studies.[1] Besides these three documents there are extant fragments of plans of studies of various colleges in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany.[2]
With the increase of the colleges, the want of a uniform system for the whole Society was felt more and more. Teachers and superiors of schools and provinces asked more urgently for the plan of studies which St. Ignatius had promised in the Constitutions. The final completion of the educational system was reserved to the fifth General of the Order, Father Claudius Aquaviva, who governed the Society from 1581-1615. His Generalate was a most stormy, but at the same time the most brilliant, epoch in the history of the Order. It was the glorious time of the English and Japanese martyrs; the time when the great missions in Japan, China, and Brazil began to flourish; the time in which learned men like Bellarmine, Suarez, Maldonatus, Toletus, deLugo, Vasquez, Molina, Lessius, a Lapide, Peter Canisius, Clavius, and a host of other writers not only added lustre to the Society, but were held to be the foremost scholars of the age and the most renowned champions of the Catholic Church.
In 1584, Father Aquaviva called to Rome six experienced schoolmen, who had been elected from different nationalities and provinces, in order that the peculiarities of the various nations might be considered in the formation of a system which was destined to be put to practice in so many countries all over the
