PI'ARISTS, called also familiarly Seolopini, or " Brethren of the Pious Schools," a relig ions cougregation for the education of the poor, founded at Rome in the last year of the 16th century. The originator of this institute was a Spanish priest, named Joseph of Calasanza, who, while in Rome, was struck with the imperfect and insufficient character of the education which then prevailed. even for the children of the higher classes, and conceived the idea of organizing a body for the purpose of meeting this want, which the Jesuit society had already partially supplied. The school which he himself, in conjunc tion with a few friends, opened, rapidly increased in number to 100, and ultimately to 700 pupils; and iu 1617 the brethren, who, under the direction of Joseph. had associated themselves for the work, were approved as a religious congregation by Paul V. (q.v.), who entered warmly into this and all other projects of reformation. In 1621 Gregory
XV. approved the congregation as a religious order. The constitution of the order was several times modified by successive popes, clown to the time of Innocent XI. Its field of operations has, of course, been confined to European countries; and at present it can reckon communities in Italy, Austria, Spain, Hungary, and Poland. In Italy, during the revolutionary wars, the Piftrists received into their ranks many members of the sup pressed society of the Jesuits. In Spain, their establishments were spared, on the gen eral suppression of religious orders in 1826. In Poland, eleven houses still were in f xisl ence in 1832. The number of members in Hungary is said to be about 400, and the order is also found in the German and Slavonic parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire.