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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 55

The Evening Star, Saturday, February 7, 1885. — Victor Hugo on Clerical Education

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The Evening Star, Saturday, February 7, 1885.

Victor Hugo on Clerical Education.

[Specially Translated for the 'Star.']

The following is a speech delivered by Victor Hugo in the French Assembly in 1850 against M. Fallon's proposed education law:—

Gentlemen,—When a discussion is begun that touches a subject the most serious for the future of our country, it is proper to follow it without hesitation, even to the root of the question. I begin by saying what I would wish. I will presently point out that which I do not desire.

Gentlemen, to my mind, the end difficult to obtain, and remote, no doubt, but which it is needful to lead to in this weighty question of education, is this—(Speak up ! speak up !) Gentlemen, every question has its ideal. For me the ideal of this question of education is this—free and compulsory instruction. Compulsory in the lower branches, gratuitous in all. Compulsory primary instruction is the right of the child, which do not deceive yourselves, is yet more sacred than the right of the father, and which mingles itself with the right of the State. I repeat, then, this, according to my view, is the ideal of the question. Free education and compulsory to the extent I am going to point out—a great public education, given and regulated by the State, starting from the village school, and going step by step to the College of France; nay, even higher still, to the Institute of France.

The doors of knowledge all widely open to all minds. Everywhere where there is opportunity—everywhere where there is a soul, there shall be a book. Not a village without a school, not a town without a college, not a city without a university. A vast harmony—or, to use a better phrase, a vast network—of intellectual workshops, lycées, gymnasiums, colleges, professorships, libraries, spreading their radiance over the country, awakening everywhere taste and exciting everywhere talent; in a word, the ladder of human knowledge held firmly by the hand of the State, placed amidst the most profound and obscure darkness, and leading to the light—another solution of continuity—the heart of the people put into communication with the brain of France.

This is what I understand by national public education. Gentlemen, were this magnificent gratuitous instruction, inciting minds of every kind, offered by the State, giving to all, for nothing, the best masters, the most approved methods, model of knowledge and of discipline—normal, French, Christian, liberal — raising without any doubt the national genius to the highest point of intensity, I would place without hesitation the liberty of instruction, the liberty of instruction for private institutions, the liberty of instruction for religious bodies, the liberty of instruction—full, complete, absolute—subject to the general laws, as all other liberties, and I would not require to give the anxious power to the State to supervise, because I would give gratuitous instruction as a counterbalance. This, gentlemen, I repeat, is the ideal of the subject. Do not put yourselves about; we are not near attaining this. In the solution of the problem there is a considerable financial question, as all social problems of the present time have.

Gentlemen, this ideal—it is necessary to indicate it, for it is always needful to say where it tends—offers innumerable points of view, but the time has not come to develop it. I save the time of the Assembly, and I come at once to the question in its actual positive reality. I take it where it is today, at a point relative to the ripeness, where events on one hand and public reason on the other has led it. In this restricted but practical point of view of the natural situation I wish, I declare it, liberty of instruction; but I wish the supervision of the State, and as I wish this effective sup ervision of the State I wish the State laic (secular) exclusively secular. The Hon, M. Guizot has said this before me, in matter of education, the State is not and cannot be anything but secular (laique). I wish, I say, the liberty of eduction under the supervision of the State, and I do not allow to represent the State in this supervision, so delicate and so difficult, which demands the co-operation of all the vital forces of the country, men belonging without doubt to the most serious careers, but not having any interest, whether of conscience or politics, distinct from the national unity—that is to say, I do not introduce either into the first council of supervision or into the secondary councils, bishops, nor delegates of bishops. I intend to uphold, as to myself—and the need is more profound than ever—this old and salutary separation of the Church and the State, which was the opinion of our fathers, and that in the interest of the Church as well as in the interest of the State. I cease from telling you what I would wish. Now here is what I do not wish. I do not wish the law you have proposed. Why? Gentlemen, this law is a weapon. A weapon is nothing by page break itself. It only hurts by the hand that seizes it. Now what is the hand that will seize this law? That is the whole question. Gentlemen, it is the hand of the clerical party. Gentlemen, I dread that hand. I wish to break the weapon—I thrust back the proposal. That said, I enter on the debate.

