Sunday, May 12 Monday, „ 13 Third Sunday after Easter.
St. Robert Bellarmine, Archbishop Doctor of the Church.
Tuesday, „ 14 Of the Octave of St. Joseph. Wednesday, „ 15 Octave Day of St. Joseph. Thursday, „ 16 St. Ubakl, Bishop of Gubbio. Friday, „ 17 St. Pascal Baylon. Saturday, „ 18 St. Venantius, Martyr. Or the 13th, St. Erkenvvald, Bishop of London, arid on St. Simon Stock are celebrated in some English dioceses, ST. JOHN BAPTIST DE LA SALLE is a foremost figure in the history of education. He was born at Rheims in 1651, of a good family, proceeded M.A., at a local college, and soon after receiving minor orders was promoted to a canonry in the metropolitan chapter, being then only sixteen years old. I-le was ordained priest in 1678.
The great work of de la Salle's life was the founding of the teaching congregation of Brothers of the Chrietian Schools, Nvhich had its remote origin in two free elementary schools that he helped to establish at Rheims the year after lie was ordained. But it was not till four years later that he resigned his canonry and devoted himself entirely to education.
De la Salle was the first to Sec that the time had conic for an institute of teaceing brothers wIlo should not be priests, and for thirty-five years the new organization suffered the greatest difficulties and set-backs; at the end of
that time it looked as if it could not survive. But in 1717 the work was got on to a firm basis, and in 1725, six years after the founder's death, it was approved by Pope Benedict XIII.
The Brothers of the Christian Schools to-day have over 1,000 houses, with over 12,000 brothers teaching 300,000 pupils in all parts of the world.
De la Salle was among the most enlightened educators of his time, a leader among school-teachers of all times, and a father of modern teaching methods. "What St. Peter Fourier touched, what Kotricasky and Mgr. de Nesniond and Charles Demia had glimnierings of, that did de la Salle realize": even Matthew Arnold could not withhold praise from the saint's handbook of Method.
St. John Baptist de la Salle died at Saint-Yon on April -7, 1719, and was canonized in 1900.
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