Chapter V. The Jesuit as an Educator.

Jesuit Education.

THERE are few subjects which command so much attention at the present day, as that of the education of the rising generation, and this is as it should be. The future of the nation depends on the education of the present, hence, any contribution towards the better understanding of methods of training for the young cannot fail to interest—we had almost said the parents of today, but the march of intellect has advanced so far that we might say the children of today. The Jesuits are the educators of the Roman Catholic Church par excellence. To have been educated by the Jesuits is to have a hallmark which passes in all Catholic circles as one of no ordinary value. And since so many of our politicians, and especially of our Press men, are educated by Jesuits, it is desirable to ascertain the nature and the value of the education which they impart, and what have been the results intellectually and morally of their method of education.

Before proceeding further with this important subject, it may be well to correct an erroneous impression which prevails extensively. Some persons suppose that the Jesuits are, somehow, different from other Roman Catholics. And if they are offered evidence of teaching which even the most indifferent cannot approve, they suppose that this teaching is something quite different from the authorised teaching of the Church of Rome. This misapprehension is serious in its consequences. The Jesuits are as much under the control of the Roman Catholic Church, as any other Roman Catholics, and they dare not, and do not, teach any theology, moral or dogmatic, which is not fully approved by their Church. The Roman Catholic Church, therefore, and the Pope, especially since the definition of his personal infallibility, is responsible for all that they teach, and for all that they do collectively. Any work published by a Jesuit must first obtain the approbation of his immediate superiors, it must then have the approbation of the General of the Order after it has been examined by the theologians of his immediate entourage, appointed for the purpose. Lastly, such a work must have the approbation of the Pope which is given, directly or indirectly, through the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition, which if it has not power to burn heretics at the present day, can, and does forbid the circulation of books which are not orthodox according to Rome. It is important that this point should be clearly understood so that there can be no mistake as to the authority when quotations are made from the works which the Jesuits use in their schools and colleges.

Jesuit School Books

There are three ways by which we can ascertain the kind of instruction which the Jesuits give to their pupils, and what kind of moral and intellectual training they receive. First, we can ascertain this from their published and authorised writings. However secret the Jesuits may have been in regard to their private affairs, it has not been possible for them to conceal their books of moral theology. As this chapter is concerned with the training of youth, we do not touch the question of dogmatic theology here. Next, we can judge of their educational methods from the narratives of reliable historians, and, indeed, from historians of their own Order. Lastly, we can avail ourselves of the published criticisms of Roman Catholics who have been educated by Jesuits, with out even referring to such Roman Catholics, or Jesuit students, as have left the Roman Catholic Church. Our statements will be taken principally from the published works of the late Rev. Lord. Petre, who lived and died a devoted Catholic, and from the remarkable narrative of M. Lucien Gleize, “Chez les Jesuites,” recently published in Paris, and from the narratives on this subject recently published in Germany by Count Paul von Hoensbreech. As these gentlemen are persons of well known social position, and of unquestionable integrity, the exact correspondence of their testimony gives it consider able weight.

M. Gleize tells us that he spent twelve years with the Jesuits, and was educated by them, hence, he had every opportunity of studying the system. In commencing his preface he says “Deja bien de livres furent ecrit pour ou contre les Jesuites, surtout contre. C’est livre n’est ecrit ni pour, mi contre, tl est ecrit sur les Jesuites.” (Already a lot of books were written for or against the Jesuits, especially against. This book is written neither for or against, it’s written about the Jesuits.)

The youth who is trained in the Jesuit college must necessarily be trained in the principles of his masters. He will learn what they can teach, and no more. He will believe what they say with the confiding innocence of youth, and with the additional confidence of the Roman Catholic in his appointed teachers. We have spoken in the preceding chapter of the spiritual exercises used as a means of forming character and deciding vocations. These exercises are intended for all conditions of men and women, and are used even for children in a modified form. But while the youth, who is so far advanced as to be allowed or invited to consider his vocation to the Order, may be given the exercises in private, the youth who is not destined for the religious state is not expected to meditate alone. Retreats are organised several times in the year for the students in general, and the exercises are preached to them with more or less eloquence by one of the fathers.

A Curious Alteration.

