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The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886

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Title: The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886

Author: Various


        
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THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

NO. CCCXXIV. APRIL, 1886. VOL. CLXII.




CONTENTS:


I. Matthew Parish

II. The Christian Brothers.--Religious Schools in France and England.

III. Archives of the Venetian Republic.

IV. Yeomen Farmers in Norway.

V. Oliver Cromwell: his character illustrated by himself.

VI. Travels in the British Empire.

VII. The Bishop of Durham on the Ignatian Epistles.

VIII. Books and Reading.

IX. Characteristics of Democracy.

X. The Gladstone-Morley Administration.


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CONTENTS OF NO. 324.


Art.                                                              Page

I.--Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica
Majora. Edited by Henry Richards Luard, D.D., Fellow of
Trinity College, Registrary of the University, and Vicar of
Great St. Mary's Cambridge. Published by the Authority of
the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the
direction of the Master of the Rolls. 7 vols. 8vo. London,
Vol I. 1872--Vol. VII. 1883.                                       293


II.--1. The Christian Brothers, their Origin and Work, with
a sketch of the Life of their Founder, The Venerable Jean
Baptiste de la Salle. By Mrs. R. F. Wilson. London, 1883.

2. La Premiere Annee d'Instruction Morale et Civique:
notions de droit et d'economie politique (Textes et Recits)
pour repondre a la loi du 28 Mars 1882 sur l'enseignement
primaire obligatoire: ouvrage accompagne de Resume, de
Questionnaires, de Devoirs, et d'un Lexique des mots
difficiles. Par Pierre Laloi. Quatorzieme Edition. Paris,
1885.

3. Report of the Committee of Council on Education (England
and Wales). 1884-85.

4. Seventy-fourth Annual Report of the Incorporated National
Society. 1885.                                                     325


III.--The State Papers of the Venetian Republic; namely,
Cancelleria Inferiore, Cancelleria Ducale, Cancelleria
Secreta, preserved in the Convent of the Frari, at Venice.
                                                                   356


IV.--1. Journal of a Residence in Norway during the years
1834, 1835, and 1836. By Samuel Laing, Esq. London, 1837.

2. Le Royaume de Norvege et le Peuple Norvegien. Par le Dr.
O. I. Broch. Christiania, 1878.

3. Official Reports of Prefects on the Economic Condition of
the Provinces of Norway in 1876-80. Christiania, 1884.

4. Publications of the Statistical Bureau Christiania.             384


V.--A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, Esq.;
Secretary, first to the Council of State, and afterwards to
the Two Protectors, Oliver and Richard Cromwell. In Seven
Volumes, containing authentic Memorials of the English
affairs from the year 1638 to the Restoration of King
Charles II. Vol. III. London, 1742.                                414


VI.--1. Oceana, or England and her Colonies. By James
Anthony Froude. London, 1886.

2. Through the British Empire. By Baron von Huebner. 2. vols.
London, 1886.

3. The Western Pacific and New Guinea. By Hugh Hastings
Romilly, Deputy Commissioner of the Western Pacific. London,
1886.                                                              443


VII.--The Apostolic Fathers: S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp.
Revised Texts, with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and
Translations. By J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D.,
Bishop of Durham. London, 1885. 2 vols.                            467


VIII.--1. An Address delivered to the Students of Edinburgh
University on Nov. 3, 1885. By the Earl of Iddesleigh, Lord
Rector of the University of Edinburgh.

2. Hearing, Reading and Thinking: an address to the Students
attending the Lectures of the London Society for the
Extension of University Teaching. By the Rt. Hon. G. J.
Goschen, M.P.

3. The Choice of Books and other Literary Pieces. By
Frederic Harrison. London, 1886.                                   501


IX.--1. Popular Government. Four Essays. By Sir Henry Sumner
Maine. Second Edition. London, 1886.

2. Democracy in America. By Alexis de Tocqueville.
Translated by Henry Reeve. New Edition. London, 1862.

3. On the State of Society in France before the Revolution
of 1789. Translated by Henry Reeve. Second Edition. London,
1873.                                                              518

And other Works.


X.--1. Fourth Midlothian Campaign. Political Speeches
delivered, November, 1885, by the Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone, M.P. Edinburgh, 1886.

2. John Morley: The Irish Record of the New Chief Secretary,
1886.

3. Ireland: A Book of Light on the Irish Problem. Edited by
Andrew Reid. London, 1886.                                         544

And other Works.




ART. I.--_Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora._
Edited by Henry Richards Luard, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College,
Registrary of the University, and Vicar of Great St. Mary's, Cambridge.
Published by the Authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's
Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. 7 vols. 8vo.
London, Vol. I. 1872--Vol. VII. 1883.


Some of our readers are not likely yet to have forgotten the remarkable
essay which the late Professor Brewer contributed to our pages in 1871,
and which has since been reprinted in the volume of 'English Studies,'
published shortly after the author's death in 1879. English History owes
a larger debt to few men of our time than it owes to Mr. Brewer. As a
teacher whose pupils were always eager to listen to all that fell from
his lips, and whose enthusiasm never failed to awake a kindred spark in
the minds of those who looked to him for light in dark places and
guidance along tortuous paths of research, Mr. Brewer has had few
equals, and perhaps has left no successor who can compare with him. As a
writer he was always brilliant, lucid, and vigorous, and his unrivalled
'Introductions' to the Calendars of Letters and Papers, concerned with
the reign of Henry VIII., will long continue to be read by all students
of our History, as necessary and indispensable interpreters of the vast
storehouses of original documents which he did so much to rescue from
the oblivion or obscurity to which they had previously been consigned.
But it was as an organizer of research that Mr. Brewer earned his
greatest fame and achieved his greatest success, and it was to him more
than to any one man, to his immense persistence in urging upon the
powers that be a more generous freedom of access to our Records, and to
his prodigious powers of work in arranging and tabulating the enormous
masses of documents of all kinds which constitute the _Apparatus_ of
English History, that this country stands indebted, and will remain
indebted as long as our literature lasts.

In the Essay on 'New Sources of English History' the learned author has
given us a startling account of the deplorable condition into which some
of the most precious of our national manuscripts had been allowed to
fall--of the utterly chaotic state of our depositories--of the
hopelessness, the despair which must needs have come upon one student
after another who might be fortunate enough to be turned loose into the
various prison-houses of our muniments--and of the efforts made, and
happily at last made with splendid success, to cleanse the Augean
stable, and to let the world know something of the wealth it contained.
With characteristic modesty Mr. Brewer said nothing of his own part in
all that laborious and sagacious organization which resulted in our
obtaining the magnificent _Calendars_, which have opened out to us all
'that new world which is the old' that had become almost forgotten or
unknown. He was not the man to assert himself, he knew that posterity
would give him his due, but with a simple desire to stimulate research,
and to show how much remained to be done, and how much to be discovered
and made known, he drew the attention of his readers chiefly and
primarily to the value of the Calendars, and to the important results
which those Calendars had already produced, and were destined to produce
hereafter. He had quite enough to say upon this point, and if his life
had been spared, it is probable that he would eventually have given us a
more comprehensive account of the series of volumes which, though now
issuing from the press _pari passu_ with the Calendars, were originally
undertaken a little later. Such an Essay by such a master would indeed
have been an important aid to the student, but at the time of Mr.
Brewer's lamented death the day had hardly come for such a _resume_; and
even now, though so much has been achieved, so much and so well, the
hour has hardly arrived nor the man for taking a comprehensive survey,
and giving to the public an intelligent and intelligible account of that
other Library of Chronicles, and biographies, and letters, and
cartularies, and those other memorials of the Middle Ages in England,
which it is to be feared are hardly as well known as they ought to be,
nor as widely studied as they deserve.

Meanwhile it is high time that attention should be drawn to that noble
series of volumes now issuing from the press under the editorship of
scholars whose reputation is assured, and whose work continues to
enhance their reputation--high time that we should begin to do something
like justice to the labourers, who have deserved so well at the hands
of such Englishmen as have any sentiment of loyalty to the great
thoughts, the great doings, and the noble lives of their forefathers.
The philosopher, who 'holds the mirror up to nature,' has not of late,
as a rule, missed his reward. The historian, who in his dogged, patient,
toilsome fashion holds the mirror up to the life of bygone ages, has
received among us scant recognition, and generally is rewarded with but
barren honour. What has been done and still is doing will be best
understood by briefly reviewing the progress of that movement, which has
brought about the great revival of English Historical study, and under
the influence of which the opinions and convictions of educated men have
passed through a very decided change, one destined to produce still
greater and more unlooked for changes of sentiment and belief before the
present century shall have closed.

It is just fifty years since 'the Father of Record Reform,' as he has
been justly called, received his patent creating him Master of the
Rolls. Although as far back as the year 1800 a Commission was issued for
the methodizing and digesting the National Records, and for printing
such calendars and indexes as should be thought advisable; and though
during the next twenty-seven years many works of supreme interest and
importance were printed at the public expense, the enormous extent of
our National Records were known to few, and the difficulty of consulting
them, (dispersed as they were through a score of different depositories)
was enough to deter all but the most resolute enquirers. It was Lord
Langdale who first set himself to reduce the chaos of our archives into
something like order. When the old Record Commission expired in 1837, it
was by Lord Langdale's influence that the Public Record Act was passed
on the 14th of August, 1838, whereby the Records named therein were
placed under the custody of the Master of the Rolls for the time being,
and hereupon a new era began. Nevertheless it was not till July 1850
that a vote was obtained from the Treasury for the erection of a
national depository, wherein our vast archives should be assembled under
a single roof, and not till 1855 that the magnificent _Tabularium_ in
Fetter Lane was opened for the reception of our muniments.

Lord Langdale died in April 1851;[1] he was succeeded in the Mastership
of the Rolls by Lord Romilly, then Sir John. A happier choice could not
have been made. To Lord Langdale belongs the credit of carrying out the
grand scheme for consolidating the various collections of documents,
which, as we have said, had up to this time been widely dispersed, and
the very existence of the larger mass of which was known only to a few
experts. To Lord Romilly we owe it that the great original sources of
English History so assembled have been rendered accessible to any
student who desires to consult them; and it is to him, too, that we are
indebted for the issue of that unrivalled series of 'Chronicles and
Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland, from the Invasion of the Romans
to the Reign of Henry VIII.,' which has laid the foundation for a
science of history firmer and deeper and wider than before was believed
to be even attainable.

Great men are at once the leaders and the product of their age. When
Lord Langdale set himself to his task he was only attempting that which
had been talked of since the reign of Edward II. For five centuries the
unification of our National Records had been recommended and advised by
lawyers, statesmen, and scholars from generation to generation, but no
practical scheme had ever been suggested, and the difficulties in the
way of reform were supposed to be insuperable. It was a Herculean task,
and one that grew ever more arduous the longer it was postponed. During
the first quarter of the present century profound dissatisfaction had
begun to be felt at the condition of our historical literature. The
ordinary text-books were full of fables, more than suspected to be
fables, and which yet it was extremely difficult to disprove
satisfactorily. Theories which had long passed current were being rudely
assailed, and yet--in the face of the obstacles that hindered
research--stubbornly held their ground, or were repeated with peremptory
dogmatism. A deep distrust of the old methods and the old assumptions
had given rise to a widespread desire to drag forth from their
hiding-places any documents, however dry or recondite, which might throw
some clear light upon our national life and manners, and not only upon
mere events of national importance during Medieval times. A desire to
know the truth was _in the air_. The science of history had passed out
of its infancy, and the stirrings of a new craving--the passion of
Research--were making themselves felt in that mysterious restlessness
which indicates that the old smooth-faced docility, the old childish
submission to tutelage, the old unquestioning acceptance of authority,
has gone for ever, and a new life has begun. The year before Lord
Langdale received his appointment as Master of the Rolls, the Surtees
Society had been founded for the printing of unedited MSS. illustrative
of the history of the northern counties; and in the same year that the
old Record Commission expired, the English Historical Society was
started, a society which numbered amongst its promoters such men as the
late Mr. Kemble, Mr. H. O. Coxe, Sir T. Duffus Hardy, and Mr.
Stevenson--the leaders and teachers of that school of younger men who
have so ably followed in the steps of their seniors, and who, mounting
on the shoulders of the giants, have gained a wider view than it was
given to those others to attain. The five years that followed saw the
foundation of the Camden, the Percy, and the Chetham Societies, not to
mention many another that has done useful work in its way. The labours
of these pioneers soon made it quite apparent that the sources of our
national history--social, ecclesiastical, and political--were quite too
voluminous for private enterprise to deal with, and would demand the
co-operation of a body of trained scholars and the resources of the
public exchequer to make them available as apparatus for the teachers of
the future.

On the 26th of January, 1857, Sir John Romilly submitted to the Treasury
his memorable proposal for the publication of certain materials for the
History of England;[2] and on the 9th of February a Treasury Minute was
put forth approving of the plan that had been drawn up as one 'well
calculated for the accomplishment of this important national object in
an effectual and satisfactory manner within a reasonable time.'
Forthwith arrangements were made for the issue of that series of works
which is now known as the 'Rolls Series,' a collection which has already
extended to upwards of 200 volumes.

The lines laid down by Sir John Romilly were almost exactly those which
had been followed by the English Historical Society. Every editor was to
'give an account of the MSS. employed by him, of their age and their
peculiarities;' he was to add 'a brief account of the life and times of
the author, and any remarks necessary to explain the chronology; _but no
other note or comment_ was to be allowed, except what might be necessary
to establish the correctness of the text.' The restriction was
absolutely necessary if only for this, that when the 'Rolls Series' was
first commenced even the most accomplished of its editors were mere
learners. The time had not yet arrived for comments. The text was wanted
first in its completeness and integrity.

Looking back to this period--little more than a quarter of a century
ago--it is difficult for us to realize the deplorable condition into
which our historical literature had been allowed to fall. Kemble's great
work, the 'Codex Diplomaticus aevi Saxonici,' the first volume of which
appeared in 1839, and his 'History of the Saxons in England,' published
in 1849, came upon the great body of intelligent men as the revelation
of new things. It is sufficient to turn to the chapter on the
Constitutional History of England before the Conquest, in Hallam's
'History of the Middle Ages,' to be assured how meagre and superficial
even Hallam's knowledge was of everything before the Norman invasion. It
was no fault of his; he made good use of all such materials as were then
accessible to the student--that is, all such as had been printed; for
that incomparably larger _apparatus_ which since Hallam's days has been
published to the world, it was for all practical purposes as if it had
never existed at all. Even men of culture and learning were persuaded
that all that was ever likely to be known about the religious houses had
been collected in the new edition of Dugdale's 'Monasticon.' It is
hardly too much to say that of the history of English monasticism Hallam
knew nothing. Dr. Lingard himself had very little more to say of the
great Abbeys than his predecessors, and had a very inadequate conception
of the part they played in the development of our institutions; and when
Dr. Maitland wrote his brilliant 'Essays on the Dark Ages,' he hardly
names St. Edmundsbury or St. Alban's, and though one of his most
fascinating chapters is concerned with the early days of Croyland, his
only authority for the beautiful story, which he has handled so
skilfully, is a romantic narrative attributed to Ingulphus, which has
been demonstrated to be a somewhat clumsy though a clever forgery. Of
the Mendicant Orders--of the work they did, of the influence they
exercised, and of the attitude adopted towards them in the 13th century
by the parochial clergy on the one hand, and by the monks on the
other--even less was known, if less were possible, than of their
wealthier rivals.

Two years had scarcely elapsed since the issue of the Treasury Minute of
February, 1857, before it began to be said that the history of England
would have to be written anew. In the single year 1858 _eleven_ works of
the highest importance were printed, and it was evident that neither
original materials nor scholarly editors would be wanting to make the
'Rolls Series' all that it was desired it should become. The 'Chronicles
of the Monasteries of Abingdon and of St. Augustine at Canterbury,' the
contemporary 'Life of Edward the Confessor,' and the priceless
'Monumenta Franciscana,' telling the wonderful story of the settlement
of the Minorites among us, were printed from unique MSS. Next year the
'Chronicle of John of Oxnedes' was brought out by Sir Henry Ellis, and
the 'Historia Anglicana' of Bartholomew Cotton, by Dr. Luard, neither
work having ever before been printed. Volume followed volume in rapid
succession, a steady improvement becoming observable in the style of
editing, as the several editors became more familiar with the results of
their predecessors' labours.

It was while working at Bartholomew Cotton that Dr. Luard was brought
into intimate relations with the 13th century. Hitherto the _composite_
character of such chronicles as had been published had indeed been
perceived, but no attempt had been made to trace the original authority
for statements repeated in the same words by one writer after another.
Dr. Luard opened out a new line of enquiry, and in his edition of
Cotton's Chronicle he endeavoured to distinguish in every instance the
material which might fairly be called original from that which his
author had borrowed from older writers and incorporated into his text.
The borrowed matter was printed in smaller type, and the sources from
which it had been derived were indicated by references given at the foot
of the page. Cottons' own additions were printed in a bolder type, so as
at once to catch the eye. While conducting the laborious researches
necessitated by this new method of editing his text, it became clear to
Dr. Luard that Cotton had borrowed largely from Matthew Paris--who had
lived just a generation before him--and that he had also borrowed from a
mysterious writer much read in the 14th and 15th centuries, who went by
the name of Matthew of Westminster. As to this Matthew of Westminster,
Dr. Luard postponed dealing with him till some future time. He might
prove a mere mythic personage, and it was suspected he would; but
Matthew Paris was certainly no shadow, but a very real man, whose
greatness seemed to grow greater the more he was studied and the better
he was known. Yet as Dr. Luard became more familiar with the text of
Paris, he was soon convinced that in its printed form it was bristling
with the grossest inaccuracies of all kinds. Originally it had been
published under the authority of Archbishop Parker in 1571; and though
other editions had appeared, in this country and on the Continent,
several times since then, Paris's great work had remained exactly in the
same state as Parker (or whoever his agent was) had left it three
centuries ago. That is to say, that by far the most important work on
English history during the 13th century--not to mention European
affairs--and by far the most minute and trustworthy picture of English
life and manners during the reign of Henry III.--a record, too, drawn
up by a contemporary writer of rare genius and literary skill--was
defaced by blunders, audacious tampering with the text and gross
inaccuracies, to such an extent that no conscientious student could
allow himself to quote the printed work without first referring to one
of the very MSS. which the Archbishop professed to have used.

Nevertheless, the task of bringing out a critical edition of the
'Chronica Majora' did not appear less formidable as fresh sources of
information cropped up; and Dr. Luard shrank from the immense labour
that such an edition involved, it was because he had formed a correct
notion of its magnitude. In 1861 he brought out in the same series the
'Letters of Robert Grosseteste,' the heroic and magnanimous Bishop of
Lincoln; and while working at this volume, the England of the 13th
century became more and more alive and present to the mind of the
student.

