“False Also and Harmful to Christian Education:” Coeducation at St. Mary’s Springs
by Scott Jazdzewski

The Catholic Church is an in institution wherein change usually occurs with glacial slowness. Yet change does come. The transformation of St. Mary’s Springs High School into a coeducational institution illustrates how the Church can accommodate community needs, and it further illustrates the independent spirit of Fond du Lac’s community of Roman Catholic nuns, the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes. A group of citizens, supported by parish clergy, mobilized and requested this change at the local Catholic secondary school, to which they desired to send their sons. They garnered support from the religious order that operated the school, and the Bishop was willing to accommodate deviation from papally articulated policy in the interest of what was deemed to be a greater good. Springs thereby opened a new chapter in its history in 1939, when boys were allowed to attend the school, but what had begun as a stopgap, established and permitted to exist due to a lack of funds, evolved into a permanent feature of Catholic secondary education in Fond du Lac.

St. Mary’s Springs is a small Catholic High School located on the eastern edge of Fond du Lac, overlooking the city. The Springs, as it is locally known, sits along the North side of State Highway 23, straddling County Highway K. In 2004, the three buildings that served functional roles for the school at various points of its development still adorned the campus.

The school had its beginnings as support for a different kind of enterprise. Mother Superior M. Agnes Hazotte decided to purchase the 410-acre Cold Springs Farm, including buildings and livestock, for the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes from C.A. Wells in 1899 for the sum of $31,500. The farm, renamed St. Joseph’s Springs, is the site where St. Mary’s Springs is located, occupying a tract of land bordering the “ledge,” a portion of the Niagara Escarpment that runs through much of the eastern part of the United States, including the eastern side of Fond du Lac, and which is one of the more picturesque spots in the state of Wisconsin. The purchase was made primarily to

Boyle Hall, St. Mary’s Springs Academy

provide an economical source of food for a small hospital established by the Sisters of St. Agnes and additionally to provide land for a cemetery in which to bury deceased Sisters. ¹

Two years later, a local entrepreneur who loved the numerous bubbling springs of clear fresh water on this piece of land decided that it would be an ideal place for a sanatorium to treat sufferers from tuberculosis. In 1901, at a cost of $25,000, John T. Boyle erected the twin-towered building now known as Boyle Hall, named in memory of his mother, and presented it to the Sisters of St. Agnes. ² This building sits facing westward on the south side of the current St. May’s Springs school campus.

By 1909 the hospital in Fond du Lac was changing the features of the farm and spa. Father Irenaeus built the Lourdes Grotto in 1902, and St. Agnes Hall was built in 1903 to provide a department of hydrotherapy, using natural spring water from the ledge. The sanatorium, never a successful venture, perhaps because of its distance from town, was no longer needed. ³ In 1909 Mr. Boyle provided the $10,000 needed to convert the sanatorium into a boarding school for girls, an idea supported by Archbishop Messmer. The school was then given to the Sisters of St. Agnes to administer and staff.

On October 7, 1909, Archbishop Messmer formally dedicated the school. ⁴ Seventeen students called St. Mary’s Springs Academy home that first year. In 1911 the school had its first graduate, Esther Curly of Chicago. The early school combined primary and secondary education. A two-year commercial course accompanied a four-year classical curriculum, and such diverse subjects as household arts, music, and painting were offered. Some Sisters were sent to other schools to improve their training as teachers. ⁵

The goals and horizons of the school grew along with its activities and enrollment. In 1912 there were seven graduates, and the enrollment had risen to 54 students. An alumnae association was established, and in 1913 the school was accredited by the state of Wisconsin and affiliated with the Catholic University of America. ⁶ These affiliations placed St. Mary’s Springs Academy on a solid academic foundation as a Catholic boarding school for girls. The school’s exclusive status as a boarding school came to an end in 1927 when bus service from Fond du Lac was established, enabling St. Mary’s Springs to open its doors to day students. As a result, enrollment rose to 90 students.

The main building was erected in 1928-1929 to provide living quarters and a classroom. The new building, distinguished by a single large tower, a landmark building for the school, allowed the school to enroll more students and to provide increased services. Enrollment remained relatively low during the 1930s. When Sister Angeline, Principal of the Springs, visited Archbishop Samuel Stritich in company with Mother Joseph Wolford, General Superior of the order, enrollent at the Springs was a concern. At that time, enrollments had declined, due to the depression, and at that time stood at no more than 123 students, 56 boarders and 57 day students, according to one source, and only 108 according to another. The Archbishop considered that transportation was a greater problem than was tuition. He believed that providing better bus service and enlisting the support of local clergy would probably produce 100 day students from the girls of Fond du Lac. To encourage support from the parishes, a dinner for the local priests was requested, and the Archbishop addressed them, urging on them the value of a Catholic education, suggesting that students who attended a puclic secondary school would lose their “Catholic mentality.” ⁷ Despite these efforts, enrollment continued to languish through the 1930s.

