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

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1844

pg 76        opened a school of English which has been kept up since, and which 
             seems to be doing well.  The Indians are attached to them and 
             would be very much grieved if they were to leave.
                  From this very first year in Bertrand there were always some 
             Sisters especially charged to visit the sick in the village and 
             the neighborhood, whenever they were wanted.  By this means the 
             Sisters on many occasions became instruments of the conversion of 
             many infidels who otherwise would probably have died in their 
             unbelief.  However, it must be confessed that if the necessity of 
             looking to the novitiate and of obtaining for it some good for the 
             college had not been so urgent, it would be hard to understand 
             this first year at Bertrand, which was and will be for a long time 
             to come nothing more than a dead town.
                  A novitiate may succeed there, however; a boarding school 
             hardly.  Still, the latter has not been seriously attempted.  It 
             is only a few months since a mistress really qualified has been 
             given charge of the studies.  In a few years hence one can form a 
             better opinion.