Jesuit education

The object of education is the harmonious development of the whole man. So far we have spoken of the development of the intellect. Yet the will needs training even more than the intellect, and the higher schools ought not to neglect this most important part of the work of education. It cannot be gainsaid that the emphasis laid upon moral training forms the most marked distinction between the true educator and the mere instructor, of whatever creed he may be. At the same time it is one of the most disquieting features of our age that so many teachers in the higher schools have lost sight of this fundamental principle of education. “I hold,” writes Dr. McCosh, “that in every college the faculty should look after, not only the intellectual improvement, but also the morals of those committed to their care by parents and guardians. I am afraid that both in Europe and America all idea of looking after the character of the students has been given up by many of our younger professors.”⁠[898]

The inevitable consequence of this method must be a decline of morality among the rising generation, or to put it more mildly, and to use the expression of some writers, a lamentable disproportion between the intellectual and moral progress. The existence of this disproportion is attested to by men who have hitherto been rather optimistic about the educational conditions of this country. Thus President Eliot has quite recently expressed himself very frankly on the “failure of our popular education.” In spite of the greatest efforts of various agencies towards checking vice in every shape, he sees small results. His practical conclusion is that “we ought to spend more money on schools, because the present expenditures do not produce all the good results which were expected and may be reasonably aimed at.”⁠[899] Still, it is more than doubtful whether an increased expenditure is the needed remedy; it is not lack of money, but lack of the true method of education, which is at the root of the failure of education. This has been correctly observed in several comments on President Eliot’s indictment. The defects of our people, says the Chicago Chronicle, lie “in morals rather than in intelligence.” And the Columbia State remarks: “It will at least be difficult to point at any fatal exaggeration in this arraignment. But is it fair to charge all of it up to education? Would it not be better for Harvard’s President to revise his views as to the power of education? Learning of itself, the mere accumulation of knowledge, can not make morally better an individual or a society. It is unfair to expect so much. Education of the mind may be a help, since it does fit the individual to understand, to distinguish right from wrong and to apprehend the consequences of evil. But education ought never to have been regarded as an insurance against immorality, a preventive of crime, a cure for cupidity, or a guaranty that the Golden Rule will be observed. The education that brings this about must be more than a mere mental training; it must be moral and spiritual.”

These comments touch the sore spot in modern education. The capital error of most school reformers lies in this that they expect too much from intellectual accomplishments for the moral and social improvement of mankind. Every second word of theirs is: culture, knowledge, science, information; and yet, what is far more needed is a reform of character by training the will.⁠[900] The plausible assertion: “Instruction is moral improvement,” a principle which is repeated in many variations, is false. The neglect of the religious and moral training is the result of a false philosophy; for, there exists the closest connection between philosophy and pedagogy, so much so that a false philosophy necessarily leads to a false pedagogy, and that a false pedagogy is always the outcome of a false philosophy.⁠[901] Pedagogy, according to the very derivation of the word, means “the guiding of children;” in order to guide them properly it is necessary to know clearly the end and goal which is to be reached. The end of man can be known only from his true nature, and this knowledge is supplied by philosophy. Philosophy, then, which is to be the foundation of sound pedagogy must correctly answer the important questions: Whence and Whither? If as the foundation of education a philosophy is chosen which gives a wrong answer to these momentous questions, the children will be led in a wrong direction. Now, that philosophy which considers man merely a highly developed animal, which sees in the human mind nothing but another “aspect” or “phase” of the body (Bain, Spencer, and others), and consequently denies the spirituality and immortality of the soul—such a philosophy (if it deserves this name) cannot assign any other end and object of man’s life than some form of hedonism or utilitarianism. Unfortunately this philosophy has exerted a disastrous influence on many modern educational theories. It has led to the separation, more or less complete, of education from religion, and as we shall show hereafter, a solid moral training is impossible without religion. There is only one system of philosophy which can form the sound basis of true pedagogy, and that is Christian philosophy, that philosophy which is in harmony with the revealed truths of Christianity. This philosophy alone gives the correct answer to the all-important Whence and Whither? It tells us that the soul of the child is a spirit, created by a personal God to His own image and likeness, and destined for an eternal happiness in heaven; it tells us that this life is not the final stage of man, but a journey to another, higher life; that “we have not here a lasting city, but seek one that is to come.”⁠[902] A system of education based on this Christian philosophy will widely differ from those systems which are built up on “modern” philosophy, be it German pantheism, French positivism, or English and American agnosticism. The most essential difference will be this that in a Christian system the intellectual training is considered secondary and subordinate to the moral and religious training, whereas all other systems aim at a purely secular education, and in this again lay special stress on the intellectual, to the neglect of the moral training.

