[Pyro7480]

Pupils attend daily mass at the chapel at Chavagnes International College in Chavagnes-en-Paillers, western France, April 24, 2008. Learning Latin, attending Catechism and hurrying along draughty corridors to prayer, two dozen boys are experiencing old-fashioned British boarding school life -- deep in the French countryside.

[Pyro7480]

Catholic ping!

[marshmallow]

Learning Latin, attending Catechism and hurrying along draughty corridors to prayer, two dozen boys are experiencing old-fashioned British boarding school life -- deep in the French countryside.

I have a problem with the phrase "old-fashioned British boarding school life". It isn't. This sounds like more of a Catholic monastic model of education, although there may be certain points of similarity.

I associate British boarding schools (like Eton and Harrow) with cricket, sodomy, devotion to the British Royal Family, anti-Catholicism, the prefect system for upperclassmen and a religious experience which is largely superficial and predominantly cultural, rather than truly spiritual.

[353FMG]

I hated it when I attended a similar school a lifetime ago. But now I appreciate what I learned and I wish I could’ve sent my sons to one. Now I deeply regret that I did not take more advantage of the wonderful life and education it offered.

I see the three tiny figures in the distance at the foot of the altar and I can’t help reciting: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor...

[Tax-chick]

"It's a good school. It feels a bit old, but that's cool," said pupil Stephen Lorriman, 12.

LOL! Good lad, Stephen. You have the spirit of a reenactor!

[ELS]

Interesting find. May God continue to bless Mr. McDermott’s efforts.

[Bigg Red]

...writing out hundreds of times the phrase “I firmly resolve to behave like a gentleman.”

Love it!

This sounds like a great character building school. I hope that the parents are sending the boys there for positive reasons and not just as an alternative to public school. I have seen too many cases in which the parents send their kids to Catholic school just to avoid the public school but with no plans to reinforce at home any religion-based learning.

[Diago]

Great stuff!

Sounds a bit like St Greg’s academy:

http://www.saintgregorysacademy.com/

A couple great videos at their website.

[Carolina]

Here's the You Tube video of Chavagnes with the school choir singing Josquin Desprez' Veni creator spiritus. It shows icons that the young men created as well as pictures of them around the college. Wonderful formation for them!