PUBLIC EDUCATION IN NAPLES.
[Fnom OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.] .Naples, Oct. 1864. To form a just estimate of the present condition of Naples it would be necessary not merely to look into things as they are but also to compare them with what they were. This is what few strangers can do, for, to the tide of visitors who annually flocked to Naples in former times, all beyond the outward show of its beauties was a sealed book. The Museum, Pompeii, Vesuvius, and such other sights as they found noted in their guide-books, constituted the objects open to their observation, but the interior condition of Naples was a thing hidden from sight behind the obscurity of a Government whose relentless jealousy made all persons afraid to speak—au obscurity which it required long residence to penetrate. People came to Naples, ran the round of its sights, and went away without catching a glimpse of its inward life. On the other hand, the new comers who now flock to inspect the objects formerly omitted in a sightseer's catalogue, bringing with them well- founded horror of the old Government but exaggerated expec- tations of radical change worked in the twinkling of an eye, are seldom capable of justly appreciating the value of what has been done in the way of improvement, and often go away with an unfavourable opinion because they see much which is not up to the mark of their expectations. I have been going in detail through the public institutions of all kinds in Naples, and the conviction left on my mind is that much as the new Administration may be blamed for a narrow spirit of coterie in many of its political measures, it has exhibited a truly astonishing amount of activity
in the removal of abuses which once made the public establishments of the city a sink of corruption, and in promoting the moral improvements of the people.
The radical defect of the Neapolitan population—a defect so salient as to have become proverbial—was its debased morality, its painful want of moral courage. There is only one means of remedying this vice. The generation that has already grown to man's estate will carry the infection with it to the grave, but if there is any virtue in the people at all, then it may be elicited by education in the generation now in its infancy. I have been amazed to see the success which is attending the efforts to disseminate popular instruction, the degree in which the lower classes respond to the offer of it, and above all the zeal with which private assogiation is coming to the assistance of the authorities in behalf of the enterprise. When I consider what Naples has been, I hold this last to be a most encouraging symp- tom for the future. The schools now in Naples fall into three great categories—the day schools, the infant schools, and the even- ing schools. All of these receive some subvention from the muni- cipality, but the first are entirely supported from funds voted by that body. They form, in fact, a portion of the general educational system provided by the State gratuitously to the lower classes. On paper each schools figure amongst the Bourbon institutions, but their number in reality was so small that a gentleman who from his high official position under that dynasty must be especially disposed to vindicate its provisions in regard to education, declined in answer to a question from me to vouch for one school having existed per commune. At this moment there is not one in the whole of the ancient kingdom without such, while in Naples there are sixty-five day schools, of which thirty are for girls, the aggre- gate number of pupils in these being 5,681. I am quite ready to confess that on inspection these schools leave much to be desired, but I have been pleased to find that the authorities are perfectly aware of their defects. These are due to the want of an ade- quate number of persons qualified to impart instruction in a manner that is comprehensible to a population the ignorance of which it is hard for an Englishman to conceive. I have seen chil- dren of five and six years of age who did not know their right from their left hand, and the Governor of the Reformatory for Juvenile Offenders told me that ninety-five per cent of those under his care entered his house without knowing a letter. The Govern- ment has shown itself, however, quite alive to the defect under which its efforts at disseminating education labour, and it has estab- lished normal schools for the production of a set of teachers more fitted for their duties. So far as one can judge at this early period there seems every reason to hope for good success in the attempt, for on all hands it is admitted that the normal schools are resorted to largely, and that the instruction is followed with remarkable intelli- gence. The two other classes of schools, the infant and the evening schools, the former for children up to seven years of age, the latter for adults, are distinguished from the day schools by their having attained already excellent management and complete success. The reason for their superior success is to be found in the radical differ- ence between the management of the former and the latter ;- the one being strictly official creations are confided solely to the mechanical care of salaried officials, while the others are under the continual supervision