M. Gleize has given us very full information on this important subject. Before we give extracts from his work, it may be well, however, to note some apparently trifling, but nevertheless very important differences between the spiritual exercises as published in this country, and the spiritual exercises as published in France. There are no trifles in Jesuit programmes. In the English edition additional exercises are added in honour of the “Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God,” and in these new doctrines, such as that of the immaculate conception, unheard of in the time of Ignatius Loyola, are introduced. Surely there could not be a greater evidence of the changeable creed of Rome, if indeed the suppression of the Jesuits by one infallible Pope and their restoration by another is not sufficient to prove it. Another curious and significant alteration in the exercises is made in the edition used in England.

At page 267 of the latest English edition we find the following: “Satan with his weak, but obstinate character, may be compared, when he attacks us, to a woman daring to contend with her husband. Let her husband oppose her firmly” (in the French edition, which professes to be an exact translation of the original Spanish, the word used is “man,”) “she soon lays aside her warlike mood, and quickly leaves the field to him. On the contrary, let her see in him any timidity or inclination to fly or give way, she becomes audacious, insolent, cruel as a fury.” In the original there is not a word about a husband, the words used being “un homme,” (a man) but in either case it is a gratuitous insult to the female sex, and how can those who thus hold a wife up to scorn, and compare her to the devil, be fitted to form the characters of the future husbands of this or any country? And, indeed, it is in the formation of character that the Jesuit so specially fails. His pupils become a weak replica of himself. If they are not bound to the abject obedience of the Jesuit, they are taught that this abject obedience is the highest perfection, and they are compelled to an obedience which is degrading to their coming manhood. But on this and kindred subjects we give the evidence of those who speak from personal experience.

Another important authority on the subject of Jesuit training of the youth confided to their charge, is that of the late Rev. Lord Petre. He published four pamphlets in the years 1877 and 1878. The value and importance of these documents cannot be over estimated, first, because of Lord Petre’s social position, next, because of the value of any information he gives, as he has made a speciality of the subject, and lastly, because of his well known loyalty to the Church to which he and his noble family have belonged for centuries.

Jesuit Rules for Students.

We shall first deal with the statements of the French writer, also a devoted Romanist, the singular agreement of the two authorities cannot fail to strike the least observant reader.

In commencing his narrative of personal experiences, M. Gleize says: “Ce que Jesuite veut, Dieu le veut.” (What the Jesuit wants, God wants) But it does not necessarily follow that what succeeds is Divine. The Jesuit does not act without foresight or consideration, nor does he abandon his designs at the first discouragement. He commands success, but he leaves nothing undone to secure it.

M. Gleize took the initiative himself at the early age of ten, in the affair of his education. He had been a pupil in an ecclesiastical seminary, but he ambitioned the distinction of being a pupil of this famous Order. It was “comme il faut,” (properly) he tells us, and something of which the parents of the pupils could boast. The abbe who governed the seminary in which he had received his education so far, did not quite approve the change, but the boy had his way, with results which he has faithfully recorded.

The Jesuits made two rules with regard to the admission of pupils, and kept them. No boy would be received who had been previously in any public school. No boy would be received of bourgeois origin, or whose parents were not people of wealth and good social position. Thus at the expense of the present they secured the future—the Jesuit can always afford to wait. In order to keep their pupils from contact with the common herd, they chose recreation days which would not allow their pupils to mix freely with the pupils of other institutions, they arranged even for the conveyance of their pupils to and from their school in their own omnibus. Everything was done to separate the elect from the common herd, and to give distinction to their pupils. They understand human nature, even while they profess to despise it. M. Gleize enters into the most minute details of his personal experience, “Chez les Jesuites,” (Among the Jesuits) but we shall only note what he has to say of the religious education which he received, and the literary course through which he passed.

Spiritual terror was the one and marked feature of the spiritual instruction. “We heard of nothing but the hideousness of sin, and the terrible penalties with which God punished those who offended Him. The great occasion for enforcing these lessons was the retreat, which was of absolute obligation for these, one might say babies, in preparation for their first communion. This day of days on which this event was to take place, was made to stand out in the memory by observances of piety and pleasure which it was expected would for ever impress the mind.”

A Retreat—its Spiritual Terrors.

