by Paul R. Spitzzeri
On 26 June 1906, commencement was inaugurated at the new campus of Immaculate Heart College, nestled at the base of the Hollywood Hills portion of the Santa Monica Mountains where Hollywood meets Los Feliz northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The edition of the Roman Catholic newspaper, The Tidings, three days later covered the event and the institution at length, including the remark that the morning mass was held in the “beautiful and spacious chapel,” with pupils and teachers thanking God “for the successful termination of the first college term.”
Later in the day was “An Evening With Our Bishop,” including musical performances and Bishop Thomas Conaty’s address on “Christian Education” with the paper summarizing it as concerning “its necessity, the responsibility of the parent in giving it to the children and the responsibility of the children in carrying out its precepts.” The next afternoon, the graduation ceremony was held with much display of school colors and flowers with the early 14th-century Italian poet Dante Aligheri, famed for his Divine Comedy (1320), as the centerpiece of the exercises.
The five graduates were Helen Chambers, Anna McDermott, Julia Smith, Alice Twohy and Pearl Thompson and music, readings, a tribute to Conaty and an invocation included in the ceremony. The valedictorian was McDermott and her speech was followed by remarks from the Bishop, and the paper told readers that Conaty,
in speaking of the work of the sisters of the Immaculate Heart, congratulated them upon the new college buildings and said that this was but one of many evidences of the interest of the church in the higher education of women . . . the Bishop said it was a source of thankfulness to God that opportunities were given on all sides for the higher education of our children in Institutions in which religion is not only the atmosphere but also the teacher of positive religious principles which are necessary to the formation of Christian character. He spoke of the need for educated women striving for that culture which, springing from Christian virtue and beautified by it, gathers to itself the best there is in the literature of the world.
Dante, the address continued, embodied “the very soul of Catholicism” and “is one of the educators of the world,” through his works, including the aforementioned classic as well as his The New Life, dating to near the end of the 13th century. Conaty then implored the graduates to “take as [their] model the Immaculate Mother Mary, the truest type of womanhood, the purest and sweetest of all God’s creatures,” while commending to them the school motto, Ex Virtute Fit Nobilitas, Nobility Comes From Virtue. Lastly, he “urged them to love their convent home and the Sisters who trained them, to bear in the world the white banner of a spotless womanhood and thus to be a sweet influence for good wherever their life might be spent.”
As for the campus, it was pointed out that it was “on that old historic road, ‘The Camino Real,'” and that the term “California Palestine” for our section was an apt one for “those beautiful, undulating hills of Hollywood, which seem to have risen from the ocean’s breast, beloved and caressed by its balmiest breezes.” Moreover, the article went on, “as we behold the college facing the Western Sea, with its turrets and towers bathed in roseate splendor, its cloisters and patios standing out in relief we feel that “Although the Missioners are dead, their spirit is vital still.”
It was asserted that local Catholics long wished for a women’s college linking academic study with religious instruction and the dream began to be realized with the 24 April 1905 groundbreaking, followed by the laying of the cornerstone a few months afterward, and then consummated with the 10 March 1906 occupancy. The high school from Pico Heights followed and graduates from various grammar schools joined as classes inaugurated on the 12th. Landscaping on the property was developing, while athletic facilities for basketball, golf and tennis were being laid out with the gymnasium an important component. A detailed campus description informed readers,
The college building is of Moorish-Mission style . . . the red roof and the soft gray of the stuccoed walls look indescribably fresh and pleasing to the eye. [From the south entrance] we obtain an excellent view of the structure as a whole—of the cool, enticing patios, swept by the ocean’s gently breezes, of the long lines of peaceful cloisters, and of the two graceful turrets. Entering the rotunda and ascending the stairway, we reach the convent chapel, which breathes of peace, grace and simplicity. To the rear are the classrooms and laboratories, flanking these, to the left, is the College Hall. The entire extension of the north is devoted to recreation rooms, and to the School of Music. On the second and third floors are the pupils’ rooms, tastefully and artistically arranged. The studio, an ideal apartment, occupies a central position on the third floor, its many windows frame charming glimpses of a mountain and valley, inspirations for the artist’s brush.
When speaking to the assemblage at the cornerstone laying ceremony, Bishop Conaty commented that the festivity marked “a most important step in the onward march of educational effort in this diocese,” then that of Monterey-Los Angeles, “. . . and it emphasizes the importance of the higher development of womanhood.” The edifice was for “an academy and college for young ladies of the world” as well as for a convent and training school for the nuns.
The bishop continued that “we are in an age of educational ambitions; it is also the age of educational demands,” so “to train the teacher [to realize these] is a most important duty.” These instructors were to be well-versed in the “ends and aims of life” so that they “may adjust the student’s life to them” in that schooling was to ensure that “we may the better serve Him,” culminating in the mandate that “institutions like this build themselves upon the principle that revealed religion is the great teacher of life, and the true director of all instruction.”
Conaty added,
The academic and collegiate work of this building will be directed to the education of women. The time never was, in the history of the Catholic church in education, when woman was thought unworthy of care and encouragement in her mental as well as spiritual growth. Every page of her educational work bristles with facts of her interest in woman’s educational development. She needs the best there is in education, that she may the better fulfill whatever duties come to her, either in the home or in society, in the quiet hours of her study, or in the fulfillment of her business obligations.
