Ratio Studiorum
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The Ratio Studiorum (Latin: "Plan of Studies") often designates the document that formally established the globally influential system of Jesuit education in 1599. Its full title is Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Societatis Iesu ("The Official Plan for Jesuit Education").
The work is the product of many hands and wide experience, but it most directly derives from the efforts of an international team of academics at the Jesuit school in Rome, the Collegio Romano.
The Society of Jesus had not originally envisaged running a network of schools when it was founded, but it soon became progressively involved in and then largely associated with educational work. The many schools taken over or started by the Society in its first decades all needed plans (rationes). In addition, an increasing number of young men was entering the Society in need of the educational background that was required for priestly service, and the Society began to assume a greater and greater role in the direction of its own formational program. For these two reasons, there grew a great desire for a standard plan for all of the Society's educational institutions.
Under the generalate of Claudio Aquaviva, in 1581, a committee of twelve Jesuit priests was appointed without clear results. A new committee of six was soon formed in 1584: John Azor (Spain), Gaspar González (Portugal), James Tyrie (Scotland), Peter Busée (Holland), Anthony Ghuse (Flanders), and Stephen Tucci (Sicily). This committee produced a trial document, the Ratio of 1586, which was sent to various provinces for comments from the teachers. This plan was not intended for actual use in the classrooms. Reflection on the reactions led to the issuance of another document in 1591, which was to be employed in all Jesuit schools for three years. The reflection on these experiments was then used by the committee in Rome to create the final official document of 1599.
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- Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Societatis Iesu. Volume 5 of the Monumenta Paedagogica Societatis Iesu, ed. Ladislaus Lukàcs. Volume 129 of the series Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, 357-454. Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1986.
- Donohue, John W., S.J. Jesuit Education: An Essay on the Foundation of Its Idea. New York: Fordham University Press, 1963.
- Farrell, Allan Peter, S.J. The Jesuit Code of Liberal Education; Development and Scope of the Ratio Studiorum. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1938.
- Ganss, George, S.J. Saint Ignatius' Idea of a Jesuit University. Second Edition. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1956.
- Pavur, Claude, S.J. The Ratio Studiorum: The Official Plan for Jesuit Education. Saint Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005.
- Scaglione, Aldo. The Liberal Arts and the Jesuit College System. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1986.
- Schwickerath, Robert, S.J. Jesuit Education: Its History and Principles Viewed in the Light of Modern Educational Problems. Saint Louis, Missouri: B. Herder, 1903.
