The Cid, chosen by the Spaniards as the highest personification of the Spanish hero of the middle ages, as the mirror of knighthood, was but a guide upon the Christian's path to show him how "unbounded is the might Of martyrdom, and fortitude, and right." "A Spaniard," as Chateaubriand observes, "who passes the day without speaking, who has seen nothing, who cares to see nothing, who has read nothing, studied nothing, compared nothing, will find in the grandeur of his resolutions the resources which are necessary in the moment of misfortune." "Est hic, est animus lucis contemptor, et istum "Honour and reason are ours," says the Count de Maistre ; "for the rest we are not responsible." Such men are led to Catholicity, and made to cling to Catholicity, by the force of a secret and irresistible attraction. They find there the stability, and the certainty, and the lofty elevation, and the deep inextricable roots for grandeur, which their nature yearns for: "Magnanimi heroës, nati melioribus annis."+ Such men in former times became the brightest jewels in the Church's crown; not men who governed their principles, and who consequently could change them; but those who were governed by their principles, and who therefore could not change them. Some are still left amongst us. God, they feel, towards them has done his part; they determine to do theirs. So on they walk "through mazes intricate, Eccentric, intervolved; yet regular Then most, when most irregular they seem; And in their motions harmony divine So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear till led by honour, rightly called, they pass the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity, to clasp inseparable hands with joy and bliss in over-measure for ever. "He who leans against a good tree," says the Spanish proverb in the ancient romance of Martin Pelaez, "is covered with a good shade”— "Quien á buen arbol se arrima, Buena sombra le cobija." * Æn. ix. 205. En. vi. 649. + Timon. Such a tree is the cross; such a tree is the Catholic Church expanding its immense branches round it. Independent of a consideration of its divine character, unquestionably the Catholic religion stands alone in all honourable pre-eminence, having no stain of ignominy attached to its origin, progress, or present state, and demanding only moral and civil freedom for its extension; whereas every other religion, after having been ignominious in its commencement and associated with miseries in its progress, demands falsehood, either chosen fasehood or involuntary error, to prevent it from disappearing in the world with the brief passions from which it sprung. There is, therefore, a natural and most welcome shelter for the human heart in the tree of the Catholic Church: for, oh! there is need of such refreshment on the arid ways of life which other flames but those of love have withered! I hail this tree in the moral forest, so vast, so redundant of all good, so incomparable, and say, in the words of the old poet "Rafreschissez le chastel de mon cueur." But, lo! a new road presents itself! Childhood, youth, home, with its associations, and, in fine, honour, have led us hitherto through the ways of right intention to the love of eternal things. The ways of devout meditation of them may now be followed. And see where through another opening in the forest, which hanging branches over-canopy, and where a rivulet between the soft moss, interwoven with violets, has made its path of melody, a troop of students passes on. We soon arrive at the turning to the schools through which many, tanta est præsentia veri! so clear are the signals set up along this way, are guided to the lustrous centre, recognizing, like the Trojan hero, the voice and the promises of the heavenly Parent.* Issuing from their home, and passing by the path of old ancestral honour, men come first to those seats of sages, who profess to teach them how they should direct their steps afterwards through the perplexed paths of this drear wood; but now we should take rest, ere yet day's purple stream ebbs over the western forest, while the gleam of the crescent moon is gathering among the clouds. New thoughts within us rise, by others followed fast, and each unlike its fellow. To-morrow we shall explore the new avenues, and follow where the schools have led. * viii. 530. CHAPTER X. THE ROAD OF THE SCHOOLS. HE first rosy tints of morning, so pure, so unearthly, had grown already bright, as if heaven was opening to the view, when looking further onwards, as the road of the schools invited me, I beheld a throng of youths issuing on an open space cleared from the silver birch, of which only a few fallen trunks remained. Let us halt here awhile, and then proceed to mark through how many delightful avenues they can be directed to the Catholic Church during these sweet years of early instruction. Those indeed who are already arrived, enjoying unity, and needing no further guidance, require only to observe the development and proofs of the true doctrine by schools which are identified with the Catholic Church itself. But to show how scholastic instruction conducts others who, by their parents' calamity or fault, have been led astray, to recognize the Church as their mother, will be our object on the present way; though for this purpose I shall not follow them through their years of uncertainty and devious wanderings, but, supposing them already on an elevation whence they can survey the Catholic schools and their antagonists, I will say, compare and judge. Now ere we advance a step, on all sides are signals clearly inscribed-" Thou that seest many things, wilt thou not observe them? Thou that hast ears open, wilt thou not hear?" For this excursion it will be more difficult to find an end than a beginning, so abundant is the matter which its theme supplies; though this very multiplicity of detail makes it difficult also to find an entrance; for in fact, with respect to education, how can we within brief limits set forth the unrivalled claims of the Catholic Church to receive the supreme respect of men? In the first place, all schools can be traced from hers, which have the right of earliest possession; and many still existing, though employed with the intention to subvert her, owe their endowments to her bounty, and are obliged to point to her saints as to their founders. It was some Catholic king, some Catholic bishop, or some abbot of a monastery, who built and enriched for ever the identical school or college in which the religion which prompted him to do so is now excluded and maligned. See, then, how the student's very turret points. It is remarked by Antonio de Ypes of Montserrat, in his general chronicle of the Benedictine Order, that before the year 1300, not even secular masters were found in Germany, the Catholic religious schools being the sole fountains of learning.