[Sidenote: but authoritative and uniform.]
=Value and Influence of the Jesuit Education.=--The Jesuit system, then, seems to have been in advance of that in the schools at the time of its foundation. It was organized upon a systematic and thorough basis, and was administered by a set of splendidly trained teachers through the best methods that were known in that day. The schools were interesting and pleasant, and were free to all who had the ability and desire to attend. The Jesuit teachers, too, were indefatigable and devoted to their duty. The criticism that has been offered to this educational system is based on its insistence upon absolute authority and the consequent opposition to the development of individuality. The Jesuit courses, subjects, and methods have become somewhat uniform and fixed. In the lower colleges they depend largely upon memory and appeal to interest through a system of rivalry, honors, and rewards. Such a system is likely to tend toward a reproductive attitude in the pupil.
[Illustration: _a._ Jesuit College at Regensburg in 1600.]
_b._ Plan of a Jesuit schoolroom of the seventeenth century. B represents the teacher, C the monitors, and D, E, O, X, and I various student officials. The numbered lines represent rows of students, known as _decuriae_. When a student was called upon, his ‘rival’ arose from the corresponding place in the other group; and as each recited, the other endeavored to correct him in some error.
[Sidenote: Phenomenal growth of the number of colleges and students.]
Nevertheless, the Jesuits furnished the most effective education during the latter half of the sixteenth, the entire seventeenth, and the early part of the eighteenth centuries. The growth of their schools was phenomenal. By the death of Loyola (1556) there were already one hundred colleges, and a century and a half later they had increased to seven hundred and sixty-nine institutions, spread throughout the world. The average number of students in attendance at any of these colleges during the seventeenth century was about three hundred, and in several of the larger centers there were between one and two thousand, and the famous College of Clermont (now _Lycée Louis le Grand_) at Paris is said to have run up to three thousand. At a modest estimate, there must have been some two hundred thousand students in the Jesuit colleges when they were at their height. Their graduates seem to have become prominent in every important activity of life, and included a large number of the noted authors, prelates, statesmen, and generals of the time. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the ideals and content of education had somewhat changed, and the Jesuits did not adapt their course to the new conditions. Moreover, the Jesuits seem to have become powerful, ambitious, and somewhat arrogant. They quarreled frequently with bishops, other monastic orders, governments, and universities. Finally, after they had been banished from France, Spain, and Portugal, in 1773 the pope himself dissolved the Society of Jesus. Forty years later the order was restored, but, owing to the development of educational ideals and organization and the increase of educational institutions, their work has never since become relatively as effective or held as important a place in education.