The following remarkable passage is taken from the work of one who cannot be charged with partiality to the Jesuits,—I mean Frederick Paulsen, a professor of the University of Berlin, the author of the great “History of Higher Education.”⁠[23] In this work, after having described the marvellous success which the Jesuits achieved in the sixteenth century, the author asks: “What was the secret source of the power of these men? Was it that they were ‘men filled with wickedness’, as Raumer styles them? Or was it that they were more cunning, more unscrupulous than the rest? No, this would ascribe to lying and deceit more than it can do.... There is in the activity of the Order something of the quiet, yet irresistible, manner of working which we find in the forces of nature. Certainty and superiority characterize every movement.... Whence does the Order derive this power? I think it can arise only from a great idea, not from base and selfish desires. Now the root idea which animated all the members of this Society, and which inspired them with enthusiasm, was that their Order was the chosen instrument for saving the Church; that they were the knights, the champions, of the ruler of the Church, ready, if God should so will it, to fall as first victims in the great battle against a heathen and heretical world.... Lasting results cannot be achieved by an idea unless it is embodied in some external system. The system of the Society of Jesus, from the fundamental principles to the minutest details of discipline, is admirably fitted and adapted to its ends. The greatest possible power of the individual is preserved without derangement of the organism of the Order; spontaneous activity and perfect submission of the will, contrasts almost irreconcilable, seem to have been harmoniously united in a higher degree by the Society than by any other body.”

These remarks of the Berlin Professor were made with special reference to the educational system of the Society, as laid down in the Ratio Studiorum. Years before another German Protestant had spoken similarly on the same subject. Ranke, in his History of the Popes, admits that the Jesuits were very successful in the education of youth, but he claims that this success can scarcely be credited to their learning or their piety, but rather to the exactness and nicety of their methods. He finds in their system a combination of learning with untiring zeal, of exterior pomp with strict asceticism, of unity of aim with unity of government, such as the world has never witnessed before or since.

Now-a-days a great interest is taken in the historical aspects of educational systems. The first question, then, which presents itself is: From what sources did the Jesuits derive the principles and methods by which they were enabled to obtain such success? It is evident that the Jesuit system was not altogether the original work of a few clever men who produced a system with methods previously unheard of; their Ratio Studiorum was, to a great extent, a prudent adaptation and development of methods which had existed before the foundation of the Order. It has frequently been maintained that all, or at least much, of what is good in the Ratio Studiorum, was drawn from the famous Plan of Studies of John Sturm, the zealous Protestant reformer and schoolman of Strasburg. Dr. Russell is convinced of this fact, when he writes: “Sturm could have received no greater compliment than was paid him by the Society of Jesus in incorporating so many of his methods into the new Catholic schools.”⁠[24] Indeed, Sturm himself expressed in 1565 the suspicion that the Jesuits had drawn from his sources.⁠[25] As we shall see in the next chapters, both Sturm and Ignatius of Loyola drew, in all likelihood, from the same sources, namely, the traditions of the great University of Paris and the humanistic schools of the Netherlands.

It is a very common error to argue: post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Anything good found after the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, is by many writers directly ascribed to its influence. Thus it is said that, after the Protestants had awakened a zeal for learning, the Jesuits determined to avail themselves of this zeal in the interest of the Catholic Church, and to combat the Reformation with its own weapon.⁠[26] To the same purpose Dr. Russell writes: “The Jesuits in employing schools to check the growth of heresy and to win back to the Church apostate Germany, merely borrowed the devil’s artillery to fight the devil with. And they used it to good effect.”⁠[27] Two serious errors are at the root of such statements: First, it is taken for granted that the Society of Jesus was instituted directly against Protestantism, and that it used schools and learning only to counteract this movement. In the next chapter we shall prove that this view of the Society is entirely unhistorical. The second error underlying this view is the implicit belief that, before the Protestant Reformation, education was at a very low ebb, and that there existed little, if any, zeal for learning. In order to understand the rise and progress of the educational system of the Jesuits and its dependence on other schools, it will be necessary to sketch the status of education in Western Christendom before the foundation of the Society of Jesus. This sketch must be very imperfect and fragmentary in a work like the present. Besides, there exists as yet no history of education in the Middle Ages which can be considered as satisfactory, although some valuable monographs on the subject have appeared within the past few years.⁠[28]

§ 1. Schools at the Close of the Middle Ages.

The intellectual darkness of the Middle Ages has been long a favorite theme for popular writing. Many have had the fixed notion that the Church, afraid of progress, ever set her face against the enlightenment of the people, but that at length her opposition was beaten down by the craving for knowledge aroused by the principles of the Reformation, and that, in consequence of the break with Rome, various schools at once arose in Protestant countries. Such popular declamations have been disavowed by all honest Protestant historians.⁠[29] They admit that, what may be called the darkness of these centuries, was owing to the political and social conditions of the nations after the Northern barbarians had nearly annihilated ancient civilization, but not to any hostility of the Church against learning and education. “The grossest ignorance of the Dark Ages,” says an English historian, “was not due to the strength of the ecclesiastical system, but to its weakness. The improvement of education formed a prominent object with every zealous churchman and every ecclesiastical reformer from the days of Gregory the Great to the days when the darkness passed away under the influence of the ecclesiastical revival of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.”⁠[30]

In another passage of his great work the same author says of education before the Reformation: “It may be stated with some confidence that, at least in the later middle age, the smallest towns and even the larger villages possessed schools where a boy might learn to read and to acquire the first rudiments of ecclesiastical Latin, while, except in very remote and thinly populated regions, he would never have to go far to find a regular grammar school. That the means of reading, writing and the elements of Latin were far more widely diffused than has sometimes been supposed, is coming to be generally recognized by students of medieval life.”⁠[31]

