are corrected, when they have already adopted a fixed method of teaching; and what continual disagreement ensues on that score with the Prefect of Studies. To obviate this evil, in the case of our professors, let the Prefect in the chief college, whence our professors of Humanities and Grammar are usually taken, remind the Rector and Provincial, about three months before the next scholastic year begins, that, if the Province needs new professors for the following term, they should select some one eminently versed in the art of managing classes, whether he be at the time actually a professor or a student of theology or philosophy; and to him the future masters are to go daily for an hour,[1] to be prepared by him for their new ministry, giving prelections in turn, writing, dictating, correcting, and discharging the other duties of a good teacher."[2] Professor Ziegler, commenting on this regulation, says: "To the Jesuits must be given the credit of first having done something for the pedagogical preparation of the future teachers in higher schools; and of having paved the way for the Probe- und Seminarjahr of our days."[3]
Another regulation laid down in the Ratio of 1599, as a duty of the Provincial,[4] is of the greatest importance: "In order to preserve the knowledge of classical literature, and to keep up a Seminary of teachers, he shall try to have in his Province at least two or
