given gratuitously. When sufficient funds were raised to support the officers, teachers, and at least twelve scholars, no effort was to be made to increase them; but if they fell short of this, donations were to be sought by begging from house to house. Want of money, however, was not a difficulty which the Jesuits often experienced.

The pupils in the Jesuit schools were of two kinds: 1st, those who were training for the Order, and had passed the Novitiate; 2d, the externs, who were pupils merely. When the building was not filled by the first of these (the Scholastici, or Nostri, as they are called in the Jesuit writings), other pupils were taken in to board, who had to pay simply the cost of their living, and not even this unless they could well afford it. Instruction, as I said, was gratuitous to all. "Gratis receive, gratis give," was the Society's rule, so they would neither make any charge for instruction, nor accept any gift that was burdened with conditions.

Faithful to the tradition of the Catholic Church, the Society did not estimate a man's worth simply according to his birth and outward circumstances. The Constitutions expressly laid down that poverty and mean extraction were never to be any hindrance to a pupil's admission; and Sacchini says: "Do not let any favoring of the nobility interfere with the care of meaner pupils, since the birth of all is equal in Adam, and the inheritance in Christ."

The externs who could not be received into the build. ing were boarded in licensed houses, which were always liable to an unexpected visit from the Prefect of Studies.

The age at which pupils were admitted varied from fourteen to twenty-four.

The school was arranged in five classes (since increased to eight), of which the lowest usually had two divisions. Parallel classes were formed wherever the number of pupils was too great for five masters. The names given to the several divisions were as follows:

1. Infima [Lowest]

2. Media [Intermediate]

3. Suprema [Highest]

Classis Grammaticæ,
[Grammatic Class].

4. Humanitas [Liberal], or Syntaxis [Syntactical]. 5. Rhetorica [Rhetorical].

Jesuits and Protestants alike in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thought of no other instruction than in Latin and Greek, or rather in literature based on those languages. The subject-matter of the teaching in the Jesuit schools was to be "præter Grammaticam, quod ad Rhetoricam, Poësim et Historiam pertinet " [except grammatical, that which pertains to rhetoric, poetry, and history]. Reading and writing the mother tongue might not be taught without special leave from the Provincial. Latin was as much as possible to supersede all other languages, even in speaking; and nothing else might be used by the pupils in the higher forms on any day but a holiday.

Although many good school-books were written by the Jesuits, a great part of their teaching was given orally. The master was, in fact, a lecturer, who expounded sometimes a piece of a Latin or Greek author, sometimes the rules of grammar. The pupils were required to get up the substance of these lectures,

MODE OF TEACHING.

23

and to learn the grammar-rules and parts of the classical anthors by heart. The master for his part had to bestow great pains on the preparation of his lec

tures.

Written exercises, translations, etc., were given on every day, except Saturday; and the master had, if possible, to go over each one with its writer and his appointed rival or æmulus.

The method of hearing the rules, etc., committed to memory was this: Certain boys in each class, who were called Decurions, repeated their task to the master, and then in his presence heard the other boys repeat theirs. The master meanwhile corrected the written exercises.*

One of the leading peculiarities in the Jesuits' system was the pains they took to foster emulation-"cotem ingenii puerilis, calcar industria," [the whetstone of youthful talent, the spur of industry]. For this purpose, all the boys in the lower part of the school were arranged in pairs, each pair being rivals (amuli) to one another. Every boy was to be constantly on the watch, to catch his rival tripping, and was immediately to correct him. Besides this individual rivalry, every class was divided into two hostile camps, called Rome and Carthage, which had frequent pitched battles of questions on set subjects. These were the "Concertations," in which the boys sometimes had to put questions to the opposite camp, sometimes to expose erroneous

* In a school (not belonging to the Jesuits) where this plan was adopted, the boys, by an ingenious contrivance, managed to make it work very smoothly. The boy who was "hearing" the lesson held the book upside down in such a way that the others read instead of repeating by heart. The masters finally interfered with this arrangement.

answers when the questions were asked by the master.* Emulation, indeed, was encouraged to a point where, as it seems to me, it must have endangered the good feeling of the boys among themselves. Jouvency mentions a practice of appointing mock defenders of any particularly bad exercise, who should make the author of it ridiculous by their excuses; and any boy, whose work was very discreditable, was placed on a form by himself, with a daily punishment, until he could show that some one deserved to change places with him.

In the higher classes, a better kind of rivalry was cultivated by means of "Academies," i. e., voluntary associations for study, which met together, under the superintendence of a master, to read themes, translations, etc., and to discuss passages from the classics. The new members were elected by the old, and to be thus elected was a much coveted distinction. In these Academies the clever students got practice for the disputations, which formed an important part of the school work of the higher classes.

There was a vast number of other expedients by which the Jesuits sought to work on their pupils' amour propre [self-respect], such as, on the one hand, the weekly publication of offences per præconem [by the herald], and, on the other, besides prizes (which could be won only by the externs), titles, and badges of honor, and the like. It appears that in each class a kind of magistracy was formed, who, as prætors, censors, etc.,

*Since the above was written, an account of these concertations has appeared in the Rev. R. G. Kingdon's evidence before the Schools Commission (vol. v., Answers 12,228 ff.). Mr. Kingdon, who is Prefect of Studies at Stonyhurst, mentions that the side which wins in most concertations gets an extra half-holiday.

THE METHOD IN LATIN.

25

"There are,"

had in some cases to try delinquents. says Jouvency, "hundreds of expedients of this sort, all tending to sharpen the boys' wits, to lighten the labor of the master, and to free him from the invidious and troublesome necessity of punishing."

The school-hours were remarkably short: two hours and a half in the morning, and the same in the afternoon, with a whole holiday a week in summer, and a half holiday in winter. The time was spent in the first form after the following manner: During the first halfhour, the master corrected the exercises of the previous day, while the Decurions heard the lesson which had been learnt by heart. Then the master heard the piece of Latin which he had explained on the previous day. With this construing was connected a great deal of parsing, conjugating, declining, etc. The teacher then explained the piece for the following day, which, in this form, was never to exceed four lines. The last halfhour of the morning was spent in explaining grammar. This was done very slowly and carefully. In the words of the Ratio Studd.: Pluribus diebus fere singula præcepta inculcanda sunt," [On many days hardly more than a single principle should be taught]. For the first hour of the afternoon, the master corrected exercises, and the boys learnt grammar. If there was time, the master put questions about the grammar he had explained in the morning. The second hour was taken up with more explanations of grammar, and the school closed with half an hour's concertation, or the master corrected the notes which the pupils had taken during the day. In the other forms, the work was very similar to this,