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PROGRESS OF ASSOCIATION. THE BOARD OV SU...
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THE JESUITS IN SICILY. I UK friends eif ...
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CORSICA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [We f...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Mrs. Ciiisiiolm's Speiocii On Hoard Thi ...
child . And I remember myself , after this , in my childish play , playing , with boats of walnut-shells , at removing the separated members of families across the sea to rejoin each other inla foreign country . And I also distinctly remember putting a Wesleyan preacher and a Romancatholic priest in the same shell , as being part of my play . _jyfy notions on these points must have arisen from the practice of my mother of letting me stop in the room when neig hbours called , some of whom were-travellers , and men of thought , and talked of missions—missionaries then beginning to be a topic of conversation . These ideas continually haunted me as I grew up . And I had the advantage of a mother , to whom I owe whatever energy of character I have ; for it was her constant maxim to me , never to shed a tear , or allow a fear to turn me from mv purpose .
My mind also spontaneously turned to religious speculation ; so that I had persuaded myself , at sixteen , that I ought to declare myself a Eoman Catholic by conviction , ana decline to be confirmed according to the ritual of the Church of England , in which I had been bred up . Shortly after this , I engaged myself to the bond of marriage . The man to whom I was betrothed was an officer in the Indian army . And before I betrothed myself to him , I told him , I felt within myself that a commission had been given me from above to devote all my energies to relieving human suffering wherever the scene of his duties might he abroad . That , as this might interfere with his domestic enjoyment , it was right he should know before we were joined in
marriage . He at once agreed to marry me on this condition , to which , as Mr . Harding has stated , he most faithfully adhered , and is at this day adhering : as because we round that the time was come when it was absolutely needful that a competent agent to look after the interests of the emigrants on landing in the colony , whom we had sent out in 1850 , from this country , and Captain Chisholm at once resolved to go to Australia at his own expense , and we accordingly halved our small income , and separated . In this , then , I have been favoured by Providence , as I have been in my chilelren , with whom God has blessed us , and whose nurture and education was the only point my husband and myself had agreed to reserve before we
married , as taking the first place in our plan of life . We went to India , and there I founded an institution for the daughters of European soldiers , called , a " Female School of Industry , " several of which still exist . In 1838 , we visited Australia for change of air . There I found some hundred single females , unprotected , unemployed ; numbers more continuing to arrive in ships ; and almosfe-the whole falling into an immoral course of life , as a necessary result . I applied myself to the task of getting these poor creatures into safety , and decent situations as servants . I met with discouragement on all hands ; but I persevered , and I succeeded in my object . The Governor , at length , allowed me to sleep in a small room , with the girls at the Emigrants' Barracks . It was , it is true , full of rats , as I
found the first night I entered it ; but these I poisoned , and stuck to my post . I was thus able to get a personal influence and control over the girls . I founded a college to get them engagements in the Bush , and I got out some hundreds of girls into good places . In pursuing this object I at length found it necessary to take large parties of these unprotected girls into tho Bush to procure places , and that I must accompany these parties myself . This I did for several years . The parties varied from 100 to 150 each . So I worked on for many years in Australia . I advanced much money for tho conveyance of emigrants ; but so
honestly was I repaid these advances , that all my losses did not amount during this period to 201 . And , under God ' s blessing , I was the means of procuring engagements , and of settling no less than 1 , 000 souls , in tho aggregate , beforo I left— -a vast proportion of whom being young females , wero saved from falling into a life of infamy . I shall never forgot tho warmth of my reception this day , and that of the health of my husband anel children , whom I havo bred up in tho maxim—to trust to thomselves , anel work for themselves ; and nover , if thoy havo any regarel tor thoir mother's momory , to look for Government patronage , or toko Government Pay .
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Progress Of Association. The Board Ov Su...
_PROGRESS OF ASSOCIATION . THE BOARD OV SUPPLY AND DEMAND _Wr aro enabled to state that a Pre ) visional Committee has _beien feinneel to _cemsider tho plan of a Poard of Supply and Demand , suggested by M . J . Lechevalier St , Anihv _^ .
The Jesuits In Sicily. I Uk Friends Eif ...
THE JESUITS IN SICILY . I UK friends eif the Jesuits antl of _meniks may have been recentl y rejoiced to learn , through Lorel Shrewsbury , that tho city of Palermo possesses a free Hchool feir bo ys , and a college of young students who pay for thoir _ed ucation , hedemging to tbe Jesuits , in addition tei 44 _convents and 2 ; j nunneries . An English journal has eagerl y ndoplfid these , statements , and in disdainfully _repudiating the desire _expressed by Lorel Shrewsbury to K "e similar _establishments transplanted into England , has sti gmatized Sicily with tho sovoro irony of " barbarous . " n a country not self-governed , wo must always nialco a ch , ar distinction between the nation and the
_government . Tho government tends to barbarize the nation ; hut the nation , though stripped of its political institutions , may yet preserve some institutions which derive from a moral order eif things that prevailed in Hitter times , and muy ho cling to civilization in tho _jnidnt of bayonets , monks , and Jesuit * . Thus , it would _«* _uafitfr to 0 ( dj Franca " _barUrmw" _bewwwe eh * hu
The Jesuits In Sicily. I Uk Friends Eif ...
fallen under the rule of bayonets , of monks , of Jesuits , and of a priesthood more servile than the clergy of any other Catholic country . Without drawing any distinction between the nation and the government , the Times in a recent article derided the miseries of Sicily , the country which has made the noblest efforts to reconquer independence , and which in spite of misfortune has by her very efforts proved worthy of a better lot , oi * at least hot deserving to be struck from the list of civilized nations . Let us examine , however , the real extent of the influence of the Jesuits in Sicily .
