Catholic Higher Education: St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota (1856)

ST. JOHN’S UNIVERSITY, conducted by the Fathers of the Order of St Benedict, is the oldest and largest Catholic institution of learning north of St Louis and west of Chicago. It was founded in 1856, in which year the Territorial Legislature of Minnesota granted a charter constituting the Order of St Benedict a body corporate and politic, with authority to establish St John’s Seminary. The institution, however, became better known under the name of St John’s College. In 1869, the State Legislature empowered it to confer all University degrees, and on June 26, 1878, His Holiness Pope Leo XIII empowered the President of the institution to confer degrees in Theology, Philosophy, and Canon Law. In 1883, the title of the institution was changed to St John’s University by an act of the Minnesota Legislature. Far removed from the busy turmoil of city life, St. John’s has an ideal location for an educational institution.

 It is situated on the north bank of St John’s Lake, a sheet of crystal water a hundred feet deep covering more than three hundred acres, which is studded with beautiful islands and indented with picturesque bays teeming with fish and surrounded by the virgin forest, thus rendering it one of the most delightful of Minnesota’s famous lakes. West of the College, the lovely Watab meanders through field and meadow towards the north, whilst beyond its banks, the eye is greeted by picturesque hillsides. Half a mile towards the east, the great water reservoir towers on a high elevation, like a relic of a medieval castle contrasting admirably with its neighbor, the astronomical observatory, whilst beyond primeval forests which still cover two thousand acres of the college lands raise their lofty crowns toward heaven. The regular grounds of the students comprise over one hundred acres, affording ample room for the extensive playgrounds, which are furnished with baseball diamonds, handball and lawn tennis courts, as well as for delightful shady walks. The main buildings form a vast square, measuring 260 feet on each side, with a wing 40 by 100 feet extending the east front. They average five stories in height and cover an area of seven thousand yards. The astronomical observatory stands on the hill east of the main building. It has a revolving dome, a transit room, and a computing room, and is well equipped with all necessary instruments. The courses of study are the usual undergraduate university courses:  the Classical and the Scientific, each of which is divided into an Academic and a Collegiate department. There is also a Commercial Course, an Ecclesiastical Seminary, a department preparatory to the various courses, and a Winter School for the benefit of young men who are unable to attend college except during the winter months. 

The Light of the Cross in the Twentieth Century: The Influence of the Church on Modern Civilization, Volume II (New York: The Office of Catholic Publications, 1905), 488-489.