and private academies, or of the great multitude of private tutors who keep boarding houses or 'coach' pupils in their own houses? Not a twentieth of them have received any training whatever, or have the smallest idea that anything beyond a certain amount of scholarship and a certain power of commanding attention is required for teaching young people." The writer then states what he thinks is needed: "It is teachers of average ability instructing pupils of average industry, not individually, but in classes, who specially need training – not of necessity in training colleges, but through close attention at lessons given by masters of tried experience."[1]
This is exactly the idea of the Ratio Studiorum. The aim is to provide teachers, who are "men of intelligence and self-sacrifice, who possess, besides an excellent general culture, a good knowledge of their subject, and who are trained through close attendance, by masters of tried experience." Before attempting to prove this from the Constitutions of the Society and the Ratio Studiorum, we beg to make one remark. The Society does not undervalue scholarship, but, on the contrary, appreciates it highly and wishes always a considerable number of her members to possess it to an eminent degree. This is proved beyond doubt by the list of distinguished Jesuit writers given in two preceding chapters (V and VII). The Society recognizes also the value of university studies. We have quoted previously the decree of the 23rd General Congregation of the Order (1883, Decretum XXI): "It is
- ↑ The Nineteenth Century, October 1900. Italics ours. – As early as 1880 Father Pachtler had enunciated, almost literally, the same principles, in the Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, vol. XIX, p. 167.
