2. The middle class in grammar; or grammar proper.

3. The higher class in grammar; or syntax.

4. The Humanities.

5. Rhetoric.

These names lead us to infer at the outset a general resemblance to the course pursued at Sturm's gymnasium, where grammar was the beginning, and rhetoric the end and aim of all education, and when the art of speaking Latin was the summit of all culture. Says the composer of "The Educational System of the Jesuits :" "not a mere knowledge of syntax, but a practical mastery of it, in other words, readiness and skill both in speaking and in writing; this is the aim of grammar." Pupils are "to make a living language of the Latin, hence they should be taught on the principle of the maxim 'lege, scribe, loquere.'" "Those alone possess a perfect knowledge of a language, who not only read it, but who can likewise speak it and write it. And the course of study adopted by the Society of Jesus is designed to secure this result. The pupils of the Jesuits are enabled not only to read and write Latin, but really to speak it."

As the Jesuits and Sturm appear thus to have coincided in the pursuit of a common aim, it is but natural to suppose that their methods of indoctrinating their scholars with Latinity would have been the same or similar. To say nothing of the study of grammar, we find in both instances an absolute sacrifice of every thing to the single object of storing the mind with a multitude of Latin words and phrases. The "System" recommends the use of books in which such phrases are collected and methodically arranged; such a book is the "Latin-German Promptuarium of Father Wolfgang Schoensleder." Another, recommended for the three lower classes, is called "Amalthea;" it is divided into six parts, each part containing a great variety of idiomatic forms and phrases. Part 6, for example, treats of the arts; chapter 1, of medicine, 2, of surgery, 3, of arithmetic, 6, of printing, etc. "Through the number and variety of phrases thus rendered familiar to the mind," it is said, "style will assume color, grace and dignity."

For the sake of a pure Latinity, the Jesuits crushed out the vernacular, precisely as did Trotzendorf and Sturm. "The exercise of speaking Latin must be unintermitted and absolute, to the entire exclusion of the vernacular in all matters pertaining to the school." This rule extended even to the lower classes in grammar; "the lowest it may be, being on some occasions excepted." In order to encourage excellence in Latin speech, "the teacher should repeatedly appeal to the stately elegance of the language, and on the other hand should con

tinually dwell upon the disgrace which is sure to overtake pupils in Latinity if they can not carry on a conversation in Latin." The negligent must be reprimanded, "and those who let fall a word in the vernacular must be compelled to wear some mark of disgrace, and in addition, to suffer a light chastisement, unless they can shift this twofold burden, on the same day, upon the shoulders of some fellowpupil, whom either in school or in the street they shall overhear talking German, or whom they can convict of this offense by at least one credible witness." "This noble emulation should prevail as well among pupils of the same school as between one school and another." The noble emulation here insisted on I shall advert to again, further on.

*

Of the study of the classics the "Educational System" says: "For us the pagan writers of classical antiquity can have but a subordinate aim, namely, the formation of style. * * By means of the classics we are to become familiar with the language of the Greeks, but especially with that of the Romans, and thus to form our style; further than this we can not go." As the Jesuits thus aimed only at the cultivation of style in reading the classics, they, like Sturm, prized Cicero above all the rest. On this point hear the "Educational System :" "Style should be drawn almost exclusively from Cicero, although the most approved of the historians need not on that account be overlooked." And again; "What model is to be imitated and after what pattern we should fashion our style is briefly comprehended in the words of the rule, 'imitate Cicero.' As in the study of theology we follow the divine Thomas (Aquinas,) and in philosophy, Aristotle, so in the humanities Cicero must be regarded as our peculiar and preeminent leader. For he has been crowned with the palm of superior praise by the common consent of the world. But some, misguided by a willful and self-formed taste, have gone astray, preferring a style totally different from that of Cicero ; such an erratic course is quite at variance with the genius of our institutions and hostile to that spirit of prompt obedience," etc. "An abrupt and clipped style was discountenanced by the venerable precepts of those of our forefathers who gave their particular attention to this subject." Since Cicero was the highest model for imitation, he was read by all the classes; the three lower classes especially, were drilled in the "Familiar Letters," as they are styled in the "System."

Both in conversation and in writing, the scholars are to use no expression "which they can not justify by the authority or example of some approved writer." This precept, taken in connection with the

foregoing quotations, proves that the pupils of the Jesuits were required to reproduce, in speaking and in writing, almost universally, the phraseology of Cicero, carefully culled out and stored in the memory. Latin poems were in like manner pieced together out of lines or expressions taken from Virgil. Latin dramas too were acted, not however, the old plays of Terence and Plautus, but such as were composed for the purpose. "For it is not proper in every act to introduce demons, heartless knaves, tipplers, gamblers, and profane jesters, nor ought dancing or the shifting shows of gliding specters and ghosts to be often brought upon the stage." "These plays, pure as may be their style, and well adapted as they are to impart finish and grace to the pupil's knowledge, nevertheless ought not to receive so much attention in our eagerness for the favor of the people, that we shall meanwhile, neglect the true interests of the school."

