DOCUMENTS FOR EDUCATORS
IN THE TRADITION OF
CONSTANT VAN CROMBRUGGHE
(1789 - 1865)
Founder of the Josephites

All of you who have devoted yourselves to the sacred work of education, love, love the children. But there is love and love. I am speaking here of real, deep and enlightened love; pastoral and paternal love; this love is everything and accomplishes everything. In a word, be like fathers to them, and that's not enough; be like mothers. You must love the children and make them feel that you love them; not only by avoiding, in your dealings with them, all hardness, unjust coldness and discouraging severity, but by caring tenderly for them and having a blessed and cordial affection for them; letting them see that you have devoted your life to them, that you are happy to be with them and will always be so. you must also identify with them, not only in work and study, but in everything else and in every detail of their school life. But I must add one thing of the greatest importance: To love the children and to identify with them, you must love one another. Be of one heart and mind: cor unum et anima una. Putting this into effect is as simple as it is pleasant. Out of this is born life, strength and the powerful fruitfulness of your work for souls, since in this is the union of souls one with another and with God in charity. If you know these things you will be happy, provided you put them into practice. Constant Van Crombrugghe

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Page 3:

· Conclusions Chapter from Discussion And Conclusions: Final Chapter From "Constant Van Crombrugghe (1789-1865) And Education: The Genesis, Evolution And Application Of The Educational Philosophy Of A 19th Century Roman Catholic Educator" (Brother Michael, M.Phil, 1996).

Page 14:

· Speech of Constant Van Crombrugghe to the parents of the Collège d'Alost, Easter 1815. It is here that the Founder first expounds his views on Education.

Page 19:

· Speech of Constant Van Crombrugghe to the parents of the Collège d'Alost, Summer 1815. The Founder continues to expound his views on Education.

Page 24:

· Intervention Of Constant Van Crombrugghe At The National Congress Of 1830: 24th. December. Van Crombrugghe was elected a delegate from Alost, and intervened strongly for the freedom of education.

Page 26:

· New Manual Of "Politesse" For Use By Young People By A Former Director Of A House Of Education, C.G. Van Crombrugghe

Page 34:

· Extracts From the "Manuel De La Jeunesse Chretienne (Ouvrage Qui Pourra Être Utile Aux Parents Et Aux Instituteurs)" By Constant Van Crombrugghe, Principal Of The "Collège D'Alost" 1821

Page 39:

· Règlement Des Professeurs (Teachers' Guide). Composed in 1838, this was Van Crombrugghe's major instruction on Education for the teachers of the new "middle-class" school at Melle.

Page 47:

· Guide Pédagogique. Not specifically by Van Crombrugghe, but a collection of his thoughts on Education made shortly after his death.

Page 54:

· Directoire Des Surveillants. Also not specifically by Van Crombrugghe, but a collection of his thoughts on Education made shortly after his death. Specifically aimed at Housemasters and those who have pastoral care of children.

· How to teach R.E..

Page 58.

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: FINAL CHAPTER FROM "CONSTANT VAN CROMBRUGGHE (1789-1865) AND EDUCATION: THE GENESIS, EVOLUTION AND APPLICATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF A 19TH CENTURY ROMAN CATHOLIC EDUCATOR"
(Brother Michael, M.Phil, 1996).

In attempting to draw together the many threads of this thesis a line from William Blake comes to mind:

"He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars."

Somehow, everything that has been written here about Van Crombrugghe seems to come together in this short line. Above all it seems very neatly to encompass all the multifarious byways of Van Crombrugghe's politesse.

At the same time there is a paradox. It is not easy to reconcile the author of this notion of politesse, of exquisite charity, with a person who could equally be thought of as arrogant, manipulative and overbearing. Fr Jorissen has underlined this sort of double personality to the extent of asking whether there actually were two personalities inside the Founder. He indicates the "up there"; a higher plane from which he could communicate with his spiritual and social equals, and the "down there", towards which his charity moves almost at arm's length towards the rest.

This "double edged sword" of Van Crombrugghe's personality is also reflected in two graphic images. In the first, reproduced in the opening pages, there appear all the qualities one might consider negative. This is almost the face of a bully; maybe a well-meaning man, but a man prepared to trample over others to achieve his ends. There appears none of the compassion which he insisted on in others and one really is led to wonder if he was a truly compassionate man in himself, or rather a man with a deep sense of a "duty of compassion". It is the face of an older man, of course, with a lifetime of achievement behind him, and years of directing the fate of other people in an autocratic manner. Fr Jorissen has pointed out that most of the early Josephites were not his social equals, and if the Josephites were to be "instruments of mercy" they were also very much the "instruments of Van Crombrugghe."

In a second image, reproduced at the end of this Chapter, there appears a totally different man. There is, of course, a difference of years between the two images but, leaving that aside, this is a different Van Crombrugghe; the image shows compassion and energy, coupled with humility and an ability to be wrong.

Which is the real Van Crombrugghe? Although undertaking this research has revealed all sorts of information about Van Crombrugghe, the answer to this question has not become fully apparent. Although he said, did and wrote much which is appealing, there remains the sense that the real man remains distanced from his achievements. He remains the "self-made man", hidden behind the formalised façade of his laboriously created personality.

VAN CROMBRUGGHE THE MAN

Fr Jorissen has posed some useful questions concerning Van Crombrugghe which provide a framework for conclusions concerning Van Crombrugghe himself:

1. In spite of Van Crombrugghe being, on the one hand a realist to the point of meticulousness, was he also an utopist?

No, he wasn't. Certainly he had a vision of a certain type of perfection, in life as in education. As a realist he would realise that the short-term goals might not be fully attainable but were useful pointers, to be held as examples to be moved towards and beyond. But as a Roman Catholic educator his ultimate goals, for himself, his congregations and for his pupils, were eschatalogical and fully attainable in a final union with God. The things of this world, however laudable, would pass. Within the confines of time and space, the best possible had to be achieved, and the best possible means used to achieve them. For Van Crombrugghe those means were outlined par excellence in the Règlement des Professeurs.

2. Was the attraction of Jesus, even through a man who, captured by his charm, revealed him in an exemplary manner, enough to transport and transform, even haltingly, a religious teaching congregation?

Yes, it was. Van Crombrugghe was a man of strong religious conviction and personal faith. This faith was strong enough to sustain him through the many trials of his educational career and, more importantly, to attract others to the same vision.

3. Were the experiences of Amiens and Alost so exceptional that they could not support Van Crombrugghe's vision and institutions?

There is no doubt that Van Crombrugghe's experiences at Amiens were quite exceptional and coloured his whole educational life. It would be reasonable to say that he wanted his schools to be reflections of Amiens, his teachers to be reflections of the Fathers of the Faith, and that in some measure his life's work was a pursuit of that ideal. It is true that in his lifetime he did not fully achieve that ideal. Nevertheless, without the vision of Amiens ever-present as a goal to be striven for the whole enterprise might have crumbled and might even never have been embarked upon.

Alost is a different question, or at least a different set of unanswered questions. We do not know how much the success of Alost was due to the relief of parents in having the school back on a stable footing and run by clerics - any clerics - and therefore to them feeling in some way obliged to support it. We do not know how much its success was due to the calibre of the staff, the seminarians, of Fr Valentijns who would re-appear later at Melle. All we do know is that, for whatever reason, it worked and showed Van Crombrugghe what could be achieved and what he could achieve. In this sense the experiences of both Amiens and Alost did support Van Crombrugghe's enterprise.

4. Did the practicalities of the situation almost defeat a method considered almost unbeatable? Did the Founder have to accept insufficiently motivated candidates in order to press on with the work of education? Did he give too great a responsibility to Josephites who were too young?

Quite clearly the answer to all these questions is "yes". We know that the vision and the human resources available were almost incompatible. Much of the genius of Van Crombrugghe lay in his ability relentlessly to pursue the vision, moulding square pegs into round holes simply because the work had to be done.

5. Did he not understand that men with his own strength of character were quite exceptional?

This is a question whose psychological complexities are beyond the scope of this thesis. As a member of his social class and background he would be familiar with men who where directors of the efforts of others; as such he much well have simply presumed that his own abilities were natural and unexceptional. Whilst the well-concealed "natural" Van Crombrugghe might have taken some pride in them, the "artificed" Van Crombrugghe would certainly not.

6. Did he not understand that, in order to be able to fulfil his vision, the men whom he accepted needed long and careful training within already formed communities?

The short answer is that he must have done, but that the exigencies of the situation made this impossible. It's a chicken and egg situation: at the beginning of an enterprise, where do you find these "already formed communities"? Had the Congregation grown more quickly, or attracted from an early stage a different type of person, or had he lived in a less turbulent time, things might have been different.

THE BACKGROUND TO VAN CROMBRUGGHE'S ACTION

The two chapters dealing with the history of the region show that as a Belgian, Constant Van Crombrugghe lived his life in a period of enormous social and political change. During his lifetime he knew four régimes: occupation by Austria and France, an uneasy and contrived alliance with Holland, and finally an independent Belgium. Did this cause in him any form of struggle for national identity? Probably not. Until 1830 Van Crombrugghe would probably have though of himself as a citizen of East Flanders, and, more specifically, Geraardsbergen rather than anything else. Foreign occupiers would come and go as a fairly major irritation but would not cause any fundamental instability of identity on a personal level. Even after the establishment of Belgium it could be imagined that Van Crombrugghe would not really think of himself as Belgian.

As a Roman Catholic, and more specifically as a Roman Catholic priest, he lived through a period where the directing role of the Church in everyday life, and particularly in education, was being questioned and had been dramatically weakened. As has been noted, however, as far as Belgium was concerned this was a questioning and weakening which went hand in hand with foreign occupation and, for many Belgians, the Church remained at the centre of their lives. For many, a rejection of foreign occupation would hopefully mean a return to the ecclesiastical status quo. We have seen that at the Collège d'Alost Van Crombrugghe did not throw himself into the creation of anything radically new: rather he attempted to turn the clock back by re-inventing the Jesuit college of 1773. One could also ask whether this was entirely because he thought it the best way, or was there more than a hint of human nostalgia for his "second family" at Amiens.

