Educational Foundations of the Jesuits in Sixteenth-Century New Spain

Educational Foundations of the Jesuits in Sixteenth-Century New Spain is the first volume in a series exploring the Jesuits' pivotal role in shaping education in Spanish North America. This comprehensive study focuses on the arrival of the Jesuits in Mexico City in 1572, marking the beginning of their educational efforts in New Spain. Despite the extensive influence of the Jesuits in North America, their contributions to education have often been overshadowed by their more widely studied missions in New France. This book shines a light on the profound and largely forgotten educational work of the Jesuits in Mexico and the broader Western Hemisphere, highlighting their establishment of colleges and seminaries that nurtured European culture in the New World.

The volume delves into the broader context of Jesuit education, considering the efforts of earlier missionary orders such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians, whose work laid the groundwork for the Jesuits. Additionally, it explores the life of Ignatius of Loyola and the intellectual and spiritual training that defined the Jesuit order, which was instrumental in the development of their educational system. This foundational work sets the stage for future volumes that will explore the Jesuit missions on the frontiers of Western North America, offering a detailed account of the Jesuit educational legacy in the Americas.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1938.