Opposition to Jesuit Education.
Nothing in the whole history of education after the Reformation is
more striking than the difference of opinions about, and the attitude
assumed towards, the educational system of the Society. We have heard
that the Protestant King Frederick II. of Prussia, and the Schismatical
Empress Catharine II. of Russia, protected the Jesuit schools, at a
time when the Bourbon Kings ruthlessly destroyed all Jesuit colleges
within their realms. In the nineteenth century the Jesuits were
repeatedly expelled from Catholic countries, as from France, and were
allowed to labor undisturbedly within the vast British Dominion and in
other Protestant countries. However, this tolerant attitude was not
always taken by Protestant rulers. The penal laws of England against
the Catholics are well known. The Jesuits were always mentioned as
particularly hateful. Thus one statute under Elizabeth (27 Eliz. c. 2),
provided that “all Jesuits and other priests, ordained by the authority
of the See of Rome, should depart from the realm within forty days, and
that no such person should hereafter be suffered to come into or remain
in any of the dominions of the crown of Great Britain, under penalties
of high treason.”
Special laws were enacted to prevent Catholics from sending their
children to foreign schools. “Any other of her majesty’s subjects,”
says the same statute, “who hereafter shall be brought up in any
foreign popish seminary, who within six months after proclamation
does not return into the realm, shall be adjudged a traitor. Persons,
directly or indirectly, contributing to the maintenance of Romish
ecclesiastics or popish seminaries beyond the sea incur the penalties
of _praemunire_. And still further this statute enacts, that no one
during her majesty’s life shall send his child or ward beyond the sea,
without special license, under forfeiture of one hundred pounds for
every offence.”[455] James I. had a law passed providing that “persons
going beyond sea to any Jesuit seminary were rendered, as respects
themselves, incapable of purchasing or enjoying any lands etc.”[456]
The same laws were enacted again under William III.[457] The schools of
the Jesuits on the continent which were chiefly affected by these laws,
were the great colleges of St. Omer and Liège.
In various places on the continent laws were made forbidding
parents to send their children to Jesuit schools. Thus Duke Ulrich
of Brunswick, “moved by his paternal care and affection for all his
subjects, high and low, in order to counteract the cunning plans and
bloody designs of the enemies of the Gospel, particularly of the
Jesuits,” issued a decree in 1617, strictly forbidding his subjects to
send their children to Jesuit schools, as not a few had done before.
Those who should in future “act so inconsiderately,” were threatened
with confiscation of all their property and other penalties.[458]
Similar laws, enacted in Brandenburg and Prussia, have been mentioned
in a previous chapter.[459]
But the difference in public opinion is not less remarkable than that
manifested by the attitude of governments and rulers towards the
Society. No other institution has been so often the theme of the most
high-flown panegyric and of the most bitter invective as the Society of
Jesus. Its admirers, and not a few Protestants were among these, have
proclaimed it as an establishment of the utmost utility to learning,
morals, religion, and state. It may even be admitted that some have
been extravagant in their praises of the Society and its labors. On the
other hand, its enemies see in it an assemblage of ambitious men who,
under the disguise of hypocrisy, aim at nothing but universal dominion,
which they endeavor to obtain by most odious and criminal means, to the
detriment of morality, religion and society. “Perhaps no body of men in
Europe,” says Quick, “have been so hated as the Jesuits.”[460]
So many accusations have been advanced against the Jesuits that it
would take a volume of considerable size merely to enumerate them.
Years ago Bishop Ketteler of Mentz publicly remonstrated against
“that continued crime of systematic calumny against the Society.”
The Jesuits have been defended and exonerated of the charges by
thousands of prominent Catholics and by distinguished Protestants,
and yet the muddy stream of calumny flows on; the old charges are
repeated and new ones are fabricated almost daily, and believed. It is
customary now-a-days to sneer at the credulity of former ages, at the
superstition of the Middle Ages, and the witch panic of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. However, our age has little reason to look
down superciliously on the benighted people of times gone by, for there
is among us, and even in circles that lay claim to enlightenment,
a great deal of superstition and credulity; only the forms and the
objects of credulity are different from those of former ages. In fact,
the “Jesuit panic” has been called a chronic disease of modern times,
and the credulity manifested in accepting implicitly the most absurd
charges against the Society is stupendous.
Whenever a person is indicted for a crime we demand that he be given
a fair trial; we want to hear and examine impartially the whole of
the evidence against him, before we pronounce him guilty. In the case
of the Society of Jesus, we have a body of fifteen thousand men, who
devote their lives to the propagation of Christianity, the civilization
of savages, and the education of youth. Almost every day they are
maligned in books, papers and public speeches. No evidence is asked
for; the ordinary demands of prudence and justice are set aside; it is
enough to hurl accusations against the Jesuits, and thousands and tens
of thousands willingly believe them. This is no exaggeration. One need
only read the most popular books on education to become convinced of
this fact. The open calumnies and malicious insinuations against that
work of the Society, which is especially dear to every Jesuit, viz. the
education of youth, are simply appalling.
It is impossible for us to mention all the charges made against the
educational system of the Jesuits; nor do we think it necessary. For,
some accusations are so ridiculous that to hear them stated, should
be enough for any thoughtful man to disbelieve them. Further, they
are so clearly opposed to the fundamental principles of the Order,
and so emphatically contradicted by its official documents, that it
is difficult to see how men can, for a moment, consider them even
probable. Lastly, they are so varied and so contradictory that they
easily elude us. What one says, is directly or indirectly denied
by another. It will be very instructive to put a few statements in
parallel columns.
“They [the Jesuits] completely revolutionized education
by fearless innovations.”--Rev. W. M. Sloane (Princeton),
_The French Revolution and Religious Reform_, p. 11.
“They were indeed far too much bent on being popular to be
innovators.”--Quick, _Educ. Reformers_, p. 506.
* * * * *
The curriculum of Jesuit colleges “has remained
almost unchanged for four hundred years, disregarding
some trifling concessions made to natural
sciences.”--President Eliot, _Atlantic Monthly_, October
1899.
“The shrewd disciples of Loyola adapt themselves
to the times, and are full of compassion for human
weakness.”--Compayré, _Hist. of Ped._, p. 140.
Since 1832 “in mathematics and natural sciences proper
attention is to be given to the recent progress made in
those branches. In the lower classes new provisions are
made for learning modern languages, both the vernacular and
foreign, and for the study of history.”--Kiddle and Schein,
_The Cyclopedia of Education_, article “Jesuits,” p. 492.
* * * * *
“Another instance of uniform prescribed education may be
found in the curriculum of Jesuit colleges”.... But “the
immense deepening and expanding of human knowledge in
the nineteenth century and the increasing sense of the
sanctity of the individual’s gifts and will-power have
made uniform prescriptions of study in secondary schools
impossible and absurd.”--President Eliot (in 1899).
“A uniform course of study for all schools of a particular
grade, and a common standard for promotion and graduation,
can be made most serviceable in a national scheme of
education.”--Dr. Russell, Columbia University, (in 1899),
_German Higher Schools_, p. 409.
* * * * *
“The Ratio Studiorum is antiquated and difficult to
reform.... We have little to hope for them in the
improvement of education at present.”--Oscar Browning,
_Encyclopedia Britannica_, article “Education.”
