How the First Jesuits Became Involved in Education

Abstract

In 1548, just a little over 450 years ago, ten members of the recently founded Society of Jesus opened the first Jesuit school in Messina in Sicily. That event would have immense repercussions on the character of the Society of Jesus, giving it a new and quite special relationship to culture; but it was also a crucial event in the history of schooling within the Catholic church and in western civilization. 1 Within a few years the Jesuits had opened some thirty more primary / secondary schools, but also the so-called Roman College, which would soon develop into the first real Jesuit university (Gregorian University). In 1585 they opened in East Asia a school in Macau that also soon developed into a university; and about the same time they founded in Japan a remarkable art school and workshop in which local painters were introduced to Western techniques. In Rome they hired Palestrina as the music teacher and chapel master for their students, and later in Paris they did the same for Chapentrier. They were the teachers of Descartes, Moliere, and, yes, Voltaire. In Latin America they had constructed magnificent schools of stone and brick, with huge libraries, before any serious school of any kind had been founded in the British colonies.