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

64 Probably this silent increase is the best means for the religious development of Tuscany. Religious, as well as popular liberty, consists of ideas which grow even whilst they are checked, and which can be checked only until they have grown strong. They know this, the thoughtful patriots of Tuscany, and they have a firm hope in a better day which is coming. But it is to be deplored that popular education is altogether in the hands of the priests, because they take good care to require only such an education as will nullify its otherwise supreme power; and the people, ignorant, and, therefore, unreflecting, console themselves too easily with festivals and fruits of the earth, for want of the nobler rights of humanity.

That which the true friends of their country here, as well as in Piedmont, and, it may indeed be said, as well as the cultivated Italian community at large,