St. Mary's College, Kansas
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Saint Mary's Academy and College is a religious school of the Society of St. Pius X located in St. Marys, Kansas, 25 miles (40 km) west of Topeka.
[edit] St. Mary's College
The original college at this location, St. Mary's College, was founded in 1848 as an Indian mission. The school is the site of the first cathedral west of the Missouri River and east of the Rockies, the 1851 "log cathedral" of Bishop Jean-Baptiste Miege, S.J., Apostolic Vicar of Pope Pius IX known familiarly as "The Bishop East of the Rockies".
(School literature refers to Bishop Miege's cathedral as the first cathedral west of the Mississippi. However, upper California was part of the Diocese of Sonora, Mexico which was established in 1779 by Pius VI and, after 1840 it was under the bishop of Alta and Baja (Upper and Lower) California until the establishment of the Diocese of Monterey in 1850. Further, the Diocese of St Louis, Missouri was established in 1826 and the cornerstone of the current Basilica laid in 1831 on the western bank of the Mississippi river. )
The 465 acre (1.9 km²) college had been operated by the Jesuit order as a seminary since 1931. It became one of the most prominent United States sites for Catholic higher education but closed in 1968 with the decline of the Jesuit order, along with most orders in North America.
[edit] Saint Mary's Academy and College
In 1978 the Society of Saint Pius X purchased the property along with 12 major buildings. The school is now incorporated in Kansas as The Society of Saint Pius X, Saint Mary's, Inc. It has no direct ties with the previous St. Marys College.
As of 2003, the Academy had enrollment of 750 students K-12 and the then four-year college had enrollment of 60 in a liberal arts curriculum. St. Mary's does not have a seminary program. St Mary's offers boarding for students in the 8th grade and higher.
St. Mary's Academy and College is not accredited by the state. In 2002, the governor of Kansas formally recognized Saint Mary's Academy and College for the excellence of its educational curriculum.
