Hughes Thomas
Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits

The testimony of documents is uniform upon the poverty of these men, whom Protestant historians like Grotius, Robertson, and others marvel at, for the authority they possessed in the world, for the purity of their lives, their success in teaching, and their art of commanding with wisdom as they themselves obeyed with fidelity. Their life was one of straitened circumstances and self-abnegation. We may see it illustrated in Dilingen.⁵⁸ Or again, at the great royal college, founded by Henri IV at La Flèche, where three hundred boarders were supposed to be paying their own expenses, as pensionnaires, we find Louis XIII issuing a royal decree that his magistrates are to prosecute "les rétardataires et les récalcitrants par toutes les voyes raisonnables," persons who did not pay the expenses of their own children, but left that interesting occupation to the college. With all that, says Rochemonteix, nothing came of it, neither of the royal injunctions, nor of judicial suits; things went on the same way, "the parents paying badly, and the treasurers lamenting."⁵⁹

I will close this chapter with one case, because it serves to emphasize a particular sequel of the Suppression; that is, the revival of a tuition-fee. A recent author, writing in 1890, tells the history of the College of Saint-Yves at Vannes, in Brittany. He sums up its revenues at 6000 livres. Placed in the hands of the Order, this college, in 1636, that is, seven years after the Society had assumed charge, directed 400 students; later on, 900; and then 1200. In 1762, the faculty consisted of thirteen members, besides the four Fathers engaged in the adjoining house of retreats. All rendered various services, as is usual in a college of Jesuit instructors. To these we must add the requisite complement of the faculty, at least half as many more lay assistants, belonging to the Order, and to the same local community. Here then are twenty-two at the least, subsisting on 6000 livres a year; and meanwhile providing their house, their library, their physical cabinet, which was fully fitted up with all necessary instruments, and their observatory.⁶⁰ "The moment after the Suppression," he goes on to say, "it was quite another affair! Ten secular professors cost 11,000 livres for their salaries alone!" The author gives the list of their salaries. "To reëstablish equilibrium, one of the first acts of the parliament was to exact from each scholar a tuition-fee of twelve livres; and yet they complained, they could not make ends meet."

Observe, a tuition-fee! On the day after the Suppression, they begin to undo the very work, which, two hundred and thirty years before, the Order had begun to do at its birth, spreading education gratuitously, without drawing on pupils, or drawing on the public treasury.

Well might the General Vincent Caraffa say, in the time of the Thirty Years' War, "We abound rather in men than in revenues." And he says so, in the same breath and in the same sentence, in which he is asking Priests to offer themselves for life to the work of teaching the lower branches, a work which he calls laborious, in times which he specifies as disastrous, and in circumstances which he describes as having no provision made for the means of living.⁶¹

This brief sketch will go to show how the Christian world did, indeed, meet the proposal of the Order, and found seven hundred colleges. But it also shows how the Order endowed the world, and had even to make good, with its personal heroism, the defects in many of the foundations.

CHAPTER VI
THE INTELLECTUAL SCOPE AND METHOD PROPOSED

As the second part of this book is intended to be a pedagogic analysis of the mental culture imparted, I need not sketch here, save in a general way, the intellectual scope proposed by Ignatius of Loyola, and the method which he originated. Both scope and method vary somewhat, according as the students contemplated are respectively external to the Order, or members of it. The latter are to be qualified for becoming future Professors, even though, in point of fact, only a certain proportion of them become so.

Studious youth in general, including Ecclesiastics and Religious of the various Orders, are considered by Ignatius as distributed amid two kinds of educational institutions. One of these he calls the Public School; the other, a University. The first is that which extends, in its courses, from the rudiments of literature up to the lower level of university education. He says: "Where it can conveniently be done, let Public Schools be opened, at least in the departments of Humane Letters."⁶² In a note, he explains that Moral Theology may be treated in a gymnasium of this kind. Father Aquaviva, in 1588, puts this kind of school down as the lowest of three ranks of colleges; and sums up the courses as being those of Grammar, Humanities, Rhetoric, Languages, and Moral Theology.⁶³ He also explains why the lowest Jesuit curriculum must fill these requirements, "in order that the Society be not defrauded of the end it has in view, which is, to carry the students on at least as far as mediocrity in learning, so that they may go forth into their respective vocations, Ecclesiastics to their ministry, lay students to their own work in life, qualified in some degree with a sufficiency of literary culture."⁶⁴ This curriculum served also the purpose of those, who, while members of the Order, were for some reason dispensed from the full course of studies.⁶⁵ If any grades are wanting in a college, it must be the lower ones which are omitted, the higher being retained.⁶⁶ Ignatius goes on to limit the courses in a gymnasium of this kind: "Let not higher sciences be treated here; but, to pursue them, the students who have made due progress in literature are to be sent from these colleges to the universities.⁶⁷

