St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-05-27
BENEDICTINE ACADEMY.
CRJER CF SISTERS OF ST BEHE-
DICT
AND THEIR MINNESOTA HOME.

Education and Charity tho Chief
Mission of the Order-The Con-
vent and Academy at St. joe
The Industrial School for In.
dian Girls-Ihe Mother Home
of 200 Sisters.
Special Correspondence of the Globe.
ST. JOSEPH, Mimi, May l7.-Situated
OH level prairie about eight miles
west from 81. Cloud lies this most UNI
attractive railway station and village,
with about SEQ inhabitants. For many
years it was known more as the place
where John ii. Linnemann kept store
than for any other fact in its existence;
but iii the last fifteen years its chlef
claim to recognition as place OF local
renown has lain in its being the loca-
ton of the convent and academy of the
order of Benedict;ne Sisters. There is
nothing attractive about tne place-aO-
solutely nothing the eye. and one
instinctively wonders that this site had
been chosen for home ana training
school by an order in which reign so
many artistic and even romantic ideal
iSns. For. in either direction, for up
wards of mile, the winds and SHOWS
of Minnesota winters beat and drive
upon the place in unhlndered violence.
and the summer sun pours upon its un-
protected roofs and yards. There is not
a tree six inches in diameter within a
mile of the town. Yet Hon.John II. Lin
nemann kept store" here thirty years
ago. The little prairie upon which 1t Is
situated, however, is fringed about by
low range of wooded hills upon some
edge of which it would seem reasonable
that almost any human being would
have preferred to set up housekeeping.
But the old stage road from st. Cloud
westward followed the brush lines. 1t
chose the hardest soil and the most I'M
obstructed routes, and st. Joe was the
first station out from st. Cloud as the
road turned the brush to go southwark
up the Sank river valley towards Crow
lake. The brush has since then been
cleared up, and level prairie farms have
taken its place. The st. Vincent branch
of the st. Paul & Pacific railway recog-
niZed the stage station as place on its
line of route, and made it railway
station.
Seven miles farther on to the westward
lies the university of the Order OF st.
Benedict, known as st. Johns college,
an educational institution of large EN-
dowment and some classical reputation
in the Catholic church. There large
of Gathf,tio oH, taH
each year and many priests prepared
for the work to which they have dedi-
Gated their lives. What the Daughters
of Rebekah are to the Odd Fellows
order the Benedictine Sisters are to the
Order of St. Benedict. And where one
is found the other is usually not far
away to cooperate in the InimStrations
Of charity and mercy, and to maintain
the feminine synonym for masculine
education.
From the beginning of settlement i'll
Stearns county the immigrants were
very largely German Catholics. and
within twenty-five miles of st. Cloud
might have been counted as many as
fifteen or twenty country parish
churches as long ago as twenty years.
The traveller by horse and buggy comes
upon these substantial stone ediices at
unexpected points on almost any of the
country highways. and readily con-
vinces himself that the German Catho-
lie is a liberal and devoted churchman.
In fact, he is more than that. He is a
proud and sacrificing follower of the
church. ST. Joseph's church was one
of the earliest missions established in
the county of Stearns, and many years
ago large and substantial granite edi.
fee was constructed here.
ADJOINING ST. JosEPH'S CHURCH,
and in one corner of farm of 600 acres
belonging to the order, the Benedictlne
Sisters have built up a convent and
academy. including an industrial school
for Indian girls, whose mission work
extends all over Minnesota and Western
Wisconsin. The main building is OF
solid brick, some 800 feet long by loo
wide, four stories in height and of very
plain exterior. 1t contains the convent
and the academy. being practically Gu,
in two in the middle for the purpose,
with separate entrance ways in front
and at either end. The convent
Is THE MOTHER HOME
for upwards OF 200 sisters engaged in
the work of the order. and is the train
ing school for novices about to enter the
order. The indian girls industrial
school is in separate three-story bricl
building about 600 feet distant from the
convent and academy, and houses from
100 to 125 girls from the White Eartl
reservation. The mother superior Of
the convent is the supreme authority
over the entire institution and all the
subordinate missions wherever located
"a kind of bishopress-but also the
mother bosom upon which rest all the
aches and pains and troubles of the sis.
terhood. By very necessity she is
woman of great breadth of character
of culture, of sympathetic tendencies
and of good business Judgment. Thu
present Mother Aloysius carries rep
utation for all those attributes amongs
Catholics and Protestants alike in thi
section of country, where the order il
very active and numerous.
There is but little in the exterior O
this convent and academy to attract at
tehtion or cause more than passin.
comment as one goes by it for the frs
time. Everything is plain to the limi
of utilitarianism. The fences are plain
the grounds are plain, the buildings an,
the lawn in front-no lines of luxurian
shade-trees, only a few beds of flower
but everything is as clean and or
derby as new knife-blade. Enterin
the academy gate and ringing the door
bell OH the academy side (gilt sign
over the doors indicate tn" convent'an
the ''academy') one usually waits fu
minute for the appearance of siste
of the order, whose smiling face eithe
ushers you in the hallway or else bear
a silent Interrogation of what may b
wanted by the visitor. Upon either sid
Of the hallway is q rpcaptinp roop, =