It is now not only acknowledged that much was done for the education of the people, but also that all education during the Middle Ages proceeded from the Church.⁠[32] Nothing but prejudice or ignorance of the past can raise any doubts about the merits of the Church in the field of education. We cannot narrate what the Church has done to advance popular education in the earlier Middle Ages. Numerous councils,—for instance, those of Orange in France (529), Constantinople (680), Aix-la-Chapelle (802),⁠[33] Mentz (813), Rome (826 and 1179),—exhorted the clergy to instruct the children, “without accepting anything beyond a compensation the parents should offer freely,” as Bishop Arbyton of Basle (died in 821) writes. From the twelfth century on the number of schools increased considerably.⁠[34]

Much more evidence is available about the schools of the closing Middle Ages. A great deal of it is published in the well-known History of the German People by Janssen.⁠[35] Although compulsory education was unknown, we learn from many records, preserved in towns and villages, that the schools were well attended. In the little town of Wesel there were, in 1444, five teachers employed to instruct the children in reading, writing, arithmetic, and choir-singing. In the district of the Middle Rhine, in the year 1500, there were whole stretches of country where a “people’s school” was to be found within a circuit of every six miles. Small parishes even of five or six hundred souls were not without their village schools.⁠[36] The Protestant historian Palacky stated that, while examining documents in the archives of Bohemia, he took note of all the teachers whose names he happened to come across, and found that about the year 1400 the diocese of Prague must have had at least 640 schools. Taking this for the average, the 63 dioceses then existing in Germany would have possessed the respectable number of over 40,000 elementary or primary schools.⁠[37]

This conjecture may not be very accurate, but the evidence furnished by contemporary documents at least goes a great way to show that the number of schools was very large. The latter part of the Middle Ages was the time in which the burning zeal for learning led to the invention of the art of printing, and this art in turn still further increased the desire to learn and facilitated the work of education. In a pamphlet printed in Mentz, in 1498, it was said: “Everybody now wants to read and to write.” In the light of such facts, who does not see the absurdity of the assertion of Compayré and other writers that the primary school, whether Catholic or Protestant, is the child of the Reformation?⁠[38] Towards the end of the fifteenth century good and respectable parents, at least in Germany, began to consider it their duty to let their children acquire an education. This interest in education naturally led to the establishment of many new schools. Complaints are even made in some cities that too many schools are opened. The facts given so far prove also that it is not correct to say that the German “people’s school” did not assume the shape of a school for the masses until the Reformation,⁠[39] or that medieval culture was but for the few, and that it was Luther who brought the schoolmaster into the cottage.⁠[40] Otherwise who frequented the numerous schools in towns and villages, where “everybody wanted to read and to write”?

What is now called “secondary education” was not as strictly distinguished from elementary and university training as it is now-a-days. From very early times higher education was cared for in numerous schools connected with monasteries and cathedrals. The merits of the Order of St. Benedict in preserving the treasures of classical literature are universally acknowledged. Its monks were not only the great clearers of land in Europe, at once missionaries and laborers, but also the teachers of the nations rising from barbarism to civilization.

Benedictine monasticism gave the world almost its only houses of learning and education, and constituted by far the most powerful civilizing agency in Europe, until it was superseded as an educational instrument by the growth of the universities. The period that intervenes between the time of Charlemagne and the eleventh century has been well styled the Benedictine age. And before that period the numerous monastic schools of Ireland had been frequented by so many holy and learned men as justly to win for that country the title of Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum, the Island of Saints and Scholars.⁠[41] In general, careful historical research by modern scholars presents a picture of the medieval monks quite different from that given by the author of Ivanhoe and by other imaginative “mis-describers”, according to whom the monk was, if not a hypocritical debauchee, at the least a very ignorant and very indolent person.

We have to sketch chiefly the condition of education at the close of the Middle Ages. It is scarcely necessary to speak of Italy which, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was the intellectual centre of Europe and at that time exhibited a literary activity such as no other period of history has ever witnessed. For it was in Italy that the renaissance began. This mighty movement, which marks the transition of the Middle Ages to modern times, effected a revolution in literature, science, art, life and education. From Italy it swept on over Europe and caused similar changes everywhere. What is called the classical education is the immediate outcome of the Italian Renaissance. During the first half of the fifteenth century there lived in Northern Italy one of the ablest and most amiable educators in the history of all ages: Vittorino da Feltre.⁠[42] He modified considerably the medieval school system of the Trivium and Quadrivium. Although the classics, carefully selected, formed the groundwork of his course, other branches, as mathematics and philosophy, were not neglected. Due attention was devoted to the physical development of the pupils, and riding, fencing, and other gymnastic exercises were greatly encouraged. Vittorino lived among his pupils like a father in his family, revered and beloved. Poor scholars were not only instructed, but also fed, lodged, and clothed gratuitously. The secret of his wonderful influence lay in his lofty moral principles and his deeply religious spirit. In his calling he recognized a noble mission to which he devoted himself zealously and exclusively, without seeking anything for himself. His contemporaries called him the “Saintly Master”. His virginal purity charmed all who came into contact with him. Although not a priest, he daily recited the Divine office, frequently approached the sacraments and accustomed his pupils to receive holy communion monthly and to hear mass daily. This great educator’s fame spread far and wide, and eager youths flocked to him even from France, Germany and other countries. Many customs and practices found in humanistic schools north of the Alps may have been copied from Vittorino’s famous school. It is certain that his influence was felt in England, for one of his pupils, Antonio Beccaria, was secretary and “translator” of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, the first patron of the new learning in England,⁠[43] and the celebrated school of Winchester, founded by Bishop Langdon, was, in all probability, modeled after that of Vittorino.⁠[44]

It is almost superfluous to mention the keen interest in learning manifested by the Italian ecclesiastics of this period. They raised to the papacy the book-lover and enthusiastic student, Parentucelli; and he, as Nicholas V. (1447–1455), placed himself at the head of the great movement of the renaissance, and won immortal renown by founding the Vatican Library, where the glorious monuments of Greek and Roman intellect were collected under the protection of the Holy See. The second successor of Nicholas V. was Aeneas Sylvius (Pius II.), famous as a humanist scholar and author. But it is impossible here to enumerate all the ardent promoters of learning among the popes, cardinals and other church dignitaries of this time. So large a part of a churchman’s life did learning occupy in Italy, that no prelate considered his household complete without a retinue of scholars.⁠[45]—We cannot here trace the gradual spread of this mighty movement into other countries, but must confine ourselves to the bare mention of a few facts regarding the educational conditions.

