They seek to obtain for them all the happiness of which man is
capable here below; they labour to render him as perfect as he can be
as long as he retains this poor "mortal coil." We should regard them
as _mauvais plaisants_ if they were to think it their duty to make for
us the trials of Job, while showing us a future prospect of eternal
bliss.
But the fact is that our emperors and kings and lay sovereigns are men
with wives and children, personally interested in the education of the
rising generation, and the future of their people. A good Pope, on the
contrary, has no other object but to gain Heaven himself, and to drag
up a hundred and thirty millions of men after him. Thus it is that his
subjects can with an ill grace ask of him those temporal advantages
which secular princes feel bound to offer their subjects
spontaneously.
In the Papal States the schools for the lower classes are both few and
far between. The government does nothing to increase either their
number or their usefulness, the parishes being obliged to maintain
them; and even this source is sometimes cut off, for not unfrequently
the minister disallows this heading in the municipal budget, and
pockets the money himself. In addition to this, secondary teaching,
excepting in the colleges, exists but in name; and I should advise any
father who wishes his son's education to extend beyond the catechism,
to send him into Piedmont.
But on the other hand, I am bound to urge in the Pope's behalf that
the colleges are numerous, well endowed, and provided with ample means
for turning out mediocre priests.
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