CHAPTER VIII. PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN ITALY. By B. A. HINSDALE, Ph. D., LL.D. Professor of the Science and the Art of Teaching in the University of Michigan. PREFACE. The last twenty or thirty years have seen extraordinary progress in popular education all over the civilized world, and notably so in England, France, and Italy. With what has been accomplished in the first two countries the American public is measurably familiar. But even scholars and educators generally have little knowledge of the educa tional work that has been going on in Italy at the same time. This fact is the reason for the preparation of the present monograph. As the reader will see, the writer treats the subject quantitatively rather than qualitatively. A critical estimate of Italian education would require a more intimate knowledge of the subject than he can lay claim to. His main object has been to present in outline the system of public instruction that has been evolved in Italy since the establishment of the Kingdom. The writer expresses his obligations to His Excellency Count Pullet, under secretary of state for public instruction of the Kingdom of Italy; to Prof. C. F. Restagno, the Count's secretary, and to Signor Lucigi Cippitelli, inspector of schools of Rome, for documents and other valuable information. His thanks are especially due, however, to Dr. Egisto Rossi, of the Italian statistical bureau, author of a monograph on education in the United States, for documents and other substantial assistance. CONTENTS.-Unification of Italy.—The Educational State of Italy in 1861.—The Dawn of the New Era.-General Political Facts.-The Casati Law.—The Administration of Public Instruction.—The Asilo.-Day Elementary Schools.—Evening and Holiday Elementary Schools.-The Teachers of Elementary Schools.-School Supply and Compulsory Education.-Normal Schools.-Secondary Classical Schools.-Secondary Technical Schools.-The Universities.-The Superior Institutes.-The Superior Special Schools.-Miscellaneous Schools: Institutes of Mercantile Marine; Special Schools and Practical Schools of Agriculture; Schools of Music; Industrial and Commercial Schools; Academics and Institutes of Fine Arts; Musical Institutes and Conservatories; Military Institutes and Schools of Marine. — Government Libraries. - Twenty Years of Public Schools in Rome.-Finance: Teachers' Pensions.-The Warfare upon Ignorance.-Summary and Conclusion.-Authorities. THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY. The eloquent words with which Sismondi closes his History of the Italian Republics have often been quoted as a fitting characteriza. tion of the State of Italy in the period following the Treaty of Vienna and preceding the first events of the series that led immediately to Italian freedom and union. "Italy is crushed, but her heart still beats with a love of liberty, virtue, and glory; she is chained and covered with blood, but she still knows her strength and her future destiny; she is insulted by those for whom she has opened the way to every improvement; but she feels that she is formed to take the lead again; and Europe will know no repose till the nation which in the dark ages lighted the torch of civilization with that of liberty shall be enabled to enjoy the light which she created." Politically, however, the period was more tersely characterized by Prince Metternich, when he said so cynically, "Italy is a mere geographical designation."1 Not to go further back, Italy had been trampled under the feet of foreigners from the close of the fifteenth century to the close of the eighteenth-the French, the Spaniards, the Germans, and the Austrians. It was divided into numerous States, all weak, all small, all despotisms; only two, Sardinia and the Popedom, having Italian rulers, and most of them more or less dependent upon foreign powers. Italian patriots could find no language too strong to describe the hopeless degradation of their country. When Napoleon came he overthrew nearly all of the existing States and made the major part of Italy immediately dependent upon France, or rather upon himself; still, by sweeping away ancient abuses and confusion, and introducing many much needed reforms in legislation, in administration, in judicial practice, in the fiscal system, in education, in means of communication, he strengthened the sentiment of union, and contributed to the development of a real national life. But with his downfall the new régime came, at least seemingly, to an abrupt end. It was the aim of the diplomatists who at Vienna rearranged the map of Europe practically to restore the state of things existing in the peninsula before the French Revolution; but they did not reckon with the progress of thought, of which the revolution was in part a cause and in part an effect. In the years intervening between 1815 and 1859 powerful causes were silently undermining the numerous potenates who ruled in Italy, with the sole exception of the King of Sardinia. The country below the Alps is a geographical unit. The "Since the fall of the Roman Empire (if not even before it) there had never been a time when Italy could be called a nation any more than a stack of lumber can be called a ship."