Jesuit education

That a Christian reformer followed the earlier humanists, who were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Christianity, as Vittorino da Feltre, Hegius, Agricola, Wimpheling, is natural. But, as Paulsen remarks, “it is a strange phenomenon that a man (Luther) who seemed to be made to fight with Savonarola against the worldliness of the Church introduced by humanism, had to unite himself with Hutten for the extirpation of monasticism. True, it is stranger still that Hutten could make common cause with Luther against the Papacy whose representative was a Medici, against a Church which raised such patrons of learning as Cardinal Albrecht of Mentz to the highest dignities. Well might one have warned Hutten not to cut the branch on which he was sitting.”⁠[120]

The humanists had, indeed, cut the branch.—Humanism was ruined by its alliance with the Reformation, and as early as 1524 the eyes of the humanists were opened. The universities and schools were almost annihilated in the storms of religious strife. Professor Paulsen shows this in detail in regard to the various German universities,⁠[121] as Wittenberg, Erfurt, Leipsic, Frankfurt, Rostock, Greifswald, Cologne, Vienna, Heidelberg, etc. Ingolstadt, of all German universities, was least affected by the Reformation. Under the leadership of Dr. Eck the Lutheran invasion was energetically combated. The number of students declined somewhat, but not considerably, so that this university shows the most favorable conditions of all universities.⁠[122] The same decline was visible in the lower schools. Döllinger has collected a long list of complaints that could be easily enlarged, about the ruin of the schools consequent upon the religious revolution.⁠[123]

The humanist Eobanus Hessus writes from Erfurt in the year 1523: “Under the cloak of the Gospel the escaped monks here are suppressing all liberal studies. Our university is quite deserted; we are utterly despised.” In the same year the Dean of the Erfurt philosophical faculty complains: “Nobody would have believed it, if it had been predicted that in a short time our university would have fallen so low that scarcely a shadow of its former lustre would remain.” In the same strain lament Melanchthon from Wittenberg, and others from all seats of learning throughout Germany.

Erasmus, an eye-witness of the first scenes in the great drama of the Reformation, the intimate friend of Melanchthon and other Reformers, writes in 1528: “Wherever Lutheranism reigns, there literature perishes. I dislike these gospellers on many accounts, but chiefly, because through their agency literature everywhere languishes, disappears, lies drooping and perishes: and yet, without learning, what is a man’s life? They love good cheer and a wife; for other things they care not a straw.”⁠[124] In a letter to Melanchthon he states that at Strasburg the Protestant party had publicly taught, in 1524, that it was not right to cultivate any science, and that no language should be studied except the Hebrew. In fact, who was to be blamed for this rapid decay of schools but the Reformers themselves? Carlstadt was not only a fanatic in his hatred of Catholic doctrines and customs, but also spoke with contempt of all human learning. He advised the students to return to their homes and resume the spade or follow the plough, and cultivate the earth, because man was to eat bread in the sweat of his brow. George Mohr, master of the boys’ school at Wittenberg, carried away by a similar madness, called from his window to the burghers outside to come and remove their children. Where, indeed, was the use of continuing their studies, since a mechanic was just as well, nay, perhaps better qualified than all the divines in the world, to preach the Gospel.⁠[125]

The Anabaptists in Münster decided that there was only one book necessary to salvation, the Bible, all others should be burned as useless or dangerous. This decision was carried out, and whole libraries with numerous precious manuscripts of Latin and Greek authors perished in the flames. Popes, bishops, and councils during the Middle Ages, had enforced the obligation of establishing schools throughout Christendom. The vandalism of some Reformers destroyed innumerable monasteries and with them schools without number. The funds for the support of these schools had been accumulated by the piety, zeal and liberality of previous ages.

No one is more responsible for this sad change than Luther himself. If, with the aid of the Holy Ghost, Scripture could be interpreted by “a miller’s maid and a boy of nine years better than by all the popes and cardinals,”—these are Luther’s words,—of what value could human learning be in religion? Nay more, according to Luther’s early teaching, higher learning was not only useless, but positively dangerous. He spoke with a fierce hatred against higher schools and human learning. Professor Paulsen admits that the vehemence of tone in which Luther spoke of the universities as the real bulwarks of the devil on earth, has perhaps never been rivalled before or after by any attack on these institutions.⁠[126] A few specimens of these invectives may suffice.

