Essays on Educational ReformersQuick, Robert Hebert
History
Essays on Educational Reformers
Quick, Robert Hebert
Education -- History; Educators
§ 33. Perhaps no body of men in Europe (the Thugs may, in this respect,
rival them in Asia) have been so hated as the Jesuits. I once heard
Frederick Denison Maurice say he thought Kingsley could find good in
every one except the Jesuits, and, he added, he thought _he_ could find
good even in them. But why should a devoted Christian find a difficulty
in seeing good in the Jesuits, a body of men whose devotion to their
idea of Christian duty has never been surpassed?[35] The difficulty
arose from differences in ideal. Both held that the ideal Christian
would do everything “to the greater glory of God,” or as the Jesuits
put it in their business-like fashion, “A.M.D.G.,” (_i.e._, _ad majorem
Dei gloriam_). But Maurice and Kingsley thought of a divine idea for
every man. The Jesuits’ idea lost sight of the individual. Like their
enemy, Carlyle, the Jesuits in effect worshipped strength, but Carlyle
thought of the strength of the individual, the Jesuits of the strength of
“the Catholic Church.” “The Catholic Church” was to them the manifested
kingdom of God. Everything therefore that gave power to the Church tended
“A.M.D.G.” The Company of Jesus was the regular army of the Church, so,
arguing logically from their premises, they made the glory of God and the
success of the Society convertible terms.
§ 34. Thus their conception was a purely military conception. A
commander-in-chief, if he were an ardent patriot and a great general,
would do all he could to make the army powerful. He would care much
for the health, morals, and training of the soldiers, but always with
direct reference to the army. He would attend to everything that made a
man a better soldier; beyond this he would not concern himself. In his
eyes the army would be everything, and a soldier nothing but a part of
it, just as a link is only a part of a chain. Paulsen, speaking of the
Jesuits, says truly that no great organization can exist without a root
idea. The root idea of the army is the sacrifice and annihilation of the
individual, that the body may be fused together and so gain a strength
greater than that of any number of individuals. Formed on this idea the
army acts all together and in obedience to a single will, and no mob can
stand its charge. Ignatius Loyola and succeeding Generals took up this
idea and formed an army for the Church, an army that became the wonder
and the terror of all men. Never, as Compayré says, had a body been so
sagaciously organized, or had wielded so great resources for good and for
evil.[36] (_See_ Buisson, ij, 1419.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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