Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits

by Thomas Hughes

Upper Grammar. The grade is the complete knowledge of grammar, including all the exceptions and idioms in syntax, figures of rhetoric, and the art of versification. In Greek: the eight parts of speech, or all the rudiments. For the lessons: in prose, the most difficult epistles of Cicero, the books De Amicitia, De Senectute, and others of the kind, or even some of the easier orations; in poetry, some select elegies and epistles of Ovid, also selections from Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, and the eclogues of Virgil, or some of Virgil's easier books. In Greek: St. Chrysostom, Xenophon, and the like.

Humanity. The grade is to prepare, as it were, the ground for eloquence, which is done in three ways, by a knowledge of the language, some erudition, and a sketch of the precepts pertaining to Rhetoric. For a command of the language, which consists chiefly in acquiring propriety of expression and fluency, the one prose author employed in daily prelections is Cicero; as historical writers, Cæsar, Sallust, Livy, Curtius, and others of the kind; the poets used are, first of all, Virgil; also select odes of Horace, with the elegies, epigrams, and other productions of illustrious poets, expurgated; in like manner, orators, historians, and poets, in the vernacular. The erudition conveyed should be slight, and only to stimulate and recreate the mind, not to impede progress in learning the tongue. The precepts will be the general rules of expression and style, and the special rules on the minor kinds of composition, epistles, narrations, descriptions, both in verse and prose. In Greek: the art of versification, and some notions of the dialects; also a clear understanding of authors, and some composition in Greek. The Greek prose authors will be Saints Chrysostom and Basil, epistles of Plato and Synesius, some selections from Plutarch; the poets, Homer, Phocylides, Theognis, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Synesius, and others like them.

Rhetoric. The grade of this class cannot easily be defined. For it trains to perfect eloquence, which comprises two great faculties, the oratorical and poetical, the former chiefly being the object of culture; nor does it regard only the practical, but the beautiful also. For the precepts, Cicero may be supplemented with Quintilian and Aristotle. The style, which may be assisted by drawing on the most approved historians and poets, is to be formed on Cicero; all of his works are most fitted for this purpose, but only his speeches should be made the subject of prelection, that the precepts of the art may be seen in practice. As to the vernacular, the style should be formed on the best authors. The erudition will be derived from the history and manners of nations, from the authority of writers and all learning; but moderately, as befits the capacity of the students. In Greek, the fuller knowledge of authors and of dialects is to be acquired. The Greek authors, whether orators, historians, or poets, are to be ancient and classic: Demosthenes, Plato, Thucydides, Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and others of the kind, including Saints Nazianzen, Basil, and Chrysostom.

The compilers of the preliminary Ratio throw out some very useful hints, relative to the work and scope of this class. They say, for instance, that the students of Rhetoric "are to be assisted with almost a daily exposition of some poet, to derive thence the variety and richness of poetic imitation and diction." Again, "nothing dialectic is to be made the subject of prelection in this class, since rhetoricians are to be kept as far away as possible from the style, invention, and spirit of dialectics." "Two or three years" are spoken of as spent in this grade.[337] At any rate, "all our day-scholars or boarders[338] should spend one year in Rhetoric before they enter on Philosophy; this should be brought home to their parents. The others, who attend our courses from outside,[339] should be persuaded to do the same."[340] If they still insist upon entering the philosophical curriculum at too early an age, special means are suggested to discountenance such a practice.

All these five grades are evidently so connected as not to overlap one another. Neither are they to be multiplied, except in the sense of allowing more than a single division, when scholars are very numerous. If all the grades cannot be maintained in any place, "the higher ones, as far as possible, are to be kept, the lower being dispensed with."[341]

THE PHILOSOPHICAL CURRICULUM.

With the side branches sufficiently learned, with the boy's native talents "stimulated" or "cultivated," as the Ratio frequently expresses itself,[342] and his memory enriched with the fullest materials for style in two languages, Latin and the vernacular, while Greek has subsidized his culture, the student enters on the study of Philosophy, using scholastic Latin as the vehicle of expression.

This instrument for the expression of philosophical thought possesses the qualities of subtlety, keenness, and precision, which the dialectic practice of all universities had tended to develop in it, from the twelfth century onwards. With the addition of Cicero's fulness and richness, which the colleges cultivated with so much ardor, the scholastic Latin of men like Molina, Ripalda, Liberatore, Franzelin, and so many others, has flourished to a degree of literary excellence.

Mathematics runs parallel with the course of Philosophy, and upon that branch of science there is a rather eloquent passage in the Ratio of 1586.[343] Physics was always included in the Aristotelian philosophy. The career of Modern Physics was then in the future. But, as in Mathematics pure and applied, the courses were always advanced to the foremost rank, and in Arithmetic and Geometry we notice that, as early as 1667, a single public course, under the direction of Jesuits at Caen, numbered four hundred students,[344] so, in the middle of the next century, the eighteenth, we find physical cabinets in regular use, and experimental lectures given to the classes by the Professors of Physics.[345] The basis of the study is thus laid down in the rules of the revised Ratio: "The Professor is to expose theories, systems, and hypotheses, so as to make it clear what degree of certitude or probability belongs to each. Since this faculty makes new progress every day, the Professor must consider it part of his duty to know the more recent discoveries, so that in his prelections he may advance with the science itself."[346] The general assemblies had legislated on this subject, as I indicated before; assigning its proper place in Philosophy to what they called "the more pleasant" or the "lighter" form of Physics. Indeed, Philosophy itself in the course of three centuries came to feel many new needs and submitted to new lines of treatment.