Thomas Hughes - Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits

When therefore Ignatius turned to the great Rome, he was like the skilful commander whom he describes in a certain place; he was possessing himself of the vantage-ground, taking the citadel. It would be more correct to say, as all history avers, that he meant to defend that citadel, the See of Rome. He had waited nearly a year at Venice, to carry out his project of voyaging to Jerusalem. War made that impossible. Now, in accordance with the express proviso in their vow, he and his companions repaired to Rome, and offered their services to the spiritual head of Christendom.

To win approbation for a new religious institute was no easy matter; then less than ever. The recent occurrences in the North had been due to this, among other moral causes, that the later history of certain religious orders, which centuries before had begun one way, latterly had taken a novel and fatal turn. Still, in spite of criticism and hostility, chiefly in the high places, Ignatius received at length the approving word of the Pope; and his Institute was chartered with a bull of confirmation. Henceforth, the evolution of events belongs to general history. What concerns us, in this chartering of the plan and Institute of Ignatius Loyola, is the new character it gave to education, and the epoch it made in the intellectual history of the world. To explain this matter, we may follow briefly the deliberations which the Fathers held, and in the course of which, among other conclusions, they came to decide upon reëstablishing education.

It was the fourth of May, 1539, a year and a half before their services were finally accepted by the Pope. Such of the ten members as were then in Rome occupied themselves, after the labors of the day, in nightly deliberations, which were protracted during three months. They decreed, among other things, that they should teach boys and uncultured persons the necessary points of Christian doctrine, at least once a year, and for a definite time. This decree obviously is not about that secondary and superior education of youth, which is our subject; neither does it concern primary education, of which there is nowhere question in the Institute of the Jesuits. But, as the Constitution subsequently drawn up says, "this work of charity, in the Divine service, is more likely to be consigned to oblivion, and to pass into disuse, than other duties more specious in their character, as preaching," etc. 16 16 Bollandists, as above, nn. 313-4; ibid., Suarez, Nigronius, and others.

Teaching Christian doctrine pertains to the duty of those who have the ordinary care of souls. No duty of this kind, as belonging to the ordinary sphere of the Church's clergy, would Ignatius assume as characteristic of his own Institute, except this one. He was, indeed, more than ready to throw in his contribution of personal zeal and charity, for the furtherance of all kinds of benevolence and beneficence. Personally, at the cost of untiring activity, he sowed, as Genelli well observes, the first seeds of those ameliorations in social life, and of those humane institutions, which are so marked a feature of later ages. 17 17 Genelli, Life of St. Ignatius Loyola, part ii, ch. 13. He was an original benefactor of humanity at the turning-point of modern history, which has since become an era of social organized beneficence. Urban VIII solemnly testifies, that Ignatius organized homes for orphans, for catechumens, for unprovided women; that the poor and the sick, that children and the ignorant and prisoners, were all objects of his personal solicitude. 18 18 Bulla canoniz. S. Ign. de Loyola, § 22. These works of zeal and charity became, in subsequent years, the specific reasons of existence for various other communities, which rose in order and in number. But he did not adopt them as specific in his Institute; nor did he assume as characteristic anything within the province of the ordinary parochial clergy, except the teaching of Christian doctrine to boys and uncultured persons. The rest he attended to, while not provided for; ready to drop them, when provision should be made for them.

But he did assume five works, which were outside of the ordinary lines; and, among them, is the subject of our study, the Education of Youth. 19 19 Bollandists, nn. 313-4; 317. As the selection of all these specialties for his Institute reveal the commander's eye resting on a field, where many issues were being fought out, so, in particular, his selection of education as a specialty betrayed the same masterly thought, in the institutions he projected, in the scope he proposed, and, above all, in the formation of his teachers.

There had been, among the Fathers deliberating, a difference of opinion, with respect to Christian doctrine. Bobadilla had dissented from making that work the subject of a special vow; and the others deferred to him. But there was unanimity with regard to every other topic of deliberation, including this one, "the education of youth, having colleges in universities." 20 20 Bollandists, July, tom. vii, auct. J. P., §§ xxvii, xxviii.

As defined by Jesuit authors, the education of youth means the gratuitous teaching of Letters and Science, from almost the first beginnings of Grammar up to the culminating science of Sacred Theology, and that for boys and students of every kind, in schools open to all. 21 21 Nigronius; Bollandists, n. 317. Evidently these university men, who were engaged in drawing up the Institute, considered that, if the greatest Professor's talents are well spent in the exposition of the gravest doctrines in Theology, Philosophy, and Science, neither he, nor any one else, is too great to be a schoolmaster, a tutor, and a father, to the boy passing from childhood on to the state of manhood, – that boyhood which, as Clement of Alexandria says, furnishes the very milk of age, and from which the constitution of the man receives its temper and complexion.

It is requisite here to observe, that there was no such thing in existence, as State Education. Two reasons may briefly be mentioned for this, one of them intrinsic to the question, the other an historical fact. The intrinsic and essential reason was the sacred character of education, as being an original function, belonging to the primary relations of parents and child. States, or organized commonwealths, come only in the third or fourth degree of human society. It was much later, in that short interval between the extinction of the Society of Jesus and the outburst of the French Revolution, that new theories came to be proclaimed, as La Chalotais did openly proclaim them, of a bald and blank deism in social life, and therefore of secularizing education. Between deism and secularization the connection was reasonable. For, if the rights of God went by the board, there was no reason why the rights of parents and children should remain. All alike, the persons and "souls of men," 22 22 Apocalypse, ch. xviii, 13. fell back into the condition in which Christianity had found them; they became chattels of the state, mannikins of a bureau in peace, "food for powder" in war.

The other reason was an historical fact. For all the purposes of charity, mercy, and philanthropy, there were powers in existence, as part of the normal religious life of general Christian society. They were the same powers that had made Christendom, and had carried it on so far as the Christian world, the same to which we owe the civilization of to-day. More than that. As there is not a single work of charity or mercy, say St. Thomas Aquinas, which may not be made the object of an institution, religious men or women devoting their lives as a service to God, in a special service towards their neighbors; so, in point of fact, there were very few such objects which had not originated some service of religious self-consecration in their behalf.