Here, now, are the rules of the establishment. Silence is compulsory, except at recreation hours, and then speech is strictly controlled by the president, for, says the pamphlet, "One of the first conditions of the college order is silence; those who are unable to keep silence are running the risk of utter ignorance and worthlessness." One of the attributes of piety, also enjoined, is found to be "friendship for those who are worthy of it." I should like the Marists to explain to me what they mean by such an extraordinary assertion. In the first place, who is to pronounce on the kind of person worthy of friendship, least of all a schoolboy? Is the pious boy himself worthy of inspiring the sentiment? Many a pious person is incapable of feeling friendship for anybody. This does not take from his piety. It merely proves that he is charming, or cordial, or good-natured, which many an impious soul may be. And why seek to turn a pleasing young animal into a hateful little prig, asking himself, when he should be playing games and flattening an enemy's nose, if the boy he projects bestowing his friendship on is worthy or not of it? Let the other boy be a black, a brute, or a beggar, his comrade should be content if he likes him. Friendship can never have a more solid, human, and wholesome basis. When we read this sentence we feel that the little Stanislas prig, with his eyes turned down,