Another pressing concern arose from parents in the Fond du Lac area. They sent their boys and girls to parochial elementary schools, but when their children reached an age to begin secondary education, the educational choices for the boys diminished. While the door of private education remained wide open for girls, this alternative was closed to any boy who could not attend a boarding school. Area parents could send their girls to the Academy, but if they wanted their boys to attend a Catholic high school, it would have to be in Milwaukee or Mt. Calvary. The closest school available, St. Lawrence Seminary in Mt. Calvary was still some 13 miles from Fond du Lac, a distance that made day-school attendance impractical for most. The consequence was that, after eight or nine years of Catholic education, Fond du Lac boys had no alternative but to enroll at a coeducational public school, if they wanted to continue their education while living at home. ⁸ Fond du Lac was not alone in respect to an imbalance of educational opportunities for Catholic girls and boys. In 1897 there were three times as many Catholic schools for girls as for boys in the United States. ⁹

After years of deliberation and discussion, area parents finally formally raised the issue of Catholic secondary education for boys in 1939. On May 1, Reverend W.H. Huemmer of St. Patrick’s Church, accompanied by Mrs. J. P. McConnell, Mrs. D.E. Sullivan and Mrs. Joseph Daly, went to St. Mary’s Springs Academy to discuss with the Principal, Sr. Angeline, their desire to have St. Mary’s Springs transformed into a coeducational school. ¹⁰ Sr. Angeline assured the group of four that she would bring the matter before Mother Aloysia, Superior General of the order, and her Council, which included Vicar Assistant Sister Joseph Wolford, First Councillor Sister Germaine Cassin, Second Councillor Sister Angeline Kamp, Third Councillor and Secretary General Sister Vera Naber, and Treasurer General Sister Seraphina Fellenz. ¹¹ She told the group that she would do all in her power to help the people of Fond du Lac and the vicinity to obtain a quality Catholic secondary education for both their boys and girls. ¹²

The following day, Mother Aloysia called a meeting of her Council to discuss the issue of making St. Mary’s Springs a coeducational institution. Sr. Angeline presented the petition of Father Heummer and his parishioners to Mother Aloysia and her Council. They decided to ask the advice of Archbishop Samuel Stritch on the matter. ¹³ Sr. Angeline and Sr. Vera were delegated by the Council to present the matter to Archbishop Stritch.

Since 1929 official Church policy on Catholic education stated that boys and girls should be educated separately from each other. Pope Pius XI decreed in his encyclical letter on “The Christian Education of Youth,” that boys and girls should only be united in matrimony, and during the adolescent years, the most critical years for adolescent development, they should be educated separately. Thus Catholic coeducational secondary schools were not viewed as acceptable. ¹⁴

Sr. Angeline and Sr. Vera met with Archbishop Stritch in Milwaukee on May 12 at his residence, and they presented him with the petition from Father Heummer and the Catholic women of Fond du Lac. Despite the prevailing Church doctrine on the subject, the Archbishop supported the idea of St. Mary’s Springs becoming a coeducational school, so long as certain conditions were met, and he agreed that it could open as such in September of the same year. Less than two weeks later Archbishop Stritch penned one letter to Mother Aloysia and another to the local pastors of Fond du Lac. ¹⁵ In those letters he explained that, although the official view of the church was that the sexes should be educated separately during the high school years, exceptions could be made when circumstances did not permit establishment of separate schools. Given the choice between a Catholic coeducational school and a secular coeducational school, there was no question which was preferred. The parents had adamantly asserted that they would rather send their boys to a parochial school than to a public high school. The basis of the argument by the parents was that, since Fond du Lac did not have a Catholic boys’ high school to which they could send their sons, why should they not be able to send them to St. Mary’s? The archbishop stated that, eventually, he would like to build a separate boys’ high school in Fond du Lac. However once he agreed to make St. Mary’s Springs a coeducational school, the Sisters of St. Agnes showed neither intention of building a second school at a different location nor of completely separating the students at Springs again, despite whatever initial reluctance they may have had. ¹⁶

The pastors raised another key concern. They feared that the school would soon become overcrowded, because of increased enrollment that would result from admitting boys. Their prediction was realized in the early 1950s, and only at this time did the question of a second Catholic high school emerge again.

In the following few months, the Congregation of St. Agnes took rapid steps to meet the conditions set forth by the Archbishop. Among the preparations made was a visit with the Administrators of St. Catherine’s High School in Racine, a Dominican Sisters-operated coeducational high school. Originally founded in 1864 as a girls’ boarding school, St. Catherine’s became an all-girls academy. In 1923, a new high school was built on the current site. At that time, a group of 8th grade boys from a neighboring parish visited the Mother Superior of the order and petitioned to be admitted to the new high school. Mother Ramona was so moved by their desire that she made the decision to admit boys, effective with the opening of classes in the fall of 1924. ¹⁷ Leadership from St. Mary’s Springs traveled to Racine at the end of May to observe how a Catholic co-educational school was conducted.