I come at once and at first to an objection that has been made by the opponents to my point of view, the only objection which has an appearance of weight. They tell us: "You exclude the clergy from the supervising Council of State; you wish, then, to proscribe religious instruction." Gentlemen, I explain myself. One could never have made such a mistake through any fault of mine, neither certainly from what; I said nor from what I thought. Far from wishing to proscribe religious instruction—Do you hear well? It is, according to me, more necessary than ever. The more man develops, the more he ought to believe. The nearer he approaches God, the better he should see God. There is an evil in our times, I would say almost there is no other evil, it is a certain tendency to put all on this life.—(Sensation.)

In giving to men for an object and aim a terrestrial, material life, we aggravate all miseries by the denial of that which is the end of life; we add to the depression of the unfortunate the insupportable weight of nothingness, and from that which is only an endurance, the law of God, one creates despair, the law of Hell. From that cause arise profound social convulsions. I am certainly one of those who wish—and no one in this circle doubts it—I am one of those who wish—I say it with sincerity, the word is too feeble—I wish it with inexpressible desire, and by all possible means, to ameliorate in this life the material condition of those who suffer; but the first of the ameliorations is to give them hope. How much our limited miseries grow less when an infinite hope is mingled with them.

Our duty to all, whether we may be legislators or bishops, or priests or journalists, is to diffuse, to lavish under all shapes all social energy, to fight and destroy misery, and at the same time to make and raise their heads towards reason, to direct all souls, to turn all their attention towards a future life, where justice will be done. Let us say very loudly no one will have suffered unjustly nor uselessly. Death is a restitution. The law of the material world is equilibrium; the law of the moral world is equity, which God discovers in the end to all. Do not forget that, and teach it to all. There would not be any worth in living, and one would scarcely wish it, if we we eternally That which lightens labor and which sanctifies work; that which makes a man strong, good, wise, patient, kind, just, at the same time humble and great, worthy of knowledge, worthy of liberty, is having before him the perpetual vision of a better world, shedding radiance around the darknesses of this life. As for myself, since the opportunity is afforded me who now speaks at this time, and puts so weighty words in a mouth of so little authority, I may be permitted to say hère, to declare—I proclaim it from the height of this tribune, I believe profoundly in the better world. It is for me more real than this miserable chimera that we worship and call this life. It is continually before my eyes. I believe it with all the powers of my conviction, and after many struggles, much study, and many proofs. It is the supreme certitude of my reason; it is the supreme consolation of my soul.

I wish then—I wish sincerely, firmly, ardently—religious instruction; but I wish the instruction of the Church, and not the religious instruction of a party. I wish it sincerely, and not hypocritically. I wish it having for its end Heaven and not Earth. I do not wish that any one professorship should invade the other. I do not wish to mix the priest with the professor. How, if I consent to this mixture, can I, a legislator, supervise it? Can I open upon the seminaries and upon the teaching bodies the eye of the State—and I insist upon this—of the secular State, uniquely jealous of its grandeur and of its unity. Up to the day when all my wishes will be fulfilled, when complete liberty of instruction will be proclaimed, and in the beginning I told you under what conditions up to that day I wish the instruction of the Church in the Church, not without it. Above all, I consider it as a joke to make an inspection in the name of the State by the clergy, of the instruction of the clergy. In a word, I wish, I repeat it, that which our fathers wished—the Church keeping to itself; the State to itself.

The Assembly sees now clearly why I opposed the proposed law, but I finish my explanations. Gentlemen, as I indicated to you a little ago, this proposal is neither more nor less than, if you let me say it, a political law—it is a strategetical law. I address myself not certainly to the venerable bishop of Langres, not to any person that may be in this circle, but to the party who has, if not drawn up, at all events, inspired the proposed Bill—to that party at one time extinguished at another burning—to the clerical party. I know not if it is in the Assembly, but I feel it a little everywhere.

