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§ 4. The system of education to be adopted in all the Jesuit institutions was settled during the Generalship of Aquaviva. In 1584 that General appointed a School Commission, consisting of six distinguished Jesuits from the various countries of Europe. These spent nearly a year in Rome, in study and consultation; and the fruit of their labours was the ground-work of the Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Societatis Jesu. This, however, did not take its final form till twelve other commissioners had been at work upon it. It was then (1599) revised and approved by Aquaviva and the Fifth and Sixth General Assemblies. By this code the Jesuit schools were governed till 1832, when the curriculum was enlarged so as to include physical science and modern languages.

§ 5. The Jesuits who formed the Societas Professa, i.e., those who had taken all the vows, had spent from fifteen to eighteen years in preparation, viz., two years as novices and one as approved scholars, during which they were engaged chiefly in religious exercises, three years in the study of philosophy and mathematics, four years of theology, and, in the case of the more distinguished students, two years more in repetition and private theological study. At some point in this course, mostly after the philosophy, the students were sent, for a while, to teach the “lower studies” to boys.[16] The method of teaching was to be learnt in the training schools, called Juvenats,[17] one of which was founded in each province.