There were purchased for the purposes of the college, at the account of the province of Santísimo Rosario, some houses adjoining the convent of Santo Domingo, to serve as an asylum to the young ladies who desire to consecrate therein their virginity to the Lord. The institution was inaugurated on the day of St. Ann, of the year mentioned, after the approval of the rules to be observed, in conformity with the spirit and statutes of the Tertiary Order of St. Dominic, with some modifications for the proper interior régime, based upon the principal laws and ordinations of the province of Santísimo Rosario. On this day some ladies who had long before adopted the dress of the Tertiary order, took the vows, binding themselves to the strictest observance of the new rule, and taking the three religious vows with all the necessary formalities. Among the new nuns was the sister of Mother Francisca, who, in order to adopt the Dominican vestments, left the rectorate of Santa Isabel. The new retreat was given for a patron, the seraphic mother, Santa Catalina de Sena. It was also ordered that there should be only fifteen choir nuns, in honor of the mysteries of the rosary, with some lay sisters to attend to the material service. The foundation of this retreat was approved by a royal despatch signed February 17, 1716, which put an end to the various petitions which had been submitted to the court against its installation. In 1732, a new cedula granted the retreat the right to have a church with a bell, and prescribed, at the same time, that the inmates were not required to observe retirement by a rigid vow, but only for the purposes of good administration. The practice observed is that the sisters never pass through the inside door of the convent, which is in charge of one of the gravest sisters, but any person can enter it with express permission from the provincial. Although in the beginning, the college of Santa Catalina was nothing but a house, to which Spanish ladies, desirous of renouncing the vanities of the world and of devoting themselves entirely to the service of God, retired, the Dominican order did not long delay in assigning some of the sisters to instruction in a college. From that time, the retreat took the character of a college, where the pupils, at the same time that they were instructed in reading, writing, Christian doctrine, and other work suitable to their sex, learned to practice virtue. In 1865, it was deemed proper to increase the number of sisters fixed when the retreat was established, in order to be able to extend instruction further, and thus place the college on the same level as the best equipped colleges of the same class in this capital. The inmates of this institution are not permitted to leave it without good cause. They may be visited by their parents and other friends and acquaintances in a reception room located near the door of the college.