phy.[1] The custom of dictating these lessons was continued until the handbooks of geography were published by the Jesuits Monet, Riccioli, Labbe, Briet, Saint-Juste, Buffier. Father Daniel, S. J., in an interesting essay of twenty-eight pages, has given many important details about the teaching of geography in Jesuit colleges of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.[2]
Special attention was given to the geography of the country in which the colleges were situated, but great interest was also taken in the geographical discoveries in foreign countries. The Jesuits had, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, better advantages for obtaining geographical information than any other body of men. The Jesuit missionaries scattered all over the world sent regular accounts of their journeys and observations to their brethren in Europe. That much valuable geographical and ethnological information was contained in these reports may be seen from the "Jesuit Relations", seventy-three volumes of letters of Jesuits from New France, i. e. Canada and the Northern part of the United States.[3] Several Jesuit missionaries have made most important contributions to the science of geography, not only by great discoveries as that of the Mississippi by Father Mar-
- ↑ Chossat, Les jésuites à Avignon, pp. 316-318.
- ↑ La geographie dans les collèges des Jésuites aux XVII. et XVIII. siècles. In the Études, June 1879.
- ↑ Edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites, published by Burrows Brothers, Cleveland, Ohio, 1896-1901. The letters of the missionaries were read by the students in the colleges. Father Nadal said they might be read to the boarders during dinner and supper. (Mon. Paed. p. 612.).
