The great difficulty that confronts educators of youth in our times, is state control. In the United States it has not yet gone to extremes, but every now and then one can detect tendencies in that direction. Meantime the Society has developed satisfactorily along educational lines. According to the report of October 10, 1916 (Woodstock Letters, V 45), there were 16,438 students in its American colleges and universities. Of these 13,301 were day scholars and 3,137 boarders. There were 3,943 in the college departments, 10,502 in the high schools and 1,416 in the preparatory. Besides all this, there were commercial and special sections numbering 737. The total increase over the preceding year was 523.
The Maryland-New York provinces had 1,848 students of law, 341 of medicine, 127 of dentistry, 122 of pharmacy. Missouri had 786 students of law, 643 of medicine, 776 of dentistry, 245 of pharmacy, 126 of engineering, 530 of finance, 240 of sociology, 425 of music, 43 of journalism, and 61 in the nurse's training school. New Orleans had a law school of 81 and California one of 232 students.
It is sometimes urged as an objection to Catholic colleges that they give only a Classical education, and are thus not keeping pace with the world outside. To show that the objection has no foundation in fact, it would be sufficient to enter any Jesuit college which is at all on its feet, and see the extensive and fully equipped chemical and physical laboratories, the seismic plants and in some cases the valuable museums of natural history which they possess. If it were otherwise, they would be false to all their traditions; for the Society has always been conspicuous for its achievements in the natural sciences. It has produced not only great mathematicians and astronomers, but explorers, cosmographers, ethnologists, and archæologists. Thus, for instance, there would have been absolutely no knowledge of the aborigines of North America, their customs, their manner of life, their food, their dress, their superstitions, their dances, their games, their language had it not been for the minute details sent by the missionaries of the old and new Society to their superiors. In every country where they have been, they have charted the territories over which they journeyed or in which they have labored, described their natural features, catalogued their fauna and flora, enriched the pharmacopeia of the world with drugs, foodstuffs and plants, and have located the salts and minerals and mines.
That this is not idle boasting may be seen at a glance in Sommervogel's "Bibliothèque des écrivains." Thus the names of publications on mathematics fill twenty-eight columns of the huge folio pages. Then follow other long lists on hydrostatics and hydraulics, navigation, military science; surveying; hydrography and gnomics; physics, chemistry and seismology call for thirty columns; medical sciences; zoology, botany, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, rural economy and agriculture require eight. Then there are two columns on the black art. The fine arts including painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, music, equitation, printing and mnemonics take from column 927 to 940.
According to this catalogue, the new Society has already on its lists one hundred and sixty-four writers on subjects pertaining to the natural sciences: physics, chemistry, mineralogy, zoology, botany, paleontology, geography, meteorology, astronomy, etc. The names of living writers are not recorded. Nor does this number include the writers who published their works during the Suppression, as de Mailla, who in 1785 issued in thirteen volumes a history of China with plans and maps, the outcome of an official survey of the country – a work entrusted by the emperor to the Jesuits. Father de Mailla was made a mandarin for his share of the work.
The extraordinary work on the zoology of China by the French Jesuit, Pierre Heude, might be adduced as an illustration of similar work in later times. He began his studies in boyhood as a botanist, but abandoned that branch of science when he went to the East. While laboring as a missionary there for thirty years he devoted every moment of his spare time to zoology.
He first travelled along all the rivers of Middle and Eastern China to classify the fresh-water molluscs of those regions. On this subject alone he published ten illustrated volumes between 1876 and 1885. His treatise "Les Mollusques terrestres de la vallée du Fleuve Bleu" is today the authority on that subject. He then directed his attention particularly to the systematic and geographical propagation of Eastern Asiatic species of mammals, as well as to a comparative morphology of classes and family groups, according to tooth and skeleton formations. His fitness for the work was furthered by his extremely keen eye, his accurate memory, and the enormous wealth of material which he had accumulated, partly in the course of his early travels and partly in later expeditions, which carried him in all directions. These expeditions covered chiefly the eight years from 1892 to 1900. They took him to the Philippines which he visited three times; to Singapore, Batavia, the Celebes, the Moluccas, New Guinea, Japan, Vladivostock, Cochin-China, Cambodia, Siam, and Tongking. He carried on his work with absolute independence of method. He contented himself with the facts before him and sought little assistance from authorities; nor did he fear to deduce theoretical conclusions from his own observations which flatly contradicted other authorities. He continued his scientific work until shortly before his death which occurred at Zikawei on January 3, 1902. (The Catholic Encyclopedia, VII, 308.)
