Part II –Vintage Villanova
Calm settled on the idyllic, early Villanova campus after the
Nativist riots subsided. The College reopened in September of 1846.
Twenty-four students were enrolled, and the school’s turbulent
beginnings gave way to a gradual expansion under its first president,
the Rev. John P. O’Dwyer, O.S.A. On July 21, 1847, the first public
commencement was held.
Secure in the hands of the Augustinian friars, the fledgling college
was on its way. The Augustinians set about their task to developing a
full-fledged educational institution in the American, religious, Roman
Catholic tradition.
In the 10 years that he was in charge, Father O’Dwyer, became known
as "the founding father of Villanova," because he played a vital
role in advancing the college and the Augustinian mission. The Rev. John
Rotelle, O.S.A., in Men of Heart, Part I, writes "The Augustinian
Order in the United States is indebted to O’Dwyer, because "he succeeded
in keeping the infant province intact and tried to instill its members
with a love for the Order and the Church." Rotelle describes him as a
man of vision and high caliber, guided by deep faith, who was
intellectually far superior to men of his times. In a short lifetime, he
is credited with accomplishing much at Villanova and St. Augustine’s.
O’Dwyer, in fact, set the course for the Augustinian mission.
O’Dwyer’s responsibilities included the College and beyond. On
campus, he resumed building projects. In 1847, a one-story wooden
lavatory, including a stove, was erected at the northwest corner of the
Study Hall Chapel. The following year, he commissioned a small stone
railroad station for the college. The station, post office and
residential suburb that later evolved were named for the college, which
came first, although some in the Philadelphia area believed the opposite
to be true. Also in 1848, Villanova began construction on the first
segment of the College Building, which later would form the east wing of
Alumni Hall. (In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Villanova was also
spelled Villa Nova or Villa-Nova.)
O’Dwyer, also is recognized for recouping the losses suffered in
Philadelphia destruction. During Doctor Patrick Moriarty, O.S.A.’s
(Doctor was an honorary title) absence from 1844 to 1850, O’Dwyer served
as commissary general.
He was the personal representative of the prior general for the
Augustinians in the United States. In January 1847, he was made
commissary provincial.
After the College had reopened, the responsibilities as well as
problems multiplied for O’Dwyer. He was an active pastor and preacher.
Among his duties, he was pastor at St. Augustine’s Church in
Philadelphia and preached at other churches being founded in
Pennsylvania. He was also in charge of other Augustinians in the country
and helped the small numbers of clergy to minister to the people in the
Philadelphia area.
"The weight of all these responsibilities must have taken a heavy
toll on his health which had never been strong," Father Ennis wrote in
The Augustinians. Never a robust man, Father O’Dwyer’s failing
health began to plague him shortly after he resumed his duties as
Villanova’s president in September 1846.
As his health declined, he delegated more of the responsibility of
running Villanova to the newly ordained Rev. William Harnett, O.S.A.
Harnett became acting president and prior in April 1847. When the
1847-48 school year began, O’Dwyer assigned full responsibility for the
school to Harnett by naming him president.
Villanova Receives Official Status Via
Charter
The 1847-48 academic year looked encouraging for Villanova. The Rev.
George A. Meagher, O.S.A., educated in the Order’s houses in Italy, was
added to the faculty. The college possessed all the components of a
viable institution.
Curriculum and enrollment were sound. A library and reading room was
established.
In March of 1848, Villanova marked an important milestone. It was
granted an official charter from the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania, signed by Francis R. Shunk, governor of
Pennsylvania. The charter was considered a profoundly important step in
Villanova’s development because it officially recognized the institution
as a college. According to Contosta’s account in Ever Ancient, Ever
New, the original charter of 1848 granted Villanova "all such
powers, authorities and jurisdiction as are held, enjoyed or exercised
by any other university or college within this commonwealth." Legally
established, Villanova could fulfill its purpose to be "a college for
the education of persons in the various branches of science, literature,
and ancient and modern language by the name, style and title of ‘The
Augustinian College of Villanova, in the State of Pennsylvania.’"
By this time, with St. Augustine’s Church had been rebuilt.
Consequently, with the lawsuit (for damages suffered during the "Navtivist"
riots) against the city of Philadelphia satisfactorily settled, O’Dwyer
felt he could once again turn his attention to Villanova. On May 1,
1848, the first meeting of the board of trustees took place at St.
Augustine’s. Father O’Dwyer was formally elected president of the board.
Father Harnett was named treasurer, and a Mr. William Axon Stokes,
secretary.
Officers and instructors of the college were also chosen at this same
meeting: O’Dwyer, president, taught Greek and Latin; Harnett, vice
president, was professor of theology and moral theology. (Other faculty
were also assigned.)
At the end of the academic year 1848-49 (1850 according to some
records), the president, O’Dywer, informed partcipants at commencement
that the College was free of debt. The fledgling Villanova College began
to flourish.
Early Campus Life
The college, as the Doctor Moriarty had explained in his prospectus,
was intended for the "good education of ...the children of the less
opulent portion of our Catholic people."
