The Education of Catholic Girls Part 9

For those who are practically concerned with the education of girls the question is how to attain what we want for them, while the force of the current is set so strongly against us. We have to make up our minds as to what conventions can survive and fix in some way the high and low-water marks, for there must be both, the highest that we can attain, and the lowest that we can accept. All material is not alike; some cannot take polish at all. It is well if it can be made tolerable; if it does not fall below that level of manners which are at least the safeguard of conduct; if it can impose upon itself and accept at least so much restraint as to make it inoffensive, not aggressively selfish.

Perhaps the low-water mark might be fixed at the remembrance that other people have rights and the observance of their claims. This would secure at least the common marks of respect and the necessary conventionalities of intercourse. For ordinary use the high-water mark might attain to the remembrance that other people have feelings, and to taking them into account, and as an ordinary guide of conduct this includes a great deal and requires training and watchfulness to establish it, even where there is no exceptional selfishness or bluntness of sense to be overcome. The nature of an ordinary healthy energetic child, high-spirited and boisterous, full of a hundred interests of its own, finds the mere attention to these things a heavy yoke, and the constant self-denial needed to carry them out is a laborious work indeed.

The slow process of polis.h.i.+ng marble has more than one point of resemblance with the training of manners; it is satisfactory to think that the resemblance goes further than the process, that as only by polis.h.i.+ng can the concealed beauties of the marble be brought out, so only in the perfecting of manners will the finer grain of character and feeling be revealed. Polis.h.i.+ng is a process which may reach different degrees of brilliancy according to the material on which it is performed; and so in the teaching of manners a great deal depends upon the quality of the nature, and the amount of expression which it is capable of acquiring. It is useless to press for what cannot be given, at the same time it is unfair not to exact the best that every one is able to give. As in all that has to do with character, example is better than precept.

But in the matter of manners example alone is by no means enough; precept is formally necessary, and precept has to be enforced by exercise. It is necessary because the origin of established conventionalities is remote; they do not speak for themselves, they are the outcome of a general habit of thought, they have come into being through a long succession of precedents. We cannot explain them fully to children; they can only have the summary and results of them, and these are dry and grinding, opposed to the unpremeditated spontaneous ways of acting in which they delight. Manners are almost fatally opposed to the sudden happy thoughts of doing something original, which occur to children's minds. No wonder they dislike them; we must be prepared for this. They are almost grown up before they can understand the value of what they have gone through in acquiring these habits of unselfishness, but unlike many other subjects to which they are obliged to give time and labour, they will not leave this behind in the schoolroom. It is then that they will begin to exercise with ease and precision of long practice the art of the best and most expressive conduct in every situation which their circ.u.mstances may create.

In connexion with this question of circ.u.mstances in life and the situations which arise out of them, there is one thing which ought to be taught to children as a fundamental principle, and that is the relation of manners to cla.s.s of life, and what is meant by vulgarity. For vulgarity is not--what it is too often a.s.sumed to be--a matter of cla.s.s, but in itself a matter of insincerity, the effort to appear or to be something that one is not. The contrary of vulgarity, by the word, is preciousness or distinction, and in conduct or act it is the perfect preciousness and distinction of truthfulness. Truthfulness in manners gives distinction and dignity in all cla.s.ses of society; truthfulness gives that simplicity of manners which is one of the special graces of royalty, and also of an unspoiled and especially a Catholic peasantry.

Vulgarity has an element of restless unreality and pretentious striving, an affectation or a.s.sumption of ways which do not belong to it, and in particular an unwillingness to serve, and a dread of owning any obligation of service. Yet service perfects manners and dignity, from the highest to the lowest, and the manners of perfect servants either public or private are models of dignity and fitness. The manners of the best servants often put to shame those of their employers, for their self-possession and complete knowledge of what they are and ought to be raises them above the unquietness of those who have a suspicion that they are not quite what might be expected of them. It is on this uncertain ground that all the blunders of manners occur; when simplicity is lost disaster follows, with loss of dignity and self-respect, and pretentiousness forces its way through to claim the respect which it is conscious of not deserving.

Truth, then, is the foundation of distinction in manners for every cla.s.s, and the manners of children are beautiful and perfect when simplicity bears witness to inward truthfulness and consideration for others, when it expresses modesty as to themselves and kindness of heart towards every one. It does not require much display or much ceremonial for their manners to be perfect according to the requirements of life at present; the ritual of society is a variable thing, sometimes very exacting, at others disposed to every concession, but these things do not vary--truth, modesty, reverence, kindness are of all times, and these are the bases of our teaching.

