Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/133

 lagune. A student of the university looking over the bridge, and seeing come up the river a barge full of pumpkins, cried out, “Vengono i dotti—see, they have sent their heads before them!” Testa di zucca, or pumpkin-head, answers to our phrase of blockhead. This, however, was regarded as a serious insult, and the offender has been put under arrest, and is to be imprisoned till the great men leave Padua.

There is another point for which the government shews toleration, on condition that its own political catechism is taught—infant schools. I visited one, and was much interested. It belongs to our district of Venice, and is one among many. It was for both boys and girls under the age of nine. I saw the girls’ room first. They learn according to the system now prevalent everywhere for teaching the poor—Bell’s and Lancaster’s, as it used to be called. There were some thirty or forty girls; and I am sorry to say they did not shew so well as the boys; the cause, I trust, being that the head-teacher, a priest, attended only to the latter. I do not mean to detract from the governesses who presided over both schools: they seemed sensible and zealous, and in every way the whole thing was respectable. But the priest, a young man, has a passion for arithmetic; he teaches it with ardour to his pupils, who have a