As an educator, and as a Roman Catholic educator (for, as we have seen, the two in Van Crombrugghe cannot be separated) he inherited a situation in which education in Belgium was something of a wasteland, having been subjected to well-intentioned (but deeply mistrusted) interference by Austria and Holland, and revolutionary manipulation by France. It could be said that Van Crombrugghe's insistence on freedom of education at the National Congress came as a reaction to the utilitarian function of education demanded by the unitary states of Joseph II and Willem of Oranje. He characterises the Belgian people as those "who would go without it (education) rather than to see it imposed on them by the administration and at the whim of the civil power." Above all, the fabric of secondary education had been deeply damaged by the suppression of the Jesuits and the suppression or transfer to other authorities of their Colleges.

It could be argued that all of Van Crombrugghe's "public" life, a period of only seventeen years lasting from 1814 when he became principal of the Collège d'Alost to 1831 when he more or less retired from public life, was lived as a reaction to the situation which he inherited. Thus he was to a large degree, a "righter of wrongs", seeking to re-establish a past order which was seen to have been of value rather than a revolutionary thinker striving after a new order. He was, after all, a member of that Belgian Roman Catholic provincial bourgeoisie whose sensibilities had been offended on all fronts since 1713; as a Belgian by foreign occupation; as a Roman Catholic by the subjection of ecclesiastical to civil authority under an enlightened despot; as a provincial by the notion of centralised government; and finally as a bourgeois by the withdrawal of the traditional rights of the burgher in Belgian society. Much of the offence caused by these measures was, as has been noted, due to Joseph II's total misunderstanding of the nature of his subject populace. Joseph sought an efficient state; Belgians remained attached to a rather bumbling status quo. Joseph, and later Willem of Oranje, sought a state of religious tolerance: Belgians remained attached to the supremacy of the Roman Catholic faith.

Although Joseph's policies were mistrusted by the Belgians there are some striking similarities between the sort of philosophy for which he stood and Van Crombrugghe. It has, for example, been noted that an educational system designed to produce the "useful citizen" should produce "a) honest citizens; b) good citizens; that is faithful and obedient subjects of the authorities; and c) useful people for the Community." In many ways this could be considered as a secularised version of Van Crombrugghe's own aims. The quote from Joseph II's ordinance in Chapter Three would sit perfectly well with Van Crombrugghe - although with some qualification of the last phrase.

THE JOSEPHITES - WHY BROTHERS?

Initially this question may seem to have no place in an educational thesis; it does, nevertheless, have some bearing on the nature of the enterprise on which Van Crombrugghe embarked. Whether Van Crombrugghe right from the first days of the Josephites had visions of the Congregation moving into middle-class secondary education is subject to question. This was, after all, the field with which he himself was familiar, in which he had enjoyed much success, and from which, through Amiens, he had drawn much of his inspiration. It is also clear that Van Crombrugghe had the personal charisma which could have attracted around him a group of educated, middle-class priests, or at least aspirant priests, who could have moved into secondary education much more quickly and with less pain than was the case with the Josephites. There is evidence that an Amiens / Alost "old boy network" grew up in Belgian ecclesiastical circles, remaining in touch with Van Crombrugghe. It is not beyond reason to suppose that Van Crombrugghe could have used his influence within this network to achieve his ends more expeditiously.

However, to take this rather simplistic view would be to misunderstand the evolution of the Josephites as an educational order and to withdraw it from its chronological and social context.

Primarily it has to be understood that the Josephites as they stood at the turn of the 20th century, and therefore much as we see them today, were a long way down the evolutionary line from the Brothers of 1817 and were not an expression of the Founder's original founding intention per se. As has been seen, the Brothers evolved out of Van Crombrugghe's wish, as the newly appointed Headmaster of a middle-class school, to do something urgently to meet the moral and practical needs of an impoverished lower class, not only for pragmatic reasons but also to attract blessings on the "main work", i.e. the Collège d'Alost. Reacting urgently to specific and contemporary needs Van Crombrugghe had to work with the personnel he could find and, besides, his career had not yet sufficiently developed to allow him the sort of networking which has been proposed above. There is also the question of priority of needs: whilst the provision of a teaching corps for the middle classes was pressing, relief of the needs of the poor was yet more pressing.

Secondly, the foundation of another order was, in the political circumstances of 1817, a precarious undertaking. In this context the establishment of a confederation of co-workers without vows was much less likely to attract hostile government attention - and be easier to mutate or dissolve - than a full-blown sacerdotal congregation. Who knows whether, if the Josephites had developed right from the start as a clerical congregation, whether Van Crombrugghe himself might not have become a Josephite himself, rather than directing their evolution rather "at arm's length" and from above.

Whatever the human material which Van Crombrugghe had at his disposal, it is clear that he moulded them into a body of educators dedicated to promoting the ideal vision of education such as he saw it. What were the features of this vision.

THE MAIN FEATURES OF VAN CROMBRUGGHE'S CONCEPT OF EDUCATION

Reading through all the Van Crombrugghe texts, and with an understanding of the vivid Jesuit background to his educational vision, one can isolate a number of threads which go to make up the central core of his educational concept.

1. Competition, honesta aemulatio, is a principal means of encouraging effort and minimising the need for punishment. Of all the traits identified in Van Crombrugghe's woven cloth of education, the one which might be seen to be problematic is that of competition. It has already been noted that the whole idea of competition is possibly something of a mixed blessing. Even Quintilian suggest that it contains the possibility of evil: "though ambition may in itself be a vice none the less it is frequently the source of virtues." We have also seen that for Compayré competition was a source of ammunition for an attack on the Jesuits: "fostering of ambition" was "the characteristic of the corrupt Jesuitical morality".

In our own times, competition is regarded as a mixed blessing:

"Competition is, of itself, neither good nor evil, but when it is used to brand children or schools in a way which limits their freedom or potential, it is damaging to human flourishing. It also carries the danger of communicating to children and young people - and, indeed, to the wider community - that a person's value is measured solely in terms of academic, sporting or financial success. When, as St Paul describes it, we try to win the race, we are racing against ourselves. So, in education when a school encourages its pupils and staff to perform to the best of their ability for their own sake, its aim is to enable them to fulfil their God-given potential. If competition sets one school against another, if success in one institution is achieved deliberately at the expense of another, it is morally unacceptable."

Against the existence of league tables this does, indeed, become problematic. Apart from anything else one would look for the special benefits of a Constantian school almost exclusively among those areas which are usually classed as "value added". The above statement would also seem to condemn the view expressed by Van Crombrugghe at the National Congress that:

"By reclaiming the freedom of education, by demanding for families the quality which is guaranteed by competition, the free right of the father to choose into whose hands he wishes to confide his son's future, what are we asking except to allow parents to exercise a natural prerogative."

Nevertheless, as a private, fee-paying school, an element of competition has to enter into the equation. St George's College is in competition with other schools to attract pupils in order to survive. One would have to be careful, therefore, of competition on two levels; both within and outside the school. Furthermore, competition would have to be seen firmly in the context both of honesta aemulatio as described by Ribadeneira and within the general economy of striving for excellence as part of the generalised notion of fulfilment of human potential: "la nature propose, l'éducation achève".

2. A teacher's authority is based on esteem: the esteem of the pupil for the teacher and vice-versa. A teacher will gain esteem by the virtue of his example, and by his care for and interest in the individual pupil. There is also an element of fear in the sense of timor reverentialis which is better expressed as respect.

3. A teacher must show a genuine - i.e. real and human, not based on a supernatural notion - affection for his pupils, and will seek their affection in return. The bond between teacher and pupil is characterised by a relationship which goes beyond mutual respect to genuine affection. This affection is based on Jouvancy's "earnestness of a father and the devotion of a mother". In this context education is, for Van Crombrugghe, an intensely personal activity undertaken in the context of an ordered institution.

4. Education is aimed at transformation - Umbildung - in Jorissen's description a move "beyond" oneself, rather than formation - Ausbildung. Central to this is the simultaneous cultivation of the hearts and minds (in that order) of the pupils. This does not in any way minimise the importance of academic excellence, but rather seeks to place it within a broader economy of personal development.

5. No education without religion. Van Crombrugghe was quite unequivocal on this point.

6. Gentleness ; a key word which keeps re-appearing in Van Crombrugghe's writings is "doux" and "douceur". The teacher must have "un air doux et modeste" - a gentle and modest manner. Van Crombrugghe was struck by "la douceur et affabilité avec lesquelles on nous conduit" - the gentleness and affability with which we are led - at Amiens. Teachers are to win the heart of their pupils by gentleness, and also to correct them in a spirit of gentleness and humility.

7. Appropriateness: the way in which an individual pupil is taught, in which he is disciplined, can only successfully be based on a thorough understanding of the individual. Van Crombrugghe was most insistent that his teachers should study their pupils.

8. A good education cannot be achieved without order and method. Nothing can be left to chance and, although education takes place within a framework built on personal relationships, the whole is undertaken within a structure in which everything is subject to meticulous analysis and regulation. There is no place for mavericks in Van Crombrugghe's organisation. All is to be justified, not by the yardstick of what is novel and radical, but by what is already proven.

POLITESSE & FAMILY SPIRIT

This feature has been left until last because it is so central to Van Crombrugghe's concept of education that it needs a full explanation. Indeed, it could fairly be said that for Van Crombrugghe everything leads to, and is rooted in, this concept of total respect for the other.

The full expression of the good Christian and honest man is based on this politesse for which "politeness" is a totally inadequate translation. It would seem reasonable to suggest that the notion of "family spirit" which Josephites have traditionally held as definitive but rather vague should be posited firmly within the context of this politesse. So much is family spirit subsumed into politesse that a "family spirit" as such is not here cited as an important element per se.