Albers in his "Liber Sæcularis" maintains that "in the cultivation of the natural sciences, the restored Society won greater fame than the old," and that "a glance at the men whom the Italian provinces alone have produced would be sufficient to convince the doubter." Angelo Secchi, of course, stands out most prominently, and a little later Father Barello, who with the Barnabite Denza established the Meteorological Observatory of Malta. Giambattista Pianciani was regarded with the greatest veneration in Rome because of his vast erudition as a scientist, as were Caraffa, Mancini and Foligni for their knowledge of mathematics. Marchi was the man who trained the illustrious de Rossi, as an archæologist, and also the Jesuit Raffaele Garrucci whose "Monumenta delle arte cristiane primitive nella metropoli del Cristianesimo" laid the foundations of the new study of archæology. The writings of Father Gondi and Francis Tongiorgi have also contributed much to advancement in those fields of knowledge.
Faustino Arévalo was one of the exiles from Spain at the time of the Suppression. He was born at Campanario in Estremadura in 1747, and entered the Society in 1761. Six years afterwards he was deported to Italy by Charles III. In Rome he won the esteem and confidence of Cardinal Lorenzano, who proved to be his Mæcenas by bearing the expense of Arévalo's learned publications. He was held in high honor in Rome, and was appointed to various offices of trust, among them that of pontifical hymnographer and theologian of the penitenziaria, thus succeeding the illustrious Muzzarelli. When the Society was restored, he returned to Spain and was made provincial of Castile. One of his works was the "Hymnodia hispanica," a restoration of ancient Spanish hymns to their original metrical, musical and grammatical perfection. This publication was much esteemed by Cardinal Mai and Dom Guéranger. It was accompanied by a curious dissertation on the Breviary of Cardinal Quignonez. He also edited the poems of Prudentius and Dracontius and those of a fifth century Christian of Roman Africa. Besides this, he has to his credit four volumes of Jouvancy's "Gospel History," the works of Sedulius and St. Isidore and a Gothic Missal. He stands in the forefront of Spanish patristic scholars, and has shed great lustre on the Church of Spain by his vast learning, fine literary taste and patriotic devotion to the Christian writers of his fatherland.
The founder of the science of archæology, according to Hurter, was Stefano Antonio Morcelli. He was a member of the old Society and re-entered it when it was restored. Even before the Suppression, which occurred twenty years after his entrance, he had established an archæological section in the Kircher Museum of Rome. When he found himself homeless, in consequence of the publication of the Brief of Clement XIV, he was made the librarian of Cardinal Albani. He refused the Archbishopric of Ragusa and continued his literary labors in Rome. His first publication was "The Style of Inscriptions." In the town of Chiari, his birthplace, to which he afterwards withdrew, he founded an institution for the education of girls, reformed the entire school system, devoted his splendid library to public use, and restored many buildings and churches. Meantime his reputation as master of epigraphic style increased and he was placed in a class of his own above all competitors. Besides his many works on his special subject, he gave to the world five volumes of sermons and ascetic treatises. When the Society was re-established he again took his place in its ranks, and died in Brescia in 1822 at the age of eighty-four. Hurter classifies him as also a historian and geographer.
Nor was Morcelli an exception. Fathers Arthur Martin and Charles Cahier are still of great authority as archæologists, chiefly for their monograph in which, as government officials, they described the Cathedral of Bourges; and likewise for their "Mélanges archéologiques," in which the sacred vessels, enamels and other treasures of Aix-la-Chapelle and of Cologne are discussed. They also wrote on the antique ivories of Bamberg, Ratisbon, Munich and London; on the Byzantine and Arabian weavings; and on the paintings and the mysterious bas-reliefs of the Roman and Carlovingian periods. Their works appeared between 1841 and 1848.
