Within fifty years from the solemn approbation of the Society of Jesus, the Order had spread all over the world, from Europe to the Indies, from China and Japan in the East, to Mexico and Brazil in the West. Wherever the Church was not actually persecuted, as in England, there sprang up educational institutions. Shortly after the death of the fifth General, Father Aquaviva, in 1615, the Society possessed three hundred and seventy-three colleges; in 1706 the number of collegiate and university establishments was seven hundred and sixty-nine, and in 1756, shortly before the suppression, the number was seven hundred and twenty-eight.⁠[279] In 1584 the classes of the Roman College were attended by two thousand, one hundred and eight students. At Rouen, in France, there were regularly two thousand. Throughout the seventeenth century the numbers at the College of Louis-le-Grand, in Paris, varied between eighteen hundred and three thousand. In 1627, the one Province of Paris had in its fourteen colleges 13,195 students, which would give an average of nearly one thousand to each college. In the same year Rouen had 1,968, Rennes 1,485, Amiens 1,430. In 1675 there were in Louis-le-Grand 3,000, in Rennes 2,500, in Toulouse 2,000.⁠[280] Cologne began its roll in 1558 with almost 800 students; Dillingen in Bavaria had 760 in 1607. At Utrecht in Holland there were 1000; at Antwerp and Brussels each 600 scholars. Münster in 1625 had 1300, Munich had 900 in 1602. The absolute average is not known, three hundred seems, however, the very lowest. This would give to the seven hundred and more institutions a sum total of two hundred and ten thousand students, all trained under one system. That thus the Jesuits exercised a great influence on the minds of men, is undeniable. The question is only, was their influence for good or evil? Was their teaching a benefit to the individuals, and more so, was it advantageous to the communities? Was their method considered as productive of good results? Let us listen to contemporaneous writers in high positions, to men known for their intellectual achievements, to men who, owing to their religious tenets, cannot be suspected of partiality to the Jesuits.

The testimony of Lord Bacon, the English philosopher and statesman, is well known: “Of the Jesuit colleges, although in regard of their superstition I may say, ‘Quo meliores eo deteriores,’ yet in regard of this and some other points of learning and moral matters, I may say, as Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabaces, ‘Talis cum sis, utinam noster esses’.”⁠[281] Our American historian Bancroft does not hesitate to say of the Jesuits: “Their colleges became the best schools in the world.”⁠[282] And Ranke writes: “It was found that young people gained more with them in six months than with other teachers in two years. Even Protestants removed their children from distant gymnasia to confide them to the care of the Jesuits.”⁠[283]—This last fact was more than once lamented by Protestants.

In 1625 a report of the Gymnasium in Brieg, Silesia, complains bitterly of the lamentable condition of this school. This condition is ascribed chiefly to the theological wranglings of the Lutherans and the Reformed, and to the inability of the teachers, who frequently were engaged in trades, or as inn-keepers, or acted as lawyers, and thus neglected their duties as teachers. The report then adds: “If the teachers knew how to preserve the confidence of the parents, then an interest in the school would soon be manifested by those who now prefer to send their children to the Jesuits. For these Jesuits know better how to treat boys according to their nature, and to keep alive a zeal for studies.”⁠[284]

Also in the Protestant Margravate of Brandenburg the condition of the schools induced parents, noblemen, state officials, and citizens, to send their sons to foreign Jesuit colleges. But then the preachers started a violent campaign against this practice, although they had to admit that the Jesuit pupils were better trained than those educated in the Margravate. Consequently, the Elector John George issued severe decrees against sending children to foreign schools (1564 and 1572).⁠[285] Professors and preachers in Lemgo, Danzig, Königsberg, and in other cities, denounced the “godless practice of Protestants who sacrificed their children to the monstrous Moloch of Jesuit schools.”⁠[286]

Wilhelm Roding, Professor in Heidelberg, in a book: Against the impious schools of the Jesuits, dedicated to Frederick III., Elector of the Palatinate, gives expression to the following complaint: “Very many who want to be counted as Christians send their children to the schools of the Jesuits. This is a most dangerous thing, as the Jesuits are excellent and subtle philosophers, above everything intent on applying all their learning to the education of youth. They are the finest and most dexterous of teachers, and know how to accommodate themselves to the natural gifts of every pupil.” Another Protestant, Andrew Dudith of Breslau, wrote: “I am not surprised if I hear that one goes to the Jesuits. They possess varied learning, teach, preach, write, dispute, instruct youth without taking money, and all this they do with indefatigable zeal; moreover, they are distinguished for moral integrity, and modest behaviour.”⁠[287] A Protestant preacher attributed the popularity of the Jesuit schools to magical practices of these wicked men: “These Jesuits have diabolical practices; they anoint their pupils with secret salves of the devil, by which they so attract and attach the children to themselves that they can only with difficulty be separated from these wizards, and always long to go back to them. Therefore, the Jesuits ought not only to be expelled but to be burnt, otherwise they can never be gotten rid of.” Of the Hildesheim Jesuits it was said that they used some secret charms to hasten the progress of their pupils.⁠[288]

A most remarkable testimony to the ability of the Jesuits as teachers was rendered by the words and actions of two non-Catholic rulers, at the time of the suppression of the Society in 1773, namely by King Frederick of Prussia and Empress Catharine of Russia; we shall revert to their testimony further on in this chapter.

In a history of the Jesuit colleges mention must be made of the literary and scientific works published by Jesuits. The colleges of the Society were as many colonies of writers. It is impossible to give here an adequate description of this work of the Society; the Bibliography of the Order comprises nine folio volumes, and contains the names of thirteen thousand Jesuit authors—many, if not most of them, professors—who published works on almost every branch of learning.⁠[289] Even Dr. Huber admires the literary and scientific activity of the Order: “More than three hundred Jesuits have written grammars on living and dead languages, and more than ninety-five languages have been taught by members of the Order. In mathematics and natural sciences there are among them first class scientists. Many astronomical observatories were erected by them, and directed with great success.”⁠[290] Still more striking is the testimony of the bitterest enemy of the Jesuits, d’Alembert. He writes: “Let us add—for we must be just—that no religious society whatever can boast of so many members distinguished in science and literature. The Jesuits have successfully cultivated eloquence, history, archaeology, geometry, and literature. There is scarcely a class of writers in which they have no representatives of the first rank; they have even good French writers, a distinction of which no other religious order can boast.”⁠[291]

Some of the linguistic works of the Jesuits are of the greatest importance and even celebrity in the history of the science of language. The first, not in time but in importance, is that of the Spanish Jesuit Hervas. Professor Max Müller of Oxford speaks of this Jesuit in the highest terms, and says that he wishes to point out his real merits, which other historians have overlooked.⁠[292] While working among the polyglottous tribes of South America, the attention of Father Hervas was drawn to a systematic study of languages. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from South America in 1767, he lived in Rome amidst the numerous Jesuit missionaries who assisted him greatly in his researches.

