[CHAPTER XXVII]
COLLEGES
Responsibility of the Society for loss of Faith in Europe — The Loi Falloux — Bombay — Calcutta — Beirut — American Colleges — Scientists, Archæologists, Meteorologists, Seismologists, Astronomers — Ethnologists.
The Society of Jesus is frequently charged with being responsible for the present irreligious condition of the Latin nations, of France in particular, because, having had the absolute control of education in the past, it did not train its pupils to resist the inroads of atheism and unbelief.
In the first place, the charge is based on the supposition that the Society had complete control of the education of Catholic countries, which is not the case. Thus, for instance, Montesquieu, one of the first and most dangerous of the assailants of the Church in the eighteenth century, was educated by the Oratorians. As much as thirty-seven years before the French Revolution, namely, in 1752, Father Vitelleschi, the General of the Society, addressed the following letter to the Jesuits throughout the world:
"It is of supreme importance that what we call the scholæ inferiores (those namely below philosophy and theology) should be looked after with extreme solicitude. We owe this to the municipalities which have established colleges for us, and entrusted to us the education of their youth. This is especially incumbent upon us at the present time, when such an intense desire for scholastic education everywhere manifests itself, and has called into existence so many schools of that kind. Hence, unless we are careful, there is danger of our colleges being considered unnecessary. We must not forget that for a long time there were almost no other Latin schools but ours, or at least very few; so that parents were forced to send their sons to us who otherwise would not have done so. But now in many places, many schools are competing with ours, and we are exposing ourselves to be regarded as not up to the mark, and thus losing both our reputation and our scholars. Hence, our pupils are not to be detained for too long a period by a multiplication of courses, and they must be more than moderately imbued with a knowledge of the Classics. If they have not the best of masters, it is very much to be feared that they will betake themselves elsewhere and then every effort on our part to repair the damage will be futile."
In the second place, after the year 1762, that is twenty-seven years before the Revolution, there were not only no Jesuit colleges at all in France, but no Jesuits, and consequently there was an entire generation which had been trained in schools that were distinctly and intensely antagonistic to everything connected with the Society. Furthermore, it is an undeniable fact, provable by chronology, that the most conspicuous men in that dreadful upheaval, namely, Robespierre, Desmoulins, Tallien, Fréron, Chenier and others were educated in schools from which the Jesuits had been expelled before some of those furious young demagogues were born. Danton, for instance, was only three years old in 1762; Marat was a Protestant from Geneva, and, of course, was not a Jesuit pupil; and Mirabeau was educated by private tutors. The fact that Robespierre and Desmoulins were together at Louis-le-Grand has misled some into the belief that they were Jesuit students, whereas the college when they were there had long been out of the hands of the Society. The same is true of Portugal and Spain. The Society had ceased to exist in Portugal as early as 1758, and in Spain in 1767.
Far from being in control of the schools of France, the whole history of the French Jesuits is that of one uninterrupted struggle to get schools at all. Against them, from the very beginning, were the University of Paris and the various parliaments of France, which represented the highest culture of the nation and bitterly resented the intrusion of the Society into the domain of education.
Not only is this true of the period that preceded but also of the one that followed the French Revolution. It was only in 1850, namely seventy-seven years after the Suppression of the Society, that the Jesuits, in virtue of the Loi Falloux, were permitted to open a single school in France. The wonder is that the incessant confiscations and suppressions which followed would permit of any educational success whatever. Nevertheless, in the short respites that were allowed them they filled the army and navy with officers who were not only conspicuous in their profession but, at the same time, thoroughgoing Catholics. Marshal Foch is one of their triumphs. Indeed it was the superiority of their education that provoked the latest suppression of the Jesuit schools in France.
It is this government monopoly of education in all the Continental countries that constitutes the present difficulty both for the Society of Jesus and for all the other teaching orders. Thus after 1872, the German province had not a single college in the whole extent of the German Empire. It could only attempt to do something beyond the frontiers. It has one in Austria, a second in Holland, and a third in Denmark. Austria has only one to its credit; Hungary one and Bohemia another. The province of Rome has one; Sicily two, one of which is in Malta, and Malta is English territory; Naples had three and Turin four, but some of these have already disappeared. All the splendid colleges of France were closed by Waldeck-Rousseau in 1890. Spain has five excellent establishments, but they have no guarantee of permanency. Belgium has thirteen colleges, packed with students, but the terrible World War has at least for a time depleted them. Holland has three colleges of its own. England four, and Ireland three.
The expulsions, however, have their compensations. Thus when the Jesuits were expelled from Germany by Bismarck, the English government welcomed them to India, and the splendid college of Bombay was the result. Italy also benefited by the disaster. Not to mention other distinguished men, Father Ehrle became Vatican librarian, and Father Wernz, rector of the Gregorian University and subsequently General of the Society. In South America, the exiles did excellent work in Argentina and Ecuador. The Jesuits of New York gave them an entrance into Buffalo, and from that starting-point they established a chain of colleges in the West, and later, when conditions called for it, they were assimilated to the provinces of Maryland, New York and Missouri, thus greatly increasing the efficiency of those sections of the Society.