* Francis I. having spent three days at Alcala, being welcomed by 11,000 students, remarked that one Spanish monk had done what a line of kings in France would have been required to accomplish. We cannot remain here to search through the history of scholastic foundations for proofs of the early solicitude of the Church to diffuse instruction. "That country of Ireland," says St. Aldhelm, " is rich and verdant, if I may so speak, in the flowery multitude of studious disciples, being as plentiful in them as the vault of heaven is adorned with the shining lustre of the twinkling stars."+ Such were every where in some degree the fruits of the Catholic religion, raised exclusively by the Church. The names of all her great men, whether kings or bishops, are associated with the renown of schools which they established and loved with a parental fondness. Who that has had any acquaintance with letters can ever pass near Tours or Lyons, Fontanelle or Fulda, Osnaburgh or Metz, Auxerre or Laon, either Corby, Hirschau or St. Gall, Prum or Mayence, Reims or Hildesheim, Fleury, called St. Benoît-sur-Loire or Orleans, Liege or Stavolo, Ramsey or Bangor, Reichnau or Lobbes, Utrecht or Parma, Cologne or Treves, Hirsfeld or Bremen, Sens or Chartres, Bec or Jumieges, Angers, Caen, or Blois, without being moved to a consideration of that zeal for instruction emanating from the Catholic faith, which induced so many bishops and abbots, and believing emperors and kings, at the demand of councils, to found and favour schools of learning for all classes;‡ where, as the council of Châlon-sur-Saône in the year 813, said, "Non solum servilis conditionis infantes, sed etiam ingenuorum filios aggregent."§ So multiplied were schools, that as Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, declares, Thanks to the Divine grace assisting, no error could find place in all Gaul or Germany." These schools received alike all classes" Pueros nobilissimos, mediocres, et infimos," as the monk of St. Gall witnesses. In all of them the eternal law of God, along with human learning, as Ægilis, Abbot of Fulda, says, "Discitur a pueris, seniorumque ore docetur." Thanks to the spirit imported by Catholicism, even the powerful of the world respected and loved the schools. 66 Emanuel the Great, after founding public schools in Portugal, used often to visit them, and converse with the children with a sweet familiarity which his courtiers disliked. Mar*Tom. ii. 141. + S. Aldhelmi Epist. ad Eahfridum. Vid. Launoii de Scholis Celebrior. lib. § Ap. id. cap. i. Lib. i. de Cultu Imag. De Gestis Caroli. guerite, widow of Charles the Bold, when governing the Netherlands, is said to have remarked one winter's night as she traversed the city of Louvain, a light from one of the windows of the university at the dead hour; and asking who could watch so late in such severe cold, was told by her chamberlain that it was Floritz, or the little Florent, over his books. The next day Adrien of Utrecht, for this lad studying at midnight was the future pope, received from an unknown hand three hundred florins, to purchase books and wood for his fire. Nothing can more forcibly show the impulse given by the Catholic religion to the work of instruction, than the fact, that in the very age of chivalry the school was deemed, equally with the profession of arms, a path of honour; for it is only the old impression which Spenser expresses in the lines— "Abroad in armes, at home in studious kynd, 66 Who seekes with painfull toile shall honour soonest fynd.” Let us hear Stowe descanting on the origin and decline of the old Catholic schools of London. "The oldest of these," he says, was the school of St. Paul; for, from the first, it was the usage as it was in the twelfth century decreed, that every cathedral church should have his schoolmaster to teach poor scholars, and others as had been accustomed, and that no man should take any reward for licence to teach. The second, as most ancient, may seem to have been the monastery of St. Peter's at Westminster, whereof Ingulphus, Abbot of Crowland, in the reign of William the Conqueror, writeth thus :'I, Ingulphus, an humble servant of God, born of English parents, in the most beautiful city of London, for to attain to learning, was first put to Westminster, and after to study of Oxford,' &c. And writing in praise of Queen Edgitha, wife to Edward the Confessor: I have seen her,' saith he, often when being a boy, I came to see my father dwelling in the king's court; and often coming from school, when I met her, she would oppose me, touching my learning and lesson; and falling from grammar to logic, wherein she had some knowledge, she would subtilly conclude an argument with me, and by her handmaiden give me three or four pieces of money, and send me unto the palace where I should receive some victuals, and then be dismissed.' "The third school seemeth to have been in the monastery of St. Saviour, at Bermondsey in Southwark; for other priories, as of St. John by Smithfield, St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, St. Mary Overie in Southwark, and that of the Holy Trinity by Aldgate, were all of later foundation, and the friaries, colleges, and hospitals, in this city, were raised since them in the reigns of Henry III., Edward I., II., and III., &c. All which |