“A republic is a field far more inviting than a monarchy
for the agency of an organization so vast, so able, so
secret, so _adaptive_ as that of the Jesuits.”--Prof.
N. Porter, (Yale College), _Educational Systems of the
Puritans and Jesuits compared_, p. 79.
* * * * *
“For the Jesuits, education is reduced to a
superficial culture of the brilliant faculties of the
intelligence.”-Compayré, _l. c._, p. 139.
“Thoroughness in work was the one thing insisted
on.”--Quick, _l. c._, p. 46.
“With such standards of scholarship the methods of
instruction will naturally be rigorous and thorough.”--Cf.
Porter, _l. c._, p. 55.
* * * * *
“To write in Latin is the ideal which they propose to
their pupils ... the first consequence of this is the
proscription of the mother tongue.”--Compayré, _H. of
P._, p. 144.
“The Jesuits were hostile to the mother tongue, and
distrusting the influence of its association they
studiously endeavored to supplant it.”--Painter, _A Hist.
of Ed._, p. 120.
“Instruction in the vernacular language was incorporated
with the course of instruction in 1703, and in 1756
the colleges in Germany were advised to devote as much
attention to German as to Latin and Greek.”--Kiddle and
Schem, _The Cyclopedia of Education_, p. 493.
* * * * *
“Preoccupied before all else with purely formal studies,
the Jesuits leave real and concrete studies in entire
neglect. History is almost wholly banished from their
programme.”--Compayré, _l. c._, p. 144.
“The sciences and philosophy are involved in the same
disdain as history.”--_Ib._, p. 145.
“In mathematics and the natural sciences, he [the Jesuit
pupil] will be the master of what he professes to know....
In logic and grammar, in geography and history he will be
drilled to such a control of what he learns, that it shall
be a possession for life.”--Porter, _l. c._, p. 55.
* * * * *
“The Jesuits maintain the abuse of the memory.” _Ib._, p.
140.
“The Jesuits wished the whole boy, not his memory only,
to be affected by the master.”--Quick, _Educational
Reformers_, p. 507.
* * * * *
“What the Jesuits did in the matter of secondary
instruction, with immense resources and for the pupils
who paid them for their efforts, La Salle attempted ...
for pupils who did not pay.”--Compayré, _l. c._, p. 258.
“Their instruction was always given gratuitously.”--Quick,
_ib._, p. 38.
The Jesuit schools “were gratuitous. The instruction was
imparted freely, not only to pupils of the Romish faith,
but to all who chose to attend upon it.”--Porter, _l. c._,
p. 29.
“Finally they imparted their instruction
gratuitously.”--Ranke, _History of the Popes_, vol. I.
* * * * *
“They sought to reach sons of princes, noblemen and
others who constituted the influential classes.”--Seeley,
_History of Education_, p. 185.
“They administer only the aristocratic education of the
ruling classes, whom they hope to retain under their own
control.” Compayré, _History of Pedagogy_, p. 143.
“Faithful to the traditions 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 favoring of nobility
interfere with the care of meaner pupils, since the
birth of all is equal in Adam, and the inheritance is
Christ.’”--Quick, _l. c._, p. 39.
These quotations may suffice to show how little the adversaries of the
Jesuits agree in their estimations of most important points of the
educational system of the Society. We need not examine all charges in
detail; we can leave them to themselves, reminding the reader of a
passage in the Gospel of St. Mark (14, 56): “Many bore false witness
against him, and their evidences were not agreeing.” If in no other
point, at least in this one, the Jesuits resemble him whose name they
bear, and whom they profess and endeavor to follow.
A few accusations, however, must be examined here on account of their
serious character. The first is that the Jesuits did not care for the
instruction of the people, because they thought “the ignorance of the
people the best safeguard of faith;” that they “administered only the
aristocratic education of the higher classes.”[461] This is utterly
false. That the Jesuits could not devote themselves extensively to
elementary education has been accounted for in a previous chapter.[462]
As to the other charge, in their higher schools there were always
many poor pupils; it is frequently inculcated in the documents of the
Society to treat the poor pupils with equal, if not with greater, care
than the rich.[463] Father Jouvancy exhorts the teacher “to exhibit a
parent’s tender care particularly towards needy pupils.”[464] Further,
the Society had special boarding schools for poor scholars; _domus
pauperum_, or _convictus pauperum_, were attached to nearly all larger
colleges; in Germany and Austria at Würzburg, Dillingen, Augsburg,
Munich, Prague, Olmütz, Brünn etc.[465] The Jesuits not unfrequently
begged money for poor scholars. Peter Canisius in one year supported
two hundred poor boys. Moreover, they had special libraries to supply
books for poor students and fed poor day scholars. In several places
the Jesuits were at times severely censured “for favoring too much poor
students and the sons of the lower classes,” as was said in Graz in
1767. In 1762 they were ordered by the Bavarian government to admit in
future fewer poor scholars.[466] The judgment of Quick echoes the real
spirit of the Society on this point: “Faithful to the traditions of the
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 favoring of
nobility interfere with the care of meaner pupils, since the birth of
all is equal in Adam and the inheritance is Christ’.”[467]
It is said that the Jesuits “labored for those pupils who could pay
them for their efforts.”[468] In the Constitutions of the Society it
is laid down as a strict rule that “no one is to accept anything which
might be considered as a compensation for any ministry,” [education
included].[469] How this principle was applied to the colleges can be
best seen from the following regulations made by Father Nadal: “The
Rector cannot receive anything either for any instruction, or degree,
or matriculation; nothing as a remuneration for the teacher, nor any
present from a scholar. In short, nothing can be received, not even as
alms or on any other grounds. Should the Rector hear that any one else
has accepted anything, be he a teacher or an official of the school,
he must see that it is returned to the person who gave it; and he must
severely punish the person who received it.”[470]
In fact, this regulation caused the Society many serious difficulties.
The rival faculties of other schools, who received payments from the
pupils, saw in the gratuitousness of instruction in the Jesuit schools
a great danger. By various machinations the Jesuits were forced in some
cities to accept fees from the students.[471] It is well known that
at present most Jesuit schools are compelled by sheer necessity to
accept a tuition fee, because few of their colleges are endowed. But
it was different in former centuries, when the liberality of princes,
ecclesiastics and cities furnished all that was necessary for the
maintenance of the colleges. Nearly all historians testify that the
Jesuits imparted all instructions gratuitously; some even blame the
Jesuits for thus using an unfair means of competing with other schools.
