Teaching Christian doctrine pertains to the duty of those who have the ordinary care of souls. No duty of this kind, as belonging to the ordinary sphere of the Church's clergy, would Ignatius assume as characteristic of his own Institute, except this one. He was, indeed, more than ready to throw in his contribution of personal zeal and charity, for the furtherance of all kinds of benevolence and beneficence. Personally, at the cost of untiring activity, he sowed, as Genelli well observes, the first seeds of those ameliorations in social life, and of those humane institutions, which are so marked a feature of later ages.17 He was an original benefactor of humanity at the turning-point of modern history, which has since become an era of social organized beneficence. Urban VIII solemnly testifies, that Ignatius organized homes for orphans, for catechumens, for unprovided women; that the poor and the sick, that children and the ignorant and prisoners, were all objects of his personal solicitude.18 These works of zeal and charity became, in subsequent years, the specific reasons of existence for various other communities, which rose in order and in number. But he did not adopt them as specific in his Institute; nor did he assume as characteristic anything within the province of the ordinary parochial clergy, except the teaching of Christian doctrine to boys and uncultured persons. The rest he attended to, while not provided for; ready to drop them, when provision should be made for them.
But he did assume five works, which were outside of the ordinary lines; and, among them, is the subject of our study, the Education of Youth.19 As the selection of all these specialties for his Institute reveal the commander's eye resting on a field, where many issues were being fought out, so, in particular, his selection of education as a specialty betrayed the same masterly thought, in the institutions he projected, in the scope he proposed, and, above all, in the formation of his teachers.
There had been, among the Fathers deliberating, a difference of opinion, with respect to Christian doctrine. Bobadilla had dissented from making that work the subject of a special vow; and the others deferred to him. But there was unanimity with regard to every other topic of deliberation, including this one, "the education of youth, having colleges in universities."20
As defined by Jesuit authors, the education of youth means the gratuitous teaching of Letters and Science, from almost the first beginnings of Grammar up to the culminating science of Sacred Theology, and that for boys and students of every kind, in schools open to all.21 Evidently these university men, who were engaged in drawing up the Institute, considered that, if the greatest Professor's talents are well spent in the exposition of the gravest doctrines in Theology, Philosophy, and Science, neither he, nor any one else, is too great to be a schoolmaster, a tutor, and a father, to the boy passing from childhood on to the state of manhood,—that boyhood which, as Clement of Alexandria says, furnishes the very milk of age, and from which the constitution of the man receives its temper and complexion.
It is requisite here to observe, that there was no such thing in existence, as State Education. Two reasons may briefly be mentioned for this, one of them intrinsic to the question, the other an historical fact. The intrinsic and essential reason was the sacred character of education, as being an original function, belonging to the primary relations of parents and child. States, or organized commonwealths, come only in the third or fourth degree of human society. It was much later, in that short interval between the extinction of the Society of Jesus and the outburst of the French Revolution, that new theories came to be proclaimed, as La Chalotais did openly proclaim them, of a bald and blank deism in social life, and therefore of secularizing education. Between deism and secularization the connection was reasonable. For, if the rights of God went by the board, there was no reason why the rights of parents and children should remain. All alike, the persons and "souls of men,"22 fell back into the condition in which Christianity had found them; they became chattels of the state, mannikins of a bureau in peace, "food for powder" in war.
The other reason was an historical fact. For all the purposes of charity, mercy, and philanthropy, there were powers in existence, as part of the normal religious life of general Christian society. They were the same powers that had made Christendom, and had carried it on so far as the Christian world, the same to which we owe the civilization of to-day. More than that. As there is not a single work of charity or mercy, say St. Thomas Aquinas, which may not be made the object of an institution, religious men or women devoting their lives as a service to God, in a special service towards their neighbors; so, in point of fact, there were very few such objects which had not originated some service of religious self-consecration in their behalf.
Now, as operating on education in particular, the powers in the world were, as they had been, almost entirely clerical or religious. In the universities, there were clergymen and Religious. All the great institutions had the religious cast about them. The old ones have it still. Traces of it hang about Oxford and Cambridge. The Church founded them and supervised them. Kings protected them. And the highest outcome of their schools was Divinity in its widest sense; that is to say, the triple knowledge of God, and of man as signed with the light of God's countenance, and of nature as bearing the impress of God's footstep. As it was in the universities, so, outside too, all pedagogic influence had rested with religious men.
But no one of all these religious powers was bound by its constitution to this labor of education, which Loyola now, formally and expressly, assumed as part of his work. It is at this stage of history, that education enters into the fundamental plan of a Religious Order. This is a fact, and an epoch, of prime importance in Pedagogics.
For, inasmuch as education entered thus into the plan of a Religious Order, it became the vocation of a moral body, which, while incorporated like other bodies, did not confine itself, like single universities, to limited circumstances of place; it was a body diffusive. And so with regard to conditions of time; though all corporations give an assurance of perpetuity, a diffusive body like this does more; it multiplies the assurance, in proportion to its own diffusiveness.
And again, inasmuch as the body which undertook the work of education was a religious one, bound to poverty, it guaranteed that the members would endow the work, at their own cost, with that which is the first, the essential, and most expensive endowment, among all others,—the labors, the attainments, and the lives of competent men, all gratuitously given. This endowment, which is so substantial, is besides so far-reaching, that no other temporal foundation would be needed, were it not that the necessaries of life, and the apparatus for their work, are still necessary to living men, even though they live in personal poverty.
