This plan, if zealously and efficiently carried out, will, we are convinced, accomplish the desired result in very short time. One Catholic gentleman in Baltimore has already founded a Burse, and others will follow his good example. We believe that we can safely calculate on the following amounts to be realized in the United States, under the three heads above named:
| Twenty Burses, at $5,000 | $100,000 |
| One Hundred Patrons, at $1,000 | $100,000 |
| One Hundred Life Members, at $500 | 50,000 |
| Total | $250,000 |
The reverend father to whom we have entrusted this important matter, and in whose zeal and efficiency we have the utmost confidence, will call upon you during the course of the coming winter. You will, we are quite sure, receive him worthily, as our representative; and you will enable him, we trust, to return to us with fresh and abundant proofs of your well-known generosity and self-sacrifice, and with an ample and sufficient sum not only to save, but to endow, and render perpetual for all time, our American College in Rome.
M. J. Spalding,
Archbishop of Baltimore, and Chairman of Metropolitans.
J. F. Wood,
Bishop of Philadelphia, Chairman Executive Committee of Bishops, and Treasurer.
Baltimore, Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, 1868.
Letter Of Rev. George H. Doane.
Having been appointed by the Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore, and the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Philadelphia, as Chairmen respectively of Metropolitans, and of the Executive Committee of Bishops, who have charge of the affairs of the American College in Rome, with the duty of endeavoring to raise an endowment fund for the College, I have, with the consent of my own bishop, accepted the trust which they have confided to me, and propose to enter upon the work at once. Before Christmas I hope to visit, with the consent of the Archbishops and Bishops of those Sees, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Albany, Boston, and Hartford; during the holidays, New-York, Brooklyn, and Newark; and about the middle of January to start for the North, West, and South.
Love for Rome, and the desire to make some little return for the many blessings I received while a student in one of the National Colleges there, (the American College not having then been founded,) by trying to procure the same blessings to others; and love for my country, with the desire to see preserved for her, in the very heart of the Eternal City, a place where some of her young Levites may grow up in the schools of Rome, under the shadow of St. Peter's, and in the immediate presence of the Vicar of our Lord upon earth, are the motives which prompt me to undertake this arduous duty.
That it may succeed, I earnestly beg the prayers of the faithful, the generous and zealous co-operation of all in the good work, and remembrance on the part of my fathers and brethren at the altar of God in the daily sacrifice.
G. H. Doane.