this means with great success. It is not to be gathered from this that
the Roman Church had been unmindful of her duty in the training of the
young. It has already been shown that the Church maintained education
from the beginning of the Christian era down through the Middle Ages,
that she never slackened in her zeal for this work, and that she held it
to be her right and duty, as she does to this day, to train the young.
At this very time she was maintaining many schools. But the "Order of
Jesus" was destined to systematize education in such a degree as the
Church had never witnessed.

It has been claimed that the founding of the "Society of Jesus" was a
"Counter-Reformation," the purpose of which was to check the growth of
Protestantism. Whatever may have been the effect of its work in this
direction, it seems clear that such was not the purpose for which it was
organized. Schwickerath shows that it is doubtful if the founder of the
Jesuit order had ever heard the name of the German Reformer. He
says,[63] "The Papal Letters and the Constitutions assign as the special
object of the Society: 'The progress of souls in a good life and
knowledge of religion; the propagation of faith by public preaching, the
Spiritual Exercises and works of charity, and particularly the
instruction of youth and ignorant persons in the Christian religion.'"
It cannot be denied, whatever the original purpose of the Society, that
it not only checked the onward march of Protestantism, but it even
restored many provinces and communities to their fealty to the Mother
Church. How well the last clause of the admonition above quoted was
carried out will be seen when we remember that the Jesuits originated
the most successful educational system of the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries, a system having a definite end in view, and
whose adherents by indomitable energy, by self-sacrifice, by oneness of
purpose, secured remarkable success. Let us turn our attention to the
founding of the "Order."

=Loyola= (1491-1556), the originator of the order, was a Spanish
nobleman. While recovering from a severe wound received in battle, he
read some religious books which made such a profound impression upon him
that he resolved to consecrate himself to religious work. Not being an
educated man, he devoted some years to study, and while at the
university of Paris he gathered around him other young men who also were
ready to consecrate themselves t