It has frequently been observed that the spirit of our age manifests many pagan tendencies. The utilitarian trend of modern education is undoubtedly a sort of neo-paganism. To the artistic mind of the Greek the “Beautiful” (καλόν) and the “Good” (ἀγαθόν) were terms almost synonymous. Greek education, accordingly, aimed at the harmonious development of body and intellect for this life. In the eyes of the Roman, the Eternal City was destined to conquer and rule the whole world. To make useful and devoted members of that mighty political fabric was the sole aim of the education imparted to Roman youths. But the aim of Christian education must be far different. Christ’s life and teaching cannot be ignored and disregarded. His “seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice,”⁠[903] must be the foundation of all educational principles, “for what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?”⁠[904] Therefore, if “the fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom,”⁠[905] the moral and religious training of the young must claim the special attention and care of the teacher. Whereas Greek education affected only the intellect (νοῦς, mens), Christian education affects the soul, (πνεῦμα, spiritus) as contrasted with the body, the “flesh” (σάρξ, caro). Pagan education aimed at mere formation (Ausbildung), at the evolution and development of the natural man; Christian education aims at transformation (Umbildung), at change, at elevation.⁠[906] Every one, free or slave, rich or poor, white or black, is a child of God and destined to be an heir of heaven. Therefore, he is to seek first heavenly things: “Quae sursum sunt quaerite, quae sursum sunt sapite, non quae super terram.”⁠[907] He must “put off the old man who is corrupted, and put on the new man who, according to God, is created in justice and holiness of truth.”⁠[908] He must listen to Christ’s commendation of humility, meekness and purity, and follow His stern command: “Abnega temetipsum, tolle crucem et sequere me: Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow me.”⁠[909] But this is not in accord with the natural inclinations of man; therefore, transformation is needed. The work of transformation must begin from the awakening of reason and must be the principal object in all education. For, as the Following of Christ has it, “when Christ our Master, comes for the final examination, he will not ask how well we spoke and disputed, but how well we lived, non quid legimus, sed quid fecimus, non quam bene diximus, sed quam religiose viximus.”⁠[910]

In the “school of the heart” at Manresa, Ignatius had thoroughly grasped these sublime lessons. He had carried them out in his own life and made them the guiding principles of his Society. In his Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius has laid down a brief, but most comprehensive epitome of Christian philosophy. There he has expressed the whole purpose of man’s life in these few lines: “Man is created to praise, reverence and serve God, and thus to save his own soul. All other things are created for the sake of man, and to aid him in the attainment of his end; therefore he should use them only with this object, and withdraw himself from them, when they would lead him from it.” Apply this principle to learning, to knowledge, and you must admit that these are not man’s ultimate end, they are only means to that end. Throughout the educational system of the Society, we find the application of these truths. Thus the Fourth Part of the Constitutions says: “Since the object at which the Society directly aims, is to aid its members and their fellow-men to attain the ultimate end for which they were created, learning, a knowledge of the methods of instruction, and living example are necessary.” In the Ratio Studiorum the first rule of the Provincial reads: “It is one of the most important duties of the Society to teach all the sciences, which according to our Institute may be taught, in such a manner as to lead men to the knowledge and love of our Creator and Redeemer Jesus Christ.” Of like import are the first rules of the Rector, the Prefect of Studies and the professors of the various grades. This great care which the Society has always bestowed on the moral and religious training of its pupils, is probably the reason that accounts for the popularity of its schools. Christian parents felt assured that the spiritual welfare of their sons would be most diligently attended to, and so sent them with the greatest confidence to Jesuit colleges. More than once have parents give expression to their sentiments on this point. The testimony of one American father, the distinguished convert from Protestantism, Orestes Brownson, may be given as an instance among many. “We ourselves have four sons in the colleges of the Jesuits, and in placing them there we feel that we are discharging our duty as a father to them, and as a citizen to this country. We rest easy, for we feel they are where they will be trained up in the way they should go; where their faith and morals will be cared for, which with us is a great thing. It is more especially for the moral and religious training which our children will receive from the good fathers that we esteem these colleges. Science, literature, the most varied and profound scholastic attainments, are worse than useless, where coupled with heresy, infidelity or impurity.”⁠[911]

However, the Society has been blamed by some for insisting too strongly upon moral and religious training, and for subordinating to it everything else. But how can any one who believes in the existence of God and an eternal life, find fault with this principle? If there is a God, if man has an immortal soul, if there is an eternity of happiness awaiting the good, and an eternity of punishment the wicked, then the “one thing necessary” on earth, and to be aimed at above everything else, is the salvation of the soul. Hence it is that men, who in their religious tenets widely differ from the Jesuits, could not help praising the latter for the attention they paid to the moral and religious education of their pupils. From numerous testimonies we may be allowed to quote a few. “As might be expected,” writes Quick, “the Jesuits were to be very careful of the moral and religious training of their pupils.... Sacchini writes in a very high tone on this subject. Perhaps he had read of Trotzendorf’s address to a school.”⁠[912] In 1879 an anti-clerical paper wrote about the Belgian higher schools: “Could not our teachers do a little more for discipline? Could they not watch more diligently over the manners and morals of the students? How often do we hear people say: ‘What, I send my son to the Athenées?⁠[913] God forbid! Fine manners he would learn there!’ Now there is no reason why the young should acquire worse manners in the Athenées than in the Jesuit schools—on the contrary. However, in point of fact, only the Jesuits look after education, whereas our Athenées busy themselves only about instruction. I know full well that the education imparted by the clergy is bad, even dangerous. Our lay teachers should pay more attention to education, as it is exactly this training, however detestable, which brings to the men in the soutane the patronage of so many parents.” M. Cottu, a bitter enemy of the Jesuits, had to acknowledge the same.⁠[914] Professor Kern of the University of Göttingen, a Protestant, wrote years ago: “The Jesuits attack the evil at its root: they educate boys in the fear of God and in obedience. Has it ever been heard that from Jesuit schools doctrines come forth similar to those of our modern schools? History has proved that irreligious and anarchistic doctrines spread rapidly after the suppression of the Society. Faith and science were no longer united. Reason with all its errors,—and what error is so absurd that has not had its defenders—was given the preference, faith was abandoned, ridiculed, and spoken of only under the name of superstition.”⁠[915]

