Chapter V (2)

It may be well to quote what the historian of the University of Paris has to say about the educational labors of the Society in France up to the time of its suppression: “If one rises above prejudices and narrow professional jealousies, how can one deny the eminent services which the Society rendered to youth and the family, from its reestablishment under Henry IV.? Those of its enemies who want to be impartial and sincere admit that its colleges were well conducted, that the discipline was at once firm and mild, strict and paternal; that the scholastic routine was improved by wise innovations, cleverly adapted to the progress in manners and social demands; that the teachers were unassuming, devoted to their work, well instructed, and for the greater part masters in the art of elevating youth; some were perfect humanists, others, scientists of the first rank, so regular in their lives that never has any reproach of misdemeanor been uttered against them. Should one say that, in spite of showy appearances, the education given by the Jesuits lacked solidity, that they too often substituted frivolous practices or worldly exercises for serious work,--a charge frequently made by the University--the Jesuits could answer by pointing to their pupils who held honorable positions in the domain of science and literature, at the court and in the armies, in the ranks of the _bourgeoisie_ and among the nobility.... As instructors of youth, the Jesuits were above reproach, and more worthy of recommendation than of persecution.... We do not inquire whether in other rôles played by the disciples of St. Ignatius, they did not allow themselves to be carried away to excesses of pride, ambition, and intolerance, which necessarily brought upon them cruel retaliation; in connection with our subject, suffice it to state that in the field of studies and public education, their activity was, in general, beneficial. The inexorable sentence which suddenly destroyed their colleges is explained, from the historical point of view, by the prejudices and the hatred existing against the Society. But after having related the biased acclamations of contemporaries, must this sentence, so sadly renowned, be confirmed by the equitable judgment of history? We think not; for it is against truth and justice in many regards, and, as the events that followed have proved, it served neither the Church, nor the State, nor even the University, in spite of the hopes which the latter had based on the ruin of its adversaries.”[372] The author, in the chapter following, then describes the fatal consequences for education in France, resulting from the destruction of the Society.

This much is certain that it was not its inability, but, on the contrary, its great success for which the Society was doomed by the Catos of the eighteenth century, whose _ceterum censeo_ was that the hated Order was to be destroyed. What the Jesuits had been doing for education and learning became apparent after the destruction of their Order, and it was openly declared by many that the ruin of the Society was followed by a fatal decline of learning among the Catholics. The Bishops of France represented to the King, that “the dispersion of the Jesuits had left a lamentable void in the functions of the sacred ministry and the education of youth, to which they consecrated their talents and their labors.”[373] In 1803 Abbé Emery wrote: “The Jesuits have been expelled, their system of teaching has been rejected. But what substitutes for them have we discovered, and in what have the new theories resulted? Are the youth better instructed, or their morals purer? Their presumptuous ignorance and depravity force us to sigh for the old masters and the old ways.”[374]

About the same time Chateaubriand in his famous work, _The Genius of Christianity_, exclaimed: “In the destruction of the Jesuits learned Europe has suffered an irreparable loss. Since that unhappy event education has never been in a state of prosperity.” And in his _Mélanges_ he expresses himself to the same effect: “The Jesuits maintained and were increasing their reputation to the last moment of their existence. Their destruction has inflicted a deadly wound on education and letters: as to this, at the present time, there is no diversity of opinion.” And even Theiner does not hesitate to say that “the wound inflicted on education was incurable.”[375] In Lord Stanhope’s conversation with the great Duke of Wellington we find a striking passage on the same subject. Speaking at Walmer in October 1833, the Duke said to Lord Mahon: “On the whole I think it is very doubtful whether, since the suppression of the Jesuits, the system of education has been as good, or whether as remarkable men have appeared. I am quite sure that they have not in the south of Europe. It was a great mistake.”[376] In Treves the Jesuits possessed, besides the novitiate and the university, a flourishing college. When the news of the suppression of the Society arrived, the Archbishop Elector, Clement Wenceslaus of Poland, is said to have exclaimed: “_Cecidit corona capitis nostri_”--“The crown of our head is fallen;”[377] and, as the historian of the Royal Gymnasium of Treves adds, his outcry of sorrow was justified. A few years after the Jesuits had left the college, the pernicious leaven of French infidelity had permeated the faculty and was undermining the faith of the young.