Thus then it was that Ignatius took in charge the secondary and superior education of the Christian world, as far as his services should be called for: he threw into the work the endowment of a Religious Order. This, as the sequel proved, meant the whole revival of learning. Lord Bacon bears witness to it in a few words, when he says, that the Jesuits "partly in themselves, and partly by the emulation and provocation of their example, have much quickened and strengthened the state of learning."23 Father Daniel gives some of the details in a summary way. He says: "The exclusively University régime of the late centuries replaced, for a notable portion of students, by a scholastic discipline much more complete; Scholastic Philosophy and Theology renovated, through the care applied to prevent young men from throwing themselves too early into the disputes of the schools; in fine, Literature and Grammar resuming the place they had lost in the twelfth century, and, over and above that, enjoying the new resources created for their use by the Renaissance; all this I call a capital fact in the history of the human mind, and even in the history of the Church."24
After the time of Ignatius, other religious congregations, fortified with their own special means for respective departments of activity, entered upon the same general field of work. They were the Oratorians, the Barnabites, the Fathers of the Pious Schools, the Brothers of the Christian Schools, and others whose names may occur in the course of this essay. And, for the education of women, inferior and superior alike, congregations of devoted religious women came into being, and opened their convents to supply the best and highest culture.
For fear that, in the execution of this plan, and in their other enterprises of devotion and zeal, any secondary intentions or results, with regard to power and office, might mar the purity of the work and defeat the main object, the same men, whose future under the generalship of such a leader was about to open as one of transcendent influence in the civilized world, bound themselves by vow never to accept any dignity or office in the Church. Naturally they should keep aloof from affairs of state. In fact, it would be incompatible with their own purposes of literary and scientific competence, to leave themselves at the mercy of other men's views, and be drafted into posts outside of the Institute, and be placed in an impossible situation for working out the specific end intended. It would be suicidal too. Just when a man was capable of continuing his kind, he would be lost to the body, and be rendered incapable thereby of propagating his own type of eminence. Besides, without touching upon the inner reasons of the spiritual life, which made this resignation of all honors desirable, it is a fact standing out in clear relief, as history sketches the marvellous fecundity of an Order requiring such a high level of attainments, that many of the choicest souls have felt specially attracted to a kind of life, which at one and the same time satisfied their ideas of Christian perfection, and cut them off from all the paths of worldly glory.
And now, to mention in the last place another point, which is equally important for understanding the educational history of the Order, and to the general mind is equally obscure with some of those mentioned already, there was introduced the principle of religious obedience. It was sanctioned by a unanimous vote.25 The Fathers had concluded the first deliberation, whether they should form a society at all; and they had decided in the affirmative sense.26 Then the question took this phase. If they were to found a closely-knitted society, they could do so only by assuming a strict bond. That was none other than a strict obedience.
On this head, as on all others that came in order, they began the deliberation by reasoning, one day, in an adverse sense, all having prepared their minds to emphasize every objection which they could find against it. The day following, they argued in a positive sense. The motives in favor of strict obedience won their unanimous assent. They were such as these:—
If this congregation undertook the charge of affairs, and the members were not under orders, no one could be held responsible for an exact administration of the charge. If the body were not bound together by obedience, it could not long persevere; yet this was their first intention, to remain associated in a permanent body. Whence they concluded that scattered as they would be, and already had been, in assiduous and diverse labors, they must be united by a strict principle of subordination, if they were to remain such a body. Another argued thus: Obedience begets heroism of virtue; since the truly obedient man is most prompt to execute whatever duty is assigned him by one, whom, as by a religious act, he regards as being in the place of God, and signifying to him God's will: wherefore obedience and heroism go together.
This reasoning seems to be enforced by the history of all great nations, in the crises of their military and other public affairs. But, as is clear, the principles of religious obedience are of a different order; they are on a higher plane; and they reach much farther in time and eternity, than those of obedience elsewhere.
Here then we discern, sufficiently for present purposes, the meaning and historical location of this Institute. The members have cut themselves off from the possession of all private property, by the voluntary engagement to poverty, and thereby they have prepared the endowment, on which education will chiefly rest,—that is to say, the endowment consisting of the men to teach, and their services tendered gratis. Position and dignity are alike rendered inaccessible by an express vow of the members professed. Obedience keeps the organization mobile as a company of trained soldiers. And, if any observant mind, well acquainted with the course of human affairs, detects in these principles some reasons for success, normal, habitual, and regular, in the face of unnumbered obstacles, and of unremitting hostility, his view will be singularly corroborated when he rises to a plane higher, and regards the same principles as "religious," carrying with them the sanction of divine worship; which I should be loath to call "enthusiasm," much less "fanaticism." These sentiments are never very prudent, nor enlightened, nor cool; they are either very natural or are short-lived. A mild fever of fanaticism can scarcely produce high results; and a high fever of the same can scarcely last three hundred and fifty years, with perpetuity still threatening. But I would call this phenomenon, in its origin, religious devotion; in its consequences, a supernatural efficiency; and, taking it all in all, that which is called a grace of vocation.
On the 27th day of September, 1540, the Society of Jesus received from the See of Rome its bull of confirmation, by which it became a chartered body of the Church. While these pages were being penned, the 27th day of September came by, 1890. It was the anniversary of that foundation, three hundred and fifty years ago.
The written rule about the system of education is found in a double stage of development. The first is that in which Loyola left it: it gives us the outline. The second is that in which Aquaviva completed it: this presents us with the finished picture. Likewise in the historical course of administration out in the world, the development is twofold. It runs its first course from Loyola to Aquaviva, while experience was still tentative. Its second course was subsequent to Aquaviva, when experience, having gathered in its results, had only to apply the approved form. This was subject thenceforth to none but incidental changes, as times and places change. And, for these contingencies, the application remained expressly and always pliable.
