Schools

The Jesuits are renowned the world over for excellence in education. Almost from the start, Jesuits were teaching at various Universities in Europe. The first schools established by the order were for the training of its own men. However, in 1548, St. Ignatius opened the first school for lay students in Messina at the urging of the municipality. By 1551 he was urging the inauguration of colleges throughout Europe.

Jesuit Schools in the United States

Currently the Jesuits maintain 70 secondary and primary schools and 28 Universities and colleges in the United States. This has been an important apostolate since the beginning of the Jesuits in the Middle United States. In 1829 the Missouri Jesuits took over the operation of a college in St Louis, now St. Louis University.

In the years that followed, Jesuits founded a number of colleges in Missouri territory. In 1837 St. Charles College was founded in Grand Coteau, Louisiana. Ten years later, St Charles was transferred to the New Orleans mission of the French Province of Lyons, which also had taken over the bishop's college at Spring Hill, Alabama.

Years later Missouri Jesuits took over the Athenaeum in Cincinnati and renamed it Xavier.

Jesuits in the 1830's and 40's had two schools in Kentucky, one near Bardstown and the other in Louisville. The French Jesuits eventually pulled out of Kentucky, and accepted Bishop John Hughes' invitation to run his school at Rose Hill in the Bronx, now known as Fordham University. The Missouri Jesuits founded another college in 1867, St. Ignatius in Chicago, now Loyola University.

In Omaha, the wealthy Creighton family wanted a Catholic school in their city. The widow of Ed Creighton left a large sum of money in her will to the bishop of Omaha for that purpose. The bishop constructed a building with part of the funds and put the rest into endowment. Even today, that original building is used, and the endowment remains. Thanks to the Creighton family generosity, Creighton high school and undergraduate college were able to be tuition free for nearly the first half century of their existence.

Marquette University in Milwaukee owes its origins to a gift made in 1849 of $15,000. A group of eight German Jesuits came to St. Louis that same year, and plans were made to found a German college in Milwaukee. A few years later the Germans were recalled to their home country, and responsibility for Milwaukee returned to the Missouri Jesuits. The Missouri Vice Province was able to found a parish and an academy in Milwaukee, but Henni's dream of a college had to wait until 1881.