And such was the case everywhere. German scepticism, French atheism, Jansenism, and Josephism began to reign supreme. Let us add here that the Protestant cause was never strengthened by any persecution of the Society; the only gainer was always infidelity. The statement of Mr. Browning, that the governments on the whole have done well to suppress the Jesuit colleges,[378] is proved utterly false by history. At the same time it advocates an intolerable state absolutism. If parents wish to send their children to the schools of the Jesuits, and of religious in general, it is a violation of parental rights, and an infringement of religious and political liberty, to make the attainment of such wishes impossible. In the light of this consideration, the legislation of M. Waldeck-Rousseau, and the recent proceedings against the teaching congregations in France must appear to all fair-minded men as tyranny and a new “reign of terror”.

To all students of history who are not blinded by fanatical hatred, the downfall of such a society of men who had devoted their lives to the propagation of religion and the advancement of science, must appear most pathetic. Such it appeared to the atheist astronomer Lalande. “The mention of a Jesuit,” he writes, “awakens all the feelings of my heart, my mind and my gratitude. It harrows all my sore feelings at the blindness of the ministers of 1762. Mankind has irretrievably lost, and will never recover, that precious and surprising union of twenty-two thousand individuals, devoted incessantly and disinterestedly to the functions of teaching, preaching, missions, to duties most serviceable and dearest to humanity. Retirement, frugality, and the renunciation of pleasure, constituted in that Society the most harmonious concord of science and virtue. I had personal knowledge of them: they were an assemblage of heroes for religion and humanity.”[379]

We close this chapter with the following sympathetic lines of a recent writer: “The rise of the Jesuits had been astonishing. Their fall was august. Annihilation could not shake their constancy. No tempests of misfortune could attaint their magnificent obedience. Defamation, incarceration, banishment, starvation, death, unthankfulness, fell upon them, and could not alter, and could not dismay. To the cabals of courtiers and the frenzy of kings, to the laugh of triumphing harlots, and the rebuke of solemn hypocrites, to the loud-voiced joy of the heretic and the unbeliever, to the poisonous sneer of banded sectaries, exulting in their secret confederation, to the gibes of traitors, to the burning sympathies of unpurchased and unpurchasable multitudes, the only response of the Jesuits was superb and indomitable duty. Girt round by cruelty and frivolity, more cruel still; as in the centre of a vast amphitheatre of the antique which they had taught so well, they remained as high resolved, as unflinching as Sebastian before the archers of the Palatine, or the virgin Blandina amid the beasts at Lyons. It was hardly a marvel that the victorious monarch of Prussia, outside the Church though he was, but accustomed to see men die at the call of honor and discipline, half owned a thrill of warrior emotion, and paid a captain’s salutation, to that infrangible, that devoted army. _The Jesuits were not only the ablest of Renaissance schoolmasters_, they were great priests, great missionaries, great civilizers, great practicians of the supreme art of persuading and leading men. And the sentence of destruction smote them in the midst of their activity, in a hundred regions where they had become indispensable or almost impossible to replace.... Never was such a famous company of scholars in all the records of former civilizations, deep-read in philosophies; famous for sacred eloquence; masters of languages, editors of the lore of antiquity, of the writers of Byzantium, of the obscure dialects of Malaysia and the Upper Amazon; historians, philologists, restorers of chronology.... To gain the lying promise of a lying peace, they were demanded as a holocaust to the licentious puppets on the thrones of the Bourbons, to the dark powers behind the veils of the lodge. And their loss to civilization, their loss to France, was not to be computed even by the largest enumeration of what they had done, and what they were capable of doing. The Christendom to which they had become so necessary, and which in an hour was forced to do without them, was yet to learn the unspeakable significance of such a deprivation. In proportion to the services of the Jesuits was the void of their disappearance, the calamity of their fall. When main pillars of an edifice are shattered, more may be shattered than the pillars alone.”[380]

FOOTNOTES:

[279] See Hughes, _Loyola_, pp. 69-77; and especially Hamy, S. J., _Documents pour servir à l’histoire des domiciles de la Compagnie de Jésus_, Paris, Alphonse Picard.

[280] Du Lac, _Jésuites_, p. 297.

[281] _Advancement of Learning_, book 1.

[282] _History of the United States_, vol. III, page 120 (18th edition, Boston 1864).

