Ignorantines

(-no-răn'teenz.) [Fr.] (Eccl. Hist.) A religious congregation of men in the Roman Catholic Church, a ociated for the gratuitous instruction of poor children in sacred as well as secular learning. It was founded in France in the early part of the 18th cent., 1724, by the Abbé de la Salle, and has gradually been introduced into every Catholic country of Europe, and in several of the U. States. [s. 477]