Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/245

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JESUIT EDUCATION IN THE 19TH CENTURY.
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ten years, only two or three graduates of Boston College entered the Law School. The facts in the case, therefore, do not bear out President Eliot's statement that "a considerable number of Boston College graduates have been at the L,aw School and have made poor records." President Eliot has at several times given as his reason for the rejection of Boston College and Holy Cross, that their students were inferior. This charge has been answered by Father Brosnahan in his paper on The Relative Merits of Courses in Catholic and non-Catholic Colleges for the Baccalaureate, read before the conference of Catholic Colleges April 1901 at Chicago.[1] From the preceding data we may certainly conclude that so far the "inferiority" of Jesuit schools has not yet been proved, and that the facts do not warrant the assertions about the "inefficiency of the Jesuit system for modern times."

In connection with the educational labors of the Jesuits in the nineteenth century, we must not fail to mention briefly their literary and scientific work during that period. There are several reasons for treating of this in a work on Jesuit education. First, because the Jesuit scholars are a product of the Jesuit system; secondly, because some of them were teachers in colleges during the greater part of their lives, and all for at least five or six years; thirdly, because their case proves how highly the Society values, and how freely it cultivates the various departments of science. It is easy to understand that the frequent persecutions and expulsions from many countries are most injurious and

  1. This paper has been published separately with the title The Courses leading to the Baccalaureate in Harvard and Boston Colleges.