Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/281

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OPPOSITION TO JESUIT EDUCATION.
261

terrible indictment, that in Jesuit schools "love of country was insidiously suppressed."[1] However, if such a calumny must deeply wound the hearts of all American Jesuits, they will know, too, that other Americans, and such whose words count a thousand times more than the uncritical assertions of certain writers, have thought and spoken differently on the influence of Jesuit education. On February 22, 1889, at the centennial celebration of Georgetown College, Mr. Cleveland, President of the United States, said among other things: "Georgetown College should be proud of the impress she has made upon the citizenship of our country. On her roll of graduates are found the names of many who have performed public duty better for her teaching, while her Alumni have swollen the ranks of those who, in private stations, have done their duty as American citizens intelligently and well. I cannot express my friendship for your college better than to wish for her in the future, as she has had in the past, an army of Alumni, learned, patriotic, and useful, cherishing the good of their country as an object of loftiest effort, and deeming their contributions to good citizenship a supremely worthy use of the education they have acquired within these walls."[2]

If the old saying holds: "Quails rex, tails grex," and vice versa, then we must conclude that the teachers themselves cannot be devoid of patriotism. Fortunately, we are not confined to this a priori argument. Numerous instances are on record that Jesuits, especially at the time of war. sacrificed themselves in the

  1. Painter, History of Education, p. 172.
  2. History of Georgetown College, p. 422.