NOTRE DAME
131
NOTRE DAME
1851, St. Mary's parish school was opened and St.
Mary's Institute for boarding and day pupils soon
afterwards. On 31 July, 1876, owing to its growth
and extension, the congregation was divided into two
provinces: the Western, with mother-house at Mil-
waukee; and the Eastern with mother-house at Bal-
timore. A second division of the Western province
became necessary, and on 19 March, 189.5, the Southern
province was formed, with its mother-house at St. Louis.
Government of the Congregation. — The Congregation of the School Sisters of Notre Dame is under the gov- ernment of the mother-general at Munich; she and her four assistants form the generalate. In America the government is in the hands of the commissary- general and four assistants. The commissariate is elected for six years. All professed sisters of the teaching grade have a vote in this election. The congregation is divided into districts. The voting sisters in each district choose one chapter-sister. These chapter-sisters together with the provincials elect the commissary-general and assistants. The election is by secret ballot, and its results must be con- firmed by the mother-general and the cardinal-pro- tector. At the head of each province there is a mother provincial, elected with two assistants, by each prov- ince for three years. For the election of the mother- general and the general chapter, which meets every six years, a deputation of the sisters in America is sent to Munich, Bavaria. This deputation consists of the commissary-general and the mother provincial, ex officio, and a companion of each mother provincial elected by the respective province. In America a general congregation is convened every six years in the principal mother-house at Milwaukee.
Training of Members. — To train members for their future life the School Sisters have a candidature and a novitiate. The age for admission into the candida- ture is sixteen to twenty-seven. After two years' probation and study, the candidate enters the novi- tiate, and two years later makes temporal vows for seven years; she then makes perpetual vows and be- comes a professed sister. The teacliing sisters meet at specified periods and at appointed houses of the or- der for summer schools and teachers' institutes.
The principal houses of the congregation in the Western province are at Elm Grove, Waukesha Co., Wis., the home for aged, invalid, and convalescent sis- ters; at Prairie du Chien, Wis., founded in 1872, char- tered in 1877, owing its origin to the generosity of Hon. John Lawler (died on 24 Feb., 1891) and his son, Thomas C. Lawler, of Dubuque, Iowa; at Long- wood, Chicago, 111., establi.shed and chartered in 1872. In 1903 the Legislature of Illinois granted the acad- emy the right to add a college course and confer the degrees of .\.B. and Ph.B. In the Eastern province at Baltimore, Md., chartered in 1864, charter amended and powers of corporation enlarged 1896. The sisters began their work in Baltimore in 1848; owing to the growth of their academy, more commodious quarters became necessary and the school, Notre Dame of Mary- land, was transferred in 1873 to a magnificent estate of seventy acres obtained in the suburbs. To meet the continual demand for a more extensive curriculum for women, the sisters of the convent applied in January, 1896, to the State for the power of conferring academic degrees; this was granted by an Act of the Legislature, 2 April, 1896, and the convent has now a college with courses leading to the baccalaureate, an academy that prepares students for the college, and a grammar and primary department. There is a convent at Fort Lee on the Palisades of the Hudson, Bergen County, N. J., where a residence was purchased by the sisters on 2 Oct., 1879, the school being opened on 21 November, 1879, and chartered in June, 1890. In the Southern province the principal schools are at Quincy, 111., founded on 28 Dec, 18.59, as a parochial school, the academy opened in Sept., 1867; at Chatawa, Miss.,
founded on 15 October, 1874, a deaf-mute institution;
at Chincuba, La., founded by Canon Mignot, 1 Octo-
ber, 1890, given in charge of the sisters 25 Septem-
ber, 1892.
Most prominent among the sisters in America waa Mother M. Caroline Friess, who died on 22 July, 1892, after being superioress of the congregation for forty- two years. She was born near Paris, on 24 August, 1824, and was called at baptism by the name of Jose- phine. As a child she was brought to Eichstadt, Bavaria, under the tutelage of her uncle, Mgr Michael Friess. Even when only a novice she was given charge of very important schools in ISIunich. She was one of the first to volunteer for the missionary work in the New World, and emigrated to America in 1847. It soon became evident that it was Sister Caroline who was to develop the young congregation. She was ap- pointed vicar of the mother-general in America and later on elected as the first commissary-general. Under her direction from four members in 1847, the sisterhood grew to two thousand in 1892. Her life was written by Mgr P. M. Abbelen. Mother M. Clara Heuck was the third commissary-general. When the Eastern province was established in 1876 Sister M. Clara waa appointed as novice-mistress. Soon she became the superioress in Baltimore and the second mother provincial in the East, which position she held for three terms, after which she was elected commissary-general at iVIilwaukee on 13 May, 1899. She died at Milwaukee on 4 August, 1905, aged sixty- two. Sr. Mary Josephine.
V. — Sisters of Notre Dame (of Cleveland, Ohio), a branch of the congregation founded by Blessed Julie Billiart. In 1850, Father Elting of Coesfeld, Ger- many, aided by the Misses Hildegonda WoUbring and Lisette Kuehling, who became the first members of this community, introduced the Order of Notre Dame into Westphalia. The novices were trained by three sisters from the community of Amersfoort, Holland. Soon they were enabled to open a normal school and to take charge of parish schools. The Prussian Gov- ernment objecting to teachers dependent on foreign authority, the sisters were compelled to sever their re- lations with the mother-house in Holland and to erect their own at Coesfeld. When in 1871, the Kultur- kampf broke out in Germany, the Sisters of Coesfeld, though they had repeatedly received at the Prussian state examinations, the highest testimonials as most pffioient teachers, were at once expelled. Thereupon, Falliir Wrslinholt, of St. Peter's Church, Cleveland, h:L(l Hishcip ( lilmour invite them to his diocese. On 5 July, 1874, the superioress-general accompanied by eight sisters arrived in New York, and the following day in Cleveland. Their first home was a small frame house near St. Peter's Church. Two months later they took charge of the parish school for girls. Pres- ently Bishop Toebbe of Covington, Ky., invited them to his diocese, where they were first employed as teach- ers of the Mother of God schools in Covington. In the autumn of 1874, the sisters began to conduct the parish schools of St. Stephen's, Cleveland, and of St. Joseph's, Fremont. Within four years of their first arrival on the North American continent, two hundred sisters had been transferred to the missions in Ohio and Kentucky. The centre of the community was temporarily at Covington, where in 1875 a convent with an academy was erected. The same year the superioress-general came to Cleveland, where the mother-house was built and an academy founded in 1878. In 1883 a girls' boarding-school on Woodland Hills was opened. An academy was founded in To- ledo, Ohio, and opened September, 1904. Since 1877 the Sisters of Notre Dame have been in charge of two orphanages, one at Cold Springs, Ky., and the other at Bond Hill in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. In May, 1887, the Prussian Government allowed the sisters to