Villanova’s early rural landscape included many elements: a farm,
workshops, an orphanage, a monastery, a seminary and a college. Father
O’Dwyer wanted to include a boy’s work school. his vision became reality
when in 1850 Villanova opened a manual labor school for orphans over 16
years of age from St. John’s Orphanage.
That Villanova was intended as "an institution for boys only was an
automatic and foregone conclusion," Contosta writes.
"One of the purposes for founding Villanova was to recruit members
for an all-male clergy." Father Moriarty had expressed hope that
Villanova would offer an opportunity to nourish vocations for the
priesthood. Prospects for admitting young men to religious life were
opened in 1843 when the Augustinians opened the first novice house. In
1848, the first novice was received in what was called the
"ecclesiastical" or "scholastic" department in the early decades and
into much later in the century. This department was categorized as
"distinct and separate from the college," with different books, classes
and teachers. Nevertheless, due to a shortage of priests in the early
days, the departments shared teachers.
Compared to today, the Villanova regime during these early years may
have seemed severe, but Contosta confirms in Ever Ancient, Ever New
that the routine was similar to other contemporary schools. Students
arose at 5:30 a.m., assembled for prayers, Mass, and breakfast before
beginning class at 8:30. The breakfast menu featured bread and molasses
and fried potatoes, with milk, coffee, and tea. For the typical noonday
meal, bread and molasses were served with an occasional dessert of pie
or pudding. Supper, as the evening meal was called, served up mutton,
potatoes and gravy. (The proliferation of molasses was due not to
preference but was provided by parents of a student from Louisiana.)
After dinner, as it was called, at noontime, classes resumed at 2 p.m.
and continued until 6 p.m,, with an hour for study hall in the evening.
Curriculum
Courses offered, as listed in the prospectus for 1849-50, were in
"the Greek, Latin, and English languages, history, geography,
mathematics, logic, rhetoric, poetry, natural and moral philosophy, and
chemistry." Students could choose to study the modern languages of
French, Spanish, German or Italian for an extra $15 a year each.
Theology courses also were offered, but probably were intended for young
men preparing to enter the priesthood.
There were no electives akin to today’s standards. The curriculum was
prescribed. This rigid course of study stemmed from a "faculty
psychology," which posited that the human mind was like a muscle. To be
viable, its various mental faculties needed to be exercised and trained
through the study of certain subjects. The memory faculties were
identified as memory, reason, judgment, conscience and the will. Memory
was deemed the most important. Educators believed students could perfect
it only through rote learning of texts, and by having students recite
the memorized passages in front of teacher and classmates. The faculty
who taught this curriculum at Villanova was very small throughout the
19th century, according to Contosta. For first two years from 1843-45 it
consisted of eight men.
Villanova was truly a different world, even in the 1850s. The
importance of rote learning later carried over to punishment.
According to Contosta’s book, students who broke the rules were
subject to punishments recorded in the "Jug Books."
These were large, leather-bound volumes, which were a custom at many
other Catholic institutions. "Jug" was short for "Judgment Under God."
Entries of misbehavior for 1856, listed "running away from prayers,"
"burning fire-crackers in the house," "drawing obscene pictures in
studies, "throwing snowballs into the basement," "reading novels in
study," "using this book for a tambourine," "throwing Holy Water down
another boy’s back in chapel," and "smoking behind the pig-pen."
Sidebar: Augustinian Mission
The Augustinian mission was part of Villanova’s heritage from its
earliest beginnings.
The Augustinians who built the College as well as today’s friars
consider themselves the spiritual descendants of St. Augustine.
The trials endured during the "Nativist riots are said to have
fortified the college as an Roman Catholic, Augustinian institution.
"The experience of violent and suffering strengthened rather than
weakened the Augustinians and the Catholic community," wrote Father
Arthus Ennis, O.S.A., in The Augustinians.
Although other colleges, whether Catholic or not, emphasized
religion, and compulsory attendance at religious services, Contosta
writes in Ever Ancient, Ever New that the Augustinian mission and
heritage are what made Villanova distinct. The Augustinians took a
unique approach to teaching/pedagogy, deeply inspired by the humanist
traditions of their patron, St. Augustine. The Augustinian Order were
hugely aware of the enormous influence that St. Augustine’s legacy
exercised on its apostolate of higher education. Mind and heart were
united in the fervent search for wisdom. The Augustinian institution of
learning was characterized by a curriculum that reflected a Catholic,
liberal arts tradition, an understanding of human reason and the
intellect. Concern for the poor and social justice and an esteem for all
persons and cultures, both in scholarly and personal endeavors was
important.
In a talk on education, Father O’Dywer, Villanova’s first president,
emphasized the notion which most characterizes St. Augustine and the
Augustinian community for centuries: the symbol of the heart. O’Dwyer
preached: "...Too much attention is lavished on the intellect while
little or no attention is paid to the Will, the faculty of the soul the
most closely connected with the temporal and the external interests of
man. ...the heat is educated; the heart is neglected. ...We are bound to
cultivate the heart as well as the head, nay even more in as much as the
happiness of man is more dependent on the former than on the latter," as
noted in Men of Heart, Red, Part I.
