Brothers in the Christian Schools and Sisters of the Christian Schools

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 23, 24 June 1925, Page 57

Brothers in the Christian Schools and Sisters of the Christian Schools

&& U&* (For the N.Z. -Tablet by Rev. Brother Paul)

lOn May 24,. 1925, Pope Pius XI canonised St. Mario Posted ' Foundress of the Sisters of 'the Christian Schools. On the same date twenty-five years before, Pope Leo XIII had canonised St. J. B. De La Salle, Founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. This latter Saint was born in llheims in 1651. He studied at Paris,' where he became Doctor of the Sorbonne. 1 Ordained priest in 3678, lie promptly took up the cause of Christian education. He established free schools at Rheims, and founded the Congregation of the Brothers to look after them. The perfecting and the extending of the schools engaged his attention till his saintly death in 171 He swept away the faulty methods then in vogue and substituted the saner methods which his Brothers still employ, and which have been copied by all the Governments of Europe, lie was the first to establish a college for the training of secular schoolmasters. He is recognised as the greatest educationalist of his time, and perhaps of all time. When Mr. Taft was President of the .United States, he gave it as his opinion thai no educators had ever risen to the heights attained by .1. B. De La Salle. His Brothers, now popularly known as De La Salle Brothers, are to be found in every clime from the Equator to the Poles. Education in all its phases is their work. They have been justly praised by men of light and leading in Church and State,—by some even L who love not our holy religion. M. Constans, N one time Minister for the Interior (France), said: "The Brothers are the indefatigable pioneers of civilisation." M. Gustave Lebon —no friend of Catholicity surelywrites in his Psychologic de VEducation: "The first thing we have to do, if we would compete with the Brothers, is to study their methods. We may differ from them in religious opinions, but we ought to be fair-minded enough to recognise their superiority, especially when the conviction of it is brought home to us with such crushing force. I don't think anyone pan accuse me of clericalism, but I candidly avow that if I were Minister of Public Instruction, my first move would be to appoint to the Directorship of Education (both primary and secondary) the SuperiorGeneral of the Brothers." - :■.= "! :An Anglican Bishop said: "That for which we owe the deepest debt of gratitude to France is that it has sent us the Brothers." And King Edward VII : ■"I consider the Brothers the best educators of my people." > St. John B. Vianney, Cure of Ars.said: "If I were not a priest I should like * — to be ; a Brother,, of the Christian- Schools"; J and ,of the.young men who asked his advice as to the state of life they should embrace, he sent no less than sixty to the Novitiate of the Brothers. ;' '*''.■■ ;W?-:lo il/h PgPope Leo * XIII, addressing the ißrothers in the person of their Superior-General, said "v "Because<of * the ministry »you; exercise in the Church, I place you in the first rank;

—not as simple soldiers, but as valiant captains in the army of Jesus Christ."| Pope Pius X proclaimed the Brothers "the Apostles of the Catechism," and our present Holy Father, Pope Pius XI, has recently written to the Superior-General of the Brothers, congratulating him on "the Eminent place which the Institute occupies in the Church, and on the important services it has rendered to religion and to education. The De La Salle Brothers have been in Australia for some years. They conduct three colleges and three primary schools in the Commonwealth, all of which are very successful. At Cootamundra in New South Wales, they have a Novitiate for the training of young Australians and New Zealanders. Attached to the Novitiate is a JiTniorate for hoys of thirteen years and upwards, who wish to become Brothers. St. Marie Posted flourished a century Inter than St. Do La Salle. Her life resembles his in almost every particular. She founded schools for poor girls and induced some charitable young women to take charge of them. Gradually she formed these teachers into a Congregation of Sisters. She gave them a Rule copied ill large part from thai of St. IV La Salle. These "Sisters of the Christian Schools" are still carrying on their noble work in France, Italy, England, and several European countries, where they conduct hospitals as well as schools; and, like the Brothers, they have deserved well of Church and State. **