Mt. St. John Normal School
Mt. St. John (Catholic) Normal School in Beavercreek township, this county, rural mail route No. 16 out of Dayton, was organized at Dayton under the direction of the Society of Mary (Brothers of Mary) in 1850, but in 1915 was moved to the advantageous site it now occupies on a natural elevation a few miles east of that city, just over the line in Greene county, where a commodious establishment was erected.
The founder of the Society of Mary was William Joseph Chaminade, who was born on April 16, 1761, at Perigueux, a city in southern France. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, after years of teaching in a Catholic college, he repaired to Bordeaux, where, at the peril of his life, he exercised his priestly office during the bloodiest days of the Reign of Terror. Subsequently, being exiled to Spain, he spent three years in retreat near the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Pillar at Saragossa, where he responded tn the call to go forth as an Apostle of Mary. Returning to Bordeaux in 1800 he made the chapel of the Madeline the headquarters of his sodalities and there organized the movement that became the mainspring of extensive reforms, these sodalities becoming the nursery that later on gave rise to Father Chaminade's two religious congregations, the Institute of the Daughters of Mary, founded in 1816 at Agen, and the Society of Mary (Brothers of Mary), founded at Bordeaux in 1817. In 1839 Gregorv XVI praised the orders established by Father Chaminade; in 1865 Pius IX gave the movement the formal approval of the Holy See, and in 1891 Leo XIII approved the rules and constitutions of the Society of Mary. A distinctive feature of this latter society is that in its composition both priests and Brothers observe the same rule and pursue the same works of zeal, all the professed members, both lay and ecclesiastical, making the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and, in making the final or perpetual vows, add the vows of stability; its members devoting themselves to work of education. In some countries the Brothers also manage agricultural schools and orphan asylums. The superior general of the society has maintained his residence in Belgium since the expulsion of the religious orders from France. He has four assistants, two of whom are priests and the other two lay members. The society is divided into groups called provinces, at present the Society of Mary in Europe being divided into five provinces, three in France, one in Spain and one in Austria. There is also a vice-province in Japan, with colleges in four of the chief cities, of that country, there being more than one thousand students enrolled at the School of the Morning Star in Tokio and seven hundred in the school at Osaka. In the United States there are more than five hundred religious students of the Society of Mary engaged in educating more than twelve thousand boys and young men. The founder of the American province was Father Leo Meyer, one of the disciples of Father Chaminade, who, with four other Brothers, established a humble home outside of Dayton in March, 1850, having there purchased some property to which they gave the name of Nazareth, which it still bears. Notwithstanding two disastrous fires and financial difficulties, the work prospered and Nazareth grew into what is now St. Mary College. From Nazareth the missionaries or Brothers of Mary have gone forth into more than twenty dioceses, into Canada and as far as the Hawaiian Islands, where the Brothers conduct three schools, one of them being St. Louis College at Honolulu, where there are more than nine hundred boys in attendance. In 1908 the American province was divided into two provinces, the Province of Cincinnati, the central house of which is at Mt. St. John, this county, and the province of St. Louis, with headquarters at Clayton, Missouri.
Mt. St. John Normal School has excellent buildings and adequate paraphernalia and is carrying on an admirable work in the way of preparing young men for teaching in the Catholic schools of the country and also in giving instruction preliminary to the seminary course of those seeking to enter holy orders. Young men between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one are received at the school and all branches are taught, embracing courses up from the first year of high school to the full college course. The president of the house is the Rev. Lawrence Yeske. who presides over the faculty, which now numbers eighteen. The vice-president and director of the school is Brotiier George Deck, who has been connected with the institution since 1909. The present enrollment at Mt. St. John Normal School is one hundred and twenty-five and progress is reported in all departments of the school's work.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918