Page:Men of Mark in America vol 1.djvu/414

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MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN

the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, in 1889; and in 1895 he accepted a position at the Catholic university, Washington, District of Columbia, as professor of the English language and literature, which chair he still fills in 1905. He was also the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in the same university from 1900-02. As editor of the "Freeman's Journal," Doctor Egan did good public service in exposing municipal corruption and in showing the evil side of socialism. He received the degree of LL.D. from Georgetown university, Washington, District of Columbia; and the same degree from Ottawa university, in 1892, because of special work in letters. He is a member of the Author's club, and of the Shakespeare Society of New York city, and of the Cosmos club of Washington, District of Columbia. He is a Catholic in faith and practice. The Philosophy of Poetry is a favorite theme with him, in his reading and lecturing. He has read with especial profit "a basis of English and French History, the essays of Newman, Emerson, and Montaigne; St. Francis de Sales, Shakespeare and the Bible," and he reads for pleasure biographies and memoirs of the eighteenth century. He has found walking a delightful physical relaxation, with tennis and cricket in earlier life. His first strong impulse came from the desire "to be himself" and "to succeed in letters." Home and friends were the strongest influences with him until he was twenty-one. His own private study after that time has done much for his progress, and he has found it the most essential thing in his vocation. If any characteristic has stood in his way, he says, it has been "pride which will not stoop, and extreme impatience." His suggestions to young Americans are "to strive for simplicity; sincerity, or silence; fidelity to family ties and to the responsibility of friendship; in a word the negation of too much individualism." He sums the philosophy of life in the motto of his family, which was also the motto of the Irish Brigade in France: "Semper et ubique fidelis."

Dr. Egan's published works are numerous. Perhaps the most important are "Songs and Sonnets," "Studies in Literature" and one of his novels, "John Longworth." His recent essays, "The Passion for Distinction" and "In Honor of St. Julian," and his series of "Sexton Maginnis" stories in the "Century Magazine" have attracted much attention.

He was married September 20, 1880, to Miss Katharine Mullin. They have three children living in 1905.