What has often been said respecting the ignorance prevailing in Scotland before the Reformation, has been repudiated by the researches of Protestant historians, such as Burton, Lawson, Edgar, and others. It has been proved that this country, throughout the latter part of the Middle Ages, possessed an abundance of educational facilities. We find here even an interesting example of compulsory higher education. At the instance of the clergy, in 1470, an act of parliament was passed providing that all barons and freeholders should, under penalty of twenty pounds, send their sons at the age of nine or ten years to the schools, to remain there until they had acquired a competent knowledge of Latin. They were then to attend the schools of art and law.⁠[46]

As regards secondary schools in England, it used to be commonly asserted that Edward VI., the first monarch of the Reformed Faith, was the great founder and reformer.⁠[47] Upwards of thirty free grammar schools founded at this time have permanently associated the reign of Edward VI. with popular education. The Schools Inquiring Commission in 1886 went further, and set down fifty-one schools to the credit of Edward. Modern historical research has broken, stick by stick, the whole bundle of old misrepresentations. “The fact is that the whole theory about the dearth of grammar schools and other schools still more elementary is a mere delusion. The immense prestige that Edward VI. has acquired as a patron of education is simply due to the fact that he refounded out of confiscated Church property some small percentage of schools which he and his rapacious father had destroyed. The probability is that England was far better provided with grammar schools before the Reformation than it has ever been since.”⁠[48]

This startling statement has been confirmed by a careful study of the records of the time of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., from which it is clear that at least two hundred grammar schools must have been in existence before Edward came to the throne. Mr. Leach raises the number by the addition of another hundred, and says that three hundred is a moderate estimate for the year 1535;⁠[49] and this number is exclusive of elementary schools and universities. It will suffice to mention a few names of famous schools: Canterbury, Lincoln, Wells, York, Beverly, Chester, Southwell, Winchester, Eton, the school of Dean Colet in London, and the numerous schools attached to the monasteries. In regard to the great number of foundation schools established just after the Reformation, Professor Thorold Rogers maintains that it was not a new zeal for learning, but a very inadequate supply of that which had been so suddenly and disastrously destroyed.⁠[50]

During the period immediately preceding the Reformation, England possessed a great number of distinguished scholars, most of whom were ecclesiastics. The revival of letters was heartily welcomed by the clergy. The chief ecclesiastics of the day, as Wolsey, Warham, Fisher, Tunstall, Langton, Stokesley, Fox, Selling, Grocyn, Whitford, Linacre, Colet, Pace, William Latimer, and numerous others, were not only ardent humanists, but thorough and practical churchmen.⁠[51]

Similar conditions existed on the European continent. The Latin City Schools towards the close of the Middle Ages were numerous throughout Germany.⁠[52] About this time, the intellectual condition of the people in Germany, the Netherlands and France was most beneficially influenced by the “Brethren of the Common Life”. Founded by Gerard Groot of Deventer, this fraternity at first was employed in the transcription of books, all profane studies being prohibited. They were supposed to restrict themselves exclusively to the reading of the Scriptures and the Fathers, not wasting their time over “such vanities as geometry, arithmetic, rhetoric, logic, grammar, lyric poetry, and judicial astrology.”⁠[53] These principles were extreme, and it is some consolation to find that the founder admitted the “wiser of the Gentile philosophers,” such as Plato, Aristotle, and Seneca. In 1393, a little scholar, Thomas Hammerken of Kempen, Rhineland, entered the school of Deventer; he was no other than the famous Thomas a Kempis, most probably the author of the Following of Christ.

Shortly after the death of Gerard Groot (1384), the labors of the Brethren were made to embrace a wider sphere, and especially to include the education of youth. The prohibition against profane learning disappeared, Deventer became a most celebrated institution, and numerous schools were founded all over Flanders, France and Northern Germany. The settlements of the Brethren spread gradually along the Rhine as far as Suabia, and by the end of the fifteenth century they reached from the Scheldt to the Vistula, from Cambrai, through the whole of Northern Germany, to Culm in Prussia. In these schools, Christian education was placed high above mere learning, and the training of the young in practical religion and active piety was considered the most important duty. The whole system of instruction was permeated by a Christian spirit; the pupils learned to look upon religion as the basis of all human existence and culture, while at the same time they had a good supply of secular knowledge imparted to them, and they gained a genuine love for learning and study.⁠[54] The Brethren had been established by John Standonch, doctor of the Sorbonne, in the Collège de Montaigue in the University of Paris.⁠[55] The founder of the Society of Jesus studied in this college, and some suppose that the rules of the Poor Clerks, as they were often called, furnished Ignatius some ideas for his rules.⁠[56] This much is certain, that Ignatius had imbibed the spirit of those Brethren from the study of the works of Thomas a Kempis. It is related that at the time when he wrote the Constitutions of his Order, he had no other books in his room except the New Testament and the Following of Christ.