Alterations to the physical plant of St. Mary’s Springs were made to accommodate the boys. The school’s cafeteria was remodeled in the spring and was finished by August. The new project provided adequate facilities for the entire student body to eat at the same time. The former day-students’ lunchroom was converted into a boys’ department, complete with locker rooms, lavatories, study hall, and recreational quarters. ¹⁸

In the summer of 1939, the school also underwent another dramatic change. Sister Angeline Kamp, who had been the Principal for 21 years, stepped down to become the new Mother General of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes, after Mother Aloysia retired from that position. ¹⁹ Sister M. Emma was the new Principal when school opened in the fall. She was not new to the school, however, for she had been on the staff for thirty years and had spent the previous fifteen years as Assistant Principal. ²⁰

The first “boys’ day” at the school was August 31. Due to the activities planned, it appears as if this “boys’ day” was intended to act largely as a recruiting effort. Transportation was provided for the boys to the school. Activities such as swimming, water polo, tennis and other field games were at their disposal during the afternoon. Refreshments were scheduled in the new cafeteria, and the day’s activities were carried out without incident. The boys got their first taste of the school, with the official opening less than two weeks away.

A major concern of the Archbishop had been that the boys and girls should be chaperoned while being transported to and from the school. Separate transportation for the boys was secured when a third bus route to downtown was established. The freshmen and sophomore girls took the first bus, which was scheduled to arrive at 7:45. The junior and senior girls took the second bus and arrived at 8:05, while all the boys took the third bus and arrived at 8:30.²¹

With all the “proper precautions” stipulated by the Archbishop met, or exceeded in the case of the separate bus for boys, one of the last arrangements to be made was to invite Archbishop Stritch to celebrate a mass to commemorate the formal opening of school. Registration was set for September 11, and the opening mass and sermon were scheduled for September 13. All the pastors of Fond du Lac and the surrounding communities were invited for the day.

Oddly the Archbishop’s pastoral message at mass was unclear and did not reflect very well the character of the Springs, although the Archbishop did recognize the significance of the occasion. “Seldom has an archbishop made the opening of a school sufficiently important to come here and say mass,” he said. He went on to assert that in the past girls had been educated beyond the level attained by boys and that this had increased the number of mixed marriages, for boys and girls would seek their cultural equals in marriage. ²² This much of his message was apt, but he then moved onto much less certain ground.

The training of the boy is the most important thing. Men are the protectors of women. This is true of every level of education, but preeminently true of the period of adolescence, of the high school period. When the Catholic boy and the Catholic man is educated, he will see to it that nothing is too good for the education of the Catholic boy. ²³

As he continued, he talked about the “resolves” of youth, asserting that “In youth the highest resolves in life are made. Christopher Columbus first discovered America as a youth.” He then explained how he had come to that conclusion. A few years prior, Archbishop Stritich related that he had been invited to the Cathedral of Seville in Spain. There, he had been given access to the manuscript that Columbus had written. In it he found many marginal notes made by Columbus. These showed, the Archbishop claimed, that as a boy Columbus had very high resolves for the great work he later accomplished. Here, the Archbishop was on shaky historical ground. Columbus was born in 1451 in Genoa and sailed for the Indies in 1492, so he was already at least forty years old when he departed on his journey, and he was at least thirty-one years old when he proposed the “Enterprise of the Indies,” after he had returned from his trip to the Portuguese West African colony of Sao Jorge de Mina. He was hardly a youth, much less a boy. ²⁴

The Archbishop continued, “In this school you will find Christ. The only friend that understands the problems of that time of life when the days are spent in “boy town.” Finally he reached the crux of his reasoning for authorizing coeducation at St. Mary’s Springs: “Economic conditions made it impossible to provide a separate high school for boys in Fond du Lac.” For that reason St. Mary’s Springs had been opened to the boys whose parents had broken down the doors for admission of the boys.

Apart from his dubious history lesson on Columbus, the message that the Archbishop sent was likely a surprise to the Sisters in attendance. He told the administrators at a school that had educated exclusively girls for thirty years that the education of the boy was the most important thing. He might have seemed to be devaluing the work that they had done for Catholic girls in the archdiocese since the school’s inception and to be insinuating that only now was the school finally going to undertake a worthwhile endeavor. Much of the language used was of a sexist nature, although the culture of 1939 America certainly was less sensitive to this issue. The story of his trip to Seville was irrelevant either to the “resolves” of youth, or to the school’s situation. The comment that only Christ understood the problems at “boy town,” may also have puzzled those who attended and worked at the new coeducational school.

On a more practical level, the faculty meeting of September 9 had noted many of the concerns facing the school on the days before the arrival of the boys. Primarily, the young men who were joining a hitherto all-female community were likely to experience some anxiety. The minutes of the meeting reflected the Sisters’ response to this concern:

Sisters are requested to be as kind as can be to the boys yet firm. Many of them feel that they are not prepared to go on with their work like the girls because of preliminary training. All who have met them this summer have assured them that we will all take a special interest in them. Since this is the first year that we are admitting boys, and since the priests are trying so hard to increase the number out here, and because of the good we can do, we should be as kind as possible, especially in the beginning, and make allowances wherever they can be made. Do not let them feel they can get by or lower the standard of the school, but be kind, especially with the boys. ²⁵

This procedure, and some social policies introduced, had the effect of largely segregating the coeducational school by sex. The Sisters may have been trying to institute the Catholic ideal of educating the sexes separately, at least as much as possible. The third bus trip to pick up only the boys was just the first step in this process. When the students came to school to register, they did not register by class; instead they registered by gender. Boys registered in the homeroom, met the coach and Chaplain, and received their needed instruction. Girls registered in the gym. It was suggested that boys should sit in the back of the class, but no resolution on that measure was passed. ²⁶