The accusation of estranging the children from their families is
as ungrounded as the former charges.[472] It is also refuted by the
fact that the Jesuits opened boarding schools unwillingly and only
where it was absolutely necessary.[473] They everywhere preferred
day schools, because they appreciated the importance which the home
influence--provided it was good and religious--has on the training of
the character. Aside from cases in which a boy has to go to a boarding
school for want of a higher school near his home, especially in the
country, it cannot be denied that other cases are rather numerous
in which it is better for young people to receive their education
away from home. In not a few families the father has no time to look
after the education of his sons; mothers are frequently too indulgent
to control self-willed lads. In such cases it is a blessing for a
boy to be entrusted to a good boarding school in which not only the
intellectual, but, above all, the moral and religious training receive
due attention. Besides, much may be said of the advantages derived
from the discipline and subordination insisted on in good boarding
schools.[474]
Of all the charges and imputations heaped upon the Jesuit schools,
the most formidable is that they seek only the interest of the Order,
cripple the intellect of their pupils, and teach them a corrupt
morality. I am almost ashamed to refute such charges; for any such
attempt seems to be an insult not only to the Society, but to the
Catholic Church herself, who has so often praised and recommended the
educational labors of the Society. However, as such charges are made
in historical and educational works used extensively in this country,
I think it necessary to say a few words about them. Hallam says: “The
Jesuits have the credit of first rendering public a scheme of false
morals, which has been denominated from them and enhanced the obloquy
that overwhelmed their order.”[475] And von Raumer, in his History of
Pedagogy, frightens the readers with a dreadful picture of the “dismal
and perfidious colleges of the Jesuits, of these men of wickedness,
with their dark, treacherous tendencies, so fatal to the souls of the
young.” Dr. Huber, the inveterate enemy of the Society, remarks on
this charge: “Raumer condemns Jesuit education from the specifically
‘confessional’ [_i. e._ Protestant] point of view.”[476] On the other
hand, the accusations which Dr. Huber himself made against the Society,
are not more justified, and they have been discredited by a leading
Review in Germany: “The opinion of some ‘Old-Catholic’ scholars, that
the education of the Jesuits is a sort of diabolical system, tending to
enslave the conscience and suppress every free movement of the mind,
can no longer be maintained.”[477]
Mr. Painter’s charges are among the worst and unfairest that have
ever been hurled against Jesuit education; summing up his criticisms
on the Jesuit system, he says, it is “based not upon a study of man,
but on the interests of the order ... the principle of authority,
suppressing all freedom and independence of thought, prevailed from
beginning to end. Religious pride and intolerance were fostered.
While our baser feelings were highly stimulated, the nobler side
of our nature was wholly neglected. Love of country, fidelity to
friends, nobleness of character, enthusiasm for beautiful ideals were
insidiously suppressed.”[478] These terrible charges are made, but not
proved. We can only ask with astonishment: How can a critical scholar,
a cultured gentleman, a truth-loving Christian act in such manner? Who
does not think of the striking parallel instance in ancient history,
when the great teacher of Athens, whose life work it was to elevate
and ennoble the youths of his city, was arraigned before a court for
corrupting youth? He was condemned and had to drink the cup of hemlock.
How many modern writers on Jesuit education are faithful imitators of
the unjust accusers of Socrates and the unjust judges of Athens? They
cannot despatch the hated Jesuits out of the world, but they poison
public opinion and the minds of non-Catholic teachers. But there is
another question which we cannot suppress here: How is it possible
that enlightened American educators put any faith in such monstrous
imputations? And how can they trust books which contain such frightful
misrepresentations and calumnies? Wise people should suspect such
charges, because of their very enormity; and they should naturally
think that, when some charges are so ridiculous, others may turn out
equally groundless.
Those who are so positive in asserting that the aim of Jesuit
education was “the interest of the Order,” might well be advised
to ponder over a page or two of the work of a scholar of the first
rank,--we mean Professor Paulsen who at present is equalled by few
as a writer on pedagogy, and who has studied the Jesuit system more
carefully than any of those writers who have the hardihood to raise
such charges. In spite of his opposition to the fundamental principles
of the Society, this writer severely censures those who represent the
Society as a body of egoists and ambitious schemers. “It would be a
gross self-deception,” he writes, “to imagine that the members of the
Society were attracted to, or kept in the Order by any selfish motives
or personal gratifications. He who should have sought a life of ease
and pleasure in this Order, would soon have been disappointed. What
was put before them on entering, was first a humble novitiate, then a
prolonged course of rigorous studies, finally, the toilsome work of
the classroom, or the self-sacrificing labors of preaching or giving
missions. Suppose the powerful and influential position of the Order
whetted the ambition of some individual; but he would soon have found
out that, for every one without exception, not commanding but life-long
obedience was the summary of the Jesuit’s career. He had to be ready
to accept any position without murmur, and give it up the moment the
Superior should command. This law of absolute obedience was enforced
in the case of men of such merit and consideration as Canisius, the
first German Provincial.... Besides, the Order would never have been
persecuted and prohibited, had it served the ease of its members;
associations for such purposes have never been considered dangerous;
those societies only are dangerous that try to realize ideas.” The
author then adds: “Why do I insist so much on this? Because it disgusts
me to hear again and again that men who, with the sacrifice of all
personal interests, live for an idea, are accused of selfishness and
ambition, and that by dull Philistines, who throughout their lives were
seeking their own comfort and pleasure, or by ambitious place-hunters
who think of nothing else but how to please those in power and to
flatter public opinion.”[479] These words sound severe; but have the
men, whom they are meant for, not provoked this severity by unjust and
venomous accusations?
Not a few writers call the Jesuit schools dangerous to the
public welfare; one styles the whole Order “international and
anti-national.”[480] By the way, the same slander has been hurled
against the Catholic Church; moreover, we know that long ago a great
Teacher arose and founded a society. A certain class of learned men
wanted to get rid of him, but did not dare to come forth with the
real motive. Then they denounced the teacher as “anti-national”: “He
forbids to give tribute to Caesar; he makes himself king and opposes
Caesar.” And the judge was told that “if he acquitted that man, he was
not Caesar’s friend.” The disciples of this Teacher were told that
they would ever share the fate of their Master, and more than once
in history the same futile accusations were made against those who
professed to follow the great Master.
Not a shadow of proof has ever been advanced that the Jesuits in
their principles and teaching are unpatriotic, but more than one
testimony has been given, proving that they possess true patriotism
and instil it into the hearts of their pupils, and that Jesuit
students yield to none in ardent and self-sacrificing love of country.