We have seen that in the mission statement of St George's College the only specific reference to Josephite values is to the "family spirit". This is quite wrong, as it seizes on only one small element of Van Crombrugghe's philosophy at the expense of so much else. Certainly it is a convenient phrase to latch on to, in wording which is easily understood. One might equally say that it is capable of miscomprehension: family stability is not what it was in Van Crombrugghe's day and one wonders what so many products of broken families in this day and age would make of this definition. For too many people their experience of family is of a dysfunctional and even painful framework.

But it is a simplistic view of something which is much broader and richer: distilling the whole thing into "family spirit" is akin to valuing a diamond based solely on one of its facets taken almost at random. Even more simplistic is the notion that it is based on the Holy Family - an entity for whose family values and presumed domestic harmony which there is no empirical evidence at all. Interestingly enough, at the earliest opportunity Jesus went missing and when found three days later in the Temple gave his parent a particularly patronising explanation of his conduct. In Jesus' attitude at this moment one can see strong overtones of Van Crombrugghe dealing with his "inferiors" - the first Josephites. To quote Luke: "But they did not know what he meant"

This is not to say that this "family spirit" is not a useful, if simplistic, image. Certainly the image of family as an enduring hierarchical structure permeates Van Crombrugghe. The son is in a position of filial duty to parents; parents have a duty of care to the son. The place of the parents is taken over by the Fathers of the Faith in Amiens; the son seeks a continuation of hierarchical structure in the Church; the son becomes parent as Headmaster of the Collège d'Alost and as Founder. Within the communities an almost Trinitarian atmosphere is to be engendered whereby the individual religious lives in harmony with his confrères and with his pupils in a symbiotic relationship. It is perhaps this notion of symbiosis which most specifically illuminates Van Crombrugghe's concept of family spirit. A particular consequence of this concept is that up until quite recently in Josephite schools there has been little physical separation of "school" and "religious house": to ask where the "cloister" was would have been a nonsensical question.

In our own time and place this intertwining of the two threads of religious community and school has caused some real problems. Firstly, as has been alluded to previously, it has caused problems of definition. If at St George's College the two are now juridically separated, and if Josephites have traditionally defined themselves in the context of the school, where are Josephites now to look for a definition of self? In many ways it is that very question which has engendered the current research. Secondly, on a purely pragmatic level, there is the pressing question of who owns and/or controls what.

But the demanding vision described above of a system based on politesse is to a degree ultra -human. This is rather typical for the Founder who seemed to like things which were ultra-human. Something is needed to hold it all together otherwise, as it frequently did with the early Josephites, the structure will crumble. The cement is religion, both in its sense of personal devotion and piety, but also in its sense of re-ligio; that which re-binds. The bricks and mortar are politesse which goes beyond individual human personalities and in that sense is also ultra-human; to be striven for and perhaps never achieved. It is a bourgeois notion, and one can imagine it sitting awkwardly on the first Brothers.

The thread which ties it all together, keeps the individual firmly sighted on these ultra-human goals in spite of the fallibility of human nature, is obedience to authority, both in the context of a religious' duty of obedience to Superiors, and the human and social demands of politesse.

So, how can one attempt to define politesse? (also see Concerning Politesse In General)

Politesse is an economy of relationships based on Van Crombrugghe's bourgeois notions of what is right. It takes in not only relationships in the human sphere, but also the physical sphere and the supra-human or religious sphere.

• Human sphere: relationships between individuals must be marked by urbanity and respect for the other.
• Physical sphere: the physical environment must show evidence of good taste and of being cared for.
• Supra-human sphere: the urbanity and respect for the other which mark the human sphere are firmly rooted in a religious framework based on the reciprocal love of the Father for the Son and characterised by the presumed perfection of the Holy Family as perceived by Van Crombrugghe in the context of his own family and later defined by him in the terms of 1 Corinthians XIII.

Although this was expressed by Van Crombrugghe in a late eighteenth and early nineteenth century context, the basic values expressed endure. One could, of course, argue that moral and social values are not the same absolutes at the end of the twentieth century as they might seem to have been in Van Crombrugghe's time. But this would be totally to miss the point of Van Crombrugghe's insistence on the role of the Roman Catholic religion in education, because one can argue that for Van Crombrugghe it is precisely the Roman Catholic Church that bears witness to eternal truths and unchanging basic moral and social values. This is the key to the importance of the religious domination of education in Van Crombrugghe's philosophy. It also underpins Van Crombrugghe's insistence that the best people to undertake the work of education were priests and religious - precisely because they had a canonical obligation to uphold those unchanging truths with "blind obedience, but wise in its blindness."

Of course a cynic could argue that religious were precisely the people that Van Crombrugghe could, by virtue of obedience, bludgeon into doing things the way he thought was right.

UNIQUE OR DISTINCTIVE?

The notions of "unique" and "distinctive" have already been mentioned. If we look over the features of Van Crombrugghe's educational vision listed above, and their fuller ramifications elucidated in the main text it is evident that they can, taken separately, be found in a number of other places. We have already seen how one or other, or a combination of some, are indicated by Quintilian, Jouvancy, the Ratio Studiorum, Fénélon, Rollin, Don Bosco, Locke, and Erasmus to name but a few. Any reader will be able to take one or more of these elements in isolation and note that they appear elsewhere. In that context, it cannot be claimed that Van Crombrugghe was a unique educator, nor that he formulated a radically unique system. This is not a criticism: it could equally be levelled at the whole gamut of founders of education orientated religious orders right back to Ignatius Loyola. The genius of Loyola and the Jesuits was in the codification of the best of existing practices; the same could be said of Van Crombrugghe. There is a difference: for the Jesuits the burden of codification and direction was not shouldered by one man; for the Josephites it was.

The distinctiveness of Van Crombrugghe, and the place that we have to look if we are to define a distinctiveness in Josephite education, comes from the way in which he weaved these elements into an elaborated system. Many present-day teaching orders share, with varying degrees of explicitness, the same Jesuit roots. Many of them share the same broad circumstances of foundation, and are rooted in the same European christian-humanist tradition. All of them, however, would claim to have something special, something not quite definable, which will mark the Josephite teacher, the Rosminian teacher, the Salesian teacher and the products of their various schools. This specialness will come principally from the specific genius of interpretation of the broad tradition by their founders, coupled with the way in which their followers have lived out the founding vision.

JOSEPHITE OR CONSTANTIAN?

In the Introduction to this thesis a distinction was proposed between "Josephite" and "Constantian", particularly in the light of the Second Vatican Council's insistence on a return to the spirit of Founders. At that point it was stated that "a Constantian school ..... (is) based on the historical person of Van Crombrugghe rather than on the lived experience of Josephites since Van Crombrugghe". In this context it has been seen that the Jesuits have attempted a focus on Ignatius rather than "the Jesuit tradition".

At this stage, however, one could question whether this is necessarily a good concept for the Josephites. Why?

Although Van Crombrugghe was heavily Jesuit influenced, albeit at second hand, the Jesuit educational tradition has been formalised by the Ratio and is not directly Ignatian. Furthermore, the Jesuits have the quite separate and Ignatius authored Spiritual Exercises on which to base a spirituality, and the Ratio on which to base a pedagogy. In that sense their spirituality can be called directly Ignatian but not their pedagogy. If you like, the foundations of "how to be a Jesuit religious" and of "how to be a Jesuit teacher" are quite separate.

We have to remember also that the Jesuits were not explicitly founded as a teaching order. With Van Crombrugghe the situation is rather different; he founded specific teaching orders and the two elements of teacher and religious are strongly intertwined and interdependent. Where spirituality and pedagogy in a teaching congregation are based on different sources it is possible for one - pedagogy - to change and be adapted to the exigencies of time and place whilst remaining entirely faithful to the founding spirituality. Taken to its logical conclusion this argument means that the move out of the traditional sphere of "total immersion" in the running of boarding colleges will entail more than an adaptation to new circumstances but almost a "re-invention" of the Congregation.

Nevertheless the concept of "Constantian" is worth retaining and will be used in this chapter as a) it focuses attention on that which can be specifically attributed to Van Crombrugghe and b) it indicates what can be experienced by non-Josephites in the concrete situation of St George's College.

FROM EDUCATION OF THE POOR TO EDUCATION OF THE BOURGEOISIE

"It was in the family at home", wrote Mgr Van Weddingen in 1866, "that the young Van Crombrugghe learned to love the three things to which he was to dedicated his life: God, the poor and the Motherland."

This opinion appeared in the Revue Catholique of 1865, the year of Van Crombrugghe's death. In view of how his career developed, one wonders if he did, in fact, dedicate his life to the poor. That he gave service to the poor cannot be doubted. The original school at Geraardsbergen, the workshop for the poor and the institution of the proviseur des pauvres at Alost, thei; all these show an undoubted concern for the poor. On the other hand, it has been seen that a duty to the poor was part of Van Crombrugghe's social background and the fact that he did give service to them does not necessarily indicate a fundamental life option. The facts of his life would actually suggest otherwise.

One wonders, for example, if the circumstances of the Collège d'Alost had not changed, and if Van Crombrugghe had been able to spend most of his life there, whether the Josephites would have remained the Brothers of Mary and Joseph and have remained involved solely in the primary education of the poor? Van Crombrugghe's need for the company of his own class would have been filled and, at the same time, the duty of helping the poor would have been satisfied.

The years between 1825 (end of Alost) and 1837 (beginning of Melle) were not idle years. He was among other things a member of the Gent Diocesan Council, advisor to the Bishop, a director of the influential Catholic newspaper the Catholique des Pays-Bas. After 1830 he was director for Catholic Education in Flanders (and as such was instrumental in returning the Jesuits to the Collège d'Alost).

