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The Ratio Studiorum of 1599.

The number of colleges of the Society grew very rapidly. Colleges were opened during the life-time of St. Ignatius, at Messina, Palermo, Naples, and other towns in Italy; at Gandia, Salamanca, Valencia, Alcala, Burgos, Valladolid, and Saragossa in Spain; at Lisbon in Portugal; at Vienna in Austria; and at Billom in France. After the death of the first General (1556), many more colleges were added to. the list, especially in those parts of Germany and the Netherlands which had remained faithful to the Catholic Church. Thus Ingolstadt, Cologne, Prague, Tyrnau (Hungary) were opened in 1556, Munich 1559, Treves 1560, Innsbruck and Mentz 1561, etc. In Belgium Audenarde 1566, Douay 1568, Bruges 1571, Antwerp 1575, Liége 1582, etc. But the Society possessed as yet no uniform system of education; the colleges in the various countries at first followed, more or less, the systems prevailing there, not however, without improving the existing methods according to the general principles of the fourth part of the Constitutions. Still, it would be altogether wrong to suppose that the Ratio Studiorum, or Plan of Studies, drawn up 1584-1599, was the first important document