Arrangements for the sexes to use separate stairways were enforced for only a short time. According to Sr. Margaret Lorimer, historian of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes, the Sisters were trying to retain the Academy’s culture as much as possible, but when the boys entered the school many things changed. After the Fond du Lac newspaper ran a story about the school mandating separate stairways for boys and girls, townspeople made jokes about the situation. Embarrassed by the comments, the school changed its policies so that the upper classmen used one set of stairs and the underclassmen the other set, at least as much as possible. ²⁷

As the boys entered school, numerous extracurricular outlets were created for them. During the first school year, a boys’ chorus was formed, as well as a boys’ club. A basketball team was established that same year, and a football team the following year. In 1940 the Springs athletic program joined the Fox Valley Catholic Conference. The school was fully admitted to the Conference for the 1941-1942 season, although the basketball team had played the majority of its games against conference teams previously. ²⁸

While the school was virtually segregated during the day, there were occasions that permitted the sexes to take part in extracurricular activities together. Three examples are described in the school newspapers that appeared during the first year of coeducation. A Christmas play was performed, “A Stranger Passes,” that boasted an integrated cast. ²⁹ A play in the spring, “Marcheta,” that debuted in May 1940 also included a cast that included both boys and girls.³⁰ Previously in the school plays, females played the male roles; hence these two plays were the first in the school’s history that involved a mixed cast. The third activity was the Junior-Senior prom held on May 7, but this was not an innovation, for such dances had been held at the school for at least two years already. Fifty-eight couples attended this particular prom. ³¹

From all appearances, the school really abandoned its policy of semi-segregation of the sexes as early as the 1940-41 school year. A school band was established that had both male and female performers, and it gave its first public concert in December. ³² There was also a mixed “Current Events Club,” which met on Fridays for discussions. The issue of concern in March 1941 was whether to give military aid to Great Britain. ³³ A resolution to establish a student government was passed in the spring of 1941, and officers were elected in the fall, including both boys and girls. ³⁴

The transition to a co-educational school did not proceed without a few minor conflicts. A disagreement between boys and girls appeared in the school newspaper in the waning months of 1939. One girl who wrote an anonymous editorial stated that “the boys” were receiving special treatment. Even though the girls wanted the boys there, she claimed, they did not want to become second-class citizens. ³⁵ The anonymous rebuttal from “the boys” that appeared the next month admitted that they had been receiving special treatment, but their response asserted that they were not guilty of everything of which the girl had accused them. They noted that changes in the school occurred because of circumstances pertaining to their arrival, and those concerns were simply logistical, and not ideological. ³⁶ Staff members weighed in on another matter in the December issue of the student newspaper, namely what was regarded as unacceptable behavior by the boys.

A recent book on behavior in public says, “The school building and all it contains should be treated with the greatest regard. The opportunity to enjoy these benefits is given to you through the generous attitude of somebody else. The least you can do is to take care of this equipment. Carving your initials on desks, overturning chairs, writing on walls, are all acts of vandalism causing needless destruction of property not your own.” In view of the fact that Sr. Emma has secured a pool table for the boys, it seems in place to remind them that they should heed what has been quoted above. ³⁷

The issue of girls’ resentment of apparent favoritism in treatment of the boys also appeared at the January 1940 faculty meeting, probably in response to the editorial in the student newspaper. “Because a complaint was made by the girls that the Sisters are partial to the boys, teachers are asked to be careful in this regard. The boys have had an opportunity now to become adjusted to the rules and regulations.” Before the start of the 1940-41 school year, the faculty revisited this issue, in order to make sure the same situation did not plague the school for another year. ³⁸ No other complaints appeared in the student newspaper after the “notice” was given to boys. Apparently the Sisters had had enough of trying to recruit boys to the school by being “nice” to them. They realized that they needed to retain order and control over the boys who were already enrolled in the school.

The separate bus routes for boys and girls ceased to exist by 1940. The school bought a new school bus, and it made only two trips to town each morning and each afternoon. Freshmen and sophomores took the first bus, and the juniors and seniors took the second bus. ³⁹ The buses were chaperoned until 1969, for insurance reasons, according to Sr. Michaela O’Brien, and thus continued to meet the original stipulation made by Archbishop Stritch. ⁴⁰

The St. Mary’s Springs class of 1940 boasted thirty-four members, two of whom were boys. These two young men marked the beginning of a new era in the school’s history, an era where boys and girls would attend class and graduate together. As the 1940s passed, enrollment at Springs continued to increase. By the end of World War II, the number of males enrolled exceeded one hundred, greatly increased from the original group of seventeen who had entered the school in the fall of 1939.

