No trace of the “Casa Giocosa” is now to be found. Even its situation is a matter of uncertainty; but it has been described for us so often, and so vividly, that we need but to close our eyes, and there it stands again on broad meadow lands, that sweep down to the “slow-gliding Mincio,” in the midst of its fair lawns and terraced gardens, with its avenues of acacias and plane trees, its hedges of roses, its shady courts and fountains and statues, its marble “loggie,” and frescoed, spacious chambers, full of air and sunshine—a memory and an inspiration for all the schools that have followed it since. Now, if ever there was a man who was that rare thing, a schoolmaster born, it was Vittorino da Feltre. He had discovered his vocation in his student days at the University of Padua, where he had kept body and soul together by teaching backward students, and helping them to keep up with their classes. He had developed it at Venice, where he had shared the management of a school with the great Greek scholar, Guarino. But at Mantua, whither he came, a ripe man of forty-five or so, with a large experience of boy-nature, a thorough mastery of methods of teaching, a store of well-tested theories, and a new field on which to exercise them, he was like a prince coming into his own kingdom. There seems something providential in the way things were arranged for Vittorino da Feltre. One is reminded of the Providence which we shall see in a later paper, surrounding the foundation of another great educational institution—Madame de Maintenon’s Saint-Cyr. One condition Vittorino made before he took over the “Casa Giocosa.” He was to be supreme master in the establishment. Even the parents were not to interfere, and there was to be no appeal from his decision, whether as to the studies of the children, their food and manner of life, or their companions. On the last point, he was destined to meet with grave opposition. Some families claimed it as one of their immemorial privileges to send their children to the Court School, to be educated with the Princes. But, privilege or no privilege, Vittorino would tolerate nobody at the school whose example was likely to be harmful. Here you see him putting into practice one of the most constantly reiterated of the precepts of the Blessed Giovanni Dominici: “Be careful of your children’s companions.”