Passing on to universities of the Order, he defines for their scope, first, in behalf of those who are to be Ecclesiastics, Scholastic Theology, Holy Scripture, and Positive Theology; secondly, for all students, Humane Letters, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and other such languages as Chaldaic, Arabic, and Indian, subject to the demands of necessity or utility; moreover, Logic, Physics, Metaphysics, Moral Philosophy, and Mathematics. All these departments are to be provided for by Professors of the Order. If the departments of Civil Law and Medicine are added, they will be conducted by Professors not of the Society.⁶⁸

As to the Scholastic members of the Society, their mental culture in the Order begins, of course, where their collegiate curriculum had closed, that is, at the end of their classical course. Their studies henceforth are defined by two objects; one, that of professing, as formed Jesuits in the future, what they are studying now; the other, that of being differentiated, according to talent and circumstance, into preachers, writers, directors of consciences, or managers of affairs.

In view of this two-fold object, all the examinations, arranged for members of the Order in the advanced courses, are regulated by one standard, that the Jesuit Scholastics must be found competent, at each stage, to teach the course in which they are being tested. Accordingly, they review their previous literary acquirements, in all the lines which the Society regularly professes; then, during three years, they apply exclusively to Philosophy and Natural Sciences; and, four years more, to Divinity and allied Sciences.⁶⁹

This protracted course, therefore, as given more in detail by the subsequent Ratio, consists of Poetry, Rhetoric, and Literature; Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry; Logic, Ontology, Cosmology, Psychology, and Natural Theology; Ethics, Natural, Social and Public Right, Moral Theology, Canon Law, Ecclesiastical History, Scholastic Theology, Hebrew, Sacred Scripture. The courses are to be pursued either in the same classes which external students attend, or, in their own university classes, when a general house of studies is formed as a "Scholasticate." In both cases, they have Seminary exercises of their own, beyond what is required in the most condensed university courses.

Those whom health and excellence have approved at every step are ordinarily to be withdrawn from studies, "when the course of Arts has been finished, and when four years have been spent on Theology."⁷⁰ Specialties are to be cultivated.⁷¹ Subsequent legislation places these specialties in the interval between the Arts and Theology; and, again, after the latter.

This, in brief, is the practical idea of the Professorial Seminaries, philological, philosophical, scientific, and theological, through which the stream of future Professors is continually passing. Each one is subject, at every stage, to examination tests which include the most distinct reference to professorial capacity. The technical standard in the examinations is that of "surpassing mediocrity," which term is accurately defined, as we shall see later, when analyzing the Ratio.⁷²

While the depleted ranks of the professorial body are thus regularly supplied, it is clear that more services remain available in the Order at large, than the single purpose of education would at any time require. But this only serves the wider scope which the Society has in view, much wider than education taken alone. And Ignatius makes mention of this expressly when he says, that the Scholastic students "may never come to profess the learning which they have acquired"; still "they are to consider that labor of studies as a work of great merit in the sight of God."⁷³

So much for the widest and highest intellectual objects aimed at in these studies. Looking down now to its lowest limit, we perceive that education, as imparted by the Society to the external world, is to begin not below "the rudiments of grammar, in which boys must already be versed; they must know how to read and write; nor is any allowance to be made in favor of any one, whatever be his condition of life; but those who press these petitions upon us are to be answered, that we are not permitted" to teach the elements. This is the ordinance of Aquaviva, in 1592, and he simply refers to the Constitution.⁷⁴ He also notes, in the same document, that the new Ratio Studiorum elevates every grade, as it stood at that date, one year higher than it had been before. The document is from the German archives. Pachtler observes that most of the Latin schools, particularly in Protestant Germany, took children up from the alphabet.⁷⁵ The effect of the Jesuit system was that of a constant upward trend to what was higher, more systematic, and complete.

