THE MARIST BROTHERS' NOVITIATE

New Zealand Tablet, 4 October 1917, Page 28

THE MARIST BROTHERS' NOVITIATE

{rroni our CJnnstchurch correspondent.) In connection with the centenary celebrations of the Marist Brothers, an appeal is being made in this diocese for funds to assist the Brothers in establishing a novitiate and house of studies in New Zealand. As New Zealand now forms a separate province of the Order, it must henceforth maintain its own supply of teachers. To do this a seminary or house of studies and a novitiate must be established. In the seminary are received boys from the age of twelve years upwards who evince a desire to devote themselves to the religious life in the Order of the Marist Brothers. .Here they receive a thorough religious and secular education. When the seminary course is completed, which is generally about the age of eighteen years, aspirants are admitted to the novitiate, where for a period of one year and six months they undergo a training in the religious life, according to the spirit and ends of the Order. To complete the whole system a scholasticate will be added where the novices will go through a course of pedagogics and will receive from one to two years' training in the theory and practice of teaching.