Loyola and the Educational System of the JesuitsHughes, Thomas
History
Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits
Hughes, Thomas
Education -- History; Ignatius, of Loyola, Saint, 1491-1556; Jesuits
3. I come now to the subject of Repetition, of which two chief forms
offer themselves. One is just what the word of itself indicates; it
belongs to all the faculties, but chiefly to the lower courses. I
shall call it by the generic name of Repetition. The other has place
principally in the higher; it is Disputation; of which a preparatory
exercise, called _Concertatio_, prevails also from the lowest class of
Grammar upwards.
Repetition then rehearses in full class, under various forms or
modifications of that exercise, what the Professor has explained in
class. Just before the close of the hour spent on his lecture, the
Professor of Philosophy or Theology signifies that he is ready for
questions on the matter treated; he asks sometimes an account of the
lecture, and he sees that it is repeated. The revised _Ratio_ of
1832 puts it, in more general terms, thus: "He is often to require
an account of the lectures, and to see that they are repeated"; and
then it desires that, after the lecture, either in the class-room, or
somewhere near, he remain accessible to the students for at least a
quarter of an hour, to answer their questions.[227] This is all from
the Constitution of Ignatius.
The Repetition, which he is to see to personally, is that which takes
place in small circles of about ten students each. "At the close of the
lectures let them, in parties of about ten apiece, repeat for half an
hour what they have just heard; one of the students, and, if possible,
a member of the Society, presiding over each party, _decuria_."[228]
Neither the preliminary, nor the final, _Ratio_ demands that the
Professor himself preside over any of these parties. But "those who
do preside will become more learned, and will be practising to become
Masters themselves."[229]
It must be admitted that the tenor of many remarks in the earlier
document of 1586, shows the presence of Jesuits among the auditors
to have acted on the course as a leaven and a relief; although the
concurrent testimony of historians, about the Jesuit schools, indicates
little or nothing there of that license of manners, such as Possevino
described for us in a former chapter.[230] In a special manner, those
Jesuit students, already young priests, who, having gone through their
four-year course, were now reviewing in a biennium, of a fifth and
sixth year, all their long studies of the higher sciences, stood ready
at hand for many functions in the arena of direction and presidency,
either over the repetitions or the disputations, or in the chair; to
which as many of them as were needed would be officially assigned, when
their private studies left them at last free.[231]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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