Whether doubts were expressed by letter or in a printed article we have not been able to ascertain; all we know is that the first president wrote to the editors of the Picayune reassuring them of the solid basis on which his institution rested. "We do not claim for it," he writes, "even the name of a college, but have looked upon it merely as a select boarding and day school; the germ only of such an institution as we would wish to make it and as the wants of the community will require. We have issued no regular prospectus nor did we intend doing so until we should be able to enlarge and fit up the establishment so as to put it on an equal footing with the other colleges of the order. * * * With us the good of our pupils, not their money, is a primary object. We have at present fourteen boarders and fifteen days scholars. The rule of prepayment was not rigidly enforced in the past year during which time it is well known that our current expenses far exceeded the income derived from our pupils. You need have no fear as to the college's permanency. Had pecuniary profit been our object in its establishment, it would have run its course and ceased to exist many months ago. We commenced and carried it out at a great sacrifice. No effort on our part shall be spared to conduct it in such a manner as to justify the hopes of our friends and merit the confidence of the public."

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This letter, besides showing the broad principles on which Santa Clara College was built, manifests a nobility of character which the historian cannot well pass over in silence. The name of the Rev. John Nobili is one of which California may well feel proud. True he was a Jesuit, and a Catholic priest, but so were Marquette and Joliet. We have other famous names intimately connected with California's history; but we have not so many that we can afford to forget our pioneer educator. John Nobili was born in Rome, April 8, 1812; he entered the Roman College at the age of thirteen, whence he was graduated with honors some seven years later. While still a young man he published in his native Italian language several works on physics and mathematics and later, at his own request, was sent by his superiors to labor among the Indians of Montana and Oregon. In 1849, as we have stated above, he came to California and founded Santa Clara College of which until his death in 1856 he was the actual president. Zeal for souls was Father Nobili's characteristic trait. In the class-room, on sick-calls, in supervising his own improvements he always had some motive of zeal to

animate him, some high principle to guide him. Unsparing of self, though of delicate health, he was as gentle as a lamb to those with whom he had to deal. The students recognized this, and while dreading him as their master they revered and loved him as a father.

that

Such was the man who founded Santa Clara College and who alone. amic innumerable difficulties guided it safely through its first six months of existence, attending all the while to the work of two parishes, San Jose ancl Santa Clara, teaching three, sometimes four hours a day, straightening out the complicated legal title of the mission property and sleeping in the students' dormitory by night. But he was not destined to continue the work alone for any great length of time. Early in February, 1852, and almost unexpectedly, there arrived from Oregon three fellow-Jesuits, Fathers de Vos, Goetz and Veyret. Like Father Nobili these men had left their native land for missionary work and like him they were ready for whatever hardships work entailed. The four labored together like pioneer champions, as they were, and succeeded in putting the newly established college on a solid footing, so solid, in fact, that Father Accolti, who visited Santa Clara toward the close of 1852, was able to give his impressions of the institution in very glowing terms. "Although this college was in those times" (he is referring to the date of his visit), "in a state of rudimentary formation, still all that be desired was taught; English, French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Physics, Surveying, Music, etc. And the pupils profited so well that their public examinations and exhibitions amazed those who were present, and our new college of Santa Clara has so increased in reputation that the best families, even Protestant, have no objection to send their children to it."

could

In view of this reputation the student body continued to increase and 1855 the state legislature endowed the institution with the charter of a university, giving power of conferring academic degrees. This privilege

in

increased the number of pupils and before the year was well begun there were as many as one hundred and eleven on the college register. Fortunately the teaching staff had been increased by the timely arrival of sixteen young Jesuit professors. These new arrivals were for the most part Italian exiles who, driven from their native land before the social and political storms of 1848, sought refuge in America and having studied English in

eastern colleges of the Jesuit order, came westward to devote their life and energies to the work of instructing the young generation of California. It is well that this fact be borne in mind, for as we advance in this narrative we shall find that nearly all the men to whom Santa Clara owes its progress, are of Italian birth and education.

In 1855, then, the school year opened with twenty teachers and one hundred and eleven pupils, and up to this time there were no additional buildings! How could so many pupils and professors be accommodated? This is a question to which the historian has sought an answer but without any satisfactory results. They were not accommodated at all, seems to express the real state of affairs. They were pioneers and the life of a pioneer has its inconveniences and romance; it has, and needs must have, its incommodities. Any one who understands the nature of a mission quadrangle will readily anticipate the inconveniences necessarily connected with the first years of Santa Clara. A long one-story quadrilateral with a church on one side, a wall opposite and on the two remaining sides rooms facing into the inner garden formed the primitive college. These rooms were divided as best they might into four dormitories, a kitchen, a dining-room, a study hall and private rooms for the fathers and secular professors. Two of the Jesuits, Fathers Masnata and Messea, were not so blessed as to have a private room. and were wont to sleep on the benches of the study hall, or even, when the weather permitted it, on the porticos beneath the stars. They did not suffer from the hardship, however, for they both lived to be octogenarians, Father Masnata, indeed, dying at the age of eighty-two, and Father Messea reaching his eighty-sixth year. But for class-rooms, play-rooms, and the thousand other conveniences of a modern college? We can do no better than run through the day's horarium to give an answer to these questions and an idea of those primitive times.