Of course, there is no lack of assertions to the contrary. But
recently Sir Henry Howorth stated that the English Jesuits shared the
anti-English views of their brethren on the continent, and he entreated
English parents to keep their children away from Jesuit schools where
they imbibed hatred against their own country.[481] A Roman Catholic
layman in England wrote to the London _Times_, December 4, 1901, with
reference to this attack on the Jesuits: “The moral and religious
teaching of the Jesuits is the same in England as on the Continent, but
it does not follow that their political opinions or their estimate of
public affairs in this country are identical. The English Jesuit is a
loyal subject of his Majesty, and all his sympathies are with his own
country. Sir Henry Howorth informs English fathers and mothers that it
is nearly time they considered how much longer they are going to permit
their fresh and ingenuous children to imbibe hatred and contempt for
their country at Jesuit establishments. Here I can speak from personal
experience of the hatred and contempt for their country which my three
sons imbibed at the Jesuit College of Beaumont, near Windsor, and how
it has influenced their after lives. The principles which the Jesuits
inculcated upon them may be summed up in five words--‘Fear God; honor
thy king.’ The result in after life was that they all three volunteered
to fight for England and her Sovereign in her hour of need. One of
them has fallen on the battlefield; the other two have survived to
serve their country, and our name is known to-day to most loyalists in
South Africa.” In fact, more than one hundred students from the Jesuit
College of Stonyhurst fought in the South African war; three have
received the Victorian Cross, and many of them have lost their lives;
and more than one hundred have gone from the College of Beaumont.[482]
Another utterance, and that from a non-Catholic Review, deserves to
be quoted in this connection. In the last number of the _Westminster
Review_, Mr. Reade, speaking of the appointment of Dr. Parkin to draw
up the scheme for the Rhodes Scholarships, adds: “It is just possible
that, if he will pay any attention to the teachings of history, he may
find food for meditation in the system on which the _Propaganda Fide_
and the English College at St. Omers [Jesuit College] were recruited
during their best years. The latter school (now Stonyhurst) kept the
English Catholics loyal English Gentlemen during the worst times of
the Penal Laws. Many of them accompanied James II. into his exile at
St. Germain, but it would be hard to find one who held a commission,
as the Irish and Scotch exiles did, in the French service, when France
was at war with his own country. We had no Regiment de _Howard_ firing
on the English Guards at Fontenoy, as the Regiment de _Dillon_ did, and
Wellington’s chief secret agent in Spain was a Stonyhurst boy.”[483]
The whole history of the Society refutes the imputation of want of
patriotism. Is it not significant that the two shrewdest monarchs of
the eighteenth century, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and Catharine
II. of Russia, protected the Jesuits? Would they have done so if there
had existed even the slightest doubt about their patriotism? And, as
to France, Dr. Huber admits that “the greatest generals, as Condé,
Bouillon, Rohan, Luxembourg, Montmorency, Villars, and Broglie, have
come from the schools of Jesuits.”[484] The same may be said of many
great men in Austria, Bavaria, and other countries where the Jesuits
conducted schools. Also in the nineteenth century their patriotism
has been publicly acknowledged. We quote the words addressed to the
Jesuits by King Leopold I. of Belgium. Visiting their college at Namur
he praised them especially for giving the youth under their charge a
truly national education. “I am much pleased,” he said to the Fathers,
“to be among you. I know that you give the students a wise direction.
Youth needs sound principles. There is nothing more important in our
days, when men endeavor to stir up the passions. It is of the greatest
moment strenuously to fight against the spirit of lawlessness which now
threatens all order and the very existence of the states. What pleases
me most in your work is that _you impart to the young a truly national
education_. If you continue to educate them in this spirit, they will
become the support and the mainstay of the country.”[485]
When in 1846 the French Minister Thiers publicly attacked the
education of the Jesuits on similar grounds, six hundred former pupils
of the Jesuits, who then held high positions in the administration,
in literary and industrial circles, came forth with the solemn
declaration: “Our Jesuit professors taught us, that God and His
religion have to enlighten man’s intellect and guide his conscience;
that all men are equal before God and before the law which is an
expression of God’s will; that the public powers are for the nations,
not the nations for the public powers; that every one has the sacred
duty to make all sacrifices, even that of property and life, for the
welfare of the country; that treason and tyranny alike are sins against
God and crimes against society. Would that all France knew that this
calumniated education is solid and truly Catholic, and that we, by
learning to unite our Catholic faith with patriotism, have become
better citizens, and more genuine friends of our liberties.”[486] In
1879, Ferry introduced new laws to suppress the Jesuit schools. In the
_Revue des Deux Mondes_ (1880), Albert Duruy asked Ferry whether the
Jesuit pupils had less bravely fought against the Germans in the war
of 1870, or whether more Jesuit pupils had taken part in the Commune;
whether especially the ninety pupils of the one Jesuit school in _Rue
des Postes_, Paris, who had fallen in the battles of that war, had been
bad citizens, devoid of patriotism?[487]
The same question may be asked in every country where Jesuits are
engaged in educating youth: Have Jesuit pupils ever shown less
patriotism, less heroism, less self-sacrifice for their country than
pupils of secular institutions? Was Charles Carroll of Carrollton less
patriotic than the men who were educated at Harvard and Yale? Was
Bishop John Carroll lacking in patriotism? And yet, John Carroll had
been a Jesuit himself, and both had been educated in Jesuit Colleges
in Europe. And we may safely challenge any one to prove that the
American Jesuits and their pupils are less patriotic, less attached to
the interests of their country, and less solicitous for its fair name
among the nations than the teachers and pupils of other institutions.
And we should like to know the facts on which the American writer
has based the terrible indictment, that in Jesuit schools “love of
country was insidiously suppressed.”[488] However, if such a calumny
must deeply wound the hearts of all American Jesuits, they will know,
too, that other Americans, and such whose words count a thousand
times more than the uncritical assertions of certain writers, have
thought and spoken differently on the influence of Jesuit education.
On February 22, 1889, at the centennial celebration of Georgetown
College, Mr. Cleveland, President of the United States, said among
other things: “Georgetown College should be proud of the impress she
has made upon the citizenship of our country. On her roll of graduates
are found the names of many who have performed public duty better
for her teaching, while her Alumni have swollen the ranks of those
who, in private stations, have done their duty as American citizens
intelligently and well. I cannot express my friendship for your college
better than to wish for her in the future, as she has had in the past,
an army of Alumni, learned, patriotic, and useful, cherishing the
good of their country as an object of loftiest effort, and deeming
their contributions to good citizenship a supremely worthy use of the
education they have acquired within these walls.”[489]
If the old saying holds: “_Qualis rex, talis grex_,” and _vice versa_,
then we must conclude that the teachers themselves cannot be devoid
of patriotism. Fortunately, we are not confined to this _a priori_
argument. Numerous instances are on record that Jesuits, especially at
the time of war, sacrificed themselves in the service of the sick and
wounded and on the battlefields. Not to say a word of the many cases
recorded of former centuries, we mention one of more recent date. In
the Franco-German war of 1870-71, the Maltese Society of Rhineland and
Westphalia sent, besides the 1567 Sisters, 342 male religious to the
service of the sick and wounded. Among these 342 were 159 Jesuits. Of
the 81 volunteer army chaplains sent by the same organization, 33 were
Jesuits.[490] No less than 80 Jesuits received decorations, and two of
them were honored with the “Iron Cross,” the highest distinction for
heroic conduct on the battlefield. The patriotism of the French Jesuits
is not less conspicuous. In every war which was waged by France, a
number of Jesuits accompanied the army as chaplains. In 1870-71 several
were wounded on the battlefield, and one died at Laon.
The attitude of the Society towards national and political questions
has been clearly stated by Father Beckx, General of the Society: “The
public and the press busy themselves much about the Society’s attitude
towards the various forms of government.... Now the Society, as a
religious Order, has nothing to do with any political party. In all
countries and under all forms of government, she confines herself to
the exercise of her ministry, having in view only her end--the greater
glory of God and the salvation of souls,--an end superior to the
interests of human politics. Always and everywhere the religious of the
Society fulfils loyally the duties of a good citizen and a faithful
subject of the power which rules his country. Always and everywhere she
tells all by her instructions and her conduct: ‘Render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’.”[491]
In recent years the attacks on the educational system of the Jesuits
chiefly insist on the fact that it is “antiquated and unable to cope
with modern conditions.” We quoted the words[492] of Mr. Browning,
that “little is to be hoped for the Jesuits in the improvement of
education at present, whatever may have been their services in the
past.” A similar verdict is passed by Buckle. “The Jesuits, for at
least fifty years after their institution, rendered immense service to
civilization, partly by organizing a system of education far superior
to any yet seen in Europe. In no university could there be found a
scheme of instruction so comprehensive as theirs, and certainly nowhere
was there displayed such skill in the management of youth, or such
insight into the general operations of the human mind.... The Society
was, during a considerable period, the steady friend of science, as
well as of literature, and allowed its members a freedom and a boldness
of speculation which had never been permitted by any monastic order.
