Page 129 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

108 YEAR oF REvoLUTToNS

training, would be devoted to acquiring knowledge to-
gether with facility in imparting it to others. The last
half of the fourth year would be spent in practice-teach-
ing in England." These young men would be permitted
to pronounce the vows of religion when the Superior,
T. J. Ryken, felt satisfied that their dispositions were
in accordance with the objects of the Society.
Two weeks later on July l7th Brother Ryken man-
aged to find time to report to Father Van Beek, who
was always interested in his friend's newest ideas: "I
took care to send the document to London, convinced
that on the occasion of the consecration of the big
church in London all the bishops would be there and
that they would study my proposals. I will now await
the outcome."
In the light of knowing what the bishops subsequently
did, T. J. Ryken, as he signed himself, was not as guile-
less and naive as he would at first appear to be in expect-
ing these gentlemen to act as recruiters for his Brother-
hood. Somehow he had found out what they had in
mind.
To supplement the work of the Brothers of the Chris-
tian Schools, Abbe Jean-Marie Lamennais had founded
in 1822 at Ploermel in Brittany his Brothers of Christian
Instruction. For the De la Salle Brothers the minimum
community was three, but the Lamennais Brothers
would be permitted, if circumstances demanded it, to
send one Brother to take charge of a school in an isolated
village in Brittany. Ryken had elected to follow the
De la Salle Brothers. In theory the Lamennais idea
seemed more practical for England where many of the
existing Catholic schools had only one teacher.
On Christmas Eve, 1848, while Brother Ryken was
still waiting for word, five young Englishmen arrived
in Ploermel prepared to enter the novitiate of the Broth-