§ 1. To one considering the matter more carefully, it will certainly seem arduous to find a man who either wishes or is able to accomplish so many and such varied things. Nor do I deny that the labors in this matter are very great. I recall with grief that certain most able men among my colleagues lost their lives in that course, when, through ardor for study, they flew past the limit.
But I shall set forth without any concealment the method which our Society employs in this matter. For princes and states which do not employ the work of our Society will also be able to train other professors according to this norm; and these things cannot be useless to the other religious orders which educate youth. For it will be conceded that certain distinguished seminaries of the best teachers may be established with great utility.
§ 2. The first requirement, therefore, is that none but suitable men be admitted into that company of future professors. The Society determines in general as follows concerning those to be admitted into the number of its members, in Part 1, chapter 2, of the Constitutions: “Speaking universally of those who are to be admitted, the more gifts of God, natural and infused, with which they are endowed for advancing the divine service according to the institute of the Society, and the more certain the trials by which they have been examined, the more suitable they will be to be admitted into it.
“As regards externals, they ought to be endowed with an honorable appearance, health, age, and strength for enduring the bodily labors which offer themselves in the Society; and they should seem to possess, or certainly to be likely at some time to possess, some talent for assisting it.
“Although it would not be useless to the men themselves to be admitted, nevertheless, considering the end and manner of proceeding of our institute, we persuade ourselves in the Lord that it is not expedient for His greater service and praise to admit men of very intractable ability or men useless to the congregation.
“Those who would be admitted for this purpose, that they assist the Society in spiritual matters, ought—considering what a ministry of this kind requires in order that the souls of their neighbors may be assisted—to be adorned with the following gifts of God.
“As regards the intellect: with learning, or an aptitude for acquiring it; and with discretion in conducting affairs, or certainly a disposition of good judgment for acquiring it.
“As regards memory: with an aptitude for apprehending and faithfully retaining precepts.
“As regards the will: that they be devoted to universal virtue and spiritual perfection; calm, constant, and strenuous in the things which they undertake for the divine service; that they possess zeal for the salvation of souls and, for that reason, be well disposed toward our institute, which directly tends toward assisting those souls and disposing them to attain their ultimate end from the hand of God, our Creator and Lord.
“In externals, a grace of speech is desirable, as being most necessary for dealing with one’s neighbors.
“An honorable appearance, which is accustomed to be edifying to those with whom one deals.
“Good health and strength by which they can endure the labors of our institute.
“An age suitable for those things which have been said: for admission to probation it ought to exceed the fourteenth year; for profession, however, the twenty-fifth.
“External gifts of nobility, riches, good reputation, and similar things, just as they are not sufficient if the others are absent, so, when the others are present, these will not be necessary. Nevertheless, insofar as they contribute to edification, they render more suitable for admission those who would otherwise be suitable without them on account of the other aforesaid endowments. The more one who desires to be admitted excels in these, the more apt he will be for this Society, to the glory of the Lord our God; but the less he excels, the less suitable he will be. Yet the holy unction of divine wisdom will teach those who have undertaken this care for His obedience and more abundant praise what measure ought to be observed in all these matters.”
If a state assigns young men of this kind to a seminary, there is no doubt that it will shortly possess a great supply of learned men.
§ 3. The Society admits them either when they have completed these studies of rhetoric or when they have finished the course of logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics, and mathematics. Hearers of rhetoric are admitted with greater difficulty; for although many possess mature and prudent judgment, we nevertheless prefer both that their judgment should grow while they hear philosophy for three years and that constancy should be strengthened by duration.
§ 4. For two entire years they are instructed in piety in the house of probation, and every day all the labors to be undergone throughout their whole lives are impressed upon them. The rules of the master of novices explain this matter excellently, and I have shown it in the little book On the Secrets of the Society of Jesus. Every six months they examine the apostolic letters and the rules with renewed attention, and test their strength and spirit. Those who, when the two years have been completed, have been approved by us, if they themselves also wish it, offer to God vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They must be prepared for any ministries and offices whatever; to labor, teach, preach, depart for either India, and go to death for the conversion of nations. And we are perpetually admonished not to seek any human recompense from our labors, but to offer the whole to God.
Although this does not pertain to studies, it is nevertheless the foundation of studies. For one who has some proposed aim for his labor other than the glory of God and the welfare of youth and of the state which depends upon it will never persevere amid so great labor. But those who have voluntarily chosen insults, mockeries, chains, prisons, shipwrecks, the ἀνθρωποφαγίας (cannibalism) of barbarians, and prolonged troubles throughout their whole lives are not wearied by the lesser labors of schools, although no remuneration answers to them in this life.