But distinctly and grandly as one noble character after another revealed
itself, there was a strange mist that required to be dispelled before
even the importance of great events could be rightly estimated. The
inner life of the monasteries, great and small, must be enquired into,
so far as it was possible to get any information on so obscure a
subject; and, above all, the paramount influence which so magnificent an
institution as the Abbey of St. Alban's exercised upon the intellectual
life of the country must be studied with patient impartiality. Before a
scholar with so lofty an ideal of an editor's duty could venture upon
his _magnum opus_, there was indeed an enormous mass of preliminary work
to get through. The horizon seemed to widen everywhere as the years of
historical discovery went on. It was left to Mr. Riley to attack that
wonderful collection of documents to which he gave the title of
'Chronica Monasterii Sancti Albani'--a series occupying twelve thick
volumes, and which furnish us not only with a priceless _apparatus_, by
the help of which a hundred problems perplexing the historian are
furnished with a clue towards their solution--but which afford such an
insight into the life of the greatest monastery in England during its
best times as nobody expected could ever be forthcoming. While Mr. Riley
was occupied with the _Chronicles_ of St. Alban's and the lives of its
Abbots, Dr. Luard was engaged in collecting all the _Annals_ of the
lesser monasteries which he could lay his hands on. Some of these had
already been printed more or less carelessly; others had never seen the
light since they were written. Such as were printed were extremely
difficult to procure--scarce and costly. Dr. Luard took six years in
bringing out his five volumes--volumes referring to the golden age of
English Monasticism, which threw all sorts of side-light upon Mr.
Riley's 'Chronicles,' while they were in turn continually being
explained and illustrated by them.

While the 'Monastic Annals' were passing through the press, a very
startling announcement was made by no less a person than Sir Frederick
Madden, Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum.
Sir Frederick declared that he had come upon a copy of what was commonly
called the 'Historia Minor' of Matthew Paris, not only written by the
author himself, but actually annotated, corrected, and illustrated with
drawings by his own hand. Such an announcement made by an expert of
European reputation, one who had been handling MSS. all his life,
necessarily created a sensation in the literary world. If it were
accepted and proved true, it was one of the most curious romances in the
history of literature. But was it true? To most critics the antecedent
improbability of the theory put forth by Sir Frederick was so great as
to relegate it to the domain of extravagant paradox; but the name and
fame of its supporter were too high to allow of its being dismissed
without refutation. For two or three years no one ventured to enter the
lists against so formidable a champion who had staked his reputation
upon the issue. At last another great specialist, not a whit less
competent than the other, came forward to controvert the opinions and
theory which had been so confidently maintained by Sir Frederick. In
1871 Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy brought out the third volume of his
_Catalogue_, and it was in the famous Introduction to this volume that
the Madden Hypothesis was first assailed with damaging effect. Sir
Thomas, it must be remembered, was Deputy Keeper of the Records. Sir
Frederick was Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts at the British
Museum. Each was the representative man in his own department, and a
very pretty quarrel arose. Into the merits of that quarrel it is
impossible to enter here; it is a matter for specialists, not for
outsiders, to pronounce upon. This, however, may be said with
confidence, that if we except that school of very able and accomplished
experts which the British Museum has trained, experts whose _range_ of
diplomatic knowledge must needs be wider than that of any 'Record man,'
the refutation of Sir Frederick Madden by Sir Thomas Duffus was
generally regarded as unanswerable and triumphant. With the exception
indicated--a very important exception indeed--the Madden Hypothesis was
believed to be utterly demolished, in fact 'blown into the air.'
Nevertheless there are those, from whom something may be expected some
day in the way of rejoinder who are by no means sure that the last word
on this question has been said that deserve to be said, and even so
scrupulous and sagacious a critic as Dr. Luard seems to be less certain
than he was that Madden was quite wrong in _all_ he affirmed, and Hardy
quite right in _all_ he denied.

The attention which had been drawn to Matthew Paris by this remarkable
controversy could not but have its effect in awakening a desire for that
critical edition of the larger Chronicle which Dr. Luard had been so
long preparing. The way was cleared for such an edition now; it was not
likely that any more MSS. of the author would be discovered. Such as
were deposited in the various libraries had been carefully scrutinized,
or their homes were known, and the long years of preparatory study had
been turned to good account--no pains had been spared nor any labour
grudged. In 1872 the first volume of the 'Chronica Majora' appeared in
the 'Rolls Series.' In 1884 the seventh and last volume was issued,
containing the learned editor's last preface, glossary, and emendations,
and an Index to the whole work, extending over nearly 600 pages. It is a
long time since an English scholar has had the good fortune to carry to
its completion so important a work as this, projected on so large a
scale, executed with such conscientious care--characterized by so much
critical skill and scrupulous accuracy--all this achieved single-handed
in the midst of other duties, professional and academical, which would
be quite sufficient to exhaust the energies of an ordinary man.

Now that the work has been done, and done so thoroughly that it may
safely be asserted the _standard edition_ of the 'Chronic Majora' has
been published once for all, we are in a better position than we ever
were heretofore for taking a survey of the life and labours of its
author, and for answering the enquiries which of late have been made
with increasing frequency, and made too among those who might have been
expected to be able to answer them. Who and what was Matthew Paris? What
did he do, and what did he write that the learned few should speak of
him with so much reverence, though to the unlearned many he is little
more than a famous and familiar name?

Perhaps before dealing with his personal history, or entering into any
examination of his literary labours, it will be well first to answer the
question--_What_ was Matthew Paris? for it is simply impossible to
estimate rightly the debt we owe to him, or to understand the brief
account that could be drawn up of his career till we have learned to
know something of the _profession_ to which he belonged, and the great
foundation of which he was so distinguished an ornament. By profession
Matthew Paris was a monk. A monk 'professed' is a term indicating the
higher grade to which not every brother in a monastery attained. The
very term 'profession' may be traced to the cloister. In its usual
acceptation it is modern.

To dilate upon the various monastic orders, which were almost as
numerous in the 13th century as the different religious denominations
are in the 19th, would be out of place here. Suffice it to say that the
English monasteries in Henry III.'s time counted by hundreds. But there
were monasteries and monasteries. Some the homes of the scholar, the
devout and the high-minded, the seats of learning and the resting-places
of the studious and the aged, who hated war and tumult, and only longed
for repose. Some that were mere hiding holes for the lazy and the
incompetent, the failures among the younger sons of the gentry, who had
not the power of pushing their way in the world, or whose career had
been a disappointment. Such men, where all else failed, could get
themselves admitted into some smaller religious house by the interest of
the patron; sometimes bringing in a trifling addition to the common
property, sometimes simply 'pitchforked' into a vacancy, it is difficult
to say how. Then they became 'brethren' of the monastery, and sharers in
most of the good things that it could offer; they were almost exactly in
the same position as Fellows of Colleges were twenty years ago, holding
their preferment for life, with this difference, that a Fellowship at
the smallest College in Oxford or Cambridge always implied _some_
qualification for the post. A College Fellow, at the worst, must have
had some claims to learning or culture; whereas in the smaller and more
remote monasteries a man might be scandalously ignorant, and yet gain
admittance as a brother of the house.

Between the highest and the lowest of that great army of monks,
dispersed through the length and breadth of the land, when English
monarchism had declined from its earlier ideal, there was as great a
distance as there is at this moment between the Fellows of Balliol or
Trinity, and the poor brethren of the Charterhouse, or the bedesmen in
the cathedrals of the old foundation.

In the first half of the 13th century English monarchism was at its
best; the 12th century was emphatically the reformation age of British
monarchism. All the many schemes for starting new orders with improved
_Rules_, and all the efforts to improve the discipline of the religious
houses and fan the fire of devotion among their members, assumed that
the monasteries were then living institutions with vast powers for good;
and institutions which needed only to be reformed to make them all that
the most earnest and ardent enthusiast claimed that they ought to be,
and might become. In the fifty years preceding the accession of King
John, more than 200 monasteries had been built and endowed--some of them
munificently endowed, and the only purely English order (that of St.
Gilbert of Sempringham) had been founded, and in little more than fifty
years could count no less than fourteen considerable houses. Englishmen
believed in the monastic system as they have never believed in anything
else since then; never have such prodigious sacrifices been made, never
has such lavish munificence been shown by the _upper classes_ as during
the century ending with the accession of Edward I. In the next hundred
years they were chiefly the townsmen and traders, not the landed
proprietors, who emptied their money-bags into the lap of the Begging
friars. Certainly the great religious houses at the end of the 13th
century had the entire confidence of the country, and it is impossible
to understand the long reign of Henry III. unless we are fully awake to
the fact that then, too, the monasteries were not only thriving and
powerful, but were institutions on whose help and power the people leant
with an assured confidence, because they were pre-eminently the people's
friends. But between the old foundations which had a history and the new
houses that were springing up in every shire, some feeling of jealousy
and soreness was sure to arise. The old abbeys, with a history that
looked back into a past all clouds and mist, but none the less glorious
for that, affected a supercilious tone towards the mushrooms that had of
late sprouted into vigorous life. A man need not be an old man who can
remember when the Eton and Winchester boys at the Universities affected
an air of contempt for all the 'modern' places of education, and
disdained to number such institutions as Cheltenham or Clifton among the
'public schools.' These were all very well in their way, but where were
their traditions? So with the older and grander Benedictine monasteries,
with charters from Saxon kings, let alone anything else. Glastonbury,
where men said two of the Apostles had built themselves a house of
prayer, and where St. Patrick and St. Dunstan lay entombed; Canterbury,
where Augustine, the English apostle, found a home; Malmesbury, where
St. Aldhelm preached to the barbarous people, and when they tired of his
sermon played to them upon his harp, and, anticipating Mr. Sankey, sang
David's Psalms to the crowds that moved by him as they passed over the
bridge of Avon. These venerable foundations, about whose origin a
glamour of mystery had gathered, whose history had become strangely
obscured by the body of myths that had grown up in the lapse of
centuries--which had survived pillage and anarchy, and all the horrors
of fire and sword, desolating, devastating--were there before men's
eyes, testifying to the amazing vitality which a millennium of strange
vicissitude had not only not destroyed, but not even impaired. Such a
mighty pile of buildings, as had risen up to heaven there in the old
Roman town of Verulam, appealed to the imagination of mankind--the very
materials of the massive tower, ruddy in the blaze of the noon-day, must
have been a wonder and astonishment to many an awe-struck pilgrim
perplexed at the first sight of Roman bricks burnt on the spot a
thousand years ago. There stood the mighty Roman rampart, vast,
enormous--the ground beneath his feet teeming with the tangible memories
of grisly conflict, or of an old civilization that had been blotted out
long ago--the swords of Roman legionaries, the bones of British heroes,
coins with legends that few could read turned up by the ploughman's
share. Yonder, men said, away there at Redburn, the heathen pursuers had
come upon England's proto-martyr and slain the saint of God, whose bones
since then had been gathered up, and were now resting in their sumptuous
shrine. When the Norman came, and the new order was set up in the
land--not a day before it was needed--the thirteenth Abbot of St.
Alban's was of the blood royal, and heir, they said, to Cnut, the Danish
king, who had passed away. It was to him that the awful Conqueror made
oath he would bind himself by the Confessor's laws, an oath which, if he
ever meant to keep, he meant to interpret according to his mood. Even
the very laxity and shortcomings of the abbots of generations back,
which tradition, and something more to be trusted than tradition,
declared to have been matters of scandal, proved no more than that the
great Abbey could live through evil times, outride the storms which
would wreck weaker vessels, and right itself, though overloaded with
abuses which timid pilots would have shrunk from throwing overboard: and
now that 400 years had passed since Offa, the Saxon king--(stirred
thereto by Karl, the Emperor)--had founded the monastery in St. Alban's
honour, and from generation to generation vast building operations had
been going on almost without interruption, and the old Abbey still held
up its head proudly, its Abbot taking precedence of every other in the
land; any man might be excused for thinking that to become a monk of St.
Alban's Abbey was to become a personage of no small consideration.

Verily it was a great abbey in the days of King John. There, in the
eighth year of that King's reign, was held that memorable council
which, if it had been let alone, would doubtless have issued its protest
against the intolerable aggression of the Pope and his _curia_. There,
six years afterwards, another assembly was convened; the first occasion
on which we find any historical proof that representatives were summoned
to a national council in England. Eight times during his reign the
ruffian King was himself a guest at the Abbey. Once after John's death,
when Louis was desperately struggling to hold his own against young
Henry's friends and supporters, he too came to St. Alban's, and
threatened to give it over to fire and sword: only money saved it from a
sack. There was always something to take, and yet always wonderful state
kept up. The magnates in Church and State were for ever going in and
out; the mere domestic expenditure was enormous. Yet, even when the
country was groaning under horrible anarchy, and grinding taxation, and
war and poverty, the building went on as if men lived only to glorify
the great house, and to raise its church tower, or beautify the west
front, or fill the windows with stained glass, or erect the splendid
pulpit in the nave--a miracle of art.

It would be a very great mistake to conclude that all this lavish
expenditure implied the enjoyment of large rents from land. The revenue
derived from the tenants of the Abbey and the profits of farming were no
doubt considerable; but that revenue could never have sufficed alone to
defray the cost of keeping up the establishment. In point of fact, when
a monastery, great or small, depended wholly upon its landed property,
it invariably got into debt; sometimes it got hopelessly into debt. It
is clear that before the Dissolution a very large number of the
religious houses were insolvent. The striking paucity in the number of
'religious' at the time of the suppression--for hardly one house in ten
had its full complement of inmates--is by no means wholly to be
attributed to the reluctance on the part of people in general to take
upon themselves the monastic vows. Where a monastery was financially in
a critical condition, the brotherhood resorted to the expedient which is
at this moment being carried out at more than one College in Oxford and
Cambridge. Now, when times are bad, we temporarily suppress a
Fellowship; then, on the death of a brother of the house, they chose no
monk into his place.

The income from landed estates at St. Alban's was probably at no time
equal to what may be called the extraordinary income. The offerings at
the shrines of SS. Alban and Amphibalus, the proceeds of the offertory
at those magnificent and dramatic functions in which the multitude
delighted, and the _douceurs_ that were always expected and almost
always given in return for hospitality, which only in theory was
free,--these and many another source of profit, which the universal
habit of giving money for 'pious uses' supplied, all made up a sum
total, in comparison with which the proceeds of the rent-roll were
insignificant. In the taxation of Pope Nicholas (A. D. 1291) the whole
revenue of the Abbey from rent and dues in the liberty of St. Alban's is
set down at 392l. 8s. 3-1/4d., a sum which in those days would go as far
as 5000l. a-year now. Even granting that this was only half the net
income derivable from the Abbey's estates, which were widely
distributed, an expenditure of 10,000l. a year would go in our own time
a very little way towards meeting the charges which such an enormous
establishment involved. The mere keeping up the buildings at all times
entailed a very heavy annual outlay. Already in the 13th century the
precincts of the Abbey were overcrowded with palatial edifices, which
were never pulled down except to make room for larger ones. There were
acres of roofs within the Abbey walls.

And what return was being made to the nation, that every rank and every
class were keeping up a rivalry in munificence in favour of such an
institution as this? What had they done, what were they doing, these
seventy men, with their Abbot at their head, who were in the enjoyment
of an income larger than that of many a principality? How was it that no
one _in those days_ accused them of being indolent drones? Mere burdens
upon the earth, as they were called frequently enough, and loudly
enough, and angrily enough, three centuries later? It was the age for
the expansion of the monastic system--none then wished to sweep the
monks away. One of the reasons why the monasteries had retained their
hold upon the affection of the people, and were regarded with reverence
and pride and confidence, lay in this, that they had moved with the
times, and that the monasticism of the 13th was very different indeed
from the monasticism of the 9th century. The primitive asceticism had
almost vanished; it had not, however, died, leaving nothing in its
place. No one now expected to find the religious houses filled with
religious people, everyone holy, devout, and fervent; the personal
sanctity of the inmates was one thing, the sanctity of their churches
and shrines was quite another. In the old days the monks were separate
from the world, living to save their own souls at best; examples to such
as trembled at the wrath of God, and longed for the life to come. As
time went on they mixed more boldly with the sinful world, and gradually
they became more and more the illuminators of the darkness round them.
Now they were regarded as in great measure the salt of the earth, and if
that salt should lose its savour, where was such virtue elsewhere to be
found? Personally, the men might be worldly--vicious, as a rule, they
certainly were not--they were, _mutatis mutandis_, what in our time
would be called cultured gentlemen, courteous, highly educated and
refined, as compared with the great mass of their contemporaries; a
privileged class who were not abusing their privileges; a class from
whence all the art and letters and accomplishments of the time emanated,
allied in blood as much with the low as the high, the aristocracy of
intellect, and the pioneers of scientific and material progress. The
model farming of the 13th century would be regarded as barbaric by our
modern theorists; but such as it was, it was only to be met with on the
demesne lands of the larger monasteries, and was a prodigious advance
upon the _petite culture_ of the open fields. The Priory at Norwich made
an income out of its garden in the days of Edward III., and probably
much earlier; the pisciculture of the religious houses remains a mystery
as yet unsolved; the skill exhibited in the management of the
water-power of many a district round even the smaller houses, still
awakes wonder in those who think it worth their while to study it. At
St. Alban's, as at Glastonbury, St. Edmund's Abbey, and elsewhere, the
culture of the vine was made profitable for generations. The monasteries
were the first to give personal freedom to the villeins, and the first
to commute for money payments the vexatious _services_ which worried the
best men and maddened the worst. The landlords in the 13th century were
real _lords_ of the _land_. They were, as a class, very poor, spite of
the privileges they enjoyed and the power that they possessed of making
themselves disagreeable; and though the constitution of a _manor_ was a
limited monarchy, and the _limits_ were very many, yet the lord could
exercise a great deal of petty tyranny in his little kingdom if he were
so disposed. In the manors which were in the possession of the religious
houses the lord was necessarily non-resident, and the tenants were left
to manage their own affairs with very little interference. The tenants
of the monasteries were in a far more favoured condition than the
tenants of some small lord, needy and greedy, who extorted his dues
literally to the last farthing, and who knew exactly what the best beast
was, on the land that owed him a heriot; and, when the tenant was _in
extremis_, kept a sharp look-out that a fat bullock or a promising young
horse should not be driven off before the owner died.

So the monasteries at the time we are now concerned with were regarded
at once with pride and affection by the great bulk of the people; they
were places of refuge where, in a turbulent time, men and women who had
been stricken, bereaved or wronged, might find a quiet refuge and hide
their heads and be forgotten and fall asleep, with the prayers of other
sufferers to console and support them in their passage through the
valley of the shadow of death. The gentlest spirits here could taste the
bliss of a holy tranquillity; the ascetic could indulge his most
fantastic self-immolation; the morbid visionary could dream at his will
and give his imagination full play, none hindering him; evil demons
might chatter and gibe and twit him at his prayers; choirs of angels
might calm his despair with celestial lullabies; awful forms might rise
from clouds of incense as the gorgeous procession moved along the vast
church aisles, or stopped before some glittering shrine. What then? Who
would question the reality of a miracle, or doubt that sublime
revelations might be made to any holy monk as he wrestled in prayer with
a rapture of the soul, and found himself lifted to the seventh heaven in
ecstasy unutterable?