Hence, whatever was embodied in the Ratio Studiorum, as completed, had been the result of the most varied experience before legislating, an experience in the life of the Order extending over fifty-nine years. Whatever this universal experience had not yielded as a positive result, or as applicable to all places, was not embodied. Teachers are different; national customs vary; vernacular tongues are not the same. With regard to these mutable elements, the maxim of the Order in studies, in teaching, in conducting colleges, was the same as that which it proposed to itself in the various other functions of practical life. An exponent of the Institute states the maxim thus: "One should have a most exact knowledge of the country, nation, city, manner of government, manners of the people, states of life, inclinations, etc.; and this from histories, from intercourse, etc."27 General indications alone are given with regard to these variable factors. The same is done with respect to new sciences, which from the time of the Renaissance were felt to be approaching and developing. Subsequent legislation arises to meet them as they come.
While the Fathers were carrying on the same deliberations to which I referred in the preceding chapter, a resolution was taken to leave the drafting of a Constitution in the hands of those who should remain in Italy. Circumscribing the task still more, they decided to appoint a committee of two, who should address themselves to this work, and report to the rest. The general assembly when convened would issue the final decree. Whatever that should be, such of those present as might then be absent hereby endorsed it beforehand.
Their small number of ten was already reduced to six members present, the other four being scattered in divers countries. They designated as a commission Fathers Ignatius and John Coduri. Soon afterwards Coduri died, and the rest were distributed through the countries of Europe, Africa, and the far East. During the following years, Laynez, who was for some time Provincial of Italy, remained more regularly than the rest within the reach of Ignatius. For this reason, therefore, besides several others, we may understand why Ignatius paid such a high tribute to this eminent man, when he said, as Ribadeneira tells us, that "to no one of the first Fathers did the Society owe more than to Laynez." Whereupon the historian Sacchini observes: "This, I believe, he said of Laynez, not only on account of the other eminent merits of so great a man, and, in particular, for devising or arranging the system of Colleges; but most especially because the foundations, on which this Order largely rests, were new, and therefore likely to excite astonishment; and Laynez, having at command the resources of a vast erudition, was the person to confirm and commend them to public opinion. And that this praise was deserved by Laynez will appear less dubious to any one who considers that other period also, during which he was himself General; if one reckons how many points, as yet unshaped and inceptive, in the management of the Society, were reduced to form and perfected by Laynez; how widely it was propagated and defended by him."28
But to return to Ignatius. After ten years of government, he gathered together in Rome such of the first Fathers as could be had, besides representatives from all the Provinces. Forty-seven members were present. He submitted to them, in general assembly, the Constitution as now drawn up, and as acted upon in practical life, during those ten years. The Jesuits present did not exhaust the number of those whose express opinions were desired. That not a single one of the principal Fathers might be omitted in the deliberation, he sent copies of the proposed code of laws to such as were absent. With the suggestions and approbations received from all these representative men he was not yet content. Two more years had elapsed when, having embodied the practical results of an ever-widening experience, he undertook to promulgate the Constitution, by virtue of the authority vested in him for that purpose. But he only promulgated the rule; he did not yet exercise his authority to the full, and impose it as binding. He desired that daily use might bring out still farther, how it felt under the test of being tried, amid so many races and nations. Thus 1553 came and went; and he waited, until the whole matter should be revised and approved once more by the entire Society in conclave. His death intervened in 1556.
Two years later, representatives from the twelve provinces of the Order met together, and elected James Laynez as successor to Father Ignatius. Examining once more this Constitution in all its parts, receiving the whole of it just as it stood with absolute unanimity, and with a degree of veneration, they exercised the supreme authority of the Order, and confirmed this as the written Constitution of the Society of Jesus. By this act nothing was wanting to it, even from the side of Papal authority. Yet, that every plenitude of solemnity might be added to it, they presented it to the Sovereign Pontiff, Paul IV, who committed the code to four Cardinals for accurate revision. The commission returned it, without having altered a word, From that time, whatever general legislation has been added, has entered into the corpus juris, or "Institute" at large, as supplementing or explaining the "Constitution," which remains the fundamental instrument of the Institute.
In the Constitution there are ten parts. The fourth is on studies. In length, this fourth part alone fills up some twenty-eight out of one hundred and eleven quarto pages in all, as it stands printed in the latest Roman edition. The legislation about studies is thus seen to be one-fourth of the whole. It has seventeen chapters. In one of them, on the Method and Order to be observed in treating the Sciences, the founder observes that a number of points "will be treated of separately, in some document approved by the General Superior." This is the express warrant, contained in the Constitution, for the future Ratio Studiorum, or System of Studies in the Society of Jesus. In the meantime, he legislates in a more general way. And he begins with a subject pre-eminently dear to him, the duty of gratitude. Since corporations are notoriously forgetful, and therefore ungrateful, he lays down in the first place the permanent duty of the Order towards benefactors: then he continues with other topics. They stand thus:—
The Founders of Colleges; and Benefactors. The Temporalities of Colleges. The Students or Scholastics, belonging to the Society. The Care to be taken of them, during the time of their Studies. The Learning they are to acquire. The Assistance to be rendered them in various ways, to ensure their success in studies. The Schools attached to the Colleges of the Society, i.e. for external Students not belonging to the Order. The Advancement of Scholastics, belonging to the Order, in the Various Arts which can make them useful to their Neighbor. The Withdrawal of them from Studies. The Government of Colleges. On Admitting the Control of Universities into the Society. The Sciences to be taught in Universities of the Society. The Method and Order to be observed in treating the foregoing Sciences. The Books to be selected as Standards. Courses and Degrees. What concerns Good Morals. The Officials and Assistants in Universities.
Reserving the pedagogic explanation for the next part of this essay, I shall here sketch some of the more general ideas running through the whole legislation of Ignatius of Loyola; and, first, in the present chapter, I shall begin with his idea of Colleges.