It has sharp ears; it hears me. I address myself, then, to the clerical party, and I tell it, this law is your law. Take it openly. I challenge you. To instruct is to construct. I challenge that which you never can teach. I do not wish to entrust the education of the youth to you—the soul of the children, the development of the new intelligences which open themselves in life; the spirit of the new generation, that is to say the future of France. I do not wish to entrust the future of France to you, because to entrust you page break with it means giving it up to you. It is not sufficient that new generations succeed us; I mean them to continue us. This is why I wish neither your hand nor breath upon them. I do not wish that which has been made by our fathers shall be unmade by you. After the glory I do not wish this shame. Your law is a law which has a mask. It says one thing and it will mean another. It is a thought of slavery, which takes the appearance of liberty. It is a confiscation, entitled a gift, I do not desire it. It weirs your apparel. When you forge a chain you say there is liberty. When you issue a proscription yon cry "Behold an amnesty." Oh, I do not confound yon with the Church, any more than I confound the mistletoe with the oak. You are the parasites of the Church; you are the disease of the Church.—(Laughter.)

An Ignatian (Ignaes, a Jesuit) is the enemy of Jesus. You are not the believers but the sectaries of a religion that you do not understand. Yon are the pretenders of holiness. Do not mix the Church with your affairs, with your plots, your stratagems, your doctrines, your ambitions. Do not call it your mother while you make it your servant. Do not annoy it under the pretext of teaching it politics; especially, never identify it with yourselves. Behold the evil you do, as the Bishop of Langres has told you. You see how it declines since it has had you. You make it so little believed that you finish by mailing it hated. In truth, I tell you, it will do very well without you. Let it rest. When you will be no more it will be found hero. Leave this venerable Church, this venerable mother in its solitude, in its self-denial, in its humility : all that makes up its grandeur. Its solitude will attract the multitude; its self-denial is its power, its humility its majesty.

You speak of religious instruction. Do you know what true religious instruction is? that before which we prostrate ourselves, that which cannot be injured. It is the Sister of Charity at the bedside of the dying, it is the Brother of Mercy ransoming the slave; it is Vincent de Paul gathering together the foundlings; it is the Bishop of Marseilles in the midst of those stricken with the plague; it is the Archbishop of Paris accosting with a smile the formidable Faubourg de St. Antoine, raising his crucifix in the midst of the civil war, and caring little whether he meets his death or not if he can only bring peace.

This is true religious instruction, real, deep, efficacious, popular, that which, happily for the religion of humanity, makes more Christians than you unmake. Ah, we know you; we know the clerical party. It is an old party that has some account of service. It is it that mounts the gate at the door of orthodoxy. It is it which has found for truth these marvellous mainstays, ignorance and terror. It is it which makes the I defender of knowledge and genius go below the missal, and that wishes to shut up thought in dogma. All that has made the intelligence of Europe it has made in spite of it. Its history is written in the history of human progress, but it is written on the back. It has opposed it all. It is that which made Prinelli be beaten by rods for having said that the stars do not fall. It is that which applied Campanella seven times to the torture for having affirmed that the number of worlds was infinite, and gave a glimpse of the secret of creation. It is that which persecuted Harvey for having proved that the blood circulated. In the name of Jesus it shut up Galileo; in the name of St. Paul it imprisoned Columbus. To discuss the law of the heavens was impiety; to find a world was heresy. It is that which anathematised Pascal in the name of religion; Montagne in the name of morality; Molière in the name of both religion and morality. Oh, yes, certainly, although you may be what you call the Catholic party, and who are the clerical party, we know you—too long already has the human conscience revolted against you and demanded of you what is that you wish of me? Thus long, already, have you tried to put a gag on the human mind. And you wish to be masters of education ! And there is not a poet, not a literary man, not a philosopher, not a thinker that accepts you ! And all that has been written, found, dreamt, discovered, illuminated, imagined, invented by geniuses—the treasure of civilisation, the secular heritage of the generations, the common patrimony of the intellect—you reject. If the brain of humanity was before your eyes, at your sweet will, open as the page of a book, you would blot it out. Do you acknowledge it?

In fine, there is a book—a book which appears from one end to the other a superior emanation—a book which is for the universe what the Koran is to Mohammedanism, that what the Vedas was to India—a book which contains all human wisdom, enlightened by all divine wisdom—a book which the veneration of the people calls "the book of books"—the Bible. Ah well ! your censure has even reached it. Unheard-of thing, some Popes have proscribed the Bible ! What astonishment in human minds, what dismay to simple souls, to see the Index of Rome placed upon the Book of God! And you implore liberty of instructing. Wait a little; let us be sincere. Let us consider the liberty that you demand : it is the liberty not to instruct! Ah! you wish that we give you the people to instruct ! Very good. Let us see your pupils. Let us see your products.—(Laughter) What have you done for Italy ! 'What have you done for Spain? For some; centuries you have held in your hands—at your discretion, under your rule—these two ! great nations, illustrious amongst the most illustrious. What have you done with page break them? I wish to tell you. Thank a to you, Italy, of which any man who thinks cannot pronounce the name save with an inexpressible filial., sorrow. Italy, the mother of geniuses and of nations, who has poured upon the whole universe the most transplendent marvels of poetry and of art. Italy, which has taught human kind to read, Italy today cannot read.

