User:Daniel Hendrickson/The Jesuit Ration Studiorum 400th
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Gabriel Codina
"The 'Modus Parisiensis'"
The Jesuit Ratio Studiorum: 400th Anniversary Perspectives
Ed. by Vincent J. Duminuco
New York: Fordham University Press, 2000
Contents |
Ignatius of Loyola and the University of Paris
From Ignatius of Loyola’s autobiography we learn that “Ignatius had lost too much time at Alcalá and Salamanca with his unorganized studies and problems of the Inquisition, and so finally he had decided to go to Paris to study. Arriving at the French capital, he found lodging in a house with some Spaniards, and ‘went to study humanities at Montaigu…” (Qt. 3) Montaigu refers to the Brethren of Montaigu, the spiritual and pedagogical movement which reinstated the School of St. Victor – originally famous though Hugh of Lotharingia and his Didascalicon but also noteworthy of its founder, William of Champeaux, the defamed Cathedral School master of Peter Abelard – with prestige and influence. Through it passed Erasmus and Martin Luther both whom like Ignatius himself, studied Ciceronian grammar. Codina explains that “[t]he universities of medieval Europe shared a basic structure. Teachers and students constituted a community: universitas magistrorum et scholarium. But the organization of professors and students was not the same everywhere. Basically, there existed two university archetypes: Paris, the model for universities of teachers; and Bologna, the model for universities of students. In the Bologna model, predominant also in Spain, the students contracted the services of professors, the colleges of doctors and the colleges of students were separated, and the power remained in the hands of the students. In Paris, on the other hand, the professors offered their services to students for a determined fee, and, although the colleges were made up of both professors and students, the power remained in the hands of the professors. The Italian model responded to a society noted for its commerce and emphasized the professional aspects (law, medicine), while the Parisian model rested on a formation fundamentally centered on theology.” (Qt. 4) Dominated by students, the Italian schools were less systematic whereas in Paris schoolings was both organized and centralized. (Qt. 5) There, Ignatius studied theology at the College of St. Jacques of the Dominicans and the secular colleges of the Sorbonne and Navarre (Qt. 6), but he began his studies in Paris studied at the College of Montaigu, also known as the School of St. Victor. (Qt7) He also studied at the Portuguese School of Sainte Barbe. (Qt. 28) The College of Montaigu was then run by the Brethren of the Common Life, a group also known as the “Jeronimites” founded by Gerard Groote (340-1384), a University of Paris alum. (Qt. 23) Codina explais that “[m]any of the elements of the modus Parisiensis have their origins in the pedagogical and spiritual currents of the Brethren.” (Qt. 26) Moreover, “Concretely it is the College of Montaigu that is the vehicle for the penetration of the pedagogy of the Brethren into the University. The influence was exercised mainly by Jean Standonck, Principal and reformer of the statues of the College of Montaigu (1499)…” (Qt. 27) Of interest, “[t]he spread of this spirituality, inseparable from the Congregation of Windesheim, founded under the inspiration of Groote, overtook all of Europe.” (Qt. 25)
The modus Parisiensis
Codina tells us that “[t]he statues and rules of the colleges of Paris, following a quasi-conventual style, followed a common code. In a sense the whole city functioned as a great school, moving together from the sound of the Angelus in the morning, through to the evening, following the same rhythm of hours, calendar, rules, practices, customs, religious and student celebrations, and general style of life.” (Qt. 8) “Typical of the modus Parisiensis”, however, “were the job descriptions for the various offices. Rules and more rules detailed minutely the duties of each of the responsible offices as well as the means to fulfill them. The Jesuits remained faithful to this Parisian tradition taken from medieval times. A sizable part of the first pedagogical documents of the Order were made up of rules for various offices. The most famous of these documents, without a doubt, is the Rules for the Rector of the Roman College (1551). The main body of the Ratio Studiorum (1559) is none other than a collection of thirty series of rules corresponding to distinct offices, counting no less than 467 articles.” (Qt. 9) Ignatius and his companions encountered a monastic inspired pedagogy, but one that had also evoled. “The lectio, or lesson, was equivalent to the traditional lecture class. Reading, listening, and taking notes were typical in an age when printing was at its beginning and books were expensive, and paper scarce. But at the same time an amazing variety of other activities were developed which we know by their Latin names: quaestiones or planned questions for the instructor concerning proper understanding of the text; disputationes or debates arguing in favor or against a proposition or point of view, analyzing, distinguishing, making