The personal contribution of those who teach, the influence of their companions.h.i.+p is that which establishes the standard, their patience is the measure which determines the limits of attainment, for it is only patience which makes a perfect work, whether the attainment be high or low. It takes more patience to bring poor material up to a presentable standard than to direct the quick intuitions of those who are more responsive; in one case efforts meet with resistance, in the other, generally with correspondence. But our own practice is for ourselves the important thing, for the inward standard is the point of departure, and our own sincerity is a light as well as a rule, or rather it is a rule because it is a light; it prevents the standard of manners from being double, one for use and one for ornament; it imposes respect to be observed with children as well as exacted from them, and it keeps up the consciousness that manners represent faith and, in a sense, duty to G.o.d rather than to one's neighbour.

This, too, belongs not to the fleeting things of social observance but to the deep springs of conduct, and its teaching may be summed up in one question. Is not well-instructed devotion to Our Lady and the understanding of the Church's ceremonies a school of manners in which we may learn how human intercourse may be carried on with the most perfect external expressiveness? Is not all inattention of mind to the courtesies of life, all roughness and slovenliness, all crude unconventionality which is proud of its self-a.s.sertion, a "falling from love" in seeking self? Will not the instinct of devotion and imitation teach within, all those things which must otherwise be learned by painful reiteration from without; the perpetual _give up, give way, give thanks, make a fitting answer, pause, think of others, don't get excited, wait, serve_, which require watchfulness and self-sacrifice?

Perhaps in the last year or two of education, when our best opportunities occur, some insight will be gained into the deeper meaning of all these things. It may then be understood that they are something more than arbitrary rules; there may come the understanding of what is beautiful in human intercourse, of the excellence of self-restraint, the loveliness of perfect service. If this can be seen it will tone down all that is too uncontrolled and make self-restraint acceptable, and will deal with the conventions of life as with symbols, poor and inarticulate indeed, but profoundly significant, of things as they ought to be.

CHAPTER XIII.

HIGHER EDUCATION OP WOMEN.

"In die Erd' isi's aufgenommen, Glucklich ist die Form gefullt; Wird's auch schon zu Tage kommen, Da.s.s es Fleiss und Kunst vergilt?

Wenn der Guss misslang?

Wenn die Form zersprang?

Ach, vielleicht, indem wir hoffen, Hat uns Unheil schon getroffen."

SCHILLER, "Das Lied von der Gloeke."

So far in these pages the education of girls has only been considered up to the age of eighteen or so, that is to the end of the ordinary school-room course. At eighteen, some say that it is just time to go to school, and others consider that it is more than time to leave it. They look at life from different points of view. Some are eager to experience everything for themselves, and as early as possible to s.n.a.t.c.h at this good thing, life, which is theirs, and make what they can of it, believing that its only interest is in what lies beyond the bounds of childhood and a life of regulated studies; they want to begin to _live_.

Others feel that life is such a good thing that every year of longer preparation fits them better to make the most of its opportunities, and others again are anxious--for a particular purpose, sometimes, and very rarely for the disinterested love of it--to undertake a course of more advanced studies and take active part in the movement "for the higher education of women." The first will advance as far as possible the date of their coming out; the second will delay it as long as they are allowed, to give themselves in quiet to the studies and thought which grow in value to them month by month; the third, energetic and decided, buckle on their armour and enter themselves at universities for degrees or certificates according to the facilities offered.

There can be no doubt that important changes were necessary in the education of women. About the middle of the last century it had reached a condition of stagnation from the pa.s.sing away of the old system of instruction before anything was ready to take its place. With very few exceptions, and those depended entirely on the families from which they carae, girls were scarcely educated at all. The old system had given them few things but these were of value; manners, languages, a little music and domestic training would include it all, with perhaps a few notions of "the use of the globes" and arithmetic. But when it dwindled into a book called "Hangnail's Questions," and manners declined into primness, and domestic training lost its vigour, then artificiality laid hold of it and lethargy followed, and there was no more education for "young ladies."

In a characteristically English way it was individual effort which came to change the face of things, and honour is due to the pioneers who went first, facing opposition and believing in the possibilities of better things. In some other countries the State would have taken the initiative and has done so, but we have our own ways of working out things, "l'aveugle et tatonnante infaillibilite de l'Angleterre," as some one has called it, in which the individual goes first, and makes trial of the land, and often experiences failure in the first attempts.