Choosing personal poverty as the basis on which to rest this vast enterprise of education, he did not therefore mean to carry on expensive works of zeal, without the means of meeting the expense. Obviously, it is one thing not to have means, as a personal property, and therefore not to consume them on self; it is quite another, to have them and to use them for the good of others. The most self-denying men can use funds for the benefit of others; and can do so the better, the more they deny themselves. It was in this sense that, later on in the century, Cardinal Allen recognized the labors and needs of the English Jesuit, Robert Parsons, who was the superior and companion of Edmund Campian, the former a leading star of Oxford, the latter, also an Oxford man, and, as Lord Burghley called him, "a diamond" of England. Since Queen Elizabeth was not benign enough to lend the Jesuits a little building-room on English soil, but preferred to lend them a halter at Tyburn, Parsons was engaged in founding English houses of higher studies in France and Spain, at Valladolid, Seville, Lisbon, Eu, and St. Omer. Cardinal Allen sent a contribution to the constructive Jesuit, writing, as he did so: "Apostolic men should not only despise money; they should also have it." And just in this sense was Ignatius himself a philosopher of no utopian school. So we may examine, with profit, the material and temporal conditions required in his Institute, for the establishment of public schools and universities. I shall endeavor to put these principles together and in order.29
First, there should be a location provided with buildings and revenues, not merely sufficient for the present, but having reference to needful development.
Secondly, these material conditions include a reference to the maintenance of the faculty. The means must be provided to meet the daily necessities of the actual Professors, with adequate assistance of lay brothers belonging to the Order; also to support several substitute Professors; besides, to carry on the formation of men, who will take the places of the present Professors, and so maintain the faculty as perpetual; moreover, to "provide for some more Scholastic Students of the Order, seeing that there are so many occupied in the service and promotion of the common weal." These conditions also include "a church for conducting spiritual ministrations in the service of others."30
Carrying out this idea, Laynez, in 1564, promulgated a rule or "Form regarding the acceptance of Colleges." He laid down the conditions, on which alone the Society would take in charge either a Latin School, requiring a foundation for twenty Jesuits; or a Lyceum, with fifty persons; or a University, with seventy.31 Twenty-four years later, Father Aquaviva drew up a more complete and a final "Form," distributing colleges into the three classes, the lowest, the medium, and the highest. The lowest must have provision made for professing in the departments of Grammar, Humanities, Rhetoric, Languages, and a course of Moral Theology;—fifty Jesuits to be supported. The medium class of colleges consists of those whose founders desire, in addition to all the foregoing departments, a triennial course of Philosophy, which begins each year anew; eighty persons to be supported. The highest class is that of the Studium Generale, or University, in which, besides the above, there are professed Scholastic Theology, Sacred Scripture, Hebrew; one hundred and twenty persons to be provided for. However, the countries of the Indies, as well as the northern countries of Europe, were not, for the present, brought under this ordinance.32
Thirdly, the locality is to be such that, in the ordinary course of events, there should be no prospective likelihood of a deficiency in the concourse of students, and those of the right kind. As, on the side of the Jesuit Province, its educational forces are kept at least equal to the posts which it has undertaken to fill, so, on the side of the population, the prospect should correspond to this undertaking, and give assurance of filling the courses. Hence it was only in larger cities or towns that Ignatius contemplated the foundation of colleges; as the distich has it, contrasting the different fields of activity chosen by different orders in the Church:—
That is to say, "The monks of Clairvaux loved their valleys; the Benedictines their mountain-tops; the Franciscans the rural towns; Ignatius the great cities."
This was the more obviously his idea, as we find him reluctantly granting permission for ministerial excursions through a country, if thereby the Fathers' influence in a great city be likely to suffer. He writes to Father Kessel, the Rector at Cologne, where as yet the Society had no college of its own, that "under the circumstances he approves of Kessel's making a short excursion through the province, provided he and his companions are not long absent from the city, and do not sacrifice the main thing to what is accessory; but he does not give them permission to fix their abode out of the town, because places of less importance afford fewer occasions of gathering the desired fruit: and, besides, they must not leave so famous a university; their exertions will be more useful for the good of religion, in forming scholars to become priests and officers of the State, than all the pains they may bestow on the small towns and villages."33 Again, when in 1547 he had accepted the donation of a church, buildings, and gardens at Tivoli from Louis Mendosa, he found the place not suited to the convenience of scholars; it was too near Rome, and yet too far; subsequently, the institution had to be transferred within the city."34
Fourthly, in addition to these material and local conditions for the normal conduct of colleges, it is supposed that the external relations of political society are so far favorable, as at least to tolerate freedom of action on the part of this educational Institute. Such toleration was, as a general rule, not only the least that could be asked for, but the most that was enjoyed.
These are the chief conditions, material and temporal, which Ignatius requires. They give him a footing to commence his work, and allow the animating principles of his Institute to come into play. The animating principles, to which I refer, may be reduced to three brief heads: First, an intellectual and moral scope, clearly defined, as I shall explain in the following chapters. Secondly, the distinct intention to promote rather the interests of public and universal order and enlightenment, than a mere local good of any city, country, province. Thirdly, a tendency in the intellectual institution itself to become rather a great one than a small one, with more degrees of instruction, more and more eminent Professors, a greater number of the right kind of scholars.35
As to the forces available for all this, and the proportion of colleges to be manned in perpetuity, the mind of Ignatius was most express, and became more fixed from day to day. "Cut your cloak according to your cloth," he said to Oliver Manare, when the latter, on going to establish a college at Loretto, asked how he should distribute his men. Ignatius preferred to refuse Princes and Bishops their requests, excusing himself on the score of limited resources, than compromise the reputation of the Society, by an ill-advised assent.36 And he said, as Polanco his secretary tells us, that "if anything ought to make him wish to live a longer time, it was that he might be severe in admitting men into the Order."37 He did not want to have many members in the Society; still less, too many engagements.