Youth eager for knowledge flocked from all parts to the schools of the Brethren. The number of scholars at Zwolle often rose to eight hundred or ten hundred; at Alkmaar to nine hundred; at Herzogenbusch to twelve hundred; and at Deventer, in the year 1500, actually to twenty-two hundred. Other celebrated Schools were at Liège and Louvain. The instruction being free in all these schools, they were open to students of the smallest means. In many of the towns also, where they had not started actual schools, the Brethren supplied teachers for the town schools, not unfrequently paid the expenses of the poorer scholars and supplied them with books, stationery and other school materials. In 1431 Pope Eugene sent orders to the bishops that they should prevent any interference with the beneficial work of these zealous educators. Pius II. and Sixtus IV. went even further in their support and encouragement. One of their most active patrons was Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, renowned as a mathematician and the precursor of Copernicus. Nicholas himself had been educated at Deventer, and had given this school material support by a liberal endowment for the maintenance of twenty poor students.⁠[57]

The schools of the Brethren had been among the first of those north of the Alps which introduced the revived study of classical literature. It was in these schools that Rudolphus Agricola, Alexander Hegius, Rudolph von Langen and Ludwig Dringenberg studied the revivers of the classical studies on German soil,—the fathers of the older German humanism.⁠[58] Hegius, one of the greatest scholars of the century, was rector of the schools at Wesel, Emmerich and Deventer. Erasmus, a pupil of Deventer, ranks him among the restorers of pure Latin scholarship. Hegius enjoys the undisputed credit of having purged and simplified the school curriculum, improved the method of teaching, corrected the old text-books or replaced them by better ones. He also made the classics the staple of instruction of youth.⁠[59] Together with Agricola, Erasmus and Reuchlin, he was foremost in propagating enthusiasm for Greek in Germany. Hegius emphasized the necessity of a knowledge of Greek for all sciences:

In Alsace flourished the school of Schlettstadt, more important even than those on the Lower Rhine. It was one of the first of the German schools in which the history of the Fatherland was zealously studied side by side with the classics. Among its most distinguished pupils were Johannes von Dalberg, Geiler von Kaisersberg and Wimpheling. Dalberg was bishop of Worms and curator of the Heidelberg University, a liberal patron of all learned men, especially of Reuchlin, the great Greek and Hebrew scholar. This noble bishop was also the leader and director of the “Rhenish Literary Society,” founded in 1491, to which belonged a host of learned men,—theologians, lawyers, doctors, philosophers, mathematicians, linguists, historians and poets, from the Rhinelands and the Middle and Southwest of Germany. The object of this society, as of many similar ones existing at that time in Germany, was the encouragement and spread of science and the fine arts generally, and of classical learning in particular, as also the furthering of national historical research.⁠[61]

Another great pupil of Schlettstadt was Geiler von Kaisersberg (died 1510), the Cathedral preacher of Strasburg, great not only as theologian and pulpit orator, but also as an ardent promoter of humanistic studies, a friend of the learned Benedictine Johannes Trithemius and of Gabriel Biel of Tübingen, and the leading spirit of a circle of highly gifted men on the Upper Rhine. The third great scholar of Schlettstadt was Wimpheling, called the “Teacher of Germany.” As Hegius was the greatest German schoolmaster of his century, so Wimpheling was the most distinguished writer on matters educational, one of the most famous restorers of an enlightened system of education from a Christian point of view. In one of his writings, the Guide for German Youth, (1497), he forcefully points out the defects of the earlier system of education and lays down some golden rules for improvements, especially for mastering the ancient languages. It is the first work published on rational pedagogy and methodics in Germany, a truly national work. According to Wimpheling and other schoolmen of this time, the study of Latin and Greek should not be confined to the learning of the languages, but should be the means of strengthening and disciplining thought, true gymnastics of independent judgment.⁠[62]

There are many names of great educators and scholars of this time which deserve at least to be mentioned: Pirkheimer in Nuremberg, Cochlaeus, professor of classics and director of the school of poetry in the same city, Murmellius, co-rector of the Cathedral school in Münster, Count Moritz von Spiegelberg, provost at Emmerich.

But we must leave this interesting subject, however reluctantly, and refer the reader to Janssen’s first volume. From contemporary sources this author has drawn the following conclusions: “Outside the Mark of Brandenburg, there was scarcely a single large town in Germany in which, at the end of the fifteenth century, in addition to the already existing elementary national schools, new schools of higher grade were not built or old ones improved.”⁠[63] The control of these schools was in the hands of the Church, and most of the masters were clerics. School rates were unknown. The schools were kept up by frequent legacies; for the education of the young was counted among the works of mercy, to which money was liberally given in loyal obedience to the Church’s doctrine of good works. Libraries were also founded in the same spirit.⁠[64]

All over Europe we find, therefore, a great, yea enthusiastic, activity in the field of learning and education. The foremost promoters and patrons of this intellectual movement are everywhere ecclesiastics. This fact is so patent that an impartial American scholar wrote quite recently: “The patronage of learning which has always been one of the proudest boasts of the Catholic Church existed especially in the Renaissance, when a genuine love for it on the part of churchmen atoned for many other shortcomings. The higher clergy, moreover, were mostly university men whose scholarly interests had been awakened early in life, and who later were placed in a position to show their gratitude. A zeal for learning and the patronage of scholars became almost an affectation on the part of the higher clergy.... In all ranks of the Church an interest in the new learning was shown, even by those who were to leave the Roman faith, but who in their zeal for letters continued former traditions.”⁠[65]

It may be said, in general, that nowadays all scholarly and fair-minded Protestants, on the strength of incontestable historical evidence, repudiate the traditional views of the pre-Reformation period. Professor Hartfelder of Heidelberg unhesitatingly affirms that “from 1500–1520 Roman Catholic Europe presented the aspect of one large learned community.”⁠[66] Numerous similar statements can be quoted, but we must refer the reader to special works on this subject.⁠[67] In the face of such undeniable facts it is unintelligible how certain writers can describe the close of the Middle Ages as an age of intellectual stagnation and degeneracy, or how Mr. Painter can say that shortly before the Reformation learning had died out among the clergy, the schools were neglected, superstition and ignorance characterized the masses.⁠[68] Is not the ignorance rather on the part of the so-called historians who make such sweeping indictments?

The greatest and most glorious achievement of the medieval Church in the intellectual sphere are the universities. These institutions have been bequeathed to us by the Middle Ages, and they are of greater and more imperishable value even than its cathedrals.⁠[69] The universities were, to a great extent, ecclesiastical institutions,⁠[70] they were, at least, endowed with privileges from the Holy See. They were meant to be the highest schools not only of secular, but also of religious learning, and stood under the jurisdiction of the Church, as well as under her special protection.⁠[71] It was through the privileges of the Church that the universities were raised from merely local into ecumenical organizations. The doctorate became an order of intellectual nobility, with as distinct and definite a place in the hierarchical system of medieval Christendom, as the priesthood and the knighthood. In fact the Sacerdotium, Imperium, and Studium are the three great forces which energized those times and built up and maintained the mighty fabric of medieval Christendom. The University of Paris, the first school of the Church, with its four Nations, possessed something of the international character of the Church.⁠[72] “It may with truth be said that in the history of human things there is to be found no grander conception than that of the Church in the fifteenth century, when it resolved, in the shape of the universities, to cast the light of knowledge abroad over the Christian world.”⁠[73] These are the testimonies of Protestant historians.

