ESSAYS,

ETC.

I.

SCHOOLS OF THE JESUITS.

SINCE the revival of learning, no body of men has played so prominent a part in education as the Jesuits. With characteristic sagacity and energy, they soon seized on education as a stepping-stone to power and influence; and with their talent for organisation, they framed a system of schools which drove all important competitors from the field, and made Jesuits the instructors of Catholic, and even, to some extent, of Protestant, Europe. Their skill in this capacity is attested by the highest authorities, by Bacon and by Descartes, the latter of whom had himself been their pupil; and it naturally met with its reward for more than one hundred years nearly all the foremost men throughout Christendom, both among the clergy and laity, had received the Jesuit training, and for life regarded their old masters with reverence and affection.

About these Jesuit schools-once so celebrated and so powerful, and still existing in great numbers,

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though little remains of their original importancethere does not seem to be much information accessible to the English reader. I have, therefore, collected the following particulars about them; and refer any one who is dissatisfied with so meagre an account, to the works which I have consulted.* The Jesuit schools, as I said, still exist, but they did their great work in other centuries; and I therefore prefer to speak of them as things of the past.

When the Jesuits were first formally recognised by a Bull of Paul III. in 1540, the Bull stated that the Order was formed, among other things, especially for the purpose of instructing boys and ignorant persons in the Christian religion.' But the Society well understood that secular was more in demand than religious learning; and they offered the more valued instruction, that they might have the opportunity of inculcating lessons which, to the Society at least, were

*(1) Joseph Anton Schmid's 'Niedere Schulen der Jesuiten:' Regensburg, 1852. (2) Article by Wagenmann in K. A. Schmid's Encyclopädie des Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesens.' (3) 'Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Soc. Jesu.' The first edition of this work, published at Rome in 1585, was suppressed as heretical, because it contemplated the possibility of differing from St. Thomas Aquinas. The book is now very scarce. There is a copy in the British Museum. On comparing it with the folio edition ('Constitutiones,' &c., published at Prag in 1632), I find many omissions in the latter, some of which are curious, e. g., under 'De Matrimonio:'- Matremne an uxorem occidere sit gravius, non est hujus loci.' (4) 'Parænesis ad Magistros Sch larum Inferiorum Soc. Jesu, scripta a P. Francisco Sacchino, ex eâdem Societate.' (5) Juvencius de Ratione Discendi et Docendi.' The great authority on everything connected with the Jesuits is Crétineau-Joly's 'Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus.' Paris, 1844. This I have not been able to consult. Sacchini and Jouvency were both historians of the Order. The former died in 1625, the latter in 1719.

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RATIO STUDIORUM.

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the more valuable. From various Popes they obtained powers for founding schools and colleges, for giving degrees, and for lecturing publicly at universities. Their foundations rapidly extended in the Romance countries, except in France, where they were long in overcoming the opposition of the Regular clergy and of the University of Paris. Over the Teutonic and Slavonic countries they spread their influence first by means of national colleges at Rome, where boys of the different nations were trained as missionaries. But, in time, the Jesuits pushed their camps forwards, even into the heart of the enemy's country.

The system of education to be adopted in all the Jesuit institutions was settled during the Generalship of Aquaviva. In 1584 that General appointed a School Commission, consisting of distinguished Jesuits from the various countries of Europe. These spent nearly a year in Rome, in study and consultation; and the fruit of their labours was the Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Societatis Jesu, which was put forth by Aquaviva and the Fourth General Assembly. By this code the Jesuit schools have ever since been governed; but about fifty years ago it was revised with a view to modern requirements.

The Jesuits who formed the Societas Professa, i. e., those who had taken all the vows, had spent from fifteen to eighteen years in preparation, viz., two years as novices and one as approved scholars, during which they were engaged chiefly in religious exercises, three years in the study of philosophy and mathematics, four years of theology, and, in the case

of the more distinguished students, two years more in repetition and private theological study. At some point in this course, mostly after the philosophy, the students were sent, for a while, to teach in the elementary schools.* The method of teaching was to be learnt in the training schools, called Juvenats, one of which was founded in each province.

Few, even of the most distinguished students, received dispensation from giving elementary instruction. Salmeron and Bobadilla performed this duty in Naples, Lainez in Florence, Borgia (who had been Viceroy of Catalonia) in Cordova, Canisius in Cologne.

During the time the Jesuit held his post as teacher he was to give himself up entirely to the work. His studies were abandoned; his religious exercises curtailed. He began generally with the lowest form, and went up the school with the same pupils, advancing a step every year, as in the system now common in Scotland. But some forms were always taught, as the highest is in Scotland, by the same master, who remained a teacher for life.

Great care was to be taken that the frequent

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* According to the article in K. A. Schmid's Encyclopädie,' the usual course was this-the two years' novitiate was over by the time the youth was between fifteen and seventeen. He then entered a Jesuit College as Scholasticus. Here he learnt literature and rhetoric for two years, and then philosophy (with mathematics) for three more. He then entered on his Regency, i. e., he went over the same ground as a teacher, for from four to six years. Then followed a period of theological study, ending with a year of trial, called the Tertiorat. The candidate was now admitted to Priest's Orders, and took the vows either as professor quatuor votorum, or as a coadjutor. If he was then sent back to teach, he gave only the higher instruction.