Though we had often frequented the churches at this season, and had scores of times heard questions both asked and answered therein, yet, generally intent on the marbles or monuments of the edifice, we had not hitherto given ear to the proceedings of these obstreperous young bull-calves: but, before leaving Rome definitely, it seemed fair to give them an hour's attention on some convenient opportunity, in order to form an unbiassed judgment of how their early religious education was carried on. One soon presented itself in the above-named church of the Minerva; for, chancing to be there at the right hour on an examination-day, in crossing in front of the black-columned chapel of St Dominick, we came suddenly upon a covey of little girls nestling in one of its corners, under the sumptuous tomb of the thirteenth Benedict, and waiting, all primed, for their instructor. Some, absorbed in the contemplation of the silver crown and faded finery of St Philomel—we trust, at so tender an age, without infringement of the tenth commandment—were delighting themselves in anticipating the day when they too might become saints, and wear similar decorations; others, too young for such speculations, were staring with intense vacancy at the flickering of a tiny lamp, in front of a very dingy-looking madonna, to which one or two, in baby simplicity, were repeating Latin creeds, paternosters, and aves. Not knowing exactly how long the preceptor of these small folk might keep them waiting, we left them, and proceeded to the body of the building, where a detachment of boys was already drawn up for action, with their padre in the midst. Approaching as softly as might be, we stood against a neighbouring pilaster to hear what might be required of such young pupils, and how they were prepared to acquit themselves. Their incessant movements did not promise a very sustained attention, whatever might be the business in hand: many of them were evidently plagued with fleas—all with fidgets; some shrugged up their shoulders, others swung themselves by their hands on the form; these were buttoning, those unbuttoning their dress; and not a few warmed their feet by kicking the sounding pavement, and then listening to the echoes from the vaults. Every boy carried a book in his hand; but on these no wandering eye ever looked, not even for an instant, in its numerous glancings round. As soon as the additional commotion, occasioned by the approach of a stranger, had subsided, the priest, harking back to what he had just been saying, and not quite sure of his whereabouts, asks his class touching the last question. "You asked that boy," said one, pointing to a comrade near him, "how he supposed he ought to come to church." "Well," said the priest, resuming his cue, and reverting to the last examinee; "and how did you tell me you were to come?" "Colle mani giunte così," said the boy, locking his hands, and standing up as he did so. "Niente avanti?" said the priest, glancing at two very dirty paws. "Oh yes! I was to wash them." "Poi?" "I was to cross myself as I came out of my room, and to cast down my eyes, like the Mater Indolorata yonder." "And then?" "As I came to church, besides looking grave, I was to walk, not così"—and he walked a few paces as he ought not to walk,—"but così"—changing the rhythm of his march—"as if I were following my brother's funeral. E poi finalmente," (as he resumed his place with a jerk,) "I was to be seated so, and hold my tongue till the padre should address me." "Well, my little man," (to another of the motley class,) "were we not talking about the sacrament?" "Oh yes! no one may receive that who has been guilty of any mortal sin." "Bene, that's quite right; but why not?" The following gabble, to which it was quite obvious that none were of an age to attach any meaning, served for a reply, and was received as perfectly satisfactory by the priest:—"Siccome il pane naturale non può dare vita ad un corpo morto; così il pane della Santissima, Eucaristia non può dare vita ad un anima morta." "And what may mortal sins be?" turning to the next scholar. "Eh! chi lo sa; who is to tell you that?" said a young butcher's boy, turning off the question, and freely offering it to any one who would take it up. Upon this the boys made much noise, and laughed out lustily, not encountering any reprimand from the padre, or so gentle a one as to prove no check to their mirth. At length, quiet being partially restored, he resumed his task, and asked a child of six years old to give him an example of mortal sin! Not receiving an answer, this question travelled nearly to the end of the first line before any one would take upon himself to venture even a random response; then, at last, by dint of prompting, one boy suggested, that the tasting food before receiving the sacrament was of such a kind; and having been first much commended for his erudition, was next subjected to a long list of suppositions from the examiner; such as, "Suppose