Having stated thus briefly the material conditions required by Ignatius, and the animating principles or motives which determined him, we are in a position to discern more distinctly the central object of his attention, that for which the material conditions were provided, that by which the ultimate objects were to be attained. It was the teaching body, the faculty, the "College," properly so called. The "College" was the body of educators who were sent to a place. For them the material conditions did but supply a local habitation, subsistence, books, apparatus. The very first decree quoted by Pachtler, from the first general assembly, uses the term "College" in this sense: "No college is to be sent to any place," etc.38
It is only by derivation from this meaning that the term is applied to the buildings and appointments. It is the body of men that makes the institution. It is this also which makes the institution perpetual; and therefore must itself be so; and must have the material conditions provided for continuing itself, by means of a constant stream of younger men under formation, who will perpetuate the same work.
Now it would be an ideal conception of practical life to be looking for virtuous and erudite men, viri boni simul et eruditi, as Ignatius calls them, ever pouring into the Order, straight from the chairs of universities, from benefices, and posts of leisured ease; and, armed already with the full equipment of intellectual and moral endowments, presenting themselves and their services thenceforth, under the title of absolute poverty, to cities, provinces, and countries, which never had anything to do with their formation. "These men," says Ignatius, "are found to be few in number, and of these few the majority would prefer to rest, after so many labors already undergone. We apprehend that it will be difficult for this Society to grow, on the mere strength of those who are already both good and accomplished, boni simul ac literati; and this for two reasons, the great labors which this manner of life imposes, and the great self-abnegation needed. Therefore, ... another way has seemed good to adopt, that of admitting young men, who, by their good lives and their talents afford us ground to hope that they will grow up into virtuous and learned men, in probos simul ac doctos viros; of admitting also colleges, on those conditions which are expressed in the Apostolic briefs, whether these colleges be within universities, or independent: and, if within universities, whether these institutions themselves are committed to the care of the Society, or not.... Wherefore, we shall first speak of the colleges; then of the universities," etc.39
There were never wanting men of the former kind, already accomplished and of tried virtue, who offered themselves for this service of a lifetime. A noteworthy testimony to their numbers may be found in a dispute with Philip II of Spain, who objected to any moneys leaving the Jesuit Provinces of his realm, for the service and maintenance of the great central college in Rome; and this, notwithstanding the fact that Spanish members were being maintained and formed there. The general assembly, gathered in Rome, 1565, discussed the difficulty; and one of the circumstances mentioned was this: "The Provinces of Spain did not need the assistance of the Roman College as much as others; since many entered the Society, already mature in age and accomplished in learning, so that they could be employed at once in public positions; nor had they to be taught, but they were able to teach others.... It was finally recommended that, to lessen the burden of expense on the Roman College, and in order that fewer scholastics need be called to Rome, each Province, as soon as convenient, should organize a general university; especially as there was already a sufficiency of students (members of the Order) and, besides, of Professors."40 This was only twenty-six years after the foundation of the Society.
But, even with all the advantages accruing from these large contingents of learned men already formed, the idea of Ignatius, to train young men within the Order, was more practical for the formation of faculties; and it carried the general efficiency much further. Powerful and effective as the most pronounced personalities may be, when each striking character goes forward into the open field of battle and leads the way, they are not more powerful than when also qualified to move in the steady and regular march of the trained forces. Father Montmorency, referring to the strength which comes of uniformity, sociability, and harmony, said, Homo unus, homo nullus, "A man alone is as good as no man at all."
Ignatius then, having perpetuity and development in view, and therefore the steady and trained development of talented and virtuous young men, would not accept foundations, except on the basis of endowment, just described. He had not learned in vain the lessons of Barcelona, Alcalà, Salamanca, and Paris. How wisely he acted is shown by the troubles, which later legislation reveals, upon this very point of inadequately endowed colleges. The questions of ill-endowed colleges, small colleges, too many colleges for the forces of a Province, are all excellently discussed and settled in the general assembly, which, in 1565, elected Francis Borgia to succeed Laynez. And "on the same day," says Sacchini, "the Fathers set the example of observing the decree which they had just made, with the same degree of severity with which they had made it; for, the letters of several Bishops and municipalities being read, in which foundations for five colleges were offered, they decided that no one of them should be admitted; and, besides, they gave the new General full authority to dissolve certain colleges already existing."41 In a similar vein, this was the theme of an elegant apology delivered before King Stephen by Father Campano, Provincial of Poland, who requested the King to desist from urging on the Society the multiplication of its institutions.42
A tuition-fee paid by the scholar to the Professor, or to the institution, was nowhere contemplated. At Dijon, where Bossuet was afterwards a pupil, the magistrates when offering a college, in 1603, desired to supplement an inadequate endowment, by requiring a fee from the students. In the name of the Order, Father Coton, the King's confessor, remonstrated; and Henri IV himself wrote to the Parliament of Bourgogne, desiring another arrangement to be made; which was accordingly done.43 The foundation was always to be received as a gratuitous donation, for which the Order owed permanent gratitude. In turn, thenceforward, it gave gratuitously, and allowed of no recompense. "No obligations or conditions are to be admitted that would impair the integrity of our principle, which is: To give gratuitously, what we have received gratis."44
Thus then the faculty, a competent and a permanent one, is installed. It is not one conspicuous for leisured ease. Professors and Scholastics alike are working for a purpose. They are a "college," in the sense of the Society of Jesus. Yet, if there is not leisured ease, but a life of work and self-denial, the system has been found to result in all the consequences which may be looked for in literary "ease with dignity"; and perhaps in more, since no one does more, than he who, in his own line, has as much as he can well do, and do well. System and method, the great means for making time manifold, become so absolutely necessary; and the singleness of intention in a religious life intensifies results. Then, after the general formation has been bestowed, in the consecutive higher studies of seven or nine years within the Order, the plan of Ignatius leaves open to individual talents the whole field of specialties, in Science and Literature. Hence, to speak of our own day, Secchi or Perry devotes himself to astronomy, Garucci to archæology, Strassmeyer to Oriental inscriptions, the De Backers and Sommervogel to bibliography, others to philology, mathematics, and the natural sciences; while five hundred and more writers follow the lines of their own inclinations, either for some directly useful purpose, or because their pursuit is in itself liberal.
