Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/54

70 doing nothing for popular education in schools; never showing themselves amongst the people; opposing popular festivities, etc.: which charges were indeed not without grounds. The new government promised to be in a high degree popular, and began by removing from the universities the most deserving men and instructors, and replacing them by their own partisans. I hear it said, on all hands, that this revolution has thrown back the development of the country, and its culture, more than twenty years. In the mean time, the better general voice, and the spirit of the age, have compelled the new government, gradually to fill the offices of both city and State by men of ability and fitness; and for the last ten years, since this has been the case, it has continued steadily to advance, both in action and spirit, and now it is universally acknowledged, “not to work badly.”

The government does much for the encouragement of schools—but rather, as it appears, by the increase of subjects of instruction than by the solidity of instruction itself—and of popular festivals there is no lack. Of these, shooting at a mark and dancing seem to be the principal. The day before yesterday, a great festival of the children of the national schools was held on the heights of “la Sauvabellin,” a lofty plateau, an hour's distance from the town, where is a glorious primeval forest of oak and beech, which, it is said, dates back from the time of the Druids. Yesterday afternoon a still greater popular festival was held, at which I was present. People danced to thundering music on the turf which skirted the old forest. Many families were there with their children, and the