What has been said applies mainly to the older houses, those which were
under what may be called the _primitive_ Benedictine rule. If men were
moved to rigid asceticism, however, and had a taste for bald simplicity;
if art, and music, and ornate architecture, had no charm for them, and
they dreamt that God could only be sought and found in the wilderness,
the Cistercian houses offered such a congenial asylum. The Cistercians
were the Puritans of the monasteries, and appealed to that mysterious
sentiment which makes some minds shrink with fear from the touch of
luxury, and regard culture as antagonistic to personal holiness. The
sentiment was strong in the reign of Henry II., when nineteen Cistercian
houses were founded; but it is not improbable that other motives, beside
mere taste for a stricter discipline, led to the foundation of eight
more in the reign of King John. Meanwhile the Benedictines had become by
far the most learned and most _educating_ body in the land, and
pre-eminent above them all was the great Abbey of St. Alban's. If it was
not at this time the centre of intellectual life in England, it was
because at this time centralization was unknown. Eadmer, Florence of
Worcester, Gervase of Canterbury, William of Malmesbury, Simeon of
Durham, were all 12th-century Benedictines. They were all students and
writers of history, and history meant _literature_ till Peter Lombard
arose at the end of the 12th century and revolutionized the world of
thought--at any rate the domain of logic. John of Salisbury fiercely
assails the intellectual innovators of his time on the ground that the
new lights of the 12th century disdained to be students of history and
affected contempt for the past. It was the old story; literary culture
found itself in antagonism with scientific culture, and the vigorous
childhood of scientific research was aggressive, insolent, and noisily
insubordinate. The old seminaries, whose homes were in the Benedictine
monasteries, refused to welcome the new learning. Its teachers settled
themselves elsewhere; at Paris, on the other side of the water, they had
a hard fight of it. Once in 1209 the Synod of Paris actually prohibited
the reading of Aristotle's 'Metaphysics.' At Oxford they seem to have
met with a more generous reception. Perhaps it was because that
reception was too enthusiastic that King Stephen at the close of his
miserable reign expelled Vacarius, the first teacher of scientific law
in England. Whereupon young men of parts and ambition crossed the
Channel, seeking and finding at Pavia and Bologna what was not to be had
at home. The monastic schools held their own, and went on in the old
groove; the intellectual revolution which soon came about by the agency
of the Mendicant Orders was not yet dreamt of. St. Alban's, Malmesbury,
and other such mighty foundations, stuck to the old studies, just as
Eton and Winchester stuck to Latin Verse as the one thing needful, and
reluctantly gave into the newfangled notion of having a 'modern side.'

Outside the Abbey precincts, a hundred yards from the great gate, and
separated from it by the _Rome land_, which may possibly have served the
boys as a playground, stood the Grammar School. Whether it offered a
different training from that which was usually supplied to the scholars
who were under training in the cloister, it is difficult to say. Within
the precincts, when the 13th century began, there stood the great
church--enriched by the accumulated offerings of centuries, and glowing
with dazzling splendour of jewels and cloth of gold, and glass that
glorified the very sunshine, and wonders of sculpture and colour and
needlework filling the heart to overflowing with inexplicable hopes and
longings for an ideal that seemed possible of realization, if only the
Church in heaven should be as far removed above the actual of the Church
on earth, as the glories of the Church on earth were removed above the
squalid life of the common workday world. All this in witness that the
great Abbey was, first and foremost, a religious foundation, raised in
the first instance to the glory of God, and meant to help forward the
worship of God, and make the worship worthy of the Most High.

But besides being primarily and emphatically a religious foundation, the
Abbey in the 13th century had grown into something else, and had become
the home of a corporation of scholars and students, who were the leaders
of art and culture in an age when art and culture were to be met with
nowhere outside the walls of a great monastery. There, in what might be
called the museum of the Abbey, you might see no mean collection of
antique gems that had once been the pride of Roman magistrates.
Mysterious specimens of barbaric goldwork, fashioned by unknown
craftsmen for the necks of nameless chieftains who had drawn the sword
and perished, none knew when. Engraved gems that had been dug up in
mysterious sepulchres, about which even imagination despaired of telling
any story; relics of saints and martyrs, charters of Saxon kings,
granted centuries before the Normans came to ring out the old and ring
in the new. The wealth of mere archaeological specimens at St. Alban's
made it such a museum of antiquities as provokes wonder and bitterness,
as we read the catalogue of what was once there, and has perished
utterly and for ever.[3]

The range of buildings to the south of the church covered a far larger
area than that which the church itself occupied. Uncertain though the
exact site may be and is, there had already been added in Brother
Matthew's time what we should now call an Art school, a Library, and,
almost more famous than all, the Scriptorium. By-and-bye, too, came the
printing-press which John Herford set up in 1480. Wynkyn de Worde was
sometime schoolmaster of Saint Alban's, and Lady Juliana Berners' famous
volume issued from the Abbey Press, while Caxton was still pursuing his
craft in the almonry of another monastery at Westminster.

In the days of King John, however, people had so little idea of the
possibility of the printing-press, that they were almost equally
ignorant of such a material as paper for literary purposes. Yet it is a
huge mistake which has not yet been exploded, as it ought to be, that
reading and writing were rare accomplishments in the 13th century.
Knowledge of a certain kind was disseminated far more effectively and
far more universally than is generally believed. The country parson was
expected to be the schoolmaster of his parish, and generally was so, and
there was hardly a village in England during the reign of Henry III, in
which there were not one or more persons who could write a _clerkly_
hand, draw up accounts in _Latin_, and keep the records of the various
petty courts and gatherings that were continually being held, sometimes
to the annoyance and grievous vexation of the rural population. The
professional _writers_ were so numerous, and their training so severe,
that they had got for themselves privileges of a very exceptional kind;
the _clerk_ took rank with the _clergyman_, and the _writer_ of a book
was almost as much esteemed as its _author_.

The scriptorium of a great monastery was at once the printing-press and
the publishing office. It was the place where books were written, and
whence they issued to the world. With the traditional exclusiveness of
the older monasteries there was less desire, no doubt, to diffuse and
disperse than to accumulate books, but the composing and the
multiplication of books was always going on. The scriptorium was a great
writing school too, and the rules of the art of writing which were laid
down there were so rigidly and severely adhered to, that to this day it
is difficult to decide at a glance whether a book was written in St.
Alban's or St. Edmund's Abbey. Sometimes as many as twenty writers were
employed at once, and besides these there were occasionally
supernumeraries, who were professional scribes, and who were paid for
their services; but nothing short of perfect penmanship, such trained
skill, for instance, as would now be required for an engraver, would
qualify a copyist to take part in the finished work, which the copying
of important books required.

One of the conclusions which Sir Thomas Hardy arrived at during the
course of his minute examination of Sir Frederick Madden's theory is so
curious, and opens out such an unexpected view of the way in which our
monasteries may have been brought under the influence of foreign
literature, that it is worth while in this connection to quote the great
critic's own words:

     'After minutely examining every page of the manuscripts in
     question, as well as others, which were undoubtedly written
     in the monastery of St. Alban's, and comparing them with
     others executed in various parts of England and on the
     Continent, I can come to no other conclusion than that
     during the latter half of the 13th century, and perhaps a
     little earlier, there prevailed among the scribes in the
     Scriptorium of St. Alban's, a peculiar character of writing
     which is not recognizable in any other religious house in
     England during that period; but which is traceable in some
     foreign manuscripts, and even in private deeds executed in
     England in the neighbourhood of St. Alban's during the 12th
     and 13th centuries. These facts lead me to the inference,
     that _the schoolmaster who taught the art of writing to
     Matthew Paris and the other members and scholars of the
     establishment at St. Alban's was a foreigner_; that his
     pupils not only imitated their instructor in the formation
     of his letters, but also in his exceptional orthography.'

What questions suggest themselves as we accept the conclusion arrived
at! Who was he, this 'foreigner,' who had come from across the sea to
bring in his outlandish novelties into the great scriptorium? Was he
some 'Frenchman' imported from sunny Champagne, where Thibaut, the
mawkish singer was making verses which his people loved to listen to?
Did he teach the young novices French as well as writing? Did he touch
the lute himself on Feast-days, and charm them with some new lyric of
Gasse Brusle, or delight them with one of Rutebeuf's merry ditties?
France was all alive with song at this time, and princes were rivals now
for poetic fame. It may be that this 'foreigner' brought in a taste for
light literature as well as for a new fashion in penmanship, and made
known to his pupils such alluring novelties as the 'Roman d'Alexandre,
soon to be eclipsed by the 'Roman de la Rose.'

The scriptorium at St. Alban's was founded by Abbot Paul, a kinsman of
Archbishop Lanfrance, when the great Abbey had already existed for three
centuries. Paul became Abbot eleven years after the Conquest, and he
showed himself an able and earnest administrator. From this time
learning and a love of books became a tradition of the house. Abbot
after abbot continued to add to the collection of MSS., and to increase
the value of the library. But St. Alban's had never had a great
historian of its own. Strange and shameful fact! East and west and north
and south, all over the land, there were great writers holding up their
proud heads. Out in the desolate wilds there at Peterborough, they had
been actually keeping up a chronicle for centuries--aye, and written in
the vernacular too. The lonely monastery of Ely, among the swamps, had
its historian. Malmesbury boasted her learned William; and Worcester,
which St. Wulstan had raised from the dust, as it were, only the other
day, had already her Florence. In the great houses of the Northern
Province there had been no lack of writers to whom the past was an open
book. Even Westminster had long ago had her _chronographer_, and far
away in furthest Wales, Geoffrey, the Monmouth man, was making men open
their eyes very wide indeed with tales--idle tales they might be, but
they were well worth the reading--and there was talk too of another
young Welshman, Giraldus, who was on the way towards outdoing the other
by-and-bye. What are we coming to? Holy St. Alban, shalt thou and thy
house be put to shame?--that be far from us!

Thus it came to pass that about a century after the foundation of the
scriptorium, and when the library had grown to an imposing size, Abbot
Simon bestirred himself, and a new office was created in the Abbey, to
wit, that of Historiographer. In our time we should have given this
functionary a grander title, and called him Professor of History; but in
the 12th century, they called him what he was, a writer of history, and
from this time, in fact, the writing of history, after a certain
authorized method, began, and what had been called, and deserves to be
called, the St. Alban's School of History took its rise.

It is evident that before the 13th century had well begun, an historical
compendium of great value had already been drawn up, which must have
been compiled by careful students with a command of books such as during
this age was rare.

     'The compilation,' says Dr. Luard, 'whenever and by
     whomsoever it was written must be regarded as a very curious
     and remarkable one. The very large number of sources
     consulted, the miscellaneous character of many of the
     extracts, the mixture of history and legend, the giving
     fixed years to stories which even writers like Geoffrey of
     Monmouth had left undated, the care at one time and the
     carelessness at another, the slavishness with which one
     authority is followed, and the recklessness with which
     another is altered, the frequent confusion of dates, their
     ignorance and want of care, the blunders displayed in many
     instances from the compiler not understanding the author
     whom he is copying, as is especially the case in the
     extracts from the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle;" all these
     characteristics may well earn for the author the title that
     Lappenberg has given to him, though under the name of
     "Matthew of Westminster," namely, that of the "Verwirrer der
     Geschichte." At the same time there is no doubt that he had
     access to some materials which we no longer possess: and my
     object has been to trace all his statements, where possible,
     to their source, and to distinguish any additions that the
     compiler has made when they are merely rhetorical
     amplifications of his own, or when they are really from some
     source not now extant.'--Pref. to vol. i., p. xxxiii.

After all that can be said, the work surprises us by the erudition it
displays. Nor is that surprise lessened when we have gone through the
masterly analysis of its contents, which Dr. Luard has given us in the
Preface to his first vol. Such as it was, it became the great text-book
on which Roger of Wendover founded his own labours when he incorporated
it into the chronicle which he left behind him. Roger of Wendover did
good work, and laboriously epitomized, supplemented and improved, but he
was a mere literary monk after all; a student, a bookworm, simple,
conscientious, and truthful; a trustworthy reporter, 'a picker-up of
learning's crumbs,' a monkish historiographer, in short; but by no means
a historian of large views and of original mind. Roger of Wendover died
in 1236, and Matthew Paris succeeded to his office and work.

From what has been said, the reader may be presumed to have gained
something like an answer to our first question: _What_ was Brother
Matthew? Briefly, he was a representative monk of the most powerful
monastery in England during the 13th century, when that monastery was at
its best, and doing the work which in after times the Universities and
great schools of the country took out of the hands of the religious
houses; work, too, which since those days has been done by the
printing-press, and by many other institutions better fitted to deal
with the requirements of an immensely larger population, and to be the
instruments of diffusing culture and refinement through the nation after
it had outgrown the older machinery.

When we come to look into the personal history of Brother Matthew, the
details of his biography need not detain us long. Sir Henry Taylor's
famous line is only half true, after all;

    'The world knows nothing of its greatest men'

really means that the world knows less about them than it would like to
know. And yet the world knows almost as much about them as is good for
it. The leading facts of a man's career are all that concern most of
us--the main lines--not the details. Of Matthew Paris we know enough,
because he has himself given us so faithful a picture of his times, and
so charming an insight into the daily life which he led.

Unnecessary doubt has been suggested as to his parentage, and whether
his extraction was or was not from a stock that could boast of gentle
blood. For our part we incline strongly to the belief, that Brother
Matthew was called Paris because that was his name, and had been his
father's name before him. A family of that name held lands in
Bedfordshire in Henry III.'s time; others of the same stock were settled
in Lincolnshire earlier still; and the Cambridgeshire family (one of
whom was among the visitors of the monasteries under Henry VIII.)
boasted of a long line of ancestors, and retained their estates in the
Eastern Counties till late in the 17th century. Young Matthew probably
received his education in the school at St. Alban's, and soon showed a
decided taste for learning and the student's life, and that in the 13th
century meant an inclination for the life of the cloister. Many a
precocious lad is even now taught from his childhood to look forward to
the glories of a College Fellowship, and the career which such an
academic success may open to him; and in the 13th century a schoolboy's
ambition was directed to the goal of admission to a great
monastery--that step on the ladder which whosoever could reach, there
was no knowing how high he might climb--how high above the common sons
of earth or, if he preferred it, how high towards the heaven that is
above the earth.

Matthew was probably born about the year 1200, and in January 1217 he
became a monk at St. Alban's, _i. e._, he became a _novice_. At this
time a lad could commence his noviciate at 15; but the age was
subsequently advanced to 19, the younger limit having been found, as a
rule, too early even for the preliminary discipline required. On the day
after the lad was admitted, a frightful scene took place in the
monastery. A band of Fawkes de Breaute's cut-throats had stormed the
town of St. Alban's, burst into the Abbey, and slaughtered at the door
of the church one Robert Mai, a servant of the Abbot. William de
Trumpington was Abbot at this time, a vigorous and resolute personage,
who ruled the convent with a firm hand. Like all really able men, he was
ably seconded, for he knew how to choose his subordinates. At first the
monks had repented of their choice, and there were quarrels and
litigation and appeals to the Pope, and many serious 'unpleasantnesses;'
but as time went on, Abbot William had won the allegiance of all the
convent, and they were proud of him. He was a man of books, among his
other virtues, and had an eye for bookish men; and when he deposed Roger
de Wendover from being Prior of Belvoir with a somewhat high hand, and
brought him back to St. Alban's, he doubtless did so because he knew
that at Belvoir he was a square man in a round hole, while in the
scriptorium of the Abbey he would be in his right place. Certainly the
event proved that the Abbot was right, and it was to this judicious
removal of a student and man of letters to his proper home that we owe
so much of our knowledge of those interesting minutiae of English history
which the writer has revealed. It was under the eye of Robert de
Wendover that Matthew Paris grew up, rendering him every year more and
more substantial assistance in the library and in the scriptorium.

But the young man was not only a bookworm and a copyist, he soon got to
be looked upon as a prodigy. He was a universal genius; he could do
whatever he set his hand to, and better than any one else. He could
draw, and paint, and illuminate, and work in metals. Some said he could
even construct maps; he was versed in everything, and noticed everything
from 'the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall;' he was
an expert in heraldry; he could tell you about whales, and camels, and
buffaloes, and elephants--he could even draw an elephant--illustrate his
history, in fact, with the elephant's portrait, the first elephant, he
says, that had ever been seen in our northern climes. It was centuries
before men had dreamt of what the science of geology would one day
reveal. Then, too, he had vast capacity for work, and was a courtly
person, and he had the gift of tongues, and had been a great traveller;
he had early been sent by the convent to study at the University of
Paris, and wherever he went, he was the man to make friends. When the
Benedictines in Norway had convinced themselves that there was sore need
of a reform of their rule and discipline, they applied to Pope Innocent
IV. to send them a Visitor furnished with the necessary authority for
carrying out so delicate and difficult a mission, and they made choice
of Matthew Paris as the fittest possible person for such a work.
Reluctantly Brother Matthew was compelled to undertake the task; he
started on his northern voyage in 1248, and was absent about a year. In
Norway he soon grew into high favour with King Hacon, who peradventure
would have kept him at his side if he could. This seems to have been the
most important episode in his otherwise uneventful life. But the
advantages and opportunities which were at the command of any ambitious
and studious young monk at St. Alban's were in themselves extraordinary.
We have said that building was always going on. It was going on on a
very large scale indeed in Abbot William's time. That means that there
were the plans and sections and working drawings to be copied for the
architect, and measurements and calculations by the thousand to be
made--_a school of architecture_, in short: and besides that, what Roger
de Wendover was in the scriptorium, that Walter of Colchester, _pictor
et sculptor incomparabilis_, was in the painting room. Walter was a
sculptor; indeed he wrought at his marvellous pulpit which the Abbot set
up in the middle of the church: and he carved the story of St. Alban
upon the great beam over the high altar, and did many another thing of
which we have only too brief descriptions. Then, too, there was Richard,
the monk who decorated the grand new guests' hall _deliciose_, as we are
told, and who painted pictures and carried out other works of
embellishment at a pace which none could have kept up, but that he had
his father to help him with his brush, and another artist, John of
Wallingford, to carry out his great designs, and many more skilled
limners whose names have gone down into silence.

When Abbot William's reign came to an end, the monks were unanimous in
choosing John of Hertford as his successor, and the new Abbot lost no
time in showing favour to Matthew Paris. Next year Roger de Wendover
died, and who could there be so worthy to succeed him as historiographer
as the versatile and accomplished brother, who by this time was the
boast of the great house? And historiographer accordingly Matthew
became--_mutatis mutandis_, a sort of 13th-century editor of the
'Times;' his business was to gather from all points of the compass, if
not the latest news, yet the best and most trustworthy reports upon
whatever was worth recording. He had his correspondents all over Europe,
and that he sifted the evidence as it came to him we know.

