Free instruction. Equality. Boarders.

§ 10. The pupils in the Jesuit colleges were of two kinds : Ist, those who were training for the Order, and had passed the Novitiate; 2nd, the externs, who were pupils merely. When the building was not filled by the first of these (the Scholastici, or Nostri, as they are called in the Jesuit writings), other pupils were taken in to board, who had to pay simply the cost of their living, and not even this unless they could well afford it. Instruction, as I said, was gratuitous to all. "Gratis receive, gratis give," was the Society's rule; so they would neither make any charge for instruction, nor accept any gift that was burdened with conditions.

§ 11. Faithful to the tradition of the Catholic Church, the Society did not estimate a man's worth simply according to his birth and outward circumstances. The Constitutions expressly laid down that poverty and mean extraction were never to be any hindrance to a pupil's admission; and Sacchini says: "Do not let any favouring of the higher classes interfere with the care of meaner pupils, since the birth of all is equal in Adam, and the inheritance in Christ."*

§ 12. The externs who could not be received into the building were boarded in licensed houses, which were always liable to an unexpected visit from the Prefect of Studies.

§ 13. The "lower school" was arranged in five classes (since increased to eight), of which the lowest usually had two divisions. Parallel classes were formed wherever the number of pupils was too great for five masters. The names given to the several divisions were as follows:

"Non gratia nobilium officiat culturæ vulgarium: cum sint natales omnium pares ir Adam et hæreditates quoque pares in Christo."

Classes. Curriculum. Latin only used.

1. Infima

2. Media

Classis Grammaticæ.

3. Suprema

Each was

4. Humanitas.

5. Rhetorica.

66

absolved" in a year, except Rhetorica, which required two years (Stöckl, p. 237).

Jesuits and Protestants alike in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thought of little but literary instruction, and that too connected only with Latin and Greek. The subject-matter of the teaching in the Jesuit schools was to be "præter Grammaticam, quod ad Rhetoricam, Poësim et Historiam pertinet," in addition to Grammar, whatever related to Rhetoric, Poetry, and History. Reading and writing the mother-tongue might not be taught without special leave from the Provincial. Latin was as much as possible to supersede all other languages, even in speaking; and nothing else might be used by the pupils in the higher forms on any day but a holiday.* To gain a supply of Latin words for ordinary use, the pupils committed to memory Latin conversations on general topics, such as Francis Pomey's "Indiculus Universalis" and "Colloquia Scholastica."

14. Although many good school-books were written by the Jesuits, a great part of their teaching was given orally. The master was, in fact, a lecturer, who expounded sometimes a piece of a Latin or Greek author, sometimes the

* Even junior masters were not to be much addicted to their own language. "Illud cavendum imprimis juniori magistro ne vernaculis nimium libris indulgeat, præsertim poetis, in quibus maximam temporis RC fortasse morum jacturam faceret.”—Jouvency.

Teacher Lectured. Exercises. Saying by heart.

rules of grammar. The pupils were required to get up the substance of these lectures, and to learn the grammar-rules and parts of the classical authors by heart. The master for his part had to bestow great pains on the preparation of his lectures.*

15. Written exercises, translations, &c., were given in on every day, except Saturday; and the master had, if possible, to go over each one with its writer and his appointed rival or æmulus.

16. The method of hearing the rules, &c., committed to memory was this:-Certain boys in each class, who were called Decurions, repeated their tasks to the master, and then in his presence heard the other boys repeat theirs. The master meanwhile corrected the written exercises.†

* "Multum proderit si magister non tumultuario ac subito dicat, sed quæ domi cogitate scripserit.—It will be a great gain if the master does not speak in a hurry and without forethought, but is ready with what he has thought out and written out in his own room."-Ratio Studd., quoted by Schmid. And Sacchini says: "Ante omnia, quæ quisque docturus est, egregie calleat. Tum enim bene docet, et facile docet, et libenter docet; bene, quia sine errore; facile, quia sine labore; libenter, quia ex pleno .. Memoriæ minimum fidat : instauret eam refricetque iterata lectione antequam quicquam doceat, etiamsi idem sæpe docuerit. Occurret non raro quod addat vel commodius proponat. -Before all things let everyone be thoroughly skilled in what he is going to teach; for then he teaches well, he teaches easily, he teaches readily: well, because he makes no mistakes; easily, because he has no need to exert himself; readily, because, like wealthy men he cares not how he gives. Let him be very distrustful of his memory; let him renew his remembrance and rub it up by repeated reading before he teaches anything, though he may have often taught it before. Something will now and then occur to him which he may add, or put more neatly."

† In a school (not belonging to the Jesuits) where this plan was adopted, the boys, by an ingenious contrivance, managed to make it

Emulation. "Emuli." Concertations.

17. One of the leading peculiarities in the Jesuits' system was the pains they took to foster emulation-" cotem ingenii puerilis, calcar industria-the whetstone of talent, the spur of industry." For this purpose all the boys in the lower part of the school were arranged in pairs, each pair being rivals (amuli) to one another. Every boy was to be constantly on the watch to catch his rival tripping, and was immediately to correct him. Besides this individual rivalry, every class was divided into two hostile camps, called Rome and Carthage, which had frequent pitched battles of questions on set subjects. These were the "Concertations," in which the boys sometimes had to put questions to the opposite camp, sometimes to expose erroneous answers when the questions were asked by the master* (see Appendix: Class Matches, p. 529). Emulation, indeed, was encouraged to a point where, as it seems to me, it must have endangered the good feeling of the boys among themselves. Jouvency mentions a practice of appointing mock defenders of any particularly bad exercise, who should make the author of it ridiculous by their excuses; and any boy whose work was very discreditable, was placed on a form by himself, with a daily punishment, until he could show that some one deserved to change places with him.

§ 18. In the higher classes a better kind of rivalry was

work very smoothly. The boy who was "hearing" the lessons held the book upside down in such a way that the others read instead of repeating by heart. The masters finally interfered with this arrange

ment.

* Since the above was written, an account of these concertations has appeared in the Rev. G. R. Kingdon's evidence before the Schools Commission, 1867 (vol. v, Answers 12,228 ff.). Mr. Kingdon, the Prefect of Studies at Stonyhurst, mentions that the side which wins in most concertations gets an extra half-holiday.

"Academies." Expedients. School-hours.

cultivated by means of " Academies," i.e., voluntary associations for study, which met together, under the superintendence of a master, to read themes, translations, &c., and to discuss passages from the classics. The new members were elected by the old, and to be thus elected was a much-coveted distinction. In these Academies the cleverer students got practice for the disputations, which formed an important part of the school work of the higher classes.

§ 19. There was a vast number of other expedients by which the Jesuits sought to work on their pupils' amour propre, such as, on the one hand, the weekly publication of offences per præconem, and, on the other, besides prizes (which could be won only by the externs), titles and badges of honour, and the like. "There are," says Jouvency, "hundreds of expedients of this sort, all tending to sharpen the boys' wits, to lighten the labour of the master, and to free him from the invidious and troublesome necessity of punishing."

§ 20. The school-hours were remarkably short: two hours and a half in the morning, and the same in the afternoon; with a whole holiday a week in summer, and a half holiday in winter. The time was spent in the first form after the following manner :-During the first half-hour the master corrected the exercises of the previous day, while the Decurions heard the lesson which had been learnt by heart. Then the master heard the piece of Latin which he had explained on the previous day. With this construing, was connected a great deal of parsing, conjugating, declining, &c. The teacher then explained the piece for the following day, which, in this form, was never to exceed four lines. The last half-hour of the morning was spent in explaining grammar. This was done very slowly and carefully: in the