Signs of Faith - Winter 2000 - Brother Visitor's Letter

John Baptist de La Salle:
The Educator and Visionary

Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the declaration that John Baptist de La Salle is the Patron of All Teachers of Youth

People of Influence

De La Salle's Written Works

The Gardens, Vaugirard,
Map of Schools at De La Salle's Death

Examples of De La Salle's Writing

De La Salle's Gardens

John Baptist de La Salle maintained a deep appreciation for the restorative power of gardens. His father had rented a garden for the family to use, and De La Salle himself would find gardens for the Brothers to use for prayer and relaxation, if their house did not have a garden attached to it. In one letter De La Salle writes about a Bishop's request, "He wants to install us in the house of Saint Vincent's, which will be quite inconvenient, since it has neither courtyard nor garden." He realized through his own experience that gardens were a privileged means of restoring one's capacity for the difficult work that the Brothers did each day in the school.

This engraving shows the country house of Vaugirard
on the outskirts of Paris, which became the second
cradle of the Institute. The Founder himself lived
there from 1691 to 1698.

The Brother's Schools at the time of De La Salle's death

De La Salle and the Brothers were devoted to the work of educating the poor and the working class, but they did not become attached to buildings or places or even specific schools. During the forty years that De La Salle was involved in this enterprise, some 60 schools were established or taken on. By the end of his life, 37 of these schools were still being run by the Brothers. Most of the schools the Brothers operated were schools they had taken over from others, not schools they had started from scratch. De La Salle's genius lay in organizing the schools, training and supervising teachers, and adapting various educational methodologies, thereby generally doing well what was being done poorly by others.

Editor's Letter | Brother Visitor's Letter | John Baptist de La Salle: His Life and Times
John Baptist de La Salle: The Educator and Visionary | John Baptist de La Salle: A Saint For Teachers
General Chapter | The District Today