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from existing systems, it matters little whence and how much. We must, however, claim that their experience from 1540-1599, and their painstaking efforts in drawing up the Ratio, had a considerable share in the results that attended their system.^[1] Above all, what is most characteristic in the Jesuit system, the wonderful unity and organization, was not borrowed from any other system, but is the work of the framers of the Constitutions and of the Ratio Studiorum.

1. "It may be said in general that the practical experience (of the early Jesuits) exerted a greater influence on the formation of the Order's pedagogy than the study of pedagogical theorizers." G. Müller, quoted by Paulsen, l. c., vol. I, page 412.