The Jesuits advanced up the Rhine. “They particularly coveted a settlement at Spires, both because ... there were so many distinguished men [assembled there] over whom it would be of extraordinary moment to possess influence; and also in order to be placed near the Heidelberg University, which at that day enjoyed the highest repute for its Protestant professors. They gradually carried their point.” It is interesting to note how they shadowed the Protestant schools, as if, like a parasite, to suck from them their life. “In order to bring back his University of Dillingen to its original purpose, Cardinal Truchess resolved to dismiss all the professors who still taught there, and to commit the establishment entirely to the Jesuits.” [Sidenote: Rapid growth of Jesuit schools] To show the rapidity with which the Jesuits worked, Ranke says: “In the year 1551 they had not yet any fixed position in Germany;” “in 1556 they had extended over Bavaria and the Tyrol, Franconia, and Swabia, a great part of Rhineland, and Austria, and they had penetrated into Hungary, Bohemia, and Moravia.” True to the purpose of the order, “their labors were above all devoted to the universities. They were ambitious of rivaling the fame of those of the Protestants.” [Sidenote: Jesuits’ preparatory schools] “The Jesuits displayed no less assiduity in the conduct of their Latin schools. It was one of the leading maxims of Lainez that the lower grammatical classes should be supplied with good teachers, since first impressions exercise the greatest influence over the whole future life of the individual.” The Jesuits were willing to devote a lifetime to one phase of education. “It was found that young persons learned more under them in half a year than with others in two years; even Protestants called back their children from distant schools, and put them under the care of the Jesuits.” From this last sentence two things are to be observed. Protestants had lost sight of the importance of education, and their schools had greatly deteriorated, else they would not have intrusted their children to the Jesuits. While the Jesuits began by working into the universities, “schools for the poor, modes of instruction adapted for children, and catechizing followed.” [Sidenote: Reputation of Jesuit schools] “The instruction of the Jesuits was conveyed wholly in the spirit of that enthusiastic devotion which had from the first so peculiarly characterized their order.” This had its effect; for earnest, whole-hearted work on the part of the teacher, even though the methods may be wrong and material false, will surely react in the lives of the pupils. Viewing the work of Jesuit teachers, one feels to exclaim, “Since thou art so noble, I would thou wert on our side!” And so “erelong the children, who frequented the schools of the Jesuits in Vienna, were distinguished for their resolute refusal to partake on fast days of forbidden meats which their parents ate.”