system of education has brought us to the direct contradiction, the very Antipodes, of Christianity; and if we go on teaching as our fathers taught, then, even if to-morrow we could raise ourselves out of the abyss into which our education has hurled us, it would only be to fall back into it again the day after." (pp. 287-8.) He then leaves; and the writer of the paper at once expresses one very obvious objection to such notions, which may have probably been anticipated by our readers. He had been struck, as I was, with an uncomfortable feeling, as to how far what Dr. Bullcox said might reflect upon the Church herself. The Church is the great queen and mother of all knowledge, and she it is who is responsible for the education of her children. She would certainly never think of permitting heretical or infidel books to be used in her schools, even in those in which secular education was combined with religious training-if, indeed, we are at liberty to divide education into parts, as if the same spirit and tone must not dominate throughout in the whole and in every smallest department of education. But the Church, if all this were true, had looked on for centuries and seen this poison working in her schools, and had not interfered. Moreover, we could not but remember that many distinguished religious bodies had been foremost in the work of education, and that most, if not all of them, had used the classics freely as text-books, though with certain omissions and revisions as to what was openly immoral. Here, then, would be a grievous charge laid against these great religious bodies, a charge which would fall on the saintly men who have worked in them, and indirectly, again, on the Church and the Holy See, under whose eyes they taught. Yet at this very moment the same sort of education is being given in all the Catholic schools of our day, with probably very few exceptions. (pp. 288-9.) A similar objection is stated at the end by a new interlocutor, Father Miles, who evidently is intended specially to represent the "Month's " own doctrine. "The time most analogous to the age in which we live, the time which we ought to look to as our model, and which we ought to hope to emulate and rival in the way of Catholic reaction, is the epoch of the Council of Trent. Then God breathed a new spirit of force and life into the Church, to enable her to recover from her great losses, and He gave her a large number of conspicuous saints to be the leaders of her reinvigorated armies. Then, too, there was a great move made in the way of Christian education. The renaissance, moreover, had done real harm then, under which the Church was suffering, for the first outburst in favour of it was little less than an intoxication and a delirium. Yet we do not find either the Church herself, or the Popes, or the great saints of that time, calling for the proscription of classical literature in Christian schools. On the contrary, the Church followed in the path which she has adopted from the very beginning, and it is the system of education under which all the thousands of good Christians, who have been conspicuous in her annals from that time to this, have been trained, that is now attacked, not as incomplete or requiring supplement or modification, but as radically bad. I have not the slightest thought that the good men who maintain the thesis which is insinuated rather than set forth in this pamphlet, would venture to say that the Church had all along been mistaken in the matter; but for my own part, if I thought as they do, I should not know how to avoid the conclusion." (pp. 295-6.) Here however we must interpose a comment of our own. In one particular--and that precisely the most relevant of allthe present times are radically different from those of the Tridentine Council. This indeed is the very circumstance on which stress is laid by the Bishop of Aquila, who is prominent among those who deprecate the present amount of classical study. We will here quote the analysis which we gave of his argument on a former occasion, and our own remarks incidentally mixed up with that analysis. The essential foundation of the bishop's argument must be admitted as true, by all Catholic thinkers not totally destitute of candour; whatever difference of opinion there may be on his conclusion. Society, he says, is now alienated in a far greater degree from Catholic Christianity, than it has been at any previous period since Constantine submitted to the Church. "Faith, assailed by so many attacks, loses daily its influence over the Christian multitudes " (p. 13). "Literature and art are separated more and more from Christian ideas; history drops all allusion to the intervention of Providence; natural morality and probity are exalted to the disparagement of the evangelical prescriptions; politics and social science make abstraction of the facts [and principles] declared by revelation. . . . This principle of separation insinuates itself little by little even in Christian families, and into all the domestic and civil relations of Catholic countries. Thence it results that religion gradually withdraws itself from the practices, habits, language, both public and private, of baptized nations.” (p. 14.) Under these miserable circumstances, since there is no longer (p. 56) “a Christian atmosphere" diffused throughout society, imbuing the mind unconsciously with Catholic doctrine and principle-but emphatically the very reverse it is far more necessary than at any earlier period, to introduce prominently a Catholic element into the education of every class. "It is no longer sufficient to make young people learn a little catechism by heart, and give them, as it were, a tincture of religion which is too speedily effaced. There is need of a religious instruction, solid, extended, substantial; capable of making a profound impression on the mind and heart of youth, of protecting them against the numerous and inevitable assaults of unbelief, and of developing vigorously within them the Christian sentiment." (p. 57.) So far, we really cannot understand the existence of a second opinion, among sincere and thoughtful Catholics. But the Bishop is confident that this end cannot be achieved, without giving a far lower place to heathen classics than that now commonly assigned them. On this we hold our opinion in suspense. What we earnestly entreat of those who are for keeping heathen literature in its present pre-eminence is, that they will steadily contemplate the great object before us-the object of saturating the youthful mind with Christian doctrine and