His works are of a most comprehensive character; the most important is his Catalogue of Languages, in six volumes. “If we compare the work of Hervas with a similar work which excited much attention towards the end of the last century, and is even now more widely known than Hervas’—I mean Court de Gebelin’s Monde primitif—we shall see at once how far superior the Spanish Jesuit is to the French philosopher. Gebelin treats Persian, Armenian, Malay, and Coptic as dialects of Hebrew; he speaks of Bask as a dialect of Celtic, and he tries to discover Hebrew, Greek, English, and French words in the idioms of America. Hervas, on the contrary, though embracing in his catalogue five times the number of languages that were known to Gebelin, is most careful not to allow himself to be carried away by theories not warranted by the evidence before him. It is easy now to point out mistakes and inaccuracies in Hervas, but I think that those who have blamed him most are those who ought most to have acknowledged their obligations to him. To have collected specimens and notices of more than three hundred languages, is no small matter. But Hervas did more. He himself composed grammars of more than forty languages. He was one of the first to point out that the true affinity of languages must be determined chiefly by grammatical evidence, not by mere similarity of words. He proved, by a comparative list of declensions and conjugations, that Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopie, and Aramaic are all but dialects of one original language, and constitute one family of speech, the Semitic. He scouted the idea of deriving all languages of mankind from Hebrew. He had perceived clear traces of affinity between Chinese and Indo-Chinese dialects; also between Hungarian, Lapponian, and Finnish, three dialects now classed as members of the Turanian family. He had proved that Bask was not, as was commonly supposed, a Celtic dialect, but an independent language.... Nay, one of the most brilliant discoveries in the history of the science of language, the establishment of the Malay and Polynesian family of speech ... was made by Hervas long before it was-worked out, and announced to the world by Humboldt.”⁠[293]

Great are also the merits of Jesuits in regard to the study of Sanskrit. “The first European Sanskrit scholar was the Jesuit Robert de Nobili,”⁠[294] a nephew of the famous Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. According to the words of Max Müller, he must have been far advanced in the knowledge of the sacred language and literature of the Brahmans.⁠[295] The first Sanskrit grammar written by a European is commonly said to be that of the German Jesuit Hanxleden († 1732). However, this honor belongs to another German Jesuit, Heinrich Roth († 1668), who wrote a Sanskrit grammar almost a century before Hanxleden.⁠[296] Father Du Pons, in 1740, published a comprehensive and, in general, a very accurate description of the various branches of Sanskrit literature.⁠[297] Of Father Coeurdoux Max Müller writes that he anticipated the most important results of comparative philology by at least fifty years; at the same time the Oxford Professor expresses his astonishment that the work of this humble missionary has attracted so little attention, and only very lately received the credit that belongs to it.⁠[298] Father Calmette wrote a poetical work in excellent Sanskrit, the Ezour Veda, which gave rise to an interesting literary discussion. Voltaire declared it to be four centuries older than Alexander the Great, and pronounced it the most precious gift which the West had received from the East. On account of the Christian ideas contained in the poem, the atheistic philosophers of France thought they had found in it a most effective weapon for attacking Christianity. Unfortunately for these philosophers, an English traveler discovered Father Calmette’s manuscript in Pondichery.⁠[299]

Various important works on the dialects of India were written by Jesuits, among others several grammars and dictionaries of the Tamil language, for which the first types were made by the Spanish lay brother Gonsalves. The works written in the Tamil language by Father Beschi († 1740) have received the most flattering criticism by modern Protestant writers. The Anglican Bishop Caldwell, in his Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages (London 1875), styles them the best productions in modern Tamil, and other scholars, as Babington, Hunter, Pope, and Benfey, concur in this eulogy.⁠[300] Beschi’s grammar and dictionary are praised as masterpieces. Father Stephens’ grammar of the Konkani language is called an admirable achievement.⁠[301] It was republished as late as 1857, and was used extensively in the nineteenth century.

Not less noteworthy were the labors of the Jesuits in the Chinese language. In the fourth International Congress of Orientalists, Father Matteo Ricci was called “the first Sinologue”.⁠[302] When not long ago the Protestant missionaries in Shanghai published an edition of Euclid, they took as the basis of their work the translation made by Ricci. His works were written in the best Chinese, and, according to the eminent Orientalist Rémusat, were even in the nineteenth century highly esteemed by Chinese scholars, for their elegance of diction and purity of language.⁠[303] Father Prémare († 1736) is called by Morrison the most thorough and profound grammarian of the Chinese language. And Rémusat asserts that the two Jesuits Prémare and Gaubil have not been surpassed or equalled by any European in sound and comprehensive knowledge of Chinese, and that both belong to the number of great literary luminaries that form the pride of France.⁠[304] Prémare’s most important work, the Notitia Linguae Sinicae, was published in 1831, by the Protestant Collegium Anglo-Sinicum in Malakka. Rémusat styles this work the best ever produced by a European in the field of Chinese grammar.⁠[305] And a German scholar writes: “We possess no work on Chinese grammar which, in comprehensive and judicious treatment of the subject, can be compared to that of Prémare’s Notitia. Some may acquire a better understanding of the Chinese language than the French Father, but it may be said that not easily will any European so fully and so thoroughly master the spirit and taste of the Chinese language; nor will there soon be found an equally capable teacher of Chinese rhetoric. In this I recognize the imperishable value of this work, a value which in some quarters is recognized more in deeds than in words.”⁠[306] By the last remark the author seems to imply what another German writer has stated more explicitly, namely, that “several of the best works of these Jesuits have been published by another firm,”⁠[307] i. e., they have been largely used by other writers without receiving the credit due to them. Other distinguished Chinese scholars were the Fathers Noel, Gerbillon, Parrenin, de Maillac, and Amyot.⁠[308]