According to Luther, everything instituted by the papacy was only intended to augment sin and error, so also were the universities. It is the devil himself who has introduced study; there reigns the damned, haughty and wicked Aristotle, from whose works Christian youth is instructed.⁠[127] And yet “a man who boasts the title of philosopher cannot be called a Christian.” “The Moloch to which the Jews offered up their children, are the higher schools (hohen Schulen = universities), in which the best part of youth is sacrificed as a burnt offering. There they are instructed in false heathen art and godless human knowledge: this is the fire of Moloch which no one can weep over enough, through which the most pious and most clever boys are miserably ruined.”⁠[128] “The higher schools all deserve to be ground to dust; nothing more hellish, nothing more devilish has appeared on earth, nor will ever appear. These schools have been invented by no one else than the devil.”⁠[129] Luther hated the universities because they exalted reason, “the light of nature”, too much. To Luther reason is only “the devil’s bride, a beautiful prostitute of the devil.”⁠[130] “Human reason is sheer darkness.” The faithful strangle reason and say: “Hearest thou, a mad blind fool thou art, understandest not a bit of the things that are God’s. Thus the believers throttle this beast.”⁠[131]

It is surprising to see that Melanchthon fell in with the tone of Luther.⁠[132] He denounced universities, philosophy, and ethics, almost as violently as his master, but only for a time; he soon abated the violence of his sentiments, whereas Luther to the end of his life preserved his bitterness against natural reason. Innumerable other preachers began to vie with each other in pouring forth virulent abuse against all enlightened knowledge and secular learning.

Can we then wonder that the parents, prejudiced by such inflammatory declamations, became averse not only to higher learning, as it had existed before the religious disturbances, but to schools in general? No wonder that the lower schools also began to be neglected, so that contemporary writers say: “About the year 1525 schools began to decline, and no one wanted to send his children to school, as people had heard so much from Luther’s writings of how the priests and the learned had so pitiably seduced mankind.” The official report of the inspectors of the district of Wittenberg, the centre and starting point of Luther’s “reform”, informs us in the year 1533: “The city schools which, in addition to the instruction they imparted, had given the children a material maintenance, are alarmingly decreasing.”⁠[133]

Luther himself was appalled at this desolation, for he knew full well the importance of the school. With bitter invective and reproach he lashes the indifference of the people and the avarice of the princes who, after having squandered the property of the Church and the funds of the schools, refused to do anything for establishing new schools or even for maintaining those in existence. “Formerly”, he says, “when we were the slaves of Satan, and profaned the blood of Christ, all purses were open; then nothing was spared to put children in the cloister or to send them to school. But now when we must establish good schools (rechte Schulen)—establish, did I say, no, but only preserve the buildings in good condition—the purses are closed with iron chains. The children are neglected, no one teaches them to serve God, while they are joyfully immolated to Mammon.” But herein Luther was inconsistent. Had he not taught people again and again that good works were useless? Why should they make any sacrifice of money for a pious work like that of education? And was it a good and pious work at all? This might have been asked by those who remembered Luther’s reckless invectives against higher schools.

Luther was absolutely powerless to remedy the evil which grew worse daily. Therefore he appealed earnestly to the Protestant princes and magistrates to found and support schools. He told them that it was their right, nay, their duty to oblige their subjects to send their children to school. As is evident, Luther had been forced to this step because his voice, always “omnipotent when it preached destruction and spoliation, now fell powerless when it was at length raised to enforce the necessity of liberal contribution for the rearing of institutions to replace those which had been wantonly destroyed.”⁠[134] Compulsory education, accordingly, is a child of the Reformation; so is also the state-monopoly which gradually developed in European countries.⁠[135]

The princes and magistrates to whom Luther appealed for establishing new schools, were slow in following these admonitions, whereas they had been most docile when told to confiscate the rich abbeys and monasteries which had maintained many educational institutions. Luther himself complained that so little heed was paid to his words. In 1528 a new “Order” for the cities of Saxony was prepared by Melanchthon. In 1559 appeared the “Church and School Order of Württemberg.”⁠[136] Very different from the attitude of Luther was that of Melanchthon towards higher studies. Luther saw in humanistic studies only a weapon for theological purposes; but Melanchthon was himself a humanist and believed that study of the ancient languages and literature offered immediate educational benefit to the student.⁠[137] Melanchthon has been called Praeceptor Germaniae, and this he was for the Protestant part of that country. His system was an adaptation of the humanistic principles of Erasmus, and especially of Rudolph Agricola,⁠[138] who was prominent among the earlier conservative humanists.

It is evident that Luther’s merits in regard to education have been exaggerated. The words of the Protestant Hallam deserve to be more universally known: “Whatever may be the ideas of our minds as to the truth of Luther’s doctrines, we should be careful ... not to be misled by the superficial and ungrounded representations which we sometimes find in modern writers. Such is this that Luther, struck by the absurdity of the prevailing superstitions, was desirous of introducing a more rational system of religion ..., or, what others have been pleased to suggest, that his zeal for learning and ancient philosophy led him to attack the ignorance of the monks and the crafty policy of the Church, which withstood all liberal studies. These notions are merely fallacious refinements, as every man of plain understanding who is acquainted with the writings of the early reformers, or has considered their history, must acknowledge. The doctrines of Luther, taken altogether, are not more rational than those of the Church of Rome; nor did he even pretend that they were so ... nor, again, is there any foundation for imagining that Luther was concerned for the interests of literature. None had he himself, save theological; nor are there, as I apprehend, many allusions to profane studies, or any proof of his regard to them, in all his works. On the contrary, it is probable that both the principles of this great founder of the Reformation, and the natural tendency of so intense an application to theological controversy, checked for a time the progress of philological and philosophical literature on this side of the Alps.”⁠[139] As regards the much vaunted intellectual and religious liberty of the Reformers, it is well known that they very soon exercised an unbearable tyranny. Hallam was honest enough to admit this, however reluctantly.⁠[140]

