course, and not till then, it shall be our aim to direct their studies with a view to their future careers. We deeply appreciate your Grace’s kindness in coming here to-day to renew the compliment paid by your illustrious predecessor in entrusting to us the Secondary education of Catholics in this important district; we can but promise that what lies in our power to do shall be done to realise your hope, if only to show that your confidence in us has not, been misplaced, We enter on our new phase of work deeply impressed with the sense of its necessity and importance. We feel that to are, in our sphere and measure striving to meet one of the crying evils of the day in this country, the unnatural separation of religion from education. No matter how successful the teacher may be in imparting knowledge, in cultivating taste, in refining the mind, in developing physical activity and training muscle and nerve to easy and instant response his task is not half done; in fact nothing really worth while has been accomplished.
The true value of the educational advantage or any system of training is measured chiefly by its moral influence and by its effects upon character. When oratory, poetry and philosophy had reached their highest perfection in Greece and Rome, these countries were steeped in Universal depravity and the Renaissance of Classical learning spread the vices of Pagan Greece in Christian Italy. These examples afford striking confirmation of the great truth to which all ages bear witness, that there can be no morality without religion; human passions cannot be controlled by culture, they are even strengthened by it as the imagination becomes more powerful. Religion alone points out the means to obtain that Divine Guidance which is necessary to subdue our passions and it is obvious that that Divine Guidance comes to us through the Church where we find those sources of Grace and help which are as salutary as they were inexhaustible. The expansion of this wonderful theme is the sacred duty of the Christian Educator of Youth, who must so imbue his pupils with Catholic Doctrine that, they shall be able ever after to give a reason for the faith that is within them and be lovingly faithful to its practices. - With the Christian Brothers whose Congregation is concerned solely with the one subject of education, this mater of religious instruction is writ large and stands at the head of all programmes. True, the record of their labours in that direction cannot be tabulated in Schedules nor certified in Diplomas. We shall rest content, however, that if we be not unfaithful in this our most Important Duty, God will give the increase, nor shall the reward of the labourer be wanting. Let us hope that in future years when we have have passed away, the present Catholic youth of Great Crosby and it’s vicinity will give proof by their lives as good citizens, as men of probity and virtue and by their fidelity to the heritage of the faith which is theirs, that the promise given here to-day shall have been realised, that the seed we sow shall have fructified.
In conclusion it remains to me again to thank you from my heart. The sympathetic attention with which you listened renders me fully assured that in, relying on the patronage of your Grace and on the help of the clergy and lately in our arduous work we shall not be disappointed. May I now ask your Grace to be pleased to declare St. Mary’s College open for the greater glory of God and the furtherance of Catholic education in this portion of your Grace’s diocese (Applause).
In rising to declare the College open, the Archbishop said the report which had just been read by the Principal had indeed been very good one. In the Middle Ages every Catholic bishop seemed intent building a grammar school in the district in which be was born or reared, and in time these schools became so numerous that it was wonderful where all the boys came from to fill them.. However when that very old friend of the Roman Catholics, Henry VIII., came along, he declared that all grammar schools trade guilds monasteries, and convents were centres of superstition, so he abolished the 1ot in the same way that he killed most of his wives, swept the revenues into his own till, and felt thoroughly virtuous in all he did. The natural result was that the peasants and poorer classes were without schools where they could send their children. After many years had passed, King Henry son end daughter, Edward VI;- and Mary, Queen of Scots, re-opened a few grammar schools, but these fell into the hands of the rich, and were occupied by well-to-do boys, while all the rest had to set about to earn their own living, almost as soon as they could walk. “To- day, I am pleased to hear” (added his Grace) “the Government saying that they are going to put secondary education at the disposal of every boy and girl in this country. Public money could not be better spent, and the Government policy is the old policy of the Catholic Church, the policy we have strived to maintain to the extent of our power. When the modern religious movement began in the middle of last century, the first phase was for a purely secular education. Many men prided themselves on being materialists, rationalists, or agnostics, and thought themselves several inches taller when they were denying the existence of God. That phase had passed away, and parents were realising that the chid without a religious education would not be a very pleasant member of the family when he begins to assert himself. Now, however, the Government seemed about to deal fairly with education, and to play fair with the Catholic and the Anglican as well as with the Council schools, and the Catholics were prepared to go along with the Government as far as possible. The Catholics had made great sacrifice in providing elementary schools for their own children and, thanks to the nuns, had done pretty well for the secondary education of girls. For the education of boys, they had had to depend largely on the Christian Brothers and brothers of the Jesuit Christian Brothers and other orders, who only reward for their strenuous labour and hard life, was that they were allowed to engage in work which they loved. At the beginning of the opening ceremony, which it was his, duty and pleasure to perform, a choir of young boys sang a refrain:
“Your kindly tribute pay” That refrain went to his own heart, and the offertory about to be taken would show he was certain, that it had reached the hearts of others. (Laughter) He could not, like a mediaeval bishop, found a Grammar school from funds at his disposal, but he could declare one open, and leave the Christian Brothers to raise the money. When the school became as famous as St. Francis Xavier’s College, Liverpool, or Eton and Harrow, or even perhaps, Cambridge and Oxford - (cheers) - those who contributed to the Building Fund would be able to proudly declare that they had a hand in its foundation. It would be like “ backing a winner,” if the school reached the top of the list, of schools of its kind. (Applause.)
Captain F. N. Blundell, MP., in proposing a vote of thanks to the Archbishop, said that wherever his Grace went in the whole of his large diocese he was always heartily welcome, but on such an occasion as this he was especially so. Crosby should be very proud of itself, for it had now the best secondary schools for Catholic boys and girls in the district.
The vote was seconded by Councillor J. Clancy, J.P., who said that when they considered the size of the diocese they should feel very grateful to the Archbishop for finding the time to come. In the city of Liverpool there were five of the best Catholic secondary schools in the country and they represented & value of £250,000 in building material alone. As regards the Catholic elementary Schools, they were worth over £1,000,000, and it was an undoubted fact that the Catholics did all in their power to help to place a sound education in front of all people. He expressed the hope that, they would do all in their power to help the Christian Brothers.
The usual show of hands proved that the vote was unanimous, and hearty thanks were accorded to the Archbishop, on behalf of the company. The opening ceremony concluded with the National Anthem. The company, which numbered about 600, contributed generously to the fund on leaving the hall, and the building was inspected with expressions of admiration.
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