nique of the drama was composed by Father Lang.[1] The Institute of the Society had taken precautions that the school dramas should neither interfere with the regular work, nor do the least harm to the morals of the pupils. The fifty-eighth rule of the Provincial reads: "He shall only rarely allow the performance of comedies and tragedies; they must be becoming[2] and written in Latin." The vast majority of plays were consequently given in Latin, – the language, in those times, understood by every man of culture. Many Protestant educators and preachers were altogether opposed to dramas in the vernacular "which, as they said, were good enough for the common people and apprentices, but unbecoming students." In Jesuit colleges plays were occasionally, and after 1700 more frequently, performed in the vernacular.[3] Of Latin plays a programme and synopsis in the vernacular was, at least in Germany, distributed amongst those who did not know Latin.
In many Protestant schools of this period, for instance in the celebrated schools of Sturm and Rollenhagen, and also in a few Catholic schools, the comedies of Plautus and Terence were exhibited, not, however, without strong opposition of earnest men, who rightly considered some of these plays as dangerous for
- ↑ Jouvancy, l. c., ch. II, art. II, §3, §6. – Masen, Palaestra Eloquentiae Ligatae Dramatica, Cologne, 1664. – Lang, Dissertatio de Actione Scenica etc., Munich, 1727.
- ↑ That is, "the subject should be pious and edifying", as the 13th Rule of the Rector has it.
- ↑ Duhr, pp. 136 foll. – In France many dramas were given in French since 1679. Rochemonteix, l. c., vol. III, p. 189. – The report of 1832 says dramas should be in the vernacular. Pachtler, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 479.
