Jesuit Education/Chapter 8

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Jesuit Education (1903)
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4439460Jesuit Education — Chapter 81903Robert Schwickerath
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Chapter VIII.

Opposition to Jesuit Education.

Nothing in the whole history of education after the Reformation is more striking than the difference of opinions about, and the attitude assumed towards, the educational system of the Society. We have heard that the Protestant King Frederick II. of Prussia, and the Schismatical Empress Catharine II. of Russia, protected the Jesuit schools, at a time when the Bourbon Kings ruthlessly destroyed all Jesuit colleges within their realms. In the nineteenth century the Jesuits were repeatedly expelled from Catholic countries, as from France, and were allowed to labor undisturbedly within the vast British Dominion and in other Protestant countries. However, this tolerant attitude was not always taken by Protestant rulers. The penal laws of England against the Catholics are well known. The Jesuits were always mentioned as particularly hateful. Thus one statute under Elizabeth (27 Eliz. c. 2), provided that "all Jesuits and other priests, ordained by the authority of the See of Rome, should depart from the realm within forty days, and that no such person should hereafter be suffered to come into or remain in any of the dominions of the crown of Great Britain, under penalties of high treason."

Special laws were enacted to prevent Catholics from sending their children to foreign schools. "Any other of her majesty's subjects," says the same statute, ​"who hereafter shall be brought up in any foreign popish seminary, who within six months after proclamation does not return into the realm, shall be adjudged a traitor. Persons, directly or indirectly, contributing to the maintenance of Romish ecclesiastics or popish seminaries beyond the sea incur the penalties of praemunire. And still further this statute enacts, that no one during her majesty's life shall send his child or ward beyond the sea, without special license, under forfeiture of one hundred pounds for every offence."[1] James I. had a law passed providing that "persons going beyond sea to any Jesuit seminary were rendered, as respects themselves, incapable of purchasing or enjoying any lands etc."[2] The same laws were enacted again under William III.[3] The schools of the Jesuits on the continent which were chiefly affected by these laws, were the great colleges of St. Omer and Liège.

In various places on the continent laws were made forbidding parents to send their children to Jesuit schools. Thus Duke Ulrich of Brunswick, "moved by his paternal care and affection for all his subjects, high and low, in order to counteract the cunning plans and bloody designs of the enemies of the Gospel, particularly of the Jesuits," issued a decree in 1617, strictly forbidding his subjects to send their children to Jesuit schools, as not a few had done before. Those who should in future "act so inconsiderately," were threatened with confiscation of all their property and ​other penalties.[4] Similar laws, enacted in Brandenburg and Prussia, have been mentioned in a previous chapter.[5]

But the difference in public opinion is not less remarkable than that manifested by the attitude of governments and rulers towards the Society. No other institution has been so often the theme of the most high-flown panegyric and of the most bitter invective as the Society of Jesus. Its admirers, and not a few Protestants were among these, have proclaimed it as an establishment of the utmost utility to learning, morals, religion, and state. It may even be admitted that some have been extravagant in their praises of the Society and its labors. On the other hand, its enemies see in it an assemblage of ambitious men who, under the disguise of hypocrisy, aim at nothing but universal dominion, which they endeavor to obtain by most odious and criminal means, to the detriment of morality, religion and society. "Perhaps no body of men in Europe," says Quick, "have been so hated as the Jesuits."[6]

So many accusations have been advanced against the Jesuits that it would take a volume of considerable size merely to enumerate them. Years ago Bishop Ketteler of Mentz publicly remonstrated against "that continued crime of systematic calumny against the Society." The Jesuits have been defended and ex​onerated of the charges by thousands of prominent Catholics and by distinguished Protestants, and yet the muddy stream of calumny flows on; the old charges are repeated and new ones are fabricated almost daily, and believed. It is customary now-a-days to sneer at the credulity of former ages, at the superstition of the Middle Ages, and the witch panic of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, our age has little reason to look down superciliously on the benighted people of times gone by, for there is among us, and even in circles that lay claim to enlightenment, a great deal of superstition and credulity; only the forms and the objects of credulity are different from those of former ages. In fact, the "Jesuit panic" has been called a chronic disease of modern times, and the credulity manifested in accepting implicitly the most absurd charges against the Society is stupendous.

Whenever a person is indicted for a crime we demand that he be given a fair trial; we want to hear and examine impartially the whole of the evidence against him, before we pronounce him guilty. In the case of the Society of Jesus, we have a body of fifteen thousand men, who devote their lives to the propagation of Christianity, the civilization of savages, and the education of youth. Almost every day they are maligned in books, papers and public speeches. No evidence is asked for; the ordinary demands of prudence and justice are set aside; it is enough to hurl accusations against the Jesuits, and thousands and tens of thousands willingly believe them. This is no exaggeration. One need only read the most popular books on education to become convinced of ​this fact. The open calumnies and malicious insinuations against that work of the Society, which is especially dear to every Jesuit, viz. the education of youth, are simply appalling.

It is impossible for us to mention all the charges made against the educational system of the Jesuits; nor do we think it necessary. For, some accusations are so ridiculous that to hear them stated, should be enough for any thoughtful man to disbelieve them. Further, they are so clearly opposed to the fundamental principles of the Order, and so emphatically contradicted by its official documents, that it is difficult to see how men can, for a moment, consider them even probable. Lastly, they are so varied and so contradictory that they easily elude us. What one says, is directly or indirectly denied by another. It will be very instructive to put a few statements in parallel columns.


"They [the Jesuits] completely revolutionized education by fearless innovations." – Rev. W. M. Sloane (Princeton), The French Revolution and Religious Reform, p. 11.

"They were indeed far too much bent on being popular to be innovators." – Quick, Educ. Reformers, p. 506.

The curriculum of Jesuit colleges "has remained almost unchanged for four hundred years, disregarding some trifling concessions made to natural sciences." – President Eliot, Atlantic Monthly, October 1899.

"The shrewd disciples of Loyola adapt themselves to the times, and are full of compassion for human weakness." – Compayré, Hist. of Ped., p. 140.

Since 1832 "in mathematics and natural sciences proper attention is to ​be given to the recent progress made in those branches. In the lower classes new provisions are made for learning modern languages, both the vernacular and foreign, and for the study of history." – Kiddle and Schem, The Cyclopedia of Education, article "Jesuits," p. 492.

"Another instance of uniform prescribed education may be found in the curriculum of Jesuit colleges". .... But "the immense deepening and expanding of human knowledge in the nineteenth century and the increasing sense of the sanctity of the individual's gifts and will-power have made uniform prescriptions of study in secondary schools impossible and absurd." – President Eliot (in 1899).

"A uniform course of study for all schools of a particular grade, and a common standard for promotion and graduation, can be made most serviceable in a national scheme of education." – Dr. Russell, Columbia University, (in 1899), German Higher Schools, p. 409.

"The Ratio Studiorum is antiquated and difficult to reform. ... We have little to hope for them in the improvement of education at present." — Oscar Browning, Encyclopedia Britannica, article "Education."