A very famous Jesuit archæologist died only a few years ago, and the French government which had just expelled the Jesuits erected a monument at Poitiers to perpetuate his memory. He was Father Camille de la Croix. He was a scion of the old Flemish nobility and was born in the Château Saint-Aubert, near Tournai in Belgium, but he passed nearly all his life in France, and hence Frenchmen considered him as one of their own. He got his first schooling in Brugelette, and, when that college was given up, went with his old masters to France. In 1877 we find him mentioned in the catalogue as a teacher and writer of music. Three years later, the French provinces had been dispersed by the government, and he was then docketed as an archæologist at the former Jesuit college of Poitiers.
De la Croix's success as a discoverer was marvellous. Near Poitiers he found vast Roman baths, five acres in extent, whose existence had never even been suspected. There were tombs of Christian martyrs; a wonderful crypt dating from the beginning of the Christian era; a temple dedicated to Mercury, with its sacred wells, votive vases etc. At Sauxay, nineteen miles from Poitiers, he unearthed the ruins of an entire Roman colony; a veritable Pompeii with its temple of Apollo, its theatres, its palaces, its baths etc. He had the same success at Nantes, Saint-Philibert, and Berthouville; – the French government supplying him with the necessary funds. The "Gaulois" said of him that "in his first ten years he discovered more monuments than would have made twenty archæologists famous." Meantime he lived in a wooden cabin, on the banks of the Clain, and there he died at the age of eighty, on April 14, 1900; and there also the French government built his monument. At the dedication, all the scientific men of the country were present, and the King of Belgium sent a representative.
Although the well-known François Moigno severed his connection with the Society, it was only after he had achieved greatness while yet in its ranks. He entered the novitiate on September 2, 1822, when he was eighteen years of age. He made his theological studies at Montrouge, and in his spare moments devoted himself to the study of the natural sciences. At the outbreak of the Revolution of 1830, he went with his brethren to Brieg in Switzerland, where he took up the study of languages, chiefly Hebrew and Arabic. When the troubles subsided in France he was appointed professor of mathematics in Paris at the Rue des Postes, and became widely known as a man of unusual attainments. He was on intimate terms with Cauchy, Arago, Ampère and others. He was engaged on one of his best known works: "Leçons de calcul différentiel et de calcul intégral" and had already published the first volume when he left the Society. He had been a Jesuit for twenty-one years. He was then made chaplain of Louis-le-Grand, one of the famous colleges owned by the Jesuits before the Suppression, and became the scientific editor of "La Presse" in 1850; of "Le Pays" in 1851, and in the following year, founded the well-known scientific journal "Cosmos," followed by "Les Mondes" in 1862, editing meanwhile "Les Actualités scientifiques." As a matter of fact, it was the Society that had formed him and enabled him to publish his greatest works.
The German, Father Ludwig Dressel, who was for many years the director of the Polytechnic in Quito, is well-known for his treatises on geology, chemistry and physics. Kramers, in Holland, is the author of three volumes on chemistry. In entomology, Father Erich Wasmann is among the masters of today, and has written a series of works which have elicited the applause of the scientific world, especially his "Die moderne Biologie und die Entwicklungstheorie." (Modern Biology and the Theory of Evolution.) The writings of Bolsius on biology won for him a membership in the scientific societies of Russia, Belgium, Italy and Holland.
The first meteorological society, the "Palatina," was founded by Father Johann Hemmer in 1780, and it is noteworthy that nearly all its contributors were members of the various religious orders of Austria-Hungary, Italy and France. Its scope was not restricted to the study of meteors, for it accepted papers on ethnology, linguistics, etc. Hence we find Father Dobrizhoffer writing to it from Paraguay, Joseph Lafitaux from Canada, Johann Hanxleden, the Sanscrit scholar from Hindostan, and Lorenzo Hervás. Hanxleden and his colleague Roth were the pioneers in Sanscrit. The former was the first European to write a Sanscrit grammar and to compile a Malabar-Sanscrit-Portuguese dictionary. Hervás was one of the Jesuits expelled from Mexico, and after the Suppression was made prefect of the Quirinal Library by Pius VII. While there, he worked in conjunction with several of his former brethren in the compilation and composition of scientific works, mostly of an ethnological character. He also wrote a number of educational works for deaf mutes.
