Creighton University

In the archean days there were generally four departments or grand divisions of courses of study. The first consisted mostly of only one class which was called Preparatory or Rudiments. Qualifications for entry were a meager knowledge of reading, spelling and arithmetic. For the most part these students had not yet made their first Communion, but made it that year. The lower age limit was about 10 years. Shortly after Easter there was an influx of boys who had just made their first Communion in their own pariah church, and had attended its parish school.

I remember that when I applied for admission to Sr. Xavier College in Cincinnati in April, 1870, I had just made my first Communion and been confirmed in Sr. Joseph's Church, and that in examination, which was generally public before all the applicants, I was asked to spell "car." I felt insulted at this low-grade test, after having been in the parish school five years and gone through all its classes. The pastor of the parish used even to oblige us to hand in a written synopsis of the sermon at the Sunday high mass. This demand I always considered excessive, and so did my oldest sister, who was 17 years my senior. She was teaching in the same school, and always generously wrote the required synopsis for me, In Creighton College this class of Rudiments was dropped in 1892.

The second grand division of the curriculum was called the Commercial Course. It extended through three or four years, and its chief characteristic consisted in the omission of Latin and Greek. This was discontinued here in 1884.
The third section was named the Academic Department. Latin and Greek were its distinctive features, and it embraced three years, the lowest class being called the Third Academic.

After this there was the college proper with its four years of Humanities. Poetry, Rhetoric and Philosophy. In 1904 the class of Humanities was in this institution taken out of the college course and added to the academic, so that this now counted four years. At the same time its name was changed to the High School, the lowest being first High, and after the insertion of another class in place of the old one of Humanities, the College classes received their present designations of Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior.

In the old arrangement the branches of study were affixed to the classes. There were no electives, except vocal and instrumental music, and sometimes German or French. The branches were divided into essential and nonessential. Failure in two essential branches debarred the student definitely from going up with his class. Failure in one of them allowed him to take a second examination at the end of vacation. Failure then kept him down. The essential branches were Latin, Greek, English, Mathematics and Astronomy. The nonessential branches were the modern languages and the sciences of Physics and Chemistry, in which a successful examination was not necessary. This last was especially hard on me personally, because the only motive I could hold out to my students was the knowledge of the matter itself and its utility and necessity for later life. What these motives amounted to in the case of lazy students, every teacher will know.

Another fact must not be omitted here, which used to weigh like an octopus on teachers. It was that at the final examinations no professor could examine his own class. Why? We never knew. And there was no getting rid of this obnoxious and, as everybody pronounced it, unjust law. Here again, I was obliged to witness many an iniquity, especially in the examination of the mathematics of the last two college years, when students, no, they cannot be called students, who I was certain could not possibly merit 40 per cent, often got 80 or 90 or more! And to crown this injustice, I had to sign their diplomas! Oh, let's bury the past. It sets my blood boiling whenever I think of it.

Let me at once dispel a misconception which the reader may have. This state of affairs, in which the final merit marks were controlled by the arbitrary power of the prefect of studies, was not the merit of Creighton College exclusively. Far from it, it was universal all over the country, and remnants of it persist to this day in some places. Indeed, it was a notorious fact that sometimes degrees were given in branches the student had not studied at all; and degrees could even be bought.

To put an end to this lamentable situation some of the institutions formed themselves into an association. As their numbers grew and they began to feel their strength, they deputed committees to inspect personally the schools of the association, they introduced greater uniformity in the courses of study, and they refused to recognize the credits given by other institutions. At the same time, while a few stares admitted the professional students of some others to practice at once, many now have their own boards, before which the graduate students of other states, or even of their own, or all without exception must appear and be examined. It is then an honor to a college to have a small, and especially, the smallest percentage of failures before these state boards. And it is to the glory of Creighton University that its students have always been in the front tanks.

Along with this salutary revolution came a feature which is not in its entirety without some objections. While before, a student was obliged to take all the branches of the class he was assigned to, whether he liked them or nor, now the other extreme was introduced, every branch in the college, except those necessary for certain courses or degrees, was made optional and left to the free choice of the student, the high school, however, still using the old method. While this system favors the talents and inclinations of the student, it has its drawback in the fact that as a rule the student is not capable of forming a sound judgment in the matter, and is prone to prefer the easier and more showy branches to the fundamental ones that he really needs.

