It was not decay, a century ago, when expropriation and exile were the confessed policy of the courts in Europe; when, as an American writer states it, in Portugal "Pombal cut the Gordian knot.... He commenced by the expulsion of the Jesuits and the expropriation of their property." Nor is it decay in the Order, when a liberal confederation in Switzerland, on obtaining the political ascendency in 1848, suppresses the Jesuit University at Fribourg, and provides in this wise, as an American writer records: "No religious society shall be allowed to teach; and persons hereafter educated by the Jesuits, or by any of the Orders affiliated to the Jesuits, shall be incapable of holding office in Church or State."[135] Policy like this, whether in the countries "expurgated," or in countries thereunto "affiliated," proves no decay in the Order. But where decay may come in has been clearly pointed out by one of its Generals. Speaking of the Education of Youth and the Promotion of Humane Letters, Mutius Vitelleschi wrote, in 1639, "If ever the Society were to decline from that lofty position which it holds with so many provinces and peoples, such an event could come about in no other way than by failing to walk in the same steps, by which, with the Divine Grace, it has acquired that high esteem."[136] Those steps had been taken in various paths, of which only two have concerned us here. For its men of action were largely identified with the general history of Europe; and its men of the word, who toiled in apostolic work, at home or abroad, have entwined their memories in the history of souls, often ungrateful, yet always worthy of the toil. But its men of the school did a work which we have sketched in a general way, and which we shall analyze in the second part of this essay; while its men of the pen deserve a passing word of notice here.