By what means do the Jesuits endeavor to effect the moral training of their pupils? We may classify the means they employ under four heads: the example of a virtuous life, reasonable supervision, ethical instruction, and certain means provided by the Church, especially the sacraments. As to the first we all know that example is much more powerful than words, particularly so with the young. There is a great truth in the old Latin adage: Verba movent, exempla trahunt. Every teacher, therefore, should lead such a life as to be able to say with the great teacher of the Gentiles: “Be ye followers of me as I also am of Christ.”⁠[916] Above all ought this to be the case with teachers who make a profession of religion. The life of a religious is one of continual self-denial. St. Ignatius seems to have thought that daily contact with men of this stamp would be good for boys. He seems to have thought that in course of time they would assimilate some of that spirit of conscientious devotion to duty, of generous readiness to go far beyond the limits of mere duty, of the manful and noble spirit of self-control and self-sacrifice, of that spirit which seeks not self but the good of its neighbor, that spirit which the pupils cannot help seeing exemplified in their masters, if those masters are such men as St. Ignatius intended them to be.⁠[917] Now, St. Ignatius was very explicit on the necessity of setting a good example, and the Ratio inculcates the same in exhorting the teacher to edify the pupils by the example of a virtuous life.⁠[918] Have the sons of Ignatius come up to the expectation of their father? Even the enemies of the Order could not help expressing their admiration for the moral purity of the lives of the Jesuits.⁠[919] Nor can we wonder at this. The solid training in religious life, which we described in a previous chapter, and the daily practice of mental and vocal prayer, must give the religious teacher a self-control that preserves him from the more serious outbreaks of passion, which may prove detrimental to his authority and ruin all salutary influence over his pupils.⁠[920] Professor Paulsen observes in regard to the Jesuit teacher: “According to an old saying, he is strongest who overcomes himself. This may mean not only that the greatest effort is needed to rule one’s self, but that he who is able to do so possesses the greatest strength. Now it is my conviction that there was never a body of men who succeeded better in controlling natural inclinations, and in checking individual desires, than the Jesuits. True, such qualities do not make one amiable; no one is amiable who is without human weaknesses. Perfect absence of passion in a man makes him awe-inspiring and causes others to feel uncomfortable in his presence.” Then he adds: “That the Jesuits up to this day are masters in the great art of checking anger, and thus masters in the great art of ruling over men’s souls, the reader may learn from a book written by a pupil of the Jesuit college of Freiburg and of the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, who afterwards became a Protestant minister, and who vividly and truthfully describes the impression made upon him in these Jesuit institutions.”⁠[921]

In addition to these testimonies, it will not be superfluous to cite the testimony of prominent men who as pupils in Jesuit colleges had an opportunity of watching the Jesuits closely. The first witness is Voltaire: “During the seven years,” he writes, “that I lived in the house of the Jesuits, what did I see among them? The most laborious, frugal, and regular life, all their hours divided between the care they spent on us and the exercises of their austere profession. I attest the same as thousands of others brought up by them, like myself; not one will be found to contradict me. Hence I never cease wondering how any one can accuse them of teaching corrupt morality.”⁠[922]—From Germany three men may be quoted who are considered, by friend and enemy, as equally distinguished for gifts, for noble character, and for genuine patriotism: von Ketteler, von Mallinckrodt, and Count Ballestrem. It was in the early days of the Kulturkampf, when the laws for expelling the Jesuits from Germany were being discussed, that among others, these three stood up to defend the persecuted Order. Freiherr von Ketteler, the celebrated Bishop of Mentz, testifies: “As a youth I was sent by my parents to an educational institution of the Jesuits, where I spent four years. From home I brought with me such independence of character and such purity of morals, that had I noticed a shadow of what the world styles Jesuitical principles, I would have turned away from them with loathing and disgust. My parents, who enjoyed an entirely independent position in life, and who were filled with the purest and strongest love for their children and their true welfare, would not for a moment have left me in that institution, had they apprehended anything of the kind. There I witnessed nothing that ever shocked my youthful spirit trained in the purest principles of Christianity. I took leave of all my teachers with deepest reverence and with the firmest conviction that they were men who daily made on themselves the demands of severest morality.”—Similar testimonies were rendered by Herr von Mallinckrodt, that chivalrous spirit who, with perhaps the exception of Windthorst, was the greatest man in that grand Catholic organization, the German Centre Party. And Count Ballestrem, now for several years President of the German Reichstag, commenced one of his speeches before that assembly with the following words: “The last time I had the honor to address you here, I defended an institution which has become dear to me, and in which I have spent a great part of my life, the Prussian Army. To-day I come to defend an institution which I have known from the days of my childhood, and with whose excellences I am acquainted in every detail. I come to bear witness for my venerable teachers, for my highly esteemed friends: for the religious of the Society of Jesus.”⁠[923]