Wherever there was any great event that deserved a place in the Abbey
Chronicle, some splendid pageant to describe, some battle, or treaty, or
pestilence, or flood, or famine, straightway tidings came to the
vigilant historiographer; and there was a comparison of the evidence
brought in, and some testing of witnesses, and finally the narrative was
drawn up and incorporated into Matthew's history. Again and again it
happened that a great personage who, while himself _making_ history, was
anxious that his own part in a transaction should be represented
favourably, would try and get the right side of the famous chronicler,
and would furnish him with private information. Even the King himself
thought it no scorn to communicate facts and documents to Brother
Matthew. Once when Henry saw him in a crowd on a memorable occasion, he
picked him out, and bade him take his seat by his side, and see to it
that he made a true and faithful report of what was going on; and it is
evident that the royal favour which he enjoyed through life must have
extended to furnishing him with many a story and many a detail which
none but the King could have supplied. The minute account of the attempt
to assassinate Henry in 1238; the curious State paper giving a narrative
of the dispute between the King and his nobles in 1242; the strange
scene at the tomb of William Marshall in 1245, and scores of other
incidents in the career of Bishop Grossteste and Richard of Cornwall,
were evidently 'inspired,' and can only have come from eye-witnesses of
the events recorded. Nevertheless Matthew, though he was willing enough
to receive information, and to utilise facts and documents, was by no
means the man to reproduce them exactly in the form in which they came
to him. More than once he ventured to remonstrate with the King, and
very much oftener than once he expresses his opinion of him in no
measured terms. Some of the severest censures he had marked for
omission, and some expressions he modified considerably, for we have the
good fortune to possess his chronicle both in an earlier and in a later
form; but even though the fuller and more outspoken record had perished,
we should still have had enough proof to make it clear that we have in
Matthew Paris an instance of a born historian, one who never consented
to be a mere advocate, taking a side and seeing only half the truth of
anything; but a man gifted with the judicial faculty, that precious gift
without which a man may be anything you please--a rhetorician, a special
pleader, a picturesque writer, a laborious collector of facts; but an
historian never. And yet Matthew Paris was a magnificent hater, with a
fund of indignant scorn and righteous anger which never fails him upon
occasion. Friend of King and nobles as he was, he will not spare his
words of wrathful censure upon the tyrant, or upon any that he held
deserving of rebuke for cruelty, oppression and avarice. When he has to
lay the lash on such as had proved themselves enemies to his much-loved
Abbey, or who had wronged and defrauded it, he is well-nigh as fierce as
Dante. He singles them out--the doomed wretches--and holds them, as it
were, over the fire of hell before he drops them down into the burning
flame.

Did Ralph Cheinduit, that blustering, burly knight, cry aloud 'A fig for
St. Alban and his monks! Since they excommunicated me--look you! I have
only increased in girth, behold me fat and jolly, in faith almost too
big for my saddle. A fig for them all!' Did he say so, the impious
wretch? Be it known that from that very day Sir Knight began to shrink
and waste and pine, and if he had not repented and been absolved in
time, he had gone down to the bottomless pit with never a hope of
deliverance.

Did not Sir Adam Fitz William show the evil spirit that was in him when
he sided against us time and again? And now, look to his awful end!
Gorged with meat and drink one night, he sprawled upon his bed,
_indigestus_, as you may say, and he never woke more. Aye! and he died
intestate too. And as though that was not bad enough, his wife too died,
straightway, like another Sapphira slain by the shock of the tidings.
And then there was Alan de Beccles, too, always notorious for setting
himself against us and our house, he too perished as the other did, for
he loved choice dainties overmuch, and he dined late and he ate as none
should eat, and when he could eat no more, suddenly his speech failed
him and his veins burst, smitten with an apoplexy. And many another,
whom it would take too long to name, following his evil course, and
being prosecutors of Holy Alban's Church, perished for ever by God's
vengeance.

It is no longer the fashion now to denounce the Pope and his myrmidons,
but if the rage of Exeter Hall should ever recur, and the orators of the
old platform should revive a taste for anti-papal agitation, they might
find in Matthew Paris as rich a repertory of testimonials against Roman
aggression and greed as the most rabid Irish Protestant could desire. 'O
thou Pope,' he bursts out once, 'thou the father of all the fathers in
Christ, how it is that thou sufferest the realms of Christendom to be
fouled by such creatures as are thine?' The 'creatures' were the papal
legates and nuncios and all their belongings, who were plundering
England without shame. 'Harpies they were and blood-suckers,' says
Matthew, 'mere plunderers, skinning the sheep, not shearing them only.'
Then there were the King's Justiciars--'Justice'--nay, with that they
had nothing to do. Why tell of their unrighteous deeds? he asks. 'Better
forbear from vainly writing about the _wrongers_, and return to the
story of the wronged.'

Of course the friars come in for their share of strong words--chiefly
because the Pope made use of them so vilely, and not less because they
set themselves above their betters--us, to wit--monks of the old houses.

     'They started with such fair professions, they were going to
     be so very poor, and so very unworldly, and were going to
     supplement our work and interfere with nobody, and give us
     all a helping hand. Look at them now!' says Matthew; 'they
     march through the streets in pompous array with banners
     flaunting in the sun and waxen tapers, and rich burghers in
     holiday garments joining in the long train, and if they have
     no land they have money, good store, and as for their
     churches, they are eclipsing us all. Their invasion of our
     territory is a dreadful scandal, and they sneer at us and at
     all other religious men and women and they flout the parish
     priests and call them humdrums, and schism is at work
     horribly, and the people are running away from the old
     guides, and there is no end to them. Actually in the year of
     grace 1257,' he says, 'a new order of these fellows turned
     up in London. Friars of the sack, forsooth, because they
     were clothed in sackcloth! Of course they came armed with a
     papal licence as usual. What did these fellows come for? Was
     it to make confusion worse confounded? Alas! Alas! If we had
     only been as we were in the golden age, these friars would
     never have had a chance--not they! We too are not as the
     monks of old were; they lived the guileless life--austere,
     hard, self-denying, saintly! What are we in comparison with
     them?

     'Did not we find the bones of our brethren there, hard by
     the High Altar, when we were beautifying the same? O ye
     degenerate sons of this degenerate age! Two centuries ago
     and our monks were men of faith and prayer. In the year of
     grace one thousand two hundred and fifty-one, we found more
     than thirty of them buried together, and their bones were
     lying there, white and sweet, redolent with the odor of
     sanctity every one; each man had been buried as he died, in
     his monastic habit, and his shoes upon his feet too. Aye,
     and _such_ shoes--shoes made for wear and not for
     wantonness. The soles of these shoes were sound and strong,
     they might have served the purpose for poor men's naked feet
     even now, after centuries of lying in the grave. Blush ye!
     ye with your buckles, and your pointed toes and your fiddle
     faddle. These shoes upon the holy feet that we dug up were
     as round at the toe as at the heel, and the latchets were
     all of one piece with the uppers. No rosettes in those days,
     if you please! They fastened their shoes with a thong, and
     they wound that thong around their blessed ankles, and they
     cared not in those holy days whether their shoes were _a
     pair_. Left foot and right foot each was as the other: and
     we, when we gazed at the holy relics--we bowed our heads at
     the edifying sight, and we were dumbfounded, even to awe, as
     we swung our censers over the sacred graves of the ages
     past!'

The anecdotes and out-of-the-way pieces of information in the 'Chronica
Majora,' which may be said to represent the _paragraphs_ of modern
journalism, are countless. Brother Matthew enlivens his history with
these cross-lights at every page, and what gives to these scraps an
added charm is that Matthew himself seems to be always with us when he
prattles on. Not even Herodotus has succeeded more entirely in
impressing his quaint personality upon his narrative. It is always
something which he has seen, or heard from some living man who saw it
with his own eyes.

     'There was my friend John of Basingstoke, had studied at
     Paris, and a wonder of learning he was, but he told me
     himself that his best teacher by far was the young lady
     Constantina, daughter of an archbishop she. Archbishop of
     Athens, too--archbishops may marry out there! Before she was
     twenty she knew all that men may know; she was worth two
     universities of Paris any day; she foretold the coming of
     plagues and storms, and eclipses--and--more wonderful
     still--the coming of earthquakes too: and John of
     Basingstoke was her scholar, and whatever he knew that was
     deep and rare, he learnt it of the lady Constantina, the
     Archbishop's daughter.'

Matthew is very great when he has to tell of omens and portents:

     'We were scurvily treated by Pope Innocent III.,' he says,
     'in the days of Abbot John. Spite of all our privileges and
     indulgences, the Pope would have him come to Rome every
     third year; a sore burden and harm to us all. Forthwith evil
     omens came. Thrice in three years was our tower struck by
     lightning. After that wrong of his Holiness it was no wonder
     that the impression of the papal seal in wax, which we had
     taken good care to fix on the top of the steeple, availed
     not to keep off the thunderbolt--small good you see in that
     kind of thing.'

Besides the miscellaneous paragraphs, there are periodical reports of
the weather, and the storms, and the droughts, and the harvests.
Moreover, there are what answer to our police reports, and details of
criminal proceedings against Jew and Gentile, and births and deaths and
marriages, and now and then brief notes upon the state of the markets,
and sometimes hints and reflections upon the desirability of certain
reforms in Church and State; and all this not in the spirit of modern
journalism, which at its best too often bears the marks of haste, and
betrays the literary soldier of fortune paid for his work at so much a
column, but genuine, hearty, throbbing with a certain passionate loyalty
to a tradition, or an idea which you may say is exploded, grotesque, or
fanciful, but which in the 13th century honest men and devout ones lived
by and lived for, and were trying in their own way to carry out into
action.

But now that we have got this precious 'Chronicle,' not to mention other
works in the composition of which Brother Matthew had at least a large
share--though our space forbids us dwelling upon them or their contents,
and we must refer our readers to Dr. Luard's elaborate prefaces if they
would desire to know all about them--another question suggests itself,
which sooner or later will become a pressing question--What are we going
to do with such a national work of which this country has great reason
to be proud?

The days are gone by when a man was supposed to be educated in
proportion as he was familiar with the literature of Greece and Rome and
ignorant of everything else. Already at Oxford candidates for the
highest honours in the final schools think it no shame to read their
Plato or their Aristotle in English translations, and in half the time
that was needed under the old plan they get a mastery of their
Thucydides or Herodotus, devoting themselves to the subject-matter after
they have proved at 'Moderations' that they have a respectable
acquaintance with the language of the authors.

May the day be far off when Homer and AEschylus shall cease to be read in
the original! The great writers of Hellas and Italy were poets or
orators, great teachers or great thinkers; but they were something more.
They were perfect instrumentalities too. Their thoughts, their lessons,
their aspirations, their regrets, you may interpret and transfer into
the speech and the idioms of the moderns; but the music of their
language, the subtleties of melody and rhythm, and harmony and tone, can
no more be translated than a symphony for the strings can be adequately
represented upon the organ. You may persuade yourself that you have got
the substance; you have missed the perfection of the form. Yet who but a
narrow pedant will insist that the study of any literature, ancient or
modern, is valuable chiefly for familiarizing us with the language, not
for enriching our minds with the subject matter? Do we desire to
understand the past and so to be better able to estimate the importance
of great movements that are going on in the present or, by the help of
the experience of bygone ages, to forecast the future? Then it behoves
us to see that our induction shall be made from as wide a view as may
be, and to avail ourselves of any light that may be gained. But it is
mere waste of time to be for ever staring at the lamp which may be
pretty to look at in itself, but is then most precious when it serves as
a means to an end. If we are ever to construct a Science of History, the
old methods must give place to something which may approximate to
philosophic enquiry. When we come to think of it, how very small an area
of time or space is covered by the historians of Greece and Rome: how
small an area and how superficially dealt with! Even Thucydides hardly
ventures to lift the veil which separates the civilization of his own
age from that of an earlier period; he lifts it for a moment, then drops
the curtain and passes on. It is true indeed that Herodotus introduces
us to a world that is not Hellenic, and brings us into some sort of
relation with men whose habits and art and religion had a character of
their own; but then these nations were not as we, and not as men even of
our race could ever become. We never seem to be _in touch_ with Egypt or
Assyria, and when he prattles on about these nations it is less as a
historian than as an observant traveller that Herodotus delights and
allures. Xenophon's passing notices of the manners and education, of the
_feudalism_ and the social life of the Medes, are too brief to be
anything but tantalizing; but the neglect of Xenophon by professed
students is not creditable, however significant. Perhaps of all the
Greek writers Polybius was the man who had the truest conception of the
historian's vocation; perhaps, too, it was just because he was so much
before his age that his voluminous and ambitious work has come down to
us little more than a fragment. Because he was something better than a
compiler of annals, they who read history only to be amused found him
dull, and the moderns have not yet reversed the verdict which was passed
upon him. Who ever heard of a candidate for honours taking Polybius into
the schools?

It is from the Latin historians that we might have expected so much and
from whom we get so little. What do they tell us of ancient Spain--the
Spain that Sertorius pretended he was going to regenerate, and whose
civilization, literature, and national life he did so much to
extinguish? If it were not for what Aristotle has told us in the
_Politics_, what should we know of that mighty commercial Republic which
monopolized the carrying trade of the old world? It never seems to have
occurred to Livy that the political organization of Carthage could be
worth his notice. His business was to glorify Rome, and to tell how Rome
grew to greatness--grew by war and conquest and pillage, and the
ferocious might of her relentless soldiery. The 'Germania' of Tacitus
stands alone--unique in ancient literature; but what would we not give
for such a monograph upon the Britain which Caesar attempted to conquer,
or the Gaul which he plundered and devastated? The great captain's
famous missive might be inscribed as the motto of his 'Commentaries.'
Veni! vidi! vici! sums up in brief the substance of what they contain.
It was always Rome's way! Rome swept a sponge that was soaked in blood
over all the past of the nations she subdued. She came to obliterate,
never to preserve. Her chroniclers disdained to ask how these or those
doughty antagonists had grown formidable, how their national life had
developed; whether their progress had been arrested by the conquerors or
whether they had become weak and enervated by social deterioration or
moral corruption. Enough that they were _Barbarians_.

The science of history can be but little advanced by writers such as
these, who pass from battlefield to battlefield--

    'Crimson-footed, like the stork,
    Through great ruts of slaughter,'

and to whom the silent growth of institutions and the evolution of
ethical sentiments and the development of the arts of peace were matters
which never presented themselves as worthy of their attention. You may
call this history if you will, in truth it is little better than
Empiricism. The world is a larger world than Rome or Athens dreamt of,
and students of history are beginning to realize that not quite the last
thing they have to do is 'to look at _home_.' Such a work as the
'Chronica Majora' of Matthew Paris is a national heritage which it is
shameful to allow much longer to be known only by the curious and
erudite. Now that there is no excuse for our neglect, is it too much to
hope that the day may not be far distant when the name of this great
Englishman may become as familiar to schoolboys as that of Sallust or
Livy, of Cornelius Nepos or Caesar--his name as familiar, and his
writings better known and more loved?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lord Langdale resigned three weeks before his death.

[2] The proposal to print and publish the _Calendars_ had been approved
by authority of the new Record Commissioners as early as January 1840.
_See_ preface to Mr. Lemons' 'Calendar' (Domestic, 1547-1580), p. viii.

[3] In Luard's sixth volume there are two facsimiles of certain coloured
drawings of the more precious gems at St. Alban's, with careful
descriptions of them, these and the illustrations being most probably
_executed by Mathew Paris himself_.




Art. II. 1.--_The Christian Brothers, their Origin and Work, with a
sketch of the Life of their Founder, The Venerable Jean Baptiste de la
Salle._ By Mrs. R. F. Wilson, London, 1883.

2. _La Premiere Annee d'Instruction Morale et Civique: notions de droit
et d'economie politique (Textes et Recits) pour repondre a la loi du 28
Mars 1882 sur l'enseignement primaire obligatoire: ouvrage accompagne de
Resume, de Questionnaires, de Devoirs, et d'un Lexique des mots
difficiles._ Par Pierre Laloi. Quatorzieme Edition. Paris, 1885.

3. _Report of the Committee of Council on Education_ (England and
Wales). 1884-85.

4. _Seventy-fourth Annual Report of the Incorporated National Society._
1885.


Most travellers in France will have met occasionally in Paris and in the
provincial towns a school of boys walking two and two, and followed by a
serious-looking superintendent of very solemn deportment. The boys are
in no marked respect different from other boys, but they are orderly and
well conducted. They are probably on their way to a church; and if you
watch them, you will see them march in with much propriety. The
superintendent is evidently not an ordinary schoolmaster; you would
suppose that he is an ecclesiastic of some kind. He wears a loose black
cloak, a hat with a low crown and a portentous brim, and bands such as
were much worn by English clergymen till late years, and which, when
strongly developed, were supposed to indicate a sympathy with
Calvanistic theology. Nevertheless, the solemn-featured young man is not
an ecclesiastic, neither is he a Protestant minister. He is one of the
Freres Chretiens, or Christian Brothers; and the boys whom he has under
his charge are pupils in one of the Ecoles Chretiennes, or Christian
Schools.

We will venture to assume, that some of our readers are not well
acquainted with the story and the principles of the remarkable
institution known as the Schools of the Christian Brothers, or with the
life of their remarkable founder. We propose in this article to supply
some information upon the subject, not only because we think that such
information will be interesting in itself, but also because we believe
that from the story of the work and principles of the French schools of
the Christian Brothers, we may proceed without difficulty, and almost by
necessary consequence, to some useful considerations with respect to
English schools as now established and conducted amongst ourselves.

Jean Baptiste de la Salle was born in Rheims, April 30, 1651. The house
in which he was born is still standing, and is regarded with reverence.
He came of a noble family, which was originally of Bearn. His
grandfather settled at Rheims, of which he became an honoured citizen,
but was apparently in no way himself remarkable. His second son, Louis,
was the father of a child, who received the name of Jean Baptiste on the
same day as that upon which he was born.

This child, whose career we purpose briefly to follow as that of the
founder of the Christian Brothers, exhibited early signs of a devotional
spirit; he learned to recite the Breviary from his grandfather, and
continued to do so even before being bound to the practice by his
ordination vows; and he soon made it clear to himself and to others that
his vocation was that of the priestly office. His conduct as a student
in the University of Rheims, which he entered at eight years old, was
marked by diligence in study and gentle docility.

Before he had reached the age of sixteen he was made a canon of the
cathedral; such were the strange ecclesiastical possibilities of those
times. An aged relative resigned in his favour, and died the following
year. The preferment, however, did not spoil him; he looked upon it as a
call to duty. He was diligent in attendance upon the offices of the
Church, diligent in private prayer, diligent in study--in every way a
remarkable boy-canon!

In October 1670 he entered the seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, where,
amongst other fellow-students, was Fenelon, subsequently the great
Archbishop of Cambrai. Little is recorded of his seminary life, except
that it was gentle, modest, blameless. In 1672 he lost his father, and
in the same year returned to Rheims to take charge of his younger
brothers and sisters. The responsible position in which he was thus
placed seems to have shaken for a time his persuasion that he had a true
vocation for the priesthood; but after consultation with a friend who
knew him well, his doubts vanished, and on the eve of Trinity Sunday in
this same year he was admitted to the subdiaconate.

Then follow six years of quiet home work and retirement. During this
time he attended the theological course of the University, provided for
the education of his brothers and sisters, and gave himself very
earnestly to prayer and good works. In the year 1678, on Easter Eve, he
was ordained Priest.

During all this time De la Salle's attention does not seem to have been
turned to that which ultimately became the great work of his life. As
not unfrequently happens, the real bent was given to his energies by
what might be described as accidental circumstances. The friend whom he
consulted when in doubt concerning holy orders was one Canon Roland.
This good man had interested himself much about an orphanage for girls
at Rheims, which had fallen under bad management, and urgently needed
reform. Canon Roland was taken ill just before De la Salle's ordination,
and, dying not long after, left the young priest his executor,
commending to his special care the orphanage just mentioned. De la Salle
could not refuse the charge; it was not much to his taste, but it was
the bequest of his friend; it was the leading of God; and he girded
himself to the task. He applied through the Archbishop to the King for
letters patent recognizing the institution, and thus put it upon a
lasting foundation; he bore the expense of the whole transaction; then
he supplemented the funds out of his own means; and having thus
satisfied his obligations to his deceased friend, he returned to his
quiet devotional life. The thought that this orphanage for girls would
constitute a valuable training school for schoolmistresses seems already
to have crossed his mind.

