The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953 Page: 157
641 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
Professor Lathrop deserves congratulations for pioneering and
for an excellent study of migration into East Texas.
RALPH W. STEEN
Texas A. d M. College
The Society of Mary in Texas. By Joseph William Schmitz. San
Antonio (The Naylor Company), 1951. Pp. x-261. $3.75.
Since it began its labors in Texas in 1852, the Society of Mary,
or Marianists, a religious order devoted to teaching, has run up
an enviable record. Over 50,00o boys and young men and 640
professors have been educated and trained in its schools. Most of
the Marianists who accomplished this impressive result came not
from Texas but from distant lands.
Father Schmitz' book is a record of this work of love. The
order, founded in France in 1817 to counterattack the effects of
the French Revolution and to reinforce the church by educating
young men, spread rapidly to five continents. Although Dr.
Schmitz states that this is a "brief history" (a modest statement,
no doubt), he appears to omit nothing to make his account com-
plete. Beginning with the founding of the order by Father
Chaminade in Bordeaux, he traces its activities and expansion
in France and Switzerland and thence to the United States. The
account preserves its proportions, however, by concentrating on
the work in Texas. Even then at first glance the emphasis on
Brother Charles Francis in two chapters appears out of balance
until the necessary emphasis on this important "builder" and
"educator" becomes apparent. The same feeling arises upon
reading the detailed history of St. Louis College and St. Mary's
University in San Antonio, until one remembers that the Mar-
ianists' main purpose was education. Perhaps details of picnics
and athletic contests could have been omitted from this type of
book. They were probably included to give flavor and illustrate
the social side of school life among the pupils. For many readers,
among them the reviewer, who grew up in the San Antonio re-
gion, these details will produce nostalgic and pleasant memories.
Dr. Schmitz consulted unpublished sources in fifteen eccle-
siastical archives, including the Archives of the Society of Mary
in Dayton, Ohio, the Catholic Archives of America at Notre157
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953, periodical, 1953; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101145/m1/177/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.