Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/146

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
140
TWELVE YEARS IN A MONASTERY

exhaustive work of Kirk or Carpenter on the same subject. Then the philosopher has the advantage of attending, with the medical students, scientific courses under men who are eminent in their respective sciences, and the student of theology and Scripture attends lectures in the Oriental languages under equally distinguished professors. In addition to these there are courses of Persian, Sanscrit, Chinese, &c., and courses of the higher literature of most European languages, and of Latin and Greek classics. There is, however, no degree corresponding to the English M.A., and literary studies suffer in consequence. All the clerical students are intended by their bishops to become professors in their seminaries, and, in addition to their degree in theology, they are directed to follow the particular course which will benefit them. Still a spirit of narrow utilitarianism pervades all ranks: the lay students have a definite profession in view and have no superfluous industry to devote to supererogatory studies, the priests think of little else besides their theology or philosophy. There are a few disinterested worshippers at the shrine of philosophy and letters, but their number is comparatively small. The course of Sanscrit and Chinese ascribed to the distinguished student of those (and many other) languages, Mgr. de Harlez, seems to have a mythical existence; Persian is never demanded, and even Arabic (though the professor is an Arabic scholar of the first rank) is