Now comes the turning-point of De la Salle's life, and it comes in a
curious way. There was a certain rich, fashionable, and extravagant
married lady living in Rouen, who, like the rich man in the parable, was
clothed in fine linen and fared sumptuously every day, while Lazarus lay
at the gate. One day a poor beggar, who had been harshly repulsed from
the door, touched the heart of a servant by his manifest misery, and was
received into the stables, where he died the same night. The dead man
must needs be buried; so the servant went to the mistress, confessed his
fault, received some violent language and notice of dismissal, but at
the same time procured a sheet to serve as a shroud for the corpse. At
dinner-time the lady perceived the very sheet, which she had given for
the burial, folded up and lying in her own chair; some mysterious hand
had brought back the ungracious present, as though the deceased beggar
would not receive a favour in death from one who had been so cruel to
him in life.

This strange and apparently not very important occurrence changed the
whole course of the lady's life. She gave up all her old habits of
magnificence and extravagance, lived the life of a devotee, and soon
succeeded in separating from herself all her old companions and friends,
who, in fact, deemed her mad. After her husband's death she became still
more strict in her habits, and devoted to the service of the poor a
large part of her fortune.

Amongst other charities which she assisted was the female orphanage, of
which we have already spoken as having been cared for by Canon Roland,
and after his death by M. de la Salle. She conceived the idea of
establishing something of the same kind for boys in her native town of
Rheims, and she consulted Canon Roland on the subject. Ultimately she
engaged a devout layman, named Adrien Nyel, who had experience of poor
schools in Rouen, promised him maintenance for himself and a young
assistant, gave him a letter of introduction to her relative M. de la
Salle, and sent him to Rheims to open a school there for poor boys.

This school, which was commenced in 1679, was the germ of the great
system of _Ecoles Chretiennes_. Its success led a pious lady in Rheims
to wish to establish another of the same kind in a different part of the
town. She consulted M. de la Salle, who had become patron of the first
school, on the subject; and thus he became, without any special wish or
intention of his own, drawn into the work of the education of poor boys.
His own account of the matter is worth quoting:--

     'It was,' he wrote, 'by the chance meeting with M. Nyel, and
     by hearing of the proposal made by that lady [to whom
     reference has been made], that I was led to begin to
     interest myself about boys' schools. I had no thought of it
     before. It was not that the subject had not been suggested
     to me. Many of M. Roland's friends had tried to interest me
     about it, but it took no hold of my mind, and I had not the
     least intention of occupying myself with it. If I had ever
     thought that the care which out of pure charity I was taking
     of schoolmasters would have brought me to feel it a duty to
     live with them, I should have given it up at once; for as I
     naturally felt myself very much above those whom I was
     obliged to employ as schoolmasters, especially at first, the
     bare idea of being obliged to live with such persons would
     have been insupportable to me. In fact, it was a great
     trouble to me when first I took them into my house, and the
     dislike of it lasted for two years. It was apparently for
     this reason that God, who orders all things with wisdom and
     gentleness, and who does not force the inclinations of men,
     when He willed to employ me entirely in the care of schools,
     wrought imperceptibly and during a long space of time, so
     that one engagement led to another in an unforeseen way.'

This passage somewhat anticipates events; but it is convenient for the
condensed character of this narrative that it should be so. We will
therefore briefly fill up the gap left by M. de la Salle's own statement
by saying, that he found the work of directing schools for the poor
increase upon his hands in a wonderful manner. The success of those
which he visited and superintended led to the establishment of others.
Soon the masters themselves formed a small body which required
superintendence and guidance. He took a house in which he placed them;
the home of course needed rules for its orderly and efficient working;
these M. de la Salle supplied. But still all was not quite as it should
be. Cathedral duties took up much of the Canon's time; these duties were
of primary obligation, and left comparatively little of the day to be
given to the superintendence of schoolmasters. But more than this, the
difference of station and comfort and habits between a well-endowed
Canon of a Cathedral, enjoying in addition a private fortune of his own,
and poor schoolmasters taken from the humblest ranks, and living in the
most humble manner, was quite immeasurable. It was comparatively easy to
have the whole company to dine with him, and so to meet them half way
down the social hill; but this was not enough. M. de la Salle began
gradually to realize the fact, that his great undertaking of supplying
schools and schoolmasters for the gratuitous education of the poor,
could only be crowned with complete success on the condition of his own
adoption of poverty in all its thoroughness. Accordingly he determined
to resign his canonry and spend his fortune upon the poor. Not
altogether so easy a thing as might at first sight appear. Great
opposition was made by his friends: the Archbishop was unwilling to
accept his resignation: nothing but persevering determination on the
part of De la Salle could have carried the business through; but he was
full of perseverance and full of determination, and in 1683 he at last
succeeded in divesting himself of his Cathedral preferment. The sale of
his property, and spending the money upon the poor, was an easier
matter, especially as the year 1684 was one of dearth; in the course of
that year and the following he managed to get rid of all.

This parting with his money, instead of spending it upon his great work,
may well seem to be a conduct of doubtful wisdom; especially as at a
later period much difficulty was encountered for want of funds. But it
is hard, and perhaps not justifiable, to find fault with a man, who
adopts the course of selling all that he has and giving to the poor,
after using devoutly such a prayer as the following:--

     'My God, I do not know whether to endow or not. It is not
     for me to found communities, or to know how they should be
     founded. It, is for Thee, Oh my God. Thou knowest how, and
     canst do it in the way which is pleasing to Thee. If Thou
     foundest them, they will be well founded. If Thou foundest
     them not, they will be without foundation. I beseech Thee,
     my God, make me know Thy will.'

Soon after the last livre was spent, De la Salle had occasion to make a
journey in connection with his work. He went on foot, as needs he must,
and begged his way. An old woman gave him a piece of black bread; he ate
it with joy, feeling that now he was indeed a poor man. He had at this
time reached the age of thirty-three years.

Behold the Society of the Christian Brothers, and the Christian Schools,
taking form at last with De la Salle at the head! Let us examine that
work and see how matters stand.

In the first place, so far as the founder was himself concerned, his
life was one of asceticism, but still more of prayer:--

     'He prayed by day and by night--his life was one incessant
     communion with God. He would fain have avoided even the
     interruption caused by sleep, and he grudged every moment
     given to it, because it shortened his time of prayer. He
     slept on the ground, or sometimes in his chair, and was the
     first to rise at the sound of the morning bell. While at
     Rheims he regularly spent Friday night in the Church of
     Saint Remi; he made the sacristan lock him in, and there
     poured out his soul in prayer for help, and guidance, and
     success in his work.'

The Superior and the Brothers of course lived a common life. The great
principle of bringing himself exactly to the level of those who worked
under him, which had led to his resignation of his stall and the sale of
his property, made it quite certain that he would not call upon the
Brothers to do or to bear anything which he was not willing to do and to
bear himself. But the burden was heavier to him than to them. They were
poor men originally, accustomed to hard work and rough fare; while he
had been brought up in ease and plenty, and had never known what want
and poverty were. Consequently it cost De la Salle much effort and
self-denial to enter upon his new life; but he was satisfied with no
half measures; the sacrifice was to be absolute and complete; he fought
the battle and gained it,--yet not he, but the grace of God that was in
him. At the first starting of the Society there was no distinct rule,
but the following arrangements were made:--

The food was to be substantial but frugal, fit for labourers engaged in
hard toil; nothing costly, nothing but what was necessary; on the other
hand no special rigour of abstinence, beyond that demanded of other
Christians.

For dress was adopted a capote, such as was common in the country, made
of coarse material, and black; together with a black cassock, thick
shoes, and a broad-brimmed hat.

For a name they chose that of 'Freres des Ecoles Chretiennes,' or, as
commonly abbreviated, 'Freres Chretiens.'

With regard to vows, De la Salle decided that they should take the
three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but for three years
only. They might make them perpetual the following year.

As to the Superior himself, he had little difficulty with regard to the
first two points, for his only possessions were a New Testament, a copy
of the 'Initiation,' a Crucifix and a Rosary; and to celibacy he was
already committed. With regard to obedience, the fulfilment of the vow
was not easy to a man in his position; but he endeavoured to find a way
to make this vow also a practical one, by the method of resigning his
post and putting one of the Brothers in his place; this he ultimately
succeeded in doing, though only for a short time.

We must leave to the reader's imagination the manner in which the work
grew under such remarkable auspices, the growth of M. de la Salle's
reputation as a saint, and the constantly increasing load of
responsibilities of all kinds which rested upon his shoulders.

In the year 1688 the work extended to Paris. When De la Salle arrived
there he left behind him in Rheims a principal house containing sixteen
Brothers, and a training college for country schoolmasters, containing
thirty men, besides fifteen lads in their noviciate. For the purpose of
his work in Paris he hired a house in the village of Vaugirard; this he
occupied for seven years, collecting the Brothers about him in their
vacations, and making it a home for the sick and weary, and a place
where postulants might make proof of their profession. We shall not
follow his footsteps during this time, except to say that the work
flourished wonderfully well under his hand, as it always did,
notwithstanding all kinds of difficulties. We may produce, however, a
striking document of self-dedication which belongs to this period. The
Brothers seem to have been strongly moved by the desire of making their
vows perpetual, instead of only for three years; the Superior opposed
the innovation, but finding them resolute, he at length gave way, and
commenced the new system by a formal dedication of himself, expressed in
the following remarkable words:--

     'Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, prostrate in
     deepest reverence before Thine infinite and adorable
     Majesty, I consecrate myself wholly to Thee, to seek Thy
     glory in all ways possible to me, or to which Thou shalt
     call me. And to this end I, Jean Baptiste de la Salle,
     Priest, promise and vow to unite myself to, and abide in
     society with, the Brothers [here follow twelve names], and
     in union and association with them to hold free schools in
     any place whatsoever (even though, in order to do so, I
     should have to beg for alms, and live on dry bread), or to
     do in the said Society any work which may be appointed for
     me, whether by the Community or by the Superior who shall
     have the direction of it. For which reason I promise and vow
     obedience as well to the Society itself as to the Superior
     of it. And these vows of association with, and steadfastness
     in, the said Community, and of obedience, I promise to keep
     inviolable during my whole life; in witness whereof I have
     signed. Done at Vaugirard, this sixth day of June, being the
     Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, in the year 1694.

    '(Signed) DE LA SALLE.'

Having taken this step, De la Salle made a great effort to divest
himself of his post as Superior, but in vain. He argued, but the
Brothers were not convinced. He insisted upon an election, and every
single vote was given for him. He begged for a second voting, but the
result was the same. The Brothers said it would be time enough for them
to elect his successor, when death had deprived them of him. So in his
post of Superior he remained; and doubtless the Brothers were right, and
he was wrong, as to the point in dispute between them.

Let us now look for a moment at the rule of the Christian Brothers in
the complete form which it ultimately assumed.

The first article sets forth the purpose of the Society as follows:--

     'The Institute of the Freres des Ecoles Chretiennes is a
     Society, the profession of whose members is to hold schools
     gratuitously. The object of this Institute is to give a
     Christian education to children, and it is for this purpose
     that schools are held, in order that the masters, who have
     charge of the children from morning to night, may bring them
     up to lead good lives, by instructing them in the mysteries
     of our Holy Religion and filling their minds with Christian
     maxims, while they give them such an education as is fitting
     for them.'

Thus the schools were to be free, and they were to be essentially and
fundamentally Christian; but there was no intention of making them
exclusively religious and banishing secular studies. On the other hand,
the greater part of the time given to the children was devoted, as in
reason it must be, to secular teaching; and only a small portion
retained for teaching of a more solemn kind. No doubt De la Salle
depended for the religious results of schooling more upon the men who
taught and the general atmosphere of his schools, than upon amount of
religious lessons actually taught and learnt: this is indicated by the
following article of the Rule:--

     'The Brothers of the Society will have a very deep reverence
     for the Holy Scriptures, and in token of it they will always
     carry about them a copy of the New Testament, and will pass
     no day without reading a portion of it, in faith, respect,
     and veneration for the Divine Words which it contains. They
     will look upon it as their prime and principal Rule.'

Again:--

     'The spirit of the Institute consists in a burning zeal for
     the instruction of children, that they may be brought up in
     the fear and love of God, and led to preserve their
     innocence, where they have not already lost it; to keep them
     from sin, and to instil into their minds a great horror of
     evil, and of everything that might rob them of purity.'

The great purpose of De la Salle was to form men suitable for the work
of education as thus conceived; and one notable feature of his scheme
was that they should be laymen; even with regard to the Superior of the
Society, De la Salle, though himself a Priest, bound the Brethren down
to a pledge that they would not, when he was gone, elect a Priest into
his room. It is needless to say that he had no prejudice against the
priestly office as such; but he was genuinely persuaded that the work
which he wished to have done could best be performed by laymen; partly
because they could give themselves up to it more completely, partly
because they could be had more cheaply, and partly because poor men such
as he enlisted, and intended to enlist, were more thoroughly on a level
with the poor, whose children he desired to educate. It was in the same
spirit that he forbade to the Brothers the knowledge of Latin.

There are five vows in the Society. Brothers who have not attained the
age of twenty-five years can take them for only three years. No one may
take them even for three years, until he has been at least two years in
the Society, and has had one year's experience of the Noviciate, and one
year's teaching in the schools. The vows are as follows:--

    1. Poverty.
    2. Chastity.
    3. Obedience.
    4. Steadfastness.
    5. Giving gratuitous instruction to children.

By this last vow they also bind themselves to take all possible pains to
teach them well and to bring them up Christianly; and they promise
neither to ask nor to accept, from the scholars, or from their parents,
anything, be it what it may, either as a gift, or in any other form of
remuneration whatsoever.

The rule of daily life is given by the following table:--

     4.30 A.M. Hour of rising.

     5. Prayer and meditation.

     6. Attend Mass, reading, &c.

     7.15. Breakfast; prayer and preparation for school.

     8 till 11. School, and children taken to Church.

     11.30. Particular examination of conscience; dinner and
     recreation.

     1 P.M. Prayer in oratory, and depart to various schools.

     1.30 till 5. School; half an-hour given to catechism.

     5.30. Spiritual reading and mental prayer. The reading
     begins with a portion of the New Testament, read upon the
     knees.

     6. Mental prayer, and confession of faults one to another.

     6.30. Supper; reading at all meals; recreation.

     8. Study of catechism.

     8.30. Prayers in oratory.

     9. Retire to dormitory; in bed by 9.15.

So much for the Rule of the Christian Brothers. It is sufficiently
strict; but, as before remarked, not intensified by any special
austerities. The general order prescribed is, however, strengthened by
injunctions against unnecessary communications with persons outside the
Brotherhood, unnecessary possessions, unnecessary exercise of the will:
the devotion to the rule is absolute, the poverty complete, the
submission of the will unbounded. Very wonderful all this, but quite
true.

In connection with the rule, it may be well to say a few words
concerning the manuals which De la Salle composed for the guidance of
the Brothers. The principal was a book entitled, 'Conduite a l'usage des
Ecoles Chretiennes;' this was circulated in manuscript, and a copy given
to each Brother in charge of a school, but was not printed during the
author's lifetime. He revised it in 1717, when he had retired from his
post as Superior, and it was printed in 1720, a year after his death. It
has been the guide of the Brothers ever since, and is read through twice
a year in every one of their houses. The book shows great insight and
good sense. Here is an instruction for a lesson in arithemetic:--

     'After the children have done their sums on the paper,
     instead of correcting them himself the master will make the
     children find out their mistakes for themselves, by rational
     explanation of the processes. He will ask them, for
     instance, why in addition of money they begin with the
     lowest coin, and other questions of the same sort, so as to
     make sure that they have an intelligent understanding of
     what they do.'

When the subject is religious teaching, the tone of the book rises to
the occasion:--

     'The masters will take such great care in the instruction of
     all their scholars, that not one shall be left in ignorance,
     at least of the things which a Christian ought to believe
     and do. And to the end they may not neglect a thing of such
     great importance, they will often meditate earnestly on the
     account which they will have to give to God, and that they
     will be guilty in his sight of the ignorance of the children
     who shall have been under their care, and also of the sins
     into which their ignorance may have caused them to fall.'

The faults which De la Salle regards as worthy of being treated with
most severity are these: untruthfulness, quarrelling, theft, impurity,
misbehaviour in church. It is notable that idleness and inattention to
lessons, sauciness, and other boyish faults, which have brought much
trouble upon many thousands of urchins, are not here enumerated at all;
probably the wise Superior of the Christian Brothers thought that these
and the like infirmities could be more successfully treated by other
means than by severe punishment. We incline to believe that he was
right. Certainly we shall have no difficulty in assenting to the wisdom
of the rules laid down as to the conditions of punishment being useful:
it must be (1) disinterested, that is, free from all feeling of revenge;
(2) charitable, that is, inflicted from a real love to the child; (3)
just; (4) proportioned to the fault; (5) moderate; (6) free from anger;
(7) prudent; (8) voluntary on the part of the scholar, that is,
understood and accepted by him; (9) received with respectful submission;
(10) in silence on both sides.

These samples must suffice to indicate M. de la Salle's practical and
simple wisdom.

The thought of all that we wish to say before concluding this article
compels us once more to appeal to the reader's imagination with regard
to the success of De la Salle's work. His fame went through France and
beyond it; he became the recognized apostle of elementary education;
when he made an expedition to Calais and the north in the latter part of
his career, it was almost a triumphal progress; nothing, however, could
spoil the sweet simplicity of his character, or interfere with his utter
devotion to his work, and his humble desire to shift the burden upon
what he believed to be stronger shoulders than his own. This desire was
at length accomplished, and on the 8th of May, 1717, after much earnest
consideration and religious observance, a second Superior of their
Society was unanimously elected by the Christian Brothers.

And now this remarkable man had nothing more to do in this world but to
await his call and to depart in peace. At the earnest entreaty of the
Brethren he took up his abode with them in their house at Rouen; and
there, in the midst of increasing infirmities, and in the exercise (so
far as was possible) of his priestly office, he tarried the Lord's
leisure. We give the closing scene in the words of the interesting
volume, the title of which heads this article, and from which we have
been drawing the materials of our sketch.

     'The Festival of St. Joseph, March 19, was approaching. He
     had always had a special veneration for that great Saint,
     whom he had chosen for patron of his Society, and he had a
     great wish to celebrate once more on that Festival. He could
     hardly have hoped to do so, for he had now for some time
     been quite unable to leave his bed; but in the evening of
     the 18th, about ten o'clock, his pain was unexpectedly
     relieved, and he was conscious of some return of strength.
     The night was quiet, and on the morning of the Festival he
     was able to crawl to the Altar, and to celebrate the Holy
     Mysteries in the presence of all the Brothers, who could
     scarcely believe their eyes. All that day he continued
     better, was able to converse with the Brothers, listened for
     the last time to their confidential talk, and gave them some
     last counsels. But the pain came on again, and he was
     obliged to go to bed.

