The Christian Brothers in Dunedin

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 17, 3 May 1923, Page 37

The Christian Brothers in Dunedin

(Contributed.) Shortly after his arrival in Dunedin Bishop Moran, recognising the great need of providing the Catholic boys of the city with sound religious education, applied to the Superior General of the Irish Christian Brothers for a community. Though the Superior had numerous urgent petitioners for Brothers from various localities, he was overcome by . the entreaties of the good Bishop, and in March, 1876, four Brothers, of whom Brother Fursey Bodkin was the Director, left Melbourne for Dunedin. When they reached Port Chalmers on the following Sunday, they were met by the Bishop himself and a number of influential Catholic laymen, and driven to Dunedin in buggies. A residence had been secured for them in a

very convenient and beautiful position, and here they were installed. Two classrooms were provided which were soon filled with industrious, intelligent children. The school has made steady progress ever since, and in the course of time the old school became inadequate for the increasing number of pupils. Consequently, in 1915, a beautiful up-to-date building was erected. This magnificent structure will stand as a memorial to the great zeal and organising power of the late esteemed Monsignor Coffey, as it was to him that Bishop Verdon entrusted the responsibility of bringing the undertaking to a successful issue. Monsignor Coffey also provided the Brothers with a splendid dwelling; the Brothers aver that it is the finest house they possess in the whole of Australasia. The Catholics of Dunedin may justly be proud of the Christian spirit which they have evinced in so charitably aiding their pastors in providing suitable equipment for the efficient training of the children on truly rational lines. It is close on fifty years now since the installation of the Brothers, and the boys taught by the pioneers of those distant days have weathered most of the storms of life. They “have fought the good fight (at least the majority of them); they have kept the faith.” They stand out as an example to the younger folk who are being taught by the successors of those worthy men. When Bishop Moran introduced the Christian Brothers to Dunedin he expected great things from them, .and rightly so. He knew of their origin; he was aware that they were founded in Ireland in “dark and evil days” to fight the battle of Christ when that poor land still groaned under the iniquitous Penal laws. He knew how they successfully combated the fiendish artifices used against the Irish children in order to deprive them of the love of Faith

and Fatherland; how they taught the Irish boys that they were inheritors of an ancient civilisation and that they had the blood, of martyrs in their veins, while the so-called National schools asked the. boy of Ireland “To thank the goodness and the grace that on his birth had smiled, And made him in enlightened days a happy English child.” The revered Bishop expected the Brothers to teach the Irish exiles’ child the same story that he possessed a faith which was handed down to him through centuries of persecution; that he was to estimate that faith as the dearest inheritance. He expected them to teach the child the history of the old land from which his fathers came, and that while loving his own dear land excessively he should place side by side with her in his affections the land of his fathers and be ready to help her in her hour of need. Now the expectations of Bishop Moran have not been unrealised, for from the Brothers’ School during the past fifty years a noble band of truly Christian men have gone forth to fight the battle of life. They have helped to disseminate Christian principles in this fair land. They are the salt of the earth. If there were no such men in this Dominion heaven only knows how much lower the standard of morality might be. The school numbers among its ex-pupils a Bishop, numerous priests and religious also professional men, and thousands in the humbler walks of life, all marked with the sign of high Christian ideals. - Though the school of the Brothers has adopted those exalted ideals, it has, too, held its own against other schools from every point of view. On the scholastic side it has been unsurpassed whether judged by the reports of the State Inspectors or by the number of pupils who have won scholarships and passed the various examinations. In the realm of snort it stands out conspicuously. The public schools fared so badly against it in open sports’ competition that, with all their sportsmanlike qualities, they withdrew from the arena of the Brothers’ boys and sought “ignoble ease” among themselves.