Memramcook, New Brunswick, Canada

Founded in 1864 by Rev. Camille Lefebvre, C.S.C. The institution owes its inception partly to the desire of the late Bishop Sweeny, of St. John, N.B., to secure for the youth of his diocese the advantages of a secondary education, of Memramcook (1852-64); for the intellectual development of the French Acadians entrusted to his care. The college was incorporated, with degree-conferring powers, by an Act of the New Brunswick Legislature in 1868; and, thirty years later, by an amendment to that act, it received its present title. In addition to the faculties of arts and theology, commercial courses in English and French have always occupied a well defined place in the curriculum. It is mainly owing to St. Joseph's that within the past half-century the French inhabitants of Canada's maritime provinces have steadily advanced to a position of acknowledged social, industrial, and professional equality with their fellow-provincialists of other racial descent. Scarcely less notable has been St. Joseph's role in furthering the interests, enlarging the prospects, and elevating the ideals of New Brunswick's English-speaking Catholics. At present, practically all the priests of the Diocese of St. John, including its bishop, are sons of New Brunswick and graduates of St. Joseph's; other graduates hold prominent rank in commerce, law medicine, the Provincial Legislature, and the Federal Parliament.

The Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. This easy-to-search online version was originally printed in fifteen hardcopy volumes.

Designed to present its readers with the full body of Catholic teaching, the Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions, national, political or factional. In the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed, and the results of the latest research in theology, philosophy, history, apologetics, archaeology, and other sciences are given careful consideration.

No one who is interested in human history, past and present, can ignore the Catholic Church, either as an institution which has been the central figure in the civilized world for nearly two thousand years, decisively affecting its destinies, religious, literary, scientific, social and political, or as an existing power whose influence and activity extend to every part of the globe. In the past century the Church has grown both extensively and intensively among English-speaking peoples. Their living interests demand that they should have the means of informing themselves about this vast institution, which, whether they are Catholics or not, affects their fortunes and their destiny.

Copyright © Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company New York, NY. Volume 1: 1907; Volume 2: 1907; Volume 3: 1908; Volume 4: 1908; Volume 5: 1909; Volume 6: 1909; Volume 7: 1910; Volume 8: 1910; Volume 9: 1910; Volume 10: 1911; Volume 11: - 1911; Volume 12: - 1911; Volume 13: - 1912; Volume 14: 1912; Volume 15: 1912

Catholic Online Catholic Encyclopedia Digital version Compiled and Copyright © Catholic Online