La Salle Academy - La Sallite Yearbook (New York, NY)

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The thoughtful man, who knows in his heart that such turning to God is the crying need of our world, can truly evaluate the measure of the Brothers' influence as it has radiated into every quarter of the globe and permeated through every strata of society, through the lives and the works of the boys trained by them to ome effective citizens of the world, while remaining simple children of bec their Creator. Nor is it a matter of surprise to the thoughtful man that today sixteen hundred Brothers carry on where a hundred years ago four began, and that five colleges, scattered from Coast to Coast - from my beloved Alma Mater, Manhattan, in New York, to St. Mary's, of the Moraga Valley, in California, cap the educational efforts of the Brothers in America, while zealous, unsung labors in more than eighty parochial and secondary schools constitute the rock upon which their work is safely builded. . During the Franco-Prussian War, a famous French general, commenting upon the work of the Christian Brothers, then engaged because of the times - not in the task of teaching, but in merciful labors for the wounded and the dying, said Certainly, the Brothers deserve well of the people. This is as true of the teaching labors of the Brothers as it is of their works of mercy, as true in America today as it was in France then. Therefore, it is quite in accord with the eternal fitness of things that tonight you who constitute this vast assemblage gather to honor the Christian Brothers, and that the foremost representatives of City, of State, of Nation and of Church proclaim, as they so eloquently will, the debt of gratitude which the people, irrespective of race, creed or color, owe to these humble, simple, sincere, self-sacrificing men who have wrought so gloriously for God, for Church and for Country. But how much greater is the debt of those for whom I am privileged to speak, we who bear the accolade Brothers' Boy. Brothers' Boy, at once the mark of a sound education and a bond of affection between a boy and a man. And as that education withstands so well the demands of life, that bond grows and strengthens, so that the man of sixty is just as proud as the lad of twelve to be called a Brothers' Boy. Brothers' Boys! One can see them all, stretching back through all the hun- dred years -- rank upon serried-rank - like the dream of Mr. Chips: Hayes and Mundeleing Cohalan, Dowling, Lavelle, Cotter, Cotillo, Ferrer, Ridder, Smith, Sullivan, Stapleton, McEntegart, McGoldrick - a mighty host - marching, ever marching - under the Banner of the Brothers. Cardinal Hayes stating: Dear old Manhattan, how I love her, and, Oh! How I love to honor my old teachers, the Christian Brothers. Al Smith saying: I never forget all I owe to Brother Baldwin of old St. James. Al1'of them proclaiming - constantly proclaiming - their debt and their devotion. So, Very Reverend Assistant Superior General, on behalf of all these boys, I gladly proclaim in the presence of this vast assemblage the immeasurable debt we owe to your Brothers - our teachers and our friends. I offer through you to them our congratulations upon this great jubilee, and our pledge of continued loyalty. I pray God that we may catch and hold some of their flaming fervor, and so forever keep unsullied that title of true nobility which belongs to all of us who have come under the teaching influence of the Christian Brothers- Brothers' Boy. 1948 17

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1848 , 16 The Brothers' Boys Congratulate the Brothers Address of JOHN F. BROSNAN at of the Christian Brothers in the United States Metropolitan Opera House, April 19, 1948 Mr. John Brosnan. May it please your Eminence, Mr. Chairman, Your Excellencies and the other dis- tinguished guests of the Christian Brothers, Very Reverend Assistant Superior General and Brothers, Ladies and Gentlemen: In 1938, at the Convocation commemorating the Diamond Jubilee of Manhattan College, Father Gannon, the speaker of the occasion, began one of his inimitable addresses by telling us that in 1848 four Christian Brothers from France landed in New York to open a school on Canal Street, that the next day one of the news- papers carried a cartoon showing the four Brothers standing at the waterside weeping copious tears while a sailing vessel receded toward a distant France, and that the cartoon bore the caption The Jesuits Lament for Their Native Land. But it was not long before the Christian Brothers made their name and their fame known not only in Little Old New York but throughout the length and the breadth of America. Perhaps this was due to their wholehearted devotion to their one vocation - teaching. Certainly, it owed much to their unselfish labors among the poor. Clearly, it marked the blessing of God upon their extraordinary self-sacrifices. De La Salle, their founder, hailed by the Church as a Saint, and acclaimed by the learned as one of the great educators of all time, laid down for the sons who would bear his name and carry on his work precise rules for the conduct of their lives and their labors. Bearing the imprint of the Divine tire which flamed so steadily in his pure and humble heart, they meet and satisfy today, in modern America, every test just as they did when formulated by him in France in the Seventeenth Century. Following such basic pattern, the education which the Christian Brothers impart rests not on the triangular base of the three R's, but upon the more realistic and sounder four-square foundation of Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmetic and Religion. This turning to God is the very core of their educational system - constantly renewed in the daily dedication which they make of their persons, their pupils, their communities, their houses of foundation and their entire Congregation. The Civic Reception Marking the Centenary of the Work

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1848 1948 Brother Paul, Principal and John Carolan, President of Student Council. The DE LA SALLE student body participat- ing in a great manifestation of faith-The St. Patrick's Day Parade. 18