principle; and that they will express in detail their own programme for accomplishing this object. We are not aware that any of them have yet attempted this. (DUBLIN Review, July, 1865, pp. 259, 260.) For ourselves, after the best consideration we can give the matter, we are confident that a very thorough classical education may be given, without at all interfering with "a religious instruction," which shall be "solid, extended, substantial, capable of vigorously developing within youth the Christian sentiment." Nay we do not see how there can be anything worthy to be called by the name of "higher education," which shall not include very careful classical culture. Still we do not think that the Bishop of Aquila's doctrine can truly be called disrespectful to the Church. An enormous preponderance of classical study may have been quite safe, at a time when the youth's mind was "saturated with Christian doctrine and principle" by the "Christian atmosphere" which he breathed throughout the day; and it may nevertheless be true that, even much less predominance thereof may be full of deadly peril, at a time when such "Christian atmosphere" has ceased to exist. A certain food may be even largely taken without evil consequence. in a thoroughly healthy climate; while a much smaller portion of the same food may produce deadly results, where the air is noxious. It cannot therefore be at all inferred that such study is harmless now, merely because the Church implied that it was harmless then. This however by the way. Our direct purpose is to show our readers, how much the "Month" is prepared to admit. Father Miles speaks as follows; and we italicise one or two sentences, to which we would draw especial attention: "I am not at all sure that it may not be very much to our advantage, that attention should be directed to anything like ultra classicism.' You see here," he said, turning to a place near the end of the volume, "the writer quotes a man whom we all have in a certain amount of veneration, the Père Grou, who complained of the education of his own day as being 'toute paienne.' If this was true, it was a great and pernicious mistake, and contrary to the spirit of the Church. He quotes another writer, also a Jesuit, who says, 'Dans les collèges, pépinières de l'Etat, on leur fait lire et étudier tout, excepté les auteurs chrétiens'-and the writer subjoins in a note, Comme on le fait encore aujourd'hui dans les petits séminaires et dans les collèges catholiques.' As to this, I can only say that I hope it is not true. I think there must be great exaggeration. . . . But if there are any places of Christian education, where, as this writer asserts-going beyond the Jesuit whom he is quoting the pupils are made to read and study everything, except Christian authors, and where, as this assertion seems to imply, there is no counterbalancing teaching of Christian morality or Christian truth as such, then it must be confessed that those places of education need reformation. But this is a very different thing from what is recommended in the pamphlet I hold in my hand. Again, I will say that it may be worth while for us to consider, whether some Christian writers should not be put into the hands of the young ; for there are many beautiful works of St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and others still later than these Fathers, which might very well enter into any course of higher education. This might be done, and, above all, we might aim at interpreting and commenting on the classics in the way in which we are told Father Pierre Lefevre's teacher commented on them, of whom he used to say that he had a way of making the profane authors whom he taught speak the language of the Gospel.' What we do at present may not be wrongindeed, it cannot be declared to be absolutely wrong, without condemning the Church of at least supine negligence in the vital point of education—and yet there may be something even which we ought to do, or which it may be very useful for us to attempt to do." (pp. 293-4.) We think there is here offered large ground for a concordat; and we hope in an early number to make some little essay towards its attainment. This however seems to us peculiarly a question, on which it is desirable that every shade of Catholic opinion shall be duly considered and taken into account. We will not therefore content ourselves with setting forth those views which to us may appear the more probable; but we shall have great pleasure in giving publicity to opinions more or less different from our own, if able and thoughtful Catholics will give us the opportunity. T ART. VI.-THE NOVELS OF MR. ANTHONY TROLLOPE. The MacDermots of Ballycloran. Chapman & Hall. Castle Richmond. Chapman & Hall. The Warden. Longmans & Co. Barchester Towers. Longmans & Co. Framley Parsonage. Smith, Elder, & Co. The Last Chronicle of Barset. Smith, Elder, & Co. He knew he was right. Can you forgive her? Smith, Elder, & Co. Strahan & Co. Bradbury, Evans, & Co. HOSE who hold that the novelist's business is to delineate the manners of his own day, and to draw portraits of the people among whom he lives or whom he has opportunities of observing, those who, in fact, regard the novel as a product essentially distinct from the romance, will probably be disposed to agree with us in our estimate of Mr. Anthony Trollope as the first master of his craft now in existence. The name of George Eliot will rise to the lips of some in denial or remonstrance, but there is no contradiction in the opinion which awards to the wearer of that name a higher intellectual status than that of Mr. Trollope, but refuses to her precedence of him, in the class which they both elevate and adorn. The author of that series of close and philosophical studies of human nature, of which "Scenes of Clerical Life" was the first, is much more than a novelist, as tested by the theory just indicated; and in so far as she is more, she is disqualified for competition with a writer who is not more, nor other. Some of the salient qualities of the works of Mr. Trollope are, like their aims, entirely out of the track of George Eliot; but those are precisely the qualities which are beside and above the needs of the novelist. A serious social revolution in England might render Mr. Trollope's books dull and difficult, if not unintelligible, to another generation of English people, as many novels which were excellent in their day have become dull and difficult to us; but "Silas Marner" and "The Mill on the Floss," "Adam Bede," "Romola," and "Middlemarch," will be as much and as little |