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In 1926, the Order sent him back to Rhode Island, to set up shop just nine miles from St. George's. In the School of St. Gregory the Great (Portsmouth Priory), Father Hugh proved he could do for Catholics what he had done for Protestants. The school now has 120 boys, 20 masters (more than half of them monks). Though he retired as headmaster in 1942, until recently Father Diman taught the course in "Christian Doctrine."
Most Powerful Instrument. Today, in black Benedictine habit, with clipped white hair and wrinkled face, Father Diman still strolls The Priory grounds, looks over Narragansett Bay to the sun setting red behind Prudence Island. The boys stand in awe of the old man; and he, who sees less of them than he used to, thinks boys have changed. "They turn the radio on as soon as they go to their rooms. There isn't half as much reading as there used to be," he says sadly.
But Father Diman looks back on St. George's and The Priory with an old man's pride. Says he: "Religion as a living force in deepening and enriching personality has been almost completely eliminated from [the public schools, and with it] the most powerful instrument for the development of character. . . . The greatest disappointment of my school career has been that [my" schools are] 'expensive schools.' I have never ceased to hope that they might become schools for the rank and file."
*They switched to baseball in 1904.
*Today one out of every four St. George boys receives a scholarship to help pay the high ($1,400 a year) tuition.