Undoubtedly the testimony of these men, who with the keen eyes of boys that so readily find fault with their teachers watched the Jesuits and scrutinized their every word and action, outweighs a thousand calumnies of prejudiced pamphleteers, who, in many cases, have never seen a Jesuit or any other religious. Moreover, these witnesses refute the oft-repeated charge of “the corrupt moral teaching of the Jesuits.” Fair-minded Protestants have long since branded this charge as a slander. Thus the German Protestant Körner says in his “History of Pedagogy”⁠[924]: “It is the fashion to represent the Jesuits as heartless beings, malicious, cunning, and deceitful, although it must be known perfectly well that the crimes imputed to them are historically groundless, and the suppression of the Order in the last century was due entirely to the tyrannical violence of Ministers of State. It is only our duty to justice to silence the folly of such as declare the Jesuit system of education to be nothing but fanatical malice and a corruption of the young. The Jesuits were the first educators of their time. Protestants must with envy acknowledge the fruitfulness of their labors; they made the study of the ancient classics a practical study, and training was with them as important as education. They were the first schoolmasters to apply psychological principles to education; they did not teach according to abstract principles, but they trained the individual, developed his mental resources for the affairs of practical life, and so imparted to the educational system an important influence in social and political life. From that period and from that system, scientific education takes its rise. The Jesuits succeeded in effecting a moral purity among their pupils which was unknown in other schools during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”

Indeed, the Society has ever been most anxious to preserve her pupils from the taint of impurity, the vice to which youth most easily falls a prey. She takes most effective means to preserve what Chaucer calls the “sweet holiness of youth.” She will inexorably expel a boy whose presence is dangerous to others, especially in the matter of purity. “There are some faults,” says Shea,⁠[925] “for which the Jesuit system of discipline has no mercy, and in the first place is found the vice of impurity. For this crime the only punishment is expulsion, since contamination is looked upon as the greatest evil that can be spread among the young. Hence the virtue of purity is fostered with all possible care and solicitude, and even Protestants have borne witness to the high moral purity of Jesuit students.” (See, v. g., Mr. Körner’s words quoted above.) So also another writer, the German Protestant Ruhkopf: “In Jesuit colleges a moral purity prevailed which we look for in vain in Protestant schools and universities. Such as were totally corrupt, the Jesuits did not tolerate among their pupils, but sent them away. In their colleges, impurity and demoralization could not easily arise, as with the utmost care they kept away everything that could taint the imagination of the youth committed to their charge.”⁠[926]

Boarding schools, in particular, may easily, and, if precautions are not taken, will almost invariably become hot-beds of immorality.⁠[927] Hence the anxiety of the Jesuits in guarding their pupils. Yet they have been attacked more than once for these very precautions. Great educators, however, have been one with the Jesuits on this important question. Thus we read in the life of President McCosh: “The notion that a professor’s duty began and ended with the instruction and order in the class room, was abhorrent to him. He thought it the most serious problem of the higher education to secure the oversight and unremitting care of students, without espionage or any ‘injudicious interference with the liberty of the young man.’ With the fine language about treating students as capable of self-government, and responsible for their own conduct, Dr. McCosh never felt the slightest sympathy, believing that the formation of good habits was more than the half of education, and that the morals of the young, like their intellect and judgment, required constant attention from the instructors.”⁠[928]