Great praise has also been bestowed on works of Jesuit authors on the languages of Japan, South America, etc.⁠[309] Thus we read in the Narrative and Critical History of America, by Justin Winsor: “The most voluminous work on the language of the Incas has for its author the Jesuit Diego Gonzales Holguin.... He resided for several years in the Jesuit College at Juli, near the banks of Lake Titicaca, where the Fathers had established a printing-press, and here he studied the Quichua language.... He died as Rector of the College at Asuncion. His Quichua dictionary was published at Lima in 1586, and a second edition appeared in 1607, the same year in which the grammar first saw the light. The Quichua grammar of Holguin is the most complete and elaborate that has been written, and his dictionary is also the best.”⁠[310]—Similar commendations have been bestowed on the linguistic works of the Fathers Rubio, de Acosta, Barzena, Bertonio, Bayer, Febres (whose grammar and dictionary of the Auracanian dialect were republished for practical use in 1882 and 1884 at Buenos Ayres and Rio de Janeiro), Anchieta, Figueira, Ruiz, and others. Ruiz’ grammar and dictionary of Guarani, in the words of Mulhall, are a lasting monument to his study and learning.⁠[311] Many most valuable books and manuscripts of the Jesuits were ruthlessly destroyed, when the Fathers were expelled from their colleges and missions in South America. Protestant writers, as Bach and Kriegk, lament that this vandalism of the enemies of the Society has destroyed for ever most valuable literary treasures.

In the field of mathematics and natural sciences several Jesuit professors have attained to high distinction. We mention the names of a few. Clavius († 1610), who was called the “Euclid of his age”, was the leading man in the reformation of the calendar under Pope Gregory XIII. Professor Cajori says with reference to this work: “The Gregorian calendar met with a great deal of opposition both among scientists and among Protestants. Clavius, who ranked high as a geometer, met the objections of the former most ably and effectively; the prejudices of the latter passed away with time.”⁠[312] One of his pupils was Gregory of Saint-Vincent († 1667), whom Leibnitz places on an equality with Descartes as a geometrician. “Although a circle-squarer, he is worthy of mention for the numerous theorems of interest which he discovered in his search after the impossible, and Montucla ingeniously remarks that no one ever squared the circle with so much ability, or (except for his principal object) with so much success.”⁠[313]

Another disciple of Clavius was Matthew Ricci († 1610), the illustrious mathematician and apostle of China, who published also a vast number of valuable observations on the geography and history of China. Father Schall of Cologne († 1669), a prominent mathematician and astronomer, was appointed director of the “Mathematical Tribunal” in Pekin, and revised the Chinese calendar.

Within the last few years the attention of mathematicians has been drawn to the Jesuit Father Saccheri, Professor of mathematics at Pavia. Non-Euclidean mathematics is now recognized as an important branch of mathematics. The beginnings of this system have sometimes been ascribed to Gauss, the “Nestor of German mathematicians”. But recent research has proved that as early as 1733 Father Saccheri had published a book which gives a complete system of Non-Euclidean geometry. Beltrami, in 1889, and Staeckel and Engel in 1895, pointed out the great importance of the work of Saccheri.⁠[314]

Father Grimaldi († 1663), professor of mathematics in the College at Bologna, gave an accurate description of the moon spots, discovered the diffraction of light, and, in his work Physico-Mathesis de Lumine, Coloribus et Iride, advanced the first attempt of a theory of undulation. This work was the basis of Newton’s theory of light.⁠[315] Father Scheiner († 1650) was one of the first observers of the sun spots; it is disputed whether he or Galileo discovered them first. Scheiner also invented the pantograph, and, in his work Oculus, hoc est Fundamentum Opticum, laid down opinions of lasting value (especially on the accommodation of the eye).⁠[316]

More famous than these was Athanasius Kircher († 1680), a man of most extensive and varied learning who wrote on mathematics, physics, history, philology, and archaeology. He is the inventor of the magic lantern and other scientific instruments. He was the first who successfully studied the Coptic language and deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The very variety and universality of his learning was naturally a danger, to which he not unfrequently succumbed. He often betrays a lack of critical spirit, and proposes phantastic theories. Still, in spite of these defects, his works are of the greatest importance, and his Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta has been styled indispensable even at the present day for the study of the Egyptian language.⁠[317] Father Kircher founded also the famous Museo Kircheriano in the Roman College, and if he had done nothing else, this alone would secure him a place of honor in the world of science. The services rendered to mathematics, astronomy, physics, and geography, by the Jesuits in China, especially by Ricci, Schall, Verbiest, Koegler, Hallerstein, Herdtrich, Gaubil, have been generously acknowledged by Lalande, Montucla, and more recently by the Protestant scholars Mädler,⁠[318] and Baron von Richthofen.⁠[319] On the astronomical observatories of the Jesuits a few words will be said when we come to speak of the suppression of the Order.

Of the geographical works of the Jesuits in China Baron von Richthofen writes: “If the Jesuits had not applied their scientifically trained minds to practical subjects, we would not possess the great cartographic work on China, and that country would still be a terra incognita for us, and the time would be very far off in which it would become possible to obtain as much as that picture of China which the Jesuits have given us, and which is now well known to everybody.... It is the most important cartographic work ever executed in so short a time, the grandest scientific achievement of the most brilliant period of Catholic missions in China.” The same author says of the Tyrolese Father Martini († 1661): “He is the best geographer of all the missionaries, and by his great work, the Novus Atlas Sinensis, the best and most complete description which we possess of China, he has become the ‘Father of Chinese geography.’” Father Du Halde gave an accurate description of Mongolia, and his great work on China (1735) is still one of the most important sources available on the geography, history, religion, industry, political organization, customs, etc., of that country.⁠[320] Some of the geographical labors of the Jesuits in America have been mentioned previously.⁠[321] Justin Winsor states that the Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias of Father de Acosta, “the Pliny of the New World,” is much relied on as an authority by Robertson, and quoted 19 times by Prescott in his Conquest of Peru, thus taking the fourth place as an authority with regard to that work.⁠[322]

