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the Alps to Lilybæum, in purer hopes, and firmer resolve, and stronger and more united endeavour.

From what has been said, it necessarily seems to follow, that there must have been a corresponding progress in the moral and social condition of the Italians. And this we believe to be the fact. It is well known that Parini's Giorno was an accurate picture of the daily life of the young nobles of his time. But were another Parini to arise, he would find the young men of that class, some in the army, some devoted to letters, others engaged in the management of their estates; many, too many, still thoughtless and idle, and ready to seek pleasure wherever it may be found; but few that would dare to blazon their corruption with such unveiled effrontery. This holds equally true with regard to many of Goldoni's comedies, in which he holds up to ridicule vices which are now generally regarded with horror, or, if they still continue to exist, are carefully concealed from the public eye. The Cicisbeo has disappeared, and the term of amicizia, under which the violation of conjugal faith is veiled, shows of itself in what a different light a custom, once received so generally, is now viewed.

The character of Italian mothers is improved. They are more domestic in their habits and feelings, more attached to their families, firmer and more cheerful in the performance of their household duties. Their daughters are more frequently brought up under their own eyes, or, if sent to a convent, are sent later and not kept there so long. There is less of that abrupt passage from the seclusion and contracted views of a nunnery to the intoxicating gayeties of society, and the grave responsibilities of a wife and a mother. Their education has been elevated and made to embrace a wider range of subjects. Dancing and embroidery, which once formed almost their sole occupation, are now taught as embellishments, the innocent recreation of hours employed less usefully. Reading, which most of them learned imperfectly, and many never learned at all, is taught, not as a simple amusement, but as a source of solid instruction, and as one of the greatest privileges accorded to human beings in order to fit them for the cares and dangers and duties of life. And when we consider what female influence is, how large a portion of almost every man's life is passed in the presence of mothers and sisters and wives, may we not count this, too, among the hopes of Italy?

We would hardly venture to assert that the progress in male education has been equally great; for here the action of government is more direct, and few sovereigns are so shortsighted as not to understand, that the boy's impressions become the convictions of the man. Thus, if reforms are not always repelled, they are accepted cautiously, and with so sparing a hand, as rather to assimilate the new with the old, than to inform the old with the invigorating freshness of the new. They come, too, at long intervals, and not in that order of philosophical sequence, without which they can neither be lasting nor prolific. The colleges in which the preparatory course for the university is gone through are very nearly what they have long been, nurseries of idleness and effeminacy. The languages are taught there by the same old method which has been followed for centuries, and the study of them fills up the choicest years of youth. The natural sciences, if not systematically avoided, are at least slurred over so negligently, that it is only in minds singularly favored that they can awaken that intelligent curiosity which in themselves they are so well calculated to excite. Geography is studied with equal carelessness, or not studied at all, although one of the most accurate of living geographers is an Italian. History is confined to Greece and Rome, and taught merely as a series of events, not as a progressive development of ideas, arising directly from the essence of human nature, and tending, by sure though unequal steps, to the accomplishment of human destiny. And the object of the whole course, from the alphabet to the diploma, seems to be, not to form minds, but to plod through a prescribed routine. To this general sketch there are some splendid exceptions. Few men have studied education as a science with so rare an intelligence as the Abbé Lambruschini, and certainly none have ever devoted themselves from purer motives to its practical duties.

Indeed, education, to be what it ought, must have some higher object than the mere acquisition of knowledge, however important this may be in itself. It is only where the duties of life are estimated aright, that man can be fitted for them properly. A firm and resolute will can be sustained only by an object enlarged enough to occupy its energies. And as every man's faculties were given him in order that he might perform his part well, so the very fact of their exist- No. 138.

VOL. LXVI.

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ence implies the right of cultivation, and imposes upon those who are intrusted with power the obligation of employing it in such a manner as to insure to every one the full enjoyment of that right. But to do this would be to acknowledge the right of liberty, and absolute monarchs, who will not acknowledge it, knowingly pervert man's capability of receiving instruction to their own purposes. They fill up their subjects' time without employing it, exercise their faculties without developing them, teach them enough to enable them to serve as instruments, but not as actors, to obey passively, but not like men who have a purpose, and know how to accomplish it. And then, when the day of trial comes, they are surprised to find what automatons they have been making, and how despotism, like every other crime, begets its own punishment.

