§ 7. Great care was to be taken that the frequent changes in the staff of masters did not lead to alteration in the conduct of the school. Each teacher was bound to carry on the established instruction by the established methods. All his personal peculiarities and opinions were to be as much as possible suppressed. To secure this a rigid system of supervision was adopted, and reports were furnished by each officer to his immediate superior. Over all stood the General of the Order. Next came the Provincial, appointed by the General. Over each college was the Rector, who was appointed (for three years) by the General, though he was responsible to the Provincial, and made his reports to him. Next came the Prefect of Studies, appointed, not by the Rector, but by the Provincial. The teachers were carefully watched both by the Rector and the Prefect of Studies, and it was the duty of the latter to visit each teacher in his class at least once a fortnight, to hear him teach. The other authorities, besides the masters of classes, were usually a House Prefect, and Monitors selected from the boys, one in each form. § 8. The school or college was to be built and maintained by gifts and bequests which the Society might receive for this purpose only. Their instruction was always given gratuitously. When sufficient funds were raised to support the officers, teachers, and at least twelve scholars, no effort was to be made to increase them; but if they fell short of this, donations were to be sought by begging from house to house. Want of money, however, was not a difficulty which the Jesuits often experienced. § 9. The Jesuit education included two courses of study, _studia superiora et inferiora_. In the smaller colleges only the _studia inferiora_ were carried on; and it is to these _lower schools_ that the following account mainly refers. The boys usually began this course at ten years old and ended it at sixteen.[18] § 10. The pupils in the Jesuit colleges were of two kinds: 1st, those who were training for the Order, and had passed the Novitiate; 2nd, the externs, who were pupils merely. When the building was not filled by the first of these (the Scholastici, or _Nostri_, as they are called in the Jesuit writings), other pupils were taken in to board, who had to pay simply the cost of their living, and not even this unless they could well afford it. Instruction, as I said, was gratuitous to all. “Gratis receive, gratis give,” was the Society’s rule; so they would neither make any charge for instruction, nor accept any gift that was burdened with conditions.