Page 178 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

BROOKLYN AND BOSTON I57
as hundreds of Catholic boys chafed at the bit in public
schools where their poverty, their brogue, and their re-
ligion branded them as outcasts. The danger lay in
the future. What was to become of the next generation
if these boys took the easy way and quit school as soon
as it was legally possible?
- Emphasizing the wasted possibilities among these
boys, most of whom attended school only in deference
to their truant officer, was the phenomenal success of
the Catholic school for girls. In 184g, Father McElroy
had brought to Boston a community of Sisters of Notre
Dame from Cincinnati, Ohio. Into the former St. Mary,s
Orphan Asylum, which he had converted into a school,
these Sisters squeezed every girl for whom they could
find or make room. They did their best but they could
not meet the demand.
For older girls who worked during the day, they
-the
opened a night school. Once again they filled every
cranny only to have three hundred more clamoring for
the chance to learn to read and write. Somehow, iome
placg more teachers and more classrooms would have
to be found. The Irish children wanted a chance.
Brother Ryken could have learned about Father Mc-
Elroy's efiorts from Sister Louise, Superior, who mad.e
her headquarters in Cincinnati. In hei capacity as quasi-
Provincial of the Notre Dame foundationi in the United
States, she had visited the East several times to encourage
the Sisters she had assigned to St. Mary's in Boston arid
to St. Patrick's in Lowell.
Sister Louise came from Berg-op-Zoom in Holland. but
she had grown up in Antwerp, Belgium. It was natural
for an inquiring visitor like Brothir Ryken to call on
her, a fellow compatriot engaged in school work, es-
pecially since Father Van de Kerckhove was a great
admirer of these Sisters and of their peaceful invasidn of