nd this is what the Roman Catholic clergy have been learning,
generation after generation, in Mexico and elsewhere. Of course, there
are plenty of exceptions, particularly among the higher clergy; but, so
far as I have been able to ascertain, education in clerical schools has
generally been of this kind. It is instinctive to talk a little, as one
occasionally finds an opportunity of doing, to some youth just out of
these colleges. I recollect speaking to a young man who had just left
the Seminario of Mexico, where he had been through a long course of
theology and philosophy. He was astonished to hear that bull-fighting
and colearing were not universally practised in Europe; and, when his
father began to question me about the Crimean war, the young
gentleman's remarks showed that he had not the faintest idea where
England and France were, nor how far they were from one another.

I happened, not long ago, to visit a celebrated monastic college in
South Italy, where they educated, not ordinary mortals, but only young
men of noble birth; and here I took particular care in inspecting the
library, judging that, though the scholars need not learn all that was
there, yet that no department of knowledge would be taught there that
was not represented on the library-shelves. What I saw fully confirmed
all that I had previously seen and heard about the monastic learning of
the present day. There were to be seen many fine manuscripts, and
black-letter books, and curious old editions of great value, good store
of classics (mostly Latin, however), works of the Fathers by the
hundred-weight, and quartos and folios of canon-law, theology,
metaphysics, and such like, by the ton. But it seemed that, in the
estimation of the librarians, the world had stood still since the time
of Duns Scotus; for, of what we call positive knowledge, except a
little arithmetic and geometry, and a few very poor histories, I saw
nothing. It is easy to see how one result of the clerical monopoly of
education has therefore come about--that the intellectual standard is
very low in Mexico. The Holy Office, too, has had its word to say in
the matter. This institution had not much work to do in burning
Indians, who were anything but sceptical in their turn of mind, and,
indeed, were too much like Theodore Hook, and would believe "forty, if
you pleased." They even went further, and were apt to believe not only
what the missionaries taught them, but to cherish the mem