I came across this while doing a very unrefined search on the web for “Cicero’s epistles”. It’s from a two volume work published in 1848 and written by Andrew Steinmetz, History of the Jesuits: From the Foundation of their Society to its Suppression by Pope Clement XIV. It is, apparently, a rabidly anti-Catholic work. But I found a page in it that has some very interesting things to say - though only by way of a sort of laundry list - about the education of the aspirant to the Company of Jesus.

THE matchless efforts, success, and reverses which we have hitherto contemplated throughout the heathen world of Jesuit-adventure, from the commencement of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century, have had their counterpart in the contemporaneous expansion of the Company in Europe. Men, such as we have seen at their work, went forth to the ends of the earth, crossing every sea; and created power for the Company; and they were adapted for their enterprise. But they left their equals behind,—men equally adapted for theirs,— which was not less comprehensive.

An examination preceded the admission of every pupil to the benches of the Company. The Jesuits tested the quality of the metal before they undertook to coin their circulating medium. When the celebrated Clavius was admitted into a college of the Jesuits, he was passed through, the ordeal—failed in all points, and was on the point of being dismissed as a hopeless blockhead, when one of the Jesuits tried him in geometry. Nature responded: Clavius remained on the benches; and became one of the first mathematicians of the age—having a share in the construction of the Gregorian Calendar, and sending forth his pupil Matteo Ricci, to repeat his lessons to the Chinese, and build a Mission on lines, curves, and angles. This preliminary scrutiny, and sagacity in the discrimination of individual talent, not a little contributed to the exaltation of the Company.

Then there’s a nice footnote with a quotation from the Spectator: How different from this manner of education ¡s that which prevails in our own country!” says Addison; “where nothing is more usual than to see forty or fifty boys of several ages, tempers, and inclinations, ranged together in the same class, employed upon the same authors, and enjoined the same tasks. Whatever their natural genius may be, they are all to be made poets, historians, and orators alike. They are all obliged to have the same capacity—to bring the same tale of verse, and to furnish the same portion of prose. Every boy is bound to have as good a memory as the captain of his form. To be brief, instead of adapting studies to the particular genius of a youth, we expect from him that he should adapt his genius to his studies. This, I must confess, is not so much to be imputed to the instructor, as to the parent, who will never be brought to believe, that his son is not capable оf performing as much as his neighbor’s, and that he may not make him whatever he has a mind to.” — Spectator, No. 307.

The passage continues:

The future Jesuit had to pass through five schools or grades of “inferior studies,”—as they were named; but still, consisting of three gradations in grammar, the “Humanity,” and Rhetoric — one entire year for each of the five, unless evident competence justified an ascension or ” skip” into a higher school or grade. The lowest class of grammar was confined to the rudiments of Latin and Greek. The pupil’s memory was practised by the lessons he repeated, and there was an appointed hour for a contest (concertatio) between the master and the pupils, or among the pupils themselves on the day’s lessons, when their judgment was exercised. On Saturdays, all the lessons of the week were repeated, followed by a contest. The pupils had to translate from their vernacular into Latin, or from Latin into their vernacular— with constant examination as to the details of grammar—declensions, conjugations, and the simple rules of syntax.

The middle class of grammar occupied another year, with a wider range of reading in Cicero’s Epistles, or Ovid, and an advance in Greek grammar, when the Company’s Greek Catechism might be read:—of course, the same method as to memory, and the exercise of judgment was practised. In the highest class of grammar, the whole scheme of Latin, and the greater part of Greek grammar were compassed. Cicero’s Epistles, De Amicitiâ, De Senectute, Paradoxa, and the like, with expurgated selections from Ovid’s elegies and epistles, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Virgil’s eclogues; in Greek, Chrysostom, Aesop, Agapetus, and the like. The same exercise of memory and judgment, as before, was now enhanced by a “Praelectio,” which required the pupil to compose, on a given argument in Latin and his vernacular: he then gave the Latin of his-vernacular composition; lastly, he was required to explain and elucidate the meaning of passages by one or two examples from the author he construed. He had to develop and explain his translation, and briefly notice his historical or scientific allusions.

The metrical art was rigidly inculcated, and Cicero was the model of Latinity, in his beautiful epistles. It is evident that a thorough grounding in the languages is the main object of these three years. The humanity-class to which he ascended was the soil of eloquence — veluti solum eloquentiae. The ethical treatises of Cicero, the historical works of Cœsar, Sallust, Livy, Curtius, and the like, with parts of Virgil, selections from Horace, and the elegiac and epigrammatic poems of the ancients, “purged from all obscenity,” tended to expand his knowledge of the Latin, giving him facility and copious expression, which, in the last half year of the term, was further promoted by a selection from Cicero’s orations. The usual contests, projections, and weekly repetitions were constantly practised. The theory of rhetoric was thoroughly learnt and applied.

For his Greek, the pupil read Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and the like. ” Rhetoric” proper then succeeded, “to mould the pupil unto perfect eloquence;”—it included poetry andoratory; its result must be proficiency in the theory of eloquence, style, and erudition. Cicero’s rhetorical books, and Aristotle’s Rhetorics and Poetics furnished the rules of useful art and ornament. Meanwhile, religious instruction went hand-in-hand with the courses throughout: the pupils heard mass every day, had instruction in Christian doctrine, and pious exhortations on stated days; the worship of the Virgin was a prominent object, with that of the Angel Guardian. The Lives of the Saints formed their spiritual reading; the pupils were bound to go to confession once a month.

Premiums for composition were awarded, and great display attended the proclamation of the successful competitors—whilst private and public declamations stimulated as effectually the Loyolan efforts to reach perfection….