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CHAPTER XXII.

Education in Rome.-The Old Calumny against the Catholic Church refuted by the Educational Institutions of Rome.—Its Schools more numerous than its Fountains.-Elementary Education.-Gratuitous Education originated by Ecclesiastics.-Religious Orders devoted to the Gratuitous Education of the Poor.-The Brothers of the Christian Schools. Their admirable System of Education.

THE old and long-standing calumny against the Catholic Church is, that she hates, because she dreads, the light; and that darkness being her congenial element, and indeed essential to her safety, it has been, as it ever will be, her policy to discourage the policy of education, and thus retain the human mind in a convenient state of intellectual twilight. This is no worn-out and obsolete accusation, which one has to search for in some musty volume, or dig out of some rust-eaten record of a past age. On the contrary, it is the one most frequently made at this very day, by those who desire to misrepresent the Church; and it is the one, of all others, most readily credited by the Protestant public of these countries. Now, if this accusation-that the Church is the friend of ignorance, and the enemy of education—be at all true, to no better place within the wide circle of Christendom could we look for the exemplification of this barbarous and benighting policy, than

to Rome; for there, not only has the Pope to maintain his spiritual supremacy by the force and power of ignorance, but his temporal power has also to be upheld by the same potent agency. Therefore, schools ought to be very rare in Rome, and systematically discouraged by its ruler and his government. Or, if they exist in any number, they should be such only as were intended for the training of ecclesiastics, whose chief object would be the perpetuation of the same state of popular debasement, which, according to the calumny, is the very foundation and stronghold of the influence and authority of the Church,-its influence and authority over the darkened mind of man. If London, Liverpool, and Manchester swarmed with schools and seminaries of every kind, and suited to every want and necessity of the population; and if these schools were flung open gratuitously to the children of the poor, so that there ought not to be an ignorant child left in either of those great communities, it might be said, with justice, that London, Liverpool, and Manchester were marching on the high-road of civilization, and were entitled to the respect and admiration of all other communities. If the same can be said of Rome, is not Rome equally entitled to the same admiration and the same respect? Let us see if Rome really merit praise on this account.

It may be said of Rome, that she possesses, even at this day, and notwithstanding the ruin of many of the magnificent aqueducts of the olden time, a greater number of public fountains, from which her population may draw an abundant and unceasing supply of the

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purest water, than any other city in the world. And yet her schools are more numerous than her fountains, and quite as accessible to all classes, from the youth of her nobility to the offspring of the porter and the woodcutter; and not more pure and unpolluted is the spring from which the young intellect draws its first nourishment in the seminaries of the "modern Babylon," than are those streams which bring health and daily comfort to the poorest of her people. Pass through its streets, and at every turn you hear the plash, plash, of water, falling gratefully on the ear; and so may be heard the unmistakeable hum and buzz of the regional and the parish schools. But these, great in number as I shall show them to be, form but a small portion of the educational institutions of calumniated Rome.

First, of Elementary Education.

Until the year 1597, when the illustrious Saint, Giuseppe Calasanzio, opened the first gratuitous school for the poor, which he did in the neglected district of Trastevere, elementary education in Rome was entirely in the hands of the masters of the regionary, or district, schools, who were then partly paid by the State, and partly by a small weekly stipend from their pupils. Miserable, however, as the payment of the regionary teachers was, they stoutly resisted the benevolent exertions of the Saint in favour of gratuitous education; nor could he have overcome the many difficulties which were placed in his path, and which were attributable to various causes, if he were animated by a less ardent zeal, or were endowed with a less energetic spirit. In

the course of his charitable ministrations to the poor, he saw that which we all see at this present day-namely, that ignorance was the fruitful source of misery and vice; and, Catholic Priest as he was, he resolutely girded his loins to encounter that very evil of intellectual darkness which he believed to be the worst enemy of the Church. His efforts were attended with the success which they merited; and to those efforts, followed, as they have been, to this hour, by the exertions and sacrifices of numberless successive benefactors of youth, are due that noble system of gratuitous instruction which forms one of the most striking and hopeful features of modern Roman civilization.

Leo XII. placed the elementary schools under the control and jurisdiction of the Cardinal Vicar; and, by his bull of 1825, the private schools, otherwise the regionary schools, were subjected to a strict system of supervision. These latter are held in the private houses of the masters, who, if the number of their pupils happen to be sixty-beyond which number no one school can contain-must employ the services of an assistant; the calculation being, that one teacher cannot properly attend to more than thirty scholars. The course of education varies in different schools, according to the age, condition, or necessities of the pupils. In general, besides the usual system of reading, writing, arithmetic, and catechism, are included the elements of the Italian and French languages, Latin grammar, geography, sacred and profane history, &c. The religious education of the child is never overlooked in these

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schools, though under the management of laymen; for not only do the pupils attend mass every morning, but there are various religious practices observed during the day. Punishment, which is strictly limited to beating on the hand with a small rod, is rarely administered, and is in many schools absolutely dispensed with. The masters must submit themselves to an examination, in order to test their competency; and the duty of making this examination is entrusted to a Committee of Ecclesiastics, delegated by the Cardinal Vicar.* The same Committee likewise exercise a general superintendence over the schools, their discipline, and their system of education. In case of the illness of a master, a substitute, paid by the State, attends in his place; and the State also contributes an annual sum to provide rewards for deserving pupils. The number of the regionary schools is rather on the decrease than otherwise; but this decrease is owing to a cause in the highest degree favourable to a more widely-diffused system of education-namely, the increase of gratuitous schools. The average, for some time past, has been somewhere about 50 schools for boys of the private

* It would be advisable if the example of Rome had been followed in England; for it appears, by the last Census Report, that such an examination of teachers as I have above referred to, is much required in the private schools of the latter country. Mr. Horace Mann says—

"In the case of 708 out of 13,879 schools, the returns were respectively signed by the master or mistress with a mark. The same is noticeable with respect to 35 public schools, most of which had small endowments." Mr. Mann truly remarks, that "the efficiency of a school depends unquestionably more upon the efficiency of the teacher than upon any other circumstance."