from the study of Jesuit education: "While it is impossible for lovers of truth and freedom to have any sympathy with either the aim or matter of Jesuit education, there is one point connected with it that well deserves our most serious consideration, and that is its success. This was due to three causes, first, to the single-minded devotion of the members of the Society; second, to their clear insight into the needs of their times; third, to the completeness with which they systematized their entire course, in view of a simple, well-defined aim. In all these matters we can well afford to imitate them. Indeed, the education of the present day demands just the three conditions which they realized."[1]
For many the study of one of the old systems may be the greatest novelty. So much is said now-a-days about the new pedagogy and modern psychology, that it might appear as if the past had been utterly ignorant of the true nature of the child and of the rational methods of education. Still the writer hopes to establish that, what the ablest educators, even of our own age, have pronounced essential for the training of the young, is contained in the educational system of the Jesuits. It is not claimed that this system is perfect. No educational system can be found which, both in plan and execution, is without defects. The Society of Jesus has never denied the possibility and necessity of improvements in its educational system; nor has it ever claimed that the Ratio Studiorum, in every detail was to be applied to all countries and to all ages. Changes were made in the course of time;
- ↑ A History of Education (New York, Scribner's Sons, 1900), p. 187.
