reason, that they were not necessary for physics, and so very few would be inclined to study mathematics." The writer then goes on to show the necessity of mathematics for the study of the movements of heavenly bodies, of their distances, of the oppositions and conjunctions of the comets; of the tides, the winds, the rainbow, and other physical phenomena. He also treats of various exercises by which the study of mathematics can best be advanced, such as lectures given by the students on mathematical and astronomical subjects.[1]
We find that in mathematics, pure and applied, the courses of the Jesuit colleges were advanced to the foremost rank; in arithmetic and geometry we notice that, as early as 1667, a single public course, under the direction of the Jesuits at Caen, numbered four hundred students.[2] The Order had among its members many distinguished mathematicians, some of whom will be mentioned in succeeding chapters.
The modern course of physics was, in those centuries, a thing of the future. But the physical sciences were taught as far as they were known; in the middle of the eighteenth century, we find physical cabinets in regular use, and experimental lectures given to the classes by the professor of physics.[3]
These testimonies will suffice to show that the Jesuits, however much they valued the classical studies, were not so one-sided as to disregard or neglect