Now let us listen to what the head of an important department in one of the large institutions in this country thinks on this subject: “One way to deal with these strange, excited, inexperienced, and intensely human things called Freshmen is to let them flounder till they drown or swim; and this way has been advocated by men who have no boys of their own. It is delightfully simple, if we can only shut eye and ear and heart and conscience; and it has a kind of plausibility in the examples of men who through rough usage have achieved strong character. ‘The objection,’ as the master of a great school said the other day, ‘is the waste;’ and he added, ‘it is such an awful thing to waste human life!’ This method is a cruel method, ignoring all the sensibilities of that delicate, high-strung instrument which we call the soul. If none but the fittest survived, the cruelty might be defended; but some, who unhappily cannot drown, become cramped swimmers for all their days. Busy and worn as a college teacher usually is, thirsty for the advancement of learning as he is assumed always to be, he cannot let hundreds of young men pass before him, unheeded and unfriended. At Harvard College, the Faculty, through its system of advisers for Freshmen, has made a beginning; and though there are hardly enough advisers to go round, the system has proved its usefulness. At Harvard College, also, a large committee of Seniors and Juniors has assumed some responsibility for all the Freshmen. Each undertakes to see at the beginning of the year the Freshmen assigned to him, and to give every one of them, besides kindly greeting and good advice, the feeling that an experienced undergraduate may be counted on as a friend in need.”—This is excellent, but all the more surprised will the reader be to find that this author continues in the following strain: “Whether colleges should guard their students more closely than they do—whether, for example, they should with gates and bars protect their dormitories against the inroads of bad women—is an open question. For the deliberately vicious such safeguards would amount to nothing; but for the weak they might lessen the danger of sudden temptation.”⁠[929] As to the “open question” we hold rather that it is a shocking principle. Must not fathers and mothers, who have sons in such schools, shudder at the thought that their children will scarcely be protected against the worst and most disgraceful of moral dangers, since the school authorities think it an “open question” whether such protection is advisable? In too many cases are youths “left to flounder till they drown or swim.” And the majority will drown, or become cramped swimmers for all their days; that is, become moral, and perhaps physical wrecks. This is the end of all that specious but senseless talk about “the sanctity of the individual,” “advantage of rough usage,” “dangers of guarding sternly or tenderly,” “free spirit of our country,” and the like. The Divine Teacher of mankind, the friend of children, has clearly and sternly expressed His “views” upon these points: “He that shall scandalize”—and we may add, he that allows others to scandalize, or does not prevent from being scandalized—“one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Neglect of watchfulness in this regard is nothing less than treason; treason towards the souls of the pupils who should be guarded against their worst foes, their own corrupt inclinations; treason against parents who demand that their children be not exposed to such experiments.

The Jesuits do not let their pupils “flounder till they drown or swim.” They consider it their most sacred obligation to prevent, as far as possible, their charges from coming into contact with moral contamination. “But,” it is objected, “what good comes from all your protection? It usually happens that your pupil on leaving the place where he was protected against all dangers, falls the more quickly and the more shamefully. And why? For the very reason that he was shielded on all sides and never struggled with dangers and temptations. He is not prepared, he is caught unawares, and yields unconditionally and hopelessly, whereas had he been trained by daily encounter with temptation his character would have been hardened.”⁠[930] If the case were frequent, if the deeper fall inevitably followed the purer boyhood, then we may as well despair of all education and all virtue. Happily, we have here one of those sweeping generalizations and exaggerations, so common with certain writers. We answer: First, not all fall away after leaving the sheltering precincts of the college. Many remain good among the greatest dangers and temptations. And this perseverance they owe to the precautions taken in the college and to the virtuous habits acquired through the daily practice of observing the regulations of these institutions. The continued moral efforts required for doing this are as effective for producing strength of character as the “rough usage” and, at the same time, less dangerous. Secondly, many of those who afterwards disgrace themselves, would have done so even had they never been inside college walls, in many cases much earlier, and perhaps more irreparably. It was college discipline that prevented them from earlier ruin. St. Ignatius used to say: “To have prevented one sin is worth all the troubles and labors of this life.” Thirdly, many come to Catholic academies and colleges from public and private schools, where they have acquired such a knowledge of life and of the “ways of the world,” that educators are sometimes horrified at discovering what boys of fourteen and sixteen years have heard and experienced. For such boys the quiet and seclusion of a Catholic college and its strict discipline are of the greatest benefit, and the spirit of piety and modesty pervading the whole atmosphere acts upon those poor boys as the healthy, pure air of Colorado and New Mexico upon consumptives. If the spiritual consumption has not progressed too far, two or three years spent in thoroughly Christian surroundings, often restore such youths to complete health of soul and body. There is scarcely a Jesuit teacher who could not recount many instances of boys whose reformation was so thorough, that they became most excellent men. Without this salutary influence their souls would have sunk into the abyss of vice and crime, and their bodies very likely into an early grave. Fourthly, boys who were thus protected in college, and afterwards go astray will in most cases return. Their hearts will not be happy in their pleasures and excesses; for the religious and moral principles implanted in them can never be totally destroyed. After a brief experience they become disgusted with their lives and begin to loath their vices. A young man without any previous religious training sees no way out of the quagmire of vice; he easily abandons himself the more to his evil passions. But it is very different with the young man who grew up under religious influences. In moments of disgust and remorse, at a sudden calamity that befalls him or those near him, he remembers not only the happiness of his childhood but also the salutary advice of his teacher, to whom he used to look up as a fatherly friend. Such recollections have saved more than one young man who had gone astray. Finally, are those young men who from early years and during college life were left to their “own experience and rough usage” of temptations, later on, in the battles of life, better and of purer morals, then those “sheltered” against dangers? An honest inquiry will assuredly be met with a decided answer in the negative.

