PROLEGOMENA. Ixxv. 



I believe, contributed more to the dispelling of the mist of 

 error than any other institute whatever, by the judicious 

 efforts they have made to educate all classes of society, 

 for at the same time that they gave to each class an edu- 

 cation suitable to its rank in life, they blended the Faith 

 and Discipline of the Christian Religion so closely with all, 

 and taught to all such excellent principles of subordination 

 to their superiors, that all the solid advantages of educa- 

 tion were achieved, without any danger from its abuses. 



It is a difficult matter to make men learned and 

 bumble at the same time ; it can only be done by religion, 

 and a habit of teaching children to do everj-thing for the 

 love of God, and not out of a desire of vaunting them- 

 selves. This was the great aim of the Society ; and the 

 loyalty, integrity of character, courage in danger, and 

 resignation in death, of its members, which are facts too 

 notorious to be denied, will bear a better testimony to the 

 success of their endeavours than any encomium of mine. 



Education is a great blessing when thus applied : in our 

 own country we have hitherto not seen much benefit from 

 its extension; crime and juvenile delinquency seem to have 

 gone hand in hand with the spread of knowledge. The 

 fault is in not blending it with religion. The object of 

 education should be to fit men for this life, only as a passage 

 to heaven. To educate is to lead forth, and when applied 

 to the mind, it should be regarded as the planting of a 

 perennial tree, which has its roots deep in the human 

 heart, and its branches in heaven ; and not merely as the 

 sowing of an annual, to flower and decay with the mortal 

 trunk on which it is a parasite. This is the grand mistake 

 made in education ; and this is the difference between what 

 the Society of Jesus did, and what modern Institutions do, 

 in this most momentous department of civil and religious 

 economy. 



