J 



xlviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



terest in other studies had not proved stronger, might have 

 influenced his subsequent career in a different direction. 



It was von Degen, however, who urged Mr. John Shipman 

 to send his son to Georgetown in 1871, rather than to Blacks- 

 burg Agricultural College, as it was then called, where so many 

 of the Fairfax youths went. Von Degen knew the strength 

 of the Jesuit teaching and the intellectual value of the long 

 classical drill. 



At that time neither Andrew nor his parents were Cath- 

 olics, although the five younger children had been baptized at 

 their birth. His mother was a descendant of a Catholic fam- 

 ily, but was herself an Episcopalian through the accident of 

 her grandfather, a posthumous child, being reared by an 

 Episcopal mother. Andrew's father had as yet no religious 

 affiliation, but greatly admired the Catholic Church, of which 

 he became a member later in life. It was his wish, together 

 with the mother's feeling that her own faith should be Catholic 

 (as it became not many years afterwards), which had led to the 

 baptism and Catholic training of the younger children. Mrs. 

 Shipman taught all of her children Catholic prayers, which 

 she was accustomed to say herself. 



It was at Georgetown that Andrew became a Catholic, but 



instead of being baptized in the college chapel, he went alone 



to the church of St. Dominic in Washington for his reception. 



iFrom the moment he entered college his interest in religious 



1 rites, orders and history became absorbing. 



He was a teacher by nature as he was a student by nature. 

 Older by some years than his sisters, he had taken it upon 

 himself when home to teach them, and he never allowed him- 

 self to forget his task even while away. Letters written when 

 he was a lad in the Georgetown preparatory school contain 

 careful lessons in French and German for his next sister. 

 Later during his college years he planned a course of study 

 for his sisters which they followed under their governess. 

 His holidays were for them a mingling of delight and misery. 

 Instead of being free, say on a sunny, mild Sunday in March, 

 to go to the south meadow and gather Johnny- jump-ups, 

 whitening in a wave the warm slope of the big guUey with 

 delicate, pale blooms, they had to sit in tongue-tied dismay 

 face to face with a long, chalked-up line of third declension 

 Latin nouns or some verb, monstrous with such irregularities 