"A republic is a field far more inviting than a monarchy for the agency of an organization so vast, so able, so secret, so adaptive as that of the Jesuits." – Prof. N. Porter, (Yale College), Educational Systems of the Puritans and Jesuits compared, p. 79.

​"For the Jesuits, education is reduced to a superficial culture of the brilliant faculties of the intelligence." – Compayré, l. c., p. 139.

"Thoroughness in work was the one thing insisted on." – Quick, l. c., p. 46.

"With such standards of scholarship the methods of instruction will naturally be rigorous and thorough." – Cf. Porter, l. c., p. 55.

"To write in Latin is the ideal which they propose to their pupils.... the first consequence of this is the proscription of the mother tongue." – Compayré, H. of P., p. 144.

"The Jesuits were hostile to the mother tongue, and distrusting the influence of its association they studiously endeavored to supplant it." – Painter, A Hist. of Ed., p. 120.

"Instruction in the vernacular language was incorporated with the course of instruction in 1703, and in 1756 the colleges in Germany were advised to devote as much attention to German as to Latin and Greek." – Kiddle and Schem, The Cyclopedia of Education, p. 493.

"Preoccupied before all else with purely formal studies, the Jesuits leave real and concrete studies in entire neglect. History is almost wholly banished from their programme." – Compayré, l. c., p. 144.

"The sciences and philosophy are involved in the same disdain as history." – Ib., p. 145.

"In mathematics and the natural sciences, he [the Jesuit pupil] will be the master of what he professes to know. ... In logic and grammar, in geography and history he will be drilled to such a control of what he learns, that it shall be a possession for life." – Porter, l. c., p. 55.

​"The Jesuits maintain the abuse of the memory." – Ib., p. 140.

"The Jesuits wished the whole boy, not his memory only, to be affected by the master." – Quick, Educational Reformers, p. 507.

"What the Jesuits did in the matter of secondary instruction, with immense resources and for the pupils who paid them for their efforts, La Salle attempted ... for pupils who did not pay." – Compayré, l. c., p. 258.

"Their instruction was always given gratuitously." – Quick, ib., p. 38.

The Jesuit schools "were gratuitous. The instruction was imparted freely, not only to pupils of the Romish faith, but to all who chose to attend upon it." – Porter, l. c., p. 29.

"Finally they imparted their instruction gratuitously." – Ranke, History of the Popes, vol. I.

"They sought to reach sons of princes, noblemen and others who constituted the influential classes." – Seeley, History of Education, p. 185.

"They administer only the aristocratic education of the ruling classes, whom they hope to retain under their own control." – Compayré, History of Pedagogy, p. 143.

"Faithful to the traditions of the Catholic Church, the Society did not estimate a man's worth simply according to his birth and outward circumstances. The constitutions expressly laid down that poverty and mean extraction were never to be any hindrance to a pupil's admission .... and Sacchini says: 'Do not let any favoring of nobility interfere with the care of meaner pupils, since the birth of all is equal in Adam, and the inheritance is Christ.'" – Quick, l. c., p. 39. ​These quotations may suffice to show how little the adversaries of the Jesuits agree in their estimations of most important points of the educational system of the Society. We need not examine all charges in detail; we can leave them to themselves, reminding the reader of a passage in the Gospel of St. Mark (14, 56): "Many bore false witness against him, and their evidences were not agreeing." If in no other point, at least in this one, the Jesuits resemble him whose name they bear, and whom they profess and endeavor to follow.

A few accusations, however, must be examined here on account of their serious character. The first is that the Jesuits did not care for the instruction of the people, because they thought "the ignorance of the people the best safeguard of faith;" that they "ad​ministered only the aristocratic education of the higher classes."[7] This is utterly false. That the Jesuits could not devote themselves extensively to elementary education has been accounted for in a previous chapter.[8] As to the other charge, in their higher schools there were always many poor pupils; it is frequently inculcated in the documents of the Society to treat the poor pupils with equal, if not with greater, care than the rich.[9] Father Jouvancy exhorts the teacher "to exhibit a parent's tender care particularly towards needy pupils."[10] Further, the Society had special boarding schools for poor scholars; domus pauperum, or convictus pauperum, were attached to nearly all larger colleges; in Germany and Austria at Würzburg, Dillingen, Augsburg, Munich, Prague, Olmütz, Brünn etc.[11] The Jesuits not unfrequently begged money for poor scholars. Peter Canisius in one year supported two hundred poor boys. Moreover, they had special libraries to supply books for poor students and fed poor day scholars. In several places the Jesuits were at times severely censured "for favoring too much poor students and the sons of the lower classes," as was said in Graz in 1767. In 1762 they were ordered by the Bavarian government to admit in future fewer poor scholars.[12] The judgment of Quick ​echoes the real spirit of the Society on this point: "Faithful to the traditions of the Church, the Society did not estimate a man's worth simply according to his birth and outward circumstances. The constitutions expressly laid down that poverty and mean extraction were never to be any hindrance to a pupil's admission ... and Sacchini says: 'Do not let any favoring of nobility interfere with the care of meaner pupils, since the birth of all is equal in Adam and the inheritance is Christ'."[13]

It is said that the Jesuits "labored for those pupils who could pay them for their efforts."[14] In the Constitutions of the Society it is laid down as a strict rule that "no one is to accept anything which might be considered as a compensation for any ministry," [education included].[15] How this principle was applied to the colleges can be best seen from the following regulations made by Father Nadal: "The Rector cannot receive anything either for any instruction, or degree, or matriculation; nothing as a remuneration for the teacher, nor any present from a scholar. In short, nothing can be received, not even as alms or on any other grounds. Should the Rector hear that any one else has accepted anything, be he a teacher or an official of the school, he must see that it is returned to the person who gave it; and he must severely punish the person who received it."[16]

​In fact, this regulation caused the Society many serious difficulties. The rival faculties of other schools, who received payments from the pupils, saw in the gratuitousness of instruction in the Jesuit schools a great danger. By various machinations the Jesuits were forced in some cities to accept fees from the students.[17] It is well known that at present most Jesuit schools are compelled by sheer necessity to accept a tuition fee, because few of their colleges are endowed. But it was different in former centuries, when the liberality of princes, ecclesiastics and cities furnished all that was necessary for the maintenance of the colleges. Nearly all historians testify that the Jesuits imparted all instructions gratuitously; some even blame the Jesuits for thus using an unfair means of competing with other schools.