     'The Cure of the parish, hearing that he was worse, hastened
     to visit him, and thinking from the bright cheerfulness of
     his face that the dying man was not aware of his own
     condition, said to him, "Do you know that you are dying, and
     must soon appear before the presence of God?" "I know it,"
     was the answer, "and I wait His commands; my lot is in His
     hands, His will be done." In truth, his soul dwelt
     continually in unbroken communion with God, and he only
     waited with longing for the moment when the last ties that
     bound him to earth should be severed. Several days passed
     thus. Feeling that he was getting worse, he asked for the
     Viaticum, and it was arranged that he should receive it on
     the following day, which was Wednesday in Holy Week. He
     spent the whole night in preparation, and his little cell
     was decorated as well as the poverty of the house allowed.
     When the time came, he insisted on being taken out of bed,
     and dressed, and placed in a chair, vested in a surplice and
     stole. At the sound of the bell announcing the approach of
     the Priest, he threw himself on his knees, and received his
     last Communion with the same wonderful devotion which had
     often formerly struck those who assisted at his Mass, only
     with even more of the fire of love in his face. It was the
     last gleam of a dying light, which was being extinguished on
     earth, to shine with undiminished brightness "as the stars
     for ever and ever."

     'The next day he received Extreme Unction. His mind was
     still quite clear, and the Superior asked him to give his
     blessing to the Brothers who were kneeling round him, as
     well as to all the rest of the Community. He raised his eyes
     to heaven, stretched out his hands, and said, "The Lord
     bless you all."

     'Later in the day he became unconscious, and the prayers for
     the dying were said; but again he revived. About midnight
     the death agony came on: it was the night of the Agony in
     Gethsemane. It lasted till after two: then there was another
     interval of comparative ease, and he was able to speak. The
     Superior asked him whether he accepted willingly all his
     sufferings. "Yes," he replied, "I adore in all things the
     dealings of God with me." These were his last words; at
     three o'clock the agony returned, but only for a short hour.
     At four o'clock in the morning of Good Friday, the 7th of
     April, 1719, he fell asleep.

     'As soon as the news of his death was spread abroad, the
     house was beset by crowds desiring to see him. All revered
     him as a Saint, and wanted to look once more on the
     venerable face, and to carry away something in remembrance
     of him. He had nothing belonging to him but a Crucifix, a
     New Testament, and a copy of the Imitation; but his poor
     garments were cut up, and distributed in little bits to
     satisfy the people.'

The Christian Brothers since the death of their great founder have
steadily continued their charitable self-denying work. They have
received much encouragement from high authorities in Church and State,
much also from the good opinion which their work has gained for them
wherever it has been known. Their history, however, records reverses:
the chief of them connected with the catastrophe of the great
Revolution. With regard to this, it might have been expected on general
grounds, that in a social upheaval, which was essentially a rising of
the poor and oppressed against the rich and the privileged, a society
which had poverty as its foundation principle, and the free education of
the children of the poor as its only reason of existence, must have been
spared by general consent in the midst of the social ruin by which so
much was overwhelmed. At first it seemed that this might have been so;
when the Religious Orders were suppressed by decree of the National
Assembly in 1790, exception was made in favour of those engaged in
public instruction and the care of the sick; but in 1792 all
corporations, specially including the Christian Brothers, were
abolished, on the ground that their existence was incompatible with the
conditions of a really free State. During the Reign of Terror the
Institute was broken up, the Brothers scattered, and many suffered.
There was a revival under Napoleon, which lasted till the Revolution of
1830. At this time the Institute was shaken, as was almost everything
else in France; but the recognized merits of the Christian Brothers
carried them safely through the storm, and one of the most telling and
triumphant facts in their history is the confidence reposed in them by
M. Guizot, when Minister of Public instruction under Louis Philippe.
More than once M. Guizot endeavoured, but in vain, to persuade the
Superior to accept the Cross of the Legion of Honour.

The work of the Christian Brothers in France at the present time is of
special value; but also carried on under much chilling discouragement. A
systematic attempt is being made to secularize education, and to drive
every indication of religious faith from the primary schools. It remains
to be seen what will be the result of the fanatical opposition to all
that is dear to the minds of many French men and almost all French
women, which is carried on so persistently by the Legislature and the
Government. Already there are signs of reaction; the result of the late
elections, which has substantially changed the proportion of parties in
the representative Chamber, is probably not a little connected with the
enforcement of an utterly godless education.[4] Meanwhile it would seem,
as a matter of fact, that the number of children under the teaching of
the Christian Brothers has increased instead of diminishing: there are
still some French people left who have not bowed the knee to Secularism,
and Materialism, and Atheism: even those who tremble at Priestcraft can
accept the ministration of the Christian Brothers, who cannot (as we
have seen) be Priests, according to their fundamental rule: and so,
although the secularist flood is just now frightfully high, there is a
gleam of hope to be found in the work of the Christian Schools, and the
light which shines in them and from them may serve as a witness for God
till the tyranny be overpast, and then may perhaps serve as a light at
which the torch of religious teaching will be lighted again once more.

We have placed at the head of this article the title of one of the
manuals in use in the primary schools of France. It is worth studying in
connection with the work of the Christian Brothers, and on other grounds
as well. The entire absence of all reference to God or to any kind of
religious knowledge or religious principle in connection with duty is
startling, and gives the book a complexion somewhat strange to an
English mind; and there are portions which can scarcely fail to strike
an Englishman as droll; but is full of French ingenuity. It contains a
vast amount of compressed information, and the dry instruction of the
text is enforced, or rather sweetened and made palatable, by a series of
stories in the form of a running commentary or collection of foot-notes,
in which the heroes of the stories illustrate the lessons which the
scholars have to learn.

We take two or three specimens from the manual, which we will present in
a free translation:--

     OUR DUTIES TOWARDS OURSELVES

     'As you grow older, you become more serious. Consider what
     your duties are.

     'You have duties towards yourselves, that is, towards your
     bodies and towards your souls.

     'Sound health must be taken care of; weak health must be
     strengthened by a good hygiene.

     'Hygiene demands cleanliness; wash your whole body carefully
     and frequently.

     'Keep nothing dirty upon you, nor in your house, nor near
     your house.

     'Hygiene demands good air: air your bed, your chamber, and
     all places in which you live and work.

     'Hygiene forbids all excess, and the use of injurious
     things, as alcohol and tobacco. It prescribes temperance and
     sobriety.

     'Hygiene requires you to avoid a sudden change from heat to
     cold. When you are in a perspiration, do not lie down upon
     the ground, do not expose yourself to draughts, and do not
     drink cold water.

     'Hygiene requires gymnastic exercises, which make the body
     supple, healthy, and strong.

     '_Attention to health gives a chance of long life._

     'In order to fulfil your duties towards your soul, you must
     continue to cultivate your intelligence and to educate
     yourself.

     'Do not forget that you can educate yourself at any age.

     'You must fight against sensuality, which would make you
     gluttons, drunkards, and debauchees; against idleness, which
     would make you useless to others and a burden to them;
     against selfishness and vanity, which would make others
     detest you; envy, which would render you unhappy and
     hateful; anger and hatred, which might lead you to all kinds
     of evil deeds.'

These lessons are enforced by an extract from the French Law, which
informs scholar that the persons found in a condition of manifest
intoxication in the street or a public-house are punished by a fine of
from 1 to 15 francs; that for a second offence the punishment is
imprisonment for three days; and that for a third breach of the law the
offender may be sentenced to imprisonment for from six days to a month,
and to a fine of from 16 to 300 francs. In addition to this, the
offenders will be declared incapable of exercising their political
rights for two years.

This is a very practical teaching; but the duties which little boys owe
to their bodies and souls are rendered more attractive, than either the
dicta concerning hygiene or the threatened results of evil ways are
likely to make them, by the history of a certain Dr. John Burnett, a
physician, who made an immense fortune in New York. This is found as a
_feuilleton_ at the foot of the page, under the title 'Un Bon
Charlatan.'

The pith of the teaching under the head of Morals, is contained in the
following summary:--

     '1. I will fulfil my duties towards myself. My duties
     towards my body are, cleanliness, sobriety, temperance,
     precaution against the inclemency of the seasons, exercise.

     '2. I will fulfil my duties towards my soul by continuing to
     educate myself, and by combating all bad passions.

     '3. I will not do to another that which I would not that he
     should do to me.

     '4. I will not do him wrong, either by striking him, or
     robbing him, or deceiving him, or lying to him, or by
     breaking my promise, or by speaking evil of him, or by
     calumniating him.

     '5. I will do to another that which I should wish him to do
     to me.

     '6. I will love him, I will be grateful, exact, discreet,
     charitable.'

Very good resolutions these, but one cannot avoid the thought that the
little scholar might estimate 3 and 5 not the less, perhaps the more, if
informed of the life and character of Him who first spoke these apparent
simple rules in such a manner as to impress them upon the heart of the
world. Would not all the resolutions gain strength from the belief that
duty towards God is the true spring of duty towards our neighbours and
ourselves, and that the grace of God is necessary to make the best
resolutions practically operative in the life?

We will now give our readers a specimen of the tales by which the
lessons of the manual are illustrated and enforced. It shall be taken
from the section entitled _Society_, the second subsection of which is
as follows:--

     'FREEDOM OF LABOUR.

     'In France; labour is free; every one employs, as he
     pleases, his intelligence and his arms.

     'You may choose any profession you please; but everybody
     else has the same right as yourself.

     'Competition is therefore permitted; never complain of
     competition.

     'If you hinder your neighbour from working as he pleases,
     you may yourself be hindered in like manner.

     'Competition excites the workman to do his best and at the
     cheapest rate.

     'Thus competition is advantageous to all. _Never ask Society
     to interfere with the freedom of labour, but work hard
     yourself._'

These wholesome lessons on competition are illustrated by the following
tale:--

     GREGORY'S VIEWS ON COMPETITION.

     'Our friend Gregory is a good husband; but he sometimes has
     little arguments with his wife.

     'The other day, Mrs. Gregory was angry, because she had
     found out that a shoemaker was going to establish himself in
     the village. "What do we want another shoemaker for," said
     she "when you and I are here already? The Government ought
     to prevent such things."

     'Gregory, who was at his work, lifted his head and said:
     "The Government ought to prevent women from talking
     nonsense. Suppose that I was the shoemaker who had just
     established himself in the village; what would you say if
     any one interfered with my carrying on my trade? You would
     not be very well pleased, I fancy."

     'He then explained to his wife the necessity of competition.

     '"There is plenty of work for everybody," said he. "If there
     had been already two or three shoemakers in the place, this
     new fellow would not have come to settle here. He would have
     seen that there was nothing for him to do. I am surprised
     that no competing shoemaker has come here before. You know
     very well that we have sometimes to refuse work, and that
     there are people in the village who have to go to the town
     to get their shoes. Beyond doubt the newcomer will take some
     of our custom; but it is our business to look after that. We
     must work better than we have done hitherto; and that's all
     about it."

     'Mrs. Gregory was not convinced, but she said nothing.

     '"You see," continued Gregory, "you must look a little
     beyond the end of your nose. You wish that there should be
     only one shoemaker in the place. The linendraper wishes that
     there should be only one linendraper; the grocer only one
     grocer; and so on through all the trades. Very well; don't
     you remember when we had only one linendraper how dear
     shirts used to be? And don't you remember some twenty years
     ago, when there was only one smith? You could never get hold
     of him; and when you did, his charges were tremendous. I
     recollect him putting a bell to our front door. When he gave
     me the bill, and I had seen the amount, I said to him, 'my
     good fellow, I didn't order a silver bell.' 'And I have not
     put up a silver bell,' was the reply. 'Oh! I thought from
     the price it must have been silver,' said I. This vexed him,
     and he answered, 'If you are not satisfied, go elsewhere.'
     That was well enough; he was the only smith in the
     neighbourhood. I could not send for a man from Pekin: he
     would have been sure to be lost on the road, and I should
     have been obliged to provide for his family."

     'Gregory made some other good remarks to show that if
     competition prevents a shopkeeper from selling his goods at
     a high price, it enables him to buy from others at a cheap
     rate. "So on the whole," concluded he, "do not let us fuss
     and make ourselves ill. I would much rather have some
     coffee, than be compelled to take medicine."'

Gregory must have had some of the saintly qualities of his great
namesakes to enable him to take so calm a view of the invasion of his
shoemaking monopoly. We trust that Mrs. Gregory was eventually convinced
by his wise and philosophical arguments, and still more, that the
generation of Frenchmen who enjoy such teaching from their early years
may emulate so bright an example.

We cannot refrain from making one more extract from our little manual.
The thirteenth section deals with 'The Rights and Duties of the Citizen'
and the third subsection treats as follows of:--

     'POLITICAL DUTIES.

     'The French people ought more than any other people, to
     respect the law made by its own deputies.

     'It ought without murmuring to pay the taxes voted by the
     Chambers, and to fulfil its military duties.

     'It ought to respect the authority of all the agents of the
     Government, from the lowest to the highest, from the _garde
     champetre_ to the Ministers and the President of the
     Republic, for the agents of authority are the servants of
     the law, and all are chosen directly or indirectly, by the
     deputies of the people.

     '_The greater the rights of citizens, the greater their
     duties._

     'It used to be said, _Noblesse oblige_. This meant: a
     nobleman ought to behave himself better than another, to be
     worthy of his nobility.

     'It should now be said, _Liberte oblige_. This means that a
     free citizen ought to behave himself better than another, in
     order to be worthy of liberty.

     'You have the duty of putting your name upon the electoral
     roll at the Mairie of the Commune in which you reside.

     'You have the duty of voting, and you must vote according to
     your conscience.

     'You have not the right of being indifferent to public
     affairs, and of saying that they do not concern you.

     'You have an interest in securing to your Commune good
     Municipal Councillors, who will look well after the
     finances, will take care of the schools, and of the roads,
     and attend to all wants.

     'You have an interest in securing to your Department good
     General Councillors, who will do for the Department what the
     Municipal Councillors do for the Commune.

     'You have an interest in nominating good Deputies and good
     Senators, who may make useful and just laws, choose a
     President of the Republic worthy of that supreme honour, and
     keep the Government in good ways.

     'You ought to make a good choice, not merely for your own
     interest, but for the love of your country.

     '_Love those republican institutions which France has
     provided for herself._

     'Endeavour to make them loved, respecting the while your
     neighbour's opinions, and restraining yourself from all
     hatred and from all violence.

     'The future of the Republic depends upon each of you. If
     each of you does his duty, it will be strong: strong enough
     to make our lives happy, and to restore to us one day the
     brothers whom we have lost--the BROTHERS OF ALSACE AND
     LORRAINE.'

This is the conclusion of the manual. All works up to ALSACE AND
LORRAINE. (The capital letters are in the original.) Is it not
delightful? Is it not most truly French?

We should be sorry to see a parody or parallel to this French manual
introduced into our schools. At the same time we think there is
something to be learnt from studying it. Our neighbours seem to have in
some respect learnt better than ourselves the maxim of Horace:--

               'pueris dant crustula blandi
    Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima.'

The pages of our manual are full of literary _crustula_; and we imagine
that most boys would find themselves sufficiently amused to read and
study the book, whether they were desirous of profiting by the contents
or not. And after all it is a great thing to _get hold_ of a boy,
whether it be by the loving and evidently self-sacrificing efforts of
the Christian Brothers, or by the ingenious mental food provided by the
Minister of Public Instruction. Notwithstanding such ingenuity, we do
not, however, believe that the present system of French teaching can
answer: it is hollow and unsound: it ignores the deepest of motives, and
disregards the most potent of influences: it may breed a desire to fight
with Germany for the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine, but it can
scarcely produce the highest class of citizens and heroes, because it
does not acknowledge the fear of God as the beginning of wisdom, and the
love of God as the best foundation of the love of man. The principles of
duty inculcated in the manual from which we have been exhibiting a few
elegant extracts will never rear such a character as De la Salle, nor
supply the foundation of such an institution as that of the Christian
Brothers.

But we must come nearer home--

    'Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.'

We have not yet arrived in England at the complete secularization of our
elementary schools; but we are, in the opinion of some and in the wish
of others, within measurable distance of the Paradisiacal terminus of
secularism and secular reform; and therefore, with the thought of what
has been going on and is still going on in France, we may do well to
look for a few moments to our own country, and examine what has been
going on and is going on there.

Let us beware, however, of exaggeration or alarmism. We do not at all
desire to imply that there is anything approaching to parallelism in the
conditions and possibilities of the two countries. Had it been proposed
to do in England what has been done in France, the opposition would have
been indignant and overwhelming. There is no such desire for
emancipation from Priests and Priestcraft in England as has long existed
and still exists in France. To be sure we hear something on this side of
the Channel of sacerdotal pretensions and unwarrantable clerical claims;
but the men by whom the offence comes are few in number, and, at the
worst, they and their conduct are but as a drop in the great bucket of
the English Church and its influence upon the nation. In France matters
are painfully different. While the women are largely _devotes_, the men
are very sparingly _devots_. Unfortunately the admission of
superstitious practices, the practical hiding of Holy Scripture, the
adoption under the patronage of the Church of foolish tales of miracles,
and the absence of effectual protest against the unwarrantable
assumptions of the Vatican, have combined to offer to the intellect of
France an unnecessary obstacle, which in too many instances causes
shipwreck to faith; and so, while in England the men, who make the laws,
are, speaking broadly, Christian believers, in France the men, who
equally make the laws, are as broadly unbelievers. This difference is
not likely to disappear. France has reached a point at which the disease
of unbelief may be said to have become chronic; England, on the other
hand, although there have been of late, and are still, symptoms of
infidel proclivities, appears nevertheless, so far as her condition can
be tested to be sound at heart, and in some respects in a more healthy
state of religious conviction and activity than has been manifested
hitherto.

The question of the comparative conditions of France and England is one
with which we have no desire to enter at length; and indeed a native of
one of the countries is very unlikely to be in a condition to take a
quite just and fair view of the other. We only desire to guard ourselves
from appearing to assume the probability of the secularization of our
English schools on the ground of the step having been already taken in
France. And having premised this caution, we will ask our readers to
accompany us in the consideration of some details, suggested by the
Report of the National Society, and by that of the Committee of the
Privy Council on Education. Afterwards we will submit a few general
reflections, and so close our article.

It was feared by some and hoped by others fifteen years ago, when the
law of compulsory education and School Boards was enacted in this
country, that Voluntary Schools would undergo what was described at the
time as a 'process of painless extinction,' and that Board Schools would
reign supreme. These fears and hopes have been curiously falsified; the
Voluntary Schools have not been extinguished either painlessly or
otherwise; on the other hand, they have increased, both in work done and
in support given, to an extent which could never have been anticipated.
It will be observed that the question is not purely and simply between
Board and Voluntary Schools; it may be so in some parishes, where with
unanimity on the part of the parishioners, one Parish School can be made
to supply the wants of all; but generally the question is that of
supporting Voluntary Schools and paying towards Board Schools as well;
the support of one does not exclude the legal claim of the other, as it
has been frequently argued that it ought in equity to do; consequently
Voluntary Schools are heavily handicapped, and nothing but a deep sense
of the advantage of freedom in religious teaching, and an utter dread of
secularism, can account for the remarkable results exhibited by the
progress of Voluntary Schools under such manifest difficulties.

The following Tables are so exceedingly instructive, that we make no
apology for introducing them:--

_Accommodation._


Day Schools, Year ended August 31      1882.       1883.       1884.

