Jean-Baptiste de la Salle
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Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (John Baptist de La Salle) (April 30, 1651 in Reims – April 7, 1719 in Saint-Yon, Rouen) was a French teacher and educational reformer who spent his life teaching the children of the poor.
When he was just 16 years-old, he was appointed as canon of the Reims cathedral. He was ordained to the presbyterate at the age of 27. Two years later he received a doctorate in theology. He would later leave his position as canon priest at Reims and with his fortune, found a religious community devoted to teaching.
In 1684 La Salle founded a new order, the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, also known as the De La Salle Christian Brothers, the De La Salle Brothers, or, most commonly, the Christian Brothers, often confused with a different order of the same name founded by Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice of Ireland. The original members of the order were La Salle's assistants. The beginning of St La Salle's order is chronicled in the book Beyond the Boundaries.
La Salle was a pedagogical thinker of note and is among the founders of a distinctively modern pedagogy. In 1685 La Salle founded what is generally considered the first normal school — that is, a school whose purpose is to train teachers — in Rheims.
Currently, about 6,000 Brothers and 65,000 lay and religious colleagues worldwide serve as teachers, counsellors and guides to 800,000 students in over 1,000 educational institutions in 87 countries, carrying out the work of the founder into the 21st century.
He was canonized by Pope Leo XIII on May 24, 1900 and his feast is celebrated on May 15.
He is the patron saint of Christian teachers.
External link
- La Salle website (http://www.lasalle.org/)fr:Jean-Baptiste de la Salle