I had the pleasure one day of visiting nearly all the free schools
which the wise philanthropy of the Protestant residents of Naples has
established in that city. The schools had a peculiar interest for me,
because I had noticed (in an uncareful fashion enough, no doubt) the
great changes which had taken place in Italy under its new national
government, and was desirous to see for myself the sort of progress
the Italians of the south were making in avenues so long closed to
them. I believe I have no mania for missionaries; I have heard of the
converted Jew-and-a-half, and I have thought it a good joke; but
I cannot help offering a very cordial homage to the truth that the
missionaries are doing a vast deal of good in Naples, where they are
not only spreading the gospel, but the spelling-book, the arithmetic,
and the geography.
It is not to be understood from the word missionaries, that this work
is done by men especially sent from England or America to perform it.
The free Protestant schools in Naples are conducted under the auspices
of the Evangelical Aid Committee,--composed of members of the English
Church, the Swiss Church, and the Presbyterian Church; the President
of this committee is Dr. Strange, an Englishman, and the Treasurer
is Mr. Rogers, the American banker. The missionaries in Naples,
therefore, are men who have themselves found out their work and
appointed themselves to do it. The gentleman by whose kindness I was
permitted to visit the schools was one of these men,--the Rev. Mr.
Buscarlet, the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Naples, a Swiss by
birth, who had received his education chiefly in Scotland.
He accompanied me to the different schools, and as we walked up the
long Toledo, and threaded our way through the sprightly Neapolitan
crowd, he told me of the origin of the schools, and of the peculiar
difficulties encountered in their foundation and maintenance. They
are no older than the union of Naples with the Kingdom of Italy, when
toleration of Protestantism was decreed by law; and from the first,
their managers proceeded upon a principle of perfect openness and
candor with the parents who wished to send their children to them.
They announced that the children would be taught certain branches of
learning, and that the whole Bible would be placed in their hands,
to be studied and understood. In spite of this declaration of the
Protestant character of the schools, the parents of the children
were so anxious to secure them the benefits of education, that
they willingly ran the risk of their becoming heretics. They
were principally people of the lower classes,--laborers, hackmen,
fishermen, domestics, and very small shopkeepers, but occasionally
among them were parents able to send their children to other schools,
yet preferring the thorough and conscientious system practiced in
these. So the children came, and thanks to the peaceful, uncombative
nature of Italian boys, who get on with much less waylaying and
thumping and bullying than boys of northern blood, they have not
been molested by their companions who still live the wild life of the
streets, and they have only once suffered through interference of
the priests. On complaint to the authorities the wrong was promptly
redressed, and was not again inflicted. Of course these poor little
people, picked up out of the vileness and ignorance of a city that
had suffered for ages the most degrading oppression, are by no means
regenerate yet, but there seems to be great hope for them. Now at
least they are taught a reasonable and logical morality--and who can
tell what wonders the novel instruction may not work? They learn for
the first time that it is a foolish shame to lie and cheat, and it
would scarcely be surprising if some of them were finally persuaded
that Honesty is the best Policy--a maxim that few Italians believe.
And here lies the trouble,--in the unfathomable, disheartening
duplicity of the race. The children are not quarrelsome, nor cruel,
nor brutal; but the servile defect of falsehood fixed by long
generations of slavery in the Italians, is almost ineradicable. The
fault is worse in Naples than elsewhere in Italy; but how bad it is
everywhere, not merely travellers, but all residents in Italy, must
bear witness.
The first school which we visited was a girls' school, in which some
forty-four little women of all ages, from four to fifteen years,
were assembled under the charge of a young Corfute girl, an Italian
Protestant, who had delegated her authority to different children
under her. The small maidens gathered around their chiefs in groups,
and read from the book in which they were studying when we appeared.