The school’s reputation grew in the early 1940s as well. The North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools accredited the Academy at a meeting held in Chicago in 1940. Examination and evaluation had taken place at the school in February 1940, with eleven administrators from various Wisconsin high schools brought in to evaluate its programs and facilities. The school received an “excellent” rating. ⁴¹ The school still maintains that accreditation today. ⁴²

As the prestige of the school increased, so did enrollment and the number of students who graduated. ⁴³ The prediction of overcrowding that had been made by the Fond du Lac pastors to the Archbishop in 1939 began to come true as early as 1950. By then, the school graduated over one hundred students a year, and classes became overcrowded. To deal with the issue of overcrowding, the school began to turn away qualified applicants. Once more, Fond du Lac parents had a difficult time reconciling the idea that their children were being denied a Catholic secondary education, after Catholic teachings had been provided for their children throughout the primary education years. The issue finally came to a head in the early 1960s. By that time, Springs was turning away roughly half of its applicants, and it was graduating 150-200 students each year.

Adding to the enrollment of the school were students involved in the Aspirancy Program. This program permitted high school-aged girls to determine whether religious life was for them while they earned their high school diplomas. These students first enrolled at Springs in the fall of 1959, after St. Agnes High School, located at the former St. Agnes Convent on Division Street, closed in June 1958. In 1959 there were twenty-five aspirants enrolled throughout the school, but the numbers of these students enrolled in this program increased until 1963 when 102 Aspirants participated, and in 1964, when there were 98 Aspirants in the student body. The program declined after these two peak years, and it was terminated following the 1971 school year, but their presence no doubt helped trigger the Fond du Lac community concern over whether Saint Mary’s Springs would be available for their own children to attend.

Ironically, the decline in the Aspirancy Program had another effect that began to reduce the enrollment at Springs. Fewer and fewer Sisters entered the order. This was partially attributable to the many changes in the Church that took place after Vatican II, although demographic and social changes in America probably lay at the root. In any event, as the number of Sisters began to decrease, the schools were forced to hire lay teachers, and this in turn led to higher tuition rates, which eventually had an adverse impact on enrollment. ⁴⁴

Although in retrospect the peak in Springs enrollment was temporary, leaders in the Catholic community began to act. In 1962, enrollment reached an all-time high of 759. The next year, a letter was sent to local pastors regarding parental concern over the limited enrollment at the school. More than 2,000 area parents signed a petition requesting that a new boys’ high school be built in town. ⁴⁵ This venture was never endorsed, however, because the group seeking a new school was not ready to pay for it. Seeking a solution, the Sisters of St. Agnes offered first to donate the land where the football field and parking lot at Springs are located as a site for a co-institutional school, in which boys and girls would share only parts of the same building. A second proposal from the Congregation offered to provide the use of current facilities and to build an annex to the current school. Both of these solutions would have retained the essence of coeducation. The second offer proved too good to turn down and, when Archbishop William E. Cousins agreed to it, plans were made to build the current structure of St. Mary’s Springs. Monsignor Riordan of St. Joseph’s Parish sold a piece of property on South Park Avenue and donated the proceeds to help construct the new school. ⁴⁶ This new building was completed before the end of the decade, and by the end of the century it housed the entire operations of the school. Clearly the Congregation had not seen its coeducational enterprise as a temporary stopgap, and it worked to assure that some form of coeducation would continue at St. Mary’s Springs.

Official church policy on Catholic education, as well as many other Church practices, changed after Vatican II. Pope Paul VI issued his “Declaration on Christian Education” on October 18, 1965. Although this document did not explicitly change the previous policy articulated in the encyclical of Pope Pius XI in 1929, Pope Paul VI stated that, since the role of Catholic schools is to aid in the fulfillment of the mission of the people of God, the Church has the right to freely establish and conduct schools of every type and every level. ⁴⁷ No discussion of coeducation per se appears in the document, but it can be inferred, given the fact that the “Declaration on Christian Education” states that any school can be both established and conducted. In any event, the Congregation was clearly in the vanguard of the Catholic Church concerning changing Church policy on coeducation.

St. Mary’s Springs continued to strive to meet its mission of quality Catholic coeducational secondary education for both boys and girls. Enrollment declined somewhat from the banner years of the early 1960s, maintaining high levels until the 1980s, when significant decline began. By 2002, enrollment was the lowest it had been since the end of Word War II. In the early twenty-first century, the school competed for students against new public high schools in Fond du Lac, North Fond du Lac and Waupun, and also against rising tuition within the context of a struggling economy.

Efforts were made to upgrade facilities in order to keep pace with the competition. The cafeteria was reconstructed in the new building, and the gymnasium was renovated. The entrance lobby was remodeled in 2003 as well.

Despite recent enrollment struggles, in 2004 young men and women still walk the halls of St. Mary’s Springs and attend classes together. For that circumstance, they have to thank the parents of the young men of 1939, the leadership of the Sisters of St. Agnes and the flexibility of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for the opportunity to receive coeducation in a Catholic High School in Fond du Lac. The words of Pope Pius XI notwithstanding, Catholic coeducation at St. Mary’s Springs has been neither “false [nor] harmful to Christian education.” Instead, it has provided a significant instance in which the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes worked to better the Fond du Lac community and the lives of the people of the city.

Appendix I: Letter from Archbishop Samuel A. Stritch to Mother Aloysia

May 24th, 1939:

My Dear Mother General,

Your good Sisters at St. Mary’s Springs Academy, Fond du Lac, have informed me that in your deep interest in promoting Catholic education in the Archdiocese, your generous offer to assist me by opening your High School at Fond du Lac to Catholic boys.

