He and Renucci also rendered good service to the public library of Bastia, which contains sixteen thousand volumes, and occupies a large building formerly belonging to the Jesuits. They may be said, in fact, to have _made_ this library, which ranks with that of Ajaccio as second in the island. Science in Corsica is still, on the whole, in its infancy. As the historian Filippini, the contemporary of Sampiero, complains,--indolence, the mainly warlike bent given to the nature of the Corsicans by their perpetual struggles, and the consequent ignorance, entirely prevented the formation of a literature. But it is remarkable, that in the year 1650 the Corsicans founded an Academy of Sciences, the first president of which was Geronimo Biguglia, the poet, advocate, theologian, and historian. It is well known that people in those times were fond of giving such academies the most whimsical names; the Corsicans called theirs the Academy dei Vagabondi (of the Vagabonds), and a more admirable and fitting appellation they could not at that period have selected. The Marquis of Cursay, whose memory is still affectionately cherished by the Corsicans, restored this Academy; and Rousseau, himself entitled to the name of Vagabond from his wandering life, wrote a little treatise for this Corsican institution on the question: "Which is the most necessary virtue for heroes, and what heroes have been deficient in this virtue?"--a genuinely Corsican subject. The educational establishments--the Academy just referred to has been dissolved--are, in Bastia, as in Corsica in general, extremely inadequate. Bastia has a Lyceum, and some lower schools. I was present at a distribution of prizes in the highest of the girls' schools. It took place in the court of the old college of the Jesuits, which was prettily decorated, and in the evening brilliantly illuminated. The girls, all in white, sat in rows before the principal citizens and magistrates of the town, and received bay-wreaths--those who had won them. The head mistress called the name of the happy victress, who thereupon went up to her desk and received the wreath, which she then brought to one of the leading men of the town, silently conferring on him the favour of crowning her, which ceremony was then gone through in due form. Innumerable such bay-wreaths were distributed; and many a pretty child bore away perhaps ten or twelve of them for her immortal works, receiving them all very gracefully. It seemed to me, however, that wealthy parents, or celebrated old families, were too much flattered; and they never ceased crowning Miss Colonna d'Istria, Miss Abatucci, Miss Saliceti--so that these young ladies carried more bays home with them than would serve to crown the immortal poets of a century. The graceful little festival--in which there was certainly too much French flattering of vanity--was closed by a play, very cleverly acted by the young ladies.