Auxiliary Provincial and Supervisor of Elementary Schools, Eastern Jurisdiction, Brothers of the Christian Schools
1951
Citation:
The Brothers of the Christian Schools, whose foundation goes back to 1684, are celebrating this year the centenary of their education apostolate in Detroit. Their first school was old St. Anne's Grammar School, opened in 1851. Then followed St. Mary's in 1852, St. Peter's in 1855, and Holy Trinity and Cathedral Parochial in 1858. The Brothers took charge of St. Joseph's Parochial School in 1877, and added to it in 1889 the St. Joseph's Commercial College, which is know today as St. Joseph's High School. Twenty-five years ago, in 1926, the alumni of St. Joseph's Commercial built and equipped for the Brothers their second high school in Detroit, the De la Salle Collegiate. In the year of Detroit's 250th birthday, there is every reason to give signal recognition to the devoted and distinguished services which the Christian Brothers have rendered over the past hundred years not only to their thousands of alumni but to the people and city of Detroit. There cannot but be something impressive and stirring in the recollection of the host of Christian Brothers laboring year after year, for a century now, to teach unnumbered thousands of boys the ways of knowledge and the knowledge of God, while they themselves remained for the most part unknown, almost anonymous, their achievements inscribed in a corporate rather than a personal record. But in this annus mirabilis, this centenary year, their fellow workers in the educational field, the Jesuit Fathers and faculty of the University of Detroit, have decreed to break the seal of this corporate record by awarding its highest academic honor to a man who not only typifies the achievements of his brethren but who in his own right is entitled to public recognition as a great educator. Brother Bernard Peter, a native of Detroit and a graduate of the old St. Joseph's Commercial College, joined the Brothers of the Christian schools in 1921. His college degree was earned at Manhattan College in New York and his graduate degree at St. John's University, Brooklyn. After some years of teaching experience, Brother Bernard was Principal successively of two of the Christian Brothers largest elementary schools in New York. He then became Director of the La Salle School in Albany. Last October he was appointed Auxiliary Provincial and Supervisor of Elementary Schools for the eastern jurisdiction. He is a member of the executive board of the Christian Brothers Educational Association and on the executive committee of the Elementary School Department of the National Catholic Educational Association. Reverend Assistant to the President, I have the honor of presenting, Brother Bernard Peter, F.S.C. for the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws. Commencement, University of Detroit, June 13, 1951.