150. Foundation of the Society of Jesus.—In organizing the Society of Jesus, Ignatius Loyola, that compound of the mystic and the man of the world, purposed to establish, not an order devoted to monastic contemplation, but a real fighting corps, a Catholic army, whose double purpose was to conquer new provinces to the faith through missions, and to preserve the old through the control of education. Solemnly consecrated by the Pope Paul III., in 1540, the congregation had a rapid growth. As early as the middle of the sixteenth century, it had several colleges in France, particularly those of Billom, Mauriac, Rodez, Tournon, and Pamiers. In 1561 it secured a footing in Paris, notwithstanding the resistance of the Parliament, of the university, and of the bishops themselves. A hundred years later it counted nearly fourteen thousand pupils in the province of Paris alone. The college of Clermont, in 1651, enrolled more than two thousand young men. The middle and higher classes assured to the colleges of the society an ever-increasing membership. At the end of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits could inscribe on the roll of honor of their classes a hundred illustrious names, among others, those of Condé and Luxembourg, Fléchier and Bossuet, Lamoignon and Séguier, Descartes, Corneille, and Molière. In 1710 they controlled six hundred and twelve colleges and a large number of universities. They were the real masters of education, and they maintained this educational supremacy till the end of the eighteenth century.
151. Different Judgments on the Educational Merits of the Jesuits.—Voltaire said of these teachers: “The Fathers taught me nothing but Latin and nonsense.” But from the seventeenth century, opinions are divided, and the encomiums of Bacon and Descartes must be offset by the severe judgment of Leibnitz. “In the matter of education,” says this great philosopher, “the Jesuits have remained below mediocrity.”[111] Directly to the contrary, Bacon had written: “As to whatever relates to the instruction of the young, we must consult the schools of the Jesuits, for there can be nothing that is better done.”[112]
152. Authorities to Consult.—The Jesuits have never written anything on the principles and objects of education. We must not demand of them an exposition of general views, or a confession of their educational faith. But to make amends, they have drawn up with precision, with almost infinite attention to details, the rules and regulations of their course of study. Already, in 1559, the Constitutions, probably written by Loyola himself, devoted a whole book to the organization of the colleges of the society.[113] But in particular, the Ratio Studiorum, published in 1599, contains a complete scholastic programme, which has remained for three centuries the invariable educational code of the congregation. Without doubt, the Jesuits, always ready to make apparent concessions to the spirit of the times, without sacrificing anything of their own spirit, and without renouncing their inflexible purpose, have introduced modifications into their original rules; but the spirit of their educational practice has remained the same, and, in 1854, Beckx, the actual general of the order, could still declare that the Ratio is the immutable rule of Jesuit education.
153. Primary Instruction Neglected.—A permanent and characteristic feature of the educational policy of the Jesuits is, that, during the whole course of their history, they have deliberately neglected and disdained primary instruction. The earth is covered with their Latin colleges; and wherever they have been able, they have put their hands on the institutions for university education; but in no instance have they founded a primary school. Even in their establishments for secondary instruction, they entrust the lower classes to teachers who do not belong to their order, and reserve to themselves the direction of the higher classes. Must we believe, as they have declared in order to explain this negligence, that the only reason for their reserve and their indifference is to be sought for in the insufficiency of their teaching force? No; the truth is that the Jesuits neither desire nor love the instruction of the people. To desire and to love this, there must be faith in conscience and reason; there must be a belief in human equality. Now the Jesuits distrust the human intelligence, and administer only the aristocratic education of the ruling classes, whom they hope to retain under their own control. They wish to train amiable gentlemen, accomplished men of the world; they have no conception of training men. Intellectual culture, in their view, is but a convenience, imposed on certain classes of the nation by their rank. It is not a good in itself; it may even become an evil. In certain hands it is a dangerous weapon. The ignorance of a people is the best safeguard of its faith, and faith is the supreme end. So we shall not be astonished to read this in the Constitutions:—
“None of those who are employed in domestic service on account of the society, ought to learn to read and write, or, if they already know these arts, to learn more of them. They shall not be instructed without the consent of the General, for it suffices for them to serve with all simplicity and humility our Master, Jesus Christ.”
154. Classical Studies: Latin and the Humanities.—It is only in secondary instruction that the Jesuits have taken position with marked success. The basis of their teaching is the study of Latin and Greek. Their purpose is to monopolize classical studies in order to make them serve for the propagation of the Catholic faith. 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. The Ratio forbids the use of French even in conversation; it permits it only on holidays. Hence, also, the importance accorded to Latin and Greek composition, to the explication of authors, and to the study of grammar, rhetoric, and poetry. It is to be noted, besides, that the Jesuits put scarcely more into the hands of their pupils than select extracts, expurgated editions. They wish, in some sort, to efface from the ancient books whatever marks the epoch and characterizes the time. They detach fine passages of eloquence and beautiful extracts of poetry; but they are afraid, it seems, of the authors themselves; they fear lest the pupil find in them the old human spirit,—the spirit of nature. Moreover, in the explication of authors, they pay more attention to words than to things. They direct the pupil’s attention, not to the thoughts, but to the elegancies of language, to the elocutionary effect; in a word, to the form, which, at least, has no religious character, and can in nowise give umbrage to Catholic orthodoxy. They fear to awaken reflection and individual judgment. As Macaulay has said, they seem to have found the point up to which intellectual culture can be pushed without reaching intellectual emancipation.
155. Disdain of History, of Philosophy, and of the Sciences in General.—Preoccupied before all else with purely formal studies, and exclusively devoted to the exercises which give a training in the use of elegant language, the Jesuits leave real and concrete studies in entire neglect. History is almost wholly banished from their programme. It is only with reference to the Greek and Latin texts that the teacher should make allusion to the matters of history which are necessary for the understanding of the passage under examination. No account is made of modern history, nor of the history of France. “History,” says a Jesuit Father, “is the destruction of him who studies it.” This systematic omission of historical studies suffices to put in its true light the artificial and superficial pedagogy of the Jesuits, admirably defined by Beckx, who expresses himself thus:—
“The gymnasia will remain what they are by nature, a gymnastic for the intellect, which consists far less in the assimilation of real matter, in the acquisition of different knowledges, than in a culture of pure form.”
The sciences and philosophy are involved in the same disdain as history. Scientific studies are entirely proscribed in the lower classes, and the student enters his year in philosophy,[114] having studied only the ancient languages. Philosophy itself is reduced to a barren study of words, to subtile discussions, and to commentaries on Aristotle. Memory and syllogistic reasoning are the only faculties called into play; no facts, no real inductions, no care for the observation of nature. In all things the Jesuits are the enemies of progress. Intolerant of everything new, they would arrest the progress of the human mind and make it immovable.
156. Discipline.—Extravagant statements have been made relative to the reforms in discipline introduced by the Jesuits into their educational establishments. The fact is, that they have caused to prevail in their colleges more of order and of system than there was in the establishments of the University. On the other hand, they have attempted to please their pupils, to gild for them, so to speak, the bars of the prison which confined them. Theatrical representations, excursions on holidays, practice in swimming, riding, and fencing,—nothing was neglected that could render their residence at school endurable.