As, however, civilization advanced, the Jesuits began to lose ground,
and this not so much from their own decay as from a change in the
spirit of those who surrounded them. An institution admirably adapted
to an early form of society was ill suited to the same society in its
mature state.”[493] We think this charge has been sufficiently refuted
by what was said in the preceding chapter.
How is this hostility to the Jesuits to be explained? It is not
so difficult to find some reasons which account for the aversion
of Protestants to this Order. Time and again they have been told
that Ignatius of Loyola founded this Society in order to crush
Protestantism. Although it has been proved that such a view of the
Society is entirely contradicted by the Constitutions and the history
of the Order,[494] most non-Catholics still cling to their old
prejudices and traditional views of the Jesuits. Even now many see
in the Society the “avowed and most successful foe of Protestantism,
and the embodiment of all they detest.”[495] The Jesuits have been
represented to them as notoriously dishonest and unscrupulous men,
who teach and practise the most pernicious principles; they have been
denounced as plotters against the lives of Protestant rulers, Queen
Elizabeth, James I., William of Orange, Gustavus Adolphus. The mention
of the Gunpowder plot, and the Titus-Oates conspiracy,[496] conjures
up the most horrible visions of those black demons who dare to call
themselves companions of Jesus. Then it has been said that the Jesuits
were the cause of the Thirty Year’s War, of the French Revolution, of
the Franco-German War of 1870, of the Dreyfus affair.[497] All such
and similar silly slanders have gradually formed that popular idea
according to which the Jesuit is the embodiment of craft, deceit,
ambition, and all sorts of wickedness. “It began to be rumored up and
down,” complains Bunyan, “that I was a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman,
and the like.” Last year it was very correctly stated by Mr. Andrew
Lang, the celebrated Scotch scholar, that this popular idea and the
Protestant dislike of the Jesuits is not based on historical facts, but
largely on works of fiction. There is a certain picturesqueness about
the mythic Jesuit which makes him highly important in works of fiction.
Accordingly, a number of writers have introduced him with great effect,
as Charles Kingsley, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, and even Thackeray. Mr. Lang
himself rises above that vulgar conception of the Jesuits, and he
freely confesses: “The Jesuits are clever, educated men; on the whole
I understand their unpopularity, but with all their faults I love
them still.”[498] And the words of another Protestant deserve to be
meditated on by all fair-minded Protestants: “Why should a devoted
Christian find a difficulty in seeing good in the Jesuits, a body of
men whose devotion to their idea of Christian duty has never been
surpassed?”[499]
But some Protestants will say: The Jesuits have always been the most
strenuous and most successful supporters of the Catholic Church;
hence they weaken the Protestant cause.--To men who argue thus
apply the words of the great Master; “You know how to discern the
face of the sky, and can you not know the signs of the times?”[500]
Indeed, the signs of the time point to dangers quite different from
those dreaded from “Jesuitism”. The dangers of our age arise from
infidelity, immorality, and anarchy. What has become of the belief
in the fundamental truth of Christianity, in the Divinity of Christ?
That there are still millions of real Christians in the world, is
chiefly due to the Catholic Church, to what they call the stubborn
“conservatism” of the Romish Church. And the Jesuits make it the centre
of their educational work and of all their labors, to strengthen the
faith in the Divinity of Christ, and to propagate the Kingdom of God.
They teach the lofty morality, the generous self-denial, which was
preached to the world by the words and example of Jesus. They inculcate
assiduously the most important civic virtue, obedience to all lawful
authority. Therefore, all those who still believe in the Divinity
of Christ, who zealously labor for the moral betterment of their
fellow-men, who have the true interest of their country at heart--all
those men should heartily welcome the Jesuits as helpful allies in
their noble enterprise. There is, in our days, surely no reason for
antipathy against the Society of Jesus.
However, considering the force of long cherished prejudices, we
understand the dislike and the dread with which less enlightened
Protestants view Jesuit schools. Their feelings spring from ignorance,
and they are to be pitied rather than blamed. And every Jesuit will
pray with Jesus: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
But what should we say of men who lay claim to critical scholarship,
if they, instead of examining conscientiously the documents and
the history of the Order, unscrupulously copy the slanders of
virulent partisan writers, as is done by so many modern historians
and educationists? Some seem studiously to neglect to acquire that
information which is necessary and easily available, in order to
understand this system. Of others one has reason to suspect that they
write against their better knowledge, from fanatical hatred, not so
much of the Society as of the Catholic Church. But then let them at
least be honest; let them say that they are fighting against the
“Anti-Christ in Rome,” against the “Scarlet Woman,” as their leaders
were pleased to express themselves; let them confess that it is the
_odium Papae_, the old “no-Popery” and “Know-nothing” feeling which
inspires them. Well has a non-Catholic periodical recently observed:
“We end inevitably by recognizing that all the reproaches with which
we may feel entitled to load the Jesuits, in the name of reason,
of philosophy, etc., etc., fall equally upon all religious orders,
and upon the Church herself, of which they have ever been the most
brilliant ornament. Why then address these reproaches to the Jesuits
only?”[501]
History has proved the correctness of these statements. In the
eighteenth century the Jesuit colleges were suppressed. Not long
after the monasteries of other orders were “secularized”. In 1872 the
Jesuits were expelled from Germany; two or three years after, the other
religious orders had to leave the fatherland, and then the secular
priests were persecuted, and bishops imprisoned. Since 1879 there was
a continued agitation in France against the Jesuits and their schools.
This campaign has now issued in a general war against all teaching
congregations, in fact against all religious orders.
But this is not all; of late radical papers begin to proclaim the real
intentions of the persecutors of the religious orders. One paper wrote
recently: “Now we must not forget the _Curés_ (Parish priests); after
the monks let us attend to them.” Hostility to the Church, nay, to all
religion, is at the bottom of the unjust and tyrannous proceedings
against the Jesuits and other religious orders in France. For, whilst
to the ordinary reader of newspapers the recent laws “appear to be a
mere measure of self-defense forced upon the Republican Government by
the reputed political intrigues of the Clerical party in France, it is
in reality a systematic attempt to discredit religion, and to remove
its checking influence upon the atheistic movement of the controlling
party.”[502] That influence was chiefly felt to come from the religious
orders, particularly from the teaching congregations. Hence they
must go. The hypocritical assertion: “We combat Jesuitism, not the
Church, not religion,” is a mere _ruse de guerre_, a stratagem, used
to deceive more fair-minded Protestants, and short-sighted or lukewarm
Catholics. That this is no exaggerated party statement, is evident
from the discussions in the French Senate during the last three years.
It is also frankly admitted by the more candid advocates of the new
persecution, and by not a few far-seeing Protestants.
