CHAPTER XXVII.

EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE PAPAL STATES.

ation of a Roman Boy-Seldom taught his Letters-Majority of Roas unable to Read-Popular Literature of Italy-Newspaper of the man States-Censorship of the Press-Studies in the Collegio Rono-Rome unknown at Rome-Schools spring up under the Republic Extinguished on the Return of the Pope-Conversation with three Roa Boys-Their Ideas respecting the Creator of the World, Christ, Virgin-Questions asked at them in the Confessional-Religion in Roman States-Has no Existence-Ceremony mistaken for Devo-Irreverence-The Six Commands of the Church-Contrast bext the Cost and the Fruits of the Papal Religion-Popular Hatred the Papacy.

influence of Romanism on trade, and industry, and jushas been less frequently a theme of discussion than its ence on knowledge. While, therefore, I have dwelt at iderable length on the former, I shall be very brief under resent head. I shall here adduce only a few facts which d occasion to see or hear during my stay in the Papal es. The few schoolmasters which are found in Italy are distinct class, as with us; they are priests, and mostly its. There are three classes of catechisms used in the ols; the pupil beginning with the lowest, and of course ing off with the highest. But of what subjects do these

catechisms treat? A little history, one would say, that the pu may have some notion of what has been before him; and a lit geography, that he may know there are such things as la and sea, and cities beyond, which he cannot see, shut up Rome. With us, the lowest amount of education that e receives the name comprises at least the three R's, as th are termed, Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmetic. But these far too mundane matters for a Jesuit to occupy his time in pounding. The education of the Italian youth is a thoroug religious one, taking the term in its Roman sense. The li catechisms I have spoken of are filled with the weightier m ters of their law, the miracles wrought by the staff of saint, the cloak of that other, and the relics of a third; exalted rank of the Virgin, and the homage thereto apperta ing; Transubstantiation, with all the uncouth and barbar jargon of "substances" and "accidents" in which that m tery is wrapped up. An initiation into these matters for the education of the Roman boy; and after he has been loc in school for a certain length of time, he is turned adrift begin the usual aimless life of the Italian. It does not foll because he has been at school, that he can read. He is seld taught his letters; better not, lest in after life he should co in contact with books. And, despite the vigilance of the sorship and the Index, bad books, such as the Bible, are fi ing their way into the Roman States; and it is better, th fore, not to entrust the people with the key of knowledge nothing is so useless as knowledge under an infallible Chu The matters which the Italian youth are taught they taught by rote. "Ignorance is the mother of devotion," maxim sometimes quoted with a sneer, but one which embo a profound truth as regards that kind of devotion whic prevalent at Rome.

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have seen estimates by Gavazzi and other Italians, of the ortion who can read in the Roman States. It is somere about one in a hundred. The reader will take the ment at what it is worth. I had no means of testing its racy; but all my inquiries on the subject led me to bethat the overwhelming majority cannot read. And where e use of learning one's letters in a land where there are ooks; and there are none that deserve the name in e. The book-stalls in Italy are heaped with the veriest sh: the "Book of Dreams," "Rules for Winning at the ry," "The Five Dolours of the Virgin," "Tracts on the -les of the Saints," "Relations," professedly given by t about his sufferings, and said to have been found in his hre, and in other places equally likely. At Rome, on reets at least, where all other kinds of rubbish are toleeven this rubbish is not suffered to exist; for there, bookI saw none. There are, however, one or two miserable shops where these things may be had.

re was but one newspaper (so called, I presume, because ained no news) published in Rome at the time of my -the Giornale di Roma, which, I presume, still occupies d alone. It contains a daily list of the arrivals and dees (foreigners, of course, for the gates of Rome never o the Romans), the proclamations of the Government, s of the lottery, and such matters. Under the foreign vere chronicled the consecration of Catholic temples, its of royal personages, a profound silence being obon all political facts and speculations. And this is all mans can know, through legitimate channels, of what g on beyond the walls of Rome. A daily paper arted during the Republic, and admirably managed; course, it was suppressed on the return of the Papal

Government. A few copies of the Times reach Rome every morning. They are not given out till towards mid-day, for they must first be read; and if the "editorials" are not to the taste of the Sacred College, they are not given out at all. The paper, during my short stay, was stopped for nearly a week on end; and the disappointment was the greater, that rumours were then current in Rome that something was on the tapis in Paris, and that the change in the constitution of France, whatever it might be, would not be postponed till the May of 1852, as was then believed in the north of Europe, but would be attempted in the beginning of December 1851. The tidings of the coup d'etat, which met me on the morning of the 3d December in the south of France, brought the ful realization of these rumours. In the Giornale di Roma nota strayed dog can be advertised without permission of the censor In Brescia there is a censorship for gravestones; and in Rom a strict watch is kept over the English burying-ground, les any one should write a verse of Scripture above a heretic grave. The expression of thought is more dreaded than bri gandage.

Those who aspire to the learned professions go to the Co legio Romano. But let the reader mark how the Roma Church here, as everywhere else, contrives to keep up th show of educating, and takes care all the while to impart t smallest possible amount of knowledge,-constructs a m chinery which, through some mischievous perversion, is witho results. The Collegio Romano has a numerous staff of pr fessors, who prelect on theology, logic, history, mathemati natural philosophy, and other branches. This looks well; b observe its working. All the lectures are delivered in Lat which differs considerably from the modern Italian; and the Roman youth spend only one year in the study of t

n tongue before entering the Collegio Romano, the lectures ht nearly as well, so far as the run of the students is coned, be in Arabic. Nine-tenths of the young men leave Collegio Romano as learned as they entered it. The higher sthood are educated at the Sapienza, where, I believe, a cough training in theological dialectics is given.

t is impossible not to see that the Italians are a people of ck perceptions, lively sensibilities, and warm and kindly positions; but it is just as impossible not to see that they deplorably untaught. The stranger is mortified to find that knows far more of their ruins and of their past history than y themselves do. The peasant wanders over the huge unds that diversify the Seven Hills, or traverses the Appian, passes under the arch of Titus, without knowing or caring o erected these structures, or having even a glimmering of heroic story in which they were, so to speak, the actors. hen he looks back into the past, all is night. Nowhere Rome so little known as in Rome itself. How different s it when the Pope received Italy! Then Italy occupied e van of civilization. And when the Byzantine empire 1, and the scholars of the East fled westward, carrying with em the rich treasures of the Greek language and literare, learning had a second morning in Italy. Famous colleges ose, to which the youth of Europe repaired. Philosophers d poets of imperishable name shed a lustre upon the country; _t the Roman Church soon discovered that Italy was acquirg knowledge at the expense of its Romanism, and she aped the band to the national mind. And now that same aly that once held aloft the lamp of knowledge to the world herself in darkness, and, sad sight! is seen, with quenched bs, groping about in the midnight.

And yet proofs are not wanting to show that, were the in