Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/34

28 natural level—in most cases a rich and substantial Irish brogue; though at one time our professor inaugurated a course of Hebrew, learning the day's lesson himself on the previous evening. Still, taking advantage of the fact that I studied at my own home, and of the eccentric activity of my professor, I was enabled to present a list of conquests at the end of the year which at once secured my admission to the monastic garb. The list is a curious commentary on our modus procedendi: it comprised: (1) French Grammar and a modicum of French literature; (2) Greek Grammar, St. John's Gospel, one book of Xenophon, and a few pages of the Iliad!—which latter were crammed for the express purpose of disconcerting the examiner; (3) Latin Grammar, several lives from Nepos, two books of Cæsar, six orations of Cicero, the Catilina of Sallust, the Germania of Tacitus, the Ars Poetica of Horace, two books of Livy, two books of the Æneid, and fragments of Ovid, Terence, and Curtius. As I only remained at the college from June 1884 until May 1885 it will be recognised how much care and exertion were required in later years to correct the crudity of such a procedure.

Those were not the worst days of our Seraphic College. Our professor was an earnest and hard-working priest, though an indifferent scholar, an unskilful teacher, and burdened with many difficulties. But the time came when even less discretion was exercised, and not only were studies neglected but the