This brings us to the question of method. Here a number of elements occur, some of them essential, many of them subordinate. These latter, at least, were the products of ingenuity and industry on the part of the teaching body, and were productive of industry and life on the part of scholars. To illustrate the whole matter, I will refer to authors who were addressing the world, soon after the Society had taken its stand as an educational power, and when its institutions were conspicuous to the eyes of all.

First comes classification, which was an essential feature of the Jesuit system. Ribadeneira, the intimate friend of Ignatius, when writing the life of Loyola, in the year 1584, and describing the work of the Order, now forty-fours years old, observes: "Elsewhere one Professor has many grades of scholars before him; he addresses himself at one and the same time to scholars who are at the bottom, midway, and at the top; and he can scarcely meet the demands of each. But, in the Society, we distinguish one rank of scholars from another, dividing them into their own classes and orders; and separate Professors are placed over each."⁷⁶

The division of classes, a thing so natural to us, was in those times a novelty. There were practically only two degrees of teaching; one superior, embracing Theology, Law, and Medicine; the other preparatory. The preparatory instruction had already been tending towards the later system of grading; the term "class" was an expression of the Renaissance. Father Rochemonteix, speaking of the Paris University, notes that the first authentic act, in which the term is used, dates from 1539.⁷⁷ From 1535, the division of studies, by means of classes, was already being accomplished. Still there was no definite number of grades. The study of literary models was defective. Grammar was beclouded with the subtleties of dialectics, to the great prejudice of written composition, as well as of the reading and imitation of models.⁷⁸

Now it will be observed that Ignatius was studying in the University of Paris from 1528 to 1535; and his companions remained till 1536. By the time he published the Constitution as a rule of guidance, he had become surrounded by men, who were not merely graduates of universities, but had been Doctors, Professors, and Rectors in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany. One consequence was that Ignatius, from the very beginning, formulated a complete system of graded classes. He relegated dialectics to its proper field, Philosophy and Theology. And, bringing into prominence the reading of authors, and the practice of style in imitation of the best models, he defined a method. This, after being elaborated during forty years, was then found to be not only new, but complete, and good for centuries to come. It arranged courses in a series, having reference to one another; it coördinated definite stages of the courses with definite matter to be seen; and, in the lower branches it distributed the students, with their respective portions of the matter, into five grades, classifying precepts, authors, and exercises, as proportioned to each successive grade. Nothing more familiar to ourselves now; nothing newer to the world then! This was the Ratio Studiorum.

The grades of the gymnasium may include several divisions, according to the number of students; but the grading itself remains fixed, and leaves no element, either of actual culture, or of future developments, unprovided for, or without a location. Nor do these grades mean five years. They mean a work to be done in each grade, before the next is taken up. On this, the mind of Ignatius was most explicit. As an almost universal rule, they never mean less than five years. And, for one of them, the grade of Rhetoric, in which all literary perfection is to be acquired, the system contemplates two and even three years. In this point, too, we may note a characteristic view of Ignatius. It is that the longer term, whenever provided, whenever prescribed, urged, and insisted upon, is always for the talented student, the one who is to become eminent. To use his own words, when laying down the rules in this matter for the Rector of a University, his full idea will be carried out, when "those who are of the proper age, and have the aptitude of genius, endeavor to succeed in every branch and to be conspicuous therein."⁷⁹

To enumerate now some of the subordinate elements in the Jesuit method, I will quote from the same author, Ribadeneira. He says, speaking of young scholars: "Many means are devised, and exercises employed, to stimulate the minds of the young – assiduous disputation, various trials of genius, prizes offered for excellence in talent and industry. These prerogatives and testimonies of virtue vehemently arouse the minds of students, awake them even when sleeping, and, when they are aroused and are running on with a good will, impel them and spur them on faster. For, as penalty and disgrace bridle the will and check it from pursuing evil, so honor and praise quicken the sense wonderfully, to attain the dignity and glory of virtue." He quotes Cicero and Quintilian to the same effect.⁸⁰

