"The world is a smiling place because it is so beautiful and
powerful.
But more beautiful is the one who made it.
More radiant and more powerful is the one who formed it.
Sweeter by far is the one who fashioned it."
St. Augustine
Sermon 158, 7.7
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries represent a period of
impressive growth at Villanova. In 1895 the college, under the presidency of
Reverend Lawrence A. Delurey, O.S.A., D.D., decided to usher in the new century with a
vast building project. Work began in 1899 on a new monastery and on a large new
College Hall (now Tolentine Hall). Two presidents of the United States visited the
campus, former President Grover Cleveland for the commencement of 1902 and President
William Howard Taft for the commencement of 1910. Villanova's School of Technology
opened in 1905, and four years later granted its first degree in engineering. By
1905 the college could boast of 213 students, more than twice the number of just a dozen
years before.
