The presence of the Jesuits in Brazil, from 1549 to 1759, has indelibly marked our education and our teaching practice. The Ratio Studiorum, a compendium of rules of how to teach, and learn how to administer an educational institution, was responsible for building a true system of education in the country, because it did not only homogenize the educational practice, but it also established a unique method of teaching-learning. The main objective of the research report which is presented in the form of article was to analyze critically the RatioStudiorum of 1599, the English edition of 1870, and its impact on teacher education by the Jesuits in Brazil, as well as to find traces of the Ignatian pedagogical practice and its influence on society in the period studied. For this purpose, we used the historiography that we had access to, in particular Leite (1938), Lacouture (1994), Franca (1952), Schmit (1994), among others, and documentary sources of support, primarily using the hermeneutics critics to the analysis, interpretation and critical analysis of data collected, up to some early findings, like the fact that the pedagogical action of the Jesuits was incorporated in the teaching practice in Brazil, marking it indelibly. The research also showed that education was chosen as the preferred option taken by the Society of Jesus, since its inception, and how education, based on the Ratio, with the theoretical base on the Aristotelian Thomism, helped to shape the Brazilian society as a Portuguese European culture, based on order, discipline, obedience, authority, respect to hierarchical rules.
Jesuits; education; schools; Ratio Studiorum