THE BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 29, 7 November 1884, Page 23

THE BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.

(From the London Times.) Off all the rooms in this annexe tkere is certainly none more interesting than No s— " Noah's Ark," as " the Brothers " facetiously call it alter the religious (or scholastic) name of the ever obliging and intelligent Brother in charge. In this room is contained the multifarious and well packed collection of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Until the present exhibition probably not above a score or two of people in England, every heard of these Brothers. And yet they have recently celebrated the 200 th anniversary of their foundation, and have schools all over the world, from France to China and the United States. Altogether they have 1,175 houses, 11,233 Brothers and almost 330,000 pupils. They have as yet, however, oaly seven schools in England, one "being St. Joseph's College, Clapham ; the Brotherhood in Ireland with a similar name having no connection with the institution, whose headquarters are in Paris. In France and her colonies they have 953 houses, 70 in the United States 44 in Belgium, 26 in Canada, and the rest in Italy, Spain, South America Turkey, England, Egypt Austria, India, and China. Tne founder of this brotherhood was the Venerable J. B. De La Salle, a French ecclesiastic, of good family, born in Rheims in 1651. La Salle, whom his biographers generally speak of simply as " the Venerable," had when quite young attained to tigh ecclesiastical office, and had undoubtedly a brilliant career before him as a churchman. But all this be renounced literally selling his goods to feed the poor, and purposely reducing himself to poverty in order that he might devote his life to the education of the poor, and to the improvement of education generally in France. He was certainly a man of pure and noble mind, and in the matter of education was possessed of ideas far ahead of his time. His conception of a teaching corporation was distinctly Catholic. Although he may not have been the prime originator of the idea, he was the first to give it a practical and permanent shape. His scheme was to form teaching brotherhoods, consisting of men who, after due probation and training, took upon themselves vows of poverty and celibacy and gave themselves up for life to the work of education. Although he himself was an ecclesiastic, it was forbidden to the Brothers to aspire to the Church so that they should have nothing to look forward to, nothing to aspire to but the office of teacher. At his death in the beginning of the 18th century he left the Brotherhood in a nourishing and wellorganised condition, and, with occasional vicissitaies, it has gone on prospering and extending its operations ever since, until now, as the above statistics show, it has spread all over the world.

In France and Belgium especially the Brothers have achieved a great reputation as teachers, and they do their best to accommodate themselves to the frequent changes in the fiducational statutes with which the reformers of the republic harass them. In the United States and Canada also they have gained for themselves a high and secure position, and some of the most interesting exhibits in Room 6 are from these countries. Brother Noah himself is a Canadian, of Irish extraction, who has a high position in one of the New York establishments. He has undergone a very thorough trainiag; he spent three years in English schools to make himself acquainted with the best points in our educational system, and some time also, we believe, In France and Belgium. Indeed the Brothers all seem to receive an extremely careful training, and it is only after a very strict probation that they are allowed to enter the Brotherhood. Ona of the teachers in the Clapham school is a Doctor of Science of London University. The distinctive features of the leachingof theCbristian Brothers are its practicality and adaptability to circumstances. While the character of the education is mainly such as -vre call elementary and middle-class, at its best it is not surpassed by the most advanced Realschulen in Germany, and certainly not equalled all round by the most advanced middle-class schools in this country.

