actual ignorance of the clergy. My mind had already passed from the Roman Catholic faith, and I spoke strongly and sincerely on the subject. My colleagues feebly congratulated me afterwards, but the laymen of the congregation actually sent a deputy to assure me of their gratitude and their admiration of my bold expression of their sentiments. On the following evening, after a scientific lecture I gave them, I spoke on the subject to a group of educated laymen and found them deeply moved on the question. Certainly, the clergy of St. Antony’s (four of whom were professors) were not below the average. The impression was confirmed wherever one listened to Catholic sermons or entered into serious conversation (by violence) with the priests.
The reasons of this signal failure of a fine educational scheme may be deduced partly from what has preceded. The system is unproductive, in the first instance, on account of the youth and immaturity of the students. At nineteen, when they should still be polishing their wit on Homer, or Tacitus, or Euclid, they are gravely attacking the profoundest problems of metaphysics; a well-educated man of thirty-two who had a brief course of philosophy under F. David, told me that he felt as if he were handling blocks of granite which he fondly wished to penetrate—our usual students never even realised that they were handling ‘blocks of granite.’ Out of many generations of students who passed through my hands only one boy had an idea