This was not to develop a false self-love in young hearts; which would have been little to the purpose with religious teachers. "Let them root out from themselves, in every possible way, self-love and the craving for vain glory," says the oldest code of school rules in the Society, probably from the pen of Father Peter Canisius himself.⁸¹ What is appealed to, is the spirit of emulation, and that by a world of industries; which, disguising the aridity of the work to be gone through, spurs young students on to excellence in whatever they undertake, and rewards the development of natural energies with the natural luxury of confessedly doing well. In the dry course of virtue and learning, satisfaction of this kind is not excited in the young, without a sign, a token, a badge, a prize. Then they feel happy in having done well, however little they enjoyed the labor before. Honorable distinctions well managed, sometimes a share in the unimportant direction of the class, brilliancy of success in single combat on the field of knowledge, of memory, or of intellectual self-reliance, the ordered discrimination of habitual merit, all these means and many others keep the little army in a condition of mental activity, and sometimes of suspense; "and if not all are victorious, all at least have traversed the strengthening probation of struggle."⁸²

In all the courses of Belles-lettres, Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Theology, the institutions called "Academies" gather into select bodies the most talented and exemplary of the students. The young littérateurs, or philosophers, having their own officials, special reunions, and archives, hold their public sessions in presence of the other students, the Masters, and illustrious personages invited for the occasion. In their poems, speeches, dialogues, they discuss, declaim, and rise to great thoughts, and to the conception of great deeds.

Civil discords are not the subject of their debates, but the glories of their native country, its success in arms, all that is congenial to the young mind and fosters the sentiment of love of country. Among the students of Rhetoric, forensic debates and judicial trials are organized; "and when the advocates of both sides have pleaded their cause in one or two sessions of the court, then," says a document I am quoting from, dated 1580, "the judge, who has been elected for the purpose, will pronounce his judgment in an oration of his own; this will be the brilliant performance; and, to hear it, friends will be invited, and the Doctors of the University and all the students will be in attendance."⁸³ In the programme for the distribution of rewards, there is described an interesting element, puer lepidus, "a bright young lad," and what he is to do and how he is to bring out the name of the victor, "whereupon the music will strike up a sweet symphony."⁸⁴ At another time, a set of published theses are defended against all comers by some philosopher or theologian. And, while games and manly exercises outside develop physical strength, gentility of demeanor and elegance of deportment have the stage at their service inside, for the exhibition of refined manners.

In all this, princes and nobles, future men of letters and of action, are mingling in daily life, in contest and emulation, with sons of the simplest burghers. Descartes⁸⁵ notes these points sagaciously, when he recommends to a friend the College of La Flèche: "Young people are there," he says, "from all parts of France; there is a mingling of characters; their mutual intercourse effects almost the same good results as if they were actually travelling; and, in fine, the equality which the Jesuits establish among all, by treating just in the same way those who are most illustrious and those who are not so, is an extremely good invention."⁸⁶

As the new sciences came into vogue, they received at once the freedom of this city of intellect; and here they received it first. It has been said, indeed, that the Society of Jesus, "obstinately bound to its formalism, refused to admit anything modern, real, and actual, and that the national languages and literatures, as well as the new developing sciences, fared ill at its hands." This statement, as far as it concerns France, is examined by Father Charles Daniel, who to other valuable works of his own has added the neat little essay called, Les Jésuites Instituteurs de la Jeunesse Française, au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècle.⁸⁷ As to Germany, we shall see indications enough on all these subjects in the Monumenta Germaniæ Pædagogica. For all countries there is a sufficiency of information, in the mere text of the Ratio Studiorum, in Jouvancy's classic commentary thereupon, De Ratione Discendi et Docendi, and other authentic documents, besides the actual practice visible in the colleges. But the whole question about the vernacular tongues, as if they were kept out of the colleges by Latin and Greek, is so far an anachronism for the dates and epochs, regarding which some moderns have agitated the question, that I shall tell a little anecdote, which will not be so much of a digression, but that it will place us back just where we are at present.