The Observatory of Stonyhurst dates back to 1838-39, when a building consisting of an octagonal centerpiece with four abutting structures was erected in the middle of the garden. But it was not until 1845 that a 4-inch Jones equatorial was mounted in its dome. Meteorological observations were begun as early as 1844, and magnetic in 1856 by Father Weld. In 1867 an 8-inch equatorial was set up. The chief workers were Fathers Stephen Perry, Walter Sidgreaves and Aloysius Cortie. All three were members of the Royal Astronomical Society and were frequently chosen to fill official positions. Father Perry achieved special prominence. He was the director from 1860 to 1862, and again from 1868 till his death in 1889. He was a member of more scientific expeditions than any other living astronomer. He was at Cadiz for the solar eclipse in 1870; he was sent as astronomer royal in 1874 for the transit of Venus to Kerguelen or Desolation Island, and for another observation to Madagascar in 1882. In 1886 he observed a total eclipse at Carriacou in the West Indies. For the eclipse of 1887 he was sent to Russia, and for that of 1889 to Cayenne. On the latter expedition he was attacked by a pestilential fever and died on board the warship "Comus" off Georgetown, Demerara, after receiving the last sacraments from a French Abbé resident in Georgetown. Father Perry was buried there in the cathedral cemetery. His death was that of a saint, and a touching account of it has been left by his assistant, a Jesuit lay-brother.
Father Perry's prominence in the scientific world may be judged by the honors bestowed upon him. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Council; also a member and Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and, shortly before he died, he had been proposed as Vice-President. At the time of his death he held the post of President of the Liverpool Astronomical Society. He was a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, a member of the Physical Society of London, and an associate of the Papal Academy of the Nuovi Lincei, the oldest scientific society in Europe. He belonged also to the Societé Géographique of Antwerp, and had received the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa from the Royal University of Ireland. For several years before his death, he served on the committee of the council on education, as well as on the committee for comparing and reducing magnetic observations, for which work he had been appointed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, a body of which he was a life-member. In 1887 and 1889 he attended at Paris the meetings of the Astrographic Congress for the photographic charting of the heavens.
In the "Monthly Notices" of the Royal Astronomical Society (L, iv) the following resolution appears on the occasion of his death: "The Council having heard with the deepest regret of the death of the Rev. S. J. Perry while on the Society's expedition to observe the total eclipse at the Salut Islands, desire to put on record their sense of the great loss which astronomy has suffered by the death of so enthusiastic and capable an observer, and to offer to his relations and to his colleagues at Stonyhurst the expression of their sincere sympathy and condolence on this sad event." The list of his scientific papers covers twelve pages of his biography. Father Cortie, his associate in the Stonyhurst Observatory, says of him: "His death was glorious, for he died a victim to his sense of duty and his zeal for science. Truly he may lay claim to the title of 'martyr of science,' and a part of the story of the eclipse of December 22, 1889, will be the account of how Father Perry was carried from a sick bed to take his last observation."
Besides the Observatories in Granada and Oña the Spanish Jesuits have another near Tortosa. The main object of the latter is the study of terrestrial magnetism, seismology, meteorology, study of the sun, etc. It has five separate buildings and a valuable periodical regularly published by the observers.
The Zo-se Observatory near Zikawei in China is in charge of the French Fathers. The Observatory is about 80 feet in length. It has a library of 20,000 volumes with numerous and valuable Chinese manuscripts. They have another station in Madagascar, which is 4,600 feet above sea-level, and consequently higher by 100 metres than the Lick Observatory in California. When the Jesuits were expelled from Madagascar, the Observatory was demolished by the natives who thought it was a fortress. It was rebuilt later at the expense of the French government and the director, Father Colin, was made a corresponding Member of the French Academy. In 1890, 1895, 1898 and 1899 the observers were honored by their home government with purses of considerable value, one being of 6,000 and another of 3,000 francs.
