In the Antilles, the Brothers, at once government teachers and catechists, gathered together negroes of every age after school, or rode on horseback through the sugar-cane plantations to evangelize the natives. In 1848, when the emancipation of the slaves was proclaimed, the colonial authorities called upon the Brothers to quell the uprising and avert the massacre of the whites. At the death of the founder (1860), the Institute numbered more than a thousand religious; it currently comprises 2,044 professed members and novices, 615 postulants, 260 elementary, secondary, agricultural, and technical schools, attended by 57,000 pupils. The successors of the Venerable de La Mennais faced enormous difficulties in extending the work to a considerable number of countries: Haiti (1864), Canadà (1886), United States, Spain, Egypt, England (1903), Italy (1921), Uganda (1926), Argentina (1933). On 13 March 1891, the Brothers of Ploërmel were canonically recognized by the Holy See, and on 1 March 1910 their constitutions were definitively approved by Pius X.
FRAT. DELL'ISTR. CRIST. DI PLOËRMEL - FRATELLI DI GESÙ
Sovereignia de l'Institut de Ploërmel, Vannes 1905; R. P. Lavellie, Le Prêtre Cyprien, Paris 1910; Institut des Prêtres de l'Instruction chrétienne de P., there 1923; J. Cavalcau, Les idées pédagogiques du vin, Jean-Marie Robert de La Manant, there 1929.