Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/140

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JESUIT EDUCATION.

authors, and some composition in Greek. The Greek prose authors will be Saints Chrysostom and Basil, epistles of Plato and Synesius, and some selections from Plutarch; the poets: Homer, Phocylides, Theognis, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Synesius, and others like them.

Rhetoric. The grade of this class cannot be easily defined. For it trains to perfect eloquence, which comprises two great faculties, the oratorical and the poetical, the former chiefly being the object of culture; nor does it regard only the practical, but the beautiful also. For the precepts, Cicero may be supplemented with Quintilian and Aristotle. The style, which may be assisted by drawing on the most approved historians and poets, is to be formed on Cicero; all of his works are most fitted for this purpose, but only his speeches should be made the subject of prelection, that the precepts of the art may be seen in practice. – As to the vernacular, the style should be formed on the best authors (1832). The erudition will be derived from the history and manners of nations, from the authority of writers and all learning; but moderately as befits the capacity of the students. – In Greek: the fuller knowledge of authors and of dialects is to be acquired. The Greek authors, whether orators, historians, or poets, are to be ancient and classic: Demosthenes, Plato, Thucydides, Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and others of the kind, including Saints Nazianzen, Basil, and Chrysostom.

Let it not be imagined, however, that this plan was followed slavishly. The different provinces of the Order made such adaptations and introduced such changes as they thought best for their respective coun-