What was the response of the Christian world, when it had become alive to the nature of this new power in its midst, and to the proposal which the new power made? What did the answer come to, in the way of providing temporalities, necessary and sufficient? Strange enough! Loyola's own short official lifetime of fifteen years does not appear to have been too short, for the purpose of awakening the world with his idea; which, like a two-edged sword of his own make, not only aroused the keenest opposition at every thrust, and at his every onward step, but opened numberless resources in the apostolic, the charitable, and educational reserves of human nature.
This man, who had inserted in the authentic formula and charter of his Institute that watchword of his movements, "Defence and Advance"; who had taken the whole world for the field of his operations, in defending and advancing; this cavalier of a new military type, who had only to show himself upon the field to gather around him the flower of youth as well as mature age, from college and university, from doctor's chair and prince's throne, left behind him, as the work of fifteen years from the foundation of the Order, about one hundred colleges and houses, distributed into twelve Provinces. The territorial divisions were named, after their chief centres, the Provinces of Portugal, Castile, Andalusia, Aragon, Italy, Naples, Sicily, Upper Germany, Lower Germany, France, Brazil, and the East Indies. Individuals under his orders had overrun Ireland, penetrated into Scotland, into Congo, Abyssinia, and Ethiopia. The East Indies, first traversed by Francis Xavier either on foot, or in unseaworthy vessels, signified the whole stretch of countries from Goa and Ceylon on the West, to Malacca, Japan, and the coast of China on the East. Some of this activity might be credited to apostolic zeal alone, were it not that, wherever the leaders advanced into the heart of a new country, it was always with the purpose, and generally with the result, that the country was to be occupied with educational institutions. De Backer notes this in another connection, when, in the preface to his great work of bibliography, "The Library of Writers of the Company of Jesus," he says: "Wherever a Jesuit set his foot, wherever there was founded a house, a college, a mission, there too arose apostles of another class, who labored, who taught, who wrote."45
What this means, with regard to its strategic value, there is no need of our being told. The Duke of Parma, writing, in 1580, from the seat of war in the Netherlands to Philip II of Spain, said: "Your Majesty desired that I should build a citadel in Maestricht; I thought that a college of the Jesuits would be a fortress more likely to protect the inhabitants against the enemies of the Altar and the Throne. I have built it."46
Sixty years later, after the long generalship of Aquaviva, who during 34 years governed the Order with the ability of another Ignatius, the number of colleges was 372. Well might his immediate successor, Mutius Vitelleschi, writing to the whole Society about the Education of Youth, speak of the "beautiful and precious mass of gold, which we have in our hands to form and finish."47
One hundred and fifty years after the death of Ignatius, the collegiate and university houses of education numbered 769. Two hundred years after the same date, when the Order was on the verge of universal suppression, under the action of University men, Parliamentarians, Jansenists, Philosophers, and of that new movement which was preparing the Revolution, the Jesuit educational institutions stood at the figure, 728. The colleges covered almost the whole world, distributed into 39 Provinces, besides 172 Missions in the less organized regions of the globe.48
If we look at these 700 institutions of secondary and superior education, under the aspect of their constitution, that is to say, of their scope, their system, the supreme legislative and executive power which characterized them, we find that they were not so much a plurality of institutions, as a single one. Take the 92 colleges of France alone.49 In one sense, these may be considered as less united than the 50 colleges of the Paris University, for the Paris University was in one quarter of a city, which offers a material unity; these, on the contrary, were spread over the whole of France, presenting the characteristics of "national" education; just as the 700 were over the whole world, a cosmopolitan system. But, regarded in their formal and essential bond, they were vastly more of a unit, as an identical educational power, than any faculty existing. No faculty, whether at Paris or Salamanca, Rome or Oxford, ever possessed that control over its 50, 20, or even 8 colleges, which each Provincial Superior exercised over his 10, 20, or 30, and the General over more than 700, with 22,126 members in the Order. In the one General lay the power of an active headship; from him the facultative power of conferring degrees emanated; and he had one system of studies and discipline in his charge to administer, with a latitude of discretion according to times, places, and circumstances.
As to the numbers of students, and the general estimate to be formed of them, I will record such data as fall under the eye, while passing rapidly over the literature of the subject.
In Rome, the 20 colleges attending the classes of the Roman College numbered, in 1584, 2108 students. Father Argento, in his apology to the States at Klausenburg, in 1607, mentions that the schools in Transylvania were frequented by the flower of the nobility; and, in his "History of the Affairs in Poland," dedicated to Sigismund III, he attests that from 8000 to 10,000 youths, chiefly of the nobility and gentry, frequented the gymnasia of the Order in Poland. At Rouen, in France, there were regularly 2000. At La Flèche there were 1700 during a century; 300 being boarders, the other 1400 finding accommodation in the village, but always remaining under the supervision of the faculty. Throughout the seventeenth century, the numbers at the College of Louis-le-Grand, in Paris, varied between 2000, 1827, and 3000; including, in the latter number, 550 boarders. In 1627, only a few years after the restoration of the Society by Henri IV, the one Province of Paris had, in its 14 colleges, 13,195 students; which would give an average of nearly 1000 to a college. Cologne almost began with 800 students,—its roll in 1558. Dilingen in 1607 had 760; in its convictus, 110 of the boarders were Religious, besides other Ecclesiastics; the next year, out of 250 convictores or boarders, 118 were Religious of various Orders, the secular Priesthood being represented among the students generally. At Utrecht, during the first century of the Order's existence, there were 1000 scholars; at Antwerp and Brussels each, 600; in most of the Belgian colleges, 300. As to Spain and Italy, which first saw the Society rise in their midst, and expand with immense vigor all over them, I consider it superfluous to dwell particularly upon them.
