found that young people gained more with them in six months than with other teachers in two years. Even Protestants removed their children from distant gymnasia to confide them to the care of the Jesuits."[1] – This last fact was more than once lamented by Protestants.
In 1625 a report of the Gymnasium in Brieg, Silesia, complains bitterly of the lamentable condition of this school. This condition is ascribed chiefly to the theological wranglings of the Lutherans and the Reformed, and to the inability of the teachers, who frequently were engaged in trades, or as inn-keepers, or acted as lawyers, and thus neglected their duties as teachers. The report then adds: "If the teachers knew how to preserve the confidence of the parents, then an interest in the school would soon be manifested by those who now prefer to send their children to the Jesuits. For these Jesuits know better how to treat boys according to their nature, and to keep alive a zeal for studies."[2]
Also in the Protestant Margravate of Brandenburg the condition of the schools induced parents, noblemen, state officials, and citizens, to send their sons to foreign Jesuit colleges. But then the preachers started a violent campaign against this practice, although they had to admit that the Jesuit pupils were better trained than those educated in the Margravate. Consequently, the Elector John George issued severe decrees against sending children to foreign schools (1564 and 1572).[3]
