GREEK GOVERNMENT-ELECTION OF A PRINCE. 209

department-the Foreign department, including Commerce-the Judiciary-and that of Public Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs. The congress offered the President an annual salary of 180,000 phoenixes, but he declined it for the present. The representatives receive no pay. They are to be reassembled as soon as the executive government has completed certain preliminary duties.

The present government is regarded as provisional and experimental. The nation is looking forward to a time when the constitutional acts of Epidaurus, Astros, and Trozen shall be revised, though without any departure from the principles admitted when those acts were adopted; and also to the enacting of so many other laws, as shall be necessary to give clearness and stability to the administration of their government. Among the fundamental principles, these were expressly asserted by the last congress; viz.-that the representative assembly of the nation shall be divided into two houses, and shall exercise the legislative and executive powers, and that the judges shall be appointed for life.

It is due to the President Capo d'Istrias to say, that he appeared to enjoy the confidence and affection of the great body of the people.

Early in the present year the Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, France and Russia, made choice of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg, as sovereign and hereditary prince of Greece; but the Prince, on learning the actual condition of Greece, and the feelings of the people with regard to an appointment in which they had no voice, declined the honor.

The Greeks suffered enough in their late struggle for the blessings of liberty, to entitle them to a government, that shall be modeled to suit their views and wishes as a people, and administered with wisdom, energy, and

(p) The new coin mentioned in the note, p. 40. The sum is equivalent to 30,000 dollars.

(q) Several acts of the government in relation to education and religion will be noticed when we speak of those matters.

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GOVERNMENT TO BE DESIRED.

kindness; and the friends of Greece and of true Christian liberty will rejoice, if that country may be allowed the blessing of such a government, whatever be its form: only let it secure to the people the enjoyment of all those rights, which the Author of nature and of the gospel has given them.

시

CHAPTER II.

STATE AND PROSPECTS OF EDUCATION.

State of education in the last century-Means of instruction enjoyed by the Greeks previous to the revolution-Resort to foreign universities-Heroic patriotism of five hundred educated Greeks-Activity of the Grecian niindFew books yet in Greece-Public spirit of the Zosimades-Elementary education quite overlooked before the revolution-Great interest beginning to be taken in it-Views, plans, and proceedings of the Greek government.

PREVIOUS to the middle of the last century, the Greek nation was plunged in profound darkness. An ignorant clergy led at their pleasure a people still more ignorant. Parents were too much exhausted by oppression, or too much blinded by superstition, to give a good education to their children. If, at long intervals, a young man expatriated himself to seek that knowledge in Europe, which his own country did not afford him, his search was generally confined to Italy, and his studies directed to medicine, or theology. The former he usually commenced without any preparatory studies, and pursued just far enough to enable him to return to his country a conceited and mischievous quack; and the knowledge he acquired of the latter was directed to the composition of wordy and useless controversies. The great body of the nation scarcely knew how to read and write. With the exception of a few ecclesiastical or controversial works, issued from the presses of Jassy and Bucharest, towards the close of the 17th and at the beginning of the 18th centuries, the press at Venice was almost the only one that printed for the Greek people; and, with the exception of the books necessary for religious worship, and some few for schools where an

V

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EDUCATION IN THE LAST CENTURY.

cient Greek was taught, the publications of the press at Venice were better adapted to augment, than to remove, the ignorance of the nation. By a happy accident, Rollin's Ancient History and Telemachus form an exception to this remark.

In 1766 a work on experimental philosophy, and another on logic, both upon the inducive method, were published by two respectable ecclesiastics, and gradually introduced a new mode of thinking into the higher seminaries. Commerce, also, began to flourish, and brought riches to many. Besides its direct and immediate influence upon the nation, to increase the stock of knowledge and enlarge the range of thought, it scattered Greek mercantile houses in Italy, Holland, and Germany, to enjoy the advantages of those countries, and thus many youth were enabled to place themselves at the best universities in Europe. In Greece itself schools were established in numerous villages, and several colleges were founded. As if in imitation of the original rise of Grecian literature, it found its recommencement in Ionia. Chios, or Scio, the country of Homer, took the lead, in the establishment of its college. Other places followed, in an honorable emulation. These colleges not only received a support, but the liberality of Greek communities and of rich individuals educated many young men in European universities. Not a few of the more wealthy Greeks, among whom the Zosimades hold the first rank, liberally aided in the printing of useful books for their nation; so that Greece soon saw the works of the ancient literati revisiting their native soil, explained in its modern tongue, and accompanied by a crowd of modern works, original and translated, in almost all the sciences and in general literature. And to the honor of the Greek clergy be it said, that so far from hindering this work, or looking upon it with a jealous eye, they were, with few exceptions, among its most zealous supporters.

The above remarks are taken, with little variation, from Coray's work in French, entitled De l'Etat

GREEK COLLEGES.

213

actuel de la Civilization dans la Grece, published in 1803. An anonymous writer in the Greek Gazette for 1828, accuses Coray, who is from a Chiote family, of excessive Chiotism, and affirms that the colleges in Haivali, Constantinople, and Smyrna, existed before that of Scio, and taught the sciences more exactly.

b

It is not my design to attempt giving a view of the literature of modern Greece; and the foregoing remarks would suffice, as an introduction to the results of the personal observations made by Mr. Smith and myself of the state and prospects of education in Greece, did they somewhat more explicitly state how far the means of education had accumulated among the Greeks, previous to their revolutionary struggle.

Two of the most celebrated Greek colleges, at the commencement of the revolution, were those of Haivali and Scio. The college in the former place was commenced in 1803, and in 1818 had 200 scholars-of whom about half were from foreign parts-four professors, a library of 700 or 800 volumes, and many astronomical and other scientific instruments. At what time the school in Scio became entitled to the appellation of a college, I do not know. Its scholars in 1818, were between 500 and 600, and its library was said to contain 4,000 volumes. The number of masters on the establishment, the following year, is stated at fourteen. The course of study then embraced the Greek, Latin, French and Turkish languages, theology, ancient history, logic, metaphysics, moral philosophy, rhetoric, arithmetic, algebra, geography, mechanics, optics, painting, experimental philosophy, and chemistry. The

d

(a) The academy of Couroutzesme, on the Bosphorus, established by Demetrius Merousi, a Greek of the Fanal, (a part of Constantinople,) to whose memory Greece is largely indebted.

(b) Whoever desires to see such an exhibition, is referred to a work, by Jacobuky Rizo Neroulos, entitled Cours de Litterature Grecque Moderne, printed at Geneva in 1828; or to an article, compiled from that work, in the North American Review for October 1829.

(c) Jowett's Christian Researches in the Mediterranean. London, 1824. pp 60-63.

(d) İd. pp. 69–76.