An ascendency of personal tact and address, conspicuous in the Jesuit teachers, is usually commented upon and referred to some cause or other, in themselves or in the general organization of the Society. Omitting that, I prefer to designate one secret of control, which is full of significance, though not so likely to arrest attention. It is an insensible method of organization, making its way among the youths themselves, and subserving the purpose of general collegiate control. There were, in all, four classes of auditors, mingled together, and intermingling their influences. That of the strongest of course preponderated. There were Jesuits themselves in the higher courses. There were boarders, _convictores_, who remained for ten, or rather eleven months of the year, entirely under the control and direction of the Fathers. Among these were whole houses of Religious or Ecclesiastics. Besides, there were _alumni_, day scholars, that great body of students originally contemplated in the Constitution of Ignatius. These, however, owing to their divided life, partly at school, partly at home, were not found to represent, as a rule, the fullest effects of the education. Finally, there were _externi_, external students, such as not being entered on the books, still attended lectures; and to this category we must refer such general gatherings as those several thousand hearers, who were in attendance for hours, before the time, at Father Maldonado's lectures in Paris, and made him go out into the open air to satisfy all. Now, besides the bond of affection which attached scholars to the Professors, there was another bond, that of their character as Sodalists. This character denoted membership in the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a religious association which is most highly commended in the _Ratio Studiorum_, and which gathered into itself all that was excellent in the body of students. The literary and scientific "academies" were recruited only from the Sodality. Thus, by a double process, an aristocracy of virtue and talent was created among the students themselves, tending not only to the maintenance of order, but to the active development of all those qualities which an educational system most desires. CHAPTER XVII. EXAMINATIONS AND GRADUATION. SCHEDULE OF GRADES AND COURSES.