The accusation of estranging the children from their families is as ungrounded as the former charges.[18] It is also refuted by the fact that the Jesuits opened boarding schools unwillingly and only where it was absolutely necessary.[19] They everywhere preferred day schools, because they appreciated the importance which the home influence – provided it was good and religious – has on the training of the character. Aside ​from cases in which a boy has to go to a boarding school for want of a higher school near his home, especially in the country, it cannot be denied that other cases are rather numerous in which it is better for young people to receive their education away from home. In not a few families the father has no time to look after the education of his sons; mothers are frequently too indulgent to control self-willed lads. In such cases it is a blessing for a boy to be entrusted to a good boarding school in which not only the intellectual, but, above all, the moral and religious training receive due attention. Besides, much may be said of the advantages derived from the discipline and subordination insisted on in good boarding schools.[20]

Of all the charges and imputations heaped upon the Jesuit schools, the most formidable is that they seek only the interest of the Order, cripple the intellect of their pupils, and teach them a corrupt morality. I am almost ashamed to refute such charges; for any such attempt seems to be an insult not only to the Society, but to the Catholic Church herself, who has so often praised and recommended the educational labors of the Society. However, as such charges are made in historical and educational works used extensively in this country, I think it necessary to say a few words about them. Hallam says: "The Jesuits have the credit of first rendering public a scheme of false morals, which has been denominated from them and enhanced the obloquy that overwhelmed their order."[21] And von Raumer, in his History of Peda​gogy, frightens the readers with a dreadful picture of the "dismal and perfidious colleges of the Jesuits, of these men of wickedness, with their dark, treacherous tendencies, so fatal to the souls of the young." Dr. Huber, the inveterate enemy of the Society, remarks on this charge: "Raumer condemns Jesuit education from the specifically 'confessional' [i. e. Protestant] point of view."[22] On the other hand, the accusations which Dr. Huber himself made against the Society, are not more justified, and they have been discredited by a leading Review in Germany: "The opinion of some 'Old-Catholic' scholars, that the education of the Jesuits is a sort of diabolical system, tending to enslave the conscience and suppress every free movement of the mind, can no longer be maintained."[23]

Mr. Painter's charges are among the worst and unfairest that have ever been hurled against Jesuit education; summing up his criticisms on the Jesuit system, he says, it is "based not upon a study of man, but on the interests of the order ... the principle of authority, suppressing all freedom and independence of thought, prevailed from beginning to end. Religious pride and intolerance were fostered. While our baser feelings were highly stimulated, the nobler side of our nature was wholly neglected. Love of country, fidelity to friends, nobleness of character, enthusiasm for beautiful ideals were insidiously suppressed."[24] These ​terrible charges are made, but not proved. We can only ask with astonishment: How can a critical scholar, a cultured gentleman, a truth-loving Christian act in such manner? Who does not think of the striking parallel instance in ancient history, when the great teacher of Athens, whose life work it was to elevate and ennoble the youths of his city, was arraigned before a court for corrupting youth? He was condemned and had to drink the cup of hemlock. How many modern writers on Jesuit education are faithful imitators of the unjust accusers of Socrates and the unjust judges of Athens? They cannot despatch the hated Jesuits out of the world, but they poison public opinion and the minds of non-Catholic teachers. But there is another question which we cannot suppress here: How is it possible that enlightened American educators put any faith in such monstrous imputations? And how can they trust books which contain such frightful misrepresentations and calumnies? Wise people should suspect such charges, because of their very enormity; and they ​should naturally think that, when some charges are so ridiculous, others may turn out equally groundless.

Those who are so positive in asserting that the aim of Jesuit education was "the interest of the Order," might well be advised to ponder over a page or two of the work of a scholar of the first rank, – we mean Professor Paulsen who at present is equalled by few as a writer on pedagogy, and who has studied the Jesuit system more carefully than any of those writers who have the hardihood to raise such charges. In spite of his opposition to the fundamental principles of the Society, this writer severely censures those who represent the Society as a body of egoists and ambitious schemers. "It would be a gross self-deception," he writes, "to imagine that the members of the Society were attracted to, or kept in the Order by any selfish motives or personal gratifications. He who should have sought a life of ease and pleasure in this Order, would soon have been disappointed. What was put before them on entering, was first a humble novitiate, then a prolonged course of rigorous studies, finally, the toilsome work of the classroom, or the self-sacrificing labors of preaching or giving missions. Suppose the powerful and influential position of the Order whetted the ambition of some individual; but he would soon have found out that, for every one without exception, not commanding but life-long obedience was the summary of the Jesuit's career. He had to be ready to accept any position without murmur, and give it up the moment the Superior should command. This law of absolute obedience was enforced in the case of men of such merit and consideration as Canisius, the first German Provincial... Besides, the Order would ​never have been persecuted and prohibited, had it served the ease of its members; associations for such purposes have never been considered dangerous; those societies only are dangerous that try to realize ideas." The author then adds: "Why do I insist so much on this? Because it disgusts me to hear again and again that men who, with the sacrifice of all personal interests, live for an idea, are accused of selfishness and ambition, and that by dull Philistines, who throughout their lives were seeking their own comfort and pleasure, or by ambitious place-hunters who think of nothing else but how to please those in power and to natter public opinion."[25] These words sound severe; but have the men, whom they are meant for, not provoked this severity by unjust and venomous accusations?

Not a few writers call the Jesuit schools dangerous to the public welfare; one styles the whole Order "international and anti-national."[26] By the way, the same slander has been hurled against the Catholic Church; moreover, we know that long ago a great Teacher arose and founded a society. A certain class of learned men wanted to get rid of him, but did not dare to come forth with the real motive. Then they denounced the teacher as "anti-national": "He forbids to give tribute to Caesar; he makes himself king and opposes Caesar." And the judge was told that "if he acquitted that man, he was not Caesar's friend." The disciples of this Teacher were told that they would ever share the fate of their Master, and more than once in history the same futile accusations were ​made against those who professed to follow the great Master.

Not a shadow of proof has ever been advanced that the Jesuits in their principles and teaching are unpatriotic, but more than one testimony has been given, proving that they possess true patriotism and instil it into the hearts of their pupils, and that Jesuit students yield to none in ardent and self-sacrificing love of country. Of course, there is no lack of assertions to the contrary. But recently Sir Henry Howorth stated that the English Jesuits shared the anti-English views of their brethren on the continent, and he entreated English parents to keep their children away from Jesuit schools where they imbibed hatred against their own country.[27] A Roman Catholic layman in England wrote to the London Times, December 4, 1901, with reference to this attack on the Jesuits: "The moral ​and religious teaching of the Jesuits is the same in England as on the Continent, but it does not follow that their political opinions or their estimate of public affairs in this country are identical. The English Jesuit is a loyal subject of his Majesty, and all his sympathies are with his own country. Sir Henry Howorth informs English fathers and mothers that it is nearly time they considered how much longer they are going to permit their fresh and ingenuous children to imbibe hatred and contempt for their country at Jesuit establishments. Here I can speak from personal experience of the hatred and contempt for their country which my three sons imbibed at the Jesuit College of Beaumont, near Windsor, and how it has influenced their after lives. The principles which the Jesuits inculcated upon them may be summed up in five words – 'Fear God; honor thy king.' The result in after life was that they all three volunteered to fight for England and her Sovereign in her hour of need. One of them has fallen on the battlefield; the other two have survived to serve their country, and our name is known to-day to most loyalists in South Africa." In fact, more than one hundred students from the Jesuit College of Stonyhurst fought in the South African war; three have received the Victorian Cross, and many of them have lost their lives; and more than one hundred have gone from the College of Beaumont.[28] Another utterance, and that from a non-Catholic Review, deserves to be quoted in this connection. In the last number of the Westminster Review, Mr. Reade, speaking of the appointment of Dr. Parkin to draw up the scheme for the Rhodes Scholarships, ​adds: "It is just possible that, if he will pay any attention to the teachings of history, he may find food for meditation in the system on which the Propaganda Fide and the English College at St. Omers [Jesuit College] were recruited during their best years. The latter school (now Stonyhurst) kept the English Catholics loyal English Gentlemen during the worst times of the Penal Laws. Many of them accompanied James II. into his exile at St. Germain, but it would be hard to find one who held a commission, as the Irish and Scotch exiles did, in the French service, when France was at war with his own country. We had no Regiment de Howard firing on the English Guards at Fontenoy, as the Regiment de Dillon did, and Wellington's chief secret agent in Spain was a Stonyhurst boy."[29]

