nay, the necessity of changes and adaptations. In the first part of the Ratio, in the Rules for the Provincial Superior, it is expressed not less than six times. Thus one rule reads: "As according to the difference of country, time and persons, there may be a variety in the order of studies, in the hours assigned to them, in repetitions, disputations and other school exercises as well as in the vacations, if he [the Provincial] should think anything more conducive to the greater advancement of learning in his province, he shall inform the General in order that, after all, special regulations be made for all the particular needs; these regulations should, however, agree as closely as possible with our general plan of studies."[1] This is evidently a most important regulation, proving that the arrangement of studies is practically committed to the Provincial Superior. A distinguished commentator on the Institute of the Society, in a recent work, could write: "We do not deny that in their methods of teaching, the members of the Order differ in many points from the Ratio Studiorum as we have explained it. It cannot be otherwise, since in the various provinces, owing to different conditions, it is necessary to make different regulations, without interfering with the general principles on which the Institute rests. We have already mentioned that St. Ignatius not only permitted but ordered various regulations to be made, according to the various conditions of time and place. This is much more necessary in our days, when so many educational schemes, good ones and bad ones, have been advanced. The Society, far from considering her own system absolutely perfect and unalterable, on the con-
- ↑ Rules of the Provincial, 39.
