might be expected," writes Quick, "the Jesuits were to be very careful of the moral and religious training of their pupils. ... Sacchini writes in a very high tone on this subject. Perhaps he had read of Trotzendorf's address to a school."[1] In 1879 an anti-clerical paper wrote about the Belgian higher schools: "Could not our teachers do a little more for discipline? Could they not watch more diligently over the manners and morals of the students? How often do we hear people say: 'What, I send my son to the Athenées?'[2] God forbid! Fine manners he would learn there!' Now there is no reason why the young should acquire worse manners in the Athenées than in the Jesuit schools – on the contrary. However, in point of fact, only the Jesuits look after education, whereas our Athenées busy themselves only about instruction. I know full well that the education imparted by the clergy is bad, even dangerous. Our lay teachers should pay more attention to education, as it is exactly this training, however detestable, which brings to the men in the soutane the patronage of so many parents." M. Cottu, a bitter enemy of the Jesuits, had to acknowledge the same.[3]
- ↑ Educational Reformers (1890), page 47. – It is worth noting that Sacchini is supposed to have learned from Trotzendorf to esteem highly moral and religious training – by the way, Quick's edition of 1868 ascribes that address to Melanchthon! – Everything good in the Jesuit system must be traced to Protestant sources! As though Sacchini, in the teaching of the Bible and the most explicit principles of the Constitutions of his Order, had not better sources than in a school address of Melanchthon or Trotzendorf, of which he probably knew nothing!
- ↑ The public higher schools of Belgium.
- ↑ Journal de Gand and La Chronique, quoted by De Badts de Cugnac, Les Jésuites et l'éducation, p. 54.