Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/498

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478
JESUIT EDUCATION

a few remarks of the teacher, pointing to the solution of the difficulty. Above all, too much time was wasted unprofitably by thumbing the dictionary. No wonder that at length serious complaints were made. Besides the six hours spent in class, the average student had to devote at least four hours to hard home work, if he wanted to do all his tasks conscientiously.

Of late years there is a decided change of opinion among educators, and this change is, to a great extent, a return to principles which were always followed in the Jesuit system. Thus writes Professor Schiller, Director of the Pedagogical Seminary in Giessen, one of the most celebrated German educators: "In the middle classes the preparation of the new translation is to be done in class, and even in the higher grades this can be done usefully." Further, "the more difficult passages, and those which contain many unknown words, should be explained beforehand."[1] In general "new material is added only in class; the object of home work is to strengthen, practise and apply, what has been given by the class instruction."[2] The new Prussian School Order of 1901 has laid down the general rule, that "directions for the preparation of new and difficult passages are to be given in all classes; even in the higher grades the preparation of a new author is, for some time, to be done entirely in class."[3] Is not this a striking justification of the wise conservatism of the Jesuit system? After a cen-

  1. Schiller, Handbuch der praktischen Pädagogik für höhere Lehranstalten, Leipzig, Reisland (3rd edition 1894), pp. 456 and 476.
  2. Ibid., pp. 42 and 152; see also Willmann, Didaktik vol. II, p. 391.
  3. Lehrpläne und Lehraufgaben, pp. 24, 25, 32, 34.