The idea of supervision and restriction seems to be especially repugnant to people in England and America. Undoubtedly, the character of the American and English youth differs in several points from that of the youth of other countries. For this reason we may admit, with a writer in the Dublin Review,⁠[931] that in dealing with English—and we add: with American—youths, it will be found beneficial to exercise a somewhat less minute supervision than that practised in some other countries. This seems to be demanded by the peculiar character and the spirit of the public and private life of the English and American people. On the other hand, these differences have frequently been exaggerated, and conclusions have been drawn from these discrepancies of character which are altogether unjustified. Opinions have been uttered which seem to imply an intrinsic superiority of the American youth over those of the rest of the world, a superiority which renders laws that are necessary for good education everywhere else, superfluous in this country. Some seem to think that restrictions are little compatible with republican institutions. Professor Edward J. Goodwin, of New York, said recently: “German children are taught to submit to authority, but our boys must be taught to govern themselves.”⁠[932] We readily admit that the principle of submitting to authority can be carried to extremes, in education as well as in political life. But we think that boys will learn to govern themselves only by submitting first to authority, as in early years they possess neither the sufficient knowledge nor the necessary strength of will to govern themselves reasonably. We fasten the young tender tree to a pole, lest it grow crooked or be bent and broken by the storm; the same is necessary, and to a much higher degree, in the case of the frail human sapling in which so many perverse inclinations are hidden which tend to foster a growth in the wrong direction. Above all, educators should not forget that there is one authority to which the youths of every country must submit unconditionally, and that is the authority of the Divine Lawgiver as expressed in the precepts of morality—and obedience is one of these precepts. The same Divine authority imposes the sacred duty on educators to watch over their charges, and to remove, as far as lies in their power, all that endangers their morality. The Christian educator fears lest any neglect in this matter may draw upon him the dreadful words addressed to the “watchman to the house of Israel”: “If thou declare it not to him [the wicked man], nor speak to him, that he may be converted from his wicked way and live: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand.”⁠[933] Indeed, it is the fatherly love and care for the welfare of their pupils which leads the Christian educator to exercise supervision over his pupils. He has received from the parents that treasure which is to them more precious than anything on earth; their own dearly beloved children, for whom they toil and labor, over whom they anxiously watch and pray lest they should suffer shipwreck in regard to their faith and virtue, especially the virtue of purity which is so beautiful, so priceless, and yet so difficult of securing in youth. The teacher would be guilty of the basest breach of confidence, did he not strain every nerve to avert a calamity from those so sacredly entrusted to him. We can well understand that at times this or that particular method may justly be censured, as, in reality, not being conducive to the end which is sought; but that the whole system, the very principle, should be ridiculed and condemned, spoken of in terms of invective and indignation, and stigmatized by such opprobrious names as “espionage” and the like—this, we say, is startling.⁠[934] It can be explained only from the false philosophical notions of such critics; particularly from their wrong conception and very low valuation of the human soul.

Many, especially such as have never stepped inside the doors of a Jesuit college, are filled with an absurd dread of the supervision exercised, as they fancy, by the Jesuits. From time to time, however, when some appalling scandals are discovered within the walls of a college where the students enjoy pretty nearly full liberty, or when scores, if not hundreds of students, exhibit most disgraceful scenes of disorder on the public streets, then the eyes of many are opened and they see that, after all, some supervision, and a pretty strict one, is necessary in a place where hundreds of hot-blooded youths live together. In 1891, an English non-Catholic paper, speaking about scandalous disclosures on board the school-ship Britannia, said there were two kinds of public schools, Jesuit and Gaol-bird school. “The Jesuit idea of school life is that a boy at school should, as far as possible, be in the same position as he will afterwards be in as a man in the world, that is to say, the position not of a wild beast in an African jungle, free to do what he pleases, but of a human being in a civilized country, living under the eye of the law. The Jesuits in fact police their schools, that is, what it comes to. This policing is called by people who don’t like it (i. e. don’t like the trouble of enforcing it) espionage and other ugly names. As a matter of fact, it amounts to no more than that ordinary care which a commonly decent and commonly sensible father exercises in his own house: It means simply reasonable supervision, aided of course by rationally constructed school buildings—massing of boys for school as well as for play—living in the light of day, in fact. Now, neither a boy nor a man does much harm or has much harm done to him, so long as he lives in the light of day, and the consequence is that although, of course, many boys who leave Jesuit schools become bad men afterwards, yet they get no harm while they stay at school. They leave as good as they come and, moreover, if they do not come pretty reasonably good, they do not stay long. The father gets a letter to say ‘the boy is doing no good at school and had better be removed.’ The Goal-bird system is simplicity itself. The head master draws his salary, attends to the teaching of Greek and Latin and shuts his eyes firmly, deliberately, conscientiously, like an English gentleman, as he would say himself, to everything else going on around him.”⁠[935] This is very severe language. May it not partly apply to a number of “educators” in this country, who denounce so strongly any “paternalism” exercised over the pupils?