[283] _History of the Papacy_, vol. I, book V, sect. 8 (Ed. London 1896, p. 416).

[284] Döllinger, _Die Reformation_, vol. I, p. 447 (note 55).

[285] Döllinger, _l. c._, p. 543.

[286] _Ib._, pp. 544-545.

[287] Further testimonies see Janssen, vol. IV (16th ed.), pp. 473-476; vol. VII, pp. 80-82.

[288] Janssen, vol. VIII, p. 650.

[289] _Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus_, par Carlos Sommervogel. Brussels, 1890-1900. On the writers of the old Society see Crétineau-Joly, _Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus_, vol. IV, ch. IV (3rd ed., pp. 214-296).

[290] Huber, _Der Jesuiten-Orden_, pp. 418-420.

[291] _La destruction des Jésuites_, p. 43; quoted by De Badts de Cugnac, _Les Jésuites et l’éducation_, p. 9.

[292] _Lectures on the Science of Language_ (6th ed. 1871), vol. I, p. 157, note 40.

[293] _Ib._, pp. 154-157.

[294] _Ib._, p. 174.

[295] _Ib._, p. 174.

[296] Max Müller, _l. c._, p. 175. _Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes_, XV, 1901, pp. 313-320. Father Roth’s grammar was extant in the Roman College, when Hervas wrote his _Catalogue_.

[297] Max Müller, _l. c._, p. 179.

[298] _Ib._, p. 183.

[299] Dahlmann, _Die Sprachkunde und die Missionen_ (Herder, 1891), p. 19.

[300] Dahlmann, _l. c._, pp. 12-15.

[301] Truebner’s _American and Oriental Literary Record_, London 1872, p. 258. (Dahlmann, _l. c._, p. 15.)

[302] Dahlmann, _l. c._, p. 27.

[303] _Mélanges Asiatiques_, vol. II, p. 11. (Dahlmann, _l. c._, p. 28.)

[304] Dahlmann, _l. c._, pp. 40-41.

[305] _Ib._, page 42.

[306] _Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, XXXII, p. 604. (Dahlmann, _l. c._, p. 45.)

[307] Neumann, quoted by Dahlmann, p. 25; a specimen of such plagiarism which occurred quite recently, shall be mentioned in chapter VII.

[308] _Ib._, pp. 29-56.

[309] _Ib._, pp. 57-144.

[310] Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History of America_, Boston, 1889, vol. I, p. 279. See also pp. 262-264.

[311] Mulhall, _Between the Amazon and Andes_, London, 1881, p. 263. (Dahlmann, _l. c._, p. 85.)

[312] _A History of Mathematics_, by Florian Cajori, Professor in Colorado College. Macmillan, 1894, p. 155.

[313] Ball, _A Short Account of the History of Mathematics_, Macmillan, 1888, p. 275.

[314] Professor Halsted of the University of Texas published a translation of Saccheri’s work in the _American Mathematical Monthly_, and Professor Manning of Brown University states that he has taken Saccheri’s method of treatment as the basis of the first chapter of his recent book _Non-Euclidean Geometry_, Boston, Ginn and Company, 1901, p. 92. See also Cajori, _A History of Mathematics_, p. 303.--Hagen, _Synopsis der höheren Mathematik_, vol. II, p. 4.

[315] Meyer’s _Conversations-Lexicon_ (1895), vol. VII, p. 983.--Cajori, _A History of Physics_, Macmillan, 1899, pp. 88-89.

[316] _Ib._, vol. XV, p. 400; XVI, p. 475; and _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, vol. XXX, p. 718.

[317] _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, vol. XVI.

[318] Mädler, _Geschichte der Himmelskunde_.

[319] Ferdinand von Richthofen, _China_, Berlin, 1877.

[320] _China_, vol. I, pp. 650-692.--See Dahlmann, _l. c._, pp. 35-37.--Huonder, _Deutsche Jesuiten-Missionäre des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts_ (Herder, 1899), pp. 86-89.

[321] Chapter IV, pp. 127-129.

[322] _Narrative and Critical History of America_, vol. I, pp. 262-263. On the works of Father Clavigero on Mexico see _ib._, p. 158.

[323] _History of Pedagogy_, p. 144.

[324] Ideler, _Handbuch der Chronologie_, vol. II, pp. 602-604. See Weiss, _Weltgeschichte_ (2nd ed.), vol. V,II, pp. 544-552.