We know that the taking over of Melle was not a sudden move. Discussions had been in hand between Van Crombrugghe and Van Wymelbeke for some years previously and the Chapters from 1835 onwards had been geared towards steadily improving the educational standards of the Josephites. At some moment, therefore, Van Crombrugghe must have made a conscious decision to move the Josephites away from lower class primary education to bourgeois secondary education. Why?

Part of the reason was undoubtedly financial. Along with problems of personnel, the reasons for the eventual demise of the failed foundations were partly financial. Being for the most part free schools, they, and the Josephites, lived on a financial knife-edge. A move into bourgeois, and therefore fee-paying, education would guarantee the financial stability of the congregation.

Part of the reason was to do with the fabric of Belgian society at the time. Van Crombrugghe would have seen the need for a new, educated, Catholic elite to be at the forefront of the nation's affairs after the hectic merry-go-round of occupation of the previous century. The obvious people to do this would have been the Jesuits, but they were still too much in disarray after their period of suppression to be able to undertake the task. Van Wymelbeke's decision to leave Melle and to entrust it to Van Crombrugghe must have seemed a felicitous intervention of fate.

Thirdly there was a human factor within the Josephites. Having split the sisters in 1830 into the "upper-class" Daughters of Mary and Joseph and the "lower-class" Sisters of Mary and Joseph, Van Crombrugghe feared that the Josephites, seeing themselves aligned for ever with the second league, might be destroyed by jealousy. Whilst the split in the sisters had been possible because of the element of bourgeois ladies already present, the same possibility was not present in the Josephites and the only remedy would be to lift the congregation in toto to a new level.

There is, however, a fourth and possibly most important factor, although this is proposed on the basis of educated speculation. Having had one successful opportunity to "re-create" Amiens at Alost, the chance to do so again at Melle must have seemed an extraordinarily attractive proposition to Van Crombrugghe. One should not consider this to be inspired simply by an indulgent nostalgia; rather it was an opportunity a) to move back into the milieu of his own social class and b) to realise his goal of creating the "honnête homme et parfait Chrétien", the "honnête homme" being a concept heavily laden with bourgeois overtones and a goal which was not going to be easily realised among the gutter children of Geraardsbergen. Not only would a move to Melle allow Van Crombrugghe to work among people of his own class, but it would also allow him to work for them: it has already been shown that at Van Wymelbeke's Melle there was the beginnings of a commercial side which Van Crombrugghe would expand develop until prevented from doing so by legislation on access to higher education.

THE VAN CROMBRUGGHE LEGACY

• Starting with his appointment to the Collège d'Alost in 1814 and the foundation of the Josephites in 1817, Van Crombrugghe elaborated a distinctive but not unique system of education based on tried and proven sources in the Christian-humanist tradition, taking his inspiration particularly from the Jesuits.
• This system is based around the nine traits noted above:

- competition, - authority based on esteem and tempered with mercy - religion, - politesse, - affection, - esteem, - gentleness, - appropriateness, - transformation.

• At the same time he founded two religious orders dedicated to education and, for the Josephites, forced a rapid evolution over only twenty years from an order of Brothers working in lower-class primary education into a clerical congregation active in bourgeois secondary education.

CONTEMPORARY IMPLICATIONS

What are the implications of these conclusions for the contemporary situation of the Josephites and the lay staff, specifically the situation at St George's College outlined in the introduction?

As has already been stated, the impetus for this thesis arose out of a perceived need of the Josephites for a basis for self-definition and definition of a Josephite "ethos". Having traditionally defined themselves - if there even was such a thing as a definition - in terms of the school, and furthermore a boarding school, the transfer of power in the early 1990's combined with a decline in community numbers and the closure of boarding meant that this definition base was swept away overnight. This definition base was rooted in two factors: the total integration of community and school, and the absence of a specific Josephite spirituality which did not revolve around a total saturation in the school. At the same time the school was to continue to operate within the undefined Josephite tradition.

This assertion led to a further question: was this Josephite tradition based on the Founder, or on the lived experience of his successors? From that question arose the current research in an attempt to discover what could be traced back to Van Crombrugghe and could be, in a sense, detached from Josephite mythology. The elements listed above are a distillation of that research.

How, then, does one apply these elements to the contemporary situation? How is St George's College, and its Josephite community, to maintain a Constantian tradition?

1. Constantian education is unashamedly Roman Catholic. This is more specific than being purely Christian. Van Crombrugghe is quite clear that education is inseparable from religion. It is part of the function of a Roman Catholic school to provide catechesis and evangelisation and this must necessarily be Roman Catholic in orientation. As the Prefect for the Congregation for Catholic Education said in 1983 when he addressed the Synod of Bishops in Rome:

"The basic problem of the Catholic school is that of being what it ought to be. Hence, not only a school of high quality, but a Catholic school in the full meaning of the term."

In claiming to be Catholic, the school must commit itself fully to pursuing the meanings and truths specific to the Catholic faith. Without this, the Catholic school has no reason for existing since the Catholic school is always internal to the Church and must proclaim and live the Catholic faith. In 1996 the bishops of England and Wales set out the key areas of the distinctive nature of Catholic education:

• the search for excellence as an integral part of the spiritual quest;
• the uniqueness of the individual, made in God's image;
• the education of the whole person, since human and divine are inseparable;
• the education of all, with particular care for the disadvantaged;
• moral principles, put into practice in the Christian community.

It is a tribute to Van Crombrugghe that this 1997 list could quite easily have been taken from his own writings.

From what has been written above it follows that St George's College must fully maintain its identity as a Roman Catholic school.

In a Constantian school academic excellence is valued, but not as an end in itself. Rather it is but one part of a striving towards overall human excellence, a lifting of self beyond self. This does not prevent a Constantian school striving for recognition as an academic school, but only in the context clearly stated above. In any hierarchy of aspirations, academic excellence does not come first, but is at the service of the development of the "perfect Christian and the honest man". As is laid down by the Catholic Education Service:

"The pursuit of excellence is intrinsically good when it is seen as an integral part of the spiritual quest and not simply as a matter of competitive league tables."

A Constantian school is distinguished by the excellence of its pastoral care and its moral standards. It is quite clear that for Van Crombrugghe the moral values of the school, both explicitly taught and implicitly demonstrated by example, and the pastoral ambience of the school were of prime importance. The young people passing through the school are at a vulnerable stage of their lives and it is demanded that teachers "sympathise with their weakness" through the concept of discipline tempered with mercy which Van Crombrugghe elaborates in the Easter 1815 speech.

The Constantian school is staffed by teachers who with the active encouragement of the Josephite community accept and promote the Constantian ethos. We have seen that for Van Crombrugghe the task of education is undertaken in an intrinsically religious framework and more specifically in a framework of religious life. For him the Josephite as religious and the Josephite as teacher could not be separated. Nevertheless from the early days, and particularly after the move into Melle, the Josephites have worked in collaboration with lay teachers. This collaboration has developed from that early period where there were only a very small number of lay teachers, brought in to teach the optional subjects such as music and drawing, to more recent years where all Josephite schools are staffed by an overwhelming majority of lay teachers and active Josephite participation has been reduced to a minimum. It is clear that from an early stage lay teachers were to be seen as a part of the unity of the Josephite school:

"Keep yourself in perfect harmony with those of your colleagues who share your responsibilities, so that the same spirit may reign in the manner of leading the pupils, and so that in everything there may be that unity without which nothing is solid."

Those resolutions made in Chapter concerning education were made known to the lay staff and by 1855 there existed a "Projet de Règlement des Professeurs Laïcs pour gouverne de nos Supérieurs" a document of only sixteen paragraphs, which makes it clear that the same qualities were expected from the lay teachers as were expected in the religious, particularly in the realms of christian witness:

"Every teacher attached to this establishment must above all fulfil his duties as a good christian, and to conform to everything that the best catholic families are entitled to demand from those who are appointed to educate their children."

and of submission to the general "method".

"They will conform precisely to the methods of teaching, the authors to use and the instructions of the Headmaster."

A rather longer document, undated, entitled the "Guidon des Professeurs Laïcs", appears in the same file in the Archives. It is a lengthy elaboration of the Projet and contains quotes from the Règlement des Professeurs and the Guide Pédagogique, underlining just how fully the lay teachers are to be involved in the maintenance of the Constantian ethos of the school.

In our own day, St George's College is committed to seeking to "promote our Josephite (Constantian) tradition" . It is committed to doing so with a staff which is 99% non-Josephite and more than 50% non-Catholic, and a pupil body which is also approximately 50% non-Catholic. This makes it even more essential a) that the tradition be defined, since it can no longer be transmitted by a process of "osmosis", b) that those responsible for the appointment and induction of staff be aware of and committed to the tradition, and c) that the Josephite community, whether still actively involved in teaching or not, be aware of their own responsibility in the matter. In a worst case scenario there could come a point where, however "good" a school St George's College might be, even as a Catholic school, it could grow so far away from being a Josephite / Constantian school that the community might feel obliged to withdraw its endorsement of the product. Thus, in a very real sense it is even more important for the community to be aware of the definable elements of the tradition now that they are promoting it rather than living it in the traditional way.

DEFINITIONS

So, then, how is all this to be distilled? As both a conclusion and as a basis for debate the following statement is proposed:

"St George's College cannot under its present constitution lay a valid claim to a Josephite ethos in the traditional sense, but could and should aspire to a Constantian ethos which is rooted in the distinctive, but not unique, characteristics synthesised into a coherent whole by Constant Van Crombrugghe, and which takes its impetus from the ongoing mission of the Roman Catholic Church and the historical witness of the Josephite Congregation."

The distinctive features of a school with a Constantian ethos are that it is:

• a truly Roman Catholic institution which promotes
• the development of the whole human being according to the individual abilities and needs of each pupil
• in an environment marked by "politesse" both human and material
• in which pupils are led by "douceur"
• and a genuine mutual affection and esteem between themselves and their teachers."
  

