The author traces the educational system of the Society of Jesus from its roots in late‑medieval schooling through the codification of the Ratio Studiorum, detailing college officers, curricula, and classroom methods. He reconstructs curricular sequences in languages, philosophy, mathematics, sciences, history, and rhetoric, and describes pedagogical practices including school drama and institutional organization. The study examines the order's rapid expansion, the consequences of political suppression and later restoration, and the system's responses to modern debates over electives, classical study, and moral instruction. Extensive quotations from constitutions and contemporary critics support a descriptive, sometimes polemical, defence and a bibliographical guide to primary sources.