[325] It is a rather curious fact that some have blamed the Jesuit Superiors for allowing the publication of several of Father Hardouin’s works, curious I say, because it is said again and again that the severe censorship of the Order suppresses all original and independent works of its subjects. “Do what you may, we shall find fault with you,” seems to be the principle guiding some critics of the Order.

[326] Quoted by De Badts de Cugnac, _Les Jésuites et l’éducation_, p. 34.

[327] See Baumgartner, _Geschichte der Weltliteratur_, vol. IV, pp. 642-644.

[328] Of Herder’s works, the whole twelfth volume (Cotta, 1829), “Terpsichore”, is devoted to Balde.

[329] The extensive literature on Balde’s works is given by Baumgartner, _l. c._, p. 645. A most flattering estimate of this Jesuit is to be found in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopädie für protestantische Theologie, vol. II. (3. edition, 1897), article “Balde”, by List, where it is said that “one always likes to return to the perusal of the lyrics of this God-inspired man.”

[330] Saintsbury, _A History of Elizabethan Literature_, London, 1887, pp. 119-120.

[331] Compayré asserts: “The Jesuits have never written anything on the principles and objects of education. We must not demand of them an exposition of general views or a confession of their educational faith.” _L. c._, p. 142. Voltaire called Jouvancy’s _Method of Learning and Teaching_ the best work written since Quintilian’s famous _Institutes_.--Sacchini, Jouvancy and Kropf were published again in 1896, as vol. X of Herder’s _Bibliothek der katholischen Pädagogik_; selections from the works of Perpinian, Bonifacio and Possevin in 1901 as vol. XI.

[332] Quick, _Educational Reformers_, p. 40. That also in the nineteenth century the Jesuits were able to write good text-books may be seen from a statement of Thomas Arnold, son of Dr. Arnold of Rugby. During his sojourn in New Zealand, he used to borrow books from Frederick Weld, a Jesuit pupil of Fribourg (afterwards Governor of Western Australia.) “One of his text-books,” says Arnold, “which he had brought with him from Fribourg, was a history of philosophy by the Jesuit professor Freudenfelt [the name is Freudenfeld, died at Stonyhurst 1850]. This book seemed to me more genially and lucidly written than similar works that had been put in my hands at Oxford.” _Passages in a Wandering Life_, London, 1900, p. 99.

[333] See Professor Dr. Lotholz, _Pädagogik, der Neuzeit_, 1897, p. 323.

[334] On this subject see Baumgartner, _Geschichte der Weltliteratur_, vol. IV, pp. 623-637.

[335] Paulsen, _Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts_, vol. I, p. 358.

[336] Jouvancy, _l. c._, ch. II, art. II, §3, §6.--Masen, _Palaestra Eloquentiae Ligatae Dramatica_, Cologne, 1664.--Lang, _Dissertatio de Actione Scenica_ etc., Munich, 1727.

[337] That is, “the subject should be pious and edifying”, as the 13th _Rule of the Rector_ has it.

[338] Duhr, pp. 136 foll.--In France many dramas were given in French since 1679. Rochemonteix, _l. c._, vol. III, p. 189.--The report of 1832 says dramas should be in the vernacular. Pachtler, _op. cit._, vol. IV, p. 479.

[339] _History of Pedagogy_, vol. I, p. 272. (Janssen’s _History of the German People_, vol. VII, p. 108.)

[340] _Ibid._, p. 113 sq.

[341] _Ibid._, p. 117.

[342] Janssen, vol. VII, pp. 120-121.

[343] Titles and programmes of dramas in French colleges by Rochemonteix, _l. c._, vol. III, pp. 189-195 and 215-353. The names of the best Jesuit dramatists are given by Baumgartner, _l. c._, vol. IV, pp. 627-637.--Janssen, _l. c._, pp. 130-134.

[344] _Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts_, vol. I, p. 418.

[345] Rochemonteix, _l. c._, pp. 96-99.

[346] Janssen, vol. VII, pp. 128-129.

[347] K. Trautmann, _Ober-Ammergau und sein Passionsspiel_ (1890). “This play is an offshoot of the Munich Jesuit drama”, p. 47.

[348] Janssen, vol. VII, p. 133.

[349] Janssen, vol. VII, p. 125.

