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 CHAPTER IV

STUDENTSHIP

the novitiate has been successfully accomplished it was necessary to resume the course of our education. Through the total neglect of profane study which is foolishly directed, most of the ground we had already conquered was lost during the year of the novitiate. Latin was sustained, even advanced a step, since all our services and quasi-religious studies had been in Latin—although ecclesiastical Latin, and especially the Latin of the psalms of which we heard so much, would make the shade of Cicero shudder. Whatever other acquisitions had been made were entirely lost. We had, therefore, to devote ourselves once more to ‘humanities,’ and for this purpose we were transferred (without a glimpse of the immortal lakes, for the friars had fallen on evil days with the bishop) to what is now the principal house of studies of the Franciscans at Forest Gate in East London.

The friars have to-day at Forest Gate a large and imposing pile of buildings, two schools, a fine but incomplete monastery, and a very spacious and