of individuals who have created them by private effort from a philanthropic devotion to the cause of popu- lar education. I wish to draw especial attention to the fact that the successful infant and evening schools of Naples are due to the initiative and vigilant assiduity of private enterprise, an enterprise which has been in fact supported by funds voted by the munici- pality, but the success of which is due to the really admirable per- severance of a number of gentlemen and ladies who without remu- neration spend a large portion of their time in regularly attending the schools, and by their vigilant attention in keeping them in good order. I cannot refrain from bearing especial testi- mony to the great services rendered by the secretary of the asso- ciation, the Marchese Casanuova, who seta a truly noble example to the Neapolitan aristocracy by the untiring zeal with which he gives up his whole time to the good work he has at heart. I have visited repeatedly and with care these infant schools, and I have no hesi- tation in saying that none can be On a better footing. The chil- dren are taken care of gratuitously till five or six in the evening, they get wholesome diet, they are taught with love, and they are above all strictly inured to washing and cleanliness. The intelli- gence shown by these little creatures is extraordinary. As my visits have been numerous, I have had an opportunity of satisfying myself as to.the genuineness of their proficiency, which is particu- larly wonderful in arithmetic. Also it must be a matter of marvel for those who know what English village school children are to see and writing are of the most elementary kind, but on the other hand advantages proffered them. A LooriEn-Ox.
he has what is not common amongst his fellows, a really burning fervour in behalf of his calling to do good and to propagate the true faith. The man is a revival of Peter the Hermit in the type of his unlettered enthusiasm and his astonishing self-reliance on the power of going successfully straight on end in the most arduous enterprise with the sole assistance of his conviction of the holiness of his undertaking. Ten years ago the Friar set eyes for the first time in his life on two blacks, just landed from Africa, whence they had been brought by a missionary. The sight fired his im- agination with visions of converting to Christianity Africa, and presently the friar was on his way to the Upper Nile with the few dollars his fervid appeals had succeeded in begging, without a knowledge of the country he was visiting or any protection beyond the freemasonry which secures reception for a monk in all con- ventual buildings. After a while Don Ludovico re-appeared at Naples with some black boys and girls whom he had picked up somewhere near Khartoum, and as the project did not savour of instruction to whites the piety of the Bourbons assisted him in providing a permanent seminary for these strangers, several batches of whom have followed, so that there are now 150 black neophytes. So far Don Ludovico's efforts were expended on a crotchet, but in 1860 his philanthropic passions took a new direc- with what avidity the little Neapolitans delight in being taught. tion. He founded an Order of Grey-Friars, bound merely by annual All this requires to be beheld to be adequately understood. It is vows, whose duty was to serve in hospitals. In addition he aimed intended to have ultimatelytwenty-four infant schools in Naples,but at gathering together all the homeless forsaken children that infest at present there are only eleven, giving instruction to 1,400 children, the streets of Naples—children without parents—dragging out an all children of parents earning by day wages their susteuance, and existence of inconceivable filth and degraded wretchedness in the who formerly would have grown up in incredible savageness. An gutters and other holes of this Babel of foul monstrosities, and at incident happened to me the other day strikingly illustrative of the bringing them up to some trade. The object was a really fine one, moral obtuseness in which these classes have been born. I was in and with the same contempt for physical difficulties with which he the school of the Chiaja quarter,—which is peopled mostly by went into Africa Don Ludovico set about the execution of his fishermen,—when amongst the children I remarked one little project, and knocking at all doors for a pittance in furtherance girl of unusually neat appearance. I asked her of what trade her thereof. It required his fervour, and above all his religious father was, when she quietly replied a smuggler. In former years character, capable of exerting an ascendancy over persons other- s man who kept an illicit still in the Highlands was no doubt pretty wise not easily at this moment amenaUe to appeals in behalf well known to his neighbours, but yet. it never would have of new institutions in Naples, to enable him to collect the coniai- happened that his habits of fraud should have been avowed without butions he got. Soon the good results of his labour became appa- disguise. At first very serious obstacles had to be overcome to rent, and the province gave him an annual grant of 32,000 francs. bring the children to these schools. The priests accused them of But lately the Friar has been exposed to the charge