Here, however, a serious objection is raised: Have not Catholics,
even high dignitaries of the Church, opposed the Jesuits? How is
this? “Protestants are not ignorant that the Society of Jesus has
been the object of suspicion and attack from influential men in the
Church of Rome itself; that no worse things have been said of it by
Protestants than have been said by Romanists themselves; that Romish
ecclesiastics have in all generations of its history, directed against
it their open attacks and their secret machinations; that Romish
teachers have dreaded it as a rival and intriguer.”[503] However, such
Protestants should not fail to examine who these “Romanists” are, and
especially from what motives they act when attacking the Jesuits. We
do not wish to say more on this subject, but quote only the words of
a distinguished French writer, M. Lenormant, who said: “Outside the
Catholic Church opinions regarding the Jesuits, as regarding other
religious orders, are free, but within the Catholic Church the war
against the Jesuits is the most monstrous inconsistency.”[504]
The opposition of Catholic schools to the Society is frequently
looked upon by non-Catholics as the surest proof of the dangerous
character of Jesuit education. They point to the hostility of the
_Alma Mater_ of the Society, the once famous University of Paris, to
the Jesuits. But a German Protestant, a professor in the University
of Strasburg, not in the least partial to the Jesuits, writes on this
subject: “This hostility evidently arose from jealousy, as the youths
of Paris flocked to the schools of these dangerous and dexterous
rivals, while the lecture rooms of the University were empty.”[505] The
same opinion is held by M. Jourdain, the historian of the University
of Paris. He describes the scientific stagnation of the University
in the seventeenth century, and the frightful licentiousness of the
students, in consequence of which parents did not dare to send their
sons to this school, but were anxious to have them educated by the
Jesuits. The University combated this competition not so much by
raising the intellectual and moral standing of the University, as by
acts of Parliament, expelling the Jesuits or closing their colleges.
The colleges of the University were on the point of being deserted,
and this time the danger was all the more grievous, as a part of the
Professors could attribute to themselves the decadence.[506] Still the
members of the University never ceased from accusing the Jesuits of
being corrupters of youth and disturbers of the public peace. It is
admitted also that the teaching in the University was most defective.
But they reproached the Jesuits for inefficiency and faulty methods.
The University, although tainted with Jansenism, charged the Jesuits
with spreading doctrines prejudicial to the Catholic faith, with
“rendering faith a captive to vain human reason and philosophy.”
The historian here justly exclaims: “How often, in later days, has
the Society reversely been accused of being the implacable foe of
philosophy and reason!”[507]
The hostility of the Paris University was, therefore, merely the
outcome of jealousy. At all times monopolies were jealous. Richelieu
had perceived that clearly. Frequently urged to expel the Jesuits
from Paris, he did not yield; on the contrary, towards the end of his
life he handed over to the Jesuits the _Collège de Marmoutiers_. “The
Universities,” he said, “complain as if a wrong were done them, that
the instruction of youth is not left to them exclusively. But as human
frailty requires a counter-balance to everything, it is more reasonable
that the Universities and the Jesuits teach as rivals, in order
that emulation may stimulate their efforts, and that learning being
deposited in the hands of several guardians, may be found with one,
if the others should have lost it.”[508] In another passage Jourdain
does not hesitate to state that the competition of the Jesuits soon
turned into a blessing for the University itself, as it was forced to
exercise a more active supervision over masters and students, which was
beneficial both to discipline and instruction.[509]
In Germany also and in other countries the Jesuits had to encounter
the opposition of the old universities. The reason has been given by
Professor Paulsen: “The old corporations at Ingolstadt, Vienna, Prague,
Freiburg, Cologne, resisted with might and main, but it was all in
vain; the Jesuits were victorious everywhere. The old corporations who
were in possession of the universities have often raised the charge
of ‘imperiousness’ of ‘desire of ruling’ against the Jesuits, and
many historians of these institutions have passionately repeated this
charge, certainly not without good cause. But it must be added that it
was not the desire of ruling that springs from arrogance and rests on
external force or empty titles, but the desire that arises from real
power which is eager to work, because it can work and must work.”[510]
Another reason for the cold treatment of the Society by Catholics
must be sought in unfair generalizations of individual cases. The
Jesuits had always the privilege--or the misfortune--of being the
subject of the constant pre-occupation of the public mind. They are
watched closely, and they are, too often, watched with a magnifying
glass. But if faults are discovered in an individual, is it fair to
censure the whole body? Well has an English writer said: “The most
splendid and perfect institution, if it grow, and occupy a large space,
if many join it, will have among its members imprudent and therefore
dangerous men--men who offer so fair a pretext to the malevolent for
attacking it, that the combined learning and prudence of many years
will hardly make good the damage done. The mass of men do not make fine
distinctions; to distinguish with them, means casuistry, and casuistry
they consider to be next door to systematized imposture. Point out some
telling scandals against some member of a large organized body; be they
only three or four, or true or false, repeat them often enough--and the
public will pass the verdict of guilty upon the whole, and condemn both
the system and him who sins against it.”[511]
Sometimes, indeed, it may be that individual Jesuits have, by their
unfaithfulness to the principles of their order, deserved the
ill-feeling with which they have been regarded. But in a large majority
of cases, it is due either to prejudice or ignorance on the part of
their adversaries, or else to an imperfect grasp of the Jesuit system,
especially to the false impression that the Jesuits exercise an
influence which interferes with the work of others and that they are a
rival power in the government of the Church.[512]
The utter falsity of the impression referred to has been proved
more than once. In 1880 all the French Bishops, with two or three
exceptions, addressed letters of protest to the President of the
Republic against the decree of expulsion of the Jesuits. These letters
form a splendid testimony, not only to the educational success
of the Jesuits, but also to their loyalty to the ecclesiastical
authorities.[513] The Cardinal Archbishop of Paris uttered these
striking words about the Jesuits, so many of whom labored in his
diocese: “Among the religious institutes, there is one which has been
more before the world than the others; which has done splendid service
in education, which has shed lustre on literature, which has formed
_savants_ of the first rank in every branch of science.... Marked out
by its importance and success as an object of the hatred of the enemies
of religion, the Society of Jesus has always confounded calumny by
the splendor of its virtues, its intellectual power and its work....
To zeal, these generous priests have always united prudence. In the
midst of the dissensions which trouble the country, just as the whole
of the clergy have kept themselves rigorously within the limits of
their spiritual ministry, the Society of Jesus has been scrupulously
exact in avoiding all interfering with politics. Those who deny this,
make assertions without proof. A Bishop like myself who has under his
jurisdiction the chief Jesuit establishments in France is in a position
to know the truth in a matter like this.”
Cardinal Bonnechose testified as follows: “The Jesuits devote
themselves to the laborious and often thankless task of education.
They open colleges; experience justifies their efforts; families
entrust their children to them with the utmost confidence; year by
year, public opinion and the government itself, testify to their
success; year by year, they send forth into every career young men who
have been taught to respect authority, who are penetrated with the
idea of duty; who are fitted to become brave soldiers, conscientious
functionaries, and honorable and useful citizens, and who are, every
one, devoted to their country and ready to die for France.”--The
Archbishop of Cambrai, Cardinal Regnier, spoke in the same strain:
“Here I must make particular mention of the Jesuit Fathers, who are
to be treated with special severity. On my conscience and in the
name of truth, President of the French Republic, I bear witness
that these religious men, who have so long been abused, spit upon,
and calumniated by the anti-Christian press with a malice which no
authority has ever attempted to restrain--who are devoted day by day to
the hatred and violence of the mob, as though they were an association
of malefactors--that these religious are esteemed and venerated in
the highest degree by the clergy and by every class of the faithful,
and that they are in every way most worthy of it. Their conduct is
exemplary; their teaching can only be blamed by ignorance and bad
faith. Many of them belong to the most distinguished families of the
country. The house of superior education which they carry on with such
brilliant success at Lille, was entrusted to them--I may almost say,
forced on them--by fathers of families who had themselves been brought
up by them, and who were determined to provide for their children an
education which their own experience taught them to value. I fulfil a
duty of conscience and of honor in addressing to you these simple and
respectful observations.”