Church                               2,385,374   2,413,676   2,454,788
British, &c.                           384,060     386,839     394,009
Wesleyan                               200,909     200,564     203,253
Roman Catholic                         269,231     272,760     284,514
Board                                1,298,746   1,396,604   1,490,174

                                     4,538,320   4,670,443   4,826,738

_Number on the Registers._

Day Schools, Year ended August 31.     1882.       1883.       1884.

Church                               2,133,978   2,134,719   2,121,728
British, &c.                           339,812     337,531     333,510
Wesleyan                               177,840     175,826     172,284
Roman Catholic                         232,620     226,567     226,082
Board                                1,305,362   1,398,661   1,483,717

                                     4,189,612   4,273,304   4,337,321

_Average Attendance._

Day Schools, Year ended August 31.     1882.       1883.       1884.

Church                               1,538,408   1,562,507   1,607,823
British, &c                            245,493     247,990     253,044
Wesleyan                               125,109     125,503     128,584
Roman Catholic                         160,910     162,310     167,841
Board                                  945,231   1,028,904   1,115,832

                                     3,015,151   3,127,214   3,273,124

_Voluntary Contributions._

Day Schools, Year ended      1882.           1883.           1884.
       August 31.

                           L. s. d.        L. s. d.        L. s. d.
Church                   581,179  5  3   577,313 16  5   585,071 11 10
British, &c               75,132 11  8    71,519  2  9    72,978 10  0
Wesleyan                  15,705  2  2    15,271 14  1    16,802  2  0
Roman Catholic            51,283 11  7    51,564 15  2    57,672  1  2
Board                      1,545  2  2     1,420  1  3     1,603  7 10

                         724,845 12 10   717,089  9  8   734,127 12 10

From these Tables it appears that in spite of the surrender of some
Church Schools to Boards, a process which is always to some extent going
on, and which causes an increase in the number of Board Schools beyond
that produced by actual building, the accommodation in Church Schools
rose in 1884 by 41,112, and the average attendance by 45,316. The Church
was also educating about half as many again as were being educated in
Board Schools, and the amount voluntarily contributed during the year
was more than 585,000l., in addition to a large sum expended on
buildings and improvements.

This does not look much like speedy extinction, and we sincerely trust
that that event is still far distant. It is not so much that we are
opposed to Board schools on principle, still less that we disapprove of
the national determination that every child shall be educated, which
logically leads to some national machinery involving the principle of
Board Schools in some form or other,--not so much this, as that we are
persuaded that the existence of Voluntary Schools is an unspeakable
benefit even to the Board Schools themselves. We hold that a definite
system of religious teaching, according to which the religious studies
of the school and the secular are co-ordinate and equally regarded, and
the religious atmosphere which such consideration implies, are of the
very essence of a rightly ordered school; the ideal may be reached in a
Voluntary School, it is impossible that it should be reached in a Board
School; nevertheless, there may be Board schools _and_ Board Schools; in
some there may be simple secularism, and in others there may be a good
religious spirit and fair religious teaching; and the degree in which
the average quality of Board Schools will approximate to the latter
limit rather than the former, will depend very much upon the standard
set up by the Voluntary Schools. A reference to the Report of the
Committee of Council on Education proves that Voluntary Schools are
worked more cheaply, and, so far as can be judged by the results of
examination, are secularly not less successful than schools upon the
Board system; and therefore even with reference to economy there is some
advantage in keeping the two classes of school going side by side. But
all questions of comparative economy, and of advantages arising from an
honourable competition, are as nothing compared with the reflected
influence in the direction of bringing up the average religious
character of Board Schools to the highest point which the shackles of
legislation allow.

In addition to the work of voluntary elementary schools, there are two
other departments in which voluntary efforts are doing much in support
of the religious and Christian character of English Education.

There are no less than thirty Training Colleges in connection with the
Church. The pupils trained in these Colleges are not in general bound by
any rule to accept posts only in Church schools; as a matter of fact,
many are drafted into Board Schools; but it is impossible to exaggerate
the importance to the subsequent influence for good, in a school of
whatever kind, of a thorough religious training in youth upon definite
religious principles. So far as an opinion can be formed, it would seem
that these Training Colleges must always rest upon a voluntary
foundation; it is difficult to conceive of their being carried on upon
State principles; you may make religious teaching optional in an
elementary day school, and the evil results may be not easily
perceptable; but when eighty or a hundred young men or young women are
brought together into one home, to lead a common family life with common
purposes and prospects, the religious equality principle breaks down;
you must have common religious teaching and common worship, and these
must be utterly vapid and miserable, unless there be a hearty agreement
upon the grounds and articles of faith, such as is only possible for
those who are of one Church, or at all events of one denomination.
Doubtless on this very account efforts have been made, and efforts will
be made, to break down the Church Training College system, or to erect
something on broader principles which shall gradually extinguish it; but
on all grounds we trust that these efforts may fail, and that at all
events no change may be introduced which shall be successful in
rendering impossible the carrying on of institutions, to which we are
convinced that the education of the poor children of England is indebted
more than to almost any other. We have but been working out under new
conditions the great problem which De la Salle perceived to lie at the
root of elementary education: the forming of the instrument wherewith to
do the work was, as he clearly perceived, the great thing to be
accomplished; and for that purpose personal influence was needed; it was
necessary to stir up in each young aspirant to the office of a teacher
something of the enthusiasm of teaching, to breed a high conception of
the value and responsibilities of the office, to make it felt that
self-denial and self-devotion were essential conditions of any lasting
success. English Training Colleges differ very widely from that
community which De la Salle established, and over which he presided; in
our opinion, they, at least their managers, might profit by studying his
work and emulating his spirit; but after all, they will still be widely
different, and any attempt at exact imitation amongst ourselves would
perhaps produce a parody rather than an adequate copy. Any one who can
remember the early work of Derwent Coleridge at St. Mark's, Chelsea, and
the vast change which was brought about in the training of the
schoolmaster, the estimate of his qualifications, and his general
status, by the admirable and laborious efforts of that good and able
man, will be conscious that a work has been done amongst us in these
latter days, upon which De la Salle himself would have looked with a
kindly smile of approval, though in some respects he might have
imagined, and perhaps with justice, that it was not so thorough as his
own.

The other department of voluntary action to which we proposed to refer,
is that which is known as Diocesan Inspection.

This system of inspection is carried on by Clergymen, who are appointed
with the approval and in connection with the Bishops, and whose stipends
are provided by voluntary contribution. The action is not uniform
throughout the Dioceses, but there is scarcely a Diocese in which the
work is not carried on with great energy. These Inspectors visit the
schools, in some Dioceses and Board Schools as well as those in
connection with the Church; they examine the children, confer with the
masters and mistresses, give advice and encouragement as may seem to be
necessary and fitting, and make a report upon the general condition of
the school with reference to religious knowledge. In most Dioceses there
is in addition some kind of prize scheme, by means of which children are
encouraged to give special attention to the religious side of their
education.

We think it worth while to call attention to this system of Diocesan
Inspection, because it is well that Englishmen, and especially English
Churchmen, should be awake to the religious needs of our times, and the
efforts which are being made to meet them. We are aware that all such
machinery as that which we have described must be ineffectual in
implanting in the minds of children that 'fear of the Lord,' which is
'the beginning of wisdom.' No system of inspection and examination, and
no careful grinding of certain lessons, whether they be taken from Holy
Scripture or from any other book, into the minds of little children, can
be a substitute for the true influence of heart upon heart; the teacher
who would generate religious life in the soul of a child must imitate
the Prophet, who put his mouth to the child's mouth, and his eyes upon
his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and prayed that the child might
awake to new life; nevertheless on the supposition that no pains are
spared in obtaining suitable masters and mistresses, much may be done to
encourage them in their difficult work by making it manifest that the
heart of England and of England's Church is with them. And indeed it
_is_ a difficult work: the education of children will never be a simple
and easy thing as long as the world lasts: the value of the finished
article may generally be taken as some measure of the labour and care
necessary to produce it: and the value of a pure, simple-hearted,
well-taught Christian child is so immeasurably and indescribably great,
that we may safely conclude that the workmen and workwomen employed in
producing the result must have spent upon their work an incredible
amount of honest self-denying toil: a perfunctory discharge of the
office of schoolmaster,--so many hours a week, and so much pay,--will
never do: the master of the Elementary School must ever be a Christian
Brother in reality, if not in name.

Passing for a moment from the religious side of the educational
question, the reader may be interested by looking at a few statistics,
indicating the general position of England, or rather England and Wales,
with reference to elementary education.

In the year ending August 31, 1884, Her Majesty's Inspectors visited
18,761 day schools, having on their registers the names of 4,337,321
children. Of these, 3,273,134 were, on an average, in daily attendance
throughout the year. The amount of income arising from school-pence, it
may be worth while noting, was 1,734,115l., or nearly two millions. The
Government grants reached 2,722,351l., or nearly three millions.

Besides the day schools, 847 night schools were examined. In many parts
of the country these night schools were very important: they afford big
boys the only opportunity of keeping up their knowledge, or
intellectually improving themselves. Nearly twenty-five thousand
scholars over twelve years of age are, on an average, in attendance each
night.

There are nearly forty thousand certificated teachers at work; and 3214
students are being prepared in forty-one Training Colleges.

The expense of education at different places varies remarkably, and
apparently without any intelligible principle. Thus the income per
scholar from voluntary contributions in Voluntary Schools, and from
rates in Board Schools, is in certain selected towns as follows:--

                     Voluntary
                  contributions.         Rates.
                     L    s.   d.        L    s.   d.
London               0    9    0-1/4     1    9    9
Brighton             0   11    7-1/2     0   17    7
Birmingham           0    5    3-3/4     0   13   10-3/4
Bradford             0    2   11-3/4     0   13    2
Sheffield            0    2    4-3/4     0    9    8
Manchester           0    4    7         0   10   10

We submit the above figures and facts to the reader's consideration, and
we are compelled to confess that we do not find ourselves in a condition
to offer a satisfactory solution of the difficulties which they suggest.
We should probably have expected that London would be in an exceptional
position with regard to this as to many other matters; but the
magnificent manner in which its Board contributions exceed those of any
other town quite baffles us; it will be observed that the odd shillings
and pence of London more than pay the whole expense at Sheffield.
Possibly the practical difficulty of understanding this economical
anomaly may have had something to do with the results of the late Board
election in London.

On the whole, we English people seem to be solving the national
education question _more nostro_. We have got a system not quite
symmetrical, not quite logical, not the perfect exponent of the
crotchets of any particular school, but nevertheless one which has on
the whole produced remarkable results, and seems to have in it
sufficient powers of adaptation and development. Of late a new question
has been opened--and an important one--namely, that of making elementary
education entirely gratuitous. There is something to be said in favour
of the proposal, and it is a pity that the merits of the question should
have been somewhat obscured by the intolerable, but to some persons
perhaps attractive, suggestion that the additional expenditure necessary
for making education gratuitous should be supplied by the robbery of the
Church, or (in politer phrase) by the appropriation to the purposes of
education of the national property hitherto supplied to the support of
religion. This cat can scarcely be said to have been let out of the bag,
for her head was no sooner seen peeping out than the alarm created was
dangerously great, and Puss was concealed again in a twinkling; _but she
is inside the bag still_. A much less objectionable proposal was
speedily made, namely, that the deficiency created by the remission of
school-pence should be supplied by a Parliamentary grant. And this
proposal, we presume, may be regarded as at present before the country.

Looking upon the matter from a Chancellor of the Exchequer point of
view, it is a serious thing to think of having to make an addition of
about two millions to the annual national expenditure; and it may be
observed that leading statesmen on both sides of politics may be found
who are at present unconvinced. Doubtless an expenditure of two millions
would not be grudged by the nation for any necessary purpose; but when
the proposal is to substitute a payment of two millions by the Exchequer
for the two millions paid in driblets by the persons most interested,
for the most part gladly and with special provisions for preventing the
payment pressing hardly upon the exceptionally poor, it may well be that
many sensible persons will ask the question, _Cui bono_?

Independently, however, of any fiscal considerations, it seems to us
that there are weighty arguments against the proposal of a gratuitous
education.

It may be observed, and we think it an important observation, that the
proposal of free education is in the teeth of all our recent policy; and
some pressing reasons ought to be given for a complete and sudden
reversal of all that we have hitherto been doing. There are many free
schools in the country, endowed by 'pious founders,' and established for
the special purpose of giving free education to the children of
particular parishes. Some of these schools have had to pass through the
hands of the School Commissioners and to receive new schemes. It has
been, we believe, the invariable practice to insert into these new
schemes the condition of school-pence; the portion of the endowment so
saved has been applied to the foundation of exhibitions and other
methods of assisting deserving children. The inhabitants of the parishes
in which this innovation has been introduced have grumbled and
submitted; it has in some cases been a bitter pill, but the law-abiding
character of the Englishman has caused it to be swallowed without noisy
remonstrance. We cannot, without raising a suspicion of having practised
educational quackery, retreat from the position which we have thus taken
up.

What is the argument for the position? It is sometimes stated thus, that
people value a thing more when it costs them something to get it. The
argument is not to be despised; but we think that it yields in
importance to the consideration, that the payment of the school fees is
almost the only indication left of the great truth, that the parent is
responsible for his children's education. We have sometimes trembled
when we have seen in Board Schools directions concerning the doings of
the children, which would seem to have had a right to come from parents,
but which do in fact come 'by order of the Board.' We have almost feared
lest in the Fifth Commandment our boys and girls of the rising
generation should be tempted to substitute 'Board' for 'father and
mother.' Certainly there is great danger in virtue of modern social
arrangements lest parents should forget their highest duties to their
children, and children cease to honour their parents in the good
old-fashioned way. We confess, therefore, that we are jealous of the
proposal to take away from the father the proud privilege of paying for
his children's schooling, even though it may sometimes cost him an
effort to do so.

It may be said, of course, that every man does pay indirectly, because
he pays according to his means to the taxes of the country, and that
therefore the proposal only gives him of his own. The argument is
defective, because it ignores the fact that whatever a man may pay
indirectly in taxes, there is a conscious effort in finding the pence
for the children's schooling, which morally is of great importance. But
the argument fails also on other grounds: it assumes that all men have
children equally; it asserts that the married man with his five children
has no more responsibility than the elderly spinster who lives next
door; it supposes that the parents have not a special interest in their
children, distinct from that which can be felt by any other person
whatever. It may be further urged, that if a man pays for his children
while they are in process of education, the pressure comes upon him when
he is in full vigour, and most able to bear it; whereas if the payment
of pence be commuted for a perpetual tax, the pressure becomes one of a
lifelong character, and is not relieved when the powers of earning begin
to diminish.

We do not deny that painful cases have occurred, and are likely to still
occur, in which parents are summoned before the magistrates for the
non-attendance of children at school. But free education will not get
rid of these painful cases. Already arrangements are made by law for the
payment of fees for very poor parents who make the proper application;
and if there be any obstacle in the way of the smooth working of the
law, the matter should be looked into and the law amended; but the great
difficulty in the way of good attendance on the part of very poor
children lies, as we apprehend, not more with school-pence, than with
school-clothes, and school-dinners. Attendance cannot be enforced
completely all round, unless free education comprise in its idea free
food and clothing, as well as free books and lessons.

We cannot but fear also lest the remission of school-pence should be
another step towards the destruction of Voluntary Schools. It is evident
that the proposal is so regarded; and though it may not be difficult to
find arguments to show, that if the loss from school-pence be made up
from the Exchequer, the compensation will work equally and fairly with
respect to all schools, whether Voluntary or Board, still there can be
little doubt that the additional grant will give a handle for proposing
to introduce some more direct interference with the management of
Voluntary Schools than has existed hitherto: and it is probably a true
instinct which leads many friends of Voluntary Schools to look upon the
free system with sincere apprehension. Certainly the indirect abolition
of Voluntary Schools would be a great calamity; and if the views already
expressed be correct, the abolition would leave a legacy of weakness,
and a permanent injury to the Board Schools, when they found themselves
'monarchs of all they survey,' and without the wholesome rivalry of
Voluntary Schools.

There was no such objection to the free education offered to his poor
brethren by the hero of this article, the sainted De la Salle. He made
himself poor and bound all his disciples to a life of poverty, in order
that they might have fullest sympathy with the poor, and might teach
their children for no other payment or purpose but the love of God. The
atmosphere of a school conducted upon such principles would be so
saturated with the spirit of holiness and godly love, that there would
be no danger of duty to parents, or indeed of any duty either to God or
man, being left out of sight. It would never be forgotten in such
schools that the formation of character is the chief aim of education:
_manners makyth man_--as William of Wickham, our great English father of
liberal education, has taught us: and _manners_, taken in the broadest
and best sense, even more than the three Rs and all the extra subjects
of all the standards, is what we want in our elementary schools, and
what we shall never get, except upon the condition of a religious tone
and a pure atmosphere, and teachers whose hearts are animated by the
love of little children and by the love of God.

We gladly turn once more, before laying down our pen, to the volume
which we have already introduced to the reader, and out of which we have
told the tale of De la Salle, and the Christian Brothers. We do so for
the purpose of showing what kind of men these good Brothers are, when
put to the test in a severe and unexampled manner.

     'After the disasters of the Prussian invasion in 1871,' says
     our author, 'the City of Boston, in America, placed at the
     disposal of the French Academy a special prize of two
     thousand francs to be given to whoever should be judged most
     worthy of the honour, on account of services rendered during
     the siege and in presence of the enemy. The Academy could
     find no more fitting recipient of this distinction than the
     Community, which during the whole time of the war had sent
     five hundred infirmarians into the battlefields, one of whom
     had fallen under the fire of the Prussians, among the
     wounded at Bourget. Public opinion fully endorsed the
     decision, when the first literary body in the world adjudged
     this reward to the humble and despised corps of the Freres
     des Ecoles Chretiennes. At the same time the National
     Defence Government insisted on decorating their venerable
     Superior with a cross of honour. He would have refused it,
     as he and his predecessors had already done many times, and
     he only yielded when he was told that there was nothing
     personal in the honour; that it belonged to his Institute;
     and that it was only as the representative of the Society
     that he was asked to wear it. The eminent Dr. Ricord, who
     had been an eyewitness of the devotion of the Brothers, was
     charged with the office of fastening the cross on the
     cassock of Frere Philippe, in the great hall of the
     mother-house. This was the most embarrassing moment in the
     life of that man of God. He could not bear to wear the cross
     of honour, and in fact he never did wear it. When he
     returned after conducting the Doctor to the door at the end
     of the ceremony, he somehow managed that no one should
     perceive his decoration. The cross was not to be seen; and
     it has remained ever since as a kind of myth, or mysterious
     souvenir; it was never found.'

Thus in France Ministers of Public Instruction and Superiors of the
Freres des Ecoles Chretiennes agree in removing the cross from
elementary schools: but how marvellous the distance between the
religious principles which lead to the two kinds of removal!

And now, in these days of payment by results, let us look for one moment
to the Ecoles Chretiennes from this point of view; and then we will bid
the Brothers a respectful farewell.

