For 158 years, families in the Roman Catholic faith tradition and families of other faiths have chosen Mount St. Mary Academy for their daughters' high school education. Young women of all socio-economic backgrounds have been welcomed and provided the highest quality education possible. The arrival of twelve young Sisters of Mercy in 1851 at the request of Arkansas' first Catholic Bishop was a response to the vision of the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, Catherine McAuley, who just ten years earlier had written, "No work of charity can be more productive of good to society... than the careful instruction of women." This is the mission to which Mount St. Mary remains committed.