ITALY 



3077 



ITALY 



their home land have been in many ways 

 against them. The land system being designed 

 chiefly for the benefit of landlords, and the 

 methods of culti- 

 vation being an- 

 tiquated, the 

 agricultural class 

 has suffered, while 

 the industrial 

 class has had a 

 more unenviable 

 position than 

 anywhere else in 

 Europe. Taxa- 

 tion, too, is bur- 

 densome and liv- 

 ing conditions are COMPARATIVE AREAS 



far from hygienic Italy, including its islands, 



has 110,845 square miles of 



whether it be in territory ; Nevada has 110,690 



the cities, where square miles ' 

 proper sanitary measures are lacking, or in the 

 country, where wide-spreading marshes breathe 

 malaria. The result of all these conditions 

 has been that Italians have made up about 

 half of that great 'number of emigrants who 

 have crossed the seas to find new homes in 

 America. For a time Brazil and Argentina 

 received most of them, but in recent years 

 the tide has turned more strongly toward Can- 

 ada and the United States, which recently have 

 been receiving 300,000 or more a year. Most 

 of them are of the peasant or laboring classes, 

 who in their new homes have to content them- 

 selves with performing unskilled labor. 



Social and Political Conditions. It is only 

 recently that the laboring classes of Italy have 

 had even the beginnings of fair play, so bur- 

 densome have conditions been. Organizations 

 along different lines from the labor unions, but 

 with somewhat the same purpose, have accom- 

 plished much in the way of bettering factory 

 conditions, increasing wages, shortening hours, 

 and putting through legislation which in a 

 measure controls child labor. Although these 

 laws are neglected oftener than they are en- 

 forced, they indicate an upward trend. 



Education. Educationally, too, Italy is be- 

 hind the other great countries of Europe. Un- 

 der the new kingdom, laws were passed in 1877 

 providing for free and compulsory education of 

 children between the ages of six and nine, and 

 this has bettered conditions somewhat, but 

 since in many provinces the laws are not en- 

 forced there is still much to be desired. In 

 the northern provinces the percentage of those 

 unable to read and write is comparatively low 



in some of them as low as five per cent; 

 but in the south there are still regions where 

 three-fourths of those who present themselves 

 to be married are unable to sign their own 

 names. 



The national system of education, which 

 would be more effective were other drains on 

 the national resources less severe, includes 

 kindergarten, primary, grammar and secondary 

 schools, and higher institutions. Whatever 

 may be said of elementary education in Italy, 

 higher education is well provided for. There 

 are twenty-one universities, seventeen under 

 state control, and to these annually flock over 

 22,000 students; but they study mainly sub- 

 jects which will prepare them for a govern- 

 ment position. Engineering, agriculture, com- 

 merce and the like are neglected. Normal and 

 technical education is also much neglected, but 

 there are numerous institutions for art in- 

 struction. 



Of recent years an Italian educator, Madame 

 Montessori, has attracted much attention by 

 her advanced "natural" methods, and schools 

 all over the world have adopted her methods, 

 with modifications. See MONTESSORI METHOD. 

 I Language. See ITALIAN LANGUAGE. 



Art. Except ancient Greece, no other 

 country has played so large a part in the his- 

 tory of art as has Italy. No other painters 

 who have ever lived are worthy to stand be- 

 side the great masters whom Italy produced 

 in the dawning days of her modern period, and 

 there were years, centuries even, when no 

 painter considered himself educated unless he 

 had studied in Italy. In the articles PAINTING 

 and SCULPTURE there are subheads which treat 

 historically of the place of Italy in the world 

 of art. 



Religion. Few countries in all the world are 

 so unified religiously as is Italy, for here, at 

 Rome, is the center of the Roman Catholic 

 Church, and to that communion most of the 

 people of Italy belong. There are, it is esti- 

 mated, only about 65,600 Protestants and 35,600 

 Jews in the country. Since the establishment 

 of the new kingdom there has been friction 

 between the government and the Church, the 

 Pope steadfastly asserting- the claim of the 

 Church to the possession of certain extensive 

 territories, which the government as firmly 

 denies. As a result the Pope insists on con- 

 sidering himself a prisoner in the Vatican, and 

 only under protest admits the right of the 

 government to pass on the appointment of 

 bishops and archbishops. There appears, how- 



