Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/170

 Boys: Reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, general and natural history, book-keeping, and singing.

Girls: All these good things, with the addition of cooking, the management of house and kitchen, washing, and needlework.

But it is not all work—for learning, though pleasant, is work—and therefore, besides all these, there will be, when funds allow, playgrounds for gymnastic exercises, stretching of limbs and muscles, and workshops for industrial instruction. Boys will be trained to gardening and general agriculture, as well as to the more essential trades—tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, &c.

Gradually this work will be turned to good account, independent of the instruction gained therefrom; for, if it has been found profitable in Ireland, surely in Italy, where there is a perpetual and ever-increasing demand for good laundresses, domestic servants, and skilled workers of every description, there will be plenty of work for the schools. It is consequently proposed to pay, not for your education only, but your partial board and clothing, from the actual work which, in part of your school hours, you will accomplish.

Thus, it is hoped, when all is in order, the produce of the afternoon work will defray the morning's teaching and the noonday meal. Let me hope that a spirit of independence will thereby be engendered among you, as a band of hearty comrades, providing, by the work of their own strong skilful hands, the means of mental advancement and the foundation of happy and contented, perhaps even prosperous and distinguished, lives.

By the by, I mentioned a "meal;" that is a thing of importance. I have not said enough about it. At half-past twelve (especially when I have been working cheerfully since breakfast), I begin to think how good a thing is polenta! Rice is not bad, but give me polenta! And polenta with cheese! I can only say that if King Victor himself, after a day with the chamois, desires anything more delicious, he hardly deserves to be your king.

I must warn you, however, children, that this cheese is a very uncertain sensitive thing. Idleness, noise (fighting especially), seem to frighten it away. Polenta may always come, but where there is goodness and industry, only there can you be sure of finding polenta, with cheese!

At our new school, at Cagliari, the first that will be opened on our system, you will find, in addition to large and well-lighted rooms, a pretty garden and orchard. There will be maps, books, pictures for illustration of what is taught, and many curious things never yet presented to your eyes, but of which you will quickly learn the use. A printing-press, a sewing-machine, patent machines for washing, wringing, and mangling, a plaiting-machine, and no less than a hundred and fifty boxes of toys! The greater part of these things have been provided by one generous hand—that of the president of the English committee, Mrs. Chambers—and, as fifteen schools in her native land already owe their well-being to her, let us hope that her countrymen will forgive the gracious finger she extends to us.

And now, children, one little last word, to which I require your best attention. Upon no human institution, however nobly meant or ably planned, can we hope a blessing to descend unless the principles of a pure and true religion are inculcated there. Now, to our walls, pupils of all creeds—Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, &c.—are alike welcome. But to accept the spiritual assistance of professed teachers of each several creed has been found so productive of disunion and mistrust, that it has been decided to decline the attendance of any, and to confide to the authorised teacher and the ladies of the visiting committee the all-important duty of religious instruction, founded, as it will be, upon the blessed truths of the New Testament.

For my part, I assent to the eloquent words of one whose voice will not again be heard on earth.

"In the better order of things, Heaven grant that the ministry of souls may be left in charge of woman! The gates of the Blessed City will be thronged with the multitude that enter in, when that day comes. The task belongs to woman; God meant it for her; He has endowed her with the religious sentiment in its utmost depth and purity, refined from that gross intellectual alloy with which every masculine theologist—save only One, who merely veiled himself in mortal and masculine shape, but was in truth divine—has been prone to mingle it."

There, boys and girls of Italy—that is a long sentence, but it finishes my lecture. And now—all in to begin!

Frenchman who said that we always return to our first loves, said one of the true things of human nature; and every mature mind knows its truth. We do return to our old loves, and no after affection ever destroys their place in our hearts.

There are abundant reasons for this going back upon life—at least in thought and desire if not in actual renewal. In youth, when our sensations were all new, and when the mere fact of living was in itself a joy, everything was painted in with rose colour: everything was perfect, and each emotion in its novelty was a veritable revelation of the divine. We had not then become blunted by satiety, chilled or corrected by experience. We firmly believed that what we felt, no one else had ever felt before, or would ever feel again with anything like our intensity; we firmly believed that all other people's emotions were tame and colourless beside our own. For youth is in itself a perpetual recreation of the primeval