Yet with all Romes precautions and efforts, the first communion is the last in the vast majority of cases. The youth, once freed from the imposing restraints of the college or seminary, rushes eagerly on the career of pleasure hitherto denied, even in its most innocent form, and though he may retain his fear of hell, and send for the priest when he is dying, he keeps as far from him as possible while he lives. “We were completely isolated from the other pupils during our retreat. We passed from mass to sermon, and from sermon to meditation, from meditation to spiritual reading.” These men, however well intentioned had forgotten their own boyhood, with its joys and its freedoms, they would make their pupils monks in miniature, and ecclesiastics in practice, when they should have been taught that the yoke of the Lord is easy, and His burden light.

The service of benediction, litanies, the recital of the rosary, were, so to say, the only recreations allowed, and this for boys not yet in their teens, and scarcely out of the nursery. It is little wonder that religion became utterly distasteful to them, and that spiritual terror was needed to enforce the lessons which were given, with so little discretion. But the astute fathers looked rather to the future than to the present. They wished to leave such impressions of fear on the minds of their pupils as would prevent them in the future from even listening to any arguments, or reading any literature contrary to that which is permitted by the Church. In acting thus, they believed that they were consulting the highest interests of those who were confided to their charge.

The boys were duly impressed, but M. Gleize declares that when he attempted an apostleship in his own family, as the result of the retreat, he was considerably discouraged. His first attempt at mission work was made on the family chef, whom he suspected of not being as devout as he should be. He tried to impress this functionary with the fear of eternal torments, and the terrors of hell fire. But the chef assured him that God knew too well all he suffered from fire in this world to inflict further torment of a similar nature in the next. This repulse so discouraged the young missionary, that he abandoned the role of preacher for all time to come, Still, he remained impressed, or rather terrified. Narratives were introduced by the conductor of the retreat in order to further emphasise his exhortations. Of course these narratives were believed literally, as it was intended that they should be.

A Terrified Audience.

These lads of ten or twelve were told of a youth who forgot all the good instructions which he had received, and went one evening to a theatre. Swift indeed was the retribution which followed. The next day he was found dead in his bed. But this was not the least part of the horror. He appeared to one of his companions the following night, damned, and in a state of the most horrible torments. “The father,” says M. Gleize, “exhausted himself in describing the torment of the lost.” Every narrative was commenced with the assurance that he had known the unhappy subject personally. Who could disbelieve him? Certainly not his youthful and terrified audience. To doubt would have been a sin of which they at least could not have been guilty, especially at such a time. The preacher even descended to cries and shouts and grimaces, the better to terrify his trembling hearers. As for M. Gleize, he took care to provide himself with additional supplies of holy water and relics after such discourses. But these fears could not stand the test of experience. The boys eventually became men, they went to theatres, and their friends went to theatres, and no serious retribution followed. Naturally they reasoned, if the fathers terrified, us so needlessly in this matter, why should we respect their teaching in other matters?

But there were also sermons on the joys of heaven and the certainty of attaining to these joys for the obedient, especially for those who remained under the direction of the good fathers, and who did not stray into forbidden paths of literature or enter lyceums (halls for public lectures) or colleges which were under the direction of government. “At one moment we were sure of being lost, the next moment we were equally sure of being saved.” But there were exceptions when there was no possibility of redemption. But there was one course which must end in our eternal damnation if we were so unhappy as to enter on it. The spiritual director of these boys had a horror of Freemasonry which amounted to a mania. In season and out of season he impressed on his charges the dreadful consequences of having any connection whatsoever with persons already past redemption. He shuddered, he groaned, he cried, he shouted in order to impress what he believed to be the truth. He described the horrible stenches which would proceed from the damned, he desired his charges to place their hands for a moment over the flame of a candle that they might feel in a faint degree the agony which these unhappy persons would suffer for all eternity, and to enforce further his lessons he narrated certain facts which of themselves should have been sufficient to terrify the most hardened.

What Happened to a Freemason.