ENDNOTE

At the end of the opening chapter of this thesis it was suggested of Van Crombrugghe that although "he cannot be placed amongst the highest class of original thinkers on education, he has an indisputable claim to stand with those whose actual concrete services to educational administration have been very considerable indeed." It would be my contention that what has been discovered in this research has indeed validated this assertion. Outside the bounds of those who have come into contact with the Josephites his name is largely unknown. Nevertheless over the past 183 years countless young people in Belgium, England, California and Congo have benefited from the "minute particulars" of his inspiration. The numerical decline of the Josephites and the transfer of power from religious to lay hands does not mean the death of this inspiration, but rather a new contextualisation of Van Crombrugghe's vision whereby his educational philosophy, defined as Constantian rather than Josephite, continues as the defining principle of the new order.

 

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SPEECH OF CONSTANT VAN CROMBRUGGHE
AT PRIZEGIVING, ALOST, EASTER 1815.

Seeing the dazzling company which honours us by coming to encourage the efforts of our pupils by applauding their success, I feel inspired to give a simple exposé of the goals to which we tend, and the method which we have adopted in order to attain those goals in this school.

The point of perfection at which we have so happily arrived so rapidly proves the value of our methods and justifies the unusual degree of trust in which we are held by an enlightened populace. I beg you, ladies and gentlemen, not to expect from me an elegant and flowery discourse: I have no ambition to be known as an orator. I have nothing to offer but honesty and candour. I will attempt to gain your attention only by the importance of what I want to say.

The education of young people has at every stage in history been regarded by the greatest philosophers and the wisest legislators as the true source of happiness of families, even States and Empires. The high esteem which it enjoys nowadays among Belgians dispenses me from the necessity of establishing its advantages. It is well understood that in order to attain the perfection of which he is capable man must be cultivated. His most positive attributes will not gain any real value except through the care he takes top bring them to fruition and the good use which he learns to make of them. If I needed any proof of the unanimity of feeling which exists concerning this truth I would find it, ladies and gentlemen, in your own approval, in the part you are playing in this ceremony, in the reasons which bring you here: I would find them in the zeal of the first Magistrate of this city and of the members of his Council; It is he who brings them so often among us to encourage our young athletes.

It is, thus the role of education to form the good man and to prepare him to take his place in society; as a consequence it is its role to form the heart and the spirit of the young, to bring to perfection their reason and to embellish their imagination.

In a College, four things, it seems to me, must direct us towards this noble goal: A good choice of studies, wise rules, the power of competition and the stronger power of religion.

Ever since certain foolhardy and audacious men dared to call into question religion, morality and politics, at the same time as submitting public education to the reforming views of anti-philosophy, the literary world has been inundated with productions full of that lofty and unfeeling disdain for all which has previously existed to nourish that effervescence which called the imagination towards new ideas.

Man is doubtless capable of tending to perfection and, as a consequence, his institutions must necessarily be subject to modification. But a half-century of misfortune has taught us the real value of the philosophical reforms: thus we have made it a duty to avoid to route which has been followed these past several years, and to re-align ourselves with the beaux cycles of knowledge in order to discover there the lessons of the true masters of the education of youth. It is Rollin, that most happy genius whom nature and experience formed to direct education and to bring it to perfection. It is Fénélon, at the though of whom one's imagination smiles and the heart is opened to the tenderest feelings. Yes, it is the good Fénélon, it is Jouvency, and yet others who have guided our councils and whose precepts have formed our laws.

Thus it is that through these true legislators of education, through these friends of youth that we have learned at what level our studies should proceed; which rules and methods should lead us to attain our goal.

Languages are like to instruments of the fine arts, and, before studying an art one must learn how to use the instruments. After the two languages of our country we give preference to the learned languages. One can learn common languages at any age, but the study of the learned languages becomes almost impossible if one has not been initiated into them in one's infancy. Besides, the learned languages lead to the growth and embellishment of the common languages.

The study of history goes hand in hand with that of languages: through languages one accumulates a treasury of words in the mind of children: through history a treasury of facts. A specific course of history is adapted to each class. The study of geography is comparable to that of history in that it places in the minds of the children empires, towns, points of unity and of division in the world, and that of chronology neatly adds eras and epochs.

From chronology one moves on to mythology, that is to the eras and wonders of fable.

From the culture of the memory we move to the enrichment of the imagination. Here it is the turn of belles-lettres, of poetry and of eloquence, seeking in Rome and in Athens - their most natural and rich soil - for the most apt precepts and the finest examples. It follows on naturally from this how much the languages of these famous cities deserve our care and application. The texture of their fine models enlarge the imagination; their precepts fortify it; their imitation perfects it.

The imagination is man's most shining attribute; nevertheless it is subject to many distractions if it is not guided by reason: it changes objects and alters them on a whim. Reason is thus the most necessary quality in man, because the art of knowing things is more necessary that that of painting them. And the qualities of the heart are that which is most precious in man since they give him a vivid understanding of his duties and of everything which constitutes good morals.

It is therefore, in forming these last qualities that we insist in a special way in all of our classical education. Everything which follows in my speech will prove this.

2. Just as the most flourishing State could not survive if it were not governed by rules which establish the duties of its citizens - even if one is not encouraged to speak thus - the best College could not survive for long if everything within it were not subject to wise rules. Youth, being the nursery of the State, must have its duties towards that State impressed upon it. Submission is the first duty of the Citizen, so also must docility be the first virtue of the child. If one does not begin at an early age to bend the will of Youth, it will fight against all constraints, will shake of the yoke of all law and will perhaps break that which holds society together. It is important, therefore, right from early days to mould this will so that it will retain throughout life a healthy suppleness. Now is the precious moment for giving shape to this soft wax, and to make it master over nature.

The example of one's companions, being clothed in glorious distinction or mortifying humiliation, the help of rewards and even chastisement: these male the observation of our rules sweet and easy. Furthermore, we are constantly in mind of fact that the art of ignoring small misdemeanours is in certain situations the way to avert major problems. Too frequent punishments lead to discouragement. Sweetness attracts; fear repulses. Therefore it is only after having exhausted all the resources of the former that we have recourse to the latter. Public and private exhortations, friendly reproaches and the language of reason and Religion: these are our most powerful tools. This is the reason for the weekly proclamations which take place before the staff and pupils, for the careful reports sent home each month to the parents. Not for us that haughtiness which upsets instead of encouraging: those offensive tones which embitter instead of sweetening: those reproaches which poison instead of healing. In an attempt to destroy evil at its source we attempt, in order to punish a fault, to mortify passion. Our punishment, for example, for laziness, consist in imposing an individual task which does not damage the common work. As differences in social status make no difference to our affection for the pupils, so also does it make no difference in the application of our rules, in the distribution of rewards: we have none of those odious distinctions which engender arrogance and indocility in some, jealousy and resentment in others. In order to inspire trust in all we witness to a universal kindness: every teacher concerns himself with equal ardour with the progress of each one of his pupils.

However, if we are faced with any rebellious spirits whose will cannot be bowed to the Rule, then having exhausted every means suggested by moderation and persevering charity, our practice is, and will invariably be, to send home those whom we cannot conquer for fear that the example of a spoilt will should deprave the others. This point, in the judgement of Rollin, that enlightened judge, is important and decisive for the discipline of a College. In effect, it is always better that one be abandoned rather than the good of several be destroyed.

Laws, however wise they might be, would be a feeble barrier against disorder if one did not attract the minds and heart of the children to them. Law alone is a hard and imperious mistress whose yoke man will attempt to shake off as soon as he can do so with impunity. It is necessary, therefore, that education, that sweet and beguiling mistress, enemy of all constraint, make submission easier by making the duty sweet. In a word, we must go to the root of evil to control passion - that is to say, at childhood.

In order to succeed more safely in containing the passions, we attempt to give them a useful direction by leading them and thus we develop the spirit at the same time as the heart. Born hostile to work, children must find something agreeable in it. Besides, study (as Quintilian observes) depends on an unforced will: "Studium discendi voluntate, quae cogi non potest, constat". One must, as kind Fénélon says "seek every way of making those things which you demand from children agreeable to them. Make them understand that the pain in those things which are annoying will soon be followed by pleasure: show them the usefulness of what you are teaching them". So you must gain the children's' good will. We try to make to burn in their hearts the powerful fire of competition by putting the image of glory before the ghost of pleasure. That is why we have these various rewards, titles, and honourable decorations to distinguish the most studious of our pupils. They are childish rewards, in truth, but they are for the children just what sometimes even more vain distinctions are for adults, but with this difference: often it is by favour that adults receive them, but children receive them by merit alone. In our rewards we do not give preference to talent over wisdom, rather crowning success or just effort. This is why we divide our classes into two, each part competing against the other, watching and keeping the other to task. This is why we have debates and classical arguments where memory is pitted against memory, mind against mind in order to sharpen the point of one by the point of another. So in one great bound we deploy every means - sometimes leading to tears caused by noble competition: fertile tears, precious tears. From this also come these individual rewards, these solemn prizes which work towards the discovery of an interest in self-esteem, in duty and in virtue; which make them love each other and which sweeten the difficulties of effort by setting them in the perspective of success. From this come these public exercises where a desire to satisfy the expectations of the public gives or develops talent and gives a felicitous reward to the intellectual faculties. From this also comes our insistence on varying our exercises and works so as to avoid what, for Youth, is the mortal enemy of a taste for duty, monotonous uniformity. This explains the games and recreations which slice up the occupations of the day, the week and they year, for fear that a too heavy application of mental power might end up by damaging the body. We must avoid, says Rollin, the self-flattering pleasure of seeing children shine before their time, since these precocious fruits rarely come to maturity. It is true, says the gentle Fénélon, that one must hasten to write in their heads whilst letters can be easily formed there, but one must be careful in the choice of the images one wishes to engrave there, since one should not pour into so small and precious a reservoir anything but that which is exquisite and which one wishes to remain their for the rest of their lives.

