In like manner, to be admitted as a student of Divinity and its correlative sciences, it is necessary to have graduated in the course of Arts, that is to say, Philosophy and its branches. Thus the University of Würzburg ordains that no one shall be admitted as an auditor of Scholastic Theology, unless he be Magisterio insignis, "a Master of Arts"; it excepts only the members of religious Orders in attendance, and also Principis Alumnos, "the Prince's scholars." Others, who have not so graduated, it will admit to Moral Theology and its supplementary branches. It will not even examine, for the Mastership in Arts, any one, whether a Religious or not, who has studied Philosophy in a private institution or a monastery.[213] To apply for Academic Degrees, "they must prove that they have followed all the courses in some approved public University."[214]
The curriculum, now before the student, is a quadriennium, or four-year course. It is prolonged into a fifth and sixth year, for reviewing the whole ground of one's studies; for preparing a public defence against all comers; and, in the case of Jesuit students, for an immediate preparation to fill the Professor's chair, the pulpit, or to discharge other functions. Hence the University of Cologne specifies, in general, a sexennium, or six-year course for Theology.[215]
Not unlike to this is the parallelism which we may notice, in appointing the members of the Society to Professors' chairs. Though qualified to teach literature after his own complete course of letters in the seminary, yet, as we have seen, no one is to be put over the classes of Grammar or Humanity who has not first studied his Philosophy. And so again, at this stage, though apparently competent to teach Philosophy, and approved as being qualified to profess it, yet no one is to be put in a chair of that course who has not also studied his Theology.[216]
The reasons for this are assigned by the critics of 1586. The philosopher, they say, who has not yet become a theologian, will not be so safe in his conclusions, in his proofs, in his manner of expression. He will be of an age less mature. His learning will be less superabundant. He will scarcely be able to answer the arguments of unbelievers. Nor will he treat Philosophy in a way to render it useful to Theology. In fine, the proprieties of things cannot be well observed, if he who has just filled a chair of Philosophy has to sit down as a mere student in Theology.[217]
The branches of this theological course are Scholastic Theology, Moral Theology, Sacred Scripture, Hebrew and Oriental Languages, Ecclesiastical History, and Canon Law. The general category of students is naturally more limited than in the philosophical curriculum. There the auditors were young men, who would betake themselves, at its close, to Medicine, or other walks of life. They may have taken to Law; though Possevino, himself eminent in jurisprudence, would seem to imply that Canon Law must have been pursued first.[218] The students now are chiefly Ecclesiastics, with various careers before them; or they are Religious of different Orders; or, finally, the members of the Society itself. The principal object of our consideration is the formation of these latter, as qualified to profess. The pedagogical elements before us may be ranged under three heads: Private Study; Repetition, which includes Disputation; Lecturing, which is supplemented by Dictation.
2. As to the method of private study, all the auditors of the course are directed to look over, prior to the lecture,[219] the text in Aristotle, St. Thomas, etc., which the Professor is about to explain.[220] Then, while the lecture is being delivered, they take down notes; the copying of mere dictation is not favored. After the lecture, they are to read over the notes which they have taken down. Let them endeavor to understand their annotations. Understanding what they have written, they are to make objections to themselves against the thesis established, and endeavor to solve their own objections. If they cannot find a solution, let them note the difficulties, and take occasion to ask the Professor, or reserve them for disputation. Such is the method of private study prescribed for the members of the Order,[221] and laid down in more general terms for the other students.[222] To develop habits of such study, and to afford the requisite leisure, a certain custom, then prevailing in Portugal, of keeping the Professors of Philosophy and their students during two hours and a half consecutively in the lecture room is discountenanced by the critics of 1586: "That the philosophers should remain two whole hours and a half in class, as is now done, is burdensome to the Professor and troublesome to the students; for these latter should get accustomed to private study, lest, like parrots, they seem to be always talking by rote."[223]
This curtailing of class hours was characteristic of the Society's system. In 1567 the General Father Francis Borgia wrote, through his secretary Polanco, correcting, in this respect, a school-regulation which had been followed in the lower classes of the German Province. The secretary writes: "It is found by experience, in the schools of the Company, that to teach three consecutive hours in the forenoon, and three more in the afternoon, is injurious to the health of our Masters, and does no good to the health of the scholars; for which reason it is now ordained that in our schools the morning classes shall not last longer than two and a half hours, and the same in the afternoon."[224]
Nothing intensifies more the results of studies than concentration, nor dissipates them more than division of attention, while a given pursuit is in progress. This principle applies to the number of courses taken up at one time, the conduct of private studies in any single course, and the degree to which the appointed teachers and the standard authors have full justice done them. On this head, the critics of 1586 give recommendations, derived from the Constitution, for the direction of all the students in general, and for the members of the Order in particular. The recommendations are embodied briefly in the Ratio Studiorum.[225] With Aristotle in Philosophy, or with St. Thomas in Theology, one commentary is to be designated, and that a specially chosen author, suited to the individual's capacity. In the second year of Theology, one of the Fathers of the Church can be added, "to be read at odds and ends of time, or after the fatigue of a long stretch of study. Another can be substituted, if after a while they ask for another. But care should be taken that they do not spend too much time on this reading, as if they were getting up a sermon."[226]
All this, no doubt, tends to make the student "a man of one book," who, as the adage says, is much to be feared. However, when he goes through every course, and is everywhere a man of concentrated attention, while, for the purpose of public disputation and the attempted refutation of his own and the Professor's conclusions, the side avenues of various authors and systems are studiously and necessarily kept open, it is probable that, after being "a man of one book," in many courses successively, he will also be well-rounded by the time his formation is complete. With students in general, this can be accomplished by the age of twenty-five; with the Jesuits themselves, about the age of thirty-three.
3. I come now to the subject of Repetition, of which two chief forms offer themselves. One is just what the word of itself indicates; it belongs to all the faculties, but chiefly to the lower courses. I shall call it by the generic name of Repetition. The other has place principally in the higher; it is Disputation; of which a preparatory exercise, called Concertatio, prevails also from the lowest class of Grammar upwards.