of being a being seminaries for weaning souls from faith, while the mothers, plotter against Government, and it has been proposed by the on seeing their offsprings' hair cropped, screamed against the late Prefect to deprive him of this subsidy on the ground that supposed intention to make them soldiers. At present the he is systematically instilling into the minds of the children hatred schools are so popular that as soon as one is opened it is of the new order of things. I have heard from the principal par- filled. The capital want experienced is good schools for the ties on both sides their version of what has happened, and the im- children after they are obliged to leave the infant asylums from premien left on my mind is that this is one of the unwise—I may having attained their seventh year. This want it is at this moment say foolish—persecutions inspired by a narrow spirit of police,— attempted to mike good in part by a daily school for girls in which an impression in which I am confirmed by the publicly expressed they can remain until their sixteenth year, and a Sunday one for opinion of Signor Imbriani, the official Delegate for Instruction. boys who being bound to some trade cannot attend school on week- The truth is that Don Ludovico is a Friar, and ars such cannot but days. The project is to be started by private subscription, and I have some regard to the utteranczs of his superiors. It is, however, the am informed that the money required is already secured—a fact fact that what he is doing for popular instruction is disapproved of highly creditable to the Neapolitans. The evening schools are in Rome, and that he is himself spoken of there as a man of foolish sixteen in number, and count 1,135 pupils. They are like the infant impulses. I have visited his establishment, and it appears to me schools managed by a private association assisted by municipal that, although he may be deficient in letters, the practical good he grants, and like them they are admirably conducted. The majority is doing is very great. About five hundred boys and girls, who of the attendants are youths from 16 to 20, but there are also men but for him would be practising vice and undergoing imprison- well advanced in years, and particular care is taken to make them ment, are now lodged, fed, clothed, and taught a handicraft by an example to their fellows. For instance, a double prize was lately him. The dormitories and all the accessory arrangements are awarded to an old blacksmith who has been coming to the Monte- good. Three hours a day are devoted to a school, subjected to calvario school. In addition to these organized sets of public Government inspection, and conducted by to Grey-Friars who are schools there are several private establishments of considerable now attending the normal school to get their certificates ; while importance, one of which is particularly deserving of attention, the other hours are devoted to learning a trade, in shops appended The traveller who drives up to Capodimonte can hardly fail to to the establishment. It. appears to me that although the boys remark a crescent of mean-looking one-storied buildings just at the formerly may not have learnt to know that Victor Emanuel was foot of its garden, for they are striking from their contrast with their King, the present system offers every reasonable guarantee all around, being like nothing except the first shabby plantings of the authorities can demand, and it would show a very poor an incipient square in some very out of-the-way London suburb, wisdom to destroy, as was threatened, an institution that does If curiosity makes him look at these poor buildings the chances so much positive good on such slight grounds for suspicion as are that his wonder will be presently excited at the sight of sundry I have heard advanced. It is to me inconceivable that politicians grinning niggers at the windows—of all ages, from mere urchins should be blind to the advantage of compromising good ecclesias- to grown up men--and all clothed in the brown cowls of Francis- tics of Don Ludovico's type with the dull fanatics who rule in can friars. Wondering at the queer spectacle the traveller will Rome, and worry them when willing to adhere to the new Govern- probably ask his coachman for an explanation, and he will be told meat by asking things which their position will not allow them to that this is the establishment for mendicant children of that same concede. Such is an outline of the present condition of public Friar who is just hurrying across the crescent, having his hand instruction in Naples, and I think an impartial judgment will kissed with devout respect by those who stand about. This pronounce that as much has been done as could be achieved in so Friar is a remarkable man, whose doings have been much can- short a time with the defective materials at hand. Above all, let vassed. His name is Don Ludovico di Cassoria, from his native attention be directed to these two capital points, it is not merely hamlet close to Naples. He is literally a man of the people, with Government, but also private enterprise which is promoting popular no instruction above that of his class. His power of reading instructions, and the people respond largely and readily to the
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