Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

there any similarity between their condition, as to language, and that of the Welsh in the counties where the English and Old British tongues struggle for pre-eminence? He sees multitudes of Romish ecclesiastics in grave costume, reminding him of Valladolid and Seville, as though Belgium and Spain were still united; but does he ask, how far these ecclesiastics practically control the education of the people? Is their legitimate influence disowned, or are their claims exaggerated?

I confess that I have been as culpably ignorant as my neighbours concerning these important topics of investigation-a few specimens out of many. But I am determined not to continue so any longer. I will at least inquire. We see things in a broader horizon when we stand on the shoulders of our contemporaries. There are many People of England questions, which will be not the less easily solved by those who have made, like Uncle Toby, the march of the Low Countries.

I write from Brussels. That your readers may not be bewildered by too many subjects of discussion, permit me to confine my observations to the state of elementary education.

The schools of Belgium may be divided into three large classes: those in which the languages of Greece and Rome are taught as the principal means of mental discipline and enrichment; those in which prominence is given to science and commerce; and those which are purely elementary. I am not quite sure that you will allow the exact logic of this principle of division, but it will explain what I mean. The elementary schools may be subdivided again into three kinds :-The superior primary schools, occupying much the same relative position as middle or commercial schools in England, or the higher classes of a national school, in which there is a welltrained master ;-the primary schools, and the infant schools. There is another point of view in which these schools must be considered. I allude to their relations to the church and the state. Here they divide themselves into three kinds : those that are communal, and, so to speak, almost purely state schools; those that are mixed, as when a school of Christian Brothers receives help from the public purse; and those that are simply church schools,-as, for instance, the schools of the BRETHREN OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.

[blocks in formation]

In 1815, the kingdom of the Low Countries was erected as a rampart against France on the north. That was evidently the thought that guided the congress of Vienna; but whether any such feeling of hostility was entertained by the Belgian population is very problematical. The Dutch monarch appeared to these new subjects a strange compound. They said of him, that he loved liberty so much, that he would keep it all to

himself; and liberal philosophy so much, that he would give it, and nothing else, to his people. So that he fostered by his policy two implacable enemies in Belgium-the episcopate, to whom his philosophy was a detestable heresy; and the liberals, to whom his despotism was equally intolerable. For some years, the reaction caused by the horrors of the long wars of Napoleon kept these two parties quiet; lassitude, to them, was better than convulsion; but when a new generation arose, that had not personally suffered by revolutionary movements, they began to combine against the king. It was in vain that the political economists urged the national prosperity, caused by the union of seafaring Holland with handicraft Belgium. The original vice of that union was not effaced. The peace of Europe had lasted long enough to admit of the agitation of great social questions; and, as is always the case in times of peace, the moral questions put out of sight those that were merely material.

It was in 1828 that the two parties first formally developed themselves. The liberals professed themselves offended with the inequitable distribution of public honours and appointments. They inveighed against the manifest supremacy of Holland. Belgium, they said, so long the scene of heroic struggles for liberty, so rich in memories of patriotism from the earliest feudal times, must not, and shall not, be any longer the prey of a stranger. The Belgians are a religious people. The men are more constant attendants at church than in any other country of Europe, except Scotland and Holland. Consequently they revere their clergy, and from all one can hear the clergy deserve that reverence. It took a deeper tone, when they appeared as the persecuted champions of the national faith, against Dutch aggression. True or false, an impression was abroad that the king of Holland was bent upon large measures of proselytism. If the liberal party regarded their country as absorbed, the Roman Catholic party deemed their creed endangered. Such were the elements of the coalition against the royal sway of the House of Orange. It was formed of men who hated each other, but they forgot their differences on the neutral ground, where they met to strive for national independence. So that the Belgian Revolution which followed was at once Roman Catholic, Hierarchical, and Liberal. It is necessary to recognise this fact in order to understand the position of public instruction relative to the Church and the State. For some years the fires destined to consume the coalition of which we have spoken smouldered unseen. The Roman Catholic party helped forward every plan of popular reform. few liberals suspected that this spirit was subordinate to secret efforts after despotical power; but nothing transpired to

A

strengthen the suspicion. In fact, the state was a novelty; and many intriguers and partisans on both sides were awed into patriotism by the spectacle of the new nationality, which for years had been the object of their ardent hope and prayer. The great network of railroads in the country had opened a new feature to its commerce and manufactures, and men were not inclined to quarrel. Meanwhile, gradually, but certainly, the Roman Catholic church had been gaining power. Large fortunes had been left to the distribution of the bishops. Religious houses for men and women had absorbed vast numbers of the rising generation. The liberal party saw that liberty of instruction meant the supremacy of the hardest worker in that cause; and they feared that they must be discomfited in a strife, where success implies personal sacrifice and self-denial. Such writers as Devaux, Lebeau, and Rogier, had aroused the people against the king of Holland; they prepared now to attack the bishops and clergy. In the year 1839, Belgium was definitively acknowledged by the European powers as a separate sovereignty. The question as to the provinces of Luxembourg and Limburg was decided. There was no exterior controversy to agitate men's minds; and we find a new epoch in the political history of the country opening upon us, in the advent of M. Lebeau to power, and a formal schism between the Roman Catholic and liberal parties in the state.

