The limits of this study forbid our entering into details. Let us merely note a few essential points. That which distinguishes the Oratorians, is, first, a sincere and disinterested love of truth.
“We love the truth,” says the Père Lamy; “the days do not suffice to consult her as long as we would wish; or, rather, we never grow weary of the pleasure we find in studying her. There has always been that love for letters in this House: those who have governed it have tried to nourish it. When there is found among us some penetrating and liberally endowed spirit who has a rare genius for the sciences, he is discharged from all other duties.”[117]
Nowhere have ancient letters been more loved than at the Oratory.
“In his leisure hours the Père Thomassin read only the authors of the humanities;” and yet French was not there sacrificed to Latin. The use of the Latin language was not obligatory till after the fourth year, and even then not for the lessons in history, which, till the end of the courses, had to be given in French. History, so long neglected even in the colleges of the University, particularly the history of France, was taught to the pupils of the Oratory. Geography was not separated from it; and the class-rooms were furnished with large mural maps. On the other hand, the sciences had a place in the course of study. A Jesuit father would not have expressed himself as the Père Lamy has done:—
“It is a pleasure to enter the laboratory of a chemist. In the places where I have happened to be, I did not miss an opportunity to attend the anatomical lectures that were given, and to witness the dissection of the principal parts of the human body.... I know of nothing of greater use than algebra and arithmetic.”
Finally, philosophy itself,—the Cartesian philosophy, so mercilessly decried by the Jesuits,—was in vogue at the Oratory. “If Cartesianism is a pest,” wrote the regents of the College of Angers, “there are more than two hundred of us who are infected with it.” ... “They have forbidden the Fathers of the Oratory to teach the philosophy of Descartes, and, consequently, the blood to circulate,” wrote Madame de Sévigné, in 1673.
Let us also furnish proof of the progress and amelioration of the discipline at the Oratory:—
“There are many other ways besides the rod,” says the Père Lamy; “and, to lead pupils back to their duty, a caress, a threat, the hope of a reward, or the fear of a humiliation, has greater efficiency than whips.”
The ferule, it is true, and whips also, were not forbidden, but made part of the legitima pœnarum genera. But it does not appear that use was often made of them; either through a spirit of mildness, or through prudence, and through the fear of exasperating the child.
“There is needed,” says the Père Lamy again, “a sort of politics to govern this little community,—to lead them through their inclinations; to foresee the effect of rewards and punishments, and to employ them according to their proper use. There are times of stubbornness when a child would sooner be killed than yield.”