MCDONALD, BARNABAS EDWARD, BROTHER

Youth leader; b. Ogdensburg, NY, July 20, 1865; d. Santa Fe, NM, Apr. 22, 1929. Born Edward P. McDonald, he entered the Christian Brothers' schools in 1885. A vocational recruiter (1890–1901), he saw the plight of Catholic boys haphazardly placed by orphanages in rural families—some were exploited for cheap labor while more ran away to roam city streets. When asked by Abp. Michael A. Corrigan to study the problem, Brother Barnabas created a placing-out bureau and in 1902 founded St. Philip's Home for urban working boys. In establishing Lincoln Agricultural School, Lincolndale, NY, in 1909, he pioneered the use of the "cottage system." He attended President Theodore Roosevelt's Child Welfare Conference of 1909. The same year, at Brother Barnabas's suggestion, the National Conference of Catholic Charities was organized. From 1919 to 1922 McDonald was director of Catholic Charities in Toronto, Canada, where he introduced Catholic Scouting. As executive secretary of the Boy Life Bureau of the Knights of Columbus, he founded the Columbian Squires and organized courses in the leadership of boys. At the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, he inaugurated a program for directors of boys' activities—an educational innovation copied by schools of social work in other universities. He was an energetic member of more than 40 organizations for youth and the recipient of numerous awards.

Bibliography: angelus gabriel, The Christian Brothers in the United States, 1848–1948 (New York 1948).

[b. r. weitekamp]