Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/272

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252
JESUIT EDUCATION.

gogy, frightens the readers with a dreadful picture of the "dismal and perfidious colleges of the Jesuits, of these men of wickedness, with their dark, treacherous tendencies, so fatal to the souls of the young." Dr. Huber, the inveterate enemy of the Society, remarks on this charge: "Raumer condemns Jesuit education from the specifically 'confessional' [i. e. Protestant] point of view."[1] On the other hand, the accusations which Dr. Huber himself made against the Society, are not more justified, and they have been discredited by a leading Review in Germany: "The opinion of some 'Old-Catholic' scholars, that the education of the Jesuits is a sort of diabolical system, tending to enslave the conscience and suppress every free movement of the mind, can no longer be maintained."[2]

Mr. Painter's charges are among the worst and unfairest that have ever been hurled against Jesuit education; summing up his criticisms on the Jesuit system, he says, it is "based not upon a study of man, but on the interests of the order ... the principle of authority, suppressing all freedom and independence of thought, prevailed from beginning to end. Religious pride and intolerance were fostered. While our baser feelings were highly stimulated, the nobler side of our nature was wholly neglected. Love of country, fidelity to friends, nobleness of character, enthusiasm for beautiful ideals were insidiously suppressed."[3] These

  1. Der Jesuiten-Orden, p. 377.
  2. Jahresbericht für klassische Altertumswissenschaft, Berlin, 1891, p. 45 (quoted by Pachtler, l. c., vol. IV, p. VIII).
  3. History of Education, p. 172. – Similar opinions were expressed recently by Mr. Frank Hugh O'Donnell, in his book, The Ruin of Education in Ireland, London, 1902. He would advise the commission on Irish University Education