In this cabinet, M. Charles Rogier was appointed Minister of Public Works; to this office was added that of Public Instruction. The Roman Catholic party began to organize an active opposition to his designs. The Bishop of Liege, a bold and eloquent writer, led the way he was aided by the brilliant intelligence of Montalabert in France. One party said that the Jesuits controlled the government; the other, that atheism was enshrined in the council-chamber. The liberals declaimed that the Roman Catholic party had discovered in the public liberties the material with which to construct an ecclesiastical despotism; the Roman Catholics retorted, that in the hands of their opponents liberty was a mere cloak for licentiousness. M. LEHON was especially fierce in his denunciations of the clergy: "Strong in this liberty of instruction," said he, "they seize every avenue to the conscience; by means of the confessional, they reign over the wives and mothers of our country; through them they govern the electors. They refuse absolution to those who read liberal journals, or who vote for the advocates of progress. Youth and infancy have not escaped them, and we see, that, thanks to the liberty of instruction, fathers and mothers will, in spite of us, send their children to be taught religion and morality by the clergy."

(To be continued.)

A

EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIVATE DIARY OF THE MASTER
OF A LONDON RAGGED SCHOOL.

[We insert this paper, which was not written for publication, because we hope that the simple narrative will convince some who need to be instructed of the great work to be done before the education of the people is effected.—ED.]

OCT. 29th 1849.-On the way to the school this morning in company with who has been appointed to act as my assistant, we were saluted by women and boys as we went along in a most singular manner. I cannot say that the exclamations and gestures of these people were significant of disapprobation, but rather the reverse; however, their coarse and brutal manners had a most disheartening influence on me. I looked in vain for some manifestation of feeling that would enable me to "thank God and take courage."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

It

was a dismal scene
no appearance of thrift or industry
nothing but squalid wretchedness and dirt and idleness-the lanes
leading to the school were full of men, women, and children; shout-
ing, gossipping, swearing, and laughing, in a most discordant and
unnatural manner. The whole population seemed to be on the eve
of a great outbreak of some kind or another; ready for anything
but work.
These lanes are a moral hell. The
place and the people beggar description.
We pre-
pared the school by placing benches in situations for the division of
the scholars into four classes, and as they came tumbling and bawling
up the stairs, we directed them to seats. Shortly after ten o'clock I
spoke to them kindly, and then asked them to join with me in prayer.
They knelt and followed me in the Lord's Prayer, with some few ex-
ceptions, in a not very improper manner. The decent behaviour to
be met with in almost any school could not be expected here. I pro-
ceeded to read a collect, but the noise obliged me to stop.

[blocks in formation]

Most of the children can read very well indeed. Some of them can write, and almost all of the first class can say the multiplication table well; they all promise to be expert at figures. In mere schooling they are not behindhand; but in decency of behaviour or in respect for the teacher, or in discipline of any kind, they are totally unparalleled. No school can be possibly worse than this. It were an easy task to get attention from savages; a white man's appearance would ensure him some sort of regard; but here the very appearance of one's coat is to them the badge of class and respectability ;-for although they may not know the meaning of the word, they know very well, or at least feel, that we are the representatives of beings with whom they have ever considered themselves at war. This is not theory, but fact.

[blocks in formation]

We were almost stifled several times by half-a-dozen of the neighbours congregating on the stairs and puffing tobacco smoke in volumes into the school. How the lungs of such emaciated youths could work so effectively is to me a mystery. One miserable boy, with

.

scarcely a hair on his head, was somewhat puzzled to get out the letter of the alphabet to which my companion pointed, so he knowingly pulled out his tobacco-box and helped himself to a quid in a grave and veteran-like manner.

Their craving for stimulants is most saddening. Two of the biggest. boys were complimented by me on the way in which they did a sum in compound addition. "Give us some coppers for a pint of beer," was the ready response.

*

*

*

In Scripture history I got a series of answers that are above the average in point of information of those which could be obtained in some national schools. But of what use that kind of knowledge can possibly be, unless it is brought to bear on the moral training and conduct of the possessor, I am at a loss to determine. It is a very easy thing to stuff these boys with Scripture history, or with anything indeed which is or can be made interesting; but it is a sad desecration of the subject and a sinful waste of time to give them mere facts. Be the result then what it may, I shall introduce the Church Catechism and teach them their duty from that. The system hitherto pursued has been worthless and criminal. If I do not succeed in teaching the catechism properly, I shall at least have the satisfaction that the boys know the words in which the ten commandments are given, and their duty towards God and their neighbour shall be so impressed on their memories that the day may come when these words, perhaps got off by mere rote, may bear good fruit. A school without a catechism is like a church without a creed.

[blocks in formation]

I had occasion to punish a boy slightly this morning: he swore and blasphemed most horribly, and rushed from the school. I took little notice of this display, and sat down calmly to hear the class with which I was engaged read the Acts of the Apostles. I was suddenly startled by a large stone passing my ear. If it had struck me on the head, I must have been severely hurt. I got out of the reach of stones thrown through the window, and continued the lesson. Several followed-half-a-dozen at least. He was ready in the court with a brick in his hand, to have his revenge when I came out. With some difficulty I got out of the lane without being obliged to run. I walked some time in and having thought over the matter, I considered it best to call at the police station, and ask for a convoy. This was readily granted; and followed at a short distance by the policeman, I returned to the school.

[ocr errors]

Without one exception, these boys are precocious. They require more training than teaching. The great city has been their book, and they have read men as such boys alone can do.

*

*

66

[merged small][ocr errors]

A child began to scream dreadfully. I said to his elder brother, "Pray take out the child." Child," said he, "he aint no child; he's a man-look at him, for your own satisfaction, gentlemen," (bowing in a droll way to the class).

Several clergymen called in the afternoon, and they had scarcely

[ocr errors][merged small]
« ZurückWeiter »