c) An example of his power to dispense Charity.

d) Education.

c) An example of his Power to dispense Charity:

   A person that Edmund befriended was an Italian, Carlo Bianconi, whom he met drenched wet in a street one day selling pictures and with one English word - 'BUY'.

   Edmund helped and educated him in Mount Sion. In time, Bianconi developed his stagecoach business, which prospered.

  Bianconi, over the years, expressed his gratitude in two ways:

   1. The brothers travelled free on his services.

   2. £50 and 20 suits turned up every year for the Brothers in Mt. Sion.

d) Education:

   In the way Edmund Rice considered education, he has been considered unique and his method became an example for many.

   Edmund Rice saw in every boy a soul; a unique individual and he wished each to grow in knowledge and virtue.

   While England was against educating the lower classes, Edmund consciously, against the grain of the time, went to teach Catholic poor boys. They showed a reported eagerness to learn.

  His Education System was such that

1) there was ongoing testing and an examination system with prize giving ceremonies;

2) there was supervision of work;

3) individual attention was given using a system of monitors - It was not unusual in the early days to have one Brother teaching two hundred pupils in one class !;

4) there were timetables to develop 'habits of industry and avoid a waste of time';

5) kindness and sympathy was shown to pupils;

6) corporal punishment was rarely used - Br. Rice preferred parents to deal with this;

7) each school developed lending Library facilities, again using monitors to run them;

8) a knowledge and practice of the Catholic Religion, with moral instruction included, was developed formally. A good example of the latter has often been quoted:

"There was a clock in every room, the better to regulate the time; when it struck, silence was observed all over the school, every boy blessed himself, said the Hail Mary and made some pious aspirations, which continued about a minute, when they blessed themselves again and resumed their business."

  At a time, when the political system was trying to destroy Catholicism, Br. Rice's voice was raised in opposition. In 1829, John Newport, the Protestant M.P. for Waterford, wrote to Lord Melbourne extolling the praises of the system as devised by Br. Rice in producing better youth for the City. The letter was countersigned by the Mayor and 67 residents of the city including the Sheriffs and Aldermen.

  Due to the background of many of the pupils, Br. Rice addressed some ancillary aspects of education.

   Writing materials and books were supplied free. In Waterford, where many of the pupils were hungry, bread was baked in the Bake House he built and then distributed. This example was followed in other schools founded by the Brothers.

   Waterford pupils also had a problem with clothes. So Br. Rice developed a tailor's workshop above the Bake House. He provided clothes made in such a manner that they would blend with the clothes the other students wore and not put any distinguishing marks that would separate them from the other pupils. Again, in some of the schools developed in Dublin, the providing of clothes by the Brothers to pupils was necessary.

   It is believed that many of the aspects of the educational system developed by Br. Rice have played a significant part in the way our society has developed.

Finished

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