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Manuals
Conduct of Christian Schools
PREFACE
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It has been necessary to prepare this guide for Christian Schools so that all may be done uniformly in all the schools and in all the places where there are Brothers of this Institute and that the practices there will always be the same. People are so subject to laxity, and even to change, that they must have written rules to keep them within the limits of their duties and to prevent them from introducing something new or destroying what has been wisely established. This guide has been prepared and put in order (by the late M. De La Salle) only after a great number of conferences between him and the oldest Brothers of the Institute and those most capable of running a school well, and after several years of experience. Nothing has been added that has not been thoroughly deliberated and well tested, nothing of which the advantages and disadvantages have not been weighed and, as far as possible, of which the good or bad consequences have not been foreseen. The Brothers will, therefore, take great care to observe faithfully all that is therein prescribed, being persuaded that there will be order in the schools only to the extent that they are careful to omit nothing; and they will receive this guide as though it were given them by God through the instrumentality of their Superiors and the first Brothers of the Institute.
This book is divided into three parts. The first part treats of all the practices and everything else that is done in school from the opening until the closing hour. The second section sets forth the necessary and useful means of which the teachers should avail themselves in order to bring about and maintain order in the schools. The third part treats first, of the duties of the Inspector of Schools; second, of the care and diligence to be observed by the person training new teachers; third, of the qualities which the teachers should have or should acquire and of the conduct which they should maintain in order to acquit themselves well of their duties in the schools; and, fourth, of those things to be observed by the students. The third part will be only for the use of the Directors and those who are charged with the training of new teachers.1
The Directors of the Community Houses of the Institute and the Inspectors of Schools will apply themselves to learning well and knowing perfectly all that is contained in this book and will proceed in such a way that teachers observe exactly all the practices that are prescribed for them, even the least in order to procure by this means great order in the schools, a well- regulated and uniform conduct on the part of the teachers who will be in charge of them, and a very considerable benefit for the children who will be taught there. The teachers who will be working in the schools will read and often reread what in it is suitable for them, so that they will be ignorant of nothing contained in it and will become faithful to it in their practices.
[John Baptiste de La Salle]
1This third part is not contained in the 1720 edition from which this translation was made. However, it does appear partially in the 1706 manuscript (Appendix A) and in the Avignon Manuscript (Appendix C).
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