Piarists

Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 8: Peasant to Eoumelia, p. 165

Piarists, or 'Fathers of the Pious Schools,' a religious congregation for the education of the poor, founded at Rome in 1617 by a Spanish priest, Joseph of Calasanza, and confirmed in 1621 by Gregory XVI. They were chiefly active in Poland and Austria.

Source scan(s): p. 0174