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