His high aspirations made him the precursor of many modern ideas.  In educational and military matters, more especially, he ranks as a pioneer.  He was a pedagogue by natural instinct.  He took a sincere delight in the school-children, limited their weekly half-holidays to five, designed becoming dresses for boys and girls, decreed that lute playing and deportment should become obligatory subjects in the curriculum, and otherwise reformed the scholastic calendar which, before his day, had drifted into sad confusion and laxity.  Sometimes he honoured the ceremony of prize-giving with his presence.  On the other hand it must be admitted that, judged by modern standards, certain of his methods for punishing disobedience smacks of downright pedantry.  Thrice a year, on receiving form the Ministry of Education a list containing the names of unsatisfactory scholars of either sex, it was his custom to hoist a flag on a certain hill-top; this was a signal for the Barbary pirates, who then infested the neighbouring ocean, to set sail for the island and buy up these perverse children, at purely nominal rates, for the slave-markets of Stamboul and Argier.  They were sold ignominiously—­by weight and not by the piece—­to mark his unqualified disapproval of talking and scribbling on blotting-pads during school hours.

It is recorded of the Good Duke that on one occasion he returned from this scene looking haggard and careworn, as though the sacrifice of so many young lives weighed on his fatherly spirit.  Presently, envisaging his duties towards the State, he restrained these natural but unworthy emotions, smiled his well-known smile, and gave utterance to an apophthegm which had since found its way into a good many copy-books:  “In the purity of childhood,” he said, “lie the seeds of national prosperity.”  And if it be enquired by what arts of Machiavellian astuteness he alone, of all Christian princes, contrived to maintain friendly relations with these formidable Oriental sea-rovers, the answer lies at hand.  His device was one of extreme simplicity.  He appealed to their better natures by sending them, at convenient intervals, shiploads of local delicacies, girls and lobsters—­of indifferent quality, it is true, but sufficiently appetizing to attest his honourable intentions.

His predecessors, intent only upon their pleasures, had given no thought to the possibility of a hostile invasion of their fair domain.  But the Good Duke, despite his popularity, was frequently heard to quote with approval that wise old adage which runs “In peace, prepare for war.”  Convinced of the instability of all mundane affairs and being, moreover, a man of original notions as well as something of an artist in costumery, he was led to create that picturesque body of men, the local Militia, which survives to this day and would alone entitle him to the grateful notice of posterity.  These elegant warriors, he calculated, would serve both for the purpose of infusing