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Some books.

skill in selecting means to attain a clearly conceived end. There is then in the history of education little that should be more interesting or might be more instructive to the master of an English public school than the chapter abou the Jesuits.*

The best account I have seen of life in a Jesuit school is in Erinnerungen eines chemaligen Jesuitenzöglings (Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1862). The writer (Köhler ?) says that he has become an evangelical clergyman, but there is no hostile feeling shown to his old instructors, and the narrative bears the strongest internal evidence of accuracy. Some of the Jesuit devices mentioned are very ingenious. All house masters who have adopted the cubicle arrangement of dormitories know how difficult it is to keep the boys in their own cubicles. The Jesuits have the cubicles barred across at the top, and the locks on the doors are so constructed that though they can be opened from the inside they cannot be shut again. The Fathers at Freiburg (in Breisgau) opened a "tuck-shop" for the boys, and gave "week's-pay" in counters which passed at their own shop and nowhere else. The author speaks warmly of the kindness of the Fathers and of their care for health and recreation. But their ways were inscrutable and every boy felt himself in the hands of a human providence. As the boys go out for a walk, one of them is detained by the porter, who says "the Rector wants to speak to you." On their way back the boys meet a diligence in which sits their late comrade waving adieus. He has been expelled.

Another book which throws much light on Jesuit pedagogy is by a Jesuit -La Discipline, par le R. P. Emmanuel Barbier (Paris, V. Palmé, 2nd edition, 1888). I will give a specimen in a loose translation, as it may interest the reader to see how carefully the Jesuits have studied the master's difficulties. "The master in charge of the boys, especially in play-time, in his first intercourse with them, has no greater snare in his way than taking his power for granted, and trusting to the strength of his will and his knowledge of the world, especially as he is at first lulled into security by the deferential manner of his pupils.

"That master who goes off with such ease from the very first, to whom the carrying out of all the rules seems the simplest thing in the world, who in the very first hour he is with them has already made himself

Barbier's advice to new master.

liked, almost popular, with his pupils, who shows no more anxiety about his work than he must show to keep his character for good sense, that master is indeed to be pitied; he is most likely a lost man. He will soon have to choose one of two things, either to shut his eyes and put up with all the irregularities he thought he had done away with, or to break with a past that he would wish forgotten, and engage in open conflict with the boys who are inclined to set him at defiance. These cases are we trust rare. But many believe with a kind of rash ignorance and in spite of the warnings of experience that the good feelings of their pupils will work together to maintain their authority. They have been told that this authority should be mild and endeared by acts of kindness. So they set about crowning the edifice without making sure of the foundations; and taking the title of authority for its possession they spend all their efforts in lightening a yoke of which no one really bears the weight.

"In point of fact the first steps often determine the whole course. For this reason you will attach extreme importance to what I am now going to advise :

"The chief characteristic in your conduct towards the boys during the first few weeks should be an extreme reserve. However far you go in this, you can hardly overdo it. So your first attitude is clearly

defined.

"You have everything to observe, the individual character of each boy and the general tendencies and feelings of the whole body. But be sure of one thing, viz., that you are observed also, and a careful study is made both of your strong points and of your weak. Your way of speaking and of giving orders, the tone of your voice, your gestures, disclose your cnaracter, your tastes, your failings, to a hundred boys on the alert to pounce upon them. One is summed up long before one has the least notion of it. Try then to remain impenetrable. You should never give up your reserve till you are master of the situation.

"For the rest, let there be no affectation about you. Don't attempt to put on a severe manner; answer politely and simply your pupils' questions, but let it be in few words, and avoid conversation. All depends on that. Let there be no chatting with them in these early days. You cannot be too cautious in this respect. Boys have such a polite, such a taking way with them in drawing out information about your impressions, your tastes, your antecedents; don't attempt the

Loyola and Montaigne. Port Royal.

diplomate; don't match your skill against theirs. You cannot chat with. out coming out of your shell, so to speak. Instead of this, you must puzzle them by your reserve, and drive them to this admission: don't know what to make of our new master.'

