information.[1] In the chapter on the Jesuits in particular, there are not many sentences which do not contain some misstatement. Whereas nearly all writers, even those most hostile to the Society, acknowledge at least a few good points in its educational system, Compayré cannot admit therein a single redeeming feature. The Jesuits are blamed alike in their failures and in their successes. It is sad to think that from such untrustworthy sources American teachers largely derive their information about the educational labors of the Jesuits and of Catholics in general. Can we wonder that so many prejudices prevail against Jesuit education, of which many know only an ugly caricature?
Indeed, lack of sufficient knowledge is at the root of most censures of the educational principles and methods of the Society. In nearly every case of adverse criticism, it is apparent that a scholarly examination of the official documents has been dis-
- ↑ Br. Azarias calls this work a "condensation of all virulence and hatred against everything Catholic, but ill concealed beneath a tone of philosophic moderation." American Ecclesiastical Review, 1890, p. 80. foll. – Another critic said recently of M. Compayré: "He misquotes and suppresses, blinded, I suppose, by a bad form of Anti-Jesuit disease. You can certainly learn from his book the fury of that malady. In France, one may fairly say, M. Compayré is recognized as meaning to attack the beliefs of Christian pupils, and as ranging himself essentially on the side of those who wish 'to eliminate the hypothesis of God' from the education of children." (This opinion was expressed in a resolution of five hundred teachers in a meeting at Bordeaux in 1901.) Mr. Stockley, of the University of New Brunswick, in the American Ecclesiastical Review, July 1902, p. 44. – See also the criticism of Father Poland, S. J., in the American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1902.