All these works are as many testimonies to the efficiency and the practical character of the system under which these men had been trained; most of them had entered the Society at a very early age. How could they have produced such works, if what Compayré says, were true, that the Society devotes itself exclusively to “purely formal studies, to exercises which give a training in the use of elegant language, and leaves real and concrete studies in entire neglect”?⁠[323]

In history the Society must yield the palm to the Order of St. Benedict, particularly to the celebrated Congregation of St. Maur. Still, some Jesuits produced works of lasting value. We mention first the De Doctrina Temporum by Father Petavius († 1652), of which a great authority on chronology said that it was superior to the work of Scaliger, and an invaluable mine of information for later chronologists.⁠[324] Father Labbe († 1667) began the Collection of the Councils which is much used up to the present day. A more complete Collection of the Councils, in fact the most complete that exists, was published by Father Hardouin († 1729). He wrote also a most valuable work on numismatics, in which six hundred ancient coins were, for the first time, described and with wonderful sagacity used for solving intricate historical problems. In other historical and critical works he proceeded with an almost incredible boldness and arbitrariness, denying the authenticity of a great number of the works of the classical writers and the Fathers of the Church. In many questions of criticism he was far in advance of his age, but some of his hyper-critical and eccentric hypotheses have, to a great extent, obscured his reputation.⁠[325] The greatest historical work of the Jesuits is the collection of documents called Acta Sanctorum, or the Bollandists, so named after the first editor, Father Bolland († 1668). The most distinguished of the Bollandist writers was Father Papenbroeck († 1714). Fifty-three folio volumes appeared before the suppression of the Society. This gigantic collection is a work of prime importance for the history of the whole Christian era, a monumentum aere perennius. Leibnitz said of it: “If the Jesuits had produced nothing but this work, they would have deserved to be brought into existence, and would have just claims upon the good wishes and esteem of the whole world.”⁠[326]

In literature we find the names of several distinguished Jesuits. The odes of Matthew Sarbiewski († 1640) were praised as successful rivals of the best lyrics of the ancients; Hugo Grotius even preferred them to the odes of Horace,⁠[327] although we must call this an exaggerated estimate. Sarbiewski was surpassed by James Balde († 1668), who for many years taught rhetoric in Ingolstadt and Munich, and was styled not only the “Modern Quintilian”, but also the “Horace of Germany”. His Latin poems manifest a variety, beauty, warmth of feeling, and glowing patriotism unrivalled in that period. He was, however, not altogether free from the mannerisms of his age. Protestant critics, as Goethe and others, have admired the productions of this highly gifted poet, and Herder,⁠[328] who translated a selection of Balde’s lyrics into classical German, speaks of him in enthusiastic terms.⁠[329]

The classical German writings of Denis and Spe have been mentioned previously. We may add here the name of Father Robert Southwell, who was executed for his faith in 1595. Saintsbury says of him that he belonged to a distinguished family, was stolen by a gipsy in youth, but was recovered; “a much worse misfortune befell him in being sent for education not to Oxford or Cambridge but to Douay, where he fell into the hands of the Jesuits, and joined their order.”⁠[330] Yet notwithstanding this terrible misfortune, he must have greatly profited from this education; for the same critic admits that Southwell produced not inconsiderable work both in prose and poetry; that his works possess genuine poetic worth; that his religious fervor is of the simplest and most genuine kind, and that his poems are a natural and unforced expression of it.

Father Perpinian wrote most eloquent Latin discourses, which, as the philologian Ruhnken affirms, compare favorably with those of Muretus, the greatest Neo-Latinist. The philological works of Pontanus, Vernulaeus, La Cerda (the famous commentator of the works of Virgil), and others, were held in high repute. Sacchini, Jouvancy, Perpinian, Possevin, Bonifacio, and Kropf wrote valuable treatises on education.⁠[331]

We have purposely abstained from mentioning any writer on theology or scholastic philosophy. For it is admitted on all sides that the Society produced a great number of most distinguished writers in scholastic philosophy and in the various branches of theology: dogmatics, apologetics, exegesis, moral theology, etc.

Many good schoolbooks were written by Jesuits.⁠[332] The number of grammars, readers, books on style, on poetics, rhetoric, editions of classics, etc., is very great. De la Cerda published one of the best editions of Virgil. The editions of La Rue (Ruaeus) were famous; of course, they are not what we now consider standard works on the classics. Father Tursellini’s book De Particulis Linguae Latinae appeared in fifty editions; the last edition was prepared by Professor Hand, the philologist of Jena. The celebrated Gottfried Hermann, of Leipsic, published a revised edition of Father Viger’s De Idiotismis Linguae Graecae.⁠[333] This is an honor which not many old books have received at the hand of German scholars, who boast of such achievements in the field of philology. It is needless to add that the two works of the Jesuit philologians thus singled out must be of considerable excellence.

One department of the activity of the Order deserves a more detailed treatment: the Jesuit school-drama.⁠[334] At present there is no need of defending the usefulness of dramatic performances, given by students, provided the subject and the whole tone of the play are morally sound and elevating. Still, there were times, when the Jesuits had to defend their practice, especially against the rigorists of Port Royal, the Jansenists in general, and in the eighteenth century against several governments, which were swayed by a prosaic bureaucratic spirit of utilitarianism.⁠[335] The principles according to which the drama in Jesuit schools was to be conducted are laid down by Jouvancy in his Ratio Docendi, and by Father Masen; a book on the technique of the drama was composed by Father Lang.⁠[336] The Institute of the Society had taken precautions that the school dramas should neither interfere with the regular work, nor do the least harm to the morals of the pupils. The fifty-eighth rule of the Provincial reads: “He shall only rarely allow the performance of comedies and tragedies; they must be becoming⁠[337] and written in Latin.” The vast majority of plays were consequently given in Latin,—the language, in those times, understood by every man of culture. Many Protestant educators and preachers were altogether opposed to dramas in the vernacular “which, as they said, were good enough for the common people and apprentices, but unbecoming students.” In Jesuit colleges plays were occasionally, and after 1700 more frequently, performed in the vernacular.⁠[338] Of Latin plays a programme and synopsis in the vernacular was, at least in Germany, distributed amongst those who did not know Latin.

