The Education of Catholic Girls. Janet Erskine Stuart

are memories which are means of recovery, and the way home to the Father's house is known. It may be hoped that very many never leave it, and never lose the sense of being one of the great family, "of the household of faith." They enjoy the freedom of the house, the rights of children, the ministries of all the graces which belong to the household, the power of being at home in every place because the Church is there with its priesthood and its Sacraments, responsible for its children, and able to supply the wants of their souls. It is scarcely possible to find among Catholic children the inaccessible little bits of flint who are not brought up, but bring up their own souls outside the Church—proud in their isolation, most proud of never yielding inward obedience or owning themselves in the wrong, and of being sufficient for themselves. When the grace of Q-od reaches them and they are admitted into the Church, one of the most overwhelming experiences is that of becoming one of a family, for whom there is some one responsible, the Father of the family whose authority and love pass through their appointed channels, down to the least child.

      There is no such thing as an orphan child within the Church, there are possibilities of training and development which belong to those who have to educate the young which must appeal particularly to Catholic teachers, for they know more than others the priceless value of the children with whom they have to do. Children, souls, freighted for their voyage through life, vessels so frail and bound for such a port are worthy of the devoted care of those who have necessarily a lifelong influence over them, and the means of using that influence for their lifelong good ought to be a matter of most earnest study. Knowledge must come before action, and first-hand knowledge, acquired by observation, is worth more than theoretic acquirements; the first may supply for the second, but not the second for the first. There are two types of educators of early childhood which no theory could produce, and indeed no theory could tell how they are produced, but they stand unrivalled—one is the English nurse and the other the Irish. The English nurse is a being apart, with a profound sense of fitness in all things, herself the slave of duty; and having certain ideals transmitted, who can tell how, by an unwritten traditional code, as to what ought to be, and a gift of authority by which she secures that these things shall be, reverence for God, reverence in prayer, reverence for parents, consideration of brothers for sisters, unselfishness, manners, etc., her views on all these things are like the laws of the Medes and Persians "which do not alter "—and they are also holy and wholesome. The Irish nurse rules by the heart, and by sympathy, by a power of self-devotion that can only be found where the love of God is the deepest love of the heart; she has no views, but—she knows. She does not need to observe—she sees' she has instincts, she never lays down a law, but she wins by tact and affection, lifting up the mind to God and subduing the will to obedience, while appearing to do nothing but love and wait. The stamp that she leaves on the earliest years of training is never entirely effaced; it remains as some instinct of faith, a habit of resignation to the will of God, and habitual recourse to prayer. Both these types of educators rule by their gift from God, and it is hard to believe that the most finished training in the art of nursery management can produce anything like them, for they govern by those things that lectures and handbooks cannot teach—faith, love, and common sense.

      Those who take up the training of the next stage have usually to learn by their own experience, and study what is given to very few as a natural endowment—the art of so managing the wills of children that without provoking resistance, yet without yielding to every fancy, they may be led by degrees to self-control and to become a law to themselves. It must be recognized from the beginning that the work is slow; if it is forced on too fast either a breaking point comes and the child, too much teased into perfection, turns in reaction and becomes self-willed and rebellious; or if, unhappily, the forcing process succeeds, a little paragon is produced like Wordsworth's "model child":—

      "Full early trained to worship seemliness,

       This model of a child is never known

       To mix in quarrels; that were far beneath

       Its dignity; with gifts he bubbles o'er

       As generous as a fountain; selfishness

       May not come near him, nor the little throng

       Of flitting pleasures tempt him from his path;

       The wandering beggars propagate his name.

       Dumb creatures find him tender as a nun,

       And natural or supernatural fear,

       Unless it leap upon him in a dream,

       Touches him not. To enhance the wonder, see

       How arch his notices, how nice his sense

       Of the ridiculous; not blind is he

       To the broad follies of the licensed world,

       Yet innocent himself withal, though shrewd,

       And can read lectures upon innocence;

       A miracle of scientific lore,

       Ships he can guide across the pathless sea,

       And tell you all their cunning; he can read

       The inside of the earth, and spell the stars;

       He knows the policies of foreign lands;

       Can string you names of districts, cities, towns,

       The whole world over, tight as beads of dew

       Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs;

       All things are put to question; he must live

       Knowing that he grows wiser every day

       Or else not live at all, and seeing too

       Each little drop of wisdom as it falls

       Into the dimpling cistern of his heart:

       For this unnatural growth the trainer blame,

       Pity the tree,"—

       "The Prelude," Bk. V, lines 298–329.

      On the other hand if those who have to bring up children, fear too much to cross their inclinations, and so seek always the line of least resistance, teaching lessons in play, and smoothing over every rough peace of the road, the result is a weak, slack will, a mind without power of concentration, and in later life very little resourcefulness in emergency or power of bearing up under difficulties or privations. We are at present more inclined to produce these soft characters than to develop paragons. But such movements go in waves and the wave-lengths are growing shorter; we seem now to be reaching the end of a period when, as it has been expressed, "the teacher learns the lessons and says them to the child." We are beginning to outgrow too fervid belief in methods, and pattern lessons, and coming back to value more highly the habit of effort, individual work, and even the saving discipline of drudgery. We are beginning, that is those who really care for children, and for character, and for life; it takes the State and its departments a long time to come up with the experience of those who actually know living children—a generation is not too much to allow for its coming to this knowledge, as we may see at present, when the drawbacks of the system of 1870 are becoming apparent at last in the eyes of the official world, having been evident for years to those whose sympathies were with the children and not with codes. America, open-minded America, is aware of all this, and is making generous educational experiments with the buoyant idealism of a young nation, an idealism that is sometimes outstripping its practical sense, quite able to face its disappointments if they come, as undoubtedly they will, and to begin again. In one point it is far ahead of us—in the understanding that a large measure of freedom is necessary for teachers. Whereas we are, let us hope, at the most acute stage of State interference in details.

      But in spite of the systems the children live, and come up year after year, to give us fresh opportunities; and in spite of the systems something can be done with them if we take the advice of Archbishop Ullathorne—"trust in God and begin as you can."

      Let us begin by learning to know them, and the knowledge of their characters is more easily gained if some cardinal points are marked, by which the unknown country may be mapped out. The selection of these cardinal points depends in part on the mind of the observer, which has more or less insight into the various manifestations of possibility and quality which