Some allowance must be made for difference of the languages, Italian
being logically spelled and easily pronounced; but I certainly never
heard American children of their age read nearly so well. They seemed
also to have a lively understanding of what they read, and to be
greatly interested in the scriptural stories of which their books were
made up. They repeated verses from the Bible, and stanzas of poetry,
all very eagerly and prettily. As bashfulness is scarcely known
to their race, they had no hesitation in showing off their
accomplishments before a stranger, and seemed quite delighted with
his applause. They were not particularly quiet; perhaps with young
Neapolitans that would be impossible. I saw their copy-books, in which
the writing was very good, (I am sure the printer would like mine to
be as legible,) and the books were kept neat and clean, as were the
hands and faces of the children. Taking the children as one goes in
the streets of Naples, it would require a day perhaps to find as many
clean ones as I saw in these schools, where cleanliness is resolutely
insisted upon. Many of the children were ragged; here and there
was one hideous with _ophthalmia_; but there was not a clouded
countenance, nor a dirty hand among them. We should have great hopes
for a nation of which the children can be taught to wash themselves.
There were fourteen pupils in the boys' superior school, where
geography, mathematics, linear drawing, French, Italian history, and
ancient history were taught. A brief examination showed the boys to
be well up in their studies;--indeed they furnished some recondite
information about Baffin's Bay for which I should not myself have
liked to be called on suddenly. Their drawing-books were prodigies of
neatness, and betrayed that aptness for form and facility of execution
which are natural to the Italians. Some of these boys had been in the
schools nearly three years; they were nearly all of the class which
must otherwise have grown up to hopeless vagabondage; but here they
were receiving gratis an education that would fit them for employments
wherein trained intellectual capacity is required. If their education
went no higher than this, what an advance it would be upon their
original condition!
In the room devoted to boys of lower grade, I entangled myself in
difficulties with a bright-eyed young gentleman, whom I asked if he
liked Italian history better than ancient history. He said he liked
the latter, especially that of the Romans, much better. "Why, that
is strange. I should think an Italian boy would like Italian history
best." "But were not the Romans also Italians, Signore?" I blush to
say that I basely sneaked out of this trouble by answering that they
were not like the Italians of the present day,--whatever that meant.
But indeed all these young persons were startlingly quick with their
information, and knowing that I knew very little on any subject with
certainty, I think I was wise to refuse all offers to examine them in
their studies.
We left this school and returned to the Toledo by one of those
wonderful little side streets already mentioned, which are forever
tumultuous with the oddest Neapolitan life--with men quarreling
themselves purple over small quantities of fish--with asses braying
loud and clear above their discord--with women roasting pine-cones
at charcoal fires--with children in the agonies of having their hair
combed--with degraded poultry and homeless dogs--with fruit-stands
and green groceries, and the little edifices of ecclesiastical
architecture for the sale of lemonade--with wandering bag-pipers, and
herds of nonchalant goats--with horses, and grooms currying them--and
over all, from vast heights of balcony, with people lazily hanging
upon rails and looking down on the riot. Reëntering the stream of the
Toledo, it carried us almost to the Museo Borbonico before we again
struck aside into one of the smaller streets, whence we climbed quite
to the top of one of those incredibly high Neapolitan houses. Here,
crossing an open terrace on the roof, we visited three small rooms, in
which there were altogether some hundred boys in the first stages
of reclamation. They were under the immediate superintendence of Mr.
Buscarlet and he seemed to feel the fondest interest in them. Indeed,
there was sufficient reason for this: up to a certain point, the
Neapolitan children learn so rapidly and willingly that it can hardly
be other than a pleasure to teach them. After this, their zeal flags;
they know enough; and their parents and friends, far more ignorant
than they, are perfectly satisfied with their progress. Then the
difficulties of their teachers begin; but here, in these lowest grade
schools, they had not yet begun. The boys were still eager to learn,
and were ardently following the lead of their teachers. They were
little fellows, nearly all, and none of them had been in school more
than a year and a half, while some had been there only three or four
months. They rose up with "_Buon giorno, signori_," as we entered, and
could hardly be persuaded to lapse back to the duties of life during
our stay. They had very good faces, indeed, for the most part, and
even the vicious had intellectual brightness. Just and consistent
usage has the best influence on them; and one boy was pointed out
as quite docile and manageable, whose parents had given him up as
incorrigible before he entered the school. As it was, there was
something almost pathetic in his good behavior, as being possible to
him, but utterly alien to his instincts. The boys of these schools
seldom play truant, and they are never severely beaten in school; when
quite intractable, notice is given to their parents, and they usually
return in a more docile state. It sometimes happens that the boys are
taken away by their parents, from one motive or another; but they find
their way back again, and are received as if nothing had happened.
