themselves, all their time and strength, to the work of education.[1] But this was possible only because they had joined a religious order, which had taken up the education of youth as one of its special ministries. I have never found that any writers who discuss the causes of the superiority of the Jesuit schools have taken this fact into account. And yet it was undoubtedly one of the most important reasons of the great success of the colleges of the Society.
But may not even at the present day religious most beneficially be employed as educators of Catholic youth? Will not their state of life secure some advantages for the work of education? It has repeatedly been stated by non-Catholic writers that the schools of the teaching congregations in France were far more successful than the lay schools.[2] What is the explanation of this fact, so unwelcome to those who have to admit it? A recent article in an American magazine may help us to find a very plausible explanation. Professor Münsterberg of Harvard writes[3]: "The
- ↑ Professor Paulsen states that the Jesuit teachers changed also rather frequently; but every Jesuit had to teach at least four or five years after the completion of his philosophical course, and very many returned to the colleges after their theological studies. Hence there was incomparably more stability in Jesuit colleges than in most Protestant schools of those times.
- ↑ See for instance the Contemporary Review, March, 1900, p. 441, where it is plainly stated by a writer most hostile to the religious orders, that the "religious teachers do their work efficiently and successfully, their rivals with a degree of slovenliness which is incredible." See further testimonies below, chapter VII.
- ↑ Atlantic Monthly, May 1901, p. 628. However, this feature is not confined to American schools. Within the last few years serious complaints begin to be heard also in Ger-