The whole history of the Society refutes the imputation of want of patriotism. Is it not significant that the two shrewdest monarchs of the eighteenth century, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and Catharine II. of Russia, protected the Jesuits? Would they have done so if there had existed even the slightest doubt about their patriotism? And, as to France, Dr. Huber admits that "the greatest generals, as Condé, Bouillon, Rohan, Luxembourg, Montmorency, Villars, and Broglie, have come from the schools of Jesuits."[30] The same may be said of many great men in Austria, Bavaria, and other countries where the Jesuits conducted schools. Also in the nineteenth century their patriotism has been publicly acknowledged. We quote the words addressed to the Jesuits ​by King Leopold I. of Belgium. Visiting their college at Namur he praised them especially for giving the youth under their charge a truly national education. "I am much pleased," he said to the Fathers, "to be among you. I know that you give the students a wise direction. Youth needs sound principles. There is nothing more important in our days, when men endeavor to stir up the passions. It is of the greatest moment strenuously to fight against the spirit of lawlessness which now threatens all order and the very existence of the states. What pleases me most in your work is that you impart to the young a truly national education. If you continue to educate them in this spirit, they will become the support and the mainstay of the country."[31]

When in 1846 the French Minister Thiers publicly attacked the education of the Jesuits on similar grounds, six hundred former pupils of the Jesuits, who then held high positions in the administration, in literary and industrial circles, came forth with the solemn declaration: "Our Jesuit professors taught us, that God and His religion have to enlighten man's intellect and guide his conscience; that all men are equal before God and before the law which is an expression of God's will; that the public powers are for the nations, not the nations for the public powers; that every one has the sacred duty to make all sacrifices, even that of property and life, for the welfare of the country; that treason and tyranny alike are sins against God and crimes against society. Would that all France knew that this calumniated education is solid and truly Catholic, and that we, by learning to ​unite our Catholic faith with patriotism, have become better citizens, and more genuine friends of our liberties."[32] In 1879, Ferry introduced new laws to suppress the Jesuit schools. In the Revue des Deux Mondes (1880), Albert Duruy asked Ferry whether the Jesuit pupils had less bravely fought against the Germans in the war of 1870, or whether more Jesuit pupils had taken part in the Commune; whether especially the ninety pupils of the one Jesuit school in Rue des Postes, Paris, who had fallen in the battles of that war, had been bad citizens, devoid of patriotism?[33]

The same question may be asked in every country where Jesuits are engaged in educating youth: Have Jesuit pupils ever shown less patriotism, less heroism, less self-sacrifice for their country than pupils of secular institutions? Was Charles Carroll of Carrollton less patriotic than the men who were educated at Harvard and Yale? Was Bishop John Carroll lacking in patriotism? And yet, John Carroll had been a Jesuit himself, and both had been educated in Jesuit Colleges in Europe. And we may safely challenge any one to prove that the American Jesuits and their pupils are less patriotic, less attached to the interests of their country, and less solicitous for its fair name among the nations than the teachers and pupils of other institutions. And we should like to know the facts on which the American writer has based the ​terrible indictment, that in Jesuit schools "love of country was insidiously suppressed."[34] However, if such a calumny must deeply wound the hearts of all American Jesuits, they will know, too, that other Americans, and such whose words count a thousand times more than the uncritical assertions of certain writers, have thought and spoken differently on the influence of Jesuit education. On February 22, 1889, at the centennial celebration of Georgetown College, Mr. Cleveland, President of the United States, said among other things: "Georgetown College should be proud of the impress she has made upon the citizenship of our country. On her roll of graduates are found the names of many who have performed public duty better for her teaching, while her Alumni have swollen the ranks of those who, in private stations, have done their duty as American citizens intelligently and well. I cannot express my friendship for your college better than to wish for her in the future, as she has had in the past, an army of Alumni, learned, patriotic, and useful, cherishing the good of their country as an object of loftiest effort, and deeming their contributions to good citizenship a supremely worthy use of the education they have acquired within these walls."[35]

If the old saying holds: "Quails rex, tails grex," and vice versa, then we must conclude that the teachers themselves cannot be devoid of patriotism. Fortunately, we are not confined to this a priori argument. Numerous instances are on record that Jesuits, especially at the time of war. sacrificed themselves in the ​service of the sick and wounded and on the battlefields. Not to say a word of the many cases recorded of former centuries, we mention one of more recent date. In the Franco-German war of 1870-71, the Maltese Society of Rhineland and Westphalia sent, besides the 1567 Sisters, 342 male religious to the service of the sick and wounded. Among these 342 were 159 Jesuits. Of the 81 volunteer army chaplains sent by the same organization, 33 were Jesuits.[36] No less than 80 Jesuits received decorations, and two of them were honored with the "Iron Cross," the highest distinction for heroic conduct on the battlefield. The patriotism of the French Jesuits is not less conspicuous. In every war which was waged by France, a number of Jesuits accompanied the army as chaplains. In 1870-71 several were wounded on the battlefield, and one died at Laon.

The attitude of the Society towards national and political questions has been clearly stated by Father Beckx, General of the Society: "The public and the press busy themselves much about the Society's attitude towards the various forms of government. ... Now the Society, as a religious Order, has nothing to do with any political party. In all countries and under all forms of government, she confines herself to the exercise of her ministry, having in view only her end – the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls, – an end superior to the interests of human politics. Always and everywhere the religious of the Society fulfils loyally the duties of a good citizen and a faithful subject of the power which rules his country. Always and everywhere she tells all by her instructions ​and her conduct: 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's'."[37]

In recent years the attacks on the educational system of the Jesuits chiefly insist on the fact that it is "antiquated and unable to cope with modern conditions." We quoted the words[38] of Mr. Browning, that "little is to be hoped for the Jesuits in the improvement of education at present, whatever may have been their services in the past." A similar verdict is passed by Buckle. "The Jesuits, for at least fifty years after their institution, rendered immense service to civilization, partly by organizing a system of education far superior to any yet seen in Europe. In no university could there be found a scheme of instruction so comprehensive as theirs, and certainly nowhere was there displayed such skill in the management of youth, or such insight into the general operations of the human mind... The Society was, during a considerable period, the steady friend of science, as well as of literature, and allowed its members a freedom and a boldness of speculation which had never been permitted by any monastic order. As, however, civilization advanced, the Jesuits began to lose ground, and this not so much from their own decay as from a change in the spirit of those who surrounded them. An institution admirably adapted to an early form of society was ill suited to the same society in its mature state."[39] We think this charge has been sufficiently refuted by what was said in the preceding chapter.

