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Brothers of the Christian schools

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Cesare Mariani (Rome, 1826-1901). The school. (Detail). This picture was painted for the occasion of the Beatification of Venerable John Baptist de La Salle (February 19th 1888) and was donated to Pope Leon XIII. It is now propertyy of the Vatican museums

Founded in France towards the end of the 17th century, the community of the Brothers of the Christian schools specializes in teaching poor boys in the cities. Strongly shaken up by the French revolution, it rose again at the beginning of the 19th century through the stream of the religious renewal and expanded over the five continents. From its very beginning in France, the community had produced text books. Due to his founder, John Baptist de La Salle, a canon from Rheims, Les Devoirs d’un chrétien became 150 years later a best-seller in Quebec where it was used as a reading book.

Until the end of the 19th century, the congregation had produced hundreds of textbooks in France, but entrusted their publications to well known publishers such as Alfred Mame of Tours, or Poussielgue Rusand of Paris. The contracts with those publishers allowed the latter the production and diffusion of the books on the national territory, but left to the community the possibility of publishing and selling whatever it wished outside of France. In the 20th century, it gradually entered the market by creating successively two firms under its control, first la Société générale d’édition, secondly and more particularly Ligel (Librairie générale de l’enseignement libre) which will hold an important place in the French publishing picture for several decades, especially after the end of the second world war.

See Paul Aubin, "La pénétration des manuels scolaires de France au Québec Un cas type: Les Frères des Écoles chrétiennes, XIXe XXe siècles", Histoire de l’éducation, 85 (janv. 2000): 3 24

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