As the Benedictines in the earlier ages had been the most zealous educators, so, from the twelfth century on, the friars or mendicants took the most prominent part in university education. The greatest professors in philosophy and theology were friars; to the order of St. Francis belonged Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure, Roger Bacon, and Duns Scotus. The last mentioned was one of the profoundest and most original thinkers that the world has ever seen, and deservedly was styled the Doctor subtilis. Blessed Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas, “the Angelic Doctor and Prince of the Schools,” were Dominicans. Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon were far in advance of their time in the knowledge of mathematics and natural sciences. Mr. Rashdall compares Roger Bacon with his great namesake, Francis Bacon, and the comparison is decidedly in favor of the monk.⁠[74]

There existed a considerable number of universities before the year 1400, chief among them were those of Paris, Bologna, Oxford and Cambridge, Salamanca, Prague, Vienna, Heidelberg, etc. From 1400 to the Reformation many new universities were founded in Western Christendom.⁠[75] Twenty-six of those founded between 1400 and 1500 are still existing,⁠[76] among them Würzburg, Leipsic, Munich, Tübingen, etc., in Germany; St. Andrew’s, Glasgow, Aberdeen in Scotland; Upsala in Sweden; Copenhagen in Denmark, etc. In Germany alone nine were founded between 1456 and 1506.⁠[77] But we need not dwell further on these universities, as any information that is sought can be easily gathered from the many books that are available on this subject.⁠[78]

The intellectual activity of the universities of the Southern European countries was nowise inferior to that of Central and Northern Europe. In Portugal there was the University of Coimbra; in Spain, there were at least twelve universities before 1500,⁠[79] the chief among them at Salamanca. Here flourished, shortly before the outbreak of the Reformation, the famous classical scholar, Peter Martyr, Prior of the Church of Granada. He and other scholars labored with such success for the higher education of the nobility, that no Spaniard was considered noble who showed any indifference to learning. Erasmus also declares that “the Spaniards had attained such eminence in literature, that they not only excited the admiration of the most polished nations of Europe, but served likewise as models for them.”⁠[80] Many belonging to the first houses of the nobility—once so high and proud—now made no hesitation to occupy chairs in the universities. Among others Don Gutierre de Toledo, son of the Duke of Alva and cousin of the King, lectured at Salamanca. Noble dames likewise vied with illustrious grandees for the prize of literary pre-eminence; while many even held chairs in the universities, and gave public lectures on eloquence and classical learning. Some of the names of these literary ladies have been preserved: the Marchioness of Monteagudo, Doña Maria Pacheco, and Queen Isabella’s instructor in Latin, Doña Beatriz de Galindo, and others.⁠[81] With such a zeal for knowledge the old schools began to be filled, and the newly endowed Salamanca excelled them all. It was called the “Spanish Athens”, and was said at one time to have seven thousand students. It was there that Peter Martyr gave lessons on Juvenal (1488), before such an immense audience that the entrance to the hall was completely blocked up and the lecturer had to be carried in on the shoulders of the students.⁠[82] It should be mentioned to the credit of Salamanca that her Doctors encouraged the designs of Columbus, and that the Copernican system found early acceptance in its lecture rooms.⁠[83]

In the beginning of the sixteenth century other schools for higher education were established at Toledo, Seville, Granada, Ognate, Ossuna, and Valencia. But all these schools were far excelled by the new university of Alcala, founded by Ximenez in 1500. It was so magnificent an establishment that the Spaniards called it the “eighth wonder of the world.” The college of San Ildefonso was the head of the new university. Moreover, Ximenez founded several other institutions, adapted to all kinds of wants. Most renowned was the “College of Three Languages” for the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. For poor young students in the classics, Ximenez endowed two boarding schools, where forty-two scholars were supported three years free of expense. The students attended the lectures given by the six professors of languages, who were attached to the university; at their houses, however, special exercises were given and disputations held for fourteen days. Strict examinations were required before any one could be admitted to a higher class, or to a particular course of lectures on any science. All the regulations were followed by such great results that, according to Erasmus, Alcala was especially distinguished by its able philologists.⁠[84]—The most splendid production of the philological and biblical activity of this university is the celebrated Complutensian Polyglot of the Bible. In 1526 Ignatius of Loyola, the future founder of the Society of Jesus, attended the University of Alcala; in 1527 we find him in Salamanca.

In connection with Alcala we must mention the greatest school of the Netherlands, the University of Louvain. Especially distinguished was its Collegium Trilingue, founded in 1516 by Busleiden, the friend of Erasmus and Thomas More. Busleiden had visited Alcala and wished to have in Louvain a college like that of the “Three Languages” at Alcala for the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The famous universities of Alcala, Salamanca, Paris, and Louvain furnish the connecting link between the educational system of the Jesuits and that previous to the foundation of the Society. But the great University of Paris was really the Alma Mater of St. Ignatius of Loyola. There also he won his first companions, chief among them Peter Faber, and St. Francis Xavier. In 1529 and 1530 Ignatius visited the Netherlands. During its infancy several distinguished members of the Order were scholars from that country, as Peter Canisius, Francis Coster, Peter Busaeus, John Theodore Macherentius, and others. The traditions of the University of Paris and of the humanistic schools of the Netherlands undoubtedly exerted a considerable influence on the Jesuit system of education. Before narrating the foundation of the Society and the development of its educational system, it is necessary to speak of two great movements, the Renaissance and the Reformation.

§ 2. Character of Medieval Education. The Renaissance.