In France especially the schools are attended by pupils of all social grades. La Salle undoubtedly has the credit of being the founder btoh of normal schools and of technical education. When the supply of Brothers became unequal tojthe demand he undertook to tfain teachers for parish and village schools. In his programme, moreover, science was allotted an important place. At St. Yon, one of the best institutions of his time, the firsfccourae included French, Latin, writing, grammar, orthography, arithmetic, and drawing : and the second course, history, geography, literature, bookkeeping, natural history, hydrography ; also music and some of the living languages. Attached to the school for the use of the pupils were a botanical garden and large library. After a certain stage each pupil applied himself to those branches best suited to his talents, his inclinations, and his pursuits in life. In the guide which he compiled he enjoined the teachers to make their instruction aa practical as possible. In teaching natural history, for example, the pupils were to be taken to a zoological garden when possible ; in other branches they were to be taken to manufactories and other places in order to see mechanical processes actually at work. The system thus inculcated by the founder has been developed to a wonderful extent in recent years, as may be seen on a visit to Room 5. Geographical instruction especially, in which England is said to be so far behind, has been brought to great perfection, mainly through the genius of Brother Alexis, a Belgian by birth, .at present attached to the headquarters in Paris. His special faculty in the matter of geography was early noticed, and his superiors made him give himself entirely up to this department. His text books, maps, and models as shown in the exhibitioi deservedly take a high place. He was the first to adapt the use of various colours for hypaometrical purposes, in school maps, and we have seen few maps so easy to read and conveying such a variety of useful information. His methoi. is to begin with the school, and by means of models and corresponding maps the pupils are gradually led in time to the village, the parish, the district, province, country, etc, until, as is evident from their actual exercises, they have a very real idea of the leading features of their own country and of the world generally. Various models by Brother Alexis are exhibited. In one the object is to teach the pupil differences of altitude. It is enclosed in a square glass case or aquarium, which is filled with water that can be gradually drawn off by means of a tap. Certain colours are invariably used for certain altitudes, from sea level up to, say, 15,000 feet. By lowering the water-surface the idea of contour-lines is conveyed, and as « map is hung on the wall above the model with corresponding colours, the pupil is thereby taught to read his map in a very real manner. Another fine model is used to teach the significance of the different geographical terms. All the Brothers' schools have museums attached to them representative of the productions or the industries of the districts in which the schools are placed. Marseilles for example, is a great commercial centre. The museum from Marseilles shown in the exhibition may be taken as a typical one. It consists of specimens of the products in. all stages, from the raw material to the manufactured goods, of the various countries with which the great seaport has connections. The course of instruction in geography there includes not only the town and district and the ordinary subjects— the pupils have to construct maps showing the courses taken by vessels in going from the seaport to all the parts of the world with which it deals. Special maps have to be made of the most important of these foreign regions the pupils have to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the geography of the localities, their people, and their special products, and even their particular systems of book-keeping. The value of such a training for a clerk in a Marseilles house is evident. At Lyons, again, the pupils are turned out with such a knowledge of silkweaving that they are qualified to' take their places a* skilled mechanics in manufactories. With every thread of the warp'jand woof they are familiar by means of drawings increasing in complexity. In the actual processes of weaving they are thoroughly trained. Not only so, but they are taken to the manufactories, and there are taught to draw every part of the machines to scale, and from their rough notes make a perfect copy in school. Drawing rightly forms an important branch of education in all the schools ; and some of • the specimens of the pupils' work from the Roman schools—drawings of the various parts of churches, for example — are astonishing for for their beauty and accuracy. From one of the Alpine districts we have a complete herbarium of the Alps. From Paris, we believe are some handsome and beautifulspeciniens of cabinet^work,o£ musical instruments, telescopes, spirit-levels, and other instruments of precision. From New York we find boots and shoes, knitted work, baskets, rugs, and a variety of other useful articles, made by wajfa and strays picked up on the streets, and taken into a- school maintained for the special purpose. Hundreds of specimens of pupils work in all departments, and from all countries, are shown, including even beautiful writings and drawings from Egypt. Indeed, the precision and intelligence shown by the Brothers in adapting their education to the special circumstances of their pupils are unsurpassed. In America, for example, the boy who does not know shorthand, the Morse code, and the use of the Remington type-writer haa a poor chance of getting on in mercantile life ; so all these are taught in the Brothers' American School. They have, in short, long ago solved the problem of technical education. At the ordinary schools of the Brothers, the success of theix methods is shown by the fact that in public competitions their pupils carry off, as a rule^ a far greaterproportion of awards than those of any other class of schools. Theseare simply a few of the features that mark the system of education pursued by this remarkable Brotherhood. In these holiday timrs, when so many teachers from the provinces are visiting London, they could not do better than spend an hour or two in Room 5, making themselves acquainted with the leading peculiarities of the system, under the guidance of Brother Noah and his obliging confreres.