It is true that the Catholic ideal in High School education insists that there be separate schools for the Catholic boys and the Catholic girls. In his Encyclical Letter on “Christian Education of Youth” Pope Pius XI of happy memory, wrote: “False also and harmful to Christian Education is the so called method of “coeducation.” ⁴⁸ This too by many of its supporters is founded on naturalism and the denial of original sin by all upon a deplorable confusion of ideas that mistakes a leveling of promiscuity and equality for the legitimate association of the sexes. The Creator has ordained and disposed perfect union of the sexes only in matrimony, and with varying degrees of contact in the family and in society. Besides there is not in nature itself, which fashions the two quite different organisms, in temperament, in abilities, anything to suggest that there can or ought to be promiscuity, and much less equality in the training of the sexes. These in keeping with the wonderful designs of the Creator are destined to complement each other in the family and in society, precisely because of their differences which therefore ought to be maintained and encouraged with the necessary distinction and corresponding separation according to age and circumstances. These principles with due regard to time and place must in accordance with Christian prudence be applied to all schools, particularly in the most delicate and decisive period of adolescence. This is the Catholic ideal to which we fully subscribe and which one-day we hope to see fully realized in the education of Catholic youths in the archdiocese.

We are however faced with a practical question, the answering of which will not brook delay until at some future date, at this time recognized by all as distant, we shall be able to provide separate high school education for our boys and girls. We have underscored certain words in our quotation from the above cited Encyclical letter which clearly indicate that the Church makes due allowances for the practical impossibility of realizing this ideal in certain circumstances and invoked prudence as the guide of action of Church Authority in these circumstances.

Our problem may be very simply stated. Presently Catholic boys at Fond du Lac and its environs frequent public high schools, which are coeducational. Would it not be better in view of the utter present impossibility of erecting there a Catholic Boys High School to suffer at least for the time coeducation in a Catholic High School, that to refuse our boys every opportunity of Catholic High School Education? Catholic parents, who enjoy special supernatural lights in providing for the education of their children and rightly may be our guides in this matter, give the answer. They have asked that you admit their boys into your High School, which heretofore has been restricted to girls. Experience shows how great are the benefits to Religion, which flow from Catholic coeducational high schools in circumstances which do not permit the erection of separate institutions. God in his goodness in such circumstances comes to our aid and marvelously there disappear the inconveniences and drawbacks, which it would seem at first thought, are inseparably bound up with coeducation in adolescence. These Catholic coeducational high schools not only are freer from dangers for our youth than the secular schools, but actually, through the special gifts of God to those, who try in difficult circumstances to rear Catholic youth, they succeed in founding safely adolescence on the firm basis of Christian truth and morals. It is no wonder therefore that the Catholic sense of parents in the matter of rearing their youths should prompt them to prefer a thousand times Catholic coeducational high schools to secular coeducational high schools and that should demand of us with the assertion of right that where we have girls high schools and no high schools for boys, we should open these schools also to boys.

You are doing a blessed thing and you are extending coveted help to us in volunteering to open your High School at Fond du Lac to both Catholic boys and girls. It is with a great deal of true pleasure that I give you the necessary permission and even ask you to do this thing until sometime in the future we may be able to provide separate high school facilities for boys and girls at Fond du Lac or its environs. We have spoken with several of the pastors of Fond du Lac and its neighborhood on this matter and they approve wholeheartedly this undertaking saying indeed that as a consequence of it, in a few years your present high school facilities will be overcrowded.

In your fatherly solicitude for the youths of our flock we ask you before opening this school to both the sexes, you make sure that the following regulations be observed.

1) Arrangements must be made in the buildings properly to take care of the particular needs of both the sexes in a becoming matter
2) In physical education and all athletic activities, there will be instituted the most rigid separation of the sexes, a male instructor in physical education and in the direction of athletic activities being engaged by you.
3) In transporting students to the school in your school buses and from the school back to their homes, there must be provided a proper trustworthy chaperon.
4) Your Reverend Chaplain will assume the duty of acting as Faculty Advisor or in our terms Spiritual Advisor for the boys, and give great care to their manly Christian training.
5) To maintain close contacts between the students and their pastors, a copy of the report cards of students will be sent at least twice during the school year to their respective Reverend Pastors and their Pastors will be invited frequently to call at the school and inform themselves on the progress of their youths. Since particularly speaking, a good Catholic is a good parishioner; every effort will be made by the school to encourage the students to take part in the activities of the parishes.

We are this day writing to the Reverend Pastors of Fond du Lac and its environs announcing this new policy of your school and asking them to give it their generous encouragement and support.

With Blessing,
Samuel A. Stritch
Archbishop of Milwaukee ⁴⁹

Appendix II: Letter from Archbishop Samuel A. Stritch to the Reverend Fathers of the Catholic Area Parishes.

Dear Reverend Father,

In your pastoral solicitude for the youths of your flocks you have frequently lamented to me over the absence in your neighborhood of any facilities for the Catholic high school education of your boys and some of you have not hesitated to say to me that what you do for your boys in your Grade Schools is in large measure undone to them in the atmosphere of secularistic High Schools.

