Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/283

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OPPOSITION TO JESUIT EDUCATION.
263

and her conduct: 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's'."[1]

In recent years the attacks on the educational system of the Jesuits chiefly insist on the fact that it is "antiquated and unable to cope with modern conditions." We quoted the words[2] of Mr. Browning, that "little is to be hoped for the Jesuits in the improvement of education at present, whatever may have been their services in the past." A similar verdict is passed by Buckle. "The Jesuits, for at least fifty years after their institution, rendered immense service to civilization, partly by organizing a system of education far superior to any yet seen in Europe. In no university could there be found a scheme of instruction so comprehensive as theirs, and certainly nowhere was there displayed such skill in the management of youth, or such insight into the general operations of the human mind... The Society was, during a considerable period, the steady friend of science, as well as of literature, and allowed its members a freedom and a boldness of speculation which had never been permitted by any monastic order. As, however, civilization advanced, the Jesuits began to lose ground, and this not so much from their own decay as from a change in the spirit of those who surrounded them. An institution admirably adapted to an early form of society was ill suited to the same society in its mature state."[3] We think this charge has been sufficiently refuted by what was said in the preceding chapter.

  1. L'Univers, Paris, Jan. 20, 1879. See De Badts de Cugnac, L'expulsion des Jésuites, p. 51.
  2. Page 16.
  3. History of Civilization in England, vol. I, chapter XVI.