One of these narratives is recorded in the work from which we quote. A young man so far forgot all the lessons of his youth as to join the Freemasons. But happily for him there was one religious duty which he performed in secret and never abandoned. He recited one Hail Mary every night before he retired to rest. This proved his salvation. Christ may forsake us, but Mary never, she is the all merciful mother. She touched his heart at last, and he determined to forsake the Freemasons. But he knew that if he did so in France, they would certainly assassinate him, so he fled for his life to America. It was in vain, the very moment he landed he was assassinated. The good priest shuddered as he related the terrible tragedy, and his little hearers trembled also, and promised that they would never be united to men who could be guilty of such dreadful deeds. Indeed such was the horror which this Jesuit father professed to have of the Freemasons, that he declared he would far rather see the devil than see a Freemason. Either the father was willfully and deliberately deceiving his pupils, or he was so ignorant of the world as to be utterly unfit to educate. His pupils could scarcely continue to respect him when they knew later that Freemasons do not assassinate those who withdraw from their membership.

M. Gleize describes the days of his first communion, for which all these elaborate preparations had been made. His experience has been the experience of many. The receiving of the “host” was the end for which all this preparation was made, and naturally the over wrought imagination of these little lads, led them to expect some wonderful effect when the supreme moment had arrived. They had been taught that they were to receive their God, and with all the trusting faith, of youth they believed what was told them. On the eve of the great day they had to practise receiving the Sacrament. They were expressly forbidden either to eat the holy wafer, or to swallow it immediately. It should be moistened slowly in the mouth, and then swallowed with supreme reverence. Even in the merest particle there was a God. M. Gleize relates how he envied one boy, who, when they were practising, succeeded in swallowing the wafer “like a priest.” Afterwards it appeared that he had obtained some unconsecrated wafers and practised on them.

But all this preparation ended in dismal failure of emotion at the moment when religious ecstasy was most desired and expected. “Notwithstanding my fervor and my faith, I was terribly disillusioned. I had anticipated something more mysterious, something more consoling, I thought that my soul would have been wrapped in ecstasy. After I had received the communion I found myself just as I had been before the great event, and I found within me a longing desire which had not been satisfied.”

A Dangerous Scrupulosity.

Weakening the mind by exciting the imagination, and subduing the will by fear, such are the means employed by these religious educators to attach children to the faith.

The constant observance of religious exercises cuts up the day to a formidable degree. A short prayer was said at the commencement of every change of employment. This might, be suitable for those who had resolved to lead a religious life, and who could arrange their time as they pleased, but for boys or other young persons, the result is not always what their instructors desire. We have indeed known of painful results from the long practise of this incessant devotion. It leads in some cases to a scrupulosity (punctiliously exact) which is mentally dangerous. When those who have been accustomed to such practices of piety for many years during the most impressionable period of their lives, return to their homes, where it would be impossible to continue the signing with the cross, and saying prayers, however short, at every stroke of the clock, and at other frequent intervals, they either omit these practices altogether, and, weary of a mechanical devotion, cease to pray, or they fall into spiritual despair because they cannot do what is evidently impossible. They cannot understand if it was so serious a matter to omit these practices in the convent or college how they can be justified in omitting them at home. Between the desire to do what they have been taught to consider so essential in order to please God, or rather, to secure their salvation, and the plain fact that such practices cannot be continued, or even remembered without considerable effort, they begin to lose all hope of doing what they once believed to be essential, and fall into indifference, if not into vice, or become morbid and live in a state of despair which some times ends in religious mania.

A spiritual lecture was read every evening. “This lecture was always the life of some saint, and was spiritual only in name.” Twice during the mass the boys sang canticles which were set to airs which they heard afterwards on the stage.

But the Jesuit arrangements for recreation, which indeed are much the same as those in use in all Roman Catholic educational establishments, were the special subjects of M. Gleizes reprehension. Active games were insisted on for two reasons, first because it prevented anything like private conversation, which is dreaded above all things in such places next, because the exercise was obligatory, and regulated by the superiors, it naturally became very distasteful to the boys, and in the higher classes especially they refused to amuse themselves to order, unless actually compelled to do so. Boys who complained were told that they were wanting in the “proper spirit” of obedience, and treated as mauvaissujets (bad topics??). Thus bad feeling was being constantly engendered between the pupils and the masters, than which nothing could have been more conducive of evil results in the future.

Jesuit Methods with Boys.