​How is this hostility to the Jesuits to be explained? It is not so difficult to find some reasons which account for the aversion of Protestants to this Order. Time and again they have been told that Ignatius of Loyola founded this Society in order to crush Protestantism. Although it has been proved that such a view of the Society is entirely contradicted by the Constitutions and the history of the Order,[40] most non-Catholics still cling to their old prejudices and traditional views of the Jesuits. Even now many see in the Society the "avowed and most successful foe of Protestantism, and the embodiment of all they detest."[41] The Jesuits have been represented to them as notoriously dishonest and unscrupulous men, who teach and practise the most pernicious principles; they have been denounced as plotters against the lives of Protestant rulers, Queen Elizabeth, James I., William of Orange, Gustavus Adolphus. The mention of the Gunpowder plot, and the Titus-Oates conspiracy,[42] conjures up the most horrible visions of those black demons who dare to call themselves companions of Jesus. Then it has been said that the Jesuits were the cause of the Thirty Year's War, of the French Revolution, of the Franco-German War of 1870, of the Dreyfus affair.[43] All such and similar silly slanders ​have gradually formed that popular idea according to which the Jesuit is the embodiment of craft, deceit, ambition, and all sorts of wickedness. "It began to be rumored up and down," complains Bunyan, "that I was a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman, and the like." Last year it was very correctly stated by Mr. Andrew Lang, the celebrated Scotch scholar, that this popular idea and the Protestant dislike of the Jesuits is not based on historical facts, but largely on works of fiction. There is a certain picturesqueness about the mythic Jesuit which makes him highly important in works of fiction. Accordingly, a number of writers have introduced him with great effect, as Charles Kingsley, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, and even Thackeray. Mr. Lang himself rises above that vulgar conception of the Jesuits, and he freely confesses: "The Jesuits are clever, educated men; on the whole I understand their unpopularity, but with all their faults I love them still."[44] And the words of another Protestant deserve to be meditated on by all fair-minded Protestants: "Why should a devoted Christian find a difficulty in seeing good in the Jesuits, a body of men whose devotion to their idea of Christian duty has never been surpassed?"[45]

But some Protestants will say: The Jesuits have always been the most strenuous and most successful supporters of the Catholic Church; hence they weaken the Protestant cause. – To men who argue thus apply ​the words of the great Master; "You know how to discern the face of the sky, and can you not know the signs of the times?"[46] Indeed, the signs of the time point to dangers quite different from those dreaded from "Jesuitism". The dangers of our age arise from infidelity, immorality, and anarchy. What has become of the belief in the fundamental truth of Christianity, in the Divinity of Christ? That there are still millions of real Christians in the world, is chiefly due to the Catholic Church, to what they call the stubborn "conservatism" of the Romish Church. And the Jesuits make it the centre of their educational work and of all their labors, to strengthen the faith in the Divinity of Christ, and to propagate the Kingdom of God. They teach the lofty morality, the generous self-denial, which was preached to the world by the words and example of Jesus. They inculcate assiduously the most important civic virtue, obedience to all lawful authority. Therefore, all those who still believe in the Divinity of Christ, who zealously labor for the moral betterment of their fellow-men, who have the true interest of their country at heart – all those men should heartily welcome the Jesuits as helpful allies in their noble enterprise. There is, in our days, surely no reason for antipathy against the Society of Jesus.

However, considering the force of long cherished prejudices, we understand the dislike and the dread with which less enlightened Protestants view Jesuit schools. Their feelings spring from ignorance, and they are to be pitied rather than blamed. And every Jesuit will pray with Jesus: "Father forgive them, for they know ​not what they do." But what should we say of men who lay claim to critical scholarship, if they, instead of examining conscientiously the documents and the history of the Order, unscrupulously copy the slanders of virulent partisan writers, as is done by so many modern historians and educationists? Some seem studiously to neglect to acquire that information which is necessary and easily available, in order to understand this system. Of others one has reason to suspect that they write against their better knowledge, from fanatical hatred, not so much of the Society as of the Catholic Church. But then let them at least be honest; let them say that they are fighting against the "Anti-Christ in Rome," against the "Scarlet Woman," as their leaders were pleased to express themselves; let them confess that it is the odium Papae, the old "no-Popery" and "Know-nothing" feeling which inspires them. Well has a non-Catholic periodical recently observed: "We end inevitably by recognizing that all the reproaches with which we may feel entitled to load the Jesuits, in the name of reason, of philosophy, etc., etc., fall equally upon all religious orders, and upon the Church herself, of which they have ever been the most brilliant ornament. Why then address these reproaches to the Jesuits only?"[47]

History has proved the correctness of these statements. In the eighteenth century the Jesuit colleges were suppressed. Not long after the monasteries of other orders were "secularized". In 1872 the Jesuits were expelled from Germany; two or three years after, the other religious orders had to leave the fatherland, ​and then the secular priests were persecuted, and bishops imprisoned. Since 1879 there was a continued agitation in France against the Jesuits and their schools. This campaign has now issued in a general war against all teaching congregations, in fact against all religious orders.

But this is not all; of late radical papers begin to proclaim the real intentions of the persecutors of the religious orders. One paper wrote recently: "Now we must not forget the Curés (Parish priests); after the monks let us attend to them." Hostility to the Church, nay, to all religion, is at the bottom of the unjust and tyrannous proceedings against the Jesuits and other religious orders in France. For, whilst to the ordinary reader of newspapers the recent laws "appear to be a mere measure of self-defense forced upon the Republican Government by the reputed political intrigues of the Clerical party in France, it is in reality a systematic attempt to discredit religion, and to remove its checking influence upon the atheistic movement of the controlling party."[48] That influence was chiefly felt to come from the religious orders, particularly from the teaching congregations. Hence they must go. The hypocritical assertion: "We combat Jesuitism, not the Church, not religion," is a mere ruse the guerre, a stratagem, used to deceive more fair-minded Protestants, and short-sighted or lukewarm Catholics. That this is no exaggerated party statement, is evident from the discussions in the French Senate during the last three years. It is also frankly ​admitted by the more candid advocates of the new persecution, and by not a few far-seeing Protestants.