Yes, Italy is of all the States of Europe the one that has the fewest natives able to read! Spain magnificently endowed; Spain that had received from the Romans her first civilisation, from the Arabs her second civilisation, from Providence, and, in spite of you, a world—America. Spain has lost, thanks to you, thanks to your brutalising yoke, which is a yoke of degradation and weakening, Spain has lost this secret of power which she got from the Romans, the genius of the arts which she obtained from the Arabs, the world she got from God—in exchange for all that you have made her lose she has received from you the Inquisition. The Inquisition that certain men of the party try today to re-establish with a bashful timidity, for which I honor them.

The Inquisition, that has burned at the stake 5,000,000 men. Read history!

The Inquisition, that exhumed the dead to burn them as heretics, for example, Urgel and Arnault, Count of Forcalquier.

The Inquisition declared the children of heretics, even to the second generation, base and incapable of any public honors, with this exception—these were the proper terms of the decrees—save those who had denounced their father.

The Inquisition, which at the hour when I am speaking, holds yet in the Vatican Library the manuscripts of Galileo closed and sealed under the seal of the Index.

It is true that, to console Spain for that which you have taken from her, and for that which you have given her, you named her the Catholic.

Ah! do you know you have forced from one of her greatest men the sorrowful cry which accuses you : "I would rather that she be grand than Catholic." Look at your chief handiwork. This free hearth that is called Italy you have quenched; this Colossus which is called Spain you have undermined. The one is in cinders; the other in ruins. This is what you have done with two great peoples.

What do you wish to do with France? Hearken. You come from Rome. I pay you a compliment. You have had there a fine success. You came from gagging the Roman people; now you wish to gag the French people. I understand. This is still more entertaining; this tempts, only take care, it is difficult—there is a lion on the path. Why, then, do you wish it law? I will tell you. You wish to control human reason. Why? Because it conquers. Yes. Do you wish me to tell you that which forces you on? It is the enormous quantity of free enlightenment which France has spread abroad. In these centuries, enlightenment, coming from reason, enlightenment today more brilliant than ever, an enlightenment that makes the French nation the most brilliant—of such a kind that one perceives the light of France upon the face of all the universe. Ah, well! this light of France, this free enlightenment, this direct light, this light which comes not from Rome, which comes from God—this is what you wish to obliterate; this, what we wish to keep.

I oppose this law. I oppose it because it confiscates primary instruction, because it degrades secondary instruction, because it lowers the level of knowledge, because it dismembers my country. I oppose it be-cause I am one of those who have a burning heart and a red face every time that France yields for any cause whatever—a lessening whether a dimunition of territory, as of the I treaties of 1815, or a dimunition of intellectual grandeur, as by your law.—(Loud applause from the Left.)

Gentlemen, before I conclude, permit me to speak here from the height of this tribune to the clerical party, to the party which surrounds us as a serious council. It is not power which deserts it. When the circumstances aid it, it is strong, very strong, too strong. It knows the art of maintaining a nation in a state disunited and woful, which is not death, but it is not life. It calls that governing. It is a government by lethargy. But it takes care nothing equal to it comes to France. It is a great joke that one is left to have a peep at it, only a peep at this France, the ideal that is seen, the sacristy all-powerful liberty in the dust, intelligence conquered and lying low, books burned; the sermon taking the place of the Press; a night made in souls by the shadow of the cassocks, and geniuses harassed by beadles.

