Religion: For the Tenth Man

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Some saw in Mother Katharine Drexel's Negro work a sort of self-mortification. They might not have thought so last week. She was in New Orleans for the dedication of her 38th Louisiana Negro school and her most munificent enterprise—Xavier University, first U. S. Negro Catholic college. Mother Katharine Drexel and her sister Louise (Mrs. Morell) have promised Xavier an eventual $5,000,000. Last week they were present with Philadelphia's hearty, energetic Denis Joseph Cardinal Dougherty and New Orleans' Archbishop John William Shaw to preside over the cornerstone laying of the first unit, completed in Indiana limestone, Tudor Gothic style, at a cost of $500,000. Many a white Southern college would look shabby beside Xavier, with its solid copper gutters, chromium equipment in the laboratory and home economics kitchen, auditorium with expensive indirect lighting and full stage, and half of the $3,000,000 Drexel library (the rest is in Cornwells). Xavier's colors are white & gold, like those of the Vatican. Present enrollment is 500 Negro Catholic boys and girls; no Protestants are admitted. The faculty includes eight sisters, four laywomen, two priests, six laymen, one football coach, all of them white except Coach Arthur Boswell (who was working with a squad of 34 in new white & gold uniforms last week) and a home economics teacher. Xavier gives B.A. and B.S. degrees, has four-year courses in pharmacy, pre-medicine, teaching and home economics. Resentful of such lavishness while so many Louisiana white are hungry and jobless. Xavier's neighbors have suggested that the college motto be. "Is Yo' Did Yo' Greek Yit?"

But with that Mother Katharine Drexel was unconcerned or unacquainted last week. She watched the ceremonies, listened to the speeches from an upper window. Then she received the Press for the first time in her 70-odd years. Her blue eyes twinkling, she explained that she had especially chosen the day of Xavier's blessing dedication—Columbus Day—in remembrance of those faraway Indians in a textbook engraving.