Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/663

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BLANCHE
593
BLANCHET


He left the order, however, in 1762, before it was suppressed, retired to Belgium, and for seven years remained near Namur, occupied with pedagogical questions. He wrote Le temple des Muses fabu- listes" (Liege, 1776, 2 vols.) and "1,'Ecole des mœurs" (Namur and Paris, 1775, 2 vols.). The latter work was first published without the author's name under the title, "Le poete des mceurs, ou les maximes de la sagesse ..." (1771), and later was reprinted several times with the title "Maximes de l'honnete homme, ou le poete des mceurs". Blanch- ard's main work was published after his death by Bruyset: "Preceptes pour leducation des deux sexes a Tusage des families chr^tiennes" (Lyons. 1803, 2 vols.); a new edition in 1S07 was entitled "Educa- tion chr^tienne a l'usage de I'un et de I'autre sexe". Blanchard adapts to Christian education the princi- ples found in Rousseau's "Emile". In the work there is little originality; yet, besides judiciously chosen quotations, we find very useful suggestions and good criticisms of Rousseau's views. It is di- vided into three parts: physical education, moral education, and education of girls. Great importance is attached to physical culture, health, hygiene of the whole organism, and of the special sense-organs. Useful rules are given for the formation of the in- tellect, feelings, and will. Good pronunciation and reading are insisted on. Blanchard rightly rejects the principle of negative education advocated by Rousseau. It would be verj' harmful to wait till reason is developed in order to make the child exer- cise it; on the contrary, it must be developed by proper exercise and under proper guidance. To start for a long journey, he says, the traveller does not wait till the sun is high in the sky, but rather profits by the first rays of light; so must it be ^\ith the child. As to the education of women, Blanch- ard's views seem rather narrow to-day. Woman is made for dependence. Her instruction must be limited to a few elementary notions; Fenelon's principles and the "Avis d'une mère a sa fille" of Madame de Lambert, which Blanchard reproduces, must form the basis of her moral education.

Bouillot, Biographie ardennaise; Compayre in La grande encyclopédie, VI, 1011, and in Dictionnaire de pédagogie (Paris, 1887), I, 262; Sommervogel, Bibliotheque de la c. de J. (2d ed., Brussels and Paris, 1890), I, 1538; Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes (Paris, 1884), 729. C. A. Dubray

Blanche, Gustave, Eudist. See Gulp of St. Lawrence, VlCVltlATE ApOSTOLIC OF.

Blanchet, pR.vxfois Norbert, missionary and first Archbishop of Oregon City, U. S. A., son of Pierre Blanchet, a Canadian farmer, b. 30 September, 1795, near Saint-Pierre, Ri\-iere du Sud, Province of Quebec; d. IS June, 1SS3, at Portland, Oregon. After three years in the village school he went in 1810, with his brother Augustin Magloire, later the first Bishop of Nesqually, to the Seminary of Quebec, where he was ordained priest 18 July, 1819. He was stationed at the cathedral for a year and was then sent to Richibucto, New Brunswick, as pastor of the Micmac Indians and Acadian settlers, among whom he spent seven years of missionarj' apprenticeship, enduring poverty, isolation, and innumerable hardships. In 1827 he was recalled to Montreal and appointed pastor of St. Joseph de Soulanges, a parish of 2,000 souls. During the cholera epidemic of 1832 Father Blanchet attended the stricken so fearlessly that the Protestants of the place presented him with a testi- monial. In 1837 he was appointed vicar-general by Archbishop Signay for the Oregon mission, a vast re- gion never before visited by a priest, and he set out on

3 May, 1838, accompanied by the Rev. Modeste Dem- ers with the annual express of the Hudson's Bay Com- panj'. The journey from Lachine to Fort Vancouver a distance of about 5,000 miles, was made in canoes,

by portages, in barges, on horseback, and in light boats. It took them nine days to cross the Rocky Mountains, on the summit of which, at three o'clock in the morning of 16 October Father Blanchet cele- brated Mass. They arrived at Fort \'ancouver on 24 November. The territory assigned to the two priests embraced about 375,000 square miles. It extended from California to Alas- ka and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

For four years they laboured alone, going from settlement to set- tlement, facing everj' peril of a wild countrj-, re- calling the scat- tered faithful to the practice of religion and in- structing the ab- origines. Then two other priests

from Canada, the Revs. A. Langlois and Z. Bol- duc, came to their assistance. In 1844 they were reinforced by the great missionary. Father De Smet, with four other Jesuit priests, three lay broth- ers, and six Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. The immense territory of the Oregon mission was made an Apostolic vicariate 1 Decemljer, 1843; Father Blanchet was named its first vicar Apostolic and titular Bishop of Philadelphia. The letters from Rome arrived in August, 1844. To receive episcopal consecration he started for Canada 5 December, boarded a steamer on the Columbia River, touched at Honolulu, doubled Cape Horn, landed at Dover, England, went by rail to Liverpool, took a vessel to Boston and thence proceeded by rail to Montreal, a journey of 22,000 miles. He was consecrated by Bishop Bourget in the Cathedral of Montreal 25 July, 1845. Later he returned to Europe, visiting Rome, France, Belgium, Germany, and Austria in the in- terests of his diocese. He gathered together six secular priests, four Jesuit priests, three lay brothers, and seven Sisters of Notre Dame. They sailed from Brest 22 Februarj', 1847, and reached the Columbia River on 12 August. The bishop was translated to the See of Draza by letters of 4 May, 1844, to avoid the confusion of his former title with that of Phila- delphia, U. S. A. The Vicariate was erected into a province 24 July, 1846. Bishop Blanchet was made Archbishop of Oregon City, his brother Magloire became Bishop of Walla Walla, and Father Demers Bishop of Vancouver's Island.

The archbishop was indefatigable. He siunmoned his first provincial coimcil in 1848; attended the Fii;pt Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1852; went in 1855 to South America and collected for two years in Chile, Peru, and Boli\'ia; returned to Canada in 1859 and took back to Oregon 31 priests, sisters, and .servants. He attended the Second Plenarj- Coimcil of Baltimore in 1806; celebrated, 19 July, 1869, the golden jubilee of his ordination, and in the follo\\ing October set out for Rome to assist at the Vatican Comicil, where he voted for the definition of the dogma of Papal Infallibility. He was still in the city 26 September, 1870, when the temporal power of the papacy was overthrown. When Bishop Seghers was made his coadjutor in 1879 he retired to the hospital of the Sisters of Pro\'idence at Portland. He wrote the story of the Oregon mission (Historical sketches of