Here, however, a serious objection is raised: Have not Catholics, even high dignitaries of the Church, opposed the Jesuits? How is this? "Protestants are not ignorant that the Society of Jesus has been the object of suspicion and attack from influential men in the Church of Rome itself; that no worse things have been said of it by Protestants than have been said by Romanists themselves; that Romish ecclesiastics have in all generations of its history, directed against it their open attacks and their secret machinations; that Romish teachers have dreaded it as a rival and intriguer."[49] However, such Protestants should not fail to examine who these "Romanists" are, and especially from what motives they act when attacking the Jesuits. We do not wish to say more on this subject, but quote only the words of a distinguished French writer, M. Lenormant, who said: "Outside the Catholic Church opinions regarding the Jesuits, as regarding other religious orders, are free, but within the Catholic Church the war against the Jesuits is the most monstrous inconsistency."[50]

The opposition of Catholic schools to the Society is frequently looked upon by non-Catholics as the surest proof of the dangerous character of Jesuit education. They point to the hostility of the Alma Mater of the Society, the once famous University of Paris, to the Jesuits. But a German Protestant, a pro​fessor in the University of Strasburg, not in the least partial to the Jesuits, writes on this subject: "This hostility evidently arose from jealousy, as the youths of Paris flocked to the schools of these dangerous and dexterous rivals, while the lecture rooms of the University were empty."[51] The same opinion is held by M. Jourdain, the historian of the University of Paris. He describes the scientific stagnation of the University in the seventeenth century, and the frightful licentiousness of the students, in consequence of which parents did not dare to send their sons to this school, but were anxious to have them educated by the Jesuits. The University combated this competition not so much by raising the intellectual and moral standing of the University, as by acts of Parliament, expelling the Jesuits or closing their colleges. The colleges of the University were on the point of being deserted, and this time the danger was all the more grievous, as a part of the Professors could attribute to themselves the decadence.[52] Still the members of the University never ceased from accusing the Jesuits of being corrupters of youth and disturbers of the public peace. It is admitted also that the teaching in the University was most defective. But they reproached the Jesuits for inefficiency and faulty methods. The University, although tainted with Jansenism, charged the Jesuits with spreading doctrines prejudicial to the Catholic faith, with "rendering faith a captive to vain human reason and philosophy." The historian here justly exclaims: "How often, in later days, has the Society ​reversely been accused of being the implacable foe of philosophy and reason!"[53]

The hostility of the Paris University was, therefore, merely the outcome of jealousy. At all times monopolies were jealous. Richelieu had perceived that clearly. Frequently urged to expel the Jesuits from Paris, he did not yield; on the contrary, towards the end of his life he handed over to the Jesuits the Collège de Marmoutiers. "The Universities," he said, "complain as if a wrong were done them, that the instruction of youth is not left to them exclusively. But as human frailty requires a counter-balance to everything, it is more reasonable that the Universities and the Jesuits teach as rivals, in order that emulation may stimulate their efforts, and that learning being deposited in the hands of several guardians, may be found with one, if the others should have lost it."[54] In another passage Jourdain does not hesitate to state that the competition of the Jesuits soon turned into a blessing for the University itself, as it was forced to exercise a more active supervision over masters and students, which was beneficial both to discipline and instruction.[55]

In Germany also and in other countries the Jesuits had to encounter the opposition of the old universities. The reason has been given by Professor Paulsen: "The old corporations at Ingolstadt, Vienna, Prague, Freiburg, Cologne, resisted with might and main, but it was all in vain; the Jesuits were victorious everywhere. The old corporations who were in possession ​of the universities have often raised the charge of "imperiousness" of "desire of ruling" against the Jesuits, and many historians of these institutions have passionately repeated this charge, certainly not without good cause. But it must be added that it was not the desire of ruling that springs from arrogance and rests on external force or empty titles, but the desire that arises from real power which is eager to work, because it can work and must work."[56]

Another reason for the cold treatment of the Society by Catholics must be sought in unfair generalizations of individual cases. The Jesuits had always the privilege – or the misfortune – of being the subject of the constant pre-occupation of the public mind. They are watched closely, and they are, too often, watched with a magnifying glass. But if faults are discovered in an individual, is it fair to censure the whole body? Well has an English writer said: "The most splendid and perfect institution, if it grow, and occupy a large space, if many join it, will have among its members imprudent and therefore dangerous men – men who offer so fair a pretext to the malevolent for attacking it, that the combined learning and prudence of many years will hardly make good the damage done. The mass of men do not make fine distinctions; to distinguish with them, means casuistry, and casuistry they consider to be next door to systematized imposture. Point out some telling scandals against some member of a large organized body; be they only three or four, or true or false, repeat them often enough – and the public will pass the verdict of ​guilty upon the whole, and condemn both the system and him who sins against it."[57]

Sometimes, indeed, it may be that individual Jesuits have, by their unfaithfulness to the principles of their order, deserved the ill-feeling with which they have been regarded. But in a large majority of cases, it is due either to prejudice or ignorance on the part of their adversaries, or else to an imperfect grasp of the Jesuit system, especially to the false impression that the Jesuits exercise an influence which interferes with the work of others and that they are a rival power in the government of the Church.[58]

The utter falsity of the impression referred to has been proved more than once. In 1880 all the French Bishops, with two or three exceptions, addressed letters of protest to the President of the Republic against the decree of expulsion of the Jesuits. These letters form a splendid testimony, not only to the educational success of the Jesuits, but also to their loyalty to the ecclesiastical authorities.[59] The Cardinal Archbishop of Paris uttered these striking words about the Jesuits, so many of whom labored in his diocese: "Among the religious institutes, there is one which has been more before the world than the others; which has done splendid service in education, which has shed lustre on literature, which has formed savants of the first rank in every branch of science... Marked ​out by its importance and success as an object of the hatred of the enemies of religion, the Society of Jesus has always confounded calumny by the splendor of its virtues, its intellectual power and its work. ... To zeal, these generous priests have always united prudence. In the midst of the dissensions which trouble the country, just as the whole of the clergy have kept themselves rigorously within the limits of their spiritual ministry, the Society of Jesus has been scrupulously exact in avoiding all interfering with politics. Those who deny this, make assertions without proof. A Bishop like myself who has under his jurisdiction the chief Jesuit establishments in France is in a position to know the truth in a matter like this."

Cardinal Bonnechose testified as follows: "The Jesuits devote themselves to the laborious and often thankless task of education. They open colleges; experience justifies their efforts; families entrust their children to them with the utmost confidence; year by year, public opinion and the government itself, testify to their success; year by year, they send forth into every career young men who have been taught to respect authority, who are penetrated with the idea of duty; who are fitted to become brave soldiers, conscientious functionaries, and honorable and useful citizens, and who are, every one, devoted to their country and ready to die for France." – The Archbishop of Cambrai, Cardinal Regnier, spoke in the same strain: "Here I must make particular mention of the Jesuit Fathers, who are to be treated with special severity. On my conscience and in the name of truth, President of the French Republic, I bear witness that ​these religious men, who have so long been abused, spit upon, and calumniated by the anti-Christian press with a malice which no authority has ever attempted to restrain – who are devoted day by day to the hatred and violence of the mob, as though they were an association of malefactors – that these religious are esteemed and venerated in the highest degree by the clergy and by every class of the faithful, and that they are in every way most worthy of it. Their conduct is exemplary; their teaching can only be blamed by ignorance and bad faith. Many of them belong to the most distinguished families of the country. The house of superior education which they carry on with such brilliant success at Lille, was entrusted to them – I may almost say, forced on them – by fathers of families who had themselves been brought up by them, and who were determined to provide for their children an education which their own experience taught them to value. I fulfil a duty of conscience and of honor in addressing to you these simple and respectful observations."

