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, B |