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THE ISSY SEMINARY.
PART I.
The Petty Seminary of Saint-Nicholas du Chardonnet had no
philosophical course, philosophy being, in accordance with the
division of ecclesiastical studies, reserved for the great seminary.
After having finished my classical education in the establishment so
ably directed by M. Dupanloup, I was, with the students in my class,
passed into the great seminary, which is set apart for an exclusively
ecclesiastical course of teaching. The grand seminary for the diocese
of Paris is St. Sulpice, which consists of two houses, one in
Paris and the other at Issy, where the students devote two years to
philosophy. These two seminaries form, in reality, one. The one is the
outcome of the other, and they are both conjoined at certain times;
the congregation from which the masters are selected is the same. St.
Sulpice exercised so great an influence over me, and so definitely
decided the whole course of my life, that I must perforce sketch its
history, and explain its principles and tendencies, so as to show how
they have continued to be the mainspring of all my intellectual and
moral development.
St. Sulpice owes its origin to one whose name has not attained any
great celebrity, for celebrity rarely seeks out those who make a
point of avoiding notoriety, and whose predominant characteristic is
modesty. Jean-Jacques Olier, member of a family which supplied the
state with many trusty servitors, was the contemporary of, and a
fellow-worker with, Vincent de Paul, Berulle, Adrien de Bourdoise,
Pere Eudes, and Charles de Gondren, founders of congregations for the
reform of ecclesiastical education, who played a prominent part in the
preparatory reforms of the seventeenth century.
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