Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/79

Rh authority in architecture, archæology, rubrics, casuistry, canon law and history. The authorities had the intention of making him our professor of theology, and it was thought that he could safely be entrusted with our philosophical studies in the meantime. He was a Belgian friar of noted eccentricity, and his method of teaching philosophy was quite original—a family of parrots could have passed his examinations as brilliantly as we did. After each lesson he dictated a number of questions and answers, and on the following morning the answers were to be repeated word for word. Some of my fellow-students passed a most satisfactory examination at the end of the term without having a single idea on philosophical questions. The worthy professor was another victim of our seditious movements.

The last three or four years of the student's career are devoted to the study of theology. Under that title are usually comprised ecclesiastical history, canon law, scripture, moral and dogmatic theology. Ecclesiastical history, usually a very narrow and one-sided version of the vicissitudes of the Church, does not, as a rule, occupy much of their time, and generally assumes an apologetical character. Canon law, a vast system of ecclesiastical legislation, is either entirely neglected or given in a very rudimentary fashion. Each order and diocese secures one or two experts in the subject, who are appealed to in case of complications, internal or external, but the majority of the