**JOHN BAPTIST DE LA SALLE, Saint** – Born into a family of magistrates on 30 April 1651 in Reims, he died in Rouen on 7 April 1719. His youth unfolded in the serene and honorable climate of his society. He attended the Sorbonne and the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris and was ordained a priest in April 1678.
In his native city, in August 1678, he took up and defended the work of Canon Roland: he insisted that the community of the Sisters of the Child Jesus be recognized as a female congregation without solemn vows (the archbishop obtained the papal brief in April 1679, though he did not place the Saint at the head of the community). This first trial reveals his organizational skill, which he would demonstrate more clearly in the education of youth.
The first school of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools can be considered that opened in April 1679 in Reims in the Saint-Maurice district. The example (even though the Saint soon withdrew) bore fruit: the pious lady Lévêque de Croyère called upon the Saint, offering him an annual stipend to maintain two teachers and found a new school in the Saint-Jacques district. In his humility, the Saint wished to leave the task of education to Adrien Nyl, but he had to return to his labor as an educator due to Nyl’s weak organizational abilities. On 24 June 1682, the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools was born; its spread was immediate.
**Pedagogy.** – The Saint’s principal pedagogical work is *Conduite des écoles chrétiennes* (Avignon, 1720), in which he sets out in three parts the rules concerning school exercises, discipline, and the formation of the teacher. The extraordinary merit recognized in him in the pedagogical field stems both from the timely institutions he founded and from the new or renewed and perfected methods he introduced into teaching.
As regards institutions, he is credited with: 1) free primary schools, for which he presented a kind of "charter" where the entire plan is perfectly defined in its essential part and its developments. Thus, he resolved the age-old problem of popular schools, which had fallen into very low esteem due to disorder, the lack of teacher selection, the absence of any method, and the scarcity of those willing to commit themselves to the teaching profession. 2) Seminaries for the formation of rural teachers, a kind of normal school, the first of its kind, with an attached school where students completed their training under the guidance of an experienced Brother. 3) The technical institute of Saint-Yvon (Paris) to meet the need for predominantly technical and scientific instruction, leaving aside Latin and Greek, whereas up to that time classical instruction had prevailed. 4) Professional schools to prepare future merchants and artisans for their trades. 5) Sunday schools for adults, which were to satisfy the desire for culture even among workers, who during the week were occupied by their labor.
As regards methods: 1) He radically altered the widespread practice by which children learned the first notions of various subjects through the Latin language; this had to cease, since the first notions were to be taught and learned in the easier, more comprehensible, and more familiar maternal language. For this reason, he composed his primers, catechisms, grammar manuals, arithmetic texts, books on etiquette, and religious works in French. For those times, the gesture—now so natural and comprehensible—smacked of revolutionary boldness. 2) He replaced the still prevalent practice of individual instruction, which aimed to instruct each pupil separately while keeping them all together in the same classroom, with the simultaneous method already used by reforming pedagogues: all the pupils in a class were to have the same textbook and follow the lesson under the guidance of the same teacher.
As regards the formation of teachers, the Saint wanted them to be full of enthusiasm and deeply conscious of their mission, which entailed devoting themselves entirely to the successful education of their pupils by carefully preparing each lesson and correcting work diligently. This is the secret of the excellent reputation enjoyed by the institutions directed by the Brothers of the Christian Schools: they possess men wholly dedicated to the educational purpose and ever advancing in the study of their subject. The same Saint outlines the twelve virtues that form the type of the perfect educator: gravity, silence, discretion, prudence, wisdom, patience, reserve, kindness, zeal, vigilance, piety, and generosity.
Finally, as regards the formation of pupils, he first demanded religious instruction (prescribing half an hour daily); then strict discipline, to be achieved by preventing faults and laziness through a spirit of healthy emulation, solemn rewards, and small prizes. Repressive measures were to be used only when the first methods proved insufficient, and even then gradually: warning, reprimand, punishment. Naturally, complete impartiality was to be maintained, and it was to be shown that everything was done for the pupil’s good.
For all these reasons, the Saint can justly be considered the great reformer of the school and of discipline in a fully Catholic sense.
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