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136 ticular the Jesuit schools contrasted strongly with their rivals of old, as indeed with the ordinary school of the present day."

If we ask to which sources the Ratio Studiorum is to be referred, we must confess that an adequate answer is not easy. There are many little brooks which by their conflux form that mighty river. Ignatius and his companions had been trained in scholastic philosophy. The Constitutions and the Ratio Studiorum adapted this philosophic system, modified, however, and perfected by the teachers and writers of the Order. Hence the central position of Aristotle in philosophy, and St. Thomas Aquinas in theology.