O’Dwyer Dies and Harnett Heads Villanova
Father O’Dwyer died in May 1850. He was 34. Harnett, aged 29,
automatically replaced him as president and as commissary general,
assuming both duties.
In 1850, O’Dwyer was admitted to Mount Hope Hospital in Baltimore.
Little is known about his illness. It was diagnosed as "melancholia," a
term used at the time to describe a variety of disorders. (A later
analysis of his affliction based on current medical information
indicates he may have suffered from a brain tumor.) Father Rotelle’s
account in Men of Heart, Part I, cites a brief comment written by
Bishop Kenrick. about his illness:
"Father O’Dwyer...confined in a hospital in Baltimore... is
afflicted with a strange hallucination of mind in which he imagines
that he had done no good." (During his last hours in the hospital, he
was cared for by Father John Neumann, a Redemptorist, who later became
bishop of Philadelphia and ultimately was canonized as a saint.)
A New Era Begins
In May 1851, Doctor Moriarty returned to Villanova. He was reinstated
as commissary general, and he also replaced Harnett as president. Living
at St. Augustine’s in Philadelphia, he was president only in name, and
came to Villanova to teach seminarians homiletics once or twice a week.
It was Harnett, however, who was responsible for the daily operation of
the school with Father George Meagher, O.S.A., as vice-president.
Harnett had issued the prospectus in 1849 for the coming academic year.
During 10 years as prior at Villanova, from 1847 to 1857, Harnett
oversaw a further, slow expansion of the school. He was responsible for
the early development of the College. The monastery almost doubled in
size. Alumni Hall’s current east wing was erected as a three -story
classroom and dormitory in 1848 to house the gradual increasing student
body. The first school building, erected in 1844, became a chapel. At
this time, the parish of St. Thomas of Villanova was formally erected.
(Previously, the school had been considered a mission of St. Augustine’s
Parish.) Father Harnett also took over duties as the first pastor of the
parish. (At age 29, Harnett was considered too young for elevation to
bishopric, even though he was considered.)
In later years, he and Father Moriarty were the only two who could
remember the burning of st. Augustine’s in 1844. As the novice master,
Harnett is credited with infusing the spiritual formation of the next
generation of Augustinians. He had seen the Order grow from one parish
to 15 houses well-established, from two priests to more than 30, united
firmly in a flourishing province.
Although Villanova’s facilities were enlarged, the institution did
not generate increased enrollment. Student enrollment fluctuated during
the first 50 years. The Catholics of Philadelphia were mostly poor
immigrant workmen who were unable to provide a relatively expensive
education for their sons. Thus, enrollment at Villanova before the Civil
War, never exceeded 90 or 91 boys, as indicated in Men of Heart, Part
II and Contosta’s book.
A Men’s College
Villanova was intended to be a college for men. In 1855, Harnett
again became president. Father Moriarty relinquished the position to
become pastor of a new parish in Chestnut Hill. At this time, the school
gradually change from a boys’ academy to a full-fledged institution of
higher learning. The prestige of the college slowly increased as well.
The first bachelor of arts degrees were awarded in 1855 to James F.
Dooley and Henry C. Alexander. The first master’s degree was conferred
in 1857.
Despite these and other favorable advancement, other circumstances
thwarted Villanova’s growth. The Augustinian priests were desperately
needed elsewhere to staff new parishes opened in Chestnut Hill, Ardmore,
Atlantic City, and Lawrence, Mass. The nation was in the throes of the
economic "panic of ‘57," and money was tight. Since he was no longer
needed at Villanova, Harnett was reassigned to St. Augustine’s in
Philadelphia in July 1857. The Rev. Patrick Stanton, O.S.A., replaced
him as prior and pastor of St. Thomas of Villanova (and most likely as
novice master).
Once again, the administrators decided it was in the institution’s
best interest to close Villanova temporarily for a second time in June
1857 to concentrate on parish work until more priests were available to
teach at the college. The economic depression, which began in 1857 and
also the Civil War, kept Villanova closed longer than anticipated. The
College did not reopen again until 1865.
The reasons cited for this second closing according to the Rev.
Thomas F. Roland, O.S.A., were: "...a long series of difficulties forced
the closing of Villanova after the commencement of 1857. The services of
the priests were needed in parishes far scattered and growing. The work
of spreading the Order kept some of the Fathers from the home base; and
the multiplying of subjects taught put too great demands on the faculty.
Times were hard, money was scarce, the ‘panic of ‘57' was on. The
College bowed before the storm and closed for a second time."
Villanova’s Irish Ancestry
In addition to being Catholic, Villanova’s 19th-century faculty was
overwhelmingly of Irish birth or Irish American ancestry. Together,
Irish-born and Irish American faculty appear to comprise three quarters
of the Augustinians who taught at the College in the 19th century.
Contosta writes in Ever Ancient, Ever New: "The vast majority of
American Augustinians came from Ireland, where they had faced
discrimination and hostility from the British government." His record
reflects that "of the 37 Augustinians who taught at Villanova between
1843 and 1900, 19 of them, or 51 percent, were born in Ireland." Their
surnames indicated another 10 or 27 percent came from Irish American
families.
