the contrary, they were in several respects held up as an example to the State schools, even by distinguished adherents of the latter. Such results were naturally deemed highly unsatisfactory by the anti-religious party, and accordingly for the time being the contemplated legislation was shelved. When M. Waldeck-Rousseau undertook it and enlarged it, he was careful to avoid anything so dangerous to his designs as another judicial inquiry into the facts.[1] Now, if any proofs could have been found showing the inefficiency of the Jesuit schools, it is certain that M. Waldeck-Rousseau would have made the best of such evidence.
The fact that he says nothing of it, is a sure sign that no such proofs are procurable even by the minutest examinations. Hence it follows that the Jesuit schools were, at the very least, as efficient as the State schools.
Instead of proofs, such hollow and absurd declarations were made: "Religious possess an independence which gradually will lead to the usurpation of all authority. They dare even the dignitaries of the Church. The education which they give separates a part of youth from the rest, and thus the moral unity of the country is rent."[2] The question ought to have been: "Are the youths, educated by religious, by Jesuits, less instructed, less moral, less patriotic?" To this question the answer has been given decidedly in the negative. We shall have occasion to speak of the patriotism of French Jesuit pupils; their morality has been most favorably compared to that of pupils of other schools – whereas in M. Ribot's report a dis-