The testimony of the Archbishop of Lyons will be of special interest. Cardinal Caverot writes: "It is the privilege of the children of St. Ignatius to be in the front of every battle. I know how hatred, and still more how ignorance and prejudice, have accumulated calumnies against the Society. But I owe it to the truth to declare here, that in the course of a ministry of well-nigh fifty – years twenty as priest, thirty as bishop – I have been able to satisfy myself, and I know that these worthy and zealous servants of God have well deserved the distinction given to the Society by the Church, when she proclaimed it, in the ​Council of Trent, a 'Pious Institute, approved by the Holy See.' I admire these men in their work of teaching, and in the labors of their apostleship. Nowhere have I met with priests more obedient to ecclesiastical authority, more careful of the laws of the country, more aloof from political conflict; and I affirm without fear of contradiction, that if these decrees which strike at them have not made any charge whatever against their life and teaching, it is because not a charge could be made which would survive an hour's discussion."

There in no room for further extracts from these letters. The Dublin Review remarks that these manifestoes of the French hierarchy are precious documents for the religious orders; "but the Jesuits, in particular, will be able, from these utterances, to collect a body of episcopal testimony to their ability, devotedness, and deference towards the Bishops such as perhaps they have never before received from a great National Church during the whole course of their existence."[60]

In modern times it has sometimes been said that religious orders, in general, were admirably equipped for former ages, but time has progressed so fast that the orders were left behind and are now "out of date." One Philip Limerick, who, as he affirms, was at one time himself in a monastery, states this view plainly in the Contemporary Review (April 1897). This writer admits that the Monks were the benefactors of mankind, by teaching the arts of civilization to the rude tribes of the North, and that the monastic institutions were the homes, for a long time even the only ones, of learning. But, he says, "omnia tempus habent, and ​monks are now rarely met with, and of the later orders, the Regular Clerks, only one has left a deep impression on the Latin Church and obtained a place in history – the Society of Jesus. This Society owes its still vigorous life to its wider scope and more efficient administration." Although this writer assigns an exceptional position to the Society, others include also this Order in the general doom. "We can do without the Jesuits," was a saying of Dr. Döllinger, and his opinion is shared by some so-called Liberal Catholics.

That the present Pope Leo XIII. has other sentiments about religious orders in general is evident from his numerous letters. In his letter to the Archbishop of Paris, December 23, 1900, he enumerates all the benefits religion and society receive from their hands. He says that "the religious are the necessary auxiliaries of the bishops and the secular clergy." "In the past their doctors shed renown on the universities by the depth and breadth of their learning, and their houses became the refuge of divine and human knowledge, and in the shipwreck of civilization saved from certain destruction the masterpieces of ancient wisdom. Nor is their activity, their zeal, their love of their fellow-men, diminished in our own day. Some, devoted to teaching, instruct the young in secular knowledge and the principles of religious virtue and duty, on which public peace and the welfare of states absolutely depend. Others are seen settling amongst savage tribes in order to civilize them. Nor is it an uncommon thing for them to make important contributions to science by the help they give to the researches which are being made in such different domains as the study of the differences of race and tongue, of history, the ​nature and products of the soil, and other questions.[61] Of course we are not unaware that there are people who go about declaring that the religious congregations encroach upon the jurisdiction of the Bishops and interfere with the rights of the secular clergy. This assertion cannot be sustained if one cares to consult the wise laws published on this point by the Church, and which we have recently re-enacted."[62]

On more than one occasion Leo XIII. gave expression to the high esteem in which he holds the educational work of the Jesuits, from whom he himself had received his early training. In the year 1886 he solemnly confirmed once more the Institute of the Society and its ecclesiastical privileges, exhorting the sons of Ignatius courageously to continue their work in the midst of all persecutions.[63]

Before closing this chapter we may mention one explanation for the widespread animosity against the Society at which some may be inclined to smile. It is recorded that the founder of the Society, St. Ignatius of Loyola, used to beg of God continually that his sons might always be the object of the world's hatred and enmity. He knew from the words of Our Divine Master: "If the world hate you, know that it hated me before you," and from the history of the Church that this persecution for the sake of Jesus has always ​been an essential condition for every victory won for the sacred cause of Christianity. No doubt, this prayer of St. Ignatius has been heard. Whether it be the Courtiers of Queen Elizabeth, or the Reformers in Germany, the infidel Philosophers of the eighteenth century, or the Atheists of our own days, the Communists of Paris, or the Revolutionary party in Italy, the Bonzes in Japan, or the fanatical followers of Mahomet, all who hated the name of Catholic concentrated their deadliest hatred on the unfortunate Jesuits. And what was more painful to them, even within the pale of the Catholic Church, they have sometimes met with misunderstanding and opposition. The Jansenists in France were their bitter enemies. The Liberal Catholics invariably stood aloof from them. At times even Bishops and Archbishops treated them coldly. Still, these persecutions were not without some good results. They kept the sons of Ignatius ever on the alert; and for this reason, the prayer of St. Ignatius manifests a wonderful insight into human affairs. Constant attacks prevent a body of men from stagnation and security.

"And you all know security
Is mortal's chiefest enemy."[64]

