mirers of the "practical" studies, above all of the natural sciences, decry the classical studies as useless, because they do not teach the rising generation how to build bridges or war vessels, how to make aniline colors, or how to utilize best the oil fields of Texas, or the Western prairies. These men do not appreciate classical studies because, to use the words of Brownson, they cannot reduce them immediately to any corresponding value in United States currency. They would rather fill their pockets with Attic oboli and drachmae than their brains with Attic thought. In a word, to them education is only the wild race after the hen that lays the golden eggs. All other requirements they count for nothing. Such views are based on an utter misconception of the intellectual scope of education, and on sheer ignorance of the educational value of the classics. This point we endeavor to illustrate in the present chapter.
The Society of Jesus has always valued classical studies most highly. In the preface to his Ratio Discendi et Docendi, Father Jouvancy says: "Any one acquainted with the Society of Jesus knows how highly she always esteemed the classical studies." Of late the Society has even been censured for clinging tenaciously to them, as to a venerable, but now out-of-date, curriculum. Be it remarked from the very outset, that the Society upholds the classical curriculum not because this is the old traditional system, but because it has so far proved the best means of training the mind, which is the one great end of education. The various branches of studies are the means to this end. Should other means prove better than the classical languages, the Jesuits would not
