Jesuit Education/Chapter 10

by Robert Schwickerath

 

Chapter X.

The Intellectual Scope.

In the preceding chapter. we mentioned a statement of the present General of the Society, "that the characteristics of the Ratio Studiorum are not to be sought in the subject matter or in the order, but in what may be called the form or the spirit of the system." Father Martin explained in what this form consists: "It consists chiefly in the training of the mind, which is the object, and in the various exercises, which are the means to attain this object." In these words we have the intellectual scope of the Ratio Studiorum, in fact the intellectual scope of every rational system of education. This training of the mind means the gradual and harmonious development of all the higher faculties of man, of memory, imagination, intellect, and will.

The very meaning of the word confirms this view: to "educate" signifies to exercise the mental faculties of man, by instruction, training and discipline in such a way as to develop and render efficient the natural powers; to develop a man physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually.^[1] The mind is educated when its powers are developed and disciplined, so that it can perform its appropriate work. In speaking of one as educated, we imply not merely that he has acquired knowledge, but that his mental powers have been developed and disciplined to effective action. Education is, consequently, the systematic development and cultivation of the mind and faculties. In these definitions we see that education signifies development, and rightly so, as its original meaning is to "draw out." The fundamental mistake of many modern systems is the utter disregard of this truth. Father Dowling, S. J., of Creighton University, has expressed this very well in the following words^[2]: "Unfortunately education, which ought to signify a drawing out, has come to be regarded as the proper word to denote a putting in. Properly it supposes that there is something in the mind capable of development, faculties that can be trained, implicit knowledge which can be made explicit, dormant powers which can be awakened. The main end of education should be to unfold these faculties. It means not so much the actual imparting of knowledge, as the development of the power to gain knowledge, to apply the intellect, to cultivate taste, utilize the memory, make use of observations and facts. It is not essential that the studies which produce these results should be directly useful in after life any more than it is necessary for the athlete in the development of his powers to wield the blacksmith's hammer, instead of using dumb-bells or horizontal bars, none of which play any part in his subsequent career; he puts them all aside when the physical powers have been developed."

The Germans express the same idea admirably by the name they give to their colleges. They call a college a gymnasium. Indeed, this is what a college should be, a place of mental gymnastics, of training, not for the muscles, but the mind. Education ought not to be merely an accumulating of knowledge, of data from various sciences, of bits of learning gathered here and there. This, alas, it now is in too many modern systems. "Give the pupils facts, broad information, varied instruction," is their watch-word. And yet, facts, information, instruction, are only a means of educating, not education itself; they are, to use the above mentioned metaphor, the dumb-bells, the horizontal bars, the pulleys of this mental gymnasium, by the use of which the mind acquires that agility and nimbleness, that quickness of action, and last, but not least, that gracefulness and refinement which we call taste, the noblest result of a well balanced education. A mind thus trained and developed may then take up any special study. A young man thus educated has his intellectual tools sharpened and ready for use. He will accomplish more, and will do more thorough and successful work, in any line of professional or practical work, than the one who from the beginning took up special studies. Undoubtedly, the latter will get an earlier start in life; when twenty-five years old he is earning money, while the former has just finished his long course of training. But wait until they are thirty-five, then, ceteris paribus, the one who laid a deeper and broader foundation of general education, will be known as the more successful lawyer, physician, or teacher, perhaps even the more prosperous business man, and certainly the more cultured and more refined gentleman, one who exercises an elevating and ennobling influence on all who come into contact with him.

It may safely be said that one of the worst features of modern educational systems is the tendency to cram too much into the courses of study, too much that is considered "practical" in one way or other. As Professor Treitschke of Berlin has expressed it, "the greatest danger that threatens the education of modern man lies in the infinite distraction of our inner life, in the superabundance of mental impressions of every sort that rush upon us and hamper the one prerequisite of all great work: recollection of soul, concentration of mind." Hence he thinks it absolutely necessary that youths should be educated as simply as possible, and should not be mentally overfed by many and various things.^[3] It is, indeed, a most serious mistake to think that a person who knows all sorts of things is educated; no, sciolism is not culture. Consequently, that school is by no means the right one which "coaches" or "crams" for the future profession, – we are not speaking of the professional schools, – but that which trains the man, trains the mental faculties, develops clear logical thinking, cultivates the imagination, ennobles the sentiments, and strengthens the will. This, indeed, is educating, that is, "drawing out" what lies hidden and undeveloped in the soul. Instead of this, many modern schools aim at further expansion, which, considering the limited capacity of the youthful mind, is inseparable from shallowness. What is gained in extent of knowledge, is necessarily lost in depth, thoroughness, and mastery of the knowledge acquired. What is sadly needed now-a-days is concentration, a wise restriction of subjects which leads to depth and interior strength.

