The studies at the "Mountain" in those days were still under the magic and salutary spell of the venerable founder, Bishop Dubois, and his followers.

They were old fashioned, but they were solid, with the classics of Greece and Rome, mathematics, philosophy and religion as their foundation.

They were eminently calculated to mold thinkers, scholars and cultured Catholic gentlemen.

They left a deep impression on the young Marylander.

After his graduation at the end of the scholastic year, 1843, the law for a short while lured him away, to its digests, its quiddits and quillets, abstracts and briefs.