St. John Baptist de la Salle was canonized by Pope Leo XIII, who also extended the observance of his feast to the Universal Church. His place into ecclesiastical history is chiefly important from the social point of view, since at least two centuries before world changes rendered necessary the education of the masses, and before technical schools had gained for themselves the all-important place in the training of the young which had up to then been held exclusively by classical teaching, God gave him an intuition of this need as though by a prophetic vision.

St. John Baptist de la Salle, answering the divine call, resigned his honorable position as a canon of Rheims, and, overcoming much opposition and many difficulties, founded the Society of the Brothers of Christian Schools, which is still productive* of so much throughout the Church. He died at Rouen on Good Friday, April 7, 1719, at the age of 68.

(Source: The New Roman Missal by Father Lasance).
* Note: This was written before the errors of Vatican II.