Higher education in the Middle Ages followed the course known as the study of the “Seven Liberal Arts,” divided into the Trivium: Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic; and the Quadrivium: Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy.⁠[85] If we read that “grammar” was studied for several years and that many confined their studies to this part of the course, we ought well to understand the meaning of this term. By grammar was not meant, as now, the mere study of the rules of a language, its etymology and syntax, but rather a scholarly acquaintance with the literature of that language, together with the power of writing and speaking it.⁠[86] Rabanus Maurus, the greatest pupil of Alcuin and later on Archbishop of Mentz, defined grammar as “the science of interpreting poets and historians, as well as the science of the rules of speaking and writing.” Latin was the principal subject of instruction, the favorite authors were Virgil and Ovid. Hugo of Trimberg, the master of a school at Bamberg, about 1250, enumerates the following authors whom he read with his pupils: Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Persius, Statius, Homerus Latinus, Boethius, Claudian, Sedulius, Prudentius, and others.⁠[87] Of prose authors are mentioned: Cicero, Seneca, Sallust, and others. The study of Greek is met with only very exceptionally before the Renaissance. Mathematics were taught, but it is difficult to say to what extent.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries there was a revival of literary studies, which, however, was soon replaced by another movement, scholasticism. Through the Arabs and the Jews, Western Europe became acquainted with the entire Logic of Aristotle—hitherto only his Organon was known, and that in the Latin translation of Boethius,—with his Dialectics, Physics, Metaphysics, and Ethics.⁠[88] Scientific inquiry in the universities began to move in another direction than heretofore. The methods of Aristotle were introduced into the schools; henceforth there was a more rigorous form of reasoning, a dialectic tendency, and a closer adherence to the syllogism; disputations were very common. A renewed study of the Fathers of the Church, and a more correct understanding of Aristotle inaugurated the most brilliant period of scholasticism (1230–1330).⁠[89]

It cannot and need not be denied that the education imparted by the medieval scholastics was in many regards defective. It was at once too dogmatic and disputatious.⁠[90] Literary studies were comparatively neglected; frequently too much importance was attached to purely dialectical subtleties. This education was one-sided, and a few great men of the age, as Roger Bacon, the great medieval scientist, and John of Salisbury, complained that scholasticism was too narrow.⁠[91] The defects of scholasticism became especially manifest in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when much time and energy was wasted in discussing useless refinements of thought.

Another serious defect of medieval education was the lack of philological and historical criticism. This uncritical spirit has been well pointed out in the International Catholic Scientific Congress at Munich, 1900, by the distinguished Jesuit historian, Father Grisar. Speaking of the unwarranted traditions and pious legends that grew up during the Middle Ages, he says: “The age was really in infancy, so far as regular historical scientific instinct was concerned. As in other branches of knowledge, people lived on the good or bad tradition of former days, just as they had received it.... The scientific work of the whole epoch was devoted to those branches of knowledge that are most sublime in their matter and stand in closest relation to religion and Church. The age produced great and exceedingly acute theologians, philosophers and canonists, but in these very men the general absence of the historical sense, and of the criticism of facts, is remarkable. It never occurs to them to question the heritage of traditions or the wonderful narratives that spring up. Rather in general they endeavor to find in their systems a place for the most incongruous statements without any question as to their foundation in fact.”⁠[92] This lack of criticism explains the general acceptance of such forgeries as the “Decretals of Pseudo-Isidorus”, of the “Donation of Constantine”, and of the works of “Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita”. The knowledge of antiquity was exceedingly vague and defective. Even such writers as Vincent of Beauvais, who wrote a cyclopedia of all branches of learning then known (the Speculum Majus), makes the most curious blunders. Thus Caesar’s Commentaries he ascribes to Julius Celsus; Marcus Tullius Cicero he confounds with his brother Quintus, in saying that the great orator was a lieutenant of Caesar. Spurious works abound in his lists of ancient authors, whilst important works, as Cicero’s Epistles, De Oratore, Brutus, etc., were unknown to him.⁠[93]

Undoubtedly a reaction was inevitable and, at the same time, needed. It came in the Renaissance, or the Revival of Learning. However, this movement soon went to another extreme, to an enthusiasm for the ancient authors which was beyond the limits of reason. Thus humanism became not less one-sided than Scholasticism had been. We shall see further on that the educational system of the Society is a combination of humanism and scholasticism. A thorough education in the classics is followed by a solid course of philosophy, mathematics, and natural sciences. Thus the shortcomings of both systems are effectively obviated.

Both terms: “renaissance” and “humanism”, are apt to be misunderstood. If “humanism” means the true perception of man’s nature and destiny, or truly humane feelings towards fellow-man and active humanitarian interest in his welfare, then the Middle Ages knew and practised humanism. Thus understood it is in no way different from the sublime principles laid down by the most humane of all teachers, the God-man Jesus Christ. If, however, it signifies a view of life and mankind which recognizes nothing but the purely natural man, which finds in the purely human its highest ideals and rejects the relation to the vision of a future beyond this life, then it was foreign to the medieval mind, as it is foreign to Christianity. For the religious, supernatural element was central in medieval life.⁠[94] If “Revival of Learning” is meant to imply that the ancient classics were altogether unknown during the Middle Ages, it is a wrong conception. But should the word designate a more extensive study, and, above all, a more enthusiastic interest in classical learning which developed even into excessive admiration for antiquity, it is correctly applied to the period closing the Middle Ages.

