Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/669

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APPENDIX I.


Additions and Corrections.


Chapter I.

Observations on American Histories of Education.[1]

In the course of the present book we have frequently had occasion to point out that the histories of education by Painter, Seeley and Compayre are utterly untrustworthy in their account of the Jesuit system, and of Catholic education in general. It is natural to infer that in other respects they may be equally unreliable. Professor Cubberley, in his recent Syllabus of Lectures on the History of Education (New York, Macmillan, 1902), says, on page i, that the works of "Painter, Payne, and Seeley are very unsatisfactory, and are not referred to in the Syllabus." The same should have been done as regards Compayre; for his History of Pedagogy is as unsatisfactory as those mentioned before; it only assumes an air of impartiality, which makes it all the more insidious. (See the present book, pp. lo-n.) Some writers quote from the Ratio Studiorum, but the quotations are often mistranslated in such a manner that they are hardly recognizable when compared with the original. Setting aside the disastrous influence which antipathy and prejudice may have had on some writers, the following reasons may account for many errors. The Ratio Studiorum is in many respects a peculiar document,

  1. See also the interesting article: "The History of Educution. A Plea for the Study of Original Sources," by the Rev. W. Turner, D. D., in the new and promising Review of Catholic Pedagogy, January, 1903.

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