I have had experience in both methods. The first was in some classes almost a martyrdom for the professor. This was notoriously the case with the class in calculus, the highest class of mathematics in the college, which was held five hours a week during the first half of the graduating year. A study of this branch supposed a fair knowledge of all the mathematics that had preceded it, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry and Analytical Geometry. To a student who had studied these moderately well, the calculus offered no more difficulty than any of its preceding branches. And I often had students who won 100 per cent. But when some of them did not know the very elements of Algebra, when they said the sum of a and b was ab, what could a professor do with them? What could they do? How did they ever get to this class? Yes, how did they ever get there? And still they received their diplomas Enough said.

The modern elective system, and especially the examination of the graduates by boards not in any way connected with the institutions, have enforced a great deal of honest effort, and have made the deans prefer to have a student fail before his own professor in their own college rather than publicly before a state board. I am happy to relate, therefore, that in the evening of my life, the merit marks I assigned were no longer tampered with. My judgment was always taken exactly as I gave it, and an incompetent or dishonest student rejected without more ado. The necessary disciplinary support was then also imparted, so that I had no more trouble with unruly boys.

This modern system, however, includes credits as its essential. It replaces the widely divergent, personal, and often ridiculously absurd judgments of examiners by the prosaic fact of a student's having attended a certain branch a certain number of hours. While this last has its shortcomings, it is the lesser evil.

When Creighton College opened its doors in September, 1878 three of the four grand divisions of the courses of study were set going together, all, that is, except the college proper, for which the city was nor yet ready. The Class of Rudiments was taught by Mrs. B. M. Hall, the only lady teacher the college had, and that for one year only, until 1904, when two Sisters of Mercy, Sister M. Bonaventure and Sister M. Camillus, taught for five years parallel divisions of the Third Academic or First High in the western end of the dormitory on the first floor.

The Class of Rudiments of the Year One truly deserved its name. It was what we would now call almost a kindergarten. Some of the children in it, -- they surely were not students, -were barely six years old. The reader need nor, therefore, be told what they did in the classroom.

The Commercial Course started with two classes, First Grammar being taught by Mr. Eicher, and Second Grammar by Mr. Edward A. O'Brien (now a Jesuit.) I do nor remember which of the two was the higher.

The Classical Course began with one class under Mr. A. J. Beile and studied Latin.

Although only seven years, three in the academic and four in the collegiate department, were required for the course, it actually took Creighton College 13 years to produce its first graduates. This is readily intelligible in at incipient institution in a frontier town. It should, however, really have been one year less, but for the principle that the highest authority in the Province considered it his duty to enforce. The circumstances were these.

Towards the end of August, 1889 the three oldest Furay boys, Edward, Charles, and John were about to begin their last year at college and enter the class of Philosophy, as it was called. Father Fitzgerald, who had succeeded Father Dowling as rector in the preceding March, had offered himself to teach them philosophy, Father Joseph Rigge was there for mathematics and astronomy, and Father Kinsella for evidences of religion and other smaller branches. As the Furays were especial friends and even relatives of our great benefactor, Mr. John Creighton, it was particularly gratifying to him that these three boys, together with a fourth whose name I cannot remember, should be the first graduates of the college which he had so much at heart.

Father John P. Frieden, or "John P." as he was called colloquially, who was at the head of the Missouri Province at the time, did not approve of these aspirations, on the principle that no graduating class should ever be formed with less than six students. Of course, he was alone with this view, because I know of a graduating class in Chicago with only two members, one of whom was Carter Harrison, son of the mayor, and himself mayor later on. And surely, under the conditions the Furay boys were the equals of a mayor's son. But as Father Frieden was the supreme authority, there was no evading his orders.

Of course, great displeasure was manifested in Omaha, so much so that Father Frieden made a special run up here from St. Louis on August 13. He then had an interview with Father Fitzgerald, Mr. Creighton and Major Furay, the father of the boys, and laid down his principle with great determination. He said decisively: "Mr. Creighton, if you are not satisfied with the way with which we are running this college, we will pick up our baggage and go away." The order therefore stood, no graduating class with less than six members. Accordingly, in a day or two after that the Furay boys went to St. Mary's, Kansas, and graduated there in June, 1890.

If Mr. Creighton had nor been so thoroughly good at heart as he really was and as this incident proves, he would have lost all interest in Creighton college, or at least would have enormously diminished his benefactions to it. But his heart was true as gold. With his innate clearness of judgment he saw that this was the mistake of an individual who happened to be in authority, and nor that of a whole Order, nor even that of the present faculty. He recovered quickly and completely from the shock, so much so that frequently afterwards he would delight to mimic "John P." shaking his big right index finger with authority and vehemence while laying down his law, and then laugh at the occurrence.