In many Protestant schools of this period, for instance in the celebrated schools of Sturm and Rollenhagen, and also in a few Catholic schools, the comedies of Plautus and Terence were exhibited, not, however, without strong opposition of earnest men, who rightly considered some of these plays as dangerous for young people. Von Raumer says: “It seems incredible that the learning by heart and acting of comedies, so lascivious as those of Terence, could have remained without evil influence on the morality of youth, and we find it unintelligible that a religious-minded man like Sturm did not consider Terence really seductive. If the mere reading of an author like Terence is risky, how much more risky must it be, if pupils perform such pieces and have to familiarize themselves altogether with the persons and situations.”⁠[339] No wonder that serious complaints were made against such pernicious practices.⁠[340] The biblical and historical plays performed in Protestant schools were mostly directed against “Popish idolatry”.⁠[341]

The drama of the Jesuits stood in sharp contrast to that of the Protestants. As their whole literary education, so also their drama was subordinate to the religious and moral training. The Ratio Studiorum prohibited the reading of any classical books which contained obscenities; they had first to be expurgated; expressly mentioned were Terence and Plautus. This must reflect most favorably on the Jesuits, in a time when vulgarity and obscenity reigned supreme in literature and drama.

As the nature and function of the theatre the Jesuits considered the stirring up of the pious emotions, the guardianship of youth against the corrupting influence of evil society, the portrayal of vice as something intrinsically despicable, the rousing up of the inner man to a zealous crusade for virtue, and the imitation of the Saints. Even in the treatment of purely secular subjects, the plot was always of a spiritually serious, deeply tragic, and morally important nature. The aim of the comic drama was to strike at the puerilities and ineptitudes, which could be treated on the stage without any detriment to the moral conscience. Vulgar jokes and low comedy were once and for all excluded, and the Jesuit authorities were indefatigable in thus guarding the moral prestige of the plays. In general, only such plays were written and produced as were in harmony with the moral ends and moral limits of dramatic art itself: a meritorious achievement in an age when every sentiment of moral delicacy, every prescription of social decorum, every dictate of ordinary modesty—both in the school and on the stage—was being outraged. And this fact produced a healthy reaction in favor of all the fine arts in general. The intermittent efforts of Jesuit dramatists could not, it is true, completely stem the tide of public degeneracy, could not even remain altogether unscathed by the time-serving fashions and foibles of the age: from the grosser and more revolting aberrations they were happily preserved.⁠[342]

The subjects of Jesuit dramas were frequently biblical or allegorical: as “The Prodigal Son” (Heiligenstadt 1582), “Joseph in Egypt” (Munich 1583), “Christ as Judge”, “Saul and David” (Graz 1589–1600), “Naboth” (Ratisbon 1609), “Elias” (Prague 1610). Or historical subjects were chosen: “Julian the Apostate” (Ingolstadt 1608), “Belisarius” (Munich 1607), “Godfrey de Bouillon” (Munich 1596), “St. Ambrose”, “St. Benno”, “St. Henry the Emperor”, etc.⁠[343] Favorite subjects were the lives of the Saints with their rich, beautiful, touching and morally ennobling elements, and the Christian legends. In these the Catholic Church has preserved, as Professor Paulsen aptly remarks, a poetical treasure which in many respects surpasses the stories of the Old Testament, both in purity and dramatic applicability.⁠[344]

Many of their dramas were exhibited with all possible splendor, as for instance those given at La Flèche in 1614 before Louis XIII. and his court.⁠[345] But it seems that nowhere was greater pomp displayed than in Munich, where the Court liberally contributed to make the performances as brilliant as possible. In 1574 the tragedy “Constantine” was played on two successive days. The whole city was beautifully decorated. More than one thousand persons took part in the play. Constantine, after his victory over Maxentius, entered the city on a triumphal chariot, surrounded by 400 horsemen in glittering armor. At the performance of the tragedy “Esther” in 1577, the most splendid costumes, gems, etc. were furnished from the treasury of the duke; at the banquet of King Assuerus 160 precious dishes of gold and silver were used.⁠[346]

We may now understand the following assertions of a German writer. “The Jesuits, as Richard Wagner in our own days, aimed at and succeeded in uniting all the arts within the compass of the drama. The effects of such dramas were, like those of the Oberammergau Passion Play, ravishing, overpowering. Even people ignorant of the Latin tongue were transported by the representations of subjects usually familiar to them, as at present no one travels to the village of Ammergau to be edified by the poetic beauties of the text. And no one can deny that the liturgy of the Catholic Church makes a deep impression, even on the uncultured, although the Latin language is unknown to them. It is in the first place the power of what is seen that affects the mind so forcibly.”⁠[347]

The concourse of people was often immense. In 1565 “Judith” was played before the court in Munich, and then repeated before the people on a public square; not only was the whole square densely crowded, but even the surrounding walls and the roofs of the houses were thickly filled with eager spectators. In 1560 the comedy “Euripus” was given in the court-yard of the College of Prague before a crowd of more than 8000 people. The play had to be repeated three times, and when further exhibitions were demanded, the Rector of the college urgently requested the petitioners to desist from such demands, as “after all it was not the task of the Society to exhibit comedies.”

Catholic writers of the time speak enthusiastically of the salutary effects of such performances. “They do more good than a sermon”, writes the Italian physician Guarinoni, who saw many Jesuit dramas at Hall in Tyrol. At Munich, on one occasion, in 1609, the impression of a play—it was “Cenodoxus, the Doctor of Paris”, (or the “Conversion of St. Bruno”)—was overpowering. A spectator wrote that a hundred sermons could not have produced the same effect; fourteen of the foremost members of the Bavarian court, on the following day, withdrew themselves into solitude, to enter upon the “Spiritual Exercises” of St. Ignatius, and to change their manner of life.⁠[348]