The educational system of the Society always aimed at a thorough general training in a few branches. Four characteristic points are discernible in this training: it is to be thorough, prolonged, general, simple. It is to be thorough; for superficial knowledge, smattering, is not training. It must be prolonged; for thoroughness cannot be effected in a short time. Time is as essential for maturing a man's mind and character, as it is for ripening a choice fruit; one may bake an apple in a few moments, but one cannot ripen it in that time. Education must, in this regard, follow the laws of nature. Time and prolonged and patient efforts are absolutely necessary in order to produce any success in education. In the third place this training is to be general, not professional; its aim is the man, not the specialist; it is the foundation on which the professional training is to be built up. It is, in other words, a liberal training; it has to cultivate the ideal, that which is really human and permanent in life. What is useful and practical will be cared for in time, and, as a rule, is sufficiently looked after. Lastly, this training must be simple, that is, it must be based on a few well-related branches; if too many disconnected subjects are treated, thoroughness becomes absolutely impossible.

The modern tendency in education is in the opposite direction. It aims at the useful and practical rather than the general training, or, at best, allots too short a time to the general education. Hence the very foundation of the practical training is weak. Besides, it comprises too many various subjects, the consuming of which does not effect a healthy mental growth, but an intellectual hypertrophy.^[4] It is showy in the extreme, and dazzles the eye of the public, and even of some whose education and position in the world of culture should be a safeguard against such delusion. For these very reasons it is most detrimental to true progress. Far-seeing men, in this country as well as in Europe, realize the dangers of this tendency, and warn all educators against them most emphatically.

In an address on the occasion of the 27th annual commencement of the Jesuit College, Buffalo, N. Y., 1897, the Right Rev. James B. Quigley, D. D., Archbishop of Chicago, said: "We Americans are a practical people, but we are also impatient. We cannot arrive at our goal quickly enough. We send the boys to a high school for three or four years, and then we call them away and send them to the study of law or medicine. Now I would tell the parents: if you want to make a lawyer or a doctor of your son, let him finish the college course, he will be the better for it in his profession. We have now lawyers and doctors enough, what we need is better lawyers and better doctors."

Dr. McCosh, for twenty years President of Princeton College, says: "There is a loud demand in the present day for college education being made what they call practical. I believe that this is a mistake. A well known ship-builder once said to me: 'Do not try to teach my art in school; see that you make the youth intelligent, and then I will easily teach him ship-building.' The business of a college is to teach scientific principles of all sorts of practical application. The youth thus trained will start life in far better circumstances than those who have learned only the details of their craft, which are best learned in offices, stores and factories, and will commonly outstrip them in the rivalries of life. He will be able to advance when others are obliged to stop."^[5]

