They could have been dressed for Hallowe'en, but the St. Jerome's Literary and Dramatic Society performers were splendidly costumed for a production of "King Saul" in the Berlin Opera House on April 8, 1907. The image is one of many historical photos contained in recently launched Enthusiasm for the Truth: An Illustrated History of St. Jerome's University.

Book tells college's hair-raising history

by Pat Bow, for SJU Update (Fall/Winter 2002)

Enthusiasm for the Truth: An Illustrated History of St. Jerome's University, by St. Jerome's history professors Kenneth McLaughlin, Gerald Stortz, and Rev. Jim Wahl, was officially launched at the annual St. Jerome's Feast for Catholic University Education in September.

The idea of the book germinated from plans for the college's 125th anniversary celebration in 1990. Wahl had been researching and writing about aspects of the history of members of the Congregation of the Resurrection, while Stortz was planning a study of Bishop Joseph Ryan, a force behind the founding of St. Jerome's College. McLaughlin's interests ranged broadly, but he was also working on a book about the founding of the University of Waterloo. Together their research interests led to a comprehensive history of St. Jerome's College, the community out of which it has developed, and the students who have been part of its history for nearly 150 years.

Nicolas Fischer helped out in his senior year by teaching bookkeeping. His coiffure was certainly the most dramatic of the class of 1870.

The result is a big book of 290 pages with more than 230 photographs. Within the book, photos -- some covering a page and a half -- are accompanied by detailed interpretive captions, "so that you could, if you wanted to, read the book by reading the photos," McLaughlin says. The authors scoured the archives of St. Jerome's, UW, the Diocese of Hamilton, and the Congregation of the Resurrection (including the Resurrectionist archives in Rome) for letters and diaries, official reports, calendars, bulletins, newsletters, and newspaper articles. They also recorded interviews with St. Jerome's presidents, gathered student memoirs and recollections, and reviewed hundreds of photographs.

The St. Jerome's story actually begins in the late 18th century. The authors explain the social and cultural forces that brought the first German-speaking Roman Catholics to British Upper Canada, and later brought Eugene and Louis Funcken to serve their spiritual and educational needs.

The last chapters were the most difficult to write, McLaughlin says, perhaps because the period covers the same time the authors have been associated with St. Jerome's as students or faculty, or (in McLaughlin's case) both. But it was also one of the most fascinating periods, marked by dramatic changes -- a revived nationalism, Vatican II, and the student ferment of the '60s -- that coincided with the establishment of St. Jerome's on the Waterloo campus. The '70s brought full funding from the province, opening the way for academic growth and changing the college's relationship to UW. That decade also saw the beginning of a decline in priestly vocations that led to the first lay president, dean, and board chair, with huge impact on curriculum, administrative style, and public accountability.

The first students of the College of St. Jerome at St. Agatha began classes in 1865 in a log cabin without running water, let alone the amenities that today's frosh expect. The book brings the story full circle to the installation of Richard Gwyn as St. Jerome's fifth chancellor in March, 2002, in the historic church at St. Agatha. In each chapter, stories of student life are interwoven with careful historical assessments and insights into the thinking of some of the leading figures in St. Jerome's history, from Rev. Louis Funcken to contemporary leaders such as Revs. Siegfried, Finn, Ralston, and Choate.