I do not wish to draw a comparison between the games and recreations customary in secular colleges. I only desire to show the difference in their methods. Secular colleges encourage physical exercises for the greater good of their pupils. They wish to establish an equilibrium between their mental and animal being. The Jesuits, on the contrary, care nothing for the body. Their principal object is to prevent any kind of free intercourse between their pupils. But what an antiquated idea of training for their future life. It may be considered necessary to enforce a rule of the strictest silence in religious houses, where to pass even the most cursory remark of criticism on the rule or observances is considered an unpardonable crime. But boys will think, and will talk, even under restrictions which will silence their seniors who are vowed forever to a life of obedience, and if the thinking is not permitted, or rather if the expression of thought is not permitted in youth, the flames of the volcano may be covered over for the time, but sooner or later they will escape with a force which will destroy the restraints of the past and seriously imperil the future.

With regard to literary education of the Jesuit pupil, M. Gleize is explicit and condemnatory. He writes without passion, and with an evident desire to do justice not only to the Jesuit, but what is quite as important, to the public. It has been unfortunate for the cause of truth, which is the only cause worth consideration, that so many who have written on the Jesuits have written as partisans. Every one who does not agree with their bitter denunciations is a “Jesuit in disguise.” They do not want truth, they want denunciation, than which nothing is easier, and nothing less satisfactory to men who think. They cannot see any side of any question except their own, and their own is narrow with the narrowness of a feeble intellect. They denounce the Jesuit because he denies to others the intellectual and spiritual liberty which they profess to admire, yet they are quite as narrow as he is and they have an inquisition of their own, in which they martyr as far as they are able, those who do not agree with their particular opinions. Men who think and who are capable of judging, but who have not time or opportunity for personal investigation, have been at the mercy of these controversialists and have either supposed that the individual Jesuit is little short of a demon incarnate, or that he is a much calumniated man. He is but the victim of his fate and circumstances. But the wise will ask, What does he teach, what is his real object? and will pause before they commit the destinies of their country or the youth of today to those who, however sincere, are bound by a system which denies all liberty, intellectual and moral.

“The Piety will Vanish.”

In the commencement of this chapter on the literary training given by the Jesuit, M. Gleize relates an anecdote worth recording. Even Jesuit colleges are examined on occasion by the bishop of the diocese where they are situated, such examination. being permitted not as a right but as a diplomatic courtesy. Mgr.de Mazenod, bishop of Marseilles, on one occasion was the examiner in a Jesuit college. One of the pupils proved so stupid and deficient, that he could no longer restrain his impatience. The rector observed what was passing and whispered to his Eminence, “He is not very bright, but he is very pious.” To whom His Grace replied: “Yes, yes, but the piety will vanish and the stupidity will remain.” The general opinion (of devout Roman Catholics) is, that the Jesuits are the best educators in the world. If, says M. Gleize, we understand by education simply the imparting of prepared knowledge, this may be true. But if we understand by education drawing out the latent faculties of the mind, and assisting the student to think for himself and to cultivate his intellect, the Jesuit does not educate, he merely teaches.

The simple fact is that the Jesuit dare not educate. He dare not because he is a Roman Catholic, and Rome does not permit education in its highest sense, still less can he educate as a Jesuit, because the rule of his Order is, if possible, still more opposed to the imparting of knowledge than the rule of any other teaching Order in the Church of Rome. This may appear mere assertion, and mere assertions are worth little, but we proceed to give proofs which can scarcely be disputed. The subject is certainly one which no thoughtful mind will lay aside without careful and attentive consideration.

The writer knew of a case in Ireland where the bishop, who as usual sat beside the superior of the convent, during a public examination, seemed lost in admiration. The superioress not unnaturally supposed that he appreciated the answers of the children which were indeed wonderful. But the bishop was not so easily deceived as the admiring friends and audience of relatives. He was asked what had especially attracted his attention, and replied, not without a gracious smile, “I am amazed at the wonderful memory of the monitress who is examining.” He had discovered early in the proceedings, that the questions and answers which were supposed to be improvised at the moment, were simply learned by heart. The answers so learned were easily given by the child to whom the interrogation was put, but the effort of memory on the part of the monitress was marvellous, as she had to remember all the questions, not only in their exact sequence, but also which child should be asked the question to which she had learned the reply.