At the time when scholasticism flourished most, Dante in his grand poem, which has been styled a “Poetical Summa Theologiae”, represents the harmonious combination of scholastic and classic learning.⁠[95] In this immortal work classical antiquity and Christianity go hand in hand. Virgil is no less his teacher than is Thomas Aquinas, and his poetry is the beautiful expression of the union between faith and reason.⁠[96] The whole humanistic movement which began soon after Dante, was not so much a change of the subject of learning as a change in the mental attitude towards these subjects.⁠[97] This attitude assumed different shapes in various schools of humanists. Some of them, particularly the earlier humanists in Germany, combined enthusiasm for the classics with faithful allegiance to the Church; others assumed an attitude of indifference or scepticism towards Christianity; others again showed open hostility, not only against scholasticism, but against Christian dogma and morality. The one party, the more conservative humanists, admired the Greek and Roman writers, but looked upon the Sacred Scriptures as higher than all the wisdom of the ancients. Listen to Petrarch! “Let no subtlety of argument, no grace of speech, no renown ensnare us; they [the ancients] were but men, learned so far as mere human erudition can go, but deserving of pity, inasmuch as they lacked the highest and ineffable gift.—Let us study philosophy so as to love wisdom. The real wisdom of God is Christ.—We must first be Christians. We must read philosophical, poetical, and historical works in such a manner that the Gospel of Christ shall ever find an echo in our hearts. Through it alone can we become wise and happy; without it, the more we have learned, the more ignorant and unhappy we shall be. On the Gospel alone, as upon the one immovable foundation, can human diligence build all true learning.”⁠[98]

Though Petrarch himself did not escape the influence of the dangerous elements contained in the writings of antiquity, still he never went so far as did his friend Boccaccio, whose writings breathe an atmosphere of pagan corruption. And yet not even this writer was an unbeliever, or an enemy to the Church.

As knowledge is good in itself and as its abuse never justifies its suppression, the Church considered the study of classical literature as a legitimate movement, productive of great fruit for spiritual and secular science. Thus we find so many ardent patrons of the new learning among the Popes and other ecclesiastical dignitaries. But there is a great danger in the one-sided enthusiasm for heathen literature. Everything depends on the manner in which the ancient authors are read and employed in education. They must be read and interpreted in the spirit of the Christian religion. This was not done by the radical humanists. They not only praised and admired the elegant style, the brilliant eloquence and poetry of the ancients, but wanted to effect a radical return to pagan thought and manners. They imitated, or even outdid, some of the most licentious writers of antiquity in vile and obscene productions. They endeavored to resuscitate ancient life, and not in its best forms. The horrible crimes which are the worst blot on the history of antiquity, of Greece in particular, were made the subject of elegant verses. And the vices which were the curse of Greece and one of the causes of its downfall, began to rage like a dreadful plague in the cities of Italy, especially among the higher class of society.⁠[99]

One has only to recall the names of such humanists as Valla, Poggio, Becadelli and others, to understand how justly this class of writers is censured. Their writings have been called “an abyss of iniquity wreathed with the most beautiful flowers of poetry.” It was against this flood of abomination that the zealous, but unfortunately impetuous and stubborn Savonarola directed his thundering eloquence, with only a temporary result. It can easily be imagined what influence this new paganism exerted on youth. What kind of moral safeguard could be expected from teachers of the stamp of Valla? No attempt was made to keep from the hands of the young books which in all ages have been proscribed as disastrous to morality. In the light of such facts the anxiety which Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, felt about dangers arising from the indiscriminate reading of the classics, is fully justified.⁠[100] Not a few of the humanists had lost all faith. Other defects of the majority of the humanists, especially their exorbitant vanity and self conceit, have been deservedly chastised by various authors.⁠[101]

It became especially the fashion among humanists to sneer at the “metaphysical juggleries” and the “barbarous Latin” of the scholastics. It is true, the all absorbing interest in philosophical and theological questions had caused a retrogression in the study of the classical authors. But this loss was counteracted by a considerable gain. At any rate, the sweeping condemnations of the humanists were not justified. Modern scholars begin to see the service rendered to science by scholasticism, and not a few defend the schoolmen against the “arrogant accusations of the humanists” as Professor Paulsen calls them. “We might just as well accept the judgments of socialists on our present conditions as reliable criticisms. It is the task of the historians to judge the past from what it was in and for itself, a task which in most cases means to defend it against that which immediately succeeded. For it is the lot of all historical institutions to be thrown aside with hatred and contempt by that which follows. Will not a time come when the philological and historical, physical and other inquiries of the present appear as dreary and barren, as to us scholastic and speculative philosophy appear?”⁠[102]

Not only Leibnitz, but modern philosophers as Hegel, Edward von Hartmann, and the rationalistic Professor Harnack, have respected the schoolmen as the leaders in a great movement and defended them against their calumniators. Hartmann admits that “scholasticism was an intellectual system wonderfully coherent and consistent in itself, of which only those judge slightingly who have not yet overcome their hostility to it and have not yet arrived at the objective view of history.”⁠[103]

From Italy the literary renaissance spread to Spain, France, England and Germany. The flourishing condition of the schools in England and Germany, described on previous pages, was chiefly due to this movement. The radical school of humanism, hostile to Christianity, did not enter England. The most distinguished English humanists were thorough and practical churchmen,⁠[104] or laymen, most loyal to the Church. Two of them, Bishop Fisher and Thomas More, have been raised by the Church to the honor of the altar. In Germany, matters developed very differently. The humanistic movement began to be felt in the German universities after 1450. Its gradual entrance into the various seats of learning is well traced by Professor Paulsen.⁠[105] However, it is the inner development of humanism in Germany which is of greater importance.⁠[106]

The earlier humanists, as Hegius and his friends, had contemplated classical antiquity from the point of view of absolute faith in Christianity. Wimpheling expressed their sentiments in these words: “It is not the study of the heathen writers in itself which is dangerous to Christian culture, but the false apprehension and handling of them, as is often done in Italy, where, by means of the classics, pagan ways of thought and life are spread prejudicial to Christian morality and the patriotic spirit.”⁠[107]

