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444 attainments and practical experience allow it." The advantages of this system for education need not be demonstrated. It is the only system which gives the teacher a thorough knowledge of the pupil and influence on the formation of his character.

There is another practice of Jesuit colleges which had for its end the strengthening of the educational influence of the teacher. According to the Ratio Studiorum, it was customary that the teacher should not always remain in the same grade, except the professors of the two highest literary classes, of Humanities and Rhetoric, where more erudition is required. But the young teacher should begin with the lowest class, then year after year advance with the better part of his pupils to the next higher grade, at least for three or four years. Thus the students have not to pass so often from one master, and consequently from one kind of management, to the other; master and pupil understand each other, and if the teacher is a good religious and a fairly efficient teacher, he will have won the esteem, the affection, and the confidence of the pupils, all which gives him inestimable advantages for the real and thorough education of his charges. On the other hand, frequent changes interfere considerably with the training of the pupils. As early as 1583, Father Oliver Manare, visiting the colleges of the German provinces by the General's authority, laid it down as a directive that "frequent changes were burdensome to the students, because they were forced to