Protestant preachers lamented that “high personages, princes and counts, no less than townspeople and rustics take such delight in the dramas of the Jesuits, contribute money to them, and honor the actors, whereas ours have nothing of the kind. Thus the Jesuits have an opportunity of propagating their idolatry and of gaining the good will even of the Evangelicals.”⁠[349] This result would certainly have been impossible, if the Jesuit dramas had contained invectives against non-Catholics. They were free from insulting and abusive attacks with which those of the other side were teeming. This is established by the standard authors on this subject, Karl von Reinhardstöttner, and Holstein. The latter, speaking with offensive and bitter language of the Jesuit dramas as means of defending “idolatry”, must admit that their object was exclusively pedagogical, not at all polemical. Another Protestant, Francke, states as the difference between Protestant and Catholic school dramas, that the former sank more and more to a mere form for political and ecclesiastical controversies, chiefly directed against Popery, whereas the Jesuits were working quietly in their schools and performed their biblical and historical plays.⁠[350]

That not all dramatic productions of the Jesuits were of very inferior quality may again be inferred from testimonies of competent Protestant critics. K. von Reinhardstöttner writes: “In the first century of their history the Jesuits did great work in this line. They performed dramas full of power and grandeur and although their dramatic productions did not equal the fine lyrics of (the Jesuits) Balde and Sarbiewski, still in the dramas of Fabricius, Agricola and others there is unmistakably poetic spirit and noble seriousness. How could the enormous success of their performances be otherwise explained?... Who could doubt for a moment that the Jesuits by their dramas rendered great services to their century, that they advanced culture, and preserved taste for the theatre and its subsidiary arts? It would be sheer ingratitude to undervalue what they have effected by their drama.”⁠[351]

We have testimonies proving that not only in the first century of its existence did the Order produce good plays, but that it kept up a high standard to the very end. One witness is Goethe, the first of German writers, assuredly no mean critic in dramatic matters. He was present at a play given in 1786 at Ratisbon, where the traditions of the Jesuit schools were kept up after the suppression of the Order. He bestows high praise on the performance and on the skill with which the Jesuits knew how to make the various arts subservient to their dramatics.⁠[352]

If the number of great men be taken as a just criterion of the merit of an educational system, the Society could exhibit a long roll of pupils, who in their after-life were among the most prominent men in European history: poets like Calderon, Tasso, Corneille, Molière, Fontenelle, Goldoni; orators like Bossuet; scholars like Galileo, Descartes, Buffon, Justus Lipsius, Vico, Muratori, Montesquieu, Malesherbes; statesmen like Richelieu and Emperor Ferdinand; generals like Tilly, Wallenstein and Condé; Church dignitaries like the great St. Francis de Sales, Pope Benedict XIV, called “the most learned of the Popes.” These are but a few of the host of Jesuit pupils who rose to the highest distinction in Church and State, or in the domain of science and literature.⁠[353] However, the Society does not lay much stress on the fact of having educated these brilliant men. It might be said with Count de Maistre, that “Genius is not the production of schools; it is not acquired but innate; it recognizes no obligation to man; its gratitude is due to the creative power of God.” Still, a system of education may contribute much to foster and quicken the development of genius. But the Society can justly claim to have made excellent men of pupils with only ordinary abilities, and these count by thousands, nay by hundreds of thousands: lawyers, professors, state officials, officers of the army, priests and bishops.

Considering the number and work of the Jesuit schools, we may conclude that they wielded a very great influence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This influence led to the persecution and finally the suppression of the Order; not as if the Order had abused its influence, but because the power which the Society exercised in the intellectual and moral world, was an eye-sore to the numerous enemies of the Jesuits. At last, after the middle of the seventeenth century, the hated Order fell a victim to the intrigues of its opponents. We cannot here enter on a lengthy account of the history of the destruction of the Society, but must refer the reader to special works on this subject.⁠[354] Suffice it to mention briefly the opinions of a few impartial witnesses.

Prince Hohenlohe wrote at the time of the suppression that the destruction of the Order was “une cabale infernale.”⁠[355] Theiner, who was a bitter enemy of the Society, calls the suppression a “disgraceful warfare, a deplorable drama, in which too many impure elements played a leading part.”⁠[356] Many prominent Protestant historians, as Ranke, Schoell, J. v. Müller, Sismondi, Leo, declare the charges brought against the Society as calumnies of its enemies, and maintain that the suppression of the Order was not due to any crimes of the Jesuits, but entirely to the tyrannical violence of ministers of State.⁠[357] In Portugal it was Pombal who aimed at separating his country from Rome and introducing infidelity; the Jesuits, for their unflinching loyalty to the Papacy and the staunch defence of revealed religion, were to be the first victims. Pombal hired pamphleteers to calumniate them systematically. Spain and France at the same time began to persecute the Society. In the latter country the Jansenists and Huguenots had always borne a deadly hatred to the Order. The names of the chief enemies of the Jesuits show clearly, in what direction the warfare against them tended: the Duke of Choiseul, the ill-famed Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, d’Alembert and other French infidel philosophers. They had always regarded the Jesuits as the most formidable and dangerous enemies of their revolutionary designs. Voltaire wrote to Helvetius, in 1761, in a tone of exultant anticipation: “Once we have destroyed the Jesuits, that ‘infamous thing’ (the Christian religion) will be only child’s play for us.”⁠[358] However, he could not and would not calumniate the hated Order in the style of others: “While doing my very best to realize the motto: Écrasez l’infâme, I will not stoop to the meanness of defaming the Jesuits. The best years of my life have been spent in the schools of the Jesuits, and while there I have never listened to any teaching but what was good, or seen any conduct but what was exemplary.”⁠[359] Neither could J. J. Rousseau be induced to lend his pen to decry the Society, although he confessed that he did not like the Jesuits.

Pope Clement XIV. at last yielded to the threats of the ministers of the Bourbon kings, and in 1773, by a Brief he suppressed the Society, “in order to preserve peace.” “This letter”, says a Protestant historian, “condemns neither the doctrine, nor the morals, of the Jesuits. The complaints of the courts against the Order are the only motives alleged for its suppression.”⁠[360] When recently Sir Henry Howorth represented this Brief as an infallible ex-cathedra pronouncement of the Pope, he thereby showed that he has not even the most elementary notion of what is meant by Papal infallibility. Succeeding events proved that—to use the words of one of the enemies of the Jesuits—a peace treaty was struck between the wolves and the shepherd, and that the latter had sacrificed the best watch-dogs of the flock. The dreadful French Revolution opened the eyes of many to the real purport of the persecutions of the Jesuits. True, the Church is not built on the Society, but on the rock of Peter. Still the Church suffered immensely by this sacrifice of its most zealous defenders, and well might Pope Pius VII., in the Bull of the Restoration of the Society in 1814, speak of the “dispersion of the very stones of the sanctuary,” which had followed the destruction of the Society and the consequent calamities.