further distinctions of each subject. The disputationes came to be the ordinary exercise to which the students of Paris devoted themselves from the Middle Ages onward.” (Qt. 10) Of scholastic influence, “[a] specialized terminology of exercises developed around the disputationes which were used not only in the study of the arts and theology, but also in grammar and the humanities…” (Qt. 11) The foundation of this method, Codina explains, was scholastic, but it was a pedagogy with its limits. “Erasmus, Vives, and the humanists of the period satirized the abuses of the scholastic method, and even Francis Xavier from India, like Jerónimo Nadal, criticized the speculative sterility of the doctors of the Sorbonne. Nevertheless, the Jesuits recognized that this active methodology characteristic of the modus Parisiensis could be put to a good and intelligent use and adopted for teaching.” (Qt. 12) Codina points to some of the particular practices that the Jesuits adopted for their schools, such as of memorization (pensum), note-taking and citation, and thematic study in pairs. (Qt. 13) More generally, though, “[t]he pedagogy of Paris, primarily active and interactive, even with its indubitable exaggerations, proved to be an efficient method for advancing one’s studies.” (Qt. 14)
Educational Paradigm Shift
“The arrival of Ignatius and the first Jesuits in Paris coincided with a major turning point in history: the explosion of Renaissance humanism. Since the Quattrocentro, the new currents born in Italy had begun to be propagated in all of Europe, thanks in a large part to the development of printing, and entered into the University of Paris.” (Qt. 15) It was “[f]rom the atmosphere of Renaissance humanism, [t]he Parisian colleges experienced an important transformation. Grammar, rhetoric, and the classical languages together with the arts, continued to grow in importance and acquire their own substance. Thus was fixed the nucleus of what we call ‘secondary education,’ as distinct from higher education.” (Qt. 16) With the particular scholastic practices the Jesuits adopted others: Optima auctores – an emphasis of study on texts rather than rules and original texts, “[e]xperience, exercise, imitation, not theory. The modus Parisiensis is eminently inductive…” and Praelectio: a Quintilian influenced in-depth understanding of a text. (Qt. 17) Codina shows us that Quintilian loomed large. “Medieval logic and dialectic that seemed to have dominated all of the spheres of the University yielded the way to the rhetoric of Quintilian. Quintilianus noster, the master of Renaissance pedagogues, was proposed as the supreme ideal of eloquence.” (Qt. 18) Moreover, “[f]or Erasmus, as for the humanists, the study of grammar, Latin, Greek was all oriented toward the attainment of eloquence. It is not strange, then, that the Jesuits proposed eloquence as the ideal of their formation—eloquentia perfecta as it is called in the Ratio Studiorum. (Qt. 19) “Eloquence was not a technique, but a style of life. The vir bonus dicendi peritus [the better man speaking skillfully], as Cicero defined the orator, offered the perfect model for the humanism of the Renaissance.” (Qt. 20) Erasmus himself instructed that “Christ, as the end of all erudition and all eloquence…” (Qt. 21) According to Codina, “[i]n the final analysis, it is the old scholasticism that constitutes many of the elements of the modus Parisiensis as a pedagogical method. But the contents are fully humanist. The Jesuits were not very original. They did not invent a new method, but took elements from a common pedagogical foundation that appeared to them most useful to create their own synthesis, stamped with their own seal.” (Qt. 29) He furthers that “[t]he modus Parisiensis was, for Jesuits, a point of departure for the creation of their own pedagogy and educational system. The method systemized by Jerónimo Nadal in 1548 in the prototype school at Messina evolved and became diffused. The modus Parisiensis gradually ceded its place to the modus Collegii Romani. Later this would evolve into the Ratio Studiorum. Under new titles, and in successive editions, the Parisian roots of Jesuit pedagogy are unmistakable. At their origin are those ten Masters in Arts from Paris who studied together “according to the method of Paris, where the Society first studied, and so [it] knows the methods there.’” (Qt. 30)
A first Jesuit college…
Codina explains that the college established by the Jesuits at Messina in Italy – their first endeavor as educators – “…would become the prototype and model for all the other colleges of the Society, the first laboratory for Jesuit pedagogy.” (Qt. 1) Dramatically recalled, “[o]n April 8, 1548, after a difficult passage of three weeks, buffeted by rough seas and imperiled by Turkish pirates, Jerónimo Nadal and nine fellow Jesuits landed at Messina from Rome . . . Within fifteen days the group had begun classes, thanks to the efficient organization of Jerónimo Nadal. The Chronicler of the Society notes significantly that the College ‘gradually introduced the method of instruction of the University of Paris.’” (Qt. 2)
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