[1] Byrne's advanced age and lack of classical education, however, convinced him, after some months' stay there, that he could not reasonably hope to obtain in the Society, for many years at least, his ambition for ordination to the priesthood.
Here John Dubois, the president, received him with sympathy, pointed out a course of study, and finding him a good disciplinarian, made him prefect of the institution.
He made further studies at St. Thomas' Seminary there, and was then ordained priest by Bishop David, 18 September 1819, with his friend George Elder, whom he had met at Emmitsburg.
It is estimated that from 1821 to 1833, during the time St. Mary's College was under his immediate direction, at least twelve hundred students received instruction there, and carried the benefits of their education to all parts of Kentucky, some of them establishing private schools on their return to their respective neighborhoods.
[4] Bryne, after twelve year's management of the college, made a gift of it to the Society of Jesus,[2] believing that, having established its success, his old friends, the Jesuits, were better qualified than he was to conduct the school.
He thought of funding a new school at Nashville, where one was much needed, and in spite of his advanced years he wrote to Bishop Flaget that all that he required in leaving St. Mary's to embark on this new enterprise was his horse and ten dollars to pay his traveling expenses.