The education of youth in schools is one of the prominent features of the Jesuits' institute. Their founder saw, that the disorders of the world, which he wished to correct, spring chiefly from neglect of education. He perceived, that the fruits of the other spiritual functions of {194} his society would be only temporary, unless he could perpetuate them through every rising generation, as it came forward in succession. Every professed Jesuit was bound by a special vow, to attend to the instruction of youth; and this duty was the peculiar function, the first important mission, of the younger members, who were preparing themselves for profession. Even the two years of noviciate mainly contributed to the same purpose. They were not lost to the sciences, since novices were carefully taught the science upon which they all depend. The religious exercises of that first period tended to give them that steadiness of character and virtue, without which no good is achieved in schools. They then acquired a fondness for retirement, a love of regularity, a habit of labour, a disgust of dissipation, a custom of serious reflection, docility to advice, a sentiment of honour and self-respect, with a fixed love of virtue; every thing requisite to support and advance the cultivation of letters and of science in future years. It has been already observed, {195} that the serious studies, which filled five years after the noviciate, were calculated, in conjunction with strict religious discipline, to form them for the serious business of conducting a school of boys during the five or six years, which were to succeed: and, in the discharge of this duty, they were bound to know and to follow, under the direction of a prefect of studies in every college, the excellent documents prescribed in the institute for masters.