Those years of novitiate are blank, under the aspect of secular pursuits. But, in other respects, being a time for reflection and for internal application to the affairs of his mind and heart, they are worth a long season in the process of developing character, by habits of assiduous labor, of acquiring a taste for retirement and virtue, and practising the spirit of docility to counsel. Indeed, on issuing from this period of intense application to the knowledge of self, the young religious student is already started on his career of knowing men, and dealing successfully with human characters. Henceforth, ecclesiastical knowledge and other acquirements will be proper to his state, as a Religious; but, for the special vocation of the Society of Jesus, he returns to secular studies. In view of his approaching "regency," or Professorship in the curriculum of letters, the critics of 1586 give this advice: "It would be most profitable for the schools, if those who are about to be Preceptors were privately taken in hand by some one of great experience; and, for two months or more, were practised by him in the method of reading, teaching, correcting, writing, and managing a class. If teachers have not learnt these things beforehand, they are forced to learn them afterwards at the expense of their scholars; and then they will acquire proficiency only when they have already lost in reputation; and perchance they will never unlearn a bad habit. Sometimes, such a habit is neither very serious nor incorrigible, if taken at the beginning; but, if the habit is not corrected then, it comes to pass that a man, who otherwise would have been most useful, becomes well-nigh useless. There is no describing how much amiss Preceptors take it, if they are corrected, when they have already adopted a fixed method of teaching; and what continual disagreement ensues on that score with the Prefects of Studies. To obviate this evil, in the case of our Professors, let the Prefect in the chief College, whence our Professors of Humanities and Grammar are usually taken, remind the Rector and Provincial, about three months before the next scholastic year begins, that, if the Province needs new Professors for the following term, they should select some one eminently versed in the art of managing classes, whether he be, at the time, actually a Professor, or a student of Theology or Philosophy; and to him the future Masters are to go daily for an hour, to be prepared by him for their new ministry, giving prelections in turn, writing, dictating, correcting, and discharging the other duties of a good teacher."[161]