To pure manners we attempt to add sweet and pleasant manners: the most precious stones have to be polished to be seen at their best, and the most secure merit becomes more agreeable and estimable through politeness. We therefore do not tolerate quarrels, invective nor that vulgarity which can degrade or wound the honest man. As civility acts as a support or ornament of virtue, so we apply ourselves to the task of adding modesty and decency to the bearing of our children; moderation and urbanity into their arguments; restraint and maturity into their actions; correctness into their language; clarity into their pronunciation; regularity into their gestures; aptness and dignity into all their movements.

4. Nevertheless, in vain would we try to tie will to duty; it would never hold well unless it was attached by conscience, and the most powerful knot of conscience - is it not religion? The Empire of religion is much more widespread than that of the law: laws can disguise men's actions, religion goes as far as controlling the mind. Actions can be hidden from human vigilance, but the most intimate passion cannot be hidden from Divine vigilance. So it is that laws, and all human effort, cannot submit a man to their yoke except under certain circumstances; religion makes man cherish that yoke on every occasion. So religion is the most powerful as well as the sweetest support of good order, it is the surest guarantee of the rights of people to happiness. This must religion be the soul as well as the completion of all those duties to which I have alluded. In effect, as Rollin whom I so much like to quote, asks, what is a Christian Master charged with the education of youth? He is, says Rollin, "a man between whose hands Jesus Christ has placed a certain number of children whom he ransomed with his blood and for whom he gave his life ..... whom he regards as members of himself and as his brothers and his inheritors who will reign and will serve God with him and through him for all eternity. And precisely why has he entrusted them to him? Is it to make of them poets, orators, philosophers, wise men? Who would dare say that or even think it? He gave them to him in order to conserve in them the precious and inestimable deposit of innocence which he imprinted in their souls through baptism and to make real Christians of them. That is what is the goal and end of the education of children: all the rest serves simply as means to that end." There, ladies and gentlemen, is what the great man says and in our College the principles of and a taste for religion are inculcated along with the principles of and a taste for learning. We make our pupils think, along with profane truths, of those of the Gospel. Religion presides at all our exercises: it animates the courage of some, the zeal of others; by the modesty of piety it tempers pride in knowledge; it consecrates the language of the Muses through that of the Saints; it applauds even their least efforts, and by the divine eyes of faith it ennobles and perfects everything and gives to everything a merit of which God alone is the motive and of which He alone can be the reward.

The first duty of education is to aim the tender mind of the young towards the veneration of the Creator, to engrave in its yet innocent heart the sweet necessity of pleasing Him, and the powerful reasons that one has for loving Him. As a result, one stimulates them from time to time, by simple and pious exhortations and by the frequentation of the Sacraments towards the practice of piety, that is to say towards everything which could make the virtues of Christianity take root in their souls. In carefully planned instruction, pitched at the level of their intelligence, they are instructed in the principal duties of the Religion which we insinuate into their hearts by printing them in their minds. At the same time we are careful not to tire the children with an excess of information or scrupulosity. Wisdom only shows itself to children at intervals and with a smiling face. All is lost, says Fénélon; "you work in vain if the child gets a sad and dull impression of virtue, and if freedom and indiscipline are shown with a kind face."

It would leave much to be desired if education were a matter of simple precepts. In fact the growing passions of the children seek only to communicate themselves from one to the other, to mutually validate themselves, and the College would become the graveyard of their innocence if a gentle but continual surveillance were not to curb their unfortunate tendencies. Please God there are no parents here who have already learned from experience the sad truth of what I am proposing. Just like that bloom which appears on the surface of fruit at dawn, the slightest stain tarnishes the virtue of childhood. This explains our care to remove from the sight of the children all those objects which might excite the passions and from which there exudes an infectious and pestilential breath capable of infecting those who breath it in without fear or precaution. This explains our care that in our College everything teaches and inspires virtue - inscriptions, pictures, statues, even games, and that everything which strikes the eyes and ears of the pupils gives out a healthy breath which unconsciously penetrates the soul of the children and which, helped by what the teachers say and yet more by their example, inspires in them from the earliest age a taste for goodness and honesty. This also explains our library, most carefully chosen for our pupils so that in offering them the cup of knowledge they do not sully their lips with the cup of impiety and licentiousness. These days there are, alas, only too many of those wretched works which, like so many poisonous flowers, exhale an lethal odour which is as dangerous as it is attractive to the passions. This explains above all our continued efforts not to adopt, except in cases of extreme necessity, that imperious and austere manner which makes the children tremble, hardens their hearts and denies that conscience without which their is no fruit to be expected from education. We prefer to try and make ourselves loved by them so that they can be free with us and not be afraid to let us see their failings. To ensure success in this matter we look particularly kindly on those children who hide nothing from us: we never appear surprised by their bad tendencies - on the contrary we sympathise with their weaknesses. Nevertheless there is no lack of the use of authority when trust and persuasion have been shown to be ineffective, but it is only after having exhausted every avenue offered by open, friendly and familial methods which allow us to see the children at their most natural and allow us to know and understand them that we would have recourse to authority. We are convinced that we would not achieve our goal by forcing the children by authority alone to observe our rules. Everything would be changed into an unhealthy formality, perhaps even into hypocrisy. We would give them a disgust for that good for which we only seek to inspire in them a love.

Through this continued support of religion, and this careful supervision, the children will develop the habit of work, joy in virtue, a taste for reflection, amenability to advice, an understanding of honour: in a word, all that will support and encourage them in the acquisition of those qualities proper to great men.

You will have seen, ladies and gentlemen, that we continually seek to use the full scope of our authority: the powerful resource of wise rules, the more powerful resource of competition, and the yet more powerful resource of religion.

If I may point out another peculiar advantage of this establishment, it is that through the zeal of the town authorities this College has been put back into the hands of ministers of religion. Up until our recent unfortunate times, in which a tyrannical government subjugated education to its unjust and impious ends, it was ministers of this same religion who ran the College so wisely. If anyone still doubts the wisdom of this development and the reality of our present advantage, I would ask them to whom they would believe it best to confide the burden of education except to those on whom decency has imposed an unshakeable yoke? to those who are never distracted from a continual and indispensable application to study by the cares of the world? to those whose sacred functions demand irreproachable habits? to those whose state calls them to meditate unceasingly on the spirit of religion, its holy doctrine, and on that tenderness which it demands of them by applying to them the words of God to Moses: "carry these children in your hearts and care for them in charity as a tender nurse"? To whom could you best entrust the development of those good habits which are at the root of public order? Does wisdom not demand that they be established by those whose consecration binds them to holiness and who have divine authority for their function?

Perhaps there will be those who will find fault with the simple tone I am using, even to the extent of suspecting my intentions. As a reply I would only ask them to reserve judgement and to appreciate the instruments I am happy enough to have at my disposal. I will make a vow here with the honesty of a heart incapable of dissimulation: I would willingly sacrifice on the altar of truth and justice all the honour which has been heaped on me for the success which has been enjoyed in the development of this College. Look upon the teachers to whom you confide the precious deposit of the knowledge and behaviour of your children..... And you, my worthy collaborators, allow me, by way of recognition of your service, through love of justice and truth, to mention something of which your modesty will make you disapprove: allow me to make the parents of your pupils aware of the feelings which inspire you, and of the generous efforts you have made for their children which give you the inalienable right to their gratitude.

To whom, in fact, ladies and gentlemen, have you entrusted your children? To teachers who, in the education of the young, seek only the glory of God and the honour of religion: to disinterested teachers who distribute their gifts without ever selling them: who have sacrificed for your children their rest and their own interests - I would go as far as to say they have sacrificed a part of their reputation by stooping to accept a ministry which is seen as humble in the eyes of the common. To teachers who unite taste with knowledge, zeal with talent, discernment with piety, good manners with habits: who make every effort to join equanimity with sweetness of character: young enough to come down to the level of their disciples, as Fénélon would have wished, going as far as to share in their games in order to attract all their trust, but reserved enough to command respect, and to lead them in the paths of knowledge and of virtue. Exact without being severe, they do not demand everything from everyone - in order to get something out of each one. They applaud effort where it is not possible to applaud victory. Knowing the importance of their commitments and the difficulty of fulfilling them without knowing the characters and the quality of sprit of their pupils, they study each one in order to see what can be demanded of him: they study the needs of each one to see which of those needs it would be right to satisfy: they study the character of each one to know to what degree that character should be developed or constrained.

In a nutshell, they seek to bring to perfection what is good in their pupils, to add what is lacking and to reform that of which they disapprove.

I offer you, gentlemen of the staff, the praise which you deserve and my sincere gratitude for the trouble and care you have given to the children.

Such is, ladies and gentlemen, our goal, such are the means we have used to achieve them, such are the sacrifices to which we are condemned in order to live up to your expectations, to redeem the debt we have contracted with the Motherland, and to lead our College not to that point of perfection which leaves nothing to be desired, and which human weakness will never achieve, but to that point which is the happy result of continuous effort. Yes, oh Belgium my Motherland, such are the offerings which we hasten to offer on your altars. The Foreigner for some time wished to paralyse our efforts towards your joy by closing off to us almost every way of serving you: but each day saw us raising our arms to heaven to call down God's attention on your happiness. Our churches were witness to the supplications which we addressed unceasingly. Now that a brighter light has started to shine for you: may you, under the sweet influence of a Prince who joins domestic virtue with that of a Sovereign, enjoy peace within and respect without. You, oh God, protector of our Kingdom, send down on the throne of the Master whom you have given us the spirit of charity and of humanity; make to shine on the thrones of our Pontiffs the spirit of zeal and knowledge; give the judges a spirit of moderation and justice; make to shine with ever greater brilliance the torch of the faith of our Fathers. May the angel of peace protect us, and keep from our provinces the demon of war; make to flow on our happy countryside a river of abundance! Inspire in its inhabitants feelings worthy of your munificence, impart your blessings to our children, and conserve in us that gentle affection which lightens all their burdens, and strengthen in them that happy disposition which they have received from your bounty.