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Of the universities it is difficult to speak collectively; and some of them had already advanced so far, in the second half of the last century, that hardly any thing which they have done in this can be considered as progress. Pavia is very far from being what it was in the time of Spallanzani and Mascheroni; but some of the chairs at Pisa are filled with great ability, and Galluppi is the professor of philosophy at Naples. Yet every professor knows that he holds his place from a government which watches all his movements jealously, and will take it from him at the slightest indication of a desire to venture beyond the limits which its fears have prescribed. Their lessons, therefore, can seldom have that spontaneous flow which gives such a charm to the oral instructions of an eloquent teacher. The danger of misconstruction is hovering over them continually, and the labor which other men bestow upon the development of an idea they are often obliged to employ in guarding it against too full an interpretation. Yet, with all this, there are calm,

* "La liberté est le pouvoir qui appartient à l'homme d'exercer à son gré toutes ses facultés; elle a la justice pour règle, les droits d'autrui pour bornes, la nature pour principe, et la loi pour sauvegarde." - Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme, présentée par Robespierre à la Convention, Art. IV.

A language less copious and flexible than the Italian would, under such circumstances, have lost all its energy; and perhaps some of the defects of style, and a certain want of precision, with which several eminent Italian writers have been reproached, must be attributed in a great measure to this cause; a new proof, if any more were wanting, how dangerous it is to attempt to judge a literature, unless you are familiar with the social and political condition of the country.

devoted men among them, who feel all the responsibilities of their situation, and know how to estimate its dangers, and, keeping their way firmly through every obstacle, turn for consolation and hope from the false judgments of contemporaries who know but a part, to that unerring posterity which sees the whole.

Still, whatever the character of individual professors may be, the university course, like that of the colleges, must necessarily be confined to a beaten track more or less rigorously. But what the students learn of themselves has a very different bearing. In their class-rooms, they feel, as men always do when united in some common pursuit, what a cheering strength there is in union; and in the retirement of their own chambers, they learn how to use it to advantage. They are free from the irksome restraint and enervating discipline of college. They can walk, and ride, and move in the open air, at will. There is no pedantic pedagogue to watch over their sports, or marshal them forth upon their daily or weekly walk. There are libraries at their command, and newspapers to tell them at least something of what is going on in the world, and friends to cheer and guide them, and, above all, companions to discuss their studies with, and compare their progress. And here it is that the influence of literature is felt more directly, and that the writer's perilous task becomes indeed a holy mission. These are the readers and judges to whom he is looking forward from the retirement of his closet, with the hope of a juster appreciation, and cautiously choosing out the seed which he is compelled to sow with so sparing a hand. For, in spite of censors and spies, of ecclesiastical prohibitions and political watchfulness, a large portion of the new works are read in the universities, circulating stealthily, it is true, to be studied by lamp-light, and with doors locked carefully,-locked as if thought were a crime, but gradually spreading their truths throughout the whole peninsula, and awakening the flame of enlightened patriotism in the breasts of those who, when the day of action comes, will be men.

But an entirely new feature in Italian society is the education of the lower classes, which had hitherto been mostly confined to the catechism, and the priest's instruction during Lent. Now, in many parts of Italy, there are day-schools for all, and night-schools for those whose poverty compels

ence implies the right of cultivation, and imposes upon those who are intrusted with power the obligation of employing it in such a manner as to insure to every one the full enjoyment of that right. But to do this would be to acknowledge the right of liberty,* and absolute monarchs, who will not acknowledge it, knowingly pervert man's capability of receiving instruction to their own purposes. They fill up their subjects' time without employing it, exercise their faculties without developing them, teach them enough to enable them to serve as instruments, but not as actors, to obey passively, but not like men who have a purpose, and know how to accomplish it. And then, when the day of trial comes, they are surprised to find what automatons they have been making, and how despotism, like every other crime, begets its own punishment.

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Of the universities it is difficult to speak collectively; and some of them had already advanced so far, in the second half of the last century, that hardly any thing which they have done in this can be considered as progress. Pavia is very far from being what it was in the time of Spallanzani and Mascheroni; but some of the chairs at Pisa are filled with great ability, and Galluppi is the professor of philosophy at Naples. Yet every professor knows that he holds his place from a government which watches all his movements jealously, and will take it from him at the slightest indication of a desire to venture beyond the limits which its fears have prescribed. Their lessons, therefore, can seldom have that spontaneous flow which gives such a charm to the oral instructions of an eloquent teacher. The danger of misconstruction is hovering over them continually, and the labor which other men bestow upon the development of an idea they are often obliged to employ in guarding it against too full an interpretation. Yet, with all this, there are calm,

* "La liberté est le pouvoir qui appartient à l'homme d'exercer à son gré toutes ses facultés; elle a la justice pour règle, les droits d'autrui pour bornes, la nature pour principe, et la loi pour sauvegarde." — Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme, présentée par Robespierre à la Convention, Art. IV. † A language less copious and flexible than the Italian would, under such circumstances, have lost all its energy; and perhaps some of the defects of style, and a certain want of precision, with which several eminent Italian writers have been reproached, must be attributed in a great measure to this cause; a new proof, if any more were wanting, how dangerous it is to attempt to judge a literature, unless you are familiar with the social and political condition of the country.

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