[Sidenote: The _Constitution_ and the _Ratio Studiorum_.]
[Sidenote: ‘rector,’ and other officials.]
=Organization of the Jesuits.=--The organization of the Society of Jesus was outlined in its _Constitution_. This fundamental document of the order received its final revision shortly after Loyola’s death, but the _Ratio Studiorum_, which was an expansion of Part IV of the _Constitution_ and described the educational administration in detail, was not finally formulated until 1599. It thus summed up the experience of the Jesuit schools during more than sixty years. The administration of the society has always been of a military type. Loyola had originally started upon the career of a soldier, and did not believe that any system could be effective unless it were based upon implicit obedience to one’s official superiors. At the head of the order is the ‘general,’ who is elected for life and has vast administrative powers. As the society spread, the countries that came under its control were divided into provinces, and at the head of the Jesuit interests in each of these districts is the ‘provincial,’ who is appointed by the general for three years. In each province there are various colleges, whose presiding officer, or ‘rector,’ is chosen for three years by the general, but is directly responsible to the provincial and reports to him. Similarly, within each college are ‘prefects,’ immediately subordinate to the rector, but selected by the provincial; and under the inspection of the prefects are the ‘professors’ or ‘preceptors.’
[Sidenote: The lower colleges are secondary and humanistic,]
[Sidenote: with curriculum largely unchanged.]
=The Jesuit Colleges.=--The Jesuits have never engaged in elementary education, but have required that pupils know how to read and write before being admitted to any of their schools. This may have been brought about in the first place by the fact that the number of their teachers was limited, or that the public elementary school was just coming to be regarded as of importance, and secondary education of the humanistic type was everywhere dominant. The Jesuit educational organization has, therefore, consisted of ‘lower colleges’ with a gymnasia course, and of ‘upper colleges,’ which are of university grade. Boys are admitted to the lower colleges at from ten to fourteen years of age, and spend five or six years there. The first three classes were at first devoted to a careful study of Latin grammar, and a little of Greek; in the fourth year a number of the Greek and Latin poets and historians were read; while the last class, to which two years were usually given, took up a rhetorical study of the classical authors. Only slight variations in the curriculum have ever been allowed since the _Ratio Studiorum_ was issued, until the revision in 1832. In that year work in mathematics, natural science, history, and geography was added in the lower colleges, but the classics still compose the body of the course.