And you, my dear children, receive today the public expression of my satisfaction. Continue, redouble your efforts, and you will make yourselves worthy of your parents' love, your country's affection and your teachers' kindness.

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Enlightened by sad experience, we are beginning to recognise today the defective nature of modern education. Parents complain that, in spite of their best efforts to bring up their children well the end result so little corresponds to their expectations that they feel guilty that they have achieved nothing. A light coating of knowledge is considered quite enough, as is a superficial knowledge of the language of the savants; a worldly spirit - that, in fact is the usual result of so much care and sacrifice. In vain does one seek in today's youth docility, modesty, submission, deference for those who have the most right to demand it: a mixture of stubbornness and vanity, vicious traits, an opinionated character, a great aversion to work, a fickle heart - this is how we see most young people today at the end of their education.

Where does such a pernicious disorder, which affects both parents and society, come from? The cause is obvious to anyone with a judicious and penetrating eye: it is because one is concerned only with cultivating the mind and memory of young people and no care is taken over their moral: it is because teachers, concerned only with knowledge and belles-lettres care little for inculcating in them the principles of religion: it is because piety, the foundation and first fruit of education - because without it the finest qualities often serve only to make man more licentious and impious - has been too much neglected, mistrusted and forgotten in education.

So, to achieve the perfection of which he is capable, man needs to be cultivated: the finest traits do not achieve their full worth in he who possesses them except by the care he takes to make them worthwhile and by the good use to which he puts them. Thus of all the means of bringing man to this perfection the most certain and the most sweet is to lead him there through religion. To achieve a real and useful value from his fine traits, and to ensure a good use for them for society, the most successful way is to lead his heart to virtue by the influence of piety. In this I am assured of the support of the best writers on education; I will, however, invoke only the evidence of reason and experience. If I were to need anything else I would find it strongly expressed by the zeal of those Belgians who so carefully seek to find for their children those houses of education where religion enjoys its full rights. We are aware of the horror which they have shown for those institutions, so opposed to their values and to their religion, which foreigners have tried to impose on us these past twenty-five years. We have seen parents place their children far from home, even themselves suffering banishment and the plundering of their possessions, rather than sending them to Bonaparte's schools.

I will consider education under its two essential elements, that is concerning the heart and the mind, and we will see that religious education is the only form of education capable of giving full scope to man's intellectual faculties, of directing and bringing to perfection the good qualities of the heart and, consequently, that only religious education can attain that goal which man seeks in education and which society has the right to expect from it.

The comparison which I will try to establish between Christian education and that where religion is ignored will put each one in a position to judge, by a comparison of methods and results, which one of the two will carry the day.

Among the numerous elements which are essential to the success of the education of the mind one must put in pride of place the application of the pupil, the spirit of order which is inspired in him, and the care taken by the teacher. Certainly, one of the principal and indispensable requirements for study, and without which all the others are almost worthless, is the spirit of recollection, that calm which restricts the light and capricious imagination of youth. Without this application, in vain will your pupils possess the best traits of character, in vain will God have bestowed on him all the gifts of the mind: they will remain sterile in the wilderness, since even the most fertile field produces nothing without careful culture. The passions, as a Belgian writer has so rightly written, trouble the soul, distract the mind with numerous desires and obstructions: they take it up with a love of the illusions which it pursues and places even the greatest obstructions to the progress of talent and human knowledge. Piety lifts these obstacles; through its divine ways it lifts man onto solid ground by settling the troubles of his soul, and by its active practices it calms the frivolity of childhood, it nourishes the mind by the contemplation of higher things and raises it up by those motives which are appropriate for interesting it and inspiring in it nobility and strength.

There are, I am convinced, some pupils who are naturally favoured by nature and for whom work is a necessity, and whose most treasured moments are those spent in study; but their number is very few! Most have need of a an incentive, of something to attach them to work. And who could not see that piety is that attachment par excellence, that spur which engenders in young people the inestimable benefit of a taste for order and application? If you need convincing, go into one of those houses of education where piety in no way makes its sweet and salutary influence felt. What confusion meets the eye! What dissipation, what inconceivable frivolity among the pupils! Constraint is a martyrdom for them and their minds, the plaything of a thousand trifles, reject any serious application. If there are any who seem more occupied, they will often be those of a reserved nature, buried in their subjects, whom nothing touches, nothing rouses from their profound lethargy and who, deprived of the powerful help needed to receive any happy stimulation, never conquer the difficulties of study.

This explains, in these apathetic souls, those frivolous tastes which allow them to occupy themselves in the most serious manner with trifles. Place these same pupils in a house where religion presides at every exercise; where they are repeatedly told that darkness of spirit is pernicious and malign, that ignorance nourishes sloth, that fruitful mother of all vices. One whose unconcern leaves others cold, another whose liveliness seems to vex even the most enduring patience; these have not turned their minds to religion, and known true piety, thereby forgetting their natural tendencies and being surprised to find themselves totally changed from what they were before. Come into these places consecrated to study, in these sanctuaries of belles-lettres; what order, what silence, what application reign! This is the fruit of the piety which we have inspired in the pupils, since it is the wonderful power of piety which allows children to discover a taste for application. The most pious children are usually the most learned, because they regard study as one of their most essential duties, and they know that God will make it an endless merit for them. From this fundamental advantage which education gets from piety, let me go onto some detail.

Study of the learned languages has for some centuries given our country a distinguished place in ancient literature, but this has declined noticeably since a sophistic philosophy, wishing to bring back the era of barbarism, came to destroy our schools, those great monuments to the knowledge and wisdom of our ancestors, but whose shining light pained the wild glances of impiety. It is, therefore, to this modern taste, as opposed to healthy literature as to piety, that we can attribute this decadence. This taste is based on two things which seemed incompatible with solid reason and pure, Belgian morality up until the present time. Now, in our time, false lights have found the secret of uniting frivolity, to which one dedicates oneself too much these days to combat the boredom of language study, to blind irreligion which, like certain malicious animals, lives only in the shadows, and finds its tomb on the enlightened eras of the annals of the world.

Religion overthrows and destroys these two obstacles: it inspires in its children a zeal for duty which supports them in their search for principles and a brave perseverance in the arid study of the mechanism of languages. Friend of the light which is its dearest element, Religion can never be dazzled by its shining. One knows what the study of ancient languages owes to Religion's pious and learned researches, since, in order to be certain of the long-standing of its sacred dogmas, it has traced it back, East and West, to its most early centuries. As proof of what I am saying I need do no more than to point out the immense labours that their zeal for the Religion of our forefathers inspired in the learned men of whom the nations are so proud.

The influence of piety in correcting, through education, weaknesses of the mind and in bringing to perfection the strivings of the heart, reaches out to all areas of literature. The heart, enlivened by the tender sentiments which Religion inspires, will benefit from the activity of the mind and the impetus of genius. Piety favours poetic genius which demands the maximum of verve and enthusiasm. Has profane antiquity anything in this genre to compare with the majesty and sublimity of the Psalms and Canticles of Religion? There is no area of the poetic art which piety, in harmony with reason, morals and natural disposition, cannot bring to perfection. This is provided that one can inspire the imagination without having recourse to those means which reason or Religion condemn; since the first rule is to safeguard morals, poetry will remove from its works any passion which is contrary to the holy severity of Christianity. Always the moral will be pure, the depiction modest, and the conclusion, without ceasing to be agreeable, will be useful and instructive.

Eloquence finds that the maxims of piety are perfectly in agreement with the precepts of the greatest masters of the art of Oratory. The essential virtues of the Orator - probity, strength, love of the common good, disinterest - receive from Religion a greater strength and reality. The goal of eloquence being to persuade, its rules can be better understood by those whose hearts are pure and who combine with their natural disposition the fine sentiments of Christian piety.

Let us be in no doubt that libertinage and impiety will complain of the constraint which piety puts on the imagination of the poet and of the historian, by the scrupulous exactitude which it imposes on the one, and by its insistence on banning, from the work of the other, everything which could give the slightest offence to purity of morals. Piety, fair from being embarrassed congratulates itself on deserving such a complaint, and fights for truth and the assurance of the rights of virtue and the ease of society.

So then, knowledge, having as a goal the discovery of the truth, is not a stranger to solid piety. Wisely jealous of time, freed from slavery to passion, pious knowledge gives to man in the midst of all his labours the freedom to embellish and enrich his mind.

But it is especially in the teacher himself that piety shows its powerful effect on education. A natural ability would not survive for long faced with the setbacks which one discovers at every pace in this difficult occupation. Religion must animate the teacher's mind, and inspire in him that devotion which can overcome all those obstacles which are that much more difficult, call for more sacrifice and offer less reward, without it. But how powerful is the language which Religion addresses to those whom it calls to this important function! "Be the guardian angels of the children who are entrusted to you" it says to them, "protect them against that iniquity which fills the world. Raise them for the Motherland, raise them for their parents, make them good sons, sincere friends, men of integrity; and to arrive at this take no heed of your own benefit, your rest or your health. Do not count on any recognition. Alas, men seldom appreciate true service and, even if they wanted to, could they do so worthily? A more noble prize is reserved for your labours and you will receive it from He who can appreciate everything. Besides, how greatly is the teacher rewarded by the sight of attentive young men, avid for instruction, whose hearts are set on fire through reading some powerful passage! So, then, the teacher rises above himself, all his words engraving themselves in tongues of fire on the hearts of his pupils, leaving behind impressions which the years will never remove.

Do I need to say any more to illustrate the excellence of Religious education? Nevertheless its beneficial influence does not rest there; its triumph would be imperfect if we did not consider it in relation to society - that is where its triumph par excellence lies.

