During two centuries and a quarter which elapsed from their foundation to their suppression, the Jesuits rendered great services to education, literature, and the sciences. Throughout all Roman Catholic states they may be said to have established the first rational system of college education. Other orders, such as the fathers of the Christian Doctrine, instituted in 1571, the Clerici Scholarum Piarum, in 1617, and the Brothers of the Christian Schools, or Igno ranting, in 1679, applied themselves more especially to the elementary education of children, though the Jesuits also did not altogether neglect this branch. The colleges of the Jesuits were equally open to the noble and the plebeian, the wealthy and the poor : all were subject to the same discipline, received the same instruction, partook of the same plain but wholesome diet, might attain the same rewards, and were subject to the same punishments. In the school, the refectory, or the play-garden of a Jesuit's college, no one could have distinguished the son of a duke from the son of a peasant. The mauners of the Jesuits were singularly pleasing, urbane, and courteous, far remove) from pedantry, moroseness, or affectation. Their pupils, generally speaking, contracted a lasting attachment for their masters. At the time of their suppression the grief of the youths of the various colleges at separating from their teachers was universal and truly affecting. Most of the distinguished men of the 13th century, even those who afterwards turned free-thinkers, and railed at the Jesuits as a society, had received their first education from them ; and some of them have had the frankness to acknowledge the merits of their instructors. The sceptical Lalande paid them an honest tribute of esteem and of regret at their fall : even Voltaire spoke in their defence. Gresset addressed to them a most pathetic valedictory poem, Les Adieux.' The bishop De Bauseet, in his Vie de Fauelon; has inserted a mast eloquent account of the Institution of the Jesuits, of their mode of instruction, and of the influence which they had, especially in the towns of France, in preserving social and domestic peace and harmony.
instruction of the Jesuits did not exclusively apply themselves to the nstruction of youth ; grown-up people voluntarily sought their advice concern ing their own affairs and pursuits in life, which they always freely bestowed ; they encouraged tho timid and weak, they directed the disheartened and the forsaken towards now paths for which they saw that they were qualified ; and whenever they perceived abilities, good will, and honesty, they were sure to lend a helping hand. The doors of the cells of the older professed fathers were often tapped at by trembling hands, and admittance was never refused to the unfortunate. In private life at least, whatever may have been the case in courtly politics, their advice was generally disinterested. It has been said that they excelled in the art of taming man, which they effected, not by violence, not by force, but by persuasion, by kindness, and by appealing to the feelings of their pupils. If over mankind could be happy in a state of mental subordination and tutelage under kind and considerate guardians, the Jesuits were the men to produce this result ; but they ultimately failed. The human mind is in its nature aspiring, and cannot be permanently controlled ; it cannot be fashioned to one universal measure ; and sooner or later it will elude the grasp of any system, whether military or political, ecclesiastical or philosophical, aud will seek, at any cost, to gratify its instinctive desire for freedom.
Among the members of their own society the Jesuits have had distinguished men in almost every branch of learning. In the mathe matical sciences we may mention, among others, Jacquier, Le Sueur, Boscovich, and Le :Mire; in classical literature, Petau, Sirmond, Jouvency, Lagomartino, Tursellini, &e. ; in general literature, Possevin, Bettinelli, Tiraboachi ; in ecclesiastical learning and sacred oratory, Bellarrnino, Pallaviciuo, Segneri, Bourdaloue ; iu Oriental philology, Kircher, Ignezio Rossi, Amiot, Gaubil, &c. The Fasti Soeietatis Jesu,' the 'Acta Sanctorum S. J.,' the numerous letters and memoirs of the various missions, may be consulted in order to judge of the value of Jesuit learning and labour.