Fortunately at Fond du Lac the good Sisters of St. Agnes have conducted a High School for Girls, which has done a holy work and afforded at least to many Catholic girls the advantages of Catholic high school education. For boys it has long been my desire and my hope to erect at Fond du Lac a Catholic Boys High school, so that with separate High Schools for our boys and girls we might be able to realize in its perfection the Catholic ideal of the education of adolescents. But, my dear Father, we must be realistic and very practical in our Sacred Ministry. The fact is that there is no hope in the near future of a Boys High School and for conducting it. Our heart has been heavy over not being able to offer our boys in that part of the Archdiocese wider high school opportunities than Catholic Boarding Schools afford and the one-year of High School laudable taught at one of the Parish Schools. Year after year we have seen these boys of ours go out from our schools into secularistic coeducational high schools.

Of late we were very much edified when we learned that not only we and you were worried over this state of affairs but that it was also a source of great worry to many Catholic parents. Now we know that God, through the Sacrament of Matrimony, gives to Catholic parents special lights and helps in providing for the Christian training of their children. Experience shows that with these lights and helps they have frequently solved educational problems, which baffled Church Authority. This same thing has happened again. These parents in goodly number have asked that St. Mary’s High School for girls be opened to boys and they have asked it so insistently that the good Sisters of St. Agnes, always responsive to the needs of Religion, have said that they will open their Girls’ High School in September also to boys, if we give the necessary permission and the Reverend Pastors of Fond du Lac and its environs look graciously on this new policy.

We have spoken to several of the Reverend Pastors who have wholeheartedly approved this proposal and we know that the others, in their zeal for souls, will greet it equally with whole-hearted approval.

Therefore, we have given the Sisters permission to accept, under proper safeguards, boys into their St. Mary’s High School and to conduct this school as a coeducational institution until such time as conditions will permit the better thing, the provision of separate high schools for boys and girls.

St. Mary’s High School will accept boys for its Freshman Class in September at the same transportation and tuition rates now in force for girls.

We ask you to commend this School to Catholic parents and to explain to them that the sacrifice which the education of their youths in Catholic High Schools may impose will yield them a return, which human hands cannot calculate.

With Blessing,
Samuel A. Stritch,
Archbishop of Milwaukee ⁵⁰

Appendix III: Editorial

Scratch! Scratch! Scratch! The fingernails attempting to dig into the school newspaper were heard by a couple of girls as they walked into the gym.

“You look like a couple of cats.” One of them said, “What did that paper do to you?”

“I just don’t like what’s in it” One of the girls said.

“I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

But the thing that really was wrong was that there was too much in it about the “boys”. It isn’t that we don’t want to give our boys a place in the paper, but almost every item contained the word “boys”.

We girls wonder why the “boys” should get so much attention. Do you suppose the change in the bus schedules have anything to do with the “boys”?

The boarder’s study hall in the afternoon looks like a wardrobe just because the “boys” occupy the gym and make it impossible for the girls to get their wraps after school.

In the chapel, instead of taking their turn, the “boys” leave right after the services, while the girls move along very slowly so that the “boys” can get out first (ladies before gentlemen).

Did you ever go down the hall and notice that the “boys” were really passing quietly and in orderly fashion? But why argue about it? There isn’t anything the girls can do about it, or is there? ⁵¹

Appendix IV: Letter to the Editor

In the last issue of the school paper an editorial appeared in this column which stated that the boys received all the so called “breaks”. Whether or not this statement is true will create somewhat of an intensely interesting but friendly ‘feud.’ At the outset we wish to admit that we have been getting a few breaks from the Sisters. We do not however plead guilty to all the accusations brought against us.

We wish to inform the girls that we do not have as much space as they do in the paper. The boys have nothing on the first page, about 11 inches on the second page, 47 ½ on the 3rd page and a small sum of 4 ½ inches on the last page. This totals up to 63 inches, which is ¼ of the space in the whole paper. These statistics were taken from the second issue of the News.

The alteration of the bus schedule was necessitated by the fact that there is basketball practice every evening, and many night games. If it had not been changed the girls would have been forced to ride with the boys. Now you wouldn’t want that would you?

The girls must not have very much school spirit if they begrudge the boys the gym after school. Furthermore, the boarders now have a place in their study hall to put their wraps in the afternoon.

During the first 9 or 10 weeks the boys did not pass very quietly or in a very orderly manner in the halls because they were not used to the discipline, but if the girls will kindly open their eyes, they will notice that the males are very orderly now.

Before the ‘coming of the boys’ favors and privileges were enjoyed by the girls, free and unrestricted use of the gym and tennis courts, and liberal access to the campus. Now can it be that the girls, realizing that they no longer enjoy exclusive rights, have begun to foster a slightly biased spirit toward the boys?

