The end of the second session of the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens of Belgium asked his fellow bishops: "Why are we even discussing the reality of the church when half of the church is not even represented here?" This provocative question, midway through a council that was then totally male, was a breakthrough that prodded council members to invite a few "token" women to the ensuing sessions.

Myths. "Jesuit education" is a familiar couplet like "Roman Empire" or "Viennese waltz." Most people associate Jesuits with education, although not all they have heard about this association is so. From time to time, for instance, a journalist or a student writing a term paper will call the switchboard of a Jesuit school to ask what Jesuit source contains the remark that goes something like this: "Let us have the education of children until they are seven, and you may have them thereafter."

No reference can be given, however, because that legendary saying is not just spurious but is the exact opposite of what actually was said in the first draft of the famous Jesuit plan for schools, the Ratio Studiorum. The six veteran teachers who in 1586 wrote the Latin essays making up that draft recommended that no boy be admitted to a Jesuit school before he is seven. Children less than that age, it explained, are troublesome and need nannies, not schoolmasters: "Molestissimi et nutricibus potius indigent quam ludimagistris."

The second draft of the Ratio in 1591 was equally cool toward the kindergarten bunch. Beginning students, it said, must not be so young that they fuss about trifles (nor so old that they upset class discipline), and they must have learned to read and write correctly. Otherwise, the sight of their compositions will turn their teacher's stomach. Nevertheless, besides the myths, there is also a reality.

Origins. The third and final draft of the Ratio Studiorum was promulgated in 1599 by Claudio Acquaviva, who in 1581 had been elected the fifth General of the Society of Jesus, an office he held until his death 34 years later.