8. Marcellin Champagnat Marcellin Champagnat was a man on fire! This is why he was the first of the Marist aspirants to take action to realize the Marist dream. In his youth Marcellin Champagnat had a difficult time with schooling. The French Revolution promoted education for all children, but this meant staffing myriad schools, and there weren’t enough qualified and dedicated teachers. Many rural villages had only one teacher for a one-room schoolhouse, and often the teacher was incompetent, mean, even a drunkard. That was Champagnat’s experience—on his first day in school, the teacher struck one of the other children. This shocked Marcellin and he refused to return to school. Thus his formal education was minimal, and when he responded to a call to the priesthood, he had great difficulties with the studies. Another incident during his youth further convinced him of the evil effects of poor pedagogy. While preparing for his first Communion, Marcellin witnessed how the priest, exasperated by an unruly pupil in the class, called him a belittling name that his fellow pupils picked up and used to bully him; this ill treatment seriously scarred this child. These experiences were seared into Marcellin’s memory, and convinced him of the need for well-trained, dedicated teachers who would love and respect the children and prepare them for the challenges of life in this world as well as set them on the path of faith toward eternal life. The foundation of a community of brothers whom he could train to educate children, especially in rural areas where good teachers were scarce, became the dominant passion in Champagnat’s life. Thus when he was invited to be part of the Marist project, Champagnat eagerly accepted, but insisted that besides branches of the Society for priests, sisters, and lay people, there needed to be a branch for teaching brothers as well. The Marist group agreed, and charged Champagnat to spearhead that part of the project. And when assigned as a newly ordained priest to the rural parish in the town of La Valla, he wasted no time. By January 2, 1817, less than six months after the signing of the Fourvière Pledge, Champagnat had recruited two young men and had purchased a house for them, and thus began the foundation of the “Little Brothers of Mary” who evolved into the Marist Teaching Brothers of today, the largest and most widespread of the Marist religious congregations. As the numbers of recruits grew, Champagant saw the need for a larger building to serve as a training center and mission base. With the help of Courveille, he purchased a plot of land, rolled up his sleeves, and helped the hired stonemasons build a five story building that