I were to drink a little water merely?" "Niente! no, you mus'nt." "Well; but suppose I only took a small piece of consecrated wafer?" "Ne anchè; not that neither." "What! would even these small indulgences be infringing the rule?" But as the boy had received an approving "bene" for his first negative, he had no difficulty in keeping to his text; and at last the whole class, enjoying the joke of punishing their padre by cutting him off from all supplies at every fresh demand, roared out in chorus, "Niente, niente—you mus'nt touch a bit;" till, tired of the shouting, the good man proceeded to the next interrogatory. We were tiring too; but being really desirous of hearing, if possible, something more to the purpose, remained, notwithstanding, yet another half hour at our post—indeed quite long enough to be sure that "niente" was all we were likely to get for our pains. Some of the questions were simply frivolous, many jesuitical, others deeply profound; and whatever their character, all were answered in the same careless and irreverent tone; à tort et à travers, according to the fancy of the young respondent. In a word, a more complete waste of time for both teacher and taught could not have been easily devised. The instruction of this and similar classes—for we have no reason to suppose that others differ from it—seems about as intellectual and useful (and no more so) than that of an aviary of parrots in the town of Havre, where the young French psittaci chiefly learn their χαιρης, and their "petits dejeuners." Alike in quality, it is not very dissimilar neither in the mode of its administration. The shopman proposes the first word of a sentence to the whole community, and the greater or less accuracy with which it is taken up and completed, evinces the relative aptitudes of his tyros; and though great allowance is always made, in the case of both boy and bird, for transpositions or leavings out, yet the priest, like the parrot-merchant, keeps an eye on the pupil who promises to do most credit to his training, and brings him forward on every public occasion. "In all labour," says Solomon, "there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to poverty." It requires no Solomon to see how completely this is the case here; but there is one particular in which the padre really deserves praise, and we cheerfully accord it. The forbearance, the patience, meekness, and bonhomie which he exercises in proposing the dull routine of questions, and in listening while the pupils "ring round the same unvaried chimes" in reply, cannot be too much admired. Like the patient schoolmaster in Juvenal, he puts up with all their idleness and inattention—in the very doubtful proficiency of many of his scholars, gives them the favour of the doubt—and, above all, never loses his temper! This drilling and preparation of the district classes has for ulterior object a general field-day,[B] which occurs once a-year; when the congregated schools, in the presence of the canons and other dignitaries of the church, being now supposed fully supplied
"With stores of spiritual provision,
And magazines of ammunition,"
for the warfare, are expected
"To rise and start the ready wherefore,
To all that sceptic may inquire for;
Then raise their scruples dark and nice,
And solve them after in a trice;
As if divinity had catch'd,
The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd!"
In short, these living fantoccini are taught to expose heresies, and expound the dogmas of their faith, in words found for them by their priests; and he who best retains the lesson, and proves himself most loud and overbearing in the exercise, receives, for reward, a crown and royal robe, and is metamorphosed out of the imp, which he was an hour before, into the imperator; more fortunate by half, in the undisputed tenure of his title for a twelvemonth, than many of his Roman predecessors in the laurel. The little girls have an exhibition somewhat similar, but still more theatric in its character. At Christmas they assemble in the churches, dressed out by their parents (who delight in making them as fine as possible) very much, it must be admitted, like ballet-dancers; but supposed to represent, in their habiliments, youthful Christian virgins and martyrs. Thus apparelled, they hold forth on a platform in front of some favourite Præsepe, and sustain, with Pagan rivals, long dialogues on the Nativity, syllogising, in the shrill thin voice of childhood, upon all the sublime mysteries of our faith, till the Pagans abandon the scornful air with which they are taught to commence the discussion, and confess themselves vanquished by the arguments brought against them. The chief spokeswoman is then rewarded, like the head-boy, with robe and crown, and retains her regal dignity for the same period. Of all such education, what shall we say? Why, truly, in Hudibrastic plainness of speech, that it is
"More fitted for the cloudy night
Of Popery, than Gospel light."
