credible... Under such conditions one is not surprised to learn that the Congregations supply one-fourth of the pupils of the famous École Polytechnique, one-third of the students of Saint-Cyr, and one-half of the graduates of the Naval School. The religious communities have fairly won these triumphs by dint of hard work under conditions laid down by their enemies and applied by their opponents."
Twenty years ago the London Times had made a statement to the same effect, when Ferry tried to suppress the Jesuit schools in France. "We should have liked to see a frank admission on the part of prominent members of the Left, of the real causes of the success of the ecclesiastical schools. It is no use of putting it down to wiles and artifices of any kind. The perversity, or bad taste, or stupidity of the multitude will not explain it. The simple truth seems to be that the schools of the Jesuits and other religious bodies are better in many respects than their competitors. They satisfy parents and boys more than the Lycées do. The traditional skill in teaching of the Jesuits is not extinct. They are, as a rule, at more pains than lay professors, with many interests to occupy them, to know and study the nature of their pupils. It is their habit to pay attention to the morals as well as the intellectual training of the lads committed to their charge."[1] Such admissions, coming from such sources, speak volumes for the schools of the religious and of the Jesuits in particular.
These are a few facts about the results obtained by Jesuit colleges in recent years. As they concern colleges in various countries over the globe, directed
- ↑ London Times, July 8, 1879, p. 9.