-Forsyth, quoted by Marriott, The Makers of Modern Italy. "The Italy of 1815 differed but little from the Italy of 1748; but in 1815 there were hopes which had no being in 1748. Italy was divided on the map, but she had made up her mind to be one."-Dr. E. A. Freeman: The Geographical History of Europe. people of the twelve or fifteen States all stood in a similar relation to the great name of Rome. Mentally and morally, they constituted one people-the Italians. They all used the language in which Dante wrote his immortal poems; they all participated in that marvelous growth of democratic ideas and shared in that ardent desire for national life, which are such powerful elements in recent history. Accordingly, nothing but favorable external conditions, such as actually existed in 1859-1870, were necessary to enable the Italians to achieve the substance of the dreams of their prophets and patriots for many hundreds of years. A recent writer has well said that Italian unification is the most romantic if not the most important exemplification of "the consolidation of kindred and contiguous States, or rather bundles of States, on the basis of the vital principle of nationality. And still another: "The rapid creation of the present Kingdom of Italy, after her long and bitter oppression, is one of the marvels of modern history, and evidences how much may be done by the courage and wisdom of a comparatively few master minds, and how true is the motto of the patriot, 'never to despair of the Republic.""" THE EDUCATIONAL STATE OF ITALY IN 1861. But the political unification of Italy, necessary as it was to that end, by no means realized the Italian ideal. Of itself alone, it could not even permanently endure. While physical force may overthrow and wholly destroy those ideas and sentiments that assume the form of objective political and social facts, it can not, save indirectly and in the long run, alter men's convictions or change their modes of thinking and tones of feeling. Force put an end to English rule in the Thirteen States, and crushed slavery in our civil war; but some other and higher form of power was needed to blend those States together in a vital federal union and to make the emancipated slaves fit for the rights and duties of freemen. Garibaldi's sword could overthrow the Bourbon dynasty in the Two Sicilies, but it was a powerless weapon against the ignorance and superstition that had so long been startling social facts in that Kingdom. It was essential that the mental and moral·life of the people should be cleansed at its fountain. This fact the best of # # * 'Napoleon said at St. Helena: "Italy is one sole nation. The unity of customs, of language, of literature, in some future more or less distant, will unite all its inhabitants under one sole government. Rome is undoubtedly the capital which one day the Italians will select. It is necessary to the happiness of Europe that Italy should form one sole State, which will maintain the equilibrium on the continent between France and Austria, and on the sea between France and England." Count Cavour said in Parliament but a few months before his untimely death: "The choice of a capital is determined by high moral considerations. It is the sentiment of the people that decides. Rome unites all the conditions, historical, intellectual, moral, which form the capital of a great state." 2 Marriott: The Makers of Modern Italy. 3 Sir R. Phillimore: International Law. e tadan 'eaders understood perfectly well. Mazzini, the republican ccarsi, wão defined democracy as "the progress of all through all under cadership of the best and wisest," placed equal stress upon educao and struction as means for accomplishing his purposes. Massimo Aegão, who was a man of a much more practical mind, although an ad man of letters, used to say, "Before forming Italy we must orm the Italians." D'Azeglio "endeavored to educate the youth aly higher political creed than the assassination of tyrants," 1 addig m the programme that he laid down in 1848, the promotion of cation and the establishment of schools. It is no disparagement of evour, of Victor Emmanuel, and of Garibaldi to say that the value dermanency of their work waited upon the school-teacher with his In the matter of education, the Kingdom of Italy at the time of oration might almost be described as a desert, broken here and by an oasis of matchless fertility and luxuriance. The learning earned was high, and the ignorance of the ignorant profound.” 2 ter might have added that the learned were few, the ignorant This conjunction of high learning and profound ignorance was wo conspicuous causes. From early times the Italian univerv. I maintained high standards of culture; the public authorities evously neglected popular education. Touching the second carts, the ordinary tests are decisive. ad of 1861 the Kingdom of Italy, as it now exists, had been wa wo important exceptions: Venetia continued subject to Emperor until 1866, and Rome to the Pope until 1870. 161, back of which the Italian authorities do not compresenting educational statistics, accordingly does not portant provinces. It may be added that in 1871 they wo of the 26,801,000 people of Italy. wrabitants, of the Italian population able to read in 1861. aho oppos'te point of view, 78.06, 82.21, and .vc_‚' descriptions of persons were unable to |