     'For the last forty years a certain number of exhibitions or
     scholarships (bourses) have been offered by the City of
     Paris for competition amongst the scholars of elementary or
     primary schools, which give to the successful candidates a
     right of free education in the higher class schools. The
     number of scholarships which are offered varies. In 1848
     there were twenty-nine; in 1871, fifty; in 1874, eighty; and
     in 1877 the number was raised to a hundred. Competition is
     open to all elementary schools, whether taught by the
     Christian Brothers, or by lay teachers of no religious order
     or society.

     'The result, taking the thirty years from 1847 to 1877, has
     been that of 1445 exhibitions gained by scholars, 1148 have
     been won by boys from the Christian schools, and 297 by
     those from other schools. Or to take the last seven years of
     that period, during which every effort has been made by the
     Government, at a lavish outlay, to promote the efficiency of
     the secular schools, the results, though the numbers are not
     quite so disproportioned, yet show a marked superiority in
     the schools of the Christian Brothers. Out of 490
     exhibitions, 364 have been adjudged to their pupils, and 126
     to those of the secular schools.'

Well done, Christian Brothers! You have preached an admirable sermon to
all those who take an interest in the education of children upon those
comprehensive and deep-reaching words of Christ, 'Take no thought,
saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal
shall we be clothed?... But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.'

FOOTNOTES:

[4] 'The policy of the late Chamber with regard to religion, education,
and the army had very much greater weight with the electors.... The
persistent threat held out by certain Republicans to destroy the Church,
either by a hypocritical fulfillment of the Concordat or by the forcible
separation of Church and State, has been skilfully used by their
adversaries amongst the peasantry, who dread nothing so much as having
to pay their cure themselves. The Government was so well aware of this
fact, that in some of the departments the Catechism was ordered to be
recited in the schools during the last week before the elections, though
only two months earlier the teachers had been strictly forbidden to use
it. This childish stratagem had, as might have been expected, no great
success.'--Gabriel Monod, in 'Contemporary Review,' of December, 1885.




Art. III.--_The State Papers of the Venetian Republic_; namely,
_Cancelleria Inferiore, Cancelleria Ducale, Cancelleria Secreta,_
preserved in the Convent of the Frari, at Venice.


In recent years a new tendency has been given to historical studies by
the avidity with which scholars have investigated the masses of State
documents accumulated through centuries, almost untouched, in the Record
Offices of various nations. This tendency has been in the direction of
minuteness and accuracy of detail. The finer shades of policy, the
subtler turns in the game of nations, have been revealed by this
intimate study of the documents which record them. Among the archives of
Europe there is none superior, in historical value and richness of
minutiae, to the Archives of the Venetian Republic, preserved now in the
convent of the Frari at Venice. The importance of these archives is due
to three causes: the position of the Republic in the history of Europe,
the fullness of the archives themselves, and the remarkable preservation
and order which distinguishes them, in spite of the many dangers and
vicissitudes through which they have passed. Venice enjoyed a position,
unique among the States of Europe, for two reasons. Until the discovery
of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, she was the mart of Europe
in all commercial dealings with the East--a position secured to her by
her supremacy in the Levant, and by the strength of her fleet; and, in
the second place, the Republic was the bulwark of Europe against the
Turk. These are the two dominant features of Venice in general history;
and under both aspects she came into perpetual contact with every
European Power. The universal importance of her position is faithfully
reflected in the diplomatic documents contained in her archives. The
Republic maintained ambassadors and residents at every Court. These men
were among the most subtle and accomplished diplomatists of their time,
and the government they served was exacting and critical to the highest
degree. The result is that the dispatches, newsletters and reports of
the Venetian diplomatic agents, form the most varied, brilliant, and
singular gallery of portraits, whether of persons or of peoples, that
exists. There is hardly a nation in Europe that will not find its
history illustrated by the papers which belong to the Venetian
department for foreign affairs. Nor are the papers which relate to the
home government of the Republic less copious and valuable. Each
magistracy has its own series of documents, the daily record of its
proceedings: in this we find the whole of that elaborate machinery of
State laid bare before us in all its intricacy of detail; and we are
enabled to study the construction, the origin, development, and
ossification, of one of the most rigid and enduring constitutions that
the world has ever seen; a constitution so strong in its component
parts, so compact in its rib-work, that it sufficed to preserve a
semblance of life in the body of the Republic long after the heart and
brain had ceased to beat.

Admirable as are the preservation and order of these masses of State
papers, it is not to be expected that each series, each magisterial
archive, should be complete. There are many broad lacunae, especially in
the earlier period, which must ever be a cause for regret: for Venice
growing is a more attractive and profitable subject than Venice dying.
During the nine hundred and eighty-seven years that the Government of
the Republic held its seat in Venice, the State papers passed through
many dangers from fire, revolution, neglect, or carelessness. When we
recal the fires of 1230, 1479, 1574, and 1577, it is rather matter for
congratulation that so much has escaped, than for surprise that so much
has been destroyed. The losses would, undoubtedly, have been much more
severe had all the papers and documents been preserved in one place, as
they are now. But the Venetians stored the archives of the various
magistracies either at the offices of those magistrates, or in some
public building especially set apart for the purpose. The Secret
Chancellery, which was always an object of great solicitude, containing
as it did all the more private papers of the State, was deposited in a
room on the second floor of the Ducal Palace. Many of the criminal
records belonging to the Council of Ten were stored in the Piombi under
the roof of the Palace; and the famous adventurer Casanova relates how
he beguiled some of his prison hours by reading the trial of a Venetian
nobleman, which he found among other papers piled at the end of the
corridor where he was allowed to take exercise. Soon after the fall of
the Republic, the following disposition of the papers was made. The
political archive was stored at the Scuola di S. Teodoro; the judicial,
at the convent of S. Giovanni Laterano; the financial, at S. Procolo. In
the year 1815, the Austrian Government resolved to collect and arrange
all State papers in one place. The building chosen was the convent of
the Frari; and the work was entrusted to Jacopo Chiodo, the first
director of the archives. The scheme suggested by Chiodo has served as a
basis for the arrangement that has been already carried out, or is still
in hand.

Under the Republic it was natural that access to important diplomatic
papers and to secrets of State should be granted with reserve, and only
to persons especially authorized to make research. The directors
appointed by the Austrian Government showed a disposition to maintain
that precedent; and M. Baschet relates that it was only by a personal
appeal to the Emperor that he obtained access to the archives of the
Ten. The Italian Government allow nearly absolute liberty; and nothing
can exceed the courtesy of the officials under their distinguished
director, the Commendatore Cecchetti.

Any attempt to explain the archives of Venice and to display their
contents, must be preceded by a statement of the main features of the
constitution of the Republic upon which the order and the arrangement of
the archives is based. The constitution of Venice has frequently been
likened to a pyramid, with the Great Council for its base and the Doge
for apex. The figure is more or less correct; but it is a pyramid that
has been broken at its edges by time and by necessity. The legislative
and political body was originally constructed in four groups, or
tiers--if we are to preserve the pyramidal simile--one rising above the
other. These four tiers were the Maggior Consiglio or Great Council, the
Lower House; the Pregadi or Senate, the Upper House; the Collegio, or
the Cabinet; and the Doge. The famous Council of Ten and its equally
famous Commission, the Three Inquisitors of State, did not enter into
the original scheme; they are an appendix to the State, an intrusion, a
break in the symmetry of the pyramid. Later on we shall explain their
construction and relation to the main body of government. For the
present we leave them aside, and confine our attention to the four
departments of the Venetian constitution above mentioned.

The Great Council, as is well known, did not assume its permanent form
and place in the Venetian constitution till the year 1296. At that date
the famous revolution, known as the closing of the Great Council, took
place. By that act, which was only the final step in a revolution that
had been for long in process, those citizens who were excluded from the
Great Council remained for ever outside the constitution; all functions
of government were concentrated in the hands of those nobles who were
included by the Council; the constitution of the Republic was
stereotyped as a rigid oligarchy. Previous to the year 1296, a great
council had existed, created first in the reign of Pietro Ziani (1172);
but this council was really democratic in character, not oligarchic; it
was elected each September, and its members were chosen from the whole
body of the citizens. Earlier still than the reign of Ziani, the
population used to meet tumultuously and express their opinion upon
matters of public interest, such as the election of a Doge or a
declaration of war, first in the _Concione_ under their tribunes, while
Venetia was still a confederation of lagoon-islands; and then in the
_Arengo_ under their Doge, when the confederation was centralized at
Rialto. But of these assemblies the latter was disorderly and irregular,
and the former was of doubtful authority. It is from the closing of the
Great Council that we must date the positive establishment of the
Venetian oligarchy, and the completion of that constitution which
endured for five hundred years, from 1296 till the fall of the Republic
in 1797.

The age at which the young nobles might take their seats in the Council,
that is to say, might enter upon public life, was fixed at twenty-five,
except in the cases of the Barbarelli, or thirty nobles between the ages
of twenty and twenty-five, who were elected by ballot on the fourth of
each December, St. Barbara's day; and in the case of those who, in
return for money advanced to the State, obtained a special grace to take
their seats before their twenty-fifth year.

The chief functions of the Great Council were the passing of laws, and
the election of magistrates. But in process of time the legislative
duties of the Council were almost entirely absorbed by the Senate; and
the Maggior Consiglio only retained its great and distinguished
function, the election of almost every officer of State, from the Doge
downwards. The large number of these magistracies, and the various
seasons of the year at which they fell vacant, engaged the Great Council
in a perpetual series of elections. It is not our intention to explain
in detail the elaborate process by which the Venetians carried out their
political elections; such an explanation would carry us beyond our
scope, which is to state the position and functions of each member in
the constitution of the Republic. But, briefly, the process was this.
The law required either two or four competitors for every vacant
magistracy, and the election to that magistracy was said to take place
_a due_ or _a quattro mani_, respectively. If the office to be filled
required _quattro mani_, the whole body of the Great Council balloted
for four groups of nine members each, who were chosen by drawing a
golden ball from among the silver ones in the balloting urn. Each of
these groups retired to a separate room, and there each group elected
one candidate to go to the poll for the vacant office. The names of the
four candidates were then presented to the Council and balloted. The
candidate who secured the largest number of votes, above the half of
those present, was elected to the vacant office. Thus the election to
the magistracy was a triple process; first, the election of the
nominators, then the election of the candidates, and finally the
election to the office.

The Great Council, as representing the whole Republic, possessed certain
judicial functions, which were used on rare occasions only, when the
State believed itself placed in grave danger through the fault of its
commanders. The famous case of Vettor Pisani, after his defeat at Pola,
in 1379, and the case of Antonio Grimani, in the year 1499, were both
sent to the Grand Council, who passed sentence on those generals. But,
broadly speaking, the judicial functions of the Maggior Consiglio hardly
existed, its legislative functions dwindled away, and were absorbed by
the Senate, and its chief duty and prerogative lay in the election of
almost every State official.

Coming now to the second tier in the pyramid of the constitution, the
Senate, or Pregadi,--the invited, we find that the Senate proper was
composed of sixty members, elected in the Great Council, six at a time.
The elections took place once a week, and were so arranged that they
should be complete by the first of October in each year. In addition to
the Senate proper, another body of sixty, called the _Zonta_ or
addition, was elected by the outgoing Senate at the close of its year of
office; but it was necessary that the names of the _Zonta_ should be
approved by the Great Council before their election was valid. The
Senate and the Zonta together formed one hundred and twenty members; and
besides these, the Doge, his six councillors, the Council of Ten, the
Supreme Court of Appeal, and many special magistrates, who presided over
departments of Finance, Customs, and Justice, belonged _ex officio_ to
the Senate, and brought the number of votes up to two hundred and
forty-six. Further, fifty-one magistrates of minor departments also sat,
with the right to debate, but without the right to vote.

The Senate was the real core of the Administration. The presence, _ex
officio_, of so many and such various officers of State sufficiently
indicates the wide field which was covered by the authority of the
Pregadi. The large number of the Senatorial body, and the diversity of
subjects with which it dealt, required that business should be carried
on with parsimony of time and precision of method; and therefore private
members were restricted to the right of debate. Only the Doge, his
councillors, the Savii Grandi and the Savii di Terra ferma had the right
to move the Senate; and their propositions related to peace, war,
foreign affairs, instructions to ambassadors, and representatives of
foreign Courts, to commercial treaties, finance, and home legislation.
The various measures were spoken to by their proposers, and by the
magistrates whose offices they affected. As in the case of the Great
Council, the Senate also on rare occasions exercised judicial functions.
It was in the discretion of the College to send a faulty commander for
trial either to the Great Council or to the Senate; but in that case the
charge must be one of negligence or misjudgment; if the charge implied
treason, it was taken before the Council of Ten. A few of the higher
officers of State were elected in the Senate, among them the Savii
Grandi and the Savii di Terra ferma, and the Admiral of the Fleet. The
functions of the Senate were legislative, judicial, and elective. But
just as the Great Council was pre-eminently the elective body, so the
Senate was pre-eminently the legislative body in the constitution of
Venice.

The Collegio or Cabinet of Ministers, formed the third tier in the
pyramid. The College was composed of the following members: The Doge,
his six councillors, and the three chiefs of the Court of Appeal; these
ten persons formed the Collegio minore, or Serenissima Signoria; in
addition to these there were the six Savii Grandi; the five Savii di
Terra ferma, and the five Savii da mar; a body of twenty-six persons in
all, forming the College. Beginning with the lowest in rank, the Savii
agli ordini, or da mar, were, as their name implies, a Board of
Admiralty; but they acted in that capacity under the orders of the Savii
Grandi upon whom the naval affairs of the Republic immediately depended.
The Savii agli ordini had a vote but no voice in the College; this post
was given, for the most part, to young and promising politicians; it was
a training school for statesmen: 'Officio loro,' says Giannotti, 'e
tacere ed ascoltare.' The office lasted for six months only; and so
there was a constant stream of young men passing through the political
school, and becoming intimately acquainted with the affairs of the
Republic and the methods of government. How excellent that school must
have been will become apparent as we proceed to note the functions of
the College of which the Savii agli ordini formed a silent part.

Next in order above the Savii agli ordini came the Savii di Terra ferma.
This Board was composed of five members; the Savio alia Scrittura, or
Minister for War; the Savio Cassier, or Chancellor of the Exchequer; the
Savio alle ordinanze, or minister for the native militia in the cities
on the mainland; the Savio ai da mo, or minister for the execution of
all measures voted urgent; the Savio ai Ceremoniali, or Minister for
Ceremonies of State. These Savii di Terra ferma, like the Savii agli
ordini, held office for six months only.

The six Savii Grandi, who came above the Savii di Terra ferma,
superintended the actions of the two boards below them, and, if
necessary, issued orders which would override those of the other
ministers. They were, in fact, the responsible directors of the State.
The Savii Grandi were required to prepare all business to be laid before
the College, where it was first discussed and arranged before being
submitted to the Senate for approval. To facilitate this labour of
preparation, each of the Savii Grandi took a week in turn, and the Savio
of the week was, in fact, Prime Minister of Venice. It was he who read
dispatches, granted audiences to ambassadors, and prepared official
replies. The Doge presided in the College, it is true, but it was the
Savio of the week who opened the business, and suggested the various
measures to be adopted.

Besides these boards of Savii, the College included the Ducal
Councillors, and the three chiefs of the Court of Appeal. We shall speak
of these latter when we come to the judicial department of the
constitution. The office of Ducal Councillor was, perhaps, the most
venerable in Venice. These six men held, as it were, the Ducal honours
and functions in commission; they embodied the authority of the Doge to
such an extent, that without their presence he could not act; he became
a nonentity unless supported by four at least of his council; while, on
the other hand, the absence of the Doge in no way diminished the
authority of the Ducal Councillors. For example, the Doge without his
council could not preside, neither in the Maggior Consiglio, nor in the
Senate, nor in the College, but four Ducal Councillors had the power to
preside without the Doge. The Doge might not open dispatches except in
the presence of his council, but his council might open dispatches in
the absence of the Doge. Yet, great as were the external honours of the
Ducal Councillors, the office was rather ornamental than important. It
was the Savii Grandi who were the directing spirit through all the
multitudinous affairs of the College. As we have seen, those affairs
embraced the whole field of government, except the field of Justice. The
College had no judicial functions, nor did it legislate. As the Maggior
Consiglio was the elective member, and the Senate the legislative, so
the College was the initiative and executive member of the State. The
College proposed measures which became law in the Senate; and the
execution of those laws was entrusted to the College which had the
machinery of State at its disposal. It is this right of initiating which
distinguishes the College; and it is just upon this point that the Ducal
Councillors appear to have a slight pre-eminence; for the Doge, his
council, and the Savii alone, had the right to initiate in the Senate;
the Doge, his council, and the chiefs of the Ten alone, had the right to
initiate in the Council of Ten; the Doge and his council alone had the
right to initiate in the Maggior Consiglio. The Doge and his council
alone move through all departments of government, presiding and
initiating, embodying the spirit of the Republic; and yet in no case is
their power great; for the Savii had more influence in the Senate, the
Chiefs of the Ten in the Council of Ten; and the Great Council, where
the Doge and his councillors had the field to themselves, was of little
importance in the direction of affairs.

At the apex of the constitutional pyramid we find the Doge. The Doge
also had his distinctive functions in the State; his duties were
ornamental rather than administrative. Though all the acts of the
Government were executed in his name, laws passed, dispatches sent,
treaties made, and war declared, yet it is not in these departments that
the Doge stands pre-eminent; it is throughout the pomp and display of
the Republic that he is supreme; and the archive wherein his glory shows
most brightly is the _Ceremoniali_.

The Doge was elected for life. When a Doge died, the eldest Ducal
Councillor filled the office of Vice-Doge until the election of the new
Prince. The remains of the deceased Doge were laid out in the Chamber of
the Pioveghi, on the first floor of the Ducal Palace, dressed in robes
of State, the mantle of cloth of gold and the ducal beretta. Twenty
Venetian noblemen were appointed to attend in the chapelle ardente. On
the third day the Doge was buried; and the Great Council on the same day
elected the officers who were to revise the coronation oath, and to
render its provisions more stringent if the conduct of the deceased had
revealed any point where a future Doge could exercise even the smallest
independence in constitutional matters. At the same time the Council
elected another body of officers, who were required to examine the
conduct of the late Doge, and, if he had violated his coronation oath,
his heirs paid the penalty by a fine. Immediately after the appointment
of these officers, the Maggior Consiglio proceeded to create the
forty-one electors to the dukedom. The process of election was long and
intricate, and occupied five days at the least; for there was a
quintuple series of ballots and votings to be concluded before the
forty-one were finally chosen. When the forty-one noblemen had been
appointed they were taken to a chamber specially prepared for them,
where, as in the case of a papal election, they were obliged to stay
until they had determined upon the new Doge. They were bound by oath
never to reveal what took place inside this election chamber. But this
oath was not always observed in the spirit; and memoranda of the
proceedings of the forty-one are still preserved in the private archives
of the Marcello family. The first step was to elect three priors, or
presidents, and two secretaries. The presidents took their seats at a
table on which stood a ballot-box and an urn. The secretaries gave to
every elector a slip of paper, upon which each one wrote the name of the
man whom he proposed as Doge. The forty-one slips of paper were then
placed in the urn, and one was drawn out at hazard. If the noble, whose
name was written upon the slip, chanced to be an elector, he was
required to withdraw. Then each of the electors was at liberty to attack
the candidate, to point out defects and recal misdeeds. These hostile
criticisms, which covered

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