"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.
