Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/92

72 to make it a useful means of Christian education as well as of mental training.

Secondly: The foregoing sketch proves that it is false to say: the Jesuits availed themselves, in the interest of the Catholic Church, of the zeal for learning which the Protestants had awakened. It can be proved over and above that a great zeal for learning had existed before the Reformation, and that this zeal was well-nigh extinguished by this movement. Melanchthon, Sturm and other reformers who worked for the establishment of schools, had received their literary education, their zeal for learning, and the greater part of their educational principles from the schools flourishing before the outbreak of the religious revolution. Their efforts were directed towards reestablishing what the religious disturbances had destroyed. Of course, we are far from denying that the Reformers introduced many improvements into the Protestant schools; but they and the Jesuits drew from the same sources.

The preceding sketch of the condition of education previous to the foundation of the Society of Jesus may seem disproportionately long. However, it was necessary to dwell on this point at some length, in order to expose one of the fundamental errors concerning the origin of the educational system of the Jesuits. It would not have sufficed to make a few general assertions – as has been done by some non-Catholic writers on the history of education – but it was necessary to quote details, in order to refute this erroneous view.