  1. ↑ The History of the Penal Laws enacted against the Roman Catholics, by R. R. Madden, London 1847, p. 154.
  2. ↑ Ib., p. 169.
  3. ↑ Ib., p. 232.
  4. ↑ Koldewey, Braunschweigische Schulordnungen, in Monumenta Germaniae Paedagogica, vol. VII, pp. 138-139.
  5. ↑ See pp. 146-148. However, it is but fair to add that Catholic rulers, v. g. the Dukes of Bavaria, forbade their subjects to send their sons to foreign Protestant schools. Janssen, vol. IV, (16. ed.) p. 464.
  6. ↑ Educational Reformers, p. 64.
  7. ↑ Compayré, History of Pedagogy, p. 143; similarly Seeley, History of Education, p. 185.
  8. ↑ Chapter III, pp. 104-106.
  9. ↑ Ratio Studiorum, Reg. Prof. Sup. Fac., n. 20; Reg. com. mag. class. inf. 50. – Monumenta Paedagogica, p. 814 foll.
  10. ↑ Ratio Docendi, ch. Ill, art. 1, n. 2.
  11. ↑ Duhr, Studienordnung, pp. 46-53.
  12. ↑ Documents in Duhr, Jesuitenfabeln, 2d edition, pp. 86-93.
  13. ↑ Quick, Educational Reformers, p. 39.
  14. ↑ Compayré, Hist. of Ped., p. 258.
  15. ↑ Summary of the Constit. 27, where allusion is made to the words of our Lord: "Freely you have received, freely give."
  16. ↑ Monumenta Paedagogica, p. 102.
  17. ↑ Duhr, Studienordnung, p. 47. – Hallam, L. of E., I, 256.
  18. ↑ Compayré, Hist. of Ped., p. 146. "The ideal of the perfect scholar is to forget his parents." This is a calumny; and the example which M. Compayré adduces of a pupil of the Jesuits who showed an eccentric behavior towards his mother, and the words of the biographer, do not express the principles and practices of the Jesuit schools.
  19. ↑ Thus, for instance, of the 83 colleges which the Society had in Germany in 1710, only 12 admitted boarders. Du Lac, Jésuites, pp. 297-298, and 390.
  20. ↑ See Mr. Whitton's discussion: The Private School in American Life (a reply to Mr. Edward's strictures). Educat. Rev., May 1902.
  21. ↑ Literature of Europe, etc. (ed. 1842, New York), volume II, p. 121.
  22. ↑ Der Jesuiten-Orden, p. 377.
  23. ↑ Jahresbericht für klassische Altertumswissenschaft, Berlin, 1891, p. 45 (quoted by Pachtler, l. c., vol. IV, p. VIII).
  24. ↑ History of Education, p. 172. – Similar opinions were expressed recently by Mr. Frank Hugh O'Donnell, in his book, The Ruin of Education in Ireland, London, 1902. He would advise the commission on Irish University Education to "refuse every public endowment and public monopoly to the Order of St. Ignatius. Their individual virtues and scholarship do not diminish the formidable hostility of their brotherhood to independence, to progress, to liberty, to toleration and concord between citizens of different creeds. They are the pretorians of religious despotism. ... Catholic ruin and Catholic ignorance have attended everywhere the Jesuit monopoly. Where the Jesuit plants, the crops are indifference, emasculation, and decay. ... Their system is ruin to the Catholic religion. They belong to an age before modern times. ... They can stimulate fanaticism. They cannot develop reason. They supplant, and call it assistance and direction. They suck the brain of the lay-people," etc. – Quoted in The Month, September 1902, pp. 253-254.
  25. ↑ Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts, vol. I, pp. 410-411.
  26. ↑ Ziegler, Geschichte der Pädagogik, p. 119.
  27. ↑ The case of Sir Henry Howorth furnishes a good illustration of the "trustworthiness" of the attacks against the Jesuits. This gentleman asserted (Tablet, Nov. 23, 1901), that he had often read, in the Civiltà Cattolica and in two German Jesuit publications, "abominable slanders of England and its people." Sir Henry was challenged repeatedly to produce one passage from the two German publications containing a slander of England. One of these periodicals, the Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, has very often praised England and its liberal institutions; and the other (the Theologische Zeitschrift of Innsbruck) is a purely scientific paper which never touches political questions. After many evasions Sir Henry at last wrote (Tablet, March 15, 1902), that he had read the "abominable slanders" in the Berlin Germania, "which, as he was informed, was largely owned and written by the Jesuits." But the Jesuits have nothing to do with the Germania. And yet, for three months Sir Henry had maintained that he had read with his own eyes the slanders in the two mentioned Jesuit publications!
  28. ↑ The Messenger, New York, 1902, July, p. 127.
  29. ↑ Westminster Review, October 1902, p. 325.
  30. ↑ Der Jesuiten-Orden, p. 384.
  31. ↑ Ami de l'ordre de Namur, 1843, July 31.
  32. ↑ Similar protests of Jesuit pupils were published in 1879, when Ferry had cast suspicion on the patriotism of the Jesuits. See De Badts de Cugnac, Le patriotisme des Jésuites.
  33. ↑ Of the pupils of St. Clement (Metz) 31 died on the battlefield, of the College of Sainte-Geneviève 78; of the College of Vannes 20, etc.
  34. ↑ Painter, History of Education, p. 172.
  35. ↑ History of Georgetown College, p. 422.
  36. ↑ Braunsberger, l. c., p. 37.
  37. ↑ L'Univers, Paris, Jan. 20, 1879. See De Badts de Cugnac, L'expulsion des Jésuites, p. 51.
  38. ↑ Page 16.
  39. ↑ History of Civilization in England, vol. I, chapter XVI.
  40. ↑ See above chapter III, pp. 77-78.
  41. ↑ Canon Littledale in the Encyclopedia Britannica, art. "Jesuits".
  42. ↑ "That lie about the Titus-Oates Conspiracy," as the Protestant historian Gardiner says (Hist. of England, vol. II, pp. 483 and 615). An apostate priest, Chinicquy, has charged the Jesuits even with the assassination of President Lincoln!
  43. ↑ Quite recently the suspicion was expressed in French anti-clerical papers that the Jesuits were the cause of the coal strikes. Any one who wishes to see to what extreme of absurdity the calumniators of the Society have gone, may read Janssen, vol. VII, pp. 530-584. – Dublin Review, vol. XLI, pp. 60-86 ("Curiosities of the Anti-Jesuit Crusade"); vol. L, pp. 329-340.
  44. ↑ The Pilot, Oct. 12, 1901.
  45. ↑ Quick, Educ. Ref., p. 54.
  46. ↑ Matth. 16, 3.
  47. ↑ The Open Court, Chicago, Jan. 1902, p. 28.
  48. ↑ American Ecclesiastical Review, Sept. 1902, p. 324. – See especially the Dublin Review, October 1902: "The Power behind the French Government," where it is clearly set forth who the real instigators of this new persecution are.
  49. ↑ Professor Porter of Yale, Educational Systems of the Puritans and Jesuits compared, p. 90.
  50. ↑ "Endedans du catholicisme, la guerre aux Jésuites est la plus monstrueuse des inconséquences." De Badts de Cugnac, L'expulsion des Jésuites, p. 6.
  51. ↑ Ziegler, Geschichte der Pädagogik, 1895, p. 121.
  52. ↑ Jourdain, Histoire de l'Université de Paris au XVII. et au XVIII. siècle. Paris 1888, vol. I, pp. 1-59.
  53. ↑ Ibid., p. 282.
  54. ↑ Ibid., p. 272.
  55. ↑ Ibid., vol. II, p. 299.
  56. ↑ Paulsen, l. c., p. 281 (vol. I, p. 407).
  57. ↑ R. B. Vaughan, Life of St. Thomas, vol. I, p. 629.
  58. ↑ See Father Clarke, S. J., in the Nineteenth Century, August 1896.
  59. ↑ See Dublin Review, 1880, July, pp. 155-183. – Again in October 1902, of 79 French Bishops 72 (in a joint petition to the Senate) declared their solidarity with the religious orders.
  60. ↑ L. c., p. 175.
  61. ↑ On the services rendered by Catholic missionaries, mostly religious, to the knowledge of languages, especially to Comparative Philology, see Max Müller's Lectures on the Science of Language, vol. I, and Father Dahlmann: Die Sprachkunde und die Missionen, (Herder, 1891).
  62. ↑ Translation from The Messenger, New York, February 1901.
  63. ↑ Pachtler, vol. IV, p. 581.
  64. ↑ Macbeth 3, 5.
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