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

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1844

pg 64        conformity with the new Constitutions, most of those national and 
             individual defects that candidates may bring with them on their 
             entrance, would soon disappear and make place for solid virtues.  
             It is unquestionable that the greater number came with good will.  
             Now everybody knows how much a skillful master can do with a man 
             well disposed--bonae voluntatis.  The fact is that for a long 
             time, in consequence of their poverty and their fewness to carry 
             out the enterprises begun the Brothers could hardly make a trial 
             of [the practical workings of] this opinion.
                  Until the building of the novitiate on St. Mary's island, 
             nothing could be done except to give an imperfect outline of the 
             institution so called four years later.  It was not completed for 
             want of candidates, and because the Master was still too much 
             occupied with other other things.  The following list gives a 
             precise idea of the resources of the country in the matter of 
             vocations:  The vestures are thus given in the Registers of the 
             house: one in 1841, eleven in '42, four in '43, nine in '44, 
             eight in '45, four in '46, three in '47, and three in '48; in all 
             forty-three postulants in the space of seven years.  Of this 
             number seventeen afterwards left the Society and three died.  
             Thus only one half are today members of the community.