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24 highest reputation. In reality the curriculum of the Jesuit student is protracted mainly because he has to spend long periods in teaching, during which his own studies are materially impeded. And if we are to judge their philosophy by its fruits one hardly sees any occasion for unusual admiration: to one who is widely acquainted with the Jesuits it is painfully obvious that it turns out only a large number of uninteresting mediocrities. Although the Jesuits have the finest Catholic schools in the country, and it need not be said that they have practically their choice of boys from them, it is not evident that, as a body, they show any marked superiority over their less-dreaded colleagues. They have not a single pulpit orator; they have not one man eminent in science; the present Stonyhurst astronomer, highly and deservedly respected as he is, would hardly lay claim to that title. They have no great name in literature. If the reputation of the Jesuits, which is floating vaguely in the air, were to be carefully analysed it might possibly be traced to a dozen Jesuit pens and a hundred Jesuit tongues.

The Dominicans and Benedictines also conduct their preliminary studies in a creditable manner in their well-known colleges, but most of the other religious bodies are extremely negligent in that stage of education. Each religious order is, of course, responsible for the education of its own neophytes. For the religious orders—the regular or monastic