The Defiant Abbess

For twelve years the Communist-dominated government of San Marino has managed to stay in office despite the failure of its schemes to make a proper satellite out of the pocket-size (38 sq. mi.) republic that perches on the Apennines 60 miles east of Florence in north central Italy. But last week an unlikely rebel had the people talking angrily about throwing out the Reds once and for all. The issue: progressive education. The rebel: Mother Veronica, the frail, 74-year-old abbess of the Convent of St. Clare, who runs a top-notch traditionalist school for about 90 of San Marino's girls.

The issue started to bubble quietly in 1951 when the Communists imported an Italian named Pacifico Montanari to reform the republic's schools. Montanari, 36, is an ardent apostle of Celestin Freinet, a freewheeling French innovator who claims non-Freinet schools teach by the medieval notion of rigid authority, argues for a classless classroom, with the teacher as merely a "master companion" who discusses with the pupils what and how they should study. Montanari installed the Freinet method in all of San Marino's elementary schools except one: Mother Veronica's St. Clare's Convent.

Into the Sandbox. The Freinet method was an outstanding flop. Pupils had to memorize whole words without any training in the alphabet, figure arithmetic problems without first handling numbers from one to nine. Any confused youngster was free to head for the playground. Shrugged one demoralized teacher: "Instead of struggling with their work, they jump into the sandbox."

Last year Mother Veronica's little girls, well-drilled in their ABCs and one-two-threes, scored far better on the state elementary exams than Superintendent Montanari's Freinetized pupils. This June Montanari vengefully flunked half of the conventtrained girls. The trick fooled no one. Parents suddenly realized that Montanari was not teaching their children to read, write or add. Said the wife of one leading party member: "After two years my daughter Paola could not count up to ten. When I asked her, she just gave me a pained look."

Panicking, the government last month ordered Mother Veronica to close her school. For one long, sleepless night she wrestled with the spirit of defiance. By 6 a.m. Mass, defiance had won. "I won't abandon my girls to illiteracy," said she. "They won't get my little girls unless they overrun me by brute force."

Cookies & Assurance. Mother Veronica's stand was cheered through all of San Marino (pop. 13,000). Parents climbed up to the grey stone convent atop a 900-ft. cliff to pledge support through the double iron grille in the visitors' room, received in turn a whispered assurance, plus the traditional cookies and convent-made bubbly white wine. Firm backing for Mother Veronica's defiant ways came from her bishop, who specifically ordered her to keep the school open, exhorted all Catholics to "support the sisters in their struggle."

In the face of such an uprising, Progressivite Montanari hustled abroad, left Party-lining Foreign Minister Gino Giacomini to cope with mutinous parents, including many loyal Communists. Said Giacomini soothingly: "We don't want to persecute anyone, certainly not dear Mother Veronica." At week's end, the closing order remained in effect, but parents were still entrusting their daughters to Mother Veronica's medieval-minded ways. Explained the wife of Communist Party Secretary General Gildo Gasperoni: "Her school is better than the others."

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