Their small number of ten was already reduced to six members present, the other four being scattered in divers countries. They designated as a commission Fathers Ignatius and John Coduri. Soon afterwards Coduri died, and the rest were distributed through the countries of Europe, Africa, and the far East. During the following years, Laynez, who was for some time Provincial of Italy, remained more regularly than the rest within the reach of Ignatius. For this reason, therefore, besides several others, we may understand why Ignatius paid such a high tribute to this eminent man, when he said, as Ribadeneira tells us, that "to no one of the first Fathers did the Society owe more than to Laynez." Whereupon the historian Sacchini observes: "This, I believe, he said of Laynez, not only on account of the other eminent merits of so great a man, and, in particular, for devising or arranging the system of Colleges; but most especially because the foundations, on which this Order largely rests, were new, and therefore likely to excite astonishment; and Laynez, having at command the resources of a vast erudition, was the person to confirm and commend them to public opinion. And that this praise was deserved by Laynez will appear less dubious to any one who considers that other period also, during which he was himself General; if one reckons how many points, as yet unshaped and inceptive, in the management of the Society, were reduced to form and perfected by Laynez; how widely it was propagated and defended by him."28
But to return to Ignatius. After ten years of government, he gathered together in Rome such of the first Fathers as could be had, besides representatives from all the Provinces. Forty-seven members were present. He submitted to them, in general assembly, the Constitution as now drawn up, and as acted upon in practical life, during those ten years. The Jesuits present did not exhaust the number of those whose express opinions were desired. That not a single one of the principal Fathers might be omitted in the deliberation, he sent copies of the proposed code of laws to such as were absent. With the suggestions and approbations received from all these representative men he was not yet content. Two more years had elapsed when, having embodied the practical results of an ever-widening experience, he undertook to promulgate the Constitution, by virtue of the authority vested in him for that purpose. But he only promulgated the rule; he did not yet exercise his authority to the full, and impose it as binding. He desired that daily use might bring out still farther, how it felt under the test of being tried, amid so many races and nations. Thus 1553 came and went; and he waited, until the whole matter should be revised and approved once more by the entire Society in conclave. His death intervened in 1556.
Two years later, representatives from the twelve provinces of the Order met together, and elected James Laynez as successor to Father Ignatius. Examining once more this Constitution in all its parts, receiving the whole of it just as it stood with absolute unanimity, and with a degree of veneration, they exercised the supreme authority of the Order, and confirmed this as the written Constitution of the Society of Jesus. By this act nothing was wanting to it, even from the side of Papal authority. Yet, that every plenitude of solemnity might be added to it, they presented it to the Sovereign Pontiff, Paul IV, who committed the code to four Cardinals for accurate revision. The commission returned it, without having altered a word, From that time, whatever general legislation has been added, has entered into the corpus juris, or "Institute" at large, as supplementing or explaining the "Constitution," which remains the fundamental instrument of the Institute.
In the Constitution there are ten parts. The fourth is on studies. In length, this fourth part alone fills up some twenty-eight out of one hundred and eleven quarto pages in all, as it stands printed in the latest Roman edition. The legislation about studies is thus seen to be one-fourth of the whole. It has seventeen chapters. In one of them, on the Method and Order to be observed in treating the Sciences, the founder observes that a number of points "will be treated of separately, in some document approved by the General Superior." This is the express warrant, contained in the Constitution, for the future Ratio Studiorum, or System of Studies in the Society of Jesus. In the meantime, he legislates in a more general way. And he begins with a subject pre-eminently dear to him, the duty of gratitude. Since corporations are notoriously forgetful, and therefore ungrateful, he lays down in the first place the permanent duty of the Order towards benefactors: then he continues with other topics. They stand thus:
The Founders of Colleges; and Benefactors. The Temporalities of Colleges. The Students or Scholastics, belonging to the Society. The Care to be taken of them, during the time of their Studies. The Learning they are to acquire. The Assistance to be rendered them in various ways, to ensure their success in studies. The Schools attached to the Colleges of the Society, i.e. for external Students not belonging to the Order. The Advancement of Scholastics, belonging to the Order, in the Various Arts which can make them useful to their Neighbor. The Withdrawal of them from Studies. The Government of Colleges. On Admitting the Control of Universities into the Society. The Sciences to be taught in Universities of the Society. The Method and Order to be observed in treating the foregoing Sciences. The Books to be selected as Standards. Courses and Degrees. What concerns Good Morals. The Officials and Assistants in Universities.
Reserving the pedagogic explanation for the next part of this essay, I shall here sketch some of the more general ideas running through the whole legislation of Ignatius of Loyola; and, first, in the present chapter, I shall begin with his idea of Colleges.
Choosing personal poverty as the basis on which to rest this vast enterprise of education, he did not therefore mean to carry on expensive works of zeal, without the means of meeting the expense. Obviously, it is one thing not to have means, as a personal property, and therefore not to consume them on self; it is quite another, to have them and to use them for the good of others. The most self-denying men can use funds for the benefit of others; and can do so the better, the more they deny themselves. It was in this sense that, later on in the century, Cardinal Allen recognized the labors and needs of the English Jesuit, Robert Parsons, who was the superior and companion of Edmund Campian, the former a leading star of Oxford, the latter, also an Oxford man, and, as Lord Burghley called him, "a diamond" of England. Since Queen Elizabeth was not benign enough to lend the Jesuits a little building-room on English soil, but preferred to lend them a halter at Tyburn, Parsons was engaged in founding English houses of higher studies in France and Spain, at Valladolid, Seville, Lisbon, Eu, and St. Omer. Cardinal Allen sent a contribution to the constructive Jesuit, writing, as he did so: "Apostolic men should not only despise money; they should also have it." And just in this sense was Ignatius himself a philosopher of no utopian school. So we may examine, with profit, the material and temporal conditions required in his Institute, for the establishment of public schools and universities. I shall endeavor to put these principles together and in order.29
First, there should be a location provided with buildings and revenues, not merely sufficient for the present, but having reference to needful development.
Secondly, these material conditions include a reference to the maintenance of the faculty. The means must be provided to meet the daily necessities of the actual Professors, with adequate assistance of lay brothers belonging to the Order; also to support several substitute Professors; besides, to carry on the formation of men, who will take the places of the present Professors, and so maintain the faculty as perpetual; moreover, to "provide for some more Scholastic Students of the Order, seeing that there are so many occupied in the service and promotion of the common weal." These conditions also include "a church for conducting spiritual ministrations in the service of others."30