Fundamentally different from this conservative school were the younger or radical humanists. Wanton attacks upon the Holy See, the religious orders, Catholic doctrines and practices, contempt for the whole learning of the Middle Ages and for their own mother tongue, or even a worse than pagan immorality in their writings characterize the great majority of this school of “Poets” in Germany as in Italy. The chief representative of humanism in Germany was Erasmus of Rotterdam, who exercised an enormous influence on his times. The extent and variety of his knowledge in almost every branch of contemporary learning, his untiring activity in all directions, his consummate mastery and artistic treatment of the Latin tongue, and the variety and richness of his style were equalled by few. He brought forth fresh editions of the Bible, of the Greek classics and Fathers, and original treatises in every branch of literature. But he was altogether wanting in intellectual depth. He traveled through England, Italy, and France as a mere book-worm without eye or understanding for national life and character. His freedom in the use of calumny, his talent for fulsome flattery to obtain money and presents, matched only by his malignant spite against adversaries, destroyed all proportions between his literary achievements and his character.⁠[108] The leaders among the younger humanists who, when not fighting the theologians, devoted their energies to the composition of vapid verses and lewd poems, were Conrad Celtes, Eobanus Hessus, Crotus Rubianus, Conrad Rufus, Mutian, the dissolute Ulric of Hutten, the knight-errant of humanism, and a host of minor scribblers. In their school work they read the most profligate pagan poetry with their young pupils, and introduced a reign of unrestrained license at Erfurt and other universities and schools.

In Germany, as well as in Italy, this reaction in the renaissance took a special coloring from the circumstances of the melancholy period in which it occurred. From the beginning of the fourteenth century deplorable effects had been manifesting themselves in the Church. The authority of the Pope had been weakened, a great part of the clergy was steeped in worldliness; scholastic philosophy and theology had declined and terrible disorders were rife in political and civil life. The dangerous elements, which no doubt ancient literature contained, were presented to a generation intellectually and physically overwrought and in many ways unhealthy. It is no wonder, therefore, that some of the adherents of the new tendency turned aside into perilous paths.⁠[109] In particular the nepotism, worldly life, unscrupulous state policy, and scandalous appointments to high places, for which some of the Popes were responsible, and the scandals connected with the name of Alexander VI., furnished welcome weapons to diets, to princes and agitators, who, under the guise of “reform in head and members,” pursued their own selfish ends and aimed at nothing less than the secularization of ecclesiastical property and the usurpation of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.⁠[110]

Besides these abuses, affecting the Church at large, there were others threatening Germany in particular. It is true there existed a great love of learning among all classes, and piety and active charity were found among a great number of clergy and laity. As we have seen, in the lower elementary and the advanced middle schools a sound basis of popular education was established; the universities attained a height of distinction never dreamt of in former times. And art developed more rapidly than learning. But there were many dangerous symptoms in religious, social and political life.⁠[111] In all departments perplexity and confusion were visible. A mass of inflammable material was ready everywhere, and it needed but a spark to set the whole mass ablaze. This spark came from Wittenberg.

§ 3. Education under the Influence of the Reformation.

Luther was undoubtedly a man endowed with the highest natural gifts. Still he was not what Protestant tradition has made him.⁠[112] “On the part of the Protestants,” writes one of Germany’s historians, the Protestant K. A. Menzel, “it is an accepted maxim to represent to oneself the Reformers as lords and half saints. This prejudice is indeed broken in circles that are conversant with history, but among the large mass of the evangelical population it is still maintained, not, however, to the preservation of truth. It passes current as ‘cultured’, and is paraded as a mark of ‘scientific investigation’ to undermine with criticism and negation even the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. But woe to him who with the torch of science invades the vestibule of the temple in which prejudice and tradition have erected the throne of the ‘heroes of the Reformation’ and their works. The historical investigator who possesses such a foolhardiness is sure to be decried as a Crypto-Catholic.”⁠[113] Not a few Protestant historians frankly confess that the whole structure of Reformation history must undergo a change from its very foundation. One of them says: “Too great is the rubbish and garbage which, intentionally or unintentionally, the prevailing theological standpoint concerning the Reformation period has inaugurated.”⁠[114] From original documents a picture of the Reformers, very different from the traditional one, has been presented by the “fear-inspiring book of Döllinger” and by “Janssen’s crushing examination of the Luther myth which produced a tremendous uproar in Germany.”⁠[115] A great deal of “rubbish and garbage” has also hidden the truth in regard to the influence of Luther and the Reformation on education.

It is a fact of no little significance that Luther’s first confederates were the radical humanists. In their hatred against scholastic learning and ecclesiastical authority they welcomed Luther’s audacious attacks on the Church. Luther himself had tried at an early date to ingratiate himself with the humanistic confederacy.⁠[116] After the example of Luther the younger humanists, these inveterate enemies of all religion, now accustomed themselves to a Biblical style of language; they even became of a sudden scholars of divinity and delivered lectures on theological subjects. Luther did not shrink from a formal alliance with the most violent of these enemies of the existing order, the gifted but utterly corrupt Ulrich von Hutten, who at that time together with Franz von Sickingen planned a revolution against the Emperor.⁠[117]

This was indeed a remarkable alliance. Prof. Paulsen’s comment on it is worth quoting: “The humanists offered their assistance to the monk whose controversies they had shortly before despised as a monkish quarrel. ‘Evangelical liberty’ became their war-cry instead of ‘learning and humanity’. It is only through this alliance that Luther’s cause, which had begun as a ‘monkish quarrel’, became that tremendous revolutionary movement which unhinged the gates of the Church. A reminder of humanism is that naturalism contained in the pure gospel, that addition which appears so strange in Luther’s writings, when now and then he represents the works of the flesh as divine commandments and continence as well nigh a rebellion against God’s word and will: almost as if the emancipation of the flesh was to be realized through the gospel of Christ. Of course this must not be understood as though these elements had not existed in Luther’s nature, in his views and sentiments, but it was only under the influence of humanism that they developed. Under different circumstances they might have remained latent.”⁠[118] Luther and Loyola have often been contrasted, the one as the leader of the Protestant Revolution, the other as prominent in the counter-reformation. Luther tried to reform by a revolution, by a complete break with the past⁠[119]; Loyola by a real reformation. Luther changed the doctrine, Loyola saw, as his first companion, Peter Faber, has it, that “not the head, but the heart, not the doctrine, but the life needed a change.” Luther allied himself with the radical humanists, Loyola imitated the earlier conservative humanists.