For the thirty-seven years during which the Jesuits were suppressed in Sicily—namely , from 1767 to 3804 , public instruction , which had been almost a monopoly in then ? hands , was entrusted to secular Lyceums , under a direction composed of the men of the highest intellectual eminence in the country . The literary history of Sicily in the eighteenth century , ( by Scinii Palermo , 1827 , ) describes the revolution effected by the expulsion of the Jesuits ih th _' e intellectual culture of the nation . When the Bourbons of Sicily were the first in Europe ( after Russia ) to restore the Jesuits , it was too late to extinguish the light or to arrest the progress of
intelligence . The Jesuits , on their return to the island , recovered only a fraction of the property and of the establishments they had formerly possessed—the hulk of them having been already disposed of ; and they found themselves ( as they remain to this day ) excluded from all the great towns except Palermo . They have not a single establishment at Messina , nor at Catania , nor at Syracuse , nor at Gergenti , nor at Cattagirone , nor at Trapani . During this interval of enlightenment , Sicily could boast of distinguished savants ; such as Piazzi , the astronomer ; Gioeni , the naturalist ; Gregorio , the publicist ; _Balsamo , the economist ; Meli , the poet ; Giovarni and Salvatori di Blasis , the theologians . Besides the ancient University of
Catania , she bad founded another at Palermo , to which the majority of her savants were attached . The restoration of the Jesuits encountered the powerful opposition of all the talents in the island . Restricted to the capital , and to six other towns , which , with Palermo , constitute barely 300 , 000 souls , or not quite an eighth of the entire population of the island , they could only to this limited degree enter into competition with the communal schools , whether private or governmental , for the instruction which is called in France " secondary , " that is , elementary Italian and Latin literature ; whilst all the rest of the secondary schools , and the whole of the primary schools and universities continued exempt from tbeir influence .
The University of Palermo , and the magistracy to which public instruction was entrusted , continually resisted their encroachments ; and it would be possible to name one town where , on an attempt being made to introduce the Jesuits , the entire population expressed their aversion to them by petitions unanimously signed and presented to the Government ; and another , from which they were ignominiously expelled by the indignation of the people in 1848 .
Lord Shrewsbury says , that 800 boys are educated at Palermo in the Jesnit schools . For a population of nearly 200 , 000 , this number ( supposing it to be exact ) , is not very largo . Even admitting that a third of the youth destined for tho liberal professions have the misfortune to receive instruction in tho _secemdary _scheiols of tho Jesuits , rather than in the normal schoe . li . of public instruction , or in tho _numereius private establishments , the evil is not no great as it seems . In the first pl * oe , as the Jesuits only givo " secondary instruction , " almost all who receive it in their schools must
necessarily pass into ono or either of the threo universities feir the higher branches of education , to fit themselves for the _professieins . This transition opens te > them a new field of intellectual culture , whieh wholly effaces the old . _Meiro to be piticel are the chilelren who aro educated at the _schoeils of tho Jesuits , in preference to the colleges eif tho _geieiel Fathers _Sceileipi , eir in private academics . The number eif these children does not exceed 40 eir 50 ; they belong to rich and noble families , and having no need of a profession , they do not ordinarily proceed from these schools to the universities to reform e > r to advance their education .
Whilst , however , the Jesuits have displayed such zeal in extending their miserable system at Palermo , thero _hnvo been found in that same city honourable citizens who havo constantly striven to promote tho interests of a real anel _seiund . instruction . Tho Academy of Sdences , and the Communal Library , which are now placed under tho auspices of tho municipality , wero founded by private individuals—the one in 1710 , tho other in 1760 . A college anel se . -heiol of navigation , freim whieh have proeccdod the ablest and most skilful pilots in tho Medi « terrancan , wm founded and riohly endowed in 1780 by Jowph Gioeni j a publio picture gallery was _Mtublithed
The Jesuits In Sicily. I Uk Friends Eif ...
in 1815 by Joseph _Ventimiglia , Prince de Belmonte ; an agricultural institute , endowed with rich lands in the neighbourhood of Palermo , and with a sum of 2000 ounces ( 1000 / . ) per annum , was founded in 1829 by the Prince de Castelnuovo . A prize of 400 ounces ( 200 ? . ) to be given every fourth year to the student who should have distinguished himself most in the study of Greek and Latin literature , and of Sicilian history , was founded in 1834 hy Paul
di Giovanni . In fine , there is one fact which alone proves that Sicily will never become the abject pupil of the Jesuits , as the Times conjectures . During the eighteen months' freedom of the island in 1848 and 1849 , the Sicilian Parliament lost no time in suppressing the schools and foundations of thc Jesuits , and in replacing them by national institutes . It proceeded also to suppress the monastic orders , commencing with the Liguorini .