As regards the charges against the precautions taken in Jesuit colleges, they are usually founded upon wrong suppositions. It is believed that the Jesuit pupil is watched every moment. This is not so; he has liberty enough within a certain reasonable limit. Of course, it is a most delicate and difficult question how this limit is to be determined. It is not possible to lay down any particulars on this subject, because, in this as in other matters, there exists considerable variety in different Jesuit colleges, and Superiors assign that measure of liberty which, considering the difference of places and circumstances, especially the age and character of the pupils, seems not to expose them to great dangers.—It is also falsely supposed that no word of necessary explanation is given concerning the dangers that await the pupil outside the college walls; that educators imperatively forbid any inquiry about matters which the students may be anxious to ask; that they never give advice and instruction on matters which at a certain age a young man may, and considering the circumstances, should know, in order not to be caught unawares by dangers and temptations, which are sure to come.⁠[936] Necessary instruction and advice, according to age and other circumstances, will be given, above all, by the confessor; the teacher also, with moderation and discretion, will do the same. Many occasions will offer in the explanation of the catechism, of the authors, and in private conversations.

A few words must be said about the private talks with boys so much recommended in the Jesuit system. Father Jouvancy says the teacher should speak in private more frequently with those who seem to be exposed to worse and more dangerous faults.⁠[937] Father Sacchini remarks that he should study the character and disposition of each pupil, to discover the bad outcroppings on the tender plant and nip them in the bud.⁠[938] Father Kropf advises the teacher to go carefully over the names of his pupils every Sunday and to recommend them in prayer to our Lord and His Blessed Mother. While doing this he should reflect especially whether it is advisable to see this boy or that in private, to correct him, to warn him against a danger, or whether it is well to communicate with his parents.⁠[939] What should be treated of in these private conversations is plain from Jouvancy and Sacchini. And the 47th rule of the teachers says briefly, they should treat only of serious matters.⁠[940] Speaking of conversation with the students, the Father General Vitelleschi, in 1639, gave characteristic directions: “It will be very useful if from time to time the professors treat with their auditors, and converse with them, not about vain rumors and other affairs that are not to the purpose, but about those that appertain to their well-being and education; going into the particulars that seem most to meet their wants; and showing them how they ought to conduct themselves in studies and piety. Let the professors be persuaded that a single talk in private, animated with true zeal and prudence on their part, will penetrate the heart deeper and work more powerfully, than many lectures and sermons given to all in common.”⁠[941] This keeping in touch with the individual pupil has always been considered as one of the sources of the success of the Jesuits in their educational labor. Protestant educators have not failed to recognize this and to speak of it with approval. Thus Sir Joshua Fitch writes of Arnold: “Much of the influence he gained over his scholars—influence which enabled him to dispense in an increasing degree with corporal punishment—was attributed to his knowledge of the individual characteristics of boys.... This is a kind of knowledge which has long been known to be characteristic of the disciplinary system of the Jesuits, but has not been common among the head masters of English public schools.”⁠[942] It is almost altogether absent in most modern systems, consistently with their principle of separating training from teaching, education from instruction, a principle which, as M. Brunetière said, “our forefathers would not have been able to understand.”⁠[943]

Supervision and exhortation are powerful means for preserving the good morals of youths, but much more powerful are the divinely appointed means, Confession and Communion. Although they are practised in all Catholic colleges, the Jesuits, following the example and advice of their founder, worked most zealously for the spread of frequent confession and communion. By doing so they incurred the special hatred of the Jansenists, whose rigorous views they vigorously opposed. We need not here refute the Protestant views of auricular confession. Every Catholic knows that it is not a “torture chamber of conscience,” not an “unwarrantable invasion of the privacy of the individual,” not an “intrusion into the sacred domain of domestic life,” not a “source of weakness to the will,” not a “dangerous and demoralizing practice.” To men who use such language and hold such opinions may be applied the words of the Epistle of St. Jude the Apostle: “Blasphemant quod ignorant, they blaspheme things which they know not.” Apart from the divine institution, the Catholic knows that confession, the “ministry of reconciliation,” the “sacrament of peace,” is a source of unspeakable blessings, of consolation in distress, of encouragement in despair, of advice in perplexities. With reference to our object, the English Jesuit Father Clarke (Oxford), in an article entitled “The Practice of Confession in the Catholic Church,”⁠[944] points out the special advantages of confession for the moral training of the young. The passage is so beautiful and so much to our purpose that it is well to quote it in its entirety.