In many of the capitals and important centres throughout Europe, there were separate colleges for nobles. Elsewhere the nobility were mixed with the rest; thus 400 nobles and more were attending the Jesuit schools in Paris. It was studiously aimed at by the Order to eliminate, in matters of education, all distinguishing marks or privileges. Thus Father Buys endeavors, in 1610, to reduce the practice at Dilingen to the custom of the other colleges in the upper German Province.50
Most of the Papal Seminaries founded by Gregory XIII, at Vienna, Dilingen, Fulda, Prague, Gratz, Olmütz, Wilna, as well as in Japan and other countries, were put under the direction of the Society; as Pius IV did with his Roman Seminary; and St. Charles Borromeo with that of Milan.
Not knowing what the absolute average really was in these 700 institutions, we may still form some idea of what the sum total of students must have been at its lowest figure. For this purpose, we can take an average which seems about the lowest possible. I have not met with any distinct mention of a college having less than 300 scholars. There are indeed frequent complaints in the general assemblies, regarding what are denounced as "small" colleges. However, it seems clear from numerous indications, as, for instance, from the Encyclical letter of the General Paul Oliva,51 that these colleges were called small, not primarily on account of an insufficient number of students, but because of insufficient foundations, which did not support the Professors actually employed. A document for the Rectors notes that "thus far almost all the colleges, even such as have received endowments, suffer want regularly, and have frequently to borrow money."52
Hence we may be allowed to take, as a tentative average, 300 students to a college. At once, we rise to a sum total of more than 200,000 students in these collegiate and university grades, all being formed at a given date under one system of studies and of government, intellectual and moral.
If statistics, in that nicely tabulated form which delights modern bureaus, have failed us as we run over the whole world to decipher the indications, there is yet another view which we may catch of the same subject, and one that is equally valuable. It is the multitude of nations into which this educational growth ramified. At Goa, in Hindustan, the seminary, which was inferior to none in Europe, had for its students, Brahmins, Persians, Arabians, Ethiopians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Malabari, Cananorii, Guzarates, Dacanii, and others from the countries beyond the Ganges. Japan had its colleges at Funai, Arima, Anzuchzana, and Nangasaki. China had a college at Macao; and later on many more, reaching into the interior, where the Fathers became the highest mandarins in the service of the Emperor, and built his observatory. Towards the close of the eighteenth century a large number of colleges were flourishing in Central and South America. All of these disappeared, when the Order was suppressed. The youth, who could afford to obtain the education needed, went over to Europe, whence they returned, a generation quite different from what had been known of before. They returned with the principles of the Revolution. And the whole history of Central and South America has changed, from that date onwards, into a series of revolutions, which are the standing marvel of political scientists to our day.
To consult a graphic representation of how this educational Order looked on the map of the world, one may glance into the ninth volume of the Monumenta Germaniæ Pædagogica. There Father Pachtler, as in his other volumes of the series, sketches only the German "Assistency" of the Society of Jesus. The five Assistencies of the Order served the purposes of government, by grouping many Provinces together into larger divisions. In 1725, the German Assistency comprised nine out of thirty-two Provinces. The nine in question are those of Flandro-Belgium, French Belgium, the Lower Rhine, the Upper Rhine, Upper Germany, Bohemia, Austria, Poland, Lithuania. The map at the end of Father Pachtler's volume represents all this country, with the towns marked differently, according as they contained either universities of the Order, or colleges, or convictus, that is, boarding-colleges, or seminaries, or residences. The chronological order of their rise is presented in a table at the beginning of the same volume, with a note to indicate more in particular the grade or amplitude of each, as being a Studium Generale, otherwise called University or Academy, a College or a Gymnasium, as well as the annexes of each, in the shape of one or more convictus, one or more Episcopal or Papal Seminaries, a college of nobles, a convictus for poor scholars. By means of this map, a graphic presentation is afforded of one Assistency, from which, by a proper extension, the whole world may be portrayed to the imagination. In 1750, within the limits of this map, there were 217 colleges, 55 seminaries, 73 residences, 24 novitiates, 160 missions, 6 professed houses.53
The universities here spoken of, otherwise called Studia Generalia, or Academies, are quite typical, a special Jesuit development of the mediæval style. An exact and official form, drawn up for the University of Gratz, may be found in the same Monumenta.54 As Father Pachtler remarks, it shows at a glance the inner working of a Jesuit university, and the general system prevailing over the whole Society. He entitles the document: "Ordnung einer ausschlieschlich von Jesuiten geleiteten Universität," or "Einer selbständige Universität, 1658." The Latin title is: "Forma et Ratio Gubernandi Academias et Studia Generalia S. J." It was the compilation of Father John Argento.
Upon this basis of the amount of work done, as well as its intrinsic character, shown by the results, I was going to draw some inferences with regard to the amount of the temporal endowments, which must have been required to support such a vast organization, and must have been vested in the Order by the Christian world. One might compare the work done with what Oxford accomplishes; and, seeing that the latter university supplies the facilities for higher education, and that far from gratuitously, to only a couple of thousands among the nobility and gentry, then, since it spends upon this an annual revenue of $2,500,000, how much would be required to conduct the education of a quarter of a million of students? Our arithmetic would feel oppressed by the calculation.
