552 RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT III 



by Buckle, that railways promote the coming in of new 

 ideas. Nor did the moral condition of the people seem 

 to be any better. 



Any one who visits Rome to-day, with the army of 

 monks swept out of the place, with streets well cleaned, 

 with the excavations scientifically conducted, with a gov 

 ernment which, whatever its faults, is at any rate patri 

 otic, finds it difficult to imagine the vileness of the city 

 under the old regime. 



But, bad as was Eome, Naples was worse. The 

 wretched Bourbon then on the throne, &quot;King Bomba,&quot; 

 was the worst of his kind. Our minister of that period, 

 Mr. Robert Dale Owen, gave me some accounts of the 

 condition of things. He told me, as a matter of fact, that 

 any young man showing earnest purpose of any sort was 

 immediately suspected and discouraged, while worthless 

 young debauchees were regarded as harmless, and there 

 fore favored. 



The most cherished counselor of the King was Apuzzo, 

 Archbishop of Sorrento. In addition to what I have al 

 ready said of Leopardi s political catechism, which the 

 archbishop forced upon the people, I may note that this 

 work took great pains to show that no education was 

 needed save just enough to enable each man to accom 

 plish his duties within the little sphere in which he was 

 born, and that for the great body of the people education 

 was a curse rather than a blessing. The result of this 

 policy was evident : the number of persons unable to read 

 or write, which was from forty to fifty per cent, in Pied 

 mont, was from sixty to sixty-five per cent, in Rome, from 

 eighty to eighty-five per cent, in the Papal States, and 

 above eighty-five per cent, in Naples and Sicily. 1 



I also had the advantage of being present at the great 

 religious function of Naples the liquefaction of the 

 blood of St. Januarius, patron of the city. It was in the 



1 See maps in Vol. II, of &quot;L ltalia Economica nel 1873&quot; (Eoma, Tipografia 

 Barbera,1873). This work was the result of official surveys and most careful 

 studies made by leading economists and statisticians. For a copy of it I am 

 indebted to Mr. H. N. Gay, Fellow of Harvard University. 