How Students’ Books are Peptonised.

To the Jesuit there is nothing which is not “of faith.” There can be no liberty of thought, hence there can be no intellectual liberty, and by liberty we do not mean license. The Jesuit impresses on his pupils that there are certain fixed and immutable rules of literary and philosophical belief, from which no departure is possible, and that it would be the height of presumption to form any independent personal opinion on any subject whatsoever. The Jesuit college is the grave of thought. Here the high and glorious inspirations of youth are strangled at their birth. It is true that such inspirations are not always well founded, but if they are not permitted free course how can youth learn wisdom by experience as the first step to larger judgments, when the impressions of youth have been corrected by time and increased knowledge. The frame of mind which would lead even to scientific discovery is sternly repressed. All books for study are religiously peptonised, so that they may be assimilated without digestion. There is no chance for an expanding intellect, for expansion is unnecessary when there is nothing more to be known. Ridicule, the most potent factor in discouraging the young, is freely used if any attempt at originality of thought is manifested. It is the business of the student to learn what is set before him, and to believe in history and science, as well as in religion, what he is taught, and nothing more. What the fathers do not teach him is either not worth knowing or dangerous. All the books used in Jesuit colleges are prepared by the fathers. There are two reasons for this. The fathers cam write their history and philosophy so as to suit the views which they hold on these subjects, and they add very largely to their income by the sale of their own books.

If the necessities of the times had not compelled them to another course, the Jesuits would have continued to give the same education today, which their predecessors gave in the 17th century. Another serious disadvantage of Jesuit education is the use which is made of Latin which is not always classical, as a medium of instruction and communication. For this there are also reasons—the Jesuit always has his reasons. For the Jesuit we do not deny that these reasons are good, but the important question remains, Are these reasons good for the education of the youth of today? In the Jesuit colleges Latin is spoken everywhere, and used in every study. No doubt this facilitates condensing information, and by condensing it, limits it.

Ignorance of Popes and Cardinals.

But there is yet another and important reason for the constant use of the Latin tongue. Latin is not merely the language of the Church in an ecclesiastical sense, it is also, with rare exceptions, the usual medium of ecclesiastical communication. All Papal pronouncements are written in Latin. All communications with the Roman Curia are written in Latin. When a bishop makes his visit ad limini (at the threshold), he spends some time conning over his syntax before he sets out on his voyage. The popes and the cardinals who reside in Rome, with very rare exceptions, do not understand any language but Italian, and the English and other bishops with rare exceptions, do not speak Italian. It is a curious fact that the men who dictate the policy and politics and license the books for foreign countries, do not know one word of the language in which they are written. Everything must be translated into Latin or Italian for their decision or revision. It is still more curious that men of intelligence and education submit to the continuance of such a system, especially when they are not members of the Church which pronounces its fiats on their public and private proceedings.

In the French Jesuit colleges Latin is the ordinary medium of conversation, and the boys are furnished with phrase books, in which they may find all that is necessary for the very limited intercourse which they are allowed with each other, even in their games. The Jesuit, however, rarely attempts to teach science. Masters are usually employed to teach the boys these departments, but all the same the books used must have the Jesuit imprint, and the mystic letters A.M.D.G. The professor of algebra in the college where M. Gleize was educated, told his pupils they should learn by heart, for as they really understood nothing they would be sure to make a serious mistake if they altered or added a word. It was, he observes, a singular way of teaching mathematics.

The Jesuits discourage the study of the exact sciences, and not without reason. They fear that a mind trained to accept nothing which cannot be proved to demonstration, may at last turn on the church, and refuse to believe what is not logically proved. The mathematician accustomed to accept nothing which is not proved, and to discuss and weigh every argument, may one day apply this method of analysis to religious questions, with a result which would be fatal. The Order has a specialist for each study, who prepares the book on each subject. Pére Sengler prepares the grammars of the dead languages. Pére Gazeau writes the ancient and modern histories. Pére Mestrc undertakes the study of general literature. The A.M.D.G. which is found on every title page indicates that the book is written for the greater glory of God, and as the greater glory of the Society is a convertible term, orthodoxy is assured.

Expurgated History.

