Boys: Reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic,
grammar, geography, general and natural
history, book-keeping, and singing.

Girls: All these good things, with the addition
of cooking, the management of house and
kitchen, washing, and needlework.

But it is not all work—for learning, though
pleasant, is work—and therefore, besides all
these, there will be, when funds allow, play-
grounds for gymnastic exercises, stretching of
limbs and muscles, and workshops for industrial
instruction. Boys will be trained to
gardening and general agriculture, as well as to
the more essential trades—tailors, shoemakers,
carpenters, &c.

Gradually this work will be turned to good
account, independent of the instruction gained
therefrom; for, if it has been found profitable
in Ireland, surely in Italy, where there is a
perpetual and ever-increasing demand for good
laundresses, domestic servants, and skilled
workers of every description, there will be
plenty of work for the schools. It is
consequently proposed to pay, not for your education
only, but your partial board and clothing,
from the actual work which, in part of your
school hours, you will accomplish.

Thus, it is hoped, when all is in order, the
produce of the afternoon work will defray the
morning's teaching and the noonday meal.
Let me hope that a spirit of independence will
thereby be engendered among you, as a band
of hearty comrades, providing, by the work of
their own strong skilful hands, the means of
mental advancement and the foundation of
happy and contented, perhaps even prosperous
and distinguished, lives.

By the by, I mentioned a " meal;" that is a
thing of importance. I have not said enough
about it. At half-past twelve (especially when
I have been working cheerfully since breakfast),
I begin to think how good a thing is
polenta! Rice is not bad, but give me polenta!
And polenta with cheese! I can only say that
if King Victor himself, after a day with the
chamois, desires anything more delicious, he
hardly deserves to be your king.

I must warn you, however, children, that
this cheese is a very uncertain sensitive thing.
Idleness, noise (fighting especially), seem to
frighten it away. Polenta may always come,
but where there is goodness and industry, only
there can you be sure of finding polenta, with
cheese!

At our new school, at Cagliari, the first that
will be opened on our system, you will find, in
addition to large and well-lighted rooms, a
pretty garden and orchard. There will be
maps, books, pictures for illustration of what
is taught, and many curious tkings never yet
presented to your eyes, but of which you
will quickly learn the use. A printing-press, a
sewing-machine, patent machines for washing,
wringing, and mangling, a plaiting-machine,
and no less than a hundred and fifty boxes of
toys! The greater part of these things have
been provided by one generous hand—that of
the president of the English committee, Mrs.
Chambers—and, as fifteen schools in her native
land already owe their well-being to her, let us
hope that her countrymen will forgive the
gracious finger she extends to us.

And now, children, one little last word, to
which I require your best attention. Upon no
human institution, however nobly meant or
ably planned, can we hope a blessing to descend
unless the principles of a pure and true religion
are inculcated there. Now, to our walls, pupils
of all creeds—Roman Catholics, Protestants,
Jews, &c.—are alike welcome. But to accept
the spiritual assistance of professed teachers of
each several creed has been found so productive
of disunion and mistrust, that it has been
decided to decline the attendance of any, and to
confide to the authorised teacher and the
ladies of the visiting committee the all-
important duty of religious instruction, founded,
as it will be, upon the blessed truths of the
New Testament.

For my part, I assent to the eloquent words
of one whose voice will not again be heard on
earth.

"In the better order of things, Heaven grant
that the ministry of souls may be left in charge
of woman! The gates of the Blessed City will
be thronged with the multitude that enter in,
when that day comes. The task belongs to
woman; God meant it for her; He has
endowed her with the religious sentiment in its
utmost depth and purity, refined from that
gross intellectual alloy with which every masculine
theologist—save only One, who merely
veiled himself in mortal and masculine shape,
but was in truth divine—has been prone to
mingle it."*

*Hawthorne.

There, boys and girls of Italy—that is a long
sentence, but it finishes my lecture. And now
—all in to begin!

OLD LOVES.

THE Frenchman who said that we always
return to our first loves, said one of the true
things of human nature; and every mature
mind knows its truth. We do return to our
old loves, and no after affection ever destroys
their place in our hearts.

There are abundant reasons for this going
back upon life—at least in thought and desire
if not in actual renewal. In youth, when our
sensations were all new, and when the mere
fact of living was in itself a joy, everything
was painted in with rose colour: everything
was perfect, and each emotion in its novelty
was a veritable revelation of the divine. We
had not then become blunted by satiety,
chilled or corrected by experience. We firmly
believed that what we felt, no one else had ever
felt before, or would ever feel again with
anything like our intensity; we firmly believed
that all other people's emotions were tame and
colourless beside our own. For youth is in
itself a perpetual recreation of the primeval