It was at this juncture that a Protestant and a Schismatical court rendered homage to the services of the Jesuits, and gave a brilliant testimony to their educational abilities. Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, being determined to preserve them in his kingdom,⁠[361] wrote to Abbé Columbini, his agent at Rome, a letter dated from Potsdam, September 13, 1773, in which the following passage occurs: “I am determined that in my kingdom the Jesuits shall continue to exist and maintain their ancient form. In the treaty of Breslau I guaranteed the status quo of the Catholic religion; nor have I ever seen better priests, from any point of view, than the Jesuits. You may add that since I belong to a heretical sect, His Holiness holds no power to dispense me from the obligation of keeping my word, or from my duty as a king and an honest man.”⁠[362] On May 15th, 1774, writing to d’Alembert, who was dissatisfied that the Jesuits were not completely exterminated, and feared that other kings moved by the example of Prussia might demand of Frederick seed to cultivate in their own kingdoms, he replied: “I view them only as men of letters, whose place in the instruction of youth it would be difficult, if not impossible, to supply. Of the Catholic clergy of this country they alone apply themselves to literature. This renders them so useful and necessary that you need not fear any one shall obtain from me a single Jesuit.” In 1770 he had written in similar terms to Voltaire. Speaking of Pope Clement XIV., he says: “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, for those who should wish to cultivate a plant so rare.”⁠[363] On May 15th, 1775, he wrote to d’Alembert: “In their misfortune I see in them nothing but scholars whose place in the education of youth can hardly be supplied by others.” Again on Aug. 5, 1775: “For the good Jesuit Fathers I have a d— tenderness, not as far as they are monks but as educators and scholars, whose services are useful to civil society.” Now, if the Jesuits were dangerous to the welfare of the state, as their enemies make them, how strange that the Atheist on the Prussian throne, the shrewdest and most keen-sighted monarch of his time, should have failed to see it? But he was not the man to let himself be influenced by silly prejudices.

The second ruler of Europe who endeavored to protect the Society was Catharine II., Empress of Russia.⁠[364] In 1783 she wrote to Pope Pius VI. “that she was resolved to maintain these priests for the welfare of her states against any power, whatsoever it was.” In the same year the Russian court in a note to Mgr. Archetti, Papal Nuncio to Poland, thus expressed its sentiments on the Jesuits: “The Roman Catholics of the Russian Empire, having given unequivocal proofs of their loyalty to the Empress, have thereby acquired a right to the confirmation of their former privileges. Of this number is the instruction of youth, which has heretofore been committed to the Jesuits. The zeal animating these religious, and the success crowning their efforts, have been marked by the Imperial Government with the utmost satisfaction. Would it be just to deprive the inhabitants of White Russia of this precious Institution? In other countries where the Order was suppressed, no substitutes have been found. And why single out for destruction, among the many religious orders, that which devotes itself to the education of youth, and consequently to the public welfare?”⁠[365]

These testimonies refute also a charge sometimes made even by Catholic writers. Theiner, for instance, asserts or implies that, for a space of time preceding the suppression, the Society had fallen away from the station it had held originally in literary and educational matters, that their system had become useless to the interests of science, that education suffered in their hands, that youth issued from their colleges unprotected against the assaults of error, etc.⁠[366] These charges are ably refuted by Abbé Maynard in his work just quoted: The Studies and Teaching of the Society of Jesus at the Time of its Suppression 1750–73. But as we said, the appreciation of the Jesuits’ educational labors, as shown by Frederick II. and Catharine II., exonerates them completely. These two were the most sagacious monarchs of Europe at the time, and what could have influenced them, atheists as they were, to show such favors to the persecuted Society, had it not been its superiority as an educating body? All attempts to weaken the testimonies of the words and actions of these two rulers have proved unsuccessful.⁠[367]

Besides, Maynard points out in detail that the Jesuits at that time had among their number hundreds of able writers in all branches of learning. The Society could boast of great mathematicians and scientists, as the famous Roger Boscovich († 1787), who was despatched by the Royal Society of London to California to observe the second transit of Venus. During the heat of the French Revolution the French astronomer Lalande, who took pride in the title “the atheist astronomer”, ventured to write Father Boscovich’s eulogy in the “Journal of Men of Science” (February 1792). Then there was Maximilian Hell († 1792), for thirty-six years director of the Imperial Observatory at Vienna. In 1768 he was invited by Christian VII., King of Denmark, to observe in Lapland the transit of Venus. Of the result of Father Hell’s expedition Lalande wrote: “This was one of the five complete observations made at great distances apart.”⁠[368] Father Hell was a worthy successor to the great Jesuit astronomers and mathematicians Clavius, Kircher, Riccioli, Scheiner, Grimaldi, and a precursor of the famous Father Secchi, one of the greatest astronomers, at least in spectroscopy, of the nineteenth century.

Lalande, in his Bibliographie Astronomique, enumerates forty-five Jesuit astronomers and eighty-nine astronomical publications for the short period of 1750–1773. The same author, in the continuation of Montucla’s History of Mathematics, pays the following tribute to the Society: “Here I must remark to the honor of this learned and cruelly persecuted Society, that in several colleges it possessed observatories, for instance in Marseilles, Avignon, Lyons, etc.” There were other observatories in Rome, Florence, Milan, in fact in every country where Jesuits had colleges. Of Germany and Austria, Lalande remarks: “There were in Germany and the neighboring countries few large colleges of the Society which had no observatory.” He mentions those of Vienna, Tyrnau, Ingolstadt, Graz, Breslau, Olmütz, Prague, etc., and speaks highly of the scientific work done by the Jesuit astronomers. He adds that after the “deplorable catastrophe of the Society,” most of these observatories shared the fate of the Order.⁠[369]

Quite recently Professor Günther of Munich⁠[370] called attention to the important scientific works of three Jesuits of that period, three relatives of the name Zallinger: John Baptist, Professor in the Jesuit college at Innsbruck, who wrote a remarkable treatise on the growth of plants; James Anton, Professor in Munich, Dillingen, Innsbruck, and Augsburg, a zealous defender of the Newtonian system, who “published works of such importance that it is surprising that they could have been buried in oblivion.” The greatest of the three was Francis Zallinger, who published several important works with new views, which partly are held at present, on electricity, meteorology, mechanics, and with particular success on hydrology. Professor Günther repeatedly expresses his astonishment that such works could have been so completely ignored, that no modern work on the history of sciences does justice to them. Very few mention the names of these writers. We may be convinced that careful research will bring to light many more distinguished Jesuit scientists of that period.