Moral education develops a love for and a habit of virtue, of good ways; it develops the generous affections of the soul and forms the character. So, then, religion, by its moral precepts and by the example of its founder conquers the strongest of natural tendencies, calms the hardiest spirit, makes the least compliant will flexible and manageable; even bitterness is sweetened by its enchanting guile. How many pupils would have remained forever unsociable through their strange and capricious natures if they had not learned from piety self-control and the ability to live with their equals? This, in effect, is the spectrum of possibilities offered by Christian Education to reform, or rather to remould, nature. Could one even dare to compare this with Education where religion is not present? No, far from rebuilding the character, everything seems to conspire to destroy it. Let me put before you the experience of those parents whose sons, through the misfortunes of the times and when a despotic government decided everything, were condemned to an education cut off from the Belgian spirit. Not to mention the false ideas of grandeur that these children developed there, they contracted defects which most directly attack society: vanity and egoism, that poisoned fruit of the new doctrines, hardened them to all that nature shows us to be most sacred. Look, in fact, at certain young people today: at the age of ten they are full of their own small merit, already demanding applause; at fifteen they are arrogant, insufferable; at twenty they are perfect models of fatuousness, effrontery and impudence. Paternal authority, maternal tenderness - so powerful for us - for these thoughtless and guilty ones you are only vain names! Look at their haughty bearing, their studied gestures, their childish seeking after a frivolous elegance. In society, take note of their decisive tone, their gravitas, their serious pursuit of trifles and above all their efforts to demonstrate at every turn all the frippery of a cultured spirit. Even if they advance the most absurd propositions, be careful not to contradict them; the slightest doubt irritates them; they treat experience, reason and knowledge as prejudices of a former era. How good it would be if, even in their ridiculous propositions, they still respected anything concerning Religion! How different is the young man brought up with the principles of piety and wisdom. He is easy in his manners, frank in his discussions, polite and decent in his bearing. Without affectation, he shows no wish to be noticed; he is sensitive to what is done for him and the delicacy of his feelings brings him to show his gratitude. Through virtue he has a taste for that which others do only with difficulty and through vain ostentation. It is principally on the heart that pious Education has its most visible influence; it guides the sensitivity of the heart and cultivates in it the virtues of generosity and of charity.

Yes, it is from this source that is derived true sensitivity, that generous and compassionate virtue, that exquisite sentiment which binds man to man and opens his heart to all the needs of his equals. Fruit and companion of goodness of heart, source of the most pure joy, principle of all charitable qualities, this great virtue has not been banished from our Belgium! Victims of Waterloo, brave men who shed your noble blood for Europe, tell us if ever gratitude were to allow you to forget the charity and kindness of this generous nature? You will maintain these virtues, my dear Compatriots, as long as you have a horror of impious Education whose cold egoism concentrates man's affections on himself. It is for piety to teach us that all men are part of the same family and our consideration should extend itself to all its members.

Fathers and Mothers who have allowed yourselves to be dazzled by the faux brillant of new methods, you complain quite rightly that in your families you no longer see developing those sentiments whose loss you quite rightly regret. You complain of the coldness and insensitivity of your children, of the self-interested way in which they receive your most tender care. Do you really want to receive sincere and meaningful expressions of their filial love, so precious to you? Return to the wise and time honoured custom of your fathers, and entrust them to the care of those who put all of their own happiness into making them into true Christians. Then they will repay you with interest the gratitude they owe you; then you will be able to trust their words; their protestations of gratitude will be sincere because they will be dictated by the heart and by the heart alone. It is Religion which gives them the duty of honouring and loving the authors of their days, as well as of caring for them in their old age, and of never giving the slightest occasion of sadness or of pain.

So then, in these special cases where piety holds sovereign sway, virtue, unceasingly recommended, encouraged, and sustained by all sorts of means, plants deep roots in the hearts of the pupils. All that they see and hear leaves on their souls healthy impressions and fortifies their morals against the attacks of the times. Alas, our own times share in this shame, and I will be understood here by those honest souls who deplore the abuses which I also deplore. One has only too well made of education a way of corrupting the heart and mind of youth, of freezing it into an unhealthy indifference to everything concerning Religion. In the same way schools of letters and of morals has been made into schools of error, of rebellion and of impiety. Thus a school can become the coffin of their innocence if careful supervision does not prevent their unfortunate tendencies. How legitimate, therefore, is the care that Christian educators take to remove from the eyes of the pupils all those objects which might excite the passions, and to make them breathe the pure air of virtue, of innocence and of sound instruction! From this comes their care that everything in the colleges teaches and inspires virtue: inscriptions, pictures, statues, even games, and that everything which attracts they eyes and ears may be a healthy breeze which penetrates, un-noticed, to the heart of the children and which, enriched by the discourses and yet more by the example of their masters, plants in their hearts from an early age social and Christian virtues. Furthermore, there are provided in these establishments a choice of books for the pleasure and use of the pupils, for fear that knowledge will lead them astray without enlightening them. Who could count the number of victims who are daily sacrificed to the demon of immorality by deadly writings! Principles harmful to all social order would not have taken root in the last fifty years to cause all the evils which have flooded the earth if one had reserved to Religion the inalienable rights that she enjoys over Education, and we would still enjoy today those joys, which centuries of piety ensured to our ancestors and to many of our contemporaries.

Finally, let me add that pious Education is the most capable of forming the mind of society. It is un-necessary for me to prove that it forestalls the evils which are its true scourges. The pious man knows how to avoid excesses of both misanthropy and of dissipation. As a charitable person, he does not feel himself to be authorised to cut himself off from other men by reason of their imperfections. A humble person, he does not have a misguided idea of his own merit which would make him see himself as superior to his equals, and he supports them out of the need he has to be supported by them. He knows how to raise and lower himself according to the nature of those who surround him, and to temper the rays of a light which might dazzle others. His heart being neither vicious nor depraved, his relationships will be full of that innocent charm and friendliness of wit which are the embellishment of society. No-one will be able to resist the enchantment of his gentleness, the justice of his reasoning, the elegant simplicity of his expression and above all his easy modesty which increases his merit.

How then, except in bad faith, could one refuse to Christian Education the crown which reason, experience and happiness in life conspire to award it? Let us say without fear of contradiction that only Religious Education is capable of leading man to the perfection of which he is capable and of assuring the happiness of the individual and of society.

Happy then is youth nourished at the source of so many benefits! Armed with the sentiments which Religion inpires, it sets forth on its career with the righteous hope of following it with glory. Once the heavenly flame of competition is lit in its heart, work, that heavy burden for the young, becomes sweet and light. A gesture of disapproval humbles a pupil stimulated by piety; a word brings his attention back to his work, a smile animates him, a mark of satisfaction charms him. Happy also is the college where these virtues hold sway. Pure joy animates every heart and spreads over the faces of all an air of happiness.

Belgians, be aware of our care and efforts for the education of your children. May your wishes in the matter enlighten our August Sovereign. He wishes your happiness, but sometimes the manner of achieving it is hidden from him. Wretched would we be if we were reduced, in this matter as in so many others, to repeating that plaintive but tardy cry "If only the King had known!!! If the King only knew!!!" Make no mistake, Religion and happiness of your children depend on your zeal in repulsing everything reminiscent in our Motherland of those schools where impiety and libertinage were taught along with knowledge. Remind yourself often of these words of Quintilian: If indeed it is resolved that schools are of benefit to study but that they are harmful to morals, a consideration for living virtuously would seem to me to be preferable to a consideration for speaking excellently.

Wonderful Youth! hope of your Motherland, pray to the God of your fathers that he may guard you from the worst of evils: that of Education where Religion and virtue are not at the very heart.

And you, oh good Prince, so worthy of hearing the truth. Permit a Belgian to express the wish of his countrymen: no plan for Education will succeed among us if our Religion is not assured its full rights in it. Our children will absolutely not take in the elements of all evil along with knowledge. Our just hatred for those establishments of this type which the French Government tried to establish in our country, and which were hardly attended except by foreigners, should show your Majesty the strength of opinion of the people that he is so desirous of making happy. If my zeal for the happiness of youth, if the sacrifices I have made for this most worthy part of your Majesty's subjects have given me some right to public recognition, I will be greatly rewarded by the happiness of bringing to the attention of my King something of such great importance and of having thereby contributed to the happiness of the Motherland. If I have any experience in this matter, I can say with the strongest conviction that the way to make Education all it should be is to make the Education of youth essentially Religious. If my feeble voice succeeds in reaching the Throne, I will congratulate myself for having succeeded in strengthening the ties between the people and their Sovereign, and of having re-awakened that hope which has been almost extinguished by the discouragement which has become so widespread in all areas of the State.

Not only does the prosperity of all kingdoms and peoples but also especially does the safety of the Christian State depend on the correct education of the young; education indeed directs minds, when still unformed, to refinement; moreover it makes minds which are barren and unfruitful useful and suitable for the duties of the State: worship of God promotes loyalty to one's parents and country, and promotes respect and obedience towards the officers of the State.

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Gentlemen, just as we desire the freedom of worship and of the press, we also desire the freedom of education: today one cannot exist without the other. It is the deprivation of that freedom, Gentlemen, which has given rise to such a clamour amongst all levels of society, whatever their opinions might have been about other difficulties of the times. It is to regain those freedoms that those of our honourable colleagues who sat on the States General so often gave voice; their energetic perseverance and the strength of their arguments eventually frightened despotism, and, since before our total deliverance, they forced it, trembling, to retreat

Certain speakers, whose doctrine is certainly not very liberal, wished for restrictions on religious liberty, for fear perhaps that the Jesuits would take control of public education; tomorrow they will fear that the Jesuits, the priests or the Catholics (words which are synonymous for some) will take control of public opinion through the press; they seek to prove the necessity of muzzling th