In 1605, Lord Bacon published his two books on the Advancement of Learning. The work is considered the first part of his "Novum Organum." He undertakes to "make a small Globe," as he says, "of the Intellectual World, as truly and faithfully as he can discover.⁸⁸ His subject is identical, as far as it goes, with the much more extensive and exhaustive work of Father Anthony Possevino, a famous Jesuit, who had published, twelve years before, the results of twenty years' travel and observation, while fulfilling, in many countries, the important duties of Apostolic Legate, Preacher, Professor. I have two editions of his great tomes before me. The first is that of Rome, 1593; the other that of Venice, 1603; this latter is called "the most recent edition."⁸⁹ The only indication which I discern of Bacon's not having profited by Possevino is this, that he says: "No man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning to be described and represented from age to age."⁹⁰ Now, as this is saying too much, for it just indicates what Possevino's labors had been showing to the world during twelve years, I must conclude that there is no assurance whatever, but that Bacon profited by Possevino: he seems merely to have gone over the same ground in English, and done justice to the subject, in his own peculiar way. Accordingly, he did it what justice he could, in English. Three years later he writes to Dr. Playfer, Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, requesting that the Doctor would be pleased to translate the work into Latin; and his lordship promises eternal gratitude. What reasons does the noble author urge for this request? Two reasons, of which the first is very noteworthy for our purpose: – "the privateness of the language, wherein it is written, excluding so many readers!" And the second is almost as worthy of note: – "the obscurity of the argument, in many parts of it, excluding many others!"⁹¹ Here we have our domestic classic author, in the year 1608, endeavoring to get out of his narrow cell, the "privateness of the English language," into the broad world of the literary public, where the Jesuit with his tomes was enjoying to the full his literary franchise. This does not look as if the colleges, at that time, kept the languages down, but rather that they had in their gift the full freedom of the literary world, and sent students forth to walk abroad at their ease there, where Bacon humbly sued for admission!

I was going to quote from Possevino, describing in a graphic way the daily intellectual life of the great Roman College, with its two thousand and more students, besides the great body of Professors. But my limits forbid me to do more than refer to it.⁹²

There are two views which may be taken of a coin, and its stamp. One is taken direct, looking at it in itself; the other is indirect, observing the impression it leaves in the mould. It leaves a defined vacancy there. What kind of vacancy was left in the intellectual culture of Europe, when this intellectual system was suddenly swept away? Before the Suppression of the Society, some of the institutions, which had thriven at all, had been inspired by a healthful rivalry. They found, when the Society was gone, that part of their life decayed. And, while they themselves began to languish, the place of the Jesuits they could not fill. Of some others, who lived a life barely discernible, we are given to understand, that their vitality consisted in the effort to keep the Jesuits out. I will take an instance from Bayonne.

A work has just been published on the municipal college of Bayonne, by the Censor of Studies, in the Lyceum of Agen.⁹³ In seventy pages, which concern transactions with the Jesuits,⁹⁴ the author, in no friendly tone, narrates the entire history from the documents of the Jansenist party. I will imitate this example of his so far as to narrate the following entirely in his own words.

Beginning his last chapter, entitled "Reform and Conclusion," he says in a tone somewhat subdued, but not more so than his subject:⁹⁵ "This then was the College of Bayonne, which, for a few years more, prolonged an existence ever more and more precarious; and it was finally closed in 1792, in spite of several generous efforts at restoring it.

"But already," he continues, "for thirty years, a great literary event had been accomplished in secondary education. A decree of the Parliament of Paris, dated the 16th of August, 1762, had pronounced the expulsion of the 'ci-devant soi-disants Jésuites'; which decree was this time definitively executed. Now the Jesuits, in their five Provinces of France, possessed then nearly a hundred colleges. Judge of the immense void which was suddenly created in the secondary instruction of the Province, ill prepared for so abrupt a departure! There was a general confusion, and a concert, as it were, of complaints and recriminations. Where get the new masters?.. The disciplinary and financial administration of the colleges, left vacant by the Jesuits, was confided to the bureaus, that is to say, assemblies composed of the Archbishop or Bishop, the Lieutenant General, the King's Proctor, and the senior Alderman… Every one soon felt the inconveniences of this system. The municipal officers of the cities, the bureaus themselves hastened to petition the King, that their colleges might be confided to religious communities. Thus it was that the greater part of the old Jesuit colleges fell into the hands of the Benedictines and Bernardines, of the Carmelites and Minims, of Jacobins and Cordeliers, of Capuchins and Recollects, of Doctrinaires and Barnabites, and above all, of the Oratorians. But all these Religious, except the Oratorians, fell far short of the Jesuits. The greater part had not even any idea of teaching, etc." Then the author devotes a heavy page to the novel systems which were introduced. He closes the paragraph sadly: "All this agitation," he says, "was unfortunately sterile; and, as I have just said, secondary instruction, on the eve of the French Revolution, had not taken a step forward during fifty years."