§ 5. If, therefore, some state trains professors in this manner and takes care that they do not aspire to repose and hunt after honors through the momentary labors of three or four years, it will protect and educate youth excellently. For men never treat studies seriously when they salute them as though from the road, tend elsewhere, and—as they are accustomed to say—judge themselves born for greater things.
§ 6. Although the two years of novitiate are spent in the exercise of virtue and Christian philosophy, they nevertheless produce no moderate progress in letters; for through companionship with learned men, the reading of sacred books, meditation, and preaching, it is necessary that they become more learned.
§ 7. When probation has been completed and the vows pronounced, if they have heard philosophy before, another two years are granted for the repetition of humane letters and philosophy. Everyone understands how important this is.
For young men who have already made good progress apply themselves to studies alone, without any other labor and without any care. During this time they recall the precepts of learning, orators, histories, and every memorial of antiquity; they look ahead to the lectures which they will one day explain; they note what will be useful; they conceive and write the subject matter to be dictated for speeches and poems. And just as Cicero did not come into the forum in order to learn, but brought there what he had already learned, so too our professors do not rush unprepared into their labors, but come after meditation.
§ 8. If they have not yet been imbued with the philosophical sciences, for three entire years they are educated most studiously in them, not only by the exercises of the academy but also by domestic instruction. Nevertheless, meanwhile there are daily exercises of some kind in eloquence, and toward the end of philosophy they devote themselves wholly for several months to the study of humane letters.
§ 9. These arrangements, therefore, contribute greatly to training teachers, and it would be worthwhile for all states to establish for themselves that law which was laid down for our provincial superiors and is the fourth in the order of those concerning studies: “Well in advance let him provide which professors he can have for each faculty, observing those who seem more apt for that matter—who are learned, diligent, assiduous, and devoted to the progress of the students both in lectures and in other literary exercises.”
For learned men are not born but made. But that they may become such, no expense is to be spared; they are to be invited by every method and advantage. The same matter is commended to the others; the ninth rule of the rector expressly provides concerning professors of humane letters: “Lest the teachers of the lower classes approach teaching while inexperienced in teaching, the rector of the college from which teachers of humane letters and grammar are customarily drawn shall select some one man most skilled in teaching. Near the end of their studies, those who are soon to be teachers shall assemble before him three times each week for an hour, to be instructed for their new teaching office; and this by turns through lecturing, dictating, writing, correcting, and performing the other duties of a good teacher.”
§ 10. But after they now proceed into the academies and seem instructed in everything, they are not immediately sent to teach those things which they are able to teach, but begin from the lower subjects. Those who were able to be engaged in poetry and oratorical ability with praise and distinction teach grammar. This has a twofold utility. The first is that those who were capable of greater things explain easier matters without great labor and anxiety. For those who can carry the palisade and provisions are no more wearied by carrying their arms than by carrying their limbs. For one who already knows the most difficult passages of Tullius, Virgil, Horace, and others, the exposition of easier passages is familiar conversation, not a profession.
The second is that in spare hours and private study they can treat greater things and thus proceed most fully prepared to the higher sciences. Finally, all these things overflow to the advantage of the pupils; for it cannot happen that a learned and widely read teacher, even while doing something else, should not scatter many learned things which, although they do not adhere in all, nevertheless adhere in more capable minds.
§ 11. When this course of humane letters has been traversed, they are sent to hear theology for four years; during this time they both repeat philosophy and equip themselves to teach it. Indeed, many who are already nobly educated in philosophical and theological studies return to those studies so that they may teach eloquence with greater judgment.
§ 12. Obedience first renders all those things light. Through it they cheerfully receive everything as though commanded by God; and they attend not to what they do, but to the diligence, charity, and humility with which they discharge their office. For they know that the highest reward is placed even in a humble station, and each chooses to be abject in the house of God.
§ 13. “Poems,” says that man, “seek the retirement and leisure of the writer.” The professors of the Society possess very much leisure—but busy leisure, literary leisure. This arises first from the freedom of a mind which has most fully claimed itself into its own power by submitting itself entirely to the will of another. Thus they neither complain about their present condition nor think anxiously about the future, while the rest of men, generally suspended upon what is to come, allow the present to slip past. No care for food, clothing, or provisions to be accumulated for old age torments them. There is no burdensome trouble concerning wives, children, or grandchildren; no banquets and drunken bouts which steal time by delighting and, after pleasure, assail them with diseases and pains. Dinner is finished in half an hour, and the little supper even more quickly; yet not even that refreshment is without the choicest reading. I have said more concerning these matters in the little book On the Secrets of Our Society.
The familiarity and conversations of many learned men, which are often more useful than study itself, also help very greatly. Finally, there is the abundance of books which each college is accustomed to procure according to its resources. After God, we are accustomed to call this also our treasure. If a prince were to establish some college in this manner from an order of religious or of canons, he would certainly provide most excellently for the provinces and would possess constant teachers of wisdom.