CATHOLIC LIBERALITY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 43, 13 February 1885, Page 5

CATHOLIC LIBERALITY.

(From the 2V. T. Sun, December 10.) In the last hours of the recent session of the Plenary Council m Baltimore a formal offer of a gift of 300,000d015. for the founding of a national university was made by Miss Mary G. Caldwell, of New York city. Miss Caldwell and her only sister live in the apartment house on the north-east corner of the Thirtieth street and Madison avenue. It is called by some of the tenants '♦ The Corporation," from the fact that an association of wealthy men built it ; and by others " The Duplex," because of the arrangement of the rooms. Each family has the use of a part of two floors. The Misses Caldwell are orphans. The estate they are possessed of, it was said yesterday by a dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church, is valued at about 5,000,000d015. Miss Caldwell's father, William Shakspere Caldwell, was of an English family in Fredericksburg, Ya., and Mre. Caldwell, her mother, was a Miss Breckinridge, a sister of John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Mr. Caldwell's fortune was amassed by his father, who introduced gas into the cities of Louisville, Cincinnati, and New Orleans. Both Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell were converts to the Catholic faith. Mr, Caldwell bought a handsome villa in Newport, where the family lived in summer. They went south in Winter. The Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Unsectarian Hospital in Louisville was built and equipped twelve years ago by Mr. Caldwell, so secretly that even the members of his family did not know of it. He gave it to the Bisters of Charity. Afterwards he built in the same manner and presented to the Little Sisters of the Poor the St. Sophia's Home for the Aged and Infirm in Richmond. Mrs. Caldwell died eleven years ago, and Mr. Caldwell died in the New York Hotel three years afterwards. The will of Mr. Caldwell gave the property to the daughteis equally, the half of the estate to be turned over to each as she came of age. Miss Mary G. Caldwell was twenty-one years old last October, and she tben came into possession of her properly. " I know of no young lady," said Mr. Eugene Kelly last evening, 41 who can better manage so large a fortune than can Miss Caldwell. She is what is nowadays called smart. She knows where every cent is invested and what it is doing for her." Miss Caldwell was in Baltimore while the Plenary Council was in session. Yesterday she was at home. Her school life was spent in the Convent and Academy of the Sacred Heart, in Manhattanville. After her graduation she travelled and studied in Europe. Her apartments are crowded with choice works of art. The walls can scarcely be seen, the clusters of paintings and vases and bric-a-brac so nearly fill every available space. A slender young woman, dark brown hair and bright brown eyes, stepped into the door>y of the parlour to greet the reporter. Energy and decision were every word and gesture as she replied. * Why, I did not dream of this matter being talked of in the newspapers. This is the first time I was ever questioned about it. On, yes, ' she continued, "it is true that I have offered 300,000d015. to found a Catholic university. It will be only a nucleus, of course, and around it will in time grow a great institution. It is my own notion. I had been thinking of it for two or three years. The object is to provide for the higher education of tbe priesthood. In the begiuning it will be a kind of high school of philosophy and theology, and department will be added as endowments come in, as they undoubtedly will. It is not determined where the university will be founded, but it will be near a large Northern city. Personally I should have preferred to see it in a Southern State, but, on the whole, it is best to establish it in the North." The Plenary Council accepted the offer, and the following committee was appointed to take steps immediately toward selecting a site for the university buildings, and in defining the scope of tbe institution : Archbishops Gibbons of Baltimore, Corrigaa of New York, Ryan of Philadelphia, Heies of Milwaukee, Williams of

Boston ; Bishops Spalding of Peoria and Ireland of St.. Paul, If onsignor Farley of St. Gabriel's Church of this city, and Laymen Eugene Kelly of this city, and F. A. Drexel of Philadelphia. The gift was offered and accepted with the understanding that the Plenary Council U to lay the foundations of the university, to see that it is completed, and to control the course of education to be pursued.