The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1875-07-04
MOUNT ST. MARY's COLLEGE.
ST. JOSEPH's ACADEMY.
Cardinal Mccloskey and other Alumni
CARR0TT MhNnp
OAhHVI-Is U1ANOF,
CARRoLLToN HALL, Nd, June 26. 1875.

CARRoLLToN HALL, Md, June 26, 1875, {
Editor Morning Star:
1t is impossible to comply with your request
to report the proceedings at Mount st. Mary's
and st. Joseph's Academy on commencement
day they. would fill a volume The gates of
the old Mountain were Hung wide open and a
princely hospitality was lavishly dispensed to
the four hundred guests who thronged her
classic halls like happy children of happy mo-
ther. As Cardinal McCloskey said, we were once
more boys together; and as the flow of hospital
ity was boundless and deep, 80 the welcome and
the recognition and the congratulations that
were interchanged at every fresh arrival of
dusty alumni from the four ends of the earth
were equally unreserved and hearty and grand.
Men who had not met in thirty years were
there, the Cardinal blest his fellow-students of
fifty years ago. soldiers who had fought against
each other crossed hands in peace, many an
eye was lit with the joke that was found as
fresh as at first after the lapse of quarter GEN.
tury, and more than one cheek was wet when
q venerated priest poured ont his heart in
prayer for her whom he styled the thorn
crowned South" We were indeed once more
boys together, frank, guileless, warm hearted
boys, roaming in groups over the heights, halt
ing at the mountain church, visiting the
grotto or deciphering the well-known inscrip-
tions in Gods acre hard by. We noted par
tcularly the names of Miles, Shorb, " Miss
Betsy" the infrmarian, and the two Southern
students killed at Gettysburg. The Mountain
is wonderfully healthy. 1 have known it
twenty-five years, and in that period but three
deaths recalled to mind, one certainly from
| old age. Faculty, professors, domestes are all
| there. Who forgets Billy Welty the lamp
| lighter and Leo, the gauger woman, and Snob,
| the shoemaker, and Siebold, the carpenter, and
Matthew, the gardener, and Billy, driver of the
state carriage. BY the by, Snob has married,
late in life, aud doubtless the shoes get less
polish now than formerly; does his wife get
morei
| The views from the College and the Church
up the hill are superb. The broad, smiling
plain stretches in undulating beauty from
Gettysburg to Sharpsburg, populous, highly
cultivated, we'll watered valley, shaded by an
abundance of ancient forest trees, aud wearing
all the appearance of peace as its name, St.
Joseph's Valley, indicates, and yet the scene of
| two of the mightiest conflicts of our war. 1t
was then tramped over by both contending
| hosts, and am told that many Southern
soldier slaked his thirst at the grand old Col
| lege fountain, whose copious flow, as crystal
clear ard icy cold, would set mill running at
the spout where it burst from the side of the
hill.
| To old mountaneers that fountain is the
! first object of natural interest to which he
turns at the end of his pilgrimage, and heard
many say that their minds often reverted to it
| in the long, hot marches in the South during
the war. 1t was very curious as stage and
wagon and carriage in close succession emptiod
| their living contents on the terrace, to note
the long procession of animated dusters,
fanked by swaying travelling bags that
wended it's way quickly to the fountain and its
iron ladies, and only revealed that the moving
spirits within were human by the grunt of
satisfaction which followed after when the
deep potation was quafed.
But how many improvements have been
made in the College! There are the refectories,
grand building, large and strong as fort
rees, and the music hall, and the gymnastic
pavilion, and the billiard saloon, and the bath
rooms, ETC., etc. Some idea of the size OF the
refectory may be got from the fact that 1T can
seat four hundred guests.
COMMENCEMENT DAY
dawned auspiciously. From seven o'clock
until ten the tide of visitors rolled in until the
great hall could hold no more, and hundreds