ABSTRACT
In 1915 delegates to the Twelfth Annual Convention of the National Catholic Educational Association gathered in St. Paul and heard the Archbishop of the host city, John Ireland, pay a tribute to the men and women who were making Catholic education possible.
I name our teaching Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods. To them this morning, in the name of Catholic education I bow in reverence and gratitude. Nothing but a divinely-fashioned Church could have produced them … Our Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods it is, that permit our Catholic schools to exist. They are prodigal of their labors for the merest shade of pecuniary retribution. Without them the financial burdens of Catholic schools were insupportable; without them Catholic schools should have long ago closed their doors. Our Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods it is to whom we owe the high degree of efficiency which is the glory of our schools. 1
