So then the edifice of the past stands, with the latest modifications introduced into its façade by the spirit of the present. As the monumental structures which stud the soil of Europe, and are set amid royal parks or rich fields of waving grain, have been tributes of devotion from princes of the church or princes of the land, and are not only the memorials of kings or peoples, but are especially the architectural record of centuries; so a system recognized in history as great, elevated in the order of highest human achievement, that of educating humanity, and resting on the basis of oldest traditions and the wisdom of the remotest past, has not been the work of an ordinary individual, nor of a day. Masters in their art, and centuries in their duration, have combined to build it up, a monument of the practice and theory of generations. With devoted zeal and prudence, secular communities, and even pagans in times far gone by, had brought the stones, and contributed tithes to the erection of the fabric. But it is only too well known that Ecclesiastics and Religious men have been the architects of the monument as it stands. And they did not build better than they knew; for their structure is precisely one of knowledge, chiefly of divine knowledge, raised into a consistent theory, and honored by the most practical use. So the very first sentence in the _Ratio Studiorum_, speaking of the "abundant practical fruit to be gathered from this manifold labor of the schools," mentions that fruit as being "the knowledge and love of the Creator." I may be permitted then to close this work by quoting their own poetry, which is inscribed on a statue of Christ. The statue overlooks a park in front of it, and the fields hard by, and the rich garden of studious youth, within the college walls alongside. Thus one inscription reads:-- TIBI · HAEC · ARVA · RIDENT · ATQUE · AGGERE COMPLANATO · HAE · FLORIBUS · NITENT · AREOLAE · ET PUBES · UNDIQUE · ACCITA · VIRTUTIBUS SCIENTIIS · QUE · ADOLESCIT.[357] And again the granite reads:-- QUAS · CIRCUM · CERNIS · CHRISTO URNAE · FLORIBUS · HALANT · NE · CARPE INCESTO · POLLICE · QUISQUE · FUAS.[358] BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX, INDICATING SOME OF THE SOURCES AND OTHER WORKS, MORE EASY OF ACCESS. PACHTLER, G. M., S. J.: Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum, 1586; Ratio Studiorum, 1599, 1832; and other pedagogical documents:--Comprised in MONUMENTA GERMANIÆ PÆDAGOGICA, vols. ii, v, ix (to be followed by others); Berlin, A. Hofmann & Co., 1887. JOUVANCY, JOS., S. J.: Ratio Discendi et Docendi pro Magistris Scholarum Inferiorum, 1 vol. 12mo; Avignon, Fr. Seguin, 1825.