The boys sincerely hope this is not the case, for it would destroy the possibility for teamwork so necessary this year when foundations are being laid for a co-educational institution of high achievement. ⁵²

1 - “Correspondence with the Archbishop regarding Co-Ed Academy 1939,” located at the St. Mary’s Springs Archive; Sister M. Vera Naber, With All Devotedness (New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1959), 133-4. return

2 - “Correspondence with the Archbishop regarding Co-Ed Academy 1939.” return

3 - Naber, 164. return

4 - Sister Vera Naber’s account, 106, says the dedication took place on October 8, referencing a local newspaper article. It is more likely, however, that the ceremony took place on October 7, the Feast of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Mother, and that Naber drew her date for the event from the report in the newspaper, published the next day. Archbishop Sebastian Gebhard Messmer (1847-1930) served as Archbishop in Milwaukee from 1903 until his death in 1930. He was the last European-born (Swiss) Archbishop in the diocese. return

5 - Naber, 167. return

6 - Saint Mary’s Springs (SMS) News, April 1941. return

7 - Annals, Congregation of St. Agnes, April 15 and May 27, 1932. return

8 - St. Joseph’s School, alone among Fond du Lac parochial schools, offered a ninth grade. Interview with Sr. Marie Scott CSA, April 18, 2004. return

9 - Kathleen A. Mahoney, “American Colleges for Women: Historical Origins,” in Tracy Schier and Cynthia Russet, Catholic Women’s Colleges in America, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 2. return

10 - Sister Angeline served two terms as principal, the first from 1909-1920 and the second from 1928-1939. Naber, 250. return

11 - Mother Aloysia Leikem was one of the founders of Marian College. She served as the first President and established the college to train the Sisters of the Congregation to become teachers. Sister Vera Naber was also one of the founders of Marian College and served as President and Academic Dean during 1951-1952. The first residence hall on campus, now converted to faculty offices, bears her name. return

12 - Naber, 225. return

13 - Archbishop Samuel Alphonsus Stritch (1887-1958) served as Archbishop of Milwaukee from 1930 until 1939. He was made a Cardinal in 1946 served the people of Chicago from 1939 until his death, in Rome, in 1958. return

14 - The text of the Encyclical, “On the Christian Education of Youth: Methods of Co-education,” may be found in Catholic Mind XXVIII: 61-91, February 28, 1930, and in Catholic Education Review XXVIII, 129-64, March 1930. return

15 - See Appendices I and II for the text of the letters. return

16 - Interview with Sr. Jeremy Quinn, CSA, March 8, 2004. return

17 - E-mail correspondence with St. Catherine’s Principal Robert Miller, December 3, 2003. return

18 - Binder entitled “Springs News from the FDL Reporter,” Fond du Lac Reporter August 1939, located at the St. Mary’s Springs Archive. return

19 - Mother Angeline Kamp served as Marian College President from 1939 to 1951. She presided over the school’s first graduation ceremony in 1941 and was instrumental in establishing a nursing program at Marian College. At that time, the Mother General was automatically the President of Marian College. return

20 - Fond du Lac Reporter, August 16, 1939. return

21 - Fond du Lac Reporter, September 11, 1939. return

22 - SMS News, October 1939. return

23 - SMS News, October 1939. return

24 - Delno West, “Christopher Columbus and His Enterprise to the Indies: Scholarship of the Last Quarter Century,” William and Mary Quarterly, XLIX:2, April 1992. return

25 - Saint Mary’s Springs Faculty Meeting Minutes, 1928-1951, September 9, 1939. return

26 - Faculty Meeting Minutes, September 9, 1939. return

27 - E-mail from Sr. Margaret Lorimer CSA, March 19, 2004. return

28 - Fond du Lac Reporter, November 1, 1940. return

29 - SMS News, November 1939. return

30 - SMS News, April 1940. return

31 - SMS News, June 1940. return

32 - SMS News, December 1940. return

33 - SMS News, March 1941. The Lend-Lease Act was signed on March 11, 1941. Congress approved a $50 billion appropriation, and $31 billion eventually went to Great Britain. return

34 - SMS News, June 1941, October 1941. return

35 - See Appendix III for the full text. return

36 - See Appendix IV for the full text. return

37 - SMS News, December 1939. return

38 - Faculty Meeting Minutes 1928-1951 January 1940. return

39 - SMS News, October 1940. return

40 - E-mail from Sr. Michaela O’Brien CSA, March 24, 2004. return

41 - Fond du Lac Reporter, March 31, 1941. return

42 - North Central Association Website - http://www.ncacasi.org. Accessed March 2004. return

43 - See Appendix V for enrollment statistics. return

44 - E-mail from Sr. Jeremy Quinn CSA, March 30, 2004. return

45 - Binder entitled “SMS HISTORY,” St. Mary’s Springs Archive. return

46 - E-mail from Sr. Michaela O’Brien CSA, March 24, 2004. Archbishop William E. Cousins (1902-1988) served from 1959 until 1977 as Archbishop of Milwaukee. return

47 - Declaration on Christian Education, Proclaimed by Pope Paul VI October 28, 1965. Vatican archives www.vatican.va. return

48 - Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on Christian Education of Youth, December 31, 1929. return

49 - “Correspondence with the Archbishop regarding Co-Ed Academy 1939,” St. Mary’s Spring Archives. return

50 - “Correspondence with the Archbishop regarding Co-Ed Academy 1939,” St. Mary’s Springs Archives. return

51 - SMS News, November 1939. return

52 - SMS News, December 1939. return

53 - Enrollment figures vary among different sources. return

Copyright Clarence B. Davis 2005. Marian College Press, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin 2005.
Electronic publication by Fond du Lac Public Library has been approved by Clarence B. Davis.

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