Page 18 - Gonzaga at 60
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GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
on the highest standards, and the breadth and depth of his intellectual interests made him more
than a memorable teacher; he was a profound educator. In those years he won many life-long
admirers and Friends. In the interest of honesty it must be said that his style alienated a few and
he let a casualty or two on the sideline.
He founded and was in charge of the Gonzaga debaing Society, An Chomdhail. The
standard of debaing was remarkably high. Paricipaion in the society was an educaion in itself.
He exercised a naional inluence on the teaching of English and was largely responsible for
reshaping the English curriculum in Secondary Schools. His widely inluenial aricle in Studies
in 1957, Men Speechless was a masterpiece in which he made the moral case for Rhetoric and
disilled in princely fashion his philosophy and vision of educaion. I say ‘his’ view because while
he applied this to his teaching of English, it was never the philosophical basis of the curriculum.
Fr Veale was not great diplomat and never managed to engage the staf, much less coax them;
he pronounced lotily and this did not meet the approval of many who did not appreciate his
patrician ways. Furthermore, while in high seriousness he was without equal, many on the staf
were more than his equal in intellectual sharpness.
Although he is associated with the quality, tone and philosophy of the college, it was the
liberal educaional philosophy of the school, the excellent teachers going their own way and,
as I have already indicated, the excepional gits of Fr White that gave the school its character.
There were excellent teachers: Fr Keane, an outstanding classicist, Fr Stephen Redmond, with
a great love of history that matched his scholarship, Fr Jack Hutchinson, who insilled a love
of Irish in a surprisingly large number, Mr John Wilson, soon to be joined by that educaional
entrepreneur Mr Raymond Kearns. Then there was a litle Italian fantasist, Signor Volpi, who
entertained the boys with his incredible tales and Fr
Kavanagh whose control of the boys did not match his
mastery of French.
CRISIS AND THE COMING OF FR MURRAY
Under the tranquil surface and seemingly
strong thread of coninuity within Gonzaga in the
1950s and ’60s there were rumblings of which few
were aware at the ime: the ethos of the 1960s, the
Second Vaican Council and the impact it would have
on the Jesuits, the incipient secularisaion of Irish
1956: Laying the foundation stone of the first school
development: the hall, clock-tower and new classrooms
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
on the highest standards, and the breadth and depth of his intellectual interests made him more
than a memorable teacher; he was a profound educator. In those years he won many life-long
admirers and Friends. In the interest of honesty it must be said that his style alienated a few and
he let a casualty or two on the sideline.
He founded and was in charge of the Gonzaga debaing Society, An Chomdhail. The
standard of debaing was remarkably high. Paricipaion in the society was an educaion in itself.
He exercised a naional inluence on the teaching of English and was largely responsible for
reshaping the English curriculum in Secondary Schools. His widely inluenial aricle in Studies
in 1957, Men Speechless was a masterpiece in which he made the moral case for Rhetoric and
disilled in princely fashion his philosophy and vision of educaion. I say ‘his’ view because while
he applied this to his teaching of English, it was never the philosophical basis of the curriculum.
Fr Veale was not great diplomat and never managed to engage the staf, much less coax them;
he pronounced lotily and this did not meet the approval of many who did not appreciate his
patrician ways. Furthermore, while in high seriousness he was without equal, many on the staf
were more than his equal in intellectual sharpness.
Although he is associated with the quality, tone and philosophy of the college, it was the
liberal educaional philosophy of the school, the excellent teachers going their own way and,
as I have already indicated, the excepional gits of Fr White that gave the school its character.
There were excellent teachers: Fr Keane, an outstanding classicist, Fr Stephen Redmond, with
a great love of history that matched his scholarship, Fr Jack Hutchinson, who insilled a love
of Irish in a surprisingly large number, Mr John Wilson, soon to be joined by that educaional
entrepreneur Mr Raymond Kearns. Then there was a litle Italian fantasist, Signor Volpi, who
entertained the boys with his incredible tales and Fr
Kavanagh whose control of the boys did not match his
mastery of French.
CRISIS AND THE COMING OF FR MURRAY
Under the tranquil surface and seemingly
strong thread of coninuity within Gonzaga in the
1950s and ’60s there were rumblings of which few
were aware at the ime: the ethos of the 1960s, the
Second Vaican Council and the impact it would have
on the Jesuits, the incipient secularisaion of Irish
1956: Laying the foundation stone of the first school
development: the hall, clock-tower and new classrooms