Are our British infant schools quite free from participation in the defects just noticed? By no means; and though the subject is far too important to be dismissed with a few words at the end of a slight sketch like the present, (especially since we hope to return to it later,) yet, even here, we must glance at one or two blemishes, that lie so immediately on the surface as to strike even the most casual observer, when once his attention is called to them. In such seminaries, it is known, the ages of the children usually vary from eighteen months to six years, at which tender period of life it is almost impossible to exercise too much discretion not to over-burden the memory, or to obscure the dawning reason; but alas! in the always well-meant, but certainly not always judicious, zeal for beginning education betimes, how often is it begun too early and pushed too far! In an over-anxiety to prevent, by pre-occupation of the ground, the arch-enemy of mankind from sowing his tares, how often is the good seed thrown in before it can have a chance of quickening! Festinare lente should be the motto, in moral and religious, as it is in all other branches of education; since neither in religion nor morals can we hope to arrive at the full stature of perfection, but by slow degrees and long training. The Bible, to be sure, (the only true source of either,) is the Book for all mankind; but as it contains "strong meat for men," as well as "milk for babes," great judgment is necessary, in separating these diets, to give to each age the food particularly adapted for it. We have the apostolic injunction for such discrimination,—"Every one that uses milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age; even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."[C] It is further obvious, from St Paul's catalogue of the armour which is to resist all the attacks of the world, the flesh, and the devil, that it comprises many pieces of which young children can neither be made to comprehend the design, nor, at their time of life, to require the use. How unskilful, then, and abortive must be the attempt to put into the hands of instinct the weapons of mature reason; to seek to explain the "beauty of holiness" to a child who does not "know his right hand from his left," and to invest an unbreeched urchin in the whole Christian panoply at once! With all due respect, too, to the pains-taking compilers of some of the manuals used in these classes, we cannot help thinking that their labour has been at times worse than thrown away; and it has excited our surprise to hear really judicious[D] persons speak of these lesson-books as "perfectly suited" to the purpose of infant education, and as requiring no amendment. Surely they cannot have read them; or they must have forgotten, when doing so, the age and condition of those for whom they are intended. Not to be thought captious for nothing, we will let that "farrago libelli"—that sausage of all the sciences—that "Teacher's Assistant," speak for itself. It has gone through we know not how many editions, and continues to perpetuate in each succeeding one all the blunders of its predecessors. To begin at the beginning,—The scholars have to learn therefrom as many alphabets as there are letters; a historical, a geographical, a profane, and a biblical alphabet, &c., &c., not to attempt an enumeration of the whole. In the biblical, each letter is put opposite to some proper or improper person mentioned in Scripture, for whom it is said to stand representative—(leaving it to be supposed that it has been called into existence for no other purpose.) By this means the written character of course becomes associated in the child's mind with the moral character of the individual whose initial it is; and thus a certain prejudice is apt to arise against certain letters. For instance, the letter H is rendered fearfully significant,—
"H stands for Herod, who spilt infants' blood!"
A theorist might, perhaps, trace the absence of the aspirate in the speech of maturer years to the awe created by that dread tetrarch's name in infancy, when it is first feebly articulated, then dropped, and not recovered afterwards.[E] But we are not theatrical; in proof whereof, we observe that a child's natural aspirations are for tarts, dolls, or marbles; while, to counteract such propensities, these little hypocrites, before their time, are taught to sing out, among other Scripture wishes, the following formulary, which must, of course, act as a specific:—
"May Isaiah's hallow'd fire,
All my fervent heart inspire;
Joseph's purity impart!
Isaac's meditative heart!!!"