It is agamst the will of the Nation that the Government maintains in Sicily such a prodigious number of convents . Since the coup d ' etat of 1816 , wben Sicily was stripped of her ancient constitution , and of her later constitution of 1812 at one blow , the Bourbons have continued to impose upon her the Codes and the French system , as it prevailed in the kingdom of Naples under Murat , and they have always attacked all that savoured of old Sicily , except the monks . In
this regard , the Bourbons have acted rather as the slaves of Rome than in their own interests . Generally speaking , tbe convents in tbeir present condition bring no advantage to the Government , since neither their material nor their intellectual resources enable them to influence , after the manner of the Jesuits , the moral , intellectual , or political education of the country : whilst , on the other hand , a positive evil is caused by withdrawing from a society not over-populated a great number of families who might otherwise be usefully employed in industrial and professional pursuits .
Formerly , it was considered that to protect the material prosperity of a country was as useful to absolutist as to free governments , but that was an illusion Certainly the nations have no hope of tbe future but in free governments ; but is it not melancholy to find a portion of the press pf a free country declaiming against the evil instead of denouncing the cause , and holding up the victim to scorn rather than the murderer to execration ? G .
Corsica In The Nineteenth Century. [We F...
CORSICA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY . [ We find in the Morning Chronicle thc following account of the state of Corsica , so amazing and so full of interest , that we reprint it in full . ] It has been said that , in the ordinary _courso of retribution in this world , a man ' s smallest sins are always moro heavily punished than his graver delinquencies ; and wo are really sometimes tempted to believe that the obliquities of nations observe the samo rule of requital . Among tbo very lightest offences of Franco against independent nationalities , was her annexation of Corsica in 1768 ; and , indeed , the original injustice has been more than compensated b y the unmixed advantages which the ! island has obtained through tho union . It would almost seem ,
however , as if Corsica had boon tbo commissioncel delegate of all the vengeance which Belgium , Spain , Prussia , and Piedmont bave scored up against their insatiable neighbour . Corsica at this moment governs France . A _Ceirsican has fastened a _yeikoupon heir ne _: ck more , galling than tho chains of tho haughtiest Bourbon , anel a _Ceirsican oligarchy is dividing tho rich _speiils of her patronage , or assisting to crush her spirit anel to pcrpctuute , he _, r servitude . During the last war , tho _foremrnst missile ! burleel by tho _libellists at tho _Empeireir , was his Corsiean extraction . But the ieliosyncrasy eif _Naptileem was far Loo strongly markeel tei aelmit of his being classeel _unehir nny particular typo of national _characteir ; anel his mind , in common with thoso of all his adoptive , _fnllnw-ceiuntrymi . n , had beem lbrmcel
anel _tampered in the , liery crucible ! of the lirst Revolution . Tho _peiint e > f his birth _posseisseel as littlo real _imptirtanee as tho question which has beem recently agitated respecting the exact elay on which it teiok place . It is far _otheu-wiso with Louis Napoleon Bonaparte—tho son of an Italian anel a Creole , —who nover set foot on French _seiil , except to pass anel repass on the _reiael to a prison , _fretm the , eloso of his early childhood to the , hour wliem the , means of _usurpation we _, re , put at bis disposal . The , present autocrat of France , has none , of the _exccllemciew eir defects , antl _ve-ry few of tho cognisable features , of ( he , French diameter . Uo is silent , shy , and morose . _Uis abilities , which _ure , dembtless considerable , lie not eui the surface , but in the , _de-pths . We _, ll _reiftei , and skilful with his pen , ho is _cHuciitinlly
_unsocial . Ambitious , bo scouts _ceirmiarntivcly _careileiss e > f the shows of power . His personal _iuelulgeuie-o , theiugh _unrestruinetd , is more , _systeuuutiei than extravagant . Although he ) is _redemtleiss in the , purpose of requital , he knows heiw tei conceal his sense , of _wroitg , and to defer his cherished ' _vengeance . Gmil nn in tho _su / Foring ho has at times inflicted , ho appears to be , cruel rather at tho crisis of eippeirtunity than at tho climax of passion . Huch peculiarities are not the _teikenH e > f a Frenchman , and thoy are , repre ) duce _, _el at his foot in the , crowd of Corsiean faveairit . es among _wheim be , scatters the me > rsols e > f the dominion whieh fie , lias engrossed . The , office ) which _appreiacheis nearest to that of Primo Minister was filled , till the other day , by tho Corsiean bailiff of the Bonaparte family _t a « d wherever there is a poet or a _dietinotion
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 18, 1852, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18091852/page/9/
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