all of their schools and taking part in their teaching. By 1833, the novices of the Brothers were primarily men in their late teens and early twenties. They were required to be literate and numerate and received instruction in doctrine and the religious life as they trained to become teachers, living by a regular timetable of prayer, study, and manual work. Soon, the Brothers extended their services from the small country parishes in which they had begun their work to the larger towns. In 1818 Champagnat opened the first Marist school whose timetable he designed in such a way to fit the farming needs of his parishioners (such as allowing children off school to help in the fields at planting and harvesting time). He set fees for the school at a level he knew most rural families could meet. In fact, if he knew the family was unable to afford anything, the tuition was free. Champagnat had a great devotion to the guardian angels, and directed that an image of a guardian angel be placed in every classroom. Encouraged by the success of the school in La Valla, others were founded at Marlhes in 1819, in Saint-Sauveur-Street 1820, and in Bourg-Argental in 1822. But this success endangered the small congregation, which had little more than novices. In March 1822, eight applicants came from Haute-Loire, giving a new impetus to the institution, and allows the creation of new houses in Vanosc 1823, Saint-Symphorien-le-Chateau 1823, and Chavanay Charlieu 1824. In 1837, Champagnat printed a Rule for his Brothers. In view of Champagnat's declining health, however, in 1839 Jean-Claude Colin advised him to have the Brothers elect a successor. This took place with the election of Brother François Rivat as Director-General and Champagnat's successor on 12 October 1839. Final years After a long-term illness, Champagnat died of cancer on 6 June 1840, aged 51, at Our Lady of the Hermitage in the Gier River valley about 30 kilometres from where he had commenced his work. He was buried on 8 June. He left this message in his Spiritual Testament of 18 May 1840: "Let there be among you just one heart and one mind. Let it always be said of the Little Brothers of Mary as it was of the early Christians: See how they love one another!" By that time there were 278 Brothers and 48 Marist schools in France, and the