There are other observatories at Calcutta, Rhodesia, Feldkirch, Louvain, Oudenbosch (Holland), Puebla (Mexico), Havana, Woodstock and other Jesuit colleges in the United States; these are attracting notice principally by their seismographical reports. The most conspicuous of all these North American observatories is that of Georgetown which was founded in 1842-43, about the same time as the Naval Observatory. It was built under the direction of Father Curley, whose determination of the longitude of Washington in conjunction with Sir G. B. Airy, the Astronomer Royal of Greenwich, England, was made by observing a series of transits of the moon, and was later shown by the electric telegraph to have been correct to within the tenth of a second. Fathers De Vico, Sestini and Secchi labored at Georgetown. Secchi's "Researches in Electrical Rheometry" was published in 1852 by the Smithsonian Institute. It was his first literary contribution to science. Sestini's drawings of the sun spots were published by the Naval Observatory. In 1889 Father Hagen, then the director, published his "Atlas stellarum variabilium." In 1890 Father Fargis solved the question of "the personal equation" in astronomical observations by his invention of the Photochronograph. It had been attempted by Father Braun in Kalocsa (Hungary) and by Repsola in Königsberg, but both failed. Professors Pickering and Bigelow in the United States had also given it up, but Father Fargis solved the difficulty by a fixed photographic plate and a narrow metal tongue attached to the armature of an electric magnet. It has proved satisfactory in every test.
In Sommervogel's "Bibliothèque" the list of the astronomical works written by Secchi covers nineteen pages quarto, in double columns. He was equally active in physics and meteorology and his large meteorograph described in Ganot's "Physics" merited for him the Grand Prix (100,000 francs) and the Cross of the Legion of Honor at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1867. It was conferred upon him by the hand of the Emperor Napoleon, in the presence of the Emperors of Russia and Austria and the Kings of Prussia and Belgium. The Emperor of Brazil sent him a golden rose as a token of appreciation.
The "Atlas stellarum variabilium" by Father Johann Hagen is according to "Popular Astronomy" (n. 81, p. 50) the most important event in the star world. Ernst Harturg (V. J. S., vol. 35) says: "It will without doubt become in time an indispensable requisite of the library of every observatory just as the Bonn maps have become." Father Hagen has also won distinction in the mathematical world by his "Synopsis der höheren Mathematik," in four volumes quarto.
The seismological department of Georgetown, under Father Francis A. Tondorf, has attained an especial prominence in the United States. Its equipment is of the latest perfection, and its earthquake reports are those most commonly quoted in the daily press of America.
Important in their own sphere are the books "Astronomisches aus Babylon" by Fathers Joseph Epping and Johann Nepomuk Strassmaier, and "Die babylonische Mondrechnung" by Epping. F. K. Ginzel (in V. J. S., vol. 35.) expresses the following opinion of them: "It is well known that the investigations made by the Jesuit Father Epping, in conjunction with the Assyriologist Father Strassmaier, upon many Babylonian astronomical bricks have had as a consequence that the scientific level upon which the history of astronomy had formerly placed the Babylonians must be taken considerably higher. Epping's investigations now receive a very valuable extension through the labor of Father Kugler of Valkenburg, Holland. From the communications received concerning Kugler's work the importance of his book to the history of astronomy may be inferred."
"Die Gravitations-Constante" (Vienna, 1896), by Father Carl Braun of Mariaschein, Bohemia, represents about eight years of patient work, and according to Poynting (Proc. of the Royal Soc. Inst, of Great Britain, XVI, 2) "bears internal evidence of great care and accuracy. He obtained almost exactly the same result as Professor Boys with regard to the earth's mean density. Father Braun carried on his work far from the usual mechanical laboratory facilities and had to make much of the apparatus himself. His patience and persistence command our highest admiration."
With regard to the "Kosmogonie vom Standpunkte christlicher Wissenschaft," by Father Braun, Dr. Foster says: (V. J. S., vol. 25) "this problem, mighty in every aspect, is treated from all points of view with clearness and impressiveness. One could hardly find at this time in any other book all the essential features of a theory of the sun collected together in such a directive manner."
