The Christian Brothers Educational Order of the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland was organized in Waterford in 1802 by Edmund Rice, a wealthy merchant who lamented the number of neglected boys he saw in the streets and consulted Bishop Hussey, the first president of Maynooth College, as to what he could do to rescue them. Mr. Rice sold his business and opened a free school in his residence while a large building was being erected for his use. The cornerstone was laid June 1, 1802. It was finished the next year, was called Mount Zion, and is still in operation, although very much enlarged. It has been the father house and headquarters of the Irish Christian Brothers from the beginning. Within a few years similar schools were opened in Dungarvan, Limerick, Cork, Dublin, and later in every city and town in Ireland. In 1820 the order was chartered by the Pope, and it has grown until there are now more than one thousand brothers, all engaged in teaching day schools of various standards, from primary instruction up to colleges. They have technical and trade schools, commercial schools, orphanages, and schools for the deaf and dumb and the blind all over the world, in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, India, Gibraltar, and one house in New York. It is independent of the American order of Christian Brothers, which was founded in France in the seventeenth century by St. John Baptiste de la Salle, a French abbé who was canonized by the Pope about four years ago. In Ireland the Christian Brothers receive no grant from the government, and all their primary schools are free. Tuition is charged at the secondary and technical schools and the remainder of the support comes from legacies, private and public contributions, collections in churches, and other sources. Edmund Rice died in 1844 at the age of eighty-two, and is buried in Waterford cemetery, with this simple epitaph: BROTHER EDWARD IGNATIUS RICE, Founder of Christian Schools In Ireland and England.