Professor Münsterberg of Harvard University, in his article on School Reform,^[6] speaks admirably on the same subject. He points out the various fallacies underlying the system that advocates the earliest possible beginning of specialization. He ably proves that the pretensions of this system are wrong, and its calculations superficial, even from the merely utilitarian and mercenary standpoint. But above all, this system is to be condemned from the standpoint of liberal education. The Harvard Professor writes: "The higher the level on which the professional specializing begins, the more effective it is. I have said that we German boys did not think of any specialization and individual variation before we reached a level corresponding to a college graduation here. In this country, the college must still go on for a while playing the double rôle of the place for the general education of the one, and the workshop for the professional training of the other; but at least the high school ought to be faithful to its only goal of general education without professional anticipations. Moreover, we are not only professional wage earners; we live for our friends and our nation; we face social and political, moral and religious problems; we are in contact with nature and science, with art and literature; we shape our towns and our time, and all that is common to every one, – to the banker and the manufacturer, to the minister and the teacher, to the lawyer and the physician. The technique of our profession, then, appears only as a small variation of the large background of work in which we all share; and if the education must be adapted to our later life, all these problems demand a uniform education for the members of the same social community. The division of labor lies on the outside. We are specialists in our handiwork, but our heart work is uniform, and the demand for individual education emphasizes the small differences in our tasks, and ignores the great similarities. And, after all, who is able to say what a boy of twelve years will need for his special life work? It is easily said in a school programme that the course will be adapted to the needs of the particular pupil with respect to his later life, but it would be harder to say how we are to find out what the boy does need; and even if we know it, the straight line to the goal is not always the shortest way."

Mr. Clement L. Smith is not less outspoken on this topic^[7]: "An education which aims to equip men for particular callings, or to give them a special training for entering upon those callings, however useful it may be, is not the liberal education which should be the single aim of the college. It should be the aim of the secondary school, too, – if not for all pupils, certainly for those who are going to college. For those who turn away, at the end of the school course, to train themselves for some technical pursuit, let appropriate technical schools be provided, and let them be held in all honor. But they should not masquerade as institutions for liberal education. Above all, they should not invade the province of the college, introducing confusion, and turning it into a place where there are a number of unconnected and independent educations going on at the same time, instead of a place where, though there are many paths, they all lead to a single goal. For the essence of a liberal education lies in the aim, not in the studies pursued,^[8] – not in letters, not in science. These are the materials with which it works; and employs them, not to make professional or technical experts, but to make men and women of broader views, of greater intellectual power, – better equipped for whatever profession or employment they may undertake, and for their equally important function of citizen and neighbor."

The Honorable James Bryce, a man excellently fitted to express his opinion on American, as well as on European, questions, a few years ago, while advocating a special commercial training, warns against shortening the time allotted to general education, whether elementary or secondary. On the contrary, the further the general education can be carried, the better for the young man, and more would be lost by curtailing the time spent on the subjects which everybody should learn, than would be gained by any special preparation for a particular employment. He reminds the people of England and the United States that the demand for a commercial education might do more harm than good, "were it to lead to a shortening or to a commercializing of general school education, or were it to dispose us to ignore the supreme importance of securing that the teaching of the commercial subjects themselves shall be so directed as to arouse and stimulate the faculties no less than to inform the memory of the learner."^[9]

Long before this, Arnold had spoken in similar terms: "It is no wisdom to make boys prodigies of information, but it is our wisdom and our duty to cultivate their faculties, each in its season, first the memory and the imagination, and then the judgment, to furnish them with the means and to excite the desire of improving themselves."^[10] The most enlightened and experienced German educators insist on this point as strongly as any of those whose authority is cited above.^[11] It is needless to point out the fact that these writers clearly and strikingly express the same opinion about the intellectual scope of education as the Jesuits, namely, that real education does not consist in merely imparting information, but in training the mental faculties, in the efformatio ingenii, as the General of the Society called it in 1893.

In this country the question about the intellectual scope of education is closely connected with the other most important question: What is the function of the high school and college? Aside from the champions of extreme electivism, there is no educator of note who does not consider general culture the function of the high school. A great number of prominent educators do not hesitate to assign the same function to the college, relegating specialization, the acquisition of scholarship, or professional skill, entirely, or for the main part, to the university. The college should concern itself with the final stage of secondary education; it ought to stimulate general culture and to train character, rather than to impart specific instruction. A college President declared that the first step towards a betterment is the reassertion of the aim and nature of college life. The university, demanding for entrance a bachelor's degree, is the crown of our educational system. Its province is higher education, the cultivation of advanced scholarship and research. But "the college should give itself no airs. It should not pretend to be a university."^[12]

It needs scarcely be stated that the Jesuits' view of the college is exactly the same. They assign no other function, no other aim to it than general culture, harmonious training of the mind.