The testimony of the Archbishop of Lyons will be of special interest.
Cardinal Caverot writes: “It is the privilege of the children of St.
Ignatius to be in the front of every battle. I know how hatred, and
still more how ignorance and prejudice, have accumulated calumnies
against the Society. But I owe it to the truth to declare here, that in
the course of a ministry of well-nigh fifty years--twenty as priest,
thirty as bishop--I have been able to satisfy myself, and I know
that these worthy and zealous servants of God have well deserved the
distinction given to the Society by the Church, when she proclaimed
it, in the Council of Trent, a ‘Pious Institute, approved by the Holy
See.’ I admire these men in their work of teaching, and in the labors
of their apostleship. _Nowhere have I met with priests more obedient
to ecclesiastical authority, more careful of the laws of the country,
more aloof from political conflict_; and I affirm without fear of
contradiction, that if these decrees which strike at them have not made
any charge whatever against their life and teaching, it is because not
a charge could be made which would survive an hour’s discussion.”
There in no room for further extracts from these letters. The _Dublin
Review_ remarks that these manifestoes of the French hierarchy are
precious documents for the religious orders; “but the Jesuits, in
particular, will be able, from these utterances, to collect a body
of episcopal testimony to their ability, devotedness, and deference
towards the Bishops such as perhaps they have never before received
from a great National Church during the whole course of their
existence.”[514]
In modern times it has sometimes been said that religious orders,
in general, were admirably equipped for former ages, but time has
progressed so fast that the orders were left behind and are now “out of
date.” One Philip Limerick, who, as he affirms, was at one time himself
in a monastery, states this view plainly in the _Contemporary Review_
(April 1897). This writer admits that the Monks were the benefactors
of mankind, by teaching the arts of civilization to the rude tribes
of the North, and that the monastic institutions were the homes, for
a long time even the only ones, of learning. But, he says, “_omnia
tempus habent_, and monks are now rarely met with, and of the later
orders, the Regular Clerks, only one has left a deep impression on the
Latin Church and obtained a place in history--the Society of Jesus.
This Society owes its still vigorous life to its wider scope and more
efficient administration.” Although this writer assigns an exceptional
position to the Society, others include also this Order in the general
doom. “We can do without the Jesuits,” was a saying of Dr. Döllinger,
and his opinion is shared by some so-called Liberal Catholics.
That the present Pope Leo XIII. has other sentiments about religious
orders in general is evident from his numerous letters. In his letter
to the Archbishop of Paris, December 23, 1900, he enumerates all
the benefits religion and society receive from their hands. He says
that “the religious are the necessary auxiliaries of the bishops
and the secular clergy.” “In the past their doctors shed renown on
the universities by the depth and breadth of their learning, and
their houses became the refuge of divine and human knowledge, and
in the shipwreck of civilization saved from certain destruction the
masterpieces of ancient wisdom. _Nor is their activity, their zeal,
their love of their fellow-men, diminished in our own day. Some,
devoted to teaching, instruct the young in secular knowledge and the
principles of religious virtue and duty_, on which public peace and the
welfare of states absolutely depend. Others are seen settling amongst
savage tribes in order to civilize them. Nor is it an uncommon thing
for them to make _important contributions to science_ by the help they
give to the researches which are being made in such different domains
as the study of the differences of race and tongue, of history, the
nature and products of the soil, and other questions.[515] Of course we
are not unaware that there are people who go about declaring that the
religious congregations encroach upon the jurisdiction of the Bishops
and interfere with the rights of the secular clergy. This assertion
cannot be sustained if one cares to consult the wise laws published on
this point by the Church, and which we have recently re-enacted.”[516]
On more than one occasion Leo XIII. gave expression to the high esteem
in which he holds the educational work of the Jesuits, from whom he
himself had received his early training. In the year 1886 he solemnly
confirmed once more the Institute of the Society and its ecclesiastical
privileges, exhorting the sons of Ignatius courageously to continue
their work in the midst of all persecutions.[517]
Before closing this chapter we may mention one explanation for the
widespread animosity against the Society at which some may be inclined
to smile. It is recorded that the founder of the Society, St. Ignatius
of Loyola, used to beg of God continually that his sons might always
be the object of the world’s hatred and enmity. He knew from the words
of Our Divine Master: “If the world hate you, know that it hated me
before you,” and from the history of the Church that this persecution
for the sake of Jesus has always been an essential condition for every
victory won for the sacred cause of Christianity. No doubt, this prayer
of St. Ignatius has been heard. Whether it be the Courtiers of Queen
Elizabeth, or the Reformers in Germany, the infidel Philosophers of the
eighteenth century, or the Atheists of our own days, the Communists of
Paris, or the Revolutionary party in Italy, the Bonzes in Japan, or
the fanatical followers of Mahomet, all who hated the name of Catholic
concentrated their deadliest hatred on the unfortunate Jesuits. And
what was more painful to them, even within the pale of the Catholic
Church, they have sometimes met with misunderstanding and opposition.
The Jansenists in France were their bitter enemies. The Liberal
Catholics invariably stood aloof from them. At times even Bishops and
Archbishops treated them coldly. Still, these persecutions were not
without some good results. They kept the sons of Ignatius ever on the
alert; and for this reason, the prayer of St. Ignatius manifests a
wonderful insight into human affairs. Constant attacks prevent a body
of men from stagnation and security.
“And you all know security
Is mortal’s chiefest enemy.”[518]
FOOTNOTES:
[455] _The History of the Penal Laws enacted against the Roman
Catholics_, by R. R. Madden, London 1847, p. 154.
[456] _Ib._, p. 169.
[457] _Ib._, p. 232.
[458] Koldewey, _Braunschweigische Schulordnungen_, in _Monumenta
Germaniae Paedagogica_, vol. VII, pp. 138-139.
[459] See pp. 146-148. However, it is but fair to add that Catholic
rulers, v. g. the Dukes of Bavaria, forbade their subjects to send
their sons to foreign Protestant schools. Janssen, vol. IV, (16. ed.)
p. 464.
[460] _Educational Reformers_, p. 54.
[461] Compayré, _History of Pedagogy_, p. 143; similarly Seeley,
_History of Education_, p. 185.
[462] Chapter III, pp. 104-106.
[463] _Ratio Studiorum_, _Reg. Prof. Sup. Fac._, n. 20; _Reg. com. mag.
class. inf._ 50.--_Monumenta Paedagogica_, p. 814 foll.
[464] _Ratio Docendi_, ch. III, art. 1, n. 2.
[465] Duhr, _Studienordnung_, pp. 46-53.
[466] Documents in Duhr, _Jesuitenfabeln_, 2d edition, pp. 86-93.
[467] Quick, _Educational Reformers_, p. 39.
[468] Compayré, _Hist. of Ped._, p. 258.
