Olier and Bourdoise accordingly, while carrying on the work of reform,
and becoming heads of religious congregations, remained parish priests
of St. Sulpice and Saint-Nicholas du Chardonnet. The seminary had its
origin in the assembling together of the priests into communities, and
these communities became schools of clericalism, homes in which
young men destined for the Church were piously trained for it.
What facilitated the creation of these establishments and made them
innocuous to the state was that they had no resident tutors. All the
theological tutors were at the Sorbonne, and the young men from St.
Sulpice and St. Nicholas, who were studying theology, went there for
their lectures. Thus the system of teaching remained national and
common to all. The seclusion of the seminary only applied to the
moral discipline and religious duties. This was the equivalent of the
practice now prevalent among the boarding-schools which send their
pupils to the Lycee. There was only one course of theology in Paris,
and that was the official one at the Faculty. The work in the interior
of the seminary was confined to repetitions and lectures. It is true
that this rule soon became obsolete. I have heard it said by old
students of St. Sulpice that towards the end of last century they went
very little to the Sorbonne, that the general opinion was that there
was little to be learnt there, and that the private lessons in
the seminary quite took the place of the official lecture.
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