If it be asked what is most characteristic of the Ratio Studiorum, the following features may be mentioned: It was, first of all, a system well thought out and well worked out, and formulated at a time when in most educational establishments there was little system. The practical rules and careful supervision insured efficiency even in the case of teachers of moderate talent, while to the many teachers of more than ordinary ability sufficient scope was left for the display of their special aptitudes. The arrangement of subjects secured a combination of literary, philosophical, and scientific training. The Ratio insisted not on a variety of branches taught simultaneously (the bane of many modern systems), but on a few well-related subjects, and these were to be taught thoroughly. To secure thoroughness, frequent repetitions (daily, weekly, and monthly) were carried on in all grades. What the teacher presented in his pr?lectio (i.e. explanation of grammar or authors in the lower grades, or lecture in the higher faculties) was to be assimilated by the student through a varied system of exercises: compositions, discussions, disputations, and contests. Attention was paid to the physical welfare of the students, school hours and work being so arranged as to leave sufficient time for healthful play and exercise. Compared with the severity of many earlier schools, the discipline was mild, the barbarous punishments not unfrequently inflicted by educators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries being strictly forbidden. For the moral training of the pupils much was expected from the personal contact with the teacher, who was supposed to take an interest in every individual pupil. Religious training was the foremost object, and religious influence and inspiration were to pervade all teaching.

Ratio Studiorum // Catholic Encyclopedia