The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #157330 Message #3713224
Posted By: Joe Offer
30-May-15 - 05:31 PM
Thread Name: BS:Christian Persecution? School funding in Israel
Subject: RE: BS:Christian Persecution? School funding in Israel
My Oxford Dictionary of Quaotations has it asGive me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.
Attributed as a Jesuit maxim, in Lean's Collectanea, vol. 3 (1903)
And another quote:Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.
Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961).
Whatever the case, various versions of the phrase have been used both by those who praise and those who damn the Jesuits. In days before Catholics once again became fair game for prejudice, I heard the phrase used to promote the value of education. My experience with Jesuits has been very positive. I'm sure others have had negative experiences. Depends upon which Jesuit you're talking about. Teilhard de Chardin and Dan Berrigan were two good ones (Berrigan still is, and I think Jesuit Pope Francis has done well).
I didn't find a similar phrase from Aristotle, but it's possible something like that would come from an old Greek guy.
-Joe-