A little hand bell is sounded at 6 a. m. and the students aroused from healthful slumbers roll out for the day's work, though some have already been up since five, studying by candle light. [NOTE.-The writer has been informed by an old pioneer father, that D. M. Delmas, now one of California's first orators, made it a constant practice to arise at five, and with the aid of his candle prepare his daily lessons.] Their time is limited, and in less than fifteen minutes a crowd of youngsters with dishevelled hair is

seen trooping to a water-fount in the center of the inner garden. Morning ablutions finished in this crude fashion, the bell announces the hour for church services, and one and all they betake themselves to the old Mission. Church for mass and rosary. Breakfast is served by Philip, an old Indian Cook, whose culinary experiences are not very extensive. He does his best, however, and the students, as much imbued with the pioneer spirit as the Fathers, are satisfied with their humble fare, and after a short recreation they prepare themselves for class. Class,-where is it held? If the weather permits, professor and students find out some quiet corner of the garden and begin the work of the day; otherwise the pupils are called into the private rooms and listen to the lecturer who has converted his bed into a desk. Thus the day passes; recreation, class, regular meals, and now that darkness set in all are gathered in a bare hall, huddled together almost, at a common desk, each supplied with a candle, each intent upon his next day's tasks. At nine they retire to sleep the sleep of satisfaction.

has

The

Such was the actual program until the end of the school year '54-'55. next year saw many additions, both in building and educational appointments. The principal addition in the line of building consisted in the purchase of the "California Hotel." The Fathers were jubilant over the successful purchase of this secular edifice that had been built almost in the very shadow of the mission sanctuary. In the college catalogue of 1855, they announce the purchase thus: "In the course of last year a large structure, containing eight spacious classrooms and a well ventilated dormitory, one hundred and ten feet long and forty feet wide, was added to the college buildings."

was

Together with this material expansion, humble though it was, there a marked growth in another and more important direction. A library

To

of some ten thousand volumes, the largest in the state at the time, had been added to the college. The books were principally of educational value; a complete set of the ancient classics, a respectable collection of English literary works, several scientific treatises and reference books in abundance. gether with the library a physical cabinet had been fitted out "with apparatus comprising all recent improvements," which were brought all the way from Paris. Nor was the moral element neglected. A chapel begun in 1854 was

rapidly approaching completion, though owing to the death of Father Nobili. it was not finished until 1856.

The Rev. Nicholas Congiato succeeded Father Nobili, and an able successor he was in all truth. The life of this second president reads like a novel. He was a man of extensive and exceptional experience; he had been vice president of the Jesuit College of Nobles, Sardinia, and of the College of Freiburg, Switzerland, and was imprisoned by the Italian revolutionists of '47 for his profession of Jesuit vows. Released the same year, he came to America and crossed the plains for the Indian missions in Oregon in 1848. Later, having been ordered by superiors to Bardstown, Kentucky, he retraced his steps alone and unacquainted with the country, and after some six months reached his destination, where he was, to his chagrin, for he preferred missionary life, given charge of St. Joseph's College. Soon afterward he obtained permission to return to the west and again crossed the prairies to act as Superior General of both the Californian and the Oregon Jesuits. It was even while fulfilling this difficult office that he was chosen to succeed Father Nobili as president of Santa Clara College. The work and responsibility of such an appointment would have been too much for an ordinary man; but the Rev. Nicholas Congiato was not an ordinary man. Even at the advanced age of eighty, when in retirement at the Sacred Heart Novitiate, Los Gatos, he was loath to be idle, and till within a few months of his death he utilized his time by teaching his younger brethren in religion. His funeral, which occurred in May, 1897, was a memorable event in Santa Clara Valley. All the old pioneer settlers and hundreds of the younger generation turned out to pay their last tribute of respect to one who had spent so long a life for the betterment of his fellow-men.

We have seen how the College had advanced during the first years of its existence, further developments under the circumstances seemed impossible, but with energetic activity Father Congiato kept up the progressive spirit. It was during his incumbency that the Literary Congress was inaugurated. This Congress is a debating society unique in the annals of education in America. Originated at Santa Clara it has since been introduced into several eastern colleges and universities. Composed of two coordinate branches, the Philalethic Senate and the House of Philhistorians, it is in form and method of procedure modeled after the Congress at Wash