In the modern world, moreover, woman “needs to be fitted for the battle against error and unbelief” and she “is the natural director” of the inculcation of religious principles and actions and “if she have the aptitude, the ambition, the opportunity, there is no knowledge which she cannot aspire to obtain.” With these realized, “she may enlighten, beautify and fortify womanhood, leading her to God by the path of revealed truth and enjoying the blessing of learning gathered under the beneficent kindness of religion.”
Conaty praised the several orders of nuns leading the way for Catholic education, proclaiming “what a noble band of devoted women whose one thought is to bring womanhood in close touch with the influences of the Divine Child . . . who value religion as the true guide in all search after knowledge.” In a broader vein, the bishop cautioned that “to banish religion from education is practically to rule God out of man’s life” and character, conscience and morality were crucial, leading to the assertion that “on these principles our educational system builds itself, and in the faith of these principles” the school was constructed, literally and metaphorically.
The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart were lauded for “noble work in education and in charity” and its expansion of effort was conducted “with hope in the future and realization of the demands of our youth.” The bishop offered a prayer to bless the school and in the name of education, womanhood and youth as the college “consecrates itself to God and to country” with faith as its inspiration. All involved in its operation were exhorted to see that pupils were provided “that mead of religious instruction which is necessary for their moral life” because,
The school that makes and keeps men moral is a blessing to the community, and God’s law and God’s grace alone can make and keep a people moral.
The 4 December 1907 edition of The Tidings included an advertisement showing both the Convent of the Immaculate Heart, situated at Pico Boulevard and King Street (formerly Bartlett Avenue and later renamed Kingsley Drive) and the recently inaugurated Immaculate Heart College, with the first preparing girls for the primary education and the second for their secondary and higher instruction.
An accompanying article stated that the college “is the strongest link in the chain of educational institutions under Roman Catholic auspices in Southern California, and . . . it must be a source of pride . . . to know that the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart have succeeded so admirably in the conquering of obstacles so great and have placed within the reach of young ladies of proper pre-academic training and record the means to the end—a university degree.”
After briefly noting the beauty of the Mission-style structure and its panoramic view, with landscaping to “add the finishing touch to an already surpassing picture,” the piece addressed the scholastic program, “its thoroughness . . . places this school without peer in the roster of university preparatory schools,” entailing 16 credits for graduation. Each credit involved five weekly recitations through the year, with four courses expected “and to graduate [each student] must receive a standing of at least seventy-five per cent,” though recommendation to a university required at least an 85% record.
The piece remarked that “the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart and the Rt. Rev. Bishop take a degree of pardonable pride in these educational facilities . . . [which] place before the parents of Southern California opportunities unthought of a decade ago for the higher education of their daughters.” Aside from the well-equipped gym and outdoor sports courts, “the work in dramatic expression forms a vital part of the curriculum,” including regular performances of the plays of Shakespeare. It was also added that there were plans for a high school prep course and the article ended that “The Tidings . . . extends to the good Sisters of the Immaculate Heart and to the Rt. Rev. Bishop its felicitation upon the success of this educational institution which means to much for the higher education of the daughters of Southern California.”
As the first decade of the 20th century came to a close and another period of rapid growth was at hand in greater Los Angeles, while the right of women to vote in California elections was also in the offing, another profile of the college was presented in The Tidings, this one in the 16 December 1910 edition. Here, the paper proclaimed,
The beautiful Immaculate Heart College, at Hollywood, under the direction of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, has become so generally known for its efficiency that it needs no further word to acquaint our readers with its merits, but it may not be so universally known that this splendid institution of higher learning for young women is fully accredited to the University of California, which thereby accredits it to all the state universities in the United States. This, in itself, is the very best evidence of the great success of this magnificent college . . . to give a finished education as well as to fit the student to university work along the lines suitable for women looking to the cultural side of the higher education.
As has been elsewhere made clear, despite Bishop Conaty’s somewhat oblique reference to “business obligations,” this “cultural side” involved such aspects of art, literature, music and theater as part of the “finished education,” with no real emphasis on business or the professions. The article went on to emphasize the arts and “domestic sciences,” including exhibition of the latter that “conveys some idea of the careful instruction given along these lines, as well as in the more purely intellectual branches of learning.”
The piece concluded with the remark that these aspects of the curriculum were such that the institution “will rank with the best institutions for the higher education of women in the United States, and combines the superior advantages of including a most careful religious training for its Catholic pupils.”
We will return with a concluding third part that covers some of the further history of Immaculate Heart College through the 1910s and to 1923, when the featured artifact for this post was postmarked and mailed. Be sure to check back in for that.
The history of Immaculate Heart College and Bishop Conaty’s speech offered a fascinating reminder to reflect on the purpose of education. It is quite disappointing that, even as the internet has already passed its 30-year anniversary, our education systems remain largely unchanged. Not only in the United States, where K–12 is still the backbone of basic education, but across much of the world, traditional schooling structures have also stayed the same.
Although widespread internet access and personal digital devices have made learning easier, faster, and more accurate, the roles of instructors and the length and structure of schooling have not been meaningfully redesigned.
We see clearly that many teachers today are struggling, facing new challenges, and urgently need updated training and guidance.
The recent revolution in artificial intelligence is yet another wake-up call, urging us to confront these long-overdue questions about how education should evolve.