the ancient intellect, St. Dominic of the medieval, and St. Ignatius of the modern. ... Ignatius, a man of the world before his conversion, transmitted as a legacy to his disciples that knowledge of mankind which cannot be learned in cloisters."[1]
However, none of the religious orders of the Middle Ages had taken the education of youth formally and expressly into its constitution. As regards the Benedictines, Cardinal Newman maintains that their occupation with literary and historical studies was, in a way, a compromise with the primary end of their institute. The monastic institute, as the great Benedictine scholar Mabillon says, demands summa quies, the most perfect quietness. Hence the studies which they pursued with special predilection, were such as did not excite the mind: the study of Holy Scripture and the Fathers, the examination of ancient manuscripts, editions and biographies of the Fathers, studies which can be undergone in silence and quietness.[2] So was also the educational work which they undertook accidental to the primary object of their institute. The Order of St. Dominic had a much closer, a more direct and explicit connection with studies and teaching. But it was chiefly the teaching of the highest branches, of theology, the "science of sciences", and of philosophy, which this order undertook. What we now understand by "education" was only remotely included in the object of the Order of St. Dominic.
St. Ignatius was the first to assume the education of youth as a special part of the work of a religious order, as a special ministry, a special means of ob-