The teacher in the first room here is a handsome young Calabrian,
with the gentlest face and manner,--one of the most efficient teachers
under Mr. Buscarlet. The boys had out their Bibles when we entered,
and one after another read passages to us. There were children of
seven, eight, and nine years, who had been in the school only three
months, and who read any part of their Bibles with facility and
correctness; of course, before coming to school they had not known one
letter from another. The most accomplished scholar was a youngster,
named Saggiomo, who had received eighteen months' schooling. He was
consequently very quick indeed, and wanted to answer all the hard
questions put to the other boys. In fact, all of them were ready
enough, and there was a great deal of writhing and snapping of fingers
among those who longed to answer some hesitator's question--just as
you see in schools at home. They were examined in geography, and
then in Bible history--particularly Joseph's story. They responded
in chorus to all demands on this part of study, and could hardly be
quieted sufficiently to give Saggiomo's little brother, aged five, a
chance to tell why Joseph's brethren sold him. As soon as he could
be heard he piped out: "_Perchè Giuseppe aveva dei sogni_!" (Because
Joseph had dreams.) It was not exactly the right answer, but nobody
laughed at the little fellow, though they all roared out in correction
when permitted.
In the next room, boys somewhat older were examined in Italian
history, and responded correctly and promptly. They were given a
sum which they performed in a miraculously short time; and their
copy-books, when shown, were equally creditable to them. Their teacher
was a Bolognese,--a naturalized Swiss,--who had been a soldier,
and who maintained strict discipline among his irregulars, without,
however, any perceptible terrorism.
The amount of work these teachers accomplish in a day is incredible:
the boys' school opens at eight in the morning and closes at four,
with intermission of an hour at noon. Then in the evening the same
men teach a school for adults, and on Sunday have their classes in the
Sunday-schools. And this the whole year round. Their pay is not great,
being about twenty dollars a month, and they are evidently not wholly
self-interested from this fact. The amount of good they accomplish
under the direction of their superiors is in proportion to the work
done. To appreciate it, the reader must consider that they take the
children of the most ignorant and degraded of all the Italians; that
they cause them to be washed corporeally, first of all, and then set
about cleansing them morally; and having cleared away as much of the
inherited corruption of ages as possible, they begin to educate them
in the various branches of learning. There is no direct proselyting
in the schools, but the Bible is the first study, and the children
are constantly examined in it; and the result is at least not
superstition. The advance upon the old condition of things is
incalculably great; for till the revolution under Garibaldi in 1860,
the schools of Naples were all in the hands of the priests or their
creatures, and the little learning there imparted was as dangerous as
it could well be made. Now these schools are free, the children
are honestly and thoroughly taught, and if they are not directly
instructed in Protestantism, are at least instructed to associate
religion with morality, probably for the first time in their lives.
Too much credit cannot be given to the Italian government which has
acted in such good faith with the men engaged in this work, protecting
them from all interruption and persecution; but after all, the great
praise is due to their own wise, unflagging zeal. They have worked
unostentatiously, making no idle attacks on time-honored prejudices,
but still having a purpose of enlightenment which they frankly avowed.
The people whom they seek to benefit judge them by their works, and
the result is that they have quite as much before them as they can do.
Their discouragements are great. The day's teaching is often undone at
home; the boys forget as aptly as they learn; and from the fact that
only the baser feelings of fear and interest have ever been appealed
to before in the Neapolitans, they have often to build in treacherous
places without foundation of good faith or gratitude. Embarrassments
for want of adequate funds are sometimes felt also. But no one can
study their operations without feeling that success must attend their
efforts, with honor to them, and with inestimable benefits to the
generation which shall one day help to govern free Italy.