How is this training of the mind to be obtained? The Jesuit answers: By exercise, that is, by the different exercises, such as are laid down in the Ratio Studiorum: exercises of the intellect – translations, compositions; exercises of the memory – recitations and declamations; debates (academies), etc. These exercises have sometimes been styled "mechanical"; still how can any training be effected except by devices according to strict rule? Certainly not by the mere lecture of the teacher, however scholarly or interesting it may be. No one becomes an athlete by attending lectures on gymnastics, and no one becomes a perfect soldier by reading the U. S. Infantry Drill Book; but practice, drill, exercise is required. No one's mental faculties will ever become really developed, unless he is trained and drilled. The insisting on this fundamental principle is probably the most characteristic point in the educational system of the Society. Practice and exercise run all through the different grades, beginning from the teaching of the elements of Latin up to the highest course of theology. It is the same great principle of the necessity of self-exertion, self-activity which Ignatius so forcibly insists upon in that admirable little book, which he justly calls the "Spiritual Exercises." As there the exercitant is exhorted to act for himself, and not merely to suffer himself to be acted upon, so here the pupil is required from the beginning to act, not merely to listen, to exert himself in the various prescribed exercises.

As these exercises will be spoken of in a later chapter of this book,^[13] we need not discuss them here. Suffice it to say that the ablest educators of the nineteenth century have recommended exercises which are essentially the same as those of the Society. So Dr. Arnold, the famous head-master of Rugby; Dr. Wiese, for decades one of the most influential men in the Prussian Ministry of Education; Dr. M. Seyffert, the great Latinist. In the introduction to his excellent Scholae Latinae, Dr. Seyffert has the following: "I thought this work, the fruit of twenty-five years experience, was something new. However, I had scarcely finished, when through the information of a friend of mine, I found out that there was nothing new under the sun. The merit and honor of the invention belongs, as I know now, to the seventeenth century, and, as hardly can be expected otherwise, to the diligence of the Order of the Jesuits, who were unwearied in preparing pedagogical helps and means. I shall be satisfied if my work finds only one tenth of the approval which their work found, and as I think, most deservedly found." Another great educator of Germany, K. L. Roth, said: "Exercise was the secret of the old college-systems; it forced the pupil daily to use for the formation of his judgment the material accumulated to excess in his memory."^[14]

 

1. The Standard Dictionary.
2. The Catholic College as a Preparation for a Business Career, p. 7. – See also The Month, February, 1886: Education and School, by the Rev. John Gerard, S. J.
3. Neue Jahrbücher, 1901, vol. VIII, p. 474.
4. "The educational system [of America] is undertaking too much, at least in the grades below the college. 'Research' is attempted where drill is what is needed." President Draper of the University of Illinois, Educational Review, May 1902, p. 455. – See also the words of Ex-President Cleveland, referred to on p. 294, and the Electrical World, l. c.
5. The Life of James McCosh, edited by W. M. Sloane, p. 204.
6. Atlantic Monthly, May 1900, p. 662 foll.
7. "The American College in the 20th Century," Atlantic Monthly, Feb. 1900.
8. Almost literally what Father Martin declared to be the essence of Jesuit education. See above p. 286 and 297.
9. North American Review, June 1899.
10. Fitch, Thomas and Matthew Arnold, p. 61.
11. See especially Weissenfels, Die Bildungswirren der Gegenwart, Berlin, 1901. – Matthias, Aus Schule, Unterricht und Erziehung, 1901. – Professor Weissenfels, throughout his book, expresses his deepest anxiety at the ever increasing spirit of utilitarianism in German schools.
12. President Jones of Hobart College, in the Forum, January 1901: Is the College Graduate Impracticable? – The greatest difficulty in this country lies in the fact that pupils go too late to the high school or college. The study of Latin should be commenced at the age of ten or twelve years, instead of thirteen or fourteen. See Dr. Stanley Hall, Forum, Sept. 1901; and below ch. XVI, § 1. – The same is advocated by Professor Nightingale in the Report of the Conference on English, read before the National Association of Education, at Ashbury Park, N. J., 1894. German boys begin with nine or ten years, why should not the clever American boy be able to begin with ten or eleven?
13. Chapter XVI.
14. In his Gymnasial-Pädagogik; see Duhr, p. 119.