It is true that the clerical party is clever, but that does not prevent it being ingenuous. How? It dreads Socialism. What, then? It sees the tide rising to that which it points out, and it opposes to this rising tide I do not know what obstacle in open work. It sees the tide rising, and it thinks society will be saved because it has united to defend it. Social hypocrisies with material opportunities, and it will put a Jesuit everywhere where there is no policeman. What pity! I repeat it, that it does not see the nineteenth century is opposed to it; that it is not so self-willed as to give up domineering this grand period, full of deep and new interests, otherwise it will not succeed, save to provoke anger; it will develop imprudently the formidable side of our century, and it will create terrible eventualities. Yes, with this system, we will have, I lay stress on it, the education of the sacristy and the government of the confessional.—(Long interruption, cries of "order!" Several members of the page break Right rise to their feet. The President and M. Victor Hugo speak to each other, but their voices do not reach the reporters. A violent tumult.)

The speaker resumes, and turning himself towards the right, says : "Gentlemen, you wish, very much, you say, liberty of instruction. Strive and give a little liberty to the tribune.—(Laughter; the noise ceases). The speaker continues: With these doctrines, to which an inflexible and fatal logic has driven men in spite of themselves and prolific of evil, with these doctrines which arouse horror when one examines their history—(Renewed cries of "Order.") Gentlemen, the clerical party I have told you surrounds us. I fight it; and at the very time when this party presents itself with a law in its hand, it is my right as a legislator to examine this law and to criticise this party. You are not able to prevent me. I continue my remarks. Yes, with this very system, this same doctrine and this history, that the clerical party clothes itself everywhere where it is, it will engender revolutions, everywhere to shun Torquemada people will throw themselves on Robespierre. See, then, what makes the Catholic party a serious danger to the State, and those who, like myself, oppose equally for nations anarchical uprisings and sacerdotal coma, raise the cry of alarm. There is yet time that we may consider it properly. You interrupt me. Cries and murmurs drown my voice. Gentlemen, I speak to you not as an agitator, but as an honest man. Ah, can it be, gentlemen; is it that by chance you doubt me?—(Cries from the Right: " Yea, yes.") What, you doubt me, you say?—(Cries from the Right: "Yes, yes." (Inexpressible tumult. One party on the Right start to their feet and interrupt the speaker, who remains immovable, in the Tribune.) Ah, well, upon this point it is necessary that I explain myself. (Silence again restored.) It is in some respects a personal matter. You will listen, I think, to an explanation which you yourselves have provoked. Ah, you doubt me, and why? You doubt me! But the last year I defended order in peril, just as to day defend liberty menaced, and as I will defend to-morrow if danger again return from that quarter. You doubt me! But did you doubt me when I accomplished my duty as representative of Paris in preventing the shedding of blood in the barricades of June? (Bravos from the Left. Renewed cries from the Right. Tumult begins again.) Ah well; you do not wish even to hear a voice that resolutely defends liberty. If you doubt me, I doubt you. Between us the country will judge. Gentlemen, a last word. I am perhaps one of those who has had the good fortune to render to the cause of order in different times—in a time just past—some obscure services. These services can be forgotten. I do not revive their memory. But at the time when I am speaking I have the right to rest myself on them. Ah well ! Resting on this event, I declare it to be my conviction that there is necessary for France a living order, which is Progress. It is an order such as flows from normal growth—peaceable, natural to the people. It is an order making itself felt at the same time in their deeds as in their ideas by the full reason of the national intelligence. It is entirely the opposite of your law. I am one of those who wish for this noble country liberty and not pity, growth continuing and not getting less, power and not slavery, greatness and not nothingness. Ha! Look at the law you bring us. What is it—your governing, your legislating? You wish to stop us—you wish to stop France. You wish to petrify human thought, to smother the divine flame, to materialise the soul. But you do not see oven the elements of the time in which you are placed. You are, moreover, in your century but as strangers. It is in this era, in this grand era of innovations, of occurrences, of discoveries, of conquests that you dream of immobility. It is in this era of hope that you proclaim despair. You throw yourselves on the ground as men much fatigued with glory, thought, intelligence, progress, and the future, and you say it is enough. Do not go further. Let stop. But you do not rice that all goes oh, comes, passes away, grows, transforms itself and renews itself among you, in front of you, in presence of you. Eh! you wish to stop yourselves. Ah me, I repeat it to you with a deep grief; I, who hate catastrophes and burstings up; I, sick at heart leave you. You do not wish progress; you will have revolutions. To men so insensate who say humanity will not move on, God replies by making the earth tremble.