There was no public system of education for training young men to the profit of the clergy.

They were brought up by their parents in private, more for the advantage of their families than for that of the hierarchy.

In religious houses, where studies flourished, attention was paid to scholastic logic.

The jurisdiction and the authority of the Pope were hardly touched on; and while theology was pursued at leisure, the majority passed their years in contemplation of the Deity and angels.
Recently, through the decrees of the Tridentine Council, schools have been opened in every State, which are called Seminaries, where education is concentrated on the sole end of augmenting ecclesiastical supremacy.
Furthermore, the prelates of each district, partly with a view of saving their own pockets, and partly that they may display a fashionable show of zeal, have committed the charge of those institutions to Jesuits.
This has caused a most important alteration in the aspect of affairs.'[170] It would be difficult to state the changes effected by the Tridentine Council and the commission of education to the Jesuits more precisely and more fairly than in this paragraph.

How deeply Sarpi had penetrated the Jesuitical arts in education, can be further demonstrated from another passage in his minor works.[171] In a memoir prepared for the Venetian Signory, he says that the Jesuits are vulgarly supposed to be unrivaled as trainers of youth.