Franciscan education can be traced to the 13 th century, when, around the year 1224, Francis of Assisi gave permission to a young and learned Brother, Anthony of Padua, to teach theology to the Brothers “as long as such study did not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion.” In the century that followed, a “ Franciscan School” of scholars developed a Christ-centered theology and philosophy based on the life and teachings of St. Francis. Most notable among these scholars are St. Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus. Throughout this development, the caution that St. Francis gave to St. Anthony remained important, because it was Francis’ intention that learning be placed at the service of living as Christ did; the quest for knowledge was not an end in itself, but a quest to live more authentically within oneself and morally within the world community.

By the mid-fifteenth century, there flourished more than forty monasteries of the Third Order Regular, of which the Franciscan Brothers are a part, in Ireland. These were all closed during the Reformation. After Penal Laws were relaxed, two Brothers from a line who had carried on catechetical work in hiding, emerged and opened a monastery and school for poor boys in western Ireland. Several foundations followed, and it is from these that the first Brothers traveled to America to begin other missions among immigrants, especially through education of “poor, male youth.”