We

"Do I advise you then to be on the defensive throughout the whole year and like a stranger among your pupils? No! a thousand times, No! It is just to make their relations with you simple, confiding, I might say cordial, without the least danger to your authority, that I endeavour to raise this authority at first beyond the reach of assault.”La Discipline, chap. v, pp. 31 ff.

In this book we see the best side of the Jesuits. They believe in their "mission," and this belief throws light on many things. Those who hate the Jesuits have often extolled the wisdom of Montaigne, when he says: "We have not to train up a soul, nor yet a body, but a man; and we cannot divide him." Can they see no wisdom in this? “Let your mind be filled with the thought that both soul and body have been created by the Hand of God: we must account to Him for these two parts of our being; and we are not required to weaken one of them out of love for the Creator. We should love the body in the same degree that He could love it." This is what Loyola wrote in 1548 to Francis But if we wish to see the

Borgia (Compayré, Doctrines, &c., vol. j, 179). other side of the Jesuit character, we have only to look at the Jesuit as a controversialist. We sometimes see children hiding things and then having a pretence hunt for them. The Jesuits are no children, but in arguing they pretend to be searching for conclusions which are settled before arguments are thought of. See, e.g., the attack on the Port Royalists in Les Jésuites Instituteurs, par le P. Ch. Daniel, 1880, in which the Jesuit sets himself to maintain this thesis: "D'une source aussi profondément infectée du poison de l'hérésie, il ne pouvait sortir rien d'absolument bon" (p. 123). One good point he certainly makes, and in my judgment one only, in comparing the Port Royalist schools with the schools of Jesuits. Methods which answer with very small numbers may not do with large numbers: "You might as well try to ex'end your gardening operations to agriculture" (p. 102).

V.

RABELAIS.

(1483-1553.)

1. To great geniuses it is given to think themselves in a measure free from the ordinary notions of their time and often to anticipate the discoveries of a future age. In all literature there is perhaps hardly a more striking instance of this "detached" thinking than we find in Rabelais' account of the education of Gargantua.

§ 2. We see in Rabelais an enthusiasm for learning and a tendency to verbal realism; that is, he turned to the old writers for instruction about things. So far he was a child of the Renascence. But in other respects he advanced far beyond it.

§ 3. After a scornful account of the ordinary school books and methods by which Gargantua "though he stucied hard, did nevertheless profit nothing, but only grew thereby foolish, simple, dolted, and blockish," Rabelais decides that "it were better for him to learn nothing at all than to be taught suchlike books under suchlike schoolmasters." All this old lumber must be swept away, and in two years a youth may acquire a better judgment, a better

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Rabelais' ideal. A new start.

manner, and more command of language than could ever have been obtained by the old method.

We are then introduced to the model pupil. The end of education has been declared to be sapiens et eloquens pietas; and we find that though Rabelais might have substituted knowledge for piety, he did care for piety, and valued very highly both wisdom and eloquence. The eloquent Roman was the ideal of the Renascence, and Rabelais' model pupil expresses himself "with gestures so proper, pronunciation so distinct, a voice so eloquent, language so well turned and in such good Latin that he seemed rather a Gracchus, a Cicero, an Æmilius of the time past than a youth of the present age.”

§ 4. So a Renascence tutor is appointed for Gargantua and administers to him a potion that makes him forget all he has ever learned. He then puts him through a very different course. Like all wise instructors he first endeavours to secure the will of the pupil. He allows Gargantua to go the accustomed road till he can convince him it is the wrong one. This seems to me a remarkable proof of wisdom. How often does the " new master" break abruptly with the past, and raise the opposition of the pupil by dispraise of all he has already done! By degrees Ponocrates, the model tutor, inspired in his pupil a great desire for improvement. This he did by bringing him into the

society of learned men, who filled him with ambition to be like them. Thereupon Gargantua "put himself into such a train of study that he lost not any hour in the day, but employed all his time in learning and honest knowledge." The day was to begin at 4 a.m., with reading of "some chapter of the Holy Scripture, and oftentimes he gave himself to revere, adore, pray, and send up his supplications

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