44 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



The religious authorities, if exacting in matters of morals 

 and venturesomely meddlesome in sumptuary concerns, left 

 sufficient freedom in the more important domain of thought. In 

 the eighteenth century, so long as a man did not want to go to 

 mass, or declare himself an atheist, or fail to show a proper degree 

 of respect and deference to the authorities, he might live and 

 philosophise in peace. The language, though not free from 

 provincialisms, was that of the nation foremost at the time in 

 science and civilisation. Secondary education was regarded as 

 one of the duties of the State, but only so far as the classes that 

 provided the clergy and the magistracy were concerned. It was 

 for these that the studies of the Academy were designed. The 

 course of instruction for boys at the College, a public school, 

 was deficient. But the Academy obtained a reputation which 

 drew to it the youth of other nations, including our own. Our 

 countrymen do not seem, as a rule, to have formally matri- 

 culated. They were ' coached ' by a professor, attended lectures, 

 and boarded together in what they termed ' a common room.' 



No doubt the foreign students at the Academy were a valuable 

 asset to the town. To Protestant parents and guardians Geneva, 

 with its Calvinistic legislation, seemed to offer fewer dangers or 

 distractions to youth than the capital cities of Europe. Dr. 

 Moore, who travelled with the Duke of Hamilton, and visited with 

 him the Mer de Glace in 1773, 1 recommended Geneva as preferable 

 to any other place on the Continent for the education of an English 

 lad. Here, he says, ' he may have a choice of men of eminence 

 in every branch of literature to assist him in his studies. He will 

 have constant opportunities of being in company with very in- 

 genious people whose thoughts and conversation turn upon literary 

 subjects. ... It may also be numbered among the advantages 

 of this place that there are few objects of dissipation and hardly 

 any sources of amusement besides those derived from the natural 

 beauties of the country and from an intimacy with a people by 

 whose conversation a young man can hardly fail to improve.' 



Apparently English youth found improving conversation with- 

 out amusement somewhat monotonous. A singular instance 

 of the exceptional tolerance shown to the band of our country- 



1 Moore'a View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, etc. (London, 

 1779). 