But the calculation is not necessary. It is quite evident that religious poverty gave the key to the situation,—poverty, self-abnegation, the resignation of all temporal considerations in life, by men who had no families to provide for, no station to acquire; who had themselves given up every station, from that of the clerical benefice, or the liberal and martial careers, to ducal coronets, princedoms, and even royalty; men therefore, who were bestowing with themselves, and in themselves, the essential endowment of education upon the world, and who needed only to have that supplemented with the few temporal necessities still remaining. And the conclusion to be drawn seems to be this. The Christian world, whether ruler or people, republic or municipality, was making a safe and lucrative investment, whether at home or abroad, in the midst of civilization or of barbarism, when it consigned the absolute use of sufficient temporalities to a world-wide faculty, inspired by the sentiment of religious devotion.
For what is the object of any religious society whatsoever? It is to complete in each of its members the duties of the man, the citizen and the Christian, with other duties called "religious," which, correlative with the former, are nevertheless distinct from them. They are duties which presuppose the moral virtues, the civil and Christian virtues, and tend to complete them with the highest qualities to which perfect Christianity aspires, those of self-devotion and religious self-consecration.
Hence the experiences, making a drama and a tragedy, when the Society abruptly disappeared. Supposing even that enough of competent men, with all personal requirements, could have been found to fill the void, what of their salaries and support? Take an instance. The revenues, which at Bourges had been enough for the support of thirty Jesuits, were found, after the Suppression of the Order, not to afford an adequate compensation for ten secular Professors.55 Frederic II of Prussia, sending an agent to negotiate with Pius VI about retaining the Order in his States, expresses himself thus in a letter to Voltaire: "The surest means (to perpetuate a series of Professors) is to preserve a seminary of men destined to teach. In studying the sciences, they fit themselves for the office of instructing. It would be no easy task to fill instantaneously a vacancy left by a skilful professor. If the education of ordinary citizens be necessary, the training up of instructors must be no less so." And then, coming to the point before us, the King continues: "Besides, there are reasons of economy for preferring such a body of men to mere secular individuals. The professor taken from the latter class will cost more, because he has a greater number of wants. It is needless to remark that the property of the Jesuits would not be sufficient to remunerate their successors; and that revenues, which pass over to the administration of the government, always suffer diminution."56 Speaking of Ganganelli, Pope Clement XIII, who was under pressure from various quarters to make him suppress the Order, Frederic writes to Voltaire in 1770: "For my own part, I have no reason to complain of him; he leaves me my dear Jesuits, whom they are persecuting everywhere. I will save the precious seed, to give some of it, one day, to those who should wish to cultivate a plant so rare."57
The testimony of documents is uniform upon the poverty of these men, whom Protestant historians like Grotius, Robertson, and others marvel at, for the authority they possessed in the world, for the purity of their lives, their success in teaching, and their art of commanding with wisdom as they themselves obeyed with fidelity. Their life was one of straitened circumstances and self-abnegation. We may see it illustrated in Dilingen.58 Or again, at the great royal college, founded by Henri IV at La Flèche, where three hundred boarders were supposed to be paying their own expenses, as pensionnaires, we find Louis XIII issuing a royal decree that his magistrates are to prosecute "les rétardataires et les récalcitrants par toutes les voyes raisonnables," persons who did not pay the expenses of their own children, but left that interesting occupation to the college. With all that, says Rochemonteix, nothing came of it, neither of the royal injunctions, nor of judicial suits; things went on the same way, "the parents paying badly, and the treasurers lamenting."59
I will close this chapter with one case, because it serves to emphasize a particular sequel of the Suppression; that is, the revival of a tuition-fee. A recent author, writing in 1890, tells the history of the College of Saint-Yves at Vannes, in Brittany. He sums up its revenues at 6000 livres. Placed in the hands of the Order, this college, in 1636, that is, seven years after the Society had assumed charge, directed 400 students; later on, 900; and then 1200. In 1762, the faculty consisted of thirteen members, besides the four Fathers engaged in the adjoining house of retreats. All rendered various services, as is usual in a college of Jesuit instructors. To these we must add the requisite complement of the faculty, at least half as many more lay assistants, belonging to the Order, and to the same local community. Here then are twenty-two at the least, subsisting on 6000 livres a year; and meanwhile providing their house, their library, their physical cabinet, which was fully fitted up with all necessary instruments, and their observatory.60 "The moment after the Suppression," he goes on to say, "it was quite another affair! Ten secular professors cost 11,000 livres for their salaries alone!" The author gives the list of their salaries. "To reëstablish equilibrium, one of the first acts of the parliament was to exact from each scholar a tuition-fee of twelve livres; and yet they complained, they could not make ends meet."
Observe, a tuition-fee! On the day after the Suppression, they begin to undo the very work, which, two hundred and thirty years before, the Order had begun to do at its birth, spreading education gratuitously, without drawing on pupils, or drawing on the public treasury.
Well might the General Vincent Caraffa say, in the time of the Thirty Years' War, "We abound rather in men than in revenues." And he says so, in the same breath and in the same sentence, in which he is asking Priests to offer themselves for life to the work of teaching the lower branches, a work which he calls laborious, in times which he specifies as disastrous, and in circumstances which he describes as having no provision made for the means of living.61
This brief sketch will go to show how the Christian world did, indeed, meet the proposal of the Order, and found seven hundred colleges. But it also shows how the Order endowed the world, and had even to make good, with its personal heroism, the defects in many of the foundations.