The Life and Times of Bishop Challoner (1691-1781) Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. SCHOOL-DAYS AT DOUAY. I7O5-I7IO. The English College at Douay ever possessed in a marked degree the faculty, exercised more or less by every school, of impressing a certain definite stamp on those educated within its walls. The influences that unconsciously affect a boy, his beliefs, his thoughts, his moral code, his outlook on life, leave their mark on all his after-life in that indefinable tone which reveals the particular system or even place of education in which a man has been reared. If, as everyday observation shows, the difference between men trained in different English schools is so marked, the strength and individuality of the Douay spirit will be understood and accounted for when the peculiar circumstances of the English College are recalled to mind. Boys of the oldest English families, Howards, Talbots, and many others, unable to take their proper place at Eton, Winchester, Westminster, or other of the great English schools without denying their faith, found themselves hurried across the sea, surreptitiously and not without many perils, to find an English school in a foreign town. There they spent their boyhood, only returning home when their education was complete. Side by side with these was the more numerous class who found at Douay not only their general education, but also the direct training for the priesthood to which their lives were devoted. Nor was this isolation confined to the early years of education. When the Douay boys grew up and returned to England they found themselves condemned to a life cut off from nearly all the interests of their countrymen. There was no career before them in army or navy, Parliament or law-court; very little chance of distinction in letters or art. The political...