Our last chapter closed with a brief sketch of the life of Beckwith, so
that in the present I might be free to speak of the work done, without
interpolations as to the personal movements of him who was in several
respects the chief worker. To those who desire to read the full particulars
of General Beckwith's life, I very earnestly commend the deeply interesting
work of Pastor J. P. Meille, to whose pages I am greatly indebted.
Beckwith was early impressed with the conviction that God had
providentially preserved the Vaudois, that they might be the agents of
evangelizing Italy, through the political changes which were being wrought
in that country by means of the kingdom of Sardinia. He was the first to
recognize this important truth, and he never lost sight of it, either in
the motive which it supplied for his own efforts, or in the influence he
sought to bring to bear upon others. This belief in the mission of the
Vaudois quickened all his sympathies and guided all his plans. To turn to
these plans, one of the earliest was the improvement and extension of
primary education. Beckwith saw at once the value of the Quartier schools,
and he began to erect a better class of buildings for this purpose. First
of all he bore the whole expense, excepting the site; afterwards he paid
the cost of labour in erecting the buildings, but required the inhabitants
to supply material as well as site. He also oftentimes contributed largely
to augment the salary of the underpaid teachers. Some one hundred and
twenty buildings, commodious and well-situated, were the result of these
efforts.
But the improvement in the hamlet schools brought out more distinctly the
sad condition of the parish schools. To overcome difficulties, Beckwith
would say to the parish authorities, You need a better school and residence
for your teacher; if you will raise a thousand francs (about a fourth or
fifth, according to circumstances), I will supply the rest.
If this offer was accepted, the colonel generally made the contract, and
overlooked the erection of the building.
In this way, a little by little, some this year and others the next, in
nearly every commune of the valleys there rose up commodious edifices, duly
furnished with all the requisites of teaching. The change was immense from
the narrow, confined, ill-ventilated, badly lighted, and unfurnished
buildings which had previously existed.
The reformation, however, in the buildings and their fittings was not the
only thing requisite for a good school. Good teachers were also needed, and
to procure these it was necessary to augment the scale of stipend. At the
time under review the highest salary was from three to four hundred francs
(L12 or L16) per annum. Beckwith set about this task, and being ably
supported by the moderator of the church, M. Bonjour, he had the
satisfaction of seeing an arrangement made by which the salaries of the
teachers were raised one-third. This augmentation began on the 1st of
January, 1837. But the good effected by this movement was not simply the
increased pay of the teacher; it raised the work in public estimation, and
gave to the teacher's position a degree of security which enabled him to
devote himself more entirely to teaching as a distinct profession.
Another means for advancing education was that of increasing the personal
efficiency of the teachers themselves. To accomplish this, the teachers of
all the parish schools in the valleys were sent for a course of instruction
at the normal college at Lausanne. The expense of this important measure
was borne entirely by Beckwith. And, moreover, to secure permanently the
above results, a rule was adopted by the synod in 1839, that henceforth
every teacher in the Vaudois parish schools must produce a certificate of
didactic power, as well as moral fitness for the office.
Beckwith's next movement was the establishment of a boarding-school for
girls. I had the pleasure of visiting this very interesting and important
institution in 1871, and was struck by the efficiency and excellence of its
character. But it is time to refer to his exertions in connection with
SECONDARY instruction. Although Dr. Gilly very deservedly has the chief
credit in reference to the erection of that noble college of the Holy
Trinity at La Torre, which forms so imposing and interesting an object to
the Christian tourist, and which constituted so marked an epoch in the
restoration of piety and sound learning among the pastors and general
population of the valleys, yet it must be acknowledged that the many
difficulties associated with this grand enterprise would hardly have been
surmounted, had it not have been for the presence on the spot of so true a
friend to the Vaudois, and so able an ally of the noble projector of the
college, as his military colleague.
Not only did he provide a building for the grammar school whose location
had been one of the difficulties connected with the establishment of the
college, but he also superintended the erection of the buildings, and gave
a sum of ten thousand francs towards the cost. Dr. Gilly acknowledges these
things in a letter to the moderator under date of April 28th, 1835. He also
was instrumental, with Dr. Gilly, in founding a grammar school at Pomaret.
This school was subsequently enlarged by the efforts of the Rev. Dr.
Stewart, of Leghorn, another warm-hearted friend of the Waldensian Church.
In 1847 Beckwith erected a group of houses, just above the college, for the
residence of the professors. But important as were the reformations sought
and obtained in the educational machinery of the valleys, yet it was almost
as needful to improve the character of the ecclesiastical edifices used by
the Vaudois. Few were such as fitted the purposes to which they were set
apart. There is nothing surprising in this when we consider the
circumstances of the Vaudois through so many centuries. But, easy as it is
to account for the lack of edifices appropriate to the decent and reverent
worship of Almighty God at the period referred to, the thing itself was
nevertheless a misfortune. Hence in 1843 Beckwith offered to restore the
temple at Rodoret, which was in a most deplorable state. The temple was not
alone in its need; the parsonage-house, a very crazy building, was
destroyed by an avalanche on the 16th of January, 1845, burying beneath its
ruins the pastor, his wife, their little child, aged five months, and
servant, the only living creature escaping being the pastor's dog! The new
temple being finished in March, Beckwith commenced operations for the
erection of a suitable presbytery. The total cost of the new building was
thirteen thousand francs, contributed chiefly by Beckwith, but with the
help of the commune, Dr. Stewart, of Leghorn, and friends in Dublin and
America.
His next work was the restoration of the church at Rora. This matter was
accompanied by a pleasing incident. He was speaking of the affair at the
house of a friend in England. A little girl of the family overheard the
conversation, and, approaching the general, offered him a penny, saying she
would like to assist in building the church. He was much touched by this
action of the child, and taking her on his knees, said, "Yes, my friend;
with that which you have given me I will build the church; and your penny,
placed in the corner stone, will tell all the world that you have been the
founder." The new building was consecrated in January, 1846. Other temples
and presbyteries were restored, including that of Prali. The churches of
Coppier and Angrogna were restored in 1847 by Mrs. General Molyneux
Williams. But a greater work was accomplished in 1852, when Beckwith
erected a church for the parish of La Torre, which, under the influence of
oppressive edicts, had been deprived of its temple for hundreds of years.
This edifice is, both as regards dimensions and architecture, suited to the
position it holds as the parish church of the capital of the valleys; those
valleys no longer dreading the approach of sanguinary bands to pillage and
destroy, its people no longer crushed beneath a bondage which refused them
the opportunities of worship in their own parochial boundaries according
to the creed and ritual of their sainted and heroic forefathers. This grand
work was the last preliminary to that church extension and missionary
revival which the era of emancipation made possible to the Vaudois Church,
and which Beckwith had so long eagerly and clearly anticipated.