Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac
Edward Sorin, CSC -- Translated by John M. Toohey, CSC, 1895

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1841-1842

pg 25        full of faith, respect, religious inclinations, and sensible and 
             devoted; but a great defect often paralyzes in them all their 
             other good qualities: the lack of stability.  They change more 
See pp.      readily than any other nation.*
15-16 and         The others are ordinarily less obedient, prouder, more 
p. 29-T      singular in their tastes, and less endowed with the qualities of 
             the heart; but they are more persevering.
                  As to genuine Americans, there is no hope of finding 
             subjects amongst them for a religious house of this kind.  We 
             might look upon it as a miracle of grace for a young American to 
             persevere in the humble and difficult employment of a Brother of 
             St. Joseph.  The spirit of liberty as it is understood in the 
             United States is too directly opposed to the spirit of obedience 
             and submission of a community to leave any hopes for a long time 
             to come of any addition of subjects in a country in which the 
             nature of men appears to offer so few dispositions towards the 
             religious life.  Hence, it comes to pass that the young men who 
             spend some time amongst the Americans soon imbibe their spirit 
             and manners, and become in reality all the more unfitted for the 
             religious life the more years they have passed in the New World.