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As a brand-spanking-new freshman at Salesianum in September 1971, I was overwhelmed initially by the size of the school and the number of students with whom I shared the hallways and classrooms every day. But I was most intimidated by Salesianum’s high academic standards: students had six full-time courses and were told to expect to have at least three hours of homework every night. Heck, I had to read two books and complete a report on each during the summer before I walked through the doors on my first day of high school!
It wasn’t as if all of this had come as a complete surprise. After all, my father had graduated from the “old” Salesianum at 8th & West in Wilmington almost twenty-five years earlier (his brother Paul followed in his footsteps, graduating in 1951). He could speak from his own experience as to how his four years of Oblate education had really |
stretched him, helping him to discover – and develop – many talents and abilities that he might otherwise have never recognized. Even though dad had left the choice of what high school I would attend entirely up to me, it gradually became apparent that he was quietly ecstatic that I eventually chose Salesianum.
It is very fashionable these days to talk about how schools need to educate ‘the whole person.’ Almost from day one that was my experience at Salesianum nearly forty years ago. It wasn’t just about academics; it wasn’t just about earning a good G.P.A. every marking period; it wasn’t just about getting into a good college or university four years down the road. We were told that the ultimate goal was to graduate from Salesianum as a “Salesian gentleman” and that the only way to accomplish this was to get involved in as many activities as possible. I joined the marching band as a member of the color guard (I didn’t play any instruments) and the chorus/glee club, but the quantum leap for me came when I auditioned (however anxiously) for a part in the spring musical. I didn’t make the cut, but didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer as I continued to audition for subsequent plays and musicals, eventually with success.
My involvement with the band, with chorus and with theatre nearly doubled the amount of time I spent at Salesianum on any given day, but it also afforded me the opportunity to get to know the Oblates as more than simply classroom teachers: these priests, brothers and scholastics (as the new just-out-of-college Oblates were known) were real people who seemed to love their work; they really seemed to care about us: they were our coaches and our mentors who helped us to strike the balance between trying to do way-too-much and settling for way-too-little. These were down-to-earth men who wanted all of us to be the best we could be: in the fullest sense of the word, to be gentlemen. Salesianum ceased being a place where I went to school: however imperceptibly, Salesian became a place where I belonged…and thrived.
Regardless of my vocational choice (after considering a great number of options - including a career in medicine and a possible appointment to the Coast Guard Academy - I, along with two of my classmates, joined the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales after graduating in June 1975), I believe that Salesianum accomplished its mission in my regard: it helped me to learn what it means to be a real man, to be a whole person, to be fully and authentically human. I can see the same results in my brother Bill (a 1984 graduate) who strives to bring this same spirit to his various roles as husband, father and law enforcement officer.
As a graduate who had the opportunity to return to the school in the mid-1980’s to serve as a member of the administration for six years, I’ve seen Salesianum from both sides of the desk, and can attest to how it changed – and continues to change – my life for the better. Salesianum isn’t merely a building or a school: Salesianum is a community of faith in which boys learn the art and discipline of becoming real men: Christian, Salesian gentlemen.
(Rev.) Michael S. Murray, OSFS is a 1975 graduate of Salesianum School. He presently serves as Director of De Sales Spirituality Center in Wilmington, Delaware.
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