It need scarcely be said that a carefully expurgated (cleansed of something morally harmful, offensive or erroneous) history, is not a history likely to benefit young men who would eventually be called on to play their part in the worlds story. Distorted views of facts, and perverted representations of character, would leave them helpless victims to prejudice, when they most needed reliable information. Even though many Frenchmen who have received their education from ecclesiastics have practically abandoned their Church, they can never recover lost time, and such education as they have received has not prepared them to make the best use of their freedom. The prejudices of early education are rarely, if ever, overcome, no matter what may be the intellectual freedoms of later life. All the more reason why the present generation should leave nothing undone to bequeath a glorious heritage of intellectual liberty to those who are coming after us. The only liberty which Rome allows to her children is the liberty to agree with her, and the liberty which she so loudly demands at the present day from the world at large, is liberty to take away our liberty. Rome is the only religion in the world which asks liberty in order to enforce restraint. It is difficult for those who have not studied the subject to understand it, but if the literary history of the Church of Rome is carefully read, and if her explicit teaching on such subjects was understood, it would be quite sufficient to open the eyes of all who are not either indifferent, or willfully blind.

“The History of France,” A.M.D.G., revised, corrected, and completed by the Rev. P. Gazeau, of the Company of Jesus, was the title of the work on French history, which was the class book of the college. It was written for the youthful students in order that they might know all that was considered good for them to know, as regarded certain historical events, and that they might be taught to think as their masters thought on every event connected with the history of their country. Can it be a matter of surprise if the youth so educated should become incapable of judging for himself, or of understanding the real interest of his native land. At each social cataclysm in France —and they have not been few—the pious Catholic lifts up his hands in sincere amazement, and wonders how such events can come to pass! But what else can be expected from men who at the most important period of their lives have been trained to think independent intellectual effort a sin, unless, indeed, it is an intellectual effort to remember what they have been taught, and to believe that all else is false and vain. When the necessity for personal decision comes to such men, they either lean weakly on the feeble reed of the advice of a “director,” whose mind is as narrow as their own, or they break from all restraint and rush headlong on the first course of action which seems to promise good, or to relieve them from the burden of personal responsibility which they have not been trained to bear.

Conversion by the Sword Recommended.

The Jesuit professor of history did not believe in the conversion of the world by peaceable means, but rather by the sword and the torture. Providence always intervened for the Church of his affections, and when Providence was too plainly against him, he had reasons to show that it was not at least the fault of the Church. When he is obliged to record the miserable failure of the second crusades, he explains it by saying that the wickedness of the soldiers was extreme, and that the eastern Christians were no better than the infidel whom they desired to exterminate. In this we find he ignored the fact that these bad Christians were devout Roman Catholics, “de quoi expliquer la condutte de Dieu sur cette Croisade,” (enough to explain the conduct of God on this Crusade) but he has no explanation to give of the failure, of the lamentable failure, of the Crusades of St. Louis. Everything connected with the Reformation is of course grossly misrepresented. Pride and a desire for a licentious life was, according to him, the one motive of the “pretended Reformers.” Luther secured success by assuring the German and other princes that they should have all the ecclesiastical spoils. But the Jesuit father does not tell his pupils how it happened that men who had been under the exclusive teaching of his Church for centuries became so opposed to it. As for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, it was a mere nothing, it was an affair of state. We shall see later that it was entirely an affair of the Jesuits.

As for the revocation of the edict of Nantes, Louis XIV only desired to bring the heretics back to the fold of the Church. The new edict, he says, caused “general rejoicing,” and was received with enthusiasm. Not one word of the fatal and cruel dragonnades (The severe persecution of French Protestants under Louis XIV., by an armed force, usually of dragoons. Dragoon: [noun] a member of a European military unit formerly composed of heavily armed mounted troops.), but he admits that about 70,000 Protestants were compelled to emigrate. As for the Albigenses, he declares that Innocent III desired ardently to save the Christian faith from danger, and that, in consequence, many towns where these dangerous people lived were put to the sword, and the inhabitants were destroyed. He depicts in the most vivid colours the terrible fate of kings who rebelled against the Church, and describes with holy unction the awful consequences of the excommunication of those who would not obey the Pope in temporal as well as spiritual affairs. Even the very dishes from which they ate, and the vessels from which they drank, were passed through the fire before they could be used by others, and thus spiritually antisepticated. The kings of France, according to this history, were all more or less religious, generally more. When dying, their sole concern was for the religious future of their country, as, for example, the only care of Louis XIV when dying, was that he feared “the ravages which Jansenism would accomplish in the Church and in society.”