On the eve of the Reformation, England possessed a great number of secondary schools. Both these and the universities suffered greatly from the Reformation and the events connected with it. When by the order of Henry VIII. the monasteries were suppressed, numberless precious manuscripts and other contents of monastic libraries disappeared, and are now lost to the world beyond recovery. Grocers and soap-sellers bought them for their business purposes.⁠[141] Learning, both secular and religious, rapidly declined, and deterioration was felt in all grades of education. Most of the schools at this time were closed, without provision for a substitute. Moreover, the monasteries and convents had supported scholars at the universities, or provided for young clerics until their ordination, when they supplied them with a title. This change was felt immediately. From 1506 to 1535 the average number of yearly degrees granted at Oxford had been 127. In 1535 the number was 108. In that year the operations against the monasteries were commenced. In the following year the number of graduates fell to only 44; the average number till 1548 was less than 57, from 1548 till 1553 not more than 33, but it rose again under Queen Mary to 70.⁠[142] The University of Cambridge suffered not less than Oxford.

The scholars of Cambridge, in 1545, petitioned King Henry for privileges, as they feared the destruction of the monasteries would altogether annihilate learning.⁠[143] For a time these great homes of learning were threatened with nothing less than ruin. Thus it is undeniable that the dissolution of monasteries, in 1536 and the next two years, gave a great temporary check to the general state of letters in England.

Hallam attempts to palliate this charge, but in vain. Let us contemplate the picture which Latimer, the fanatic opponent of Catholicism, drew in 1550 of the state of education in England. His words are almost identical with those of Luther.⁠[144] “In those days (before the suppression of monasteries), what did they when they helped the scholars? Marry! They maintained and gave them livings that were very Papists and professed the Pope’s doctrine; and now that the knowledge of God’s word is brought to light, and many earnestly study and labour to set it forth, now almost no man helpeth to maintain them.”... “Truly it is a pitiable thing to see schools so neglected; every true Christian ought to lament the same; to consider what has been plucked from abbeys, colleges and chantries, it is a marvel no more to be bestowed upon this holy office of salvation. Schools are not maintained, scholars have no exhibitions.... I think there be at this day twenty thousand students less than within these twenty years and fewer preachers.” Anthony Wood, in his History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, writes: “Most of the halls and hostels in Oxford were left empty. Arts declined and ignorance began to take place again.”⁠[145]

This sketch of the status of education previous to the foundation of the Society of Jesus warrants us to draw the following conclusions. First, a reform was urgently needed, not only in the religious and moral sphere but also in education. There was a great literary activity all over Christendom. In the countries most affected by the Reformation, this activity was checked for a time, in Germany almost annihilated. In those countries which were less affected by the religious revolution, the educational work was not formed into a well balanced system of instruction and discipline. Further, the teaching of the classics was in many cases carried on in a pagan spirit. The Catholic reform centres around the Council of Trent. The members of a Commission preparatory to this Council, mostly refined humanists and university scholars, pointed out as one of the great abuses in the Church, that “in the public schools, especially of Italy, many teach impiety.” This was stated in 1538, two years before the approbation of the Society of Jesus. In this Society “the Church of Rome, deeply shaken by open schism and lurking disaffection, was to find an unexpected strength. The Jesuits were speedily to acquire a vast influence by the control of education.”⁠[146] In fact, the Jesuits were to give to Catholic countries a uniform system of education, which was so sadly needed at the time. They were to purify and elevate the teaching of the classics, so as to make it a useful means of Christian education as well as of mental training.

Secondly: The foregoing sketch proves that it is false to say: the Jesuits availed themselves, in the interest of the Catholic Church, of the zeal for learning which the Protestants had awakened.⁠[147] It can be proved over and above that a great zeal for learning had existed before the Reformation,⁠[148] and that this zeal was well-nigh extinguished by this movement. Melanchthon, Sturm and other reformers who worked for the establishment of schools, had received their literary education, their zeal for learning, and the greater part of their educational principles from the schools flourishing before the outbreak of the religious revolution. Their efforts were directed towards re-establishing what the religious disturbances had destroyed. Of course, we are far from denying that the Reformers introduced many improvements into the Protestant schools; but they and the Jesuits drew from the same sources.

The preceding sketch of the condition of education previous to the foundation of the Society of Jesus may seem disproportionately long. However, it was necessary to dwell on this point at some length, in order to expose one of the fundamental errors concerning the origin of the educational system of the Jesuits. It would not have sufficed to make a few general assertions—as has been done by some non-Catholic writers on the history of education—but it was necessary to quote details, in order to refute this erroneous view.