Chapter V.
Jesuit Colleges and their Work before the Suppression
of the Society (1540-1773).
Within fifty years from the solemn approbation of the Society of Jesus, the Order had spread all over the world, from Europe to the Indies, from China and Japan in the East, to Mexico and Brazil in the West. Wherever the Church was not actually persecuted, as in England, there sprang up educational institutions. Shortly after the death of the fifth General, Father Aquaviva, in 1615, the Society possessed three hundred and seventy-three colleges; in 1706 the number of collegiate and university establishments was seven hundred and sixty-nine, and in 1756, shortly before the suppression, the number was seven hundred and twenty-eight.[1] In 1584 the classes of the Roman College were attended by two thousand, one hundred and eight students. At Rouen, in France, there were regularly two thousand. Throughout the seventeenth century the numbers at the College of Louis-le-Grand, in Paris, varied between eighteen hundred and three thousand. In 1627, the one Province of Paris had in its fourteen colleges 13,195 students, which would give an average of nearly one thousand to each college. In the same year Rouen had 1,968, Rennes 1,485, Amiens 1,430. In 1675 there were in Louis-
- ↑ See Hughes, Loyola, pp. 69—77; and especially Hamy, S. J., Documents pour servir a l'histoire des domiciles de la Compagnie de Jésus, Paris, Alphonse Picard.
