decrees, emphasizing the vast importance of the education of youth, and the great esteem to be had for the teaching of grammar and the classics. It is called "a special and characteristic ministry of the Society" (Congr. 8., Dec. 8.), "one of the most desirable occupations and most beneficial to many" (C. 7., D. 26.). In the Ratio Studiorum, the very first Rule reads:[1] "As it is one of the principal ministries of our Society to teach all the branches of knowledge, which according to our institute may be taught, in such a manner that thereby men may be led to the knowledge and love of our Creator and Redeemer, the Provincial should consider it his duty to see with all diligence, that the fruit which the grace of our vocation requires, corresponds with the manifold labors of our schools." This work of teaching boys is considered so important in the Society that in the last vows it is expressly mentioned: "I vow according to obedience a special concern for the education of boys."
The branches which "according to the Institute may be taught," are chiefly those that are connected with higher education. The Society has been blamed for neglecting elementary education. Professor Huber thinks that the Jesuits did so, "first, because this task seemed to them to be more subordinate, since the hold on the people was assured to them any way by their ecclesiastical influence; secondly, because on the whole they were no friends of popular education, however insignificant; for the complete ignorance of the masses did but fortify their control of them."[2] This is a
