By Adam Zaremski
Buffalo State College students, meet the founder of public schools, St. Joseph Calasanctius. He will be outside Butler Library for those who want to thank him.
A mural of the saint is being placed on the north side of the library, facing Caudell Hall, with an unveiling planned for Nov. 4. The mural is 18 feet high, 12 feet wide and weighs 18-tons and was done by Józef Slawinski was donated by the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo.
Calasanctius was a born in Spain in1556, and died 92 years later in Rome reports the New Advent Web site. In 1592 he traveled to Rome, where he saw the lack of education in the homeless and poor children. With a religious group of fathers to help with teaching the children, they formed what is considered the first free public school in Europe.
Wanda Slawinska, wife of Slawinski and curator of the Fronczak Collection in the library, said before Calasanctius, only royalty and members of the clergy had a chance at education, while the homeless were confined to life on the streets.
“It is the same today as it was then,” Slawinska said. “People that didn’t have access to money or an education were those living in slums.”
The school Calasanctius created accepted every child without regard for their economic status or religious background, Slawinska said.
The mural shows Calasanctius standing among children with buildings in the background representing the religious order he founded, the Piarist Fathers. The style of the art work is sgraffito, a method where the artist scratches away a surface to reveal the color below which forms an image.
Adam Zaremski can be reached at sligum13@netscape.net
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