[469] _Summary of the Constit._ 27, where allusion is made to the words
of our Lord: “Freely you have received, freely give.”
[470] _Monumenta Paedagogica_, p. 102.
[471] Duhr, _Studienordnung_, p. 47.--Hallam, _L. of E._, I, 256.
[472] Compayré, _Hist. of Ped._, p. 146. “The ideal of the perfect
scholar is to forget his parents.” This is a calumny; and the example
which M. Compayré adduces of a pupil of the Jesuits who showed an
eccentric behavior towards his mother, and the words of the biographer,
do not express the principles and practices of the Jesuit schools.
[473] Thus, for instance, of the 83 colleges which the Society had in
Germany in 1710, only 12 admitted boarders. Du Lac, _Jésuites_, pp.
297-298, and 390.
[474] See Mr. Whitton’s discussion: _The Private School in American
Life_ (a reply to Mr. Edward’s strictures). _Educat. Rev._, May 1902.
[475] _Literature of Europe_, etc. (ed. 1842, New York), volume II, p.
121.
[476] _Der Jesuiten-Orden_, p. 377.
[477] _Jahresbericht für klassische Altertumswissenschaft_, Berlin,
1891, p. 45 (quoted by Pachtler, _l. c._, vol. IV, p. VIII).
[478] _History of Education_, p. 172.--Similar opinions were expressed
recently by Mr. Frank Hugh O’Donnell, in his book, _The Ruin of
Education in Ireland_, London, 1902. He would advise the commission
on Irish University Education to “refuse every public endowment and
public monopoly to the Order of St. Ignatius. Their individual virtues
and scholarship do not diminish the formidable hostility of their
brotherhood to independence, to progress, to liberty, to toleration and
concord between citizens of different creeds. They are the pretorians
of religious despotism.... Catholic ruin and Catholic ignorance have
attended everywhere the Jesuit monopoly. Where the Jesuit plants, the
crops are indifference, emasculation, and decay.... Their system is
ruin to the Catholic religion. They belong to an age before modern
times.... They can stimulate fanaticism. They cannot develop reason.
They supplant, and call it assistance and direction. They suck the
brain of the lay-people,” etc.--Quoted in _The Month_, September 1902,
pp. 253-254.
[479] _Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts_, vol. I, pp. 410-411.
[480] Ziegler, _Geschichte der Pädagogik_, p. 119.
[481] The case of Sir Henry Howorth furnishes a good illustration
of the “trustworthiness” of the attacks against the Jesuits. This
gentleman asserted (_Tablet_, Nov. 23, 1901), that he had often read,
in the _Civiltà Cattolica_ and in two German Jesuit publications,
“abominable slanders of England and its people.” Sir Henry was
challenged repeatedly to produce _one_ passage from the two German
publications containing a slander of England. One of these periodicals,
the _Stimmen aus Maria-Laach_, has very often praised England and its
liberal institutions; and the other (the _Theologische Zeitschrift_ of
Innsbruck) is a purely scientific paper which never touches political
questions. After many evasions Sir Henry at last wrote (_Tablet_,
March 15, 1902), that he had read the “abominable slanders” in the
Berlin _Germania_, “which, as he was informed, was largely owned and
written by the Jesuits.” But the Jesuits have nothing to do with the
_Germania_. And yet, for three months Sir Henry had maintained that he
had read with his own eyes the slanders in the two mentioned Jesuit
publications!
[482] _The Messenger_, New York, 1902, July, p. 127.
[483] _Westminster Review_, October 1902, p. 325.
[484] _Der Jesuiten-Orden_, p. 384.
[485] _Ami de l’ordre de Namur_, 1843, July 31.
[486] Similar protests of Jesuit pupils were published in 1879, when
Ferry had cast suspicion on the patriotism of the Jesuits. See De Badts
de Cugnac, _Le patriotisme des Jésuites_.
[487] Of the pupils of St. Clement (Metz) 31 died on the battlefield,
of the College of Sainte-Geneviève 78; of the College of Vannes 20, etc.
[488] Painter, _History of Education_, p. 172.
[489] _History of Georgetown College_, p. 422.
[490] Braunsberger, _l. c._, p. 37.
[491] _L’Univers_, Paris, Jan. 20, 1879. See De Badts de Cugnac,
_L’expulsion des Jésuites_, p. 51.
[492] Page 16.
[493] _History of Civilization in England_, vol. I, chapter XVI.
[494] See above chapter III, pp. 77-78.
[495] Canon Littledale in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, art. “Jesuits”.
[496] “That lie about the Titus-Oates Conspiracy,” as the Protestant
historian Gardiner says (_Hist. of England_, vol. II, pp. 483 and 615).
An apostate priest, Chinicquy, has charged the Jesuits even with the
assassination of President Lincoln!
[497] Quite recently the suspicion was expressed in French
anti-clerical papers that the Jesuits were the cause of the coal
strikes. Any one who wishes to see to what extreme of absurdity the
calumniators of the Society have gone, may read Janssen, vol. VII, pp.
530-584.--_Dublin Review_, vol. XLI, pp. 60-86 (“Curiosities of the
Anti-Jesuit Crusade”); vol. L, pp. 329-340.
[498] _The Pilot_, Oct. 12, 1901.
[499] Quick, _Educ. Ref._, p. 54.
[500] _Matth._ 16, 3.
[501] _The Open Court_, Chicago, Jan. 1902, p. 28.
[502] _American Ecclesiastical Review_, Sept. 1902, p. 324.--See
especially the _Dublin Review_, October 1902: “The Power behind
the French Government,” where it is clearly set forth who the real
instigators of this new persecution are.
[503] Professor Porter of Yale, _Educational Systems of the Puritans
and Jesuits compared_, p. 90.
[504] “_Endedans du catholicisme, la guerre aux Jésuites est la plus
monstrueuse des inconséquences._” De Badts de Cugnac, _L’expulsion des
Jésuites_, p. 6.
[505] Ziegler, _Geschichte der Pädagogik_, 1895, p. 121.
[506] Jourdain, _Histoire de l’Université de Paris au XVII. et au
XVIII. siècle_. Paris 1888, vol. I, pp. 1-59.
[507] _Ibid._, p. 282.
[508] _Ibid._, p. 272.
[509] _Ibid._, vol. II, p. 299.
[510] Paulsen, _l. c._, p. 281 (vol. I, p. 407).
[511] R. B. Vaughan, _Life of St. Thomas_, vol. I, p. 629.
[512] See Father Clarke, S. J., in the _Nineteenth Century_, August
1896.
[513] See _Dublin Review_, 1880, July, pp. 155-183.--Again in October
1902, of 79 French Bishops 72 (in a joint petition to the Senate)
declared their solidarity with the religious orders.
[514] _L. c._, p. 175.
[515] On the services rendered by Catholic missionaries, mostly
religious, to the knowledge of languages, especially to _Comparative
Philology_, see Max Müller’s _Lectures on the Science of Language_,
vol. I, and Father Dahlmann: _Die Sprachkunde und die Missionen_,
(Herder, 1891).
[516] Translation from _The Messenger_, New York, February 1901.
[517] Pachtler, vol. IV, p. 581.
[518] _Macbeth_ 3, 5.
PART SECOND.
The Principles of the Ratio Studiorum.--Its Theory and Practice Viewed
in the Light of Modern Educational Problems.