are not writing a literary history of the Society, it is enough to have mentioned these few names. A host of other distinguished men, who flourished towards the end of the seventeenth century, may be found in Abbé Maynard's work. Thus the assertion that the Society had become useless to science and literature, is a pure calumny.
As groundless is the charge that the Jesuits had failed in their lofty mission with respect to teaching. We have heard what Frederick II. and Catharine II. thought of them. Most of the celebrated writers mentioned before were engaged as teachers in the collegiate or university establishments of the Order. A cloud of witnesses stands forth to testify that the work of education was carried on with unabated zeal and with great success, not only in languages and literature, but also in mathematics and sciences. Thus Deslandes, commissary of the navy at Brest, testified, in 1748, that the Jesuits had furnished the navy excellent professors of mathematics.[1]
It may be well to quote what the historian of the University of Paris has to say about the educational labors of the Society in France up to the time of its suppression: "If one rises above prejudices and narrow professional jealousies, how can one deny the eminent services which the Society rendered to youth and the family, from its reestablishment under Henry IV.? Those of its enemies who want to be impartial and sincere admit that its colleges were well conducted, that the discipline was at once firm and mild, strict and paternal; that the scholastic routine was improved by wise innovations, cleverly adapted
- ↑ De Badts de Cugnac, Les Jésuites et l'éducation, p. 11.
