by Herbert Janson, SM
276 pgs.
[This work was published by the Marianist Forum and is available through NACMS.]
This book features the religious life and ministry of a special Marianist. In addition, the history of the Society of Mary as it struggled against anticlericalism in France and in Germany during Brother Charles Biehler’s lifetime is presented in detail. These various events had a direct bearing on Marianist education in the United States.
That Brother Charles Biehler, SM, is a Marianist mathematics genius who needs to be acknowledged, is sufficient reason for publishing his life. However, there are two other equally significant reasons for this work.
First, Brother Charles Biehler’s teaching ministry extends back through fellow Marianist Father Jean B. Lalanne to the very foundation of the Society of Mary by Father William Joseph Chaminade. Father Lalanne, one of the seven original members of the Society of Mary, recognized Brother Biehler’s outstanding mathematical talent and brought him to teach at Collège Stanislas. There Brother Biehler’s teaching genius flowered and was recognized by his students, and Brother Biehler’s original mathematical ideas were recognized by the mathematicians of France and Europe, particularly by Charles Hermite.
Second, Brother Charles Biehler’s teaching ministry extends forward to the present day in the great Marianist schools of the United States. Father Jean B. Lalanne, seen by many in education as the French Cardinal Newman, raised Collège Stanislas to a prestigious position in all France. He did this by recruiting outstanding Marianist teachers to exercise their teaching apostolate there. Then, in 1903, when the Marianist presence at Collège Stanislas was proscribed by State law, it seemed the Marianist influence in schools of Lalanne and Biehler was ended. American Brothers of Mary educated at Collège Stanislas brought Lalanne and Biehler’s teaching ideas and methods to the United States. Here in the United States the Marianist teaching apostolate flowered from 1903 to the present day.
