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Progress & War

1910-1920

"Death (birth and death are two certain facts of life)  To be born and to die, the beginning and the end: these are the two facts of our lives By being born we begin our labors; by dying we move on to a future that is uncertain. These two facts we know; they are the two constant truths in this our life."

St. Augustine
Sermon 229 E, 9.1

In January 1912 Villanova lost the venerable but much enlarged Belle-Air mansion (by then known as Saint Rita's hall) to a disastrous fire. That same year a new Saint Rita's Hall, for years a seminary building, was begun on the same site. It was also in 1912 that the college broke ground for Corr Hall, a seminary facility which was donated by Bernard Corr. In 1915 Villanova introduced a School of Science and a pre-medical course. World War I brought a Students' Army Training Corps (S.A.T.C.) to campus in (1918) Villanova observed its Seventy-Fifth Anniversary, or Diamond Jubilee. The highlight of the festivities was and address by United States Vice-President Thomas Riley Marshall at the June commencement. That summer Villanova launched a summer school program, principally for the benefit of nuns in the Philadelphia area.

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