A Blind Man is a Bad Guide.

Enough has been said on this subject, though too much could not be said to impress thinking men and women with the danger of entrusting education to those who are none the less false and fanatical in their teaching because they are unquestionably sincere. A man who is blind either by nature or from circumstances, is scarcely the person to whom one would entrust the care of a youth about to travel in a new country. It would not minimise the danger if the blind guide believed that he, and he alone, possessed sight. Of general literature as little was taught as possible. Books which might enlarge the mind were strictly excluded, and a sort of pot pourri of safe extracts was provided by a father who taught this department. Information was given in the form of question and answer, and the study either intentionally or otherwise was made as uninteresting as possible. To permit a boy the range of a well selected library, such as every English public, school possesses, would have been looked upon as a suggestion from an emissary of the evil one.

Jesuit Education Repressive.

“The Jesuits dream of a perfect college,” says M. Gleize, “is of one where there would be a crowd of young men who would listen only to their masters, speak only to their masters, think only as their masters, and have no intercourse with their companions except such as should be altogether unavoidable.” In fact, they desire naturally to have the college a replica of the novitiate, and the world outside, if indeed it must exist at all, is looked on as a necessary evil to be availed of for the use of the Church. There is, however, one notable difference between the discipline of the Jesuit colleges in France and those in England. The Rev. Lord Petre, of whose narrative we shall make much use later, accuses the English Jesuit fathers of inflicting the most cruel corporal punishments on their pupils. M. Gleize, on the contrary, declares that corporal punishments are unknown in French Jesuit colleges.

There is one point on which the Jesuits deplore that their educational efforts have not the success which they deserved. Their pupils have no enthusiasm, either for the Order, or for the spread of the faith. They may remain members of the Church so far as to frequent the sacraments on stated occasions, to marry with the rites of the Church, to attend mass occasionally on Sundays, and even to send their sons to Jesuit colleges, but here the matter ends. They are passive, they never become apostles, they may become opponents. But the Jesuit has only his own system of education to thank for this.

In every Roman Catholic school and college there are confraternities, and the ambition to become a member of one of these confraternities is the earliest desire instilled. The youngest boys are placed in the confraternity of the Holy Angels. Later they are removed, if considered worthy, to the confraternity of the Children of Mary. The desire of religious distinction, which is so carefully fostered, often becomes a source of serious evil, since even the walls of a convent cannot change human nature, or exclude the passions of jealousy or ambition. Nor is an ambition less strong because its end is spiritual, nor is the jealousy less bitter because the object desired is presumably pious. But, in addition to these ordinary confraternities, to belong to which a boy or girl is taught by those whose opinions he most respects to believe to be the highest honour, there are also confraternities special to each religious Order. The Jesuits recommend three saints to the imitation of the youth confided to their care: St. Aloysius, St. Stanislaus, and later blessed Berkmans.

To belong to the confraternity of these saints is considered the greatest privilege possible, and the honour is coveted accordingly. But these youths are also presented to the Jesuit pupil as the object of his imitation. Now, if all the pupils of a Jesuit college were to enter the Jesuit novitiate eventually, to emulate the sanctified dirt, or the intellectual idiocy of a saint, might harm no one but the imitator. But these saints, who obtained all their honours because they renounced the world in a very practical manner, are certainly not persons who should be recommended to the young for imitation, unless they propose to live out of the world. Yet in season and out of season, the virtues and above all the passive obedience of these holy youths are brought forward and praised. If the Jesuit father, in the making of the future man of the world, impresses on him that to become like a corpse in the hands of his spiritual director, is the very highest end of man, he certainly should not be surprised if the advice he gives so persistently is followed. If the man takes the impression of the seal which is placed on him, and retains it in placid indifference like a piece of wax, or if in the burning heat of the worlds strife and life, the wax is rudely melted, and, far from retaining any of the original impression, becomes a flaming torch searching for a liberty which has been so unjustly denied.

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