And in no particular of his life is he more like himself, more thorough, more of a brave cavalier, "governing himself, in great things and small, by reasons most high," than when, having little facility for such pursuits, and less inclination, he makes up his mind, after a short breathing spell, to sit down again at the age of thirty-seven years, and resume his Latin declensions! In the college of Montague, he spends about two years acquiring this tongue. Meanwhile, he tries various plans to find wherewithal to live.

I need not dwell on the nature of this great centre into which Ignatius had penetrated, an unknown stranger, just one of its tens of thousands of scholars. It had more than two scores of colleges. To this, the queen of universities, though she was going to be no kind alma mater to him and his Order, still the recollections of Loyola in his future legislation would always turn back with reverence. His first Professors for the Roman College, the typical institution of the Society, would be taken from those of his men who were Doctors of this university. And, whatever might be the moral condition and the religious lassitude of the university men, as compared with this penniless stranger, in 1529, occasions were to come in after times, when they showed themselves not unworthy of the enemy whom they fought to the death. When the plague of 1580 made a desert about them, the university men and the Jesuits, otherwise never seen together, save in the lists and face to face, now were everywhere, and fell fast, side by side on the field of Christian charity.

For the understanding of the Jesuit system, in its origin and its form, attention must always be paid, in the first place, to the kinship subsisting between it and the Paris University. There are, besides, many other degrees of relationship, which do not go unacknowledged, in the formation of the Ratio Studiorum. The system of the English universities may be recognized in the line of ancestry. Whatever was best anywhere enters the pedigree; as Lord Bacon takes note, when delivering himself like a good philosopher, but also like a good Protestant, he eulogizes and stigmatizes in the same breath: "The ancient wisdom of the best times," he says, "did always make a just complaint, that states were too busy with their laws, and too negligent in point of education; which excellent part of the ancient discipline hath been in some sort revived, of late times, by the colleges of the Jesuits; of whom, although in regard of their superstition I may say, 'quo meliores, eo deteriores'; yet in regard of this, and some other points concerning human learning and moral matters, I may say, as Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabaus, 'Talis quum sis, utinam noster esses.'"13

In the University of Paris, then, as his real alma mater, Ignatius commenced his course of Philosophy in the year 1529. He finished it by standing successfully the severe examination, called examen lapideum, "the rocky test," considered the most searching of all in the Paris Academy. He thus became a Master of Arts, after Easter, A.D. 1534; having become Licentiate in the previous year. Particulars about his four examiners in the "rocky test," his graduation, the degrees of his companions, with the dates, as found in the Paris records, are given by the Bollandists.14

He now entered on his theological studies. It was evident that the obstructions, which had thwarted so many of his efforts heretofore, were disappearing one by one. And more than that; the means were being placed in his hands for the great work before him. These means were a company of men. He was in the midst of a devoted little band, each one of whom he had won individually. They were Peter Lefèvre and Francis Xavier; James Lainez and Alphonsus Salmeron, both of them mere youths; there were Claude Le Jay, John Coduri, Nicholas Bobadilla, Simon Rodriguez; and lastly, the only one who at this time was a Priest among their number, Pasquier Brouet. Among these, never at their head though considered a father by all, never leading the way, though on that account showing himself the more effectively a leader, Ignatius was all in all to each one of them. He had previously acquired some valuable experience in selecting and forming companions. But such as had gathered round him in Spain were no longer with him. Each one of his present party was a picked man.

When six of them were sufficiently advanced, he and they held a solemnity, which was the real birthday of the Society of Jesus. On the fifteenth day of August, 1534, they took a vow, in the church of the Blessed Virgin, at Montmartre in Paris. They bound themselves to renounce all their goods by a given date, and betake themselves to the Holy Land; failing in that, they would throw themselves at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff, and offer him their absolute service. Meanwhile they pursued their studies; and, as each of the two following years brought round the fifteenth day of August, it found them in the same place, and with the same solemnity, and with an enlarged number, renewing this vow. The legal birthday of the Order came only with the Papal charter on September 27, 1540.

I shall pass over the movements of Loyola, when bidden to go and recuperate in his native climate. He returned to Spain, in 1535, leaving his companions to study till 1537; and he settled the affairs of his young Spanish associates at their homes. All, when the time came, disposed of their goods in a summary way. They gave to the poor, reserving nothing, except what would pay their way to Venice, and thence to the East. Their principle was, Dispersit, dedit pauperibus, "He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor." Besides this, Xavier, at the date appointed, gave up the last stage of his theological studies, and resigned the glory of receiving the Doctor's cap in Paris; the brilliant young Professor sacrificed the one thing which had appealed most powerfully to his ambition and imagination. Laynez was recuperating from a severe illness, and could do scarcely more than move. Nevertheless they are all in Venice, when the early spring of 1537 arrives.

Ignatius himself, meeting them there, has accomplished the work which faced him thirteen years before, and which he had taken in hand with his Latin grammar. He is now forty-six years of age.

There are three lines of activity, in which the ability and energy of Ignatius Loyola stand out before the world. One is the capacity he showed as a governor or leader of men; another is a similar competency to direct souls in the spiritual life; the third is that, which we are considering at present, his legislative genius in the intellectual order. Admitting the innate talent which must have been the basis and foundation of his gift for governing, we may affirm of all the rest, that the best part of his sagacity and tact had been acquired by personal experience. He learnt how to act by suffering. He perfected his natural gift of guiding and commanding by first submitting to all the contingencies of human life.

We may develop the meaning of this in the present matter, pedagogy; and the meaning of it will help to unfold the subject. In quest of the necessaries of life, he spent intervals of his studious career in travelling from Paris to a great distance. He found himself returning each year to Belgium, always