Perhaps the famous phrase of St. Ignatius, Quam sordet tellus quum cælum aspicio, had something to do with the Society's passion for astronomy. "How sordid the earth is when I look at the sky." His sons have been looking at the sky from the beginning not only spiritually but through telescopes, and many of them have become famous as astronomers. This is all the more notable, because star-gazing was only a secondary object with them. They were first of all priests and scientific men afterwards. As early as 1591 Father Perrerin, in his "Divinatio astrologica," denounced astrology as a superstition although his Protestant friend, the great Kepler, did not admit the distinction between it and astronomy. The book of Perrerin's went through five editions. Father de Angelis published in 1604 five volumes entitled "In astrologos conjectores" (Against astrological guessers). As late as 1676, the work was still in demand, for illustrious personages like Rudolph II, Wallenstein, Gustavus Adolphus, Catherine de' Medici and even Luther and Melanchthon with a host of others were continually having their horoscopes taken.
Another eminent worker was Father Riccioli, of whom we read: "If you want to know the ancient follies on this point consult Riccioli." (Littrois in "Wunder des Himmels," 1886, 604.) The implication might be that Riccioli approved of them, but the reverse is the case, for, as Thomas Aquinas furnishes a list of every actual and almost every possible theological and philosophical error, but after each adds videtur quod non, which he follows up by a refutation, so does Riccioli in his Astrology. He was a genius. He became a Jesuit when he was sixteen, and for years never thought of telescopes. He taught poetry, philosophy and theology at Parma and Bologna, and took up astronomy only when his superiors assigned him to that study. Being an Italian, he did not like Copernicus or Kepler. They were from the Protestant North and had refused to accept the Gregorian Calendar. He admitted, indeed, that the Copernican system was the most beautiful, the most simple, the best conceived, but not solid, so he made one of his own, but did not adhere to it tenaciously.
Appreciating the deficiencies of the astronomy of the ancients, he composed the famous "Almagestum novum," which placed the whole science on a new basis. Beginning by the measurement of the earth, he produced, though he made mistakes, the first meteorolog-system. His lunar observations revealed 600 spots on the moon, which is fifty more than had been found by Hevelius. His collaborator, Grimaldi, the greatest mathematician of his age, made the maps. His remarks on libration fill an entire volume, and the writer in the "Biographie universelle" gives him the credit of experimenting on the oscillations of the pendulum before Galileo. His health was always poor, but he worked like a giant. His "Almagestum" consists of 1500 folio pages, and is described as a treasure of astronomical erudition. Lalande quotes from it continually. His "Astronomia reformata" is in two volumes folio, and he has twelve folio volumes on geography and hydrography. Its learning is astounding. Thus, for instance, in the second part of his "Chronologia" there is a list of the principal events from the creation to the year 1688, along with the names of kings, patriarchs, nations, heresies, councils, and great personages, which was really collateral matter.
What the Jesuit astronomers accomplished in China from the time of Ricci down to Hallerstein in 1774 has been continued there to the present day. The first government observatory in Europe was erected in the University of Vienna, then in the hands of the Jesuits. There were others at Vilna, Schwetzingen and Mannheim. Twelve other private ones had been built in the various European colleges of the Society. The establishment of these observatories was providential, for when the Society was suppressed they afforded occupation and support to a great number of dispersed Jesuits, who remained in charge of them during their forty years of homelessness and kept alive the old spirit of the Order in its affection for that particular study. As in the old Society this work is still a matter of private enterprise. As far as we are aware there is only one observatory where a government assists, the Observatory of Manila, in which the employees are salaried by the United States government. The equipment itself, however, was provided by the Jesuits, who reduced their living expenses to the minimum in order to build the house and buy the instruments.
On the other hand, the number of actual Jesuit observatories in the strict sense of the term already rivals that of the old Society. The Roman establishment which had been made famous by Scheiner, Gottignes, Asclepi, Borgondius, Maire and Boscovich was continued during the Suppression by the secular priest Calandrelli. In 1824 Leo XII restored it to the Society, and Father Dumouchel took charge of it with De Vico as an assistant. The latter's reputation was European. He was known as the Comet Chaser, for he had discovered eight of them. The well-known five and a half years periodic comet bears his name. He succeeded Dumouchel as director in 1840, and was holding that office when the Revolution of 1848 drove the Jesuits from Rome. He was received with great enthusiasm in France by Arago, and in England he was offered the directorship of the Observatory of Madras but he preferred to go to Georgetown in the United States. Being called to London on business, he died there on November 15, 1848, at the age of 43. Herschel wrote his obituary in the "Notices of the Astronomical Society."