Jean-Baptiste de La Salle

Icon of St. John-Baptiste de La Salle by Brother William Woeger. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (; English: John Baptist de La Salle ; 30 April 1651 – 7 April 1719) was a French priest, educational reformer, and founder of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. He is a saint of the Catholic Church and the patron saint for teachers of youth.

La Salle dedicated much of his life to the education of poor children in France; in doing so, he started many lasting educational practices.

Background La Salle was born to a wealthy family in Reims, France, on 30 April 1651. He was the eldest child of Louis de La Salle and Nicolle Moet de Brouillet. Nicolle's family was a noble one and operated a successful winery business; she was a relative of Claude Moët, founder of Moët & Chandon.

La Salle was tonsured at age eleven on 11 March 1662, He was named canon of Reims Cathedral when he was sixteen, and at seventeen received minor orders. Two years later he received a doctorate in theology.

Sisters of the Child Jesus

The Sisters of the Child Jesus were a new religious congregation whose work was the care of the sick and education of poor girls. The young priest helped them become established and then served as their chaplain and confessor. It was through his work with the Sisters that in 1679 he met the schoolmaster Adrian Nyel. With De La Salle's help, a school was soon opened. Shortly thereafter, a wealthy woman in Reims told Nyel that she also would endow a school, but only if La Salle would help. What began as an effort to help Adrian Nyel establish a school for the poor in La Salle's home town gradually became his life's work.

Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools

At that time, most children had little hope for social and economic advancement. Moved by the plight of the poor who seemed so "far from salvation" either in this world or the next, he determined to put his own talents and advanced education at the service of the children "often left to themselves and badly brought up".

La Salle decided to resign his canonry to devote his full attention to the establishment of schools and training of teachers. The priesthood primarily required him to focus on the sacraments and he needed to give full devotion to education, even in his free time to connect with students. He had inherited a considerable fortune, which he could have been used to further his aims, but on the advice of a Father Barre of Paris, he sold what he had and sent the money to the poor of the province of Champagne, where a famine was causing great hardship.

La Salle thereby began a new religious institute, the first one with no priests whatsoever among its members: the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools,

La Salle's enterprise met with opposition from ecclesiastical authorities who resisted the creation of a new form of religious life, a community of consecrated laymen to conduct free schools "together and by association". The educational establishment resented his innovative methods.

In 1685 La Salle founded what is generally considered the first normal school, a school whose purpose is to train teachers, in Reims.

Worn out by austerity and exhausting labour, La Salle died at Saint Yon, near Rouen, on Good Friday 1719.

Veneration

Pope Leo XIII canonized La Salle on 24 May 1900 and Pope Pius X inserted his feast in the General Roman Calendar in 1904 for celebration on 15 May. Because of his life and inspirational writings, Pope Pius XII proclaimed him Patron Saint of All Teachers of Youth on 15 May 1950.

The Lasallian schools form a 300-year-old network following La Salle's principles. Many schools are named after La Salle, and several streets, often near a Lasallian School, are named after him.

In 2021 the International Lasallian Mission website stated that the Lasallian order consists of about 3,000 Brothers, who help in running over 1,100 education centers in over 80 countries with more than a million students, together with at least 90,000 teachers and lay associates.

Asteroid 3002 Delasalle was discovered in 1982 and was named after De La Salle.