[350] Quoted by Janssen, vol. VII, pp. 120-121.

[351] Janssen, vol. VII, p. 133.

[352] Goethe writes: “This public performance has convinced me anew of the cleverness of the Jesuits. They rejected nothing that could be of any conceivable service to them, and knew how to wield their instruments with devotion and dexterity. This is not cleverness of the merely abstract order: it is a real fruition of the thing itself, an absorbing interest, which springs from the practical use of life. Just as this great spiritual society has its organ builders, its sculptors, and its gilders, so there seem to be some who, by nature and inclination, take to the drama; and as their churches are distinguished by a pleasing pomp, so these prudent men have seized on the sensibility of the world by a decent theatre.” _Italienische Reise_ (Goethe’s Werke, Cotta’s edition, 1840, vol. XXIII, pp. 3-4).

[353] Many more are commemorated by Crétineau-Joly, _l. c._, vol. IV, ch. III.

[354] See particularly the series of articles by the Rev. Sydney Smith, in the _Month_ (London), 1902.

[355] Letter of August 4, 1773, in the Royal Archives at Munich.

[356] _Geschichte des Pontificats Clemens XIV._, vol. I, p. 3.

[357] So Körner in his _History of Pedagogy_.--See also the _Open Court_, Chicago, January 1902, p. 21 foll.

[358] Alzog, _Church History_, vol. III, p. 566.

[359] _Ibid._, p. 570.

[360] Schoell, _Cours d’histoire des États européens_, vol. XXXXIV, p. 83.

[361] See documents given by Zalenski, _Les Jésuites de la Russie-Blanche_, vol. I, livre II, ch. IV, “Frédéric II. et les Jésuites.” Frederick strictly forbade the Bishops of his kingdom to promulgate the Papal Brief of suppression.

[362] Maynard, _The Study and Teaching of the Society of Jesus_, p. 246.

[363] _Lettre à Voltaire_, 7. Juillet, 1770. _Oeuvres de Voltaire_, tom. XII.

[364] See Zalenski, _l. c._, pp. 239-429.

[365] Maynard, _l. c._, p. 240.

[366] _History of the Pontificate of Clement XIV._

[367] Most flattering testimonies as to the educational success of the Jesuits in Russia and Galicia, at the time of the suppression, are given by Zalenski, _Les Jésuites de la Russie Blanche_, Paris 1886.

[368] _Bibliogr. Astron._, 1792, p. 722; see Maynard, p. 205.--For many decades it was suspected that Father Hell had tampered with the figures of his observations after others had been published, so as to make his square with the rest. In the _Atlantic Monthly_, Nov. 1900, Professor Simon Newcomb, of the Washington Naval Observatory, completely exonerates Father Hell from this malicious charge. The distinguished American Astronomer, who professes in his article a personal affection for the Jesuit scientist, has examined the manuscripts of Father Hell, in Vienna, and found that the accusation was groundless, and based on the assertion of a man whose sight was defective. Professor Newcomb further affirms that Father Hell’s observations gave figures somewhat different from those of other astronomers, but that recent discoveries have proved the Jesuit’s observations to have been the more correct ones.

[369] _Histoire des Mathématiques_, par J. F. Montucla, tome IV, achevé et publié par Jérôme de la Lande, Paris, 1802, pp. 347 foll.

[370] _Bibliotheca Mathematica, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der mathematischen Wissenschaften_, 3. Folge, 3. Band, 2. Heft, 1902 (Leipzig, Teubner), pp. 208-225.

[371] De Badts de Cugnac, _Les Jésuites et l’éducation_, p. 11.

[372] Jourdain, _Histoire de l’Université de Paris_, vol. II, pp. 298-300.

[373] Abbé Maynard, _l. c._, p. 237.

[374] _Pensées de Leibnitz_, p. 429. (Maynard, _l. c._, p. 238.)

[375] Maynard, _l. c._, p. 242.

[376] _Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington_, by the Earl of Stanhope, London, Murray, 1888, p. 42.

[377] _Historisches Jahrbuch_, Munich 1885, vol. VI, p. 420.

[378] _Encyclopedia Britannica_, article “Education”.

[379] Quoted in the _Annales Philosophiques, Morales, et Littéraires_, by M. de Boulogne, vol. I, p. 221.

[380] The London _Tablet_, Dec. 7, 1901, p. 884.