who were attached to the university; at their houses, however, special exercises were given and disputations held for fourteen days. Strict examinations were required before any one could be admitted to a higher class, or to a particular course of lectures on any science. All the regulations were followed by such great results that, according to Erasmus, Alcala was especially distinguished by its able philologists.[1] – The most splendid production of the philological and biblical activity of this university is the celebrated Complutensian Polyglot of the Bible. In 1526 Ignatius of Loyola, the future founder of the Society of Jesus, attended the University of Alcala; in 1527 we find him in Salamanca.
In connection with Alcala we must mention the greatest school of the Netherlands, the University of Louvain. Especially distinguished was its Collegium Trilingue, founded in 1516 by Busleiden, the friend of Erasmus and Thomas More. Busleiden had visited Alcala and wished to have in Louvain a college like that of the "Three Languages" at Alcala for the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The famous universities of Alcala, Salamanca, Paris, and Louvain furnish the connecting link between the educational system of the Jesuits and that previous to the foundation of the Society. But the great University of Paris was really the Alma Mater of St. Ignatius of Loyola. There also he won his first companions, chief among them Peter Faber, and St. Francis Xavier. In 1529 and 1530 Ignatius visited the Netherlands. During its infancy several distinguished members of the Order were scholars from that country, as Peter Canisius, Francis
- ↑ Epist. 755. (Hefele, l. c., p. 122.)
