This is a photograph of "the Maryknoll Preparatory Seminary for native vocations to the priesthood in Kaying [now Meixien], South China. This fine building was constructed by twenty masons and fifty Chinese women, and the most skilled of the laborers received fifty cents a day. At the present rate of exchange the structure cost about $10, 000. Gold. Monsignor Frances Xavier Ford of Brooklyn, N.Y., Prefect Apostolic of the Maryknoll Kaying mission field, gave the Chinese architect a photograph of the Maryknoll Prep College in Clarks Summit, Pa. and, without other aid, the architect produced, amid the rice fields of South China, a very creditable replica of the American College. The Seminary proper is in the shape of a U, three hundred feet long and 25-30 feet wide, contains 6 classrooms, 2 dormitories, a refectory and an infirmary, 7 faculty bedrooms, a library and faculty diningroom, besides storerooms and offices. About one-half the building is used as a Mission Center when relieved of this occupation, the Seminary will house adequately fifty students and by the addition of an extra dormitory could take care of 75 students. The building is dedicated to St. Joseph at the request of its donor, a New England pastor." Maryknoll, The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, was founded in 1911 by Revs. James Anthony Walsh and Thomas Frederick Price to be the main mission outreach of the Roman Catholic Church of the United States. The first group of missioners departed in 1918 for China. Today Maryknoll Priests, Brothers and Sisters are missioned in over 30 countries around the world.
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