Also in literature, shortly before the suppression, the Jesuits had among their numbers distinguished writers. Father Tiraboschi († 1794) wrote the History of Italian Literature, in thirteen volumes, up to this day one of the most valuable works on this subject. In France, men like Father Porée and many others were admired even by Voltaire for their literary accomplishments. In Germany, the Jesuit Denis († 1800) rendered the so-called poems of Ossian into his native tongue, and this with such success as to win the highest praise from Goethe. About this time Father Hervas began to write his great “Catalogue of languages”, of which we spoke before. But as we are not writing a literary history of the Society, it is enough to have mentioned these few names. A host of other distinguished men, who flourished towards the end of the seventeenth century, may be found in Abbé Maynard’s work. Thus the assertion that the Society had become useless to science and literature, is a pure calumny.

As groundless is the charge that the Jesuits had failed in their lofty mission with respect to teaching. We have heard what Frederick II. and Catharine II. thought of them. Most of the celebrated writers mentioned before were engaged as teachers in the collegiate or university establishments of the Order. A cloud of witnesses stands forth to testify that the work of education was carried on with unabated zeal and with great success, not only in languages and literature, but also in mathematics and sciences. Thus Deslandes, commissary of the navy at Brest, testified, in 1748, that the Jesuits had furnished the navy excellent professors of mathematics.⁠[371]

It may be well to quote what the historian of the University of Paris has to say about the educational labors of the Society in France up to the time of its suppression: “If one rises above prejudices and narrow professional jealousies, how can one deny the eminent services which the Society rendered to youth and the family, from its reestablishment under Henry IV.? Those of its enemies who want to be impartial and sincere admit that its colleges were well conducted, that the discipline was at once firm and mild, strict and paternal; that the scholastic routine was improved by wise innovations, cleverly adapted to the progress in manners and social demands; that the teachers were unassuming, devoted to their work, well instructed, and for the greater part masters in the art of elevating youth; some were perfect humanists, others, scientists of the first rank, so regular in their lives that never has any reproach of misdemeanor been uttered against them. Should one say that, in spite of showy appearances, the education given by the Jesuits lacked solidity, that they too often substituted frivolous practices or worldly exercises for serious work,—a charge frequently made by the University—the Jesuits could answer by pointing to their pupils who held honorable positions in the domain of science and literature, at the court and in the armies, in the ranks of the bourgeoisie and among the nobility.... As instructors of youth, the Jesuits were above reproach, and more worthy of recommendation than of persecution.... We do not inquire whether in other rôles played by the disciples of St. Ignatius, they did not allow themselves to be carried away to excesses of pride, ambition, and intolerance, which necessarily brought upon them cruel retaliation; in connection with our subject, suffice it to state that in the field of studies and public education, their activity was, in general, beneficial. The inexorable sentence which suddenly destroyed their colleges is explained, from the historical point of view, by the prejudices and the hatred existing against the Society. But after having related the biased acclamations of contemporaries, must this sentence, so sadly renowned, be confirmed by the equitable judgment of history? We think not; for it is against truth and justice in many regards, and, as the events that followed have proved, it served neither the Church, nor the State, nor even the University, in spite of the hopes which the latter had based on the ruin of its adversaries.”⁠[372] The author, in the chapter following, then describes the fatal consequences for education in France, resulting from the destruction of the Society.

This much is certain that it was not its inability, but, on the contrary, its great success for which the Society was doomed by the Catos of the eighteenth century, whose ceterum censeo was that the hated Order was to be destroyed. What the Jesuits had been doing for education and learning became apparent after the destruction of their Order, and it was openly declared by many that the ruin of the Society was followed by a fatal decline of learning among the Catholics. The Bishops of France represented to the King, that “the dispersion of the Jesuits had left a lamentable void in the functions of the sacred ministry and the education of youth, to which they consecrated their talents and their labors.”⁠[373] In 1803 Abbé Emery wrote: “The Jesuits have been expelled, their system of teaching has been rejected. But what substitutes for them have we discovered, and in what have the new theories resulted? Are the youth better instructed, or their morals purer? Their presumptuous ignorance and depravity force us to sigh for the old masters and the old ways.”⁠[374]

About the same time Chateaubriand in his famous work, The Genius of Christianity, exclaimed: “In the destruction of the Jesuits learned Europe has suffered an irreparable loss. Since that unhappy event education has never been in a state of prosperity.” And in his Mélanges he expresses himself to the same effect: “The Jesuits maintained and were increasing their reputation to the last moment of their existence. Their destruction has inflicted a deadly wound on education and letters: as to this, at the present time, there is no diversity of opinion.” And even Theiner does not hesitate to say that “the wound inflicted on education was incurable.”⁠[375] In Lord Stanhope’s conversation with the great Duke of Wellington we find a striking passage on the same subject. Speaking at Walmer in October 1833, the Duke said to Lord Mahon: “On the whole I think it is very doubtful whether, since the suppression of the Jesuits, the system of education has been as good, or whether as remarkable men have appeared. I am quite sure that they have not in the south of Europe. It was a great mistake.”⁠[376] In Treves the Jesuits possessed, besides the novitiate and the university, a flourishing college. When the news of the suppression of the Society arrived, the Archbishop Elector, Clement Wenceslaus of Poland, is said to have exclaimed: “Cecidit corona capitis nostri”—“The crown of our head is fallen;”⁠[377] and, as the historian of the Royal Gymnasium of Treves adds, his outcry of sorrow was justified. A few years after the Jesuits had left the college, the pernicious leaven of French infidelity had permeated the faculty and was undermining the faith of the young.