In one respect the Jesuits appear to have acted with more directness of purpose and practical good sense than did John Sturm, with his like-minded Protestant compeers; for the former knew why they wished to substitute Latin for the vernacular. The editor of the "Educational System" says to this point; "The schools of the Jesuits were so conducted throughout, as to bring youth completely under the dominion of the true church. To this end every regulation, from the least to the greatest has been uniformly directed." It was to serve the Romish hierarchy then, to further its schemes of universal aggrandizement by means of the powerful instrumentality of a common language, extending to all the nations of the world; it was, I repeat it, to serve this hierarchy, that the Jesuits banished the vernacular from their schools to make room for the Latin. With the aid of this language they hoped measurably to overcome every obstacle, that deep-seated national prejudices should oppose to their onward career, and to build up a spiritual kingdom whose dominion should embrace the whole world. Already the church had her authorized Vulgate version of the Scriptures in Latin; already was her liturgy in Latin, so that in all Catholic churches founded anywhere in the world, the Roman Breviary was read, nor was any departure from its language in any case permitted.

The Jesuits taught Greek also. That scholars as well as teachers, were at least somewhat accomplished in this branch, is evident from the fact that they gloried in being able not only to speak Greek but to compose Greek poems. Frederick A. Wolf, the most eminent philologist of the present day is, like Luther and Ernesti, decidedly adverse to Greek composition. When, on the occasion of an examination for degrees, a Greek thesis was called for, he said, “among a

hundred school teachers and school directors selected from the whole of Germany, we shall not find ten who could write such a thesis with even ordinary accuracy." Speaking, again, of a similar occasion, when many of the examiners required skill and elegance in Latin composition of the pupils, he said: "Those who open their mouths the widest in these demands, can not themselves do what they require of others."

How eagerly would the editor of the "Educational System" seize upon these admissions of the great Protestant philologist as proof of his own repeated allegations. "It were a difficult task," he says, "to determine the precise position which the study of Latin occupies at the present day. The teachers of the language are themselves without a perfect knowledge of it, and how then can they impart what they do not possess? Verily, the Latin language has suffered a second death among us, and those old worthies, (the Jesuits,) who were gifted with the magical power to raise the dead, have all passed away. Boast not, O short-sighted present age, of thine erudition; blush rather on account of thy shallowness, and mourn over thy distance and estrangement from the spirit of the classics."

In another place he says: "Tell me not that you have mastered the Latin or the Greek languages, when you are unable to speak them. The Jesuits and their pupils were able both to speak these languages and to write them. Many, very many of them wrote hymns and odes, yea, epics in Latin and Greek, as none but a Latin or Greek poet could have done; so that their productions, if compared with the works of Greek and Roman poets, would not be found wanting. The libraries of the Society of Jesus contain works composed by Jesuits, such as speeches, histories, epic poems, (Christiads, for example,) both Latin and Greek, which bear the classical stamp, and whose authors rank, both in range and power of expression and in genuine artistic excellence, with Demosthenes and Cicero, with Thucydides, Livy or Tacitus, with Homer and Virgil." Truly, this advocate of the Jesuits, open his mouth wide as he may, to use Wolf's expression, can give us no stronger proof of his own utter lack of high classical culture, than by thus inviting all the world to seat themselves as disciples at the feet of the Jesuits, while he himself can not even write good German !

In addition to the languages I find but one other branch of instruction particularized, and that is given under the name of “erudition." What this comprehended we can only know approximately by a comparison of various passages in the "System." In one place we are told "that the pupils by diligence in writing will attain to those

honorary grades, whose names, to savor of erudition, have been derived from the civil or military polities of Greece or Rome." In another, it is enjoined, "in the interval between the examination and the distribution of prizes to employ the pupils in agreeable exercises, such as those which pertain to polymathy or philology, to arithmetic, to orthography, and to every species of erudition." Or, "at this time some questions in polymathy or in the higher erudition should be discussed; or again an exercise in arithmetic may be taken up, coinbined however, with an explanation of the principles involved in the exercise." Further on we find the following: "Erudition is to be gathered by the scholars from the history and the manners of nations, from the opinions of authors, and, in short, from the entire teachings of the school." "At the examinations, the scholars are to be called upon for specimens of the erudition previously laid before them, viz., for fables, historical incidents, antiquities, responses of oracles, sayings of wise men, examples of strategy, famous deeds, inventions of every sort, customs and institutions of various nations, eminent virtues," etc.

But the most varied array of topics comprehended in erudition is the following: "in the holidays, attention may be given to some of the less familiar subjects, as hieroglyphics, emblems, with questions bearing upon the art of poetry, (taken from the Poetics of Aristotle or of Father Jayi,) relating to the epigram, the epitaph, the ode, elegy, epic poetry, and tragedy; the Roman and Athenian senate, the art of war among the ancients, horticulture, dress, the banquet, the triumph, Sybils and other characters of a similar class: add to these, Pythagorean symbols, apothegms, proverbs, and parables, etc.; moreover, inscriptions on shields, temples, and monuments, gardens, statues and the like; also fables, Roman antiquities, remarkable events, oracles, military stratagems, brilliant achievements, descriptions," etc.

From the foregoing quotations, we leave the reader to form his own idea of the nature of this erudition. How much the Jesuits left untaught, we deem it hardly necessary to mention. Besides Latin, which occupied by far the largest share of the time devoted to study, they imparted a knowledge of Greek and of erudition. They likewise gave religious instruction, of which we shall speak further on. There was no place given to German, geography, mathematics, music, and the like; the narrowness of their curriculum even surpassed that of Sturm's. But, in this respect, their modern scheme of study, published in 1832, indicates progress. "The demands of the age," they say, "constrain us, in some points, yet without prejudice to the cause of sound learning, to depart from the usages of our fathers; and compliance with these demands is not only not forbidden, but it is rather