Boarding Schools, Lasallian Style

Rouen, in early 1700’s, was a “great, ugly, stinking, close and ill-built town, full of nothing but dirt and industry”, according to an English visitor. This city, the capital of Normandy and largest town after Paris, at 100,000,  became the centre and true cradle of the Lasallian enterprise. In 1705, M. de La Salle started the first Institute boarding school there on a 10-acre property, called St Yon.

St Yon – Quiet Centre in a Bustling Mission

With the continuing opposition of important clerics and the Writing Masters in Paris, the Founder de-camped to Rouen, with all the Brothers after 18 years of mission. Brothers were already working there in four charity schools, and he negotiated a favorable lease on the St Yon property, across the Seine river. “It was a beautiful and extensive property, removed from the noise and squalor of the industrial part of Rouen” (Battersby), with a large comfortable house, spacious gardens, and bucolic surrounds. De La Salle loved the calm, and it was a perfect site for the novices, transferred from Paris, as well as respite for tired Brothers and for spiritual retreats.

The Founder, Answering Needs of Broader Education & ‘Reform’

Canon Blain in his magisterial history says that the Founder “was asked to accept a number of youths of the town…as boarders, to instruct and train them to piety.” The innovation was that these were not the peasantry, but sons of the growing well-to-do commercial class, who could pay fees, but according to their means. This was radically different to the selective colleges teaching the classics; the experiment in secondary education incorporated draughtsmanship, geometry and architecture, and later banking and military science. Parents were consulted, says Calcutt, on their choice of subjects. Several authors call De La Salle an innovator, and “a forerunner of the secondary modern school” (Curtis, after Battersby) .

De La Salle was astute, as well as practical and compassionate. He agreed to take in youths with character or anti-social issues ,whose parents could pay for hoped-for behavioural change. Separate to the boarders, these unruly youth in ‘the house of correction’ were strictly managed and, with improvement, control was relaxed. With the success of this venture , the President of Rouen asked the Founder to take on detainees committed by the courts. Thus, the model for future “Boystowns,” as well as important financial contributions for the Novitiate, and supplementing the inadequate stipends of the Brothers in the free city schools.

Luke Salm also mentions: “It was an occasional source of merriment for the neighbours to see the Brothers chasing after an escaped prisoner in the dead of night; needless to say, the popular tendency was to cheer for the escapee.”

District Boarding Schools Today

Today, there are up to 200 boarding schools in Australia, mostly in independent religious schools. A Lasallian hostel in Perth is administered by La Salle Middle Swan, with c. 25 boarders. For many years, indigenous students, wanting higher secondary qualifications from Wirrimanu community, Balgo Hills. have boarded there. This need has catered also for students from other remote Western Australian communities.  Most of these indigenous students have English as a second language and are accustomed to living in small communities or towns. 

Lasallian Volunteers work alongside Aboriginal students as teacher aides and attend classes.  LVs live close to the Boarding Hostel, supporting these students after school with homework, and on weekends attending outings, as well as playing sport or games. They also prepare and lead boarding house liturgies and participate in retreat programs at the direction of the school, learning about mission and community living. 

Francis Douglas Memorial College in New Plymouth, New Zealand Aotearoa is an Associated District school that has resident students also. Thomas Kalin, Director of Boarding  at La Salle House has 95 charges from Years 7 to 13, aged 11 to18. These boys come from farming stock of the Taranaki region. Their daily program is built around a healthy balance of school lessons, some free times, transport-provided for off-site appointments, tutoring and sporting commitments. A solid component is 1.5 -2 hours for formal study, and 2 periods of optional study time in the College library are part of the program. The numerous staff includes supervisors, kitchen personnel, cleaners, and some GAP students from the U.K. Functioning with Brothers from 1959, the hostel – from 2009 – is completely lay-run, under the final authority of the Principal, Tim Stuck.

In Pakistan, the Brothers St Joseph’s English High School Gujranwala, provides boarding for 44 boys, 9 to 17 years of age. Br Peter Abraham, in charge, says:

“The reasons for our boarders coming to live …(in the hostel) are varied and complex. Many of our students come from challenging home environments, including broken families, single-parent households, and situations where parents are facing difficulties in their own communities or villages. Some parents also seek our boarding facilities due to concerns about the local school system, including religious discrimination. In many cases, parents feel that our boarding environment provides a safer, more supportive, and inclusive space for their children to grow and thrive.”

There are several staff, including Br Nabeel Pius, Assistant, Mr Benjimen and Asad, the two full-time Wardens, and Brs Qulb-e-Noor and Moon Shahzad who offer study assistance. Well-known in the Christian community since 1968, the hostel was run by various priests and Brothers, for disadvantaged youth in rural areas; in 2020 the De La Salle Brothers took it over with the high school, providing 3 meals a day, books, plenty of study!, uniforms, shoes, and school fees, as well as medical attention when needed. The clientele is largely still for very disadvantaged boys.

Former Lasallian Boarding Schools – Australia

De La Salle Armidale began in 1905 as a day and boarding college. By 1907, boarders numbered 31; two years later there were 51 resident students. As the founding Bishop O’Connor said :“The Brothers …are dearly loved by their boys, who are carefully cared for and trained.”

In the boarding schools, younger Brothers were especially depended upon. There were no lay-employed hostel masters until the 1990’s.  As well as teaching and their rigorous religious duties, there were needs to supervise meals, supervise after-school sport, and conduct evening study, all before bedtime and their lesson preparations. While an exhausting apostolate, its rewards came in the close understanding developed between boarders and Brothers, the former often being easy-going country youth. They also embodied the spirit of the colleges.

Oakhill College began in 1936, as a boarding school, with up to 40 in 1941  . DLS Cronulla, begun the same year, had 40 boarders in a total of 98 pupils in 1941.  DLS Malvern’s boarders became the nucleus of St Bede’s College in 1938; it had over 100 in its hostel by 1946 , and right up to the 1970’s.

St Bernard’s Katoomba housed 40 senior Oakhill boarders from 1942 (of a total of 103), with the possible requisition of the facilities of Oakhill. DLS Scarborough, founded in 1955, took in 40 boarders initially in 1959. That year Francis Douglas Memorial College New Plymouth opened with a hostel component.

The Wider District – Papua New Guinea

The Lasallian mission schools began with boarding at Bomana in 1946-7, before relocation of the intended young catechists to Yule Island. From 1964, De La Salle Mainohana took in boy boarders from the villages; later the boarding was for girls too, with the presence of the Sisters. The return to Bomana in 1964 saw the re-start of boarding with 200 students resident by the early 1970’s. The Rosary High School Kondiu continued the boarding of the pre-Brothers’ years in 1969. Brothers have not been involved with boarders in PNG for many years now, but Mainohana and Kondiu still take many resident students.

Historical Downturn & Closures

By the mid-1970’s, a confluence of factors resulted in the closure of most Brothers’ boarding departments in Australia. For the Brothers, a desire to engage in apostolates for the very marginalised was an Institute imperative; this required personnel.  Contraction came with the concomitant demand to rationalize - with an ageing cohort,  fewer vocations and, possibly in hindsight, an overreach to help resource Catholic education.

In Australian education generally, state funding of high schools in major country centres, subsidizing of country school transport, and less intense commitment of Catholic parents to a Catholic education for their children, all worked against maintenance of boarding numbers. Other disincentives were the rising costs to board, and the demand by college administrators to lift fees for more modern facilities.

The Lasallian values of close nurturing relationships, promoting the Christian life and concern for a quality, holistic education, were now being instilled in city / big town colleges.

Source: Br Gary Wilson FSC