Saint John’s

The union under Abbot Peter [Engel] of Benedictine tradition with American practicality was achieved first and foremost in the abbey’s educational work.  The new abbot … had studied and taught natural philosophy, physics, and chemistry; developed a physics laboratory; opened a meteorological station in the college tower on the fourth centenary of the discovery of America; installed, with Father Francis Mershman, a wireless telegraph station the following year; and opened an astronomical observatory on top of the water tower as early as 1880.

[Alexius Hoffman, OSB, wrote as follows:] “Little by little the electrical era began to manifest its presence: there were electric bells, electric clocks, the telegraph, the telephone, even some demonstrations with wireless telegraphy and X-rays had been made, but the most substantial accomplishment was the introduction of the electric light.  Owing to the isolated location of the institution, it was necessary to build a power house for the dynamos and engine, and to ‘wire’ the vast buildings, not forgetting the laundry, observatory and stables.”

[From Colman Barry, OSB, Worship and Work, 3^rd ed. (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993), 226-27.]

 

Saint Benedict’s

The rapid spread of the various types of work undertaken by the Benedictine sisters of Minnesota during the nine-year period of Mother Scholastica Kerst’s administration, 1880-1889, is astonishing.

In this short time the community accepted and staffed seventeen new parochial schools in Minnesota and Dakota and eight rural district schools situated within a radius of six miles from the convent.

In addition to these, three hospitals, two Indian missions, and an orphanage were established in territory stretching from Minnesota to the Pacific coast.

[From M. Grace McDonald, OSB, With Lamps Burning, American Benedictine Academy, Historical Studies: Monasteries and Convents, 4. Convent of Saint Benedict (St. Joseph, Minnesota: Saint Benedict’s Convent, 1957), 108.]