“It has probably occurred to the mind of most Catholics, as it has often occurred to my own, that if there were no other proof of the paramount claims of the Catholic Church, we should find a sufficient one in the elaborate care with which she watches over the innocence of the young. To guard from evil and corruption the lambs of the fold is one of her chief duties and privileges. This loving care she inherits from her Divine Founder, Who was the friend and lover of little children. Now, I do not think that it is possible for any unprejudiced and well-informed person, who compares the practical working of the Catholic system with that of any other religious system in the world, to deny her unrivalled and unapproachable superiority in this respect. She shields her little ones in their early childhood with all the jealous care of the most tender mother, and when the time comes for the safe seclusion of the parental roof to be exchanged for a freer intercourse with their fellows, she provides safeguards for their purity that are unknown, or almost unknown, outside her fold. For the due education of boys, large schools, and for those of the upper class, large boarding schools are a practical necessity. Then comes the dangerous time, and how great the dangers of that time are is well known to every one who has had an experience of the inner working of English public schools. To keep boys safe from a most perilous, if not fatal, contact with vice and sin, is a problem which has exercised the mind and troubled the conscience of every one who has taken part in the management of any of our large schools and colleges; and those among Protestant educators who have studied the subject most deeply, and who have had long experience to guide them, have had to admit, with sorrow and grief, that the task was a hopeless one.⁠[945] They have had to submit to what they considered an inevitable evil, and their best hope has been by personal influence to mitigate to some extent that which they knew they were powerless to prevent. But is the evil one for which no remedy can be provided? God forbid! The Catholic Church provides an effective remedy for this as for every other evil incident to human life. Here I can speak from a large experience, and with a full knowledge of the subject. Again and again I have been assured by boys who have passed through Catholic colleges, from the lowest to the highest form, that during the whole of their time there they never heard one immodest word, or came into contact with any sort of temptation to evil from those with whom they associated. I have known some who at the end of their school course were as innocent of moral evil as on the day they entered, and were utterly shocked and disgusted when they were thrown into the vortex of the world outside, and had to listen to the kind of talk that too often forms the common staple of conversation among those who have had a Protestant education.... I do not say that the Church is always successful in her endeavors. It is quite possible that, even in a Catholic school, evil may for a time run riot. One sinner may destroy much good. But the evil never lasts long, and the Catholic system brings about a speedy recovery. What I do assert is that the moral perils, to which a boy is exposed in a Catholic school, are infinitesimal as compared with those which will surround him in any of the Protestant public schools and colleges.

“In all this the chief engine for the good work is the confessional. There are, of course, many others. There is the personal influence and the keen sense of responsibility of those who are in authority; there is the close and intimate friendship existing between the teacher and the taught, which is something utterly different from the comparatively cold relations and official reserve which make the Protestant master far more of a stranger to his boys. But it is the weekly or fortnightly confession that is the real safeguard. It is in the confessor that he has his trusted friend, to whom he freely talks of all his dangers and temptations; it is confession that keeps the moral atmosphere healthy and pure; it is confession that maintains the high standard of life and conversation prevailing, through God’s mercy, in our Catholic schools and colleges; it is confession that enables the Catholic parent to entrust his boy to the good priests, whether secular or regular, who devote themselves to the work of education, without any of those qualms or fears, that anxiety and foreboding about the future, that fill the heart of the Protestant parent when he bids farewell to his innocent child on his first plunge into the vortex of a Protestant public school.

“But there is one charge, one false and cruel charge, which some Protestant writers bring against confession. They say that it introduces the young and innocent to a knowledge of subjects which are sacro digna silentio, and even suggests to them evil of which they would otherwise be ignorant. I can only assure my readers (in answer to this gratuitous calumny), on the word of an honest man, that during the twenty years and more that I have been constantly hearing confessions of men and women, boys and girls, of every class and in various countries, I have never known of a single instance of any knowledge of evil having been imparted in the confessional. I am sure that I may speak for all my fellow priests all over the world, when I say that I would, with God’s help, far rather be torn in a thousand pieces than say one word in the confessional that could endanger the purity of the young, or impart a knowledge of evil to one previously ignorant of it.

“But if there should be any of my readers who are not willing to accept my own personal assurance, there is another consideration which ought to convince them. If there were in this accusation the smallest element of truth, every good mother would, in her tender care for her children’s innocence, have the greatest horror of seeing her little ones kneeling before the priest, and every careful father would forbid his boys and girls from incurring the risk of such contamination. Is this the case? Do we find good Catholic parents dreading the influence of the confessional for their children? On the contrary, there is nothing that gives them more hearty satisfaction than to know that their sons and daughters are, from their earliest years, regular in making their confession month by month, or week by week. They regard it as the best possible safeguard for their innocence and virtue. They are alarmed and anxious if, when boyhood emerges into youth, their sons grow irregular in frequenting the tribunal of penance. They fear there must be something wrong. They urge and entreat them not to fall away from the practice of confession. Joy fills the mother’s heart when she sees her son once more returning, it may be after long absence, to that fount of mercy and of grace, where she knows that he will obtain pardon for the past, and strength and help for the struggles of the future.”

It would be presumption on our part to make further comment on these beautiful words. Every Catholic will testify to the truth of Father Clarke’s description of the salutary influence confession exercises over the young during the most dangerous period of life. Now let us contrast with this description a picture drawn from the life of a Protestant. Newman, in the introduction of Loss and Gain, describes a clergyman of the Church of England, who has just decided to send his son Charles to one of the large public schools. “Seclusion”, he says to himself, “is no security for virtue. There is no telling what is in a boy’s heart; he may look as open and happy as usual, and be as kind and as attentive, when there is a great deal wrong going on within. The heart is a secret with its Maker. No one on earth can hope to get at it, or to touch it. I have a cure of souls; what do I really know of my parishioners? Nothing; their hearts are sealed books to me. And this dear boy, he comes close to me; he throws his arms around me, but his soul is as much out of my sight as if he were at the antipodes. I am not accusing him of reserve, dear fellow; his very love and reverence for me keep him in a sort of charmed solitude. I cannot expect to get at the bottom of him.