From the closing years of the eighteenth century, when the "Vindication of the Rights of Women" was published by Mary Wollstonecraft, the question has been more or less in agitation. But in 1848, with the opening of Queen's College in London, it took its first decided step forward in the direction of provision for the higher education of women, and in literature it was much in the air. Tennyson's "Princess" came in 1847, and "Aurora Leigh" from Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1851, and things moved onward with increasing rapidity until at one moment it seemed like a rush to new goldfields. One university after another has granted degrees to women or degree certificates in place of the degrees which were refused; women are resident students at some universities and at others present themselves on equal terms with men for examination.

The way has been opened to them in some professions and in many spheres of activity from which they had been formerly excluded.

One advantage of the English mode of proceeding in these great questions is that the situation can be reconsidered from time to time without the discordant contentions which surround any proclamation of non-success in State concerns. We feel our way and try this and that, and readjust ourselves, and a great deal of experimental knowledge has been gained before any great interests or the prestige of the State have been involved. These questions which affect a whole people directly or indirectly require, for us at least, a great deal of experimenting before we know what suits us. We are not very amenable to systems, or theories, or ready-made schemes. And the phenomenon of tides is very marked in all that we undertake. There is a period of advance and then a pause and a period of decline, and after another pause the tide rises again. It may perhaps be accounted for in part by the very fact that we do so much for ourselves in England, and look askance at anything which curtails the freedom of our movements, when we are in earnest about a question; but this independence is rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng under the more elaborate administration of recent years, and the increase of State control in education. Whatever may be the effect of this in the future, it seems as if there were at present a moment of reconsideration as to whether we have been quite on the right track in the pursuit of higher education for women, and a certain discontent with what has been achieved so far. There are at all events not many who are cordially pleased with the results. Some dissatisfaction is felt as to the position of the girl students in residence at the universities. They cannot share in any true sense in the life of the universities, but only exist on their outskirts, outside the tradition of the past, a modern growth tolerated rather than fostered or valued by the authorities. This creates a position scarcely enviable in itself, or likely to communicate that particular tone which is the gift of the oldest English universities to their sons. Some girl students have undoubtedly distinguished themselves, especially at Cambridge; in the line of studies they attained what they sought, but that particular gift of the university they could not attain. It is lamented that the number of really disinterested students attending Girton and Newnham is small; the same complaint is heard from the Halls for women at Oxford; there is a certain want of confidence as to the future and what it is all leading to. To women with a professional career before them the degree certificates are of value, but the course of studies itself and its mental effect is conceded by many to be disappointing. One reason may be that the characteristics of girls' work affect in a way the whole movement. They are very eager and impetuous students, but in general the staying power is short; an excessive energy is put out in one direction, then it flags, and a new beginning is made towards another quarter. So in this general movement there have been successive stages of activity.

The higher education movement has gone on its own course. The first pioneers had clear and n.o.ble ideals; Bedford College, the growth of Cheltenham, the beginnings of Newnham and Girton Colleges, the North of England Ladies' "Council of Education" represented them. Now that the movement has left the port and gone beyond what they foresaw, it has met the difficulties of the open sea.

Nursing was another sphere opened about the same time, to meet the urgent needs felt during the Crimean War; it was admirably planned out by Florence Nightingale, again a pioneer with loftiest ideals. There followed a rush for that opening; it has continued, and now the same complaint is made that it is an outlet for those whose lives are not to their liking at home, rather than those who are conscious of a special fitness for it or recognized as having the particular qualities which it calls for. And then came the development of a new variety among the unemployed of the wealthier cla.s.ses, the "athletic girl." Not every one could aspire to be an athletic girl, it requires some means, and much time; but it is there, and it is part of the emanc.i.p.ation movement. The latest in the field are the movements towards organization of effort, a.s.sociation on the lines of the German _Frauenbund_, and the French _Mouvement Feministe_, and beside them, around them, with or without them, the Women's Suffrage Movement, militant or non-militant. These are of the rising tide, and each tide makes a difference to our coast-line, in some places the sea gains, in others the land, and so the thinkers, for and against, register their victories and defeats, and the face of things continues to change more and more rapidly.

It seems an ungracious task, unfair--perhaps it seems above all retrograde and ignorant--to express doubt and not to think hopefully of a cause in which so many lives have been spent with singular disinterestedness and self-devotion. Yet these adverse thoughts are in the air, not only amongst those who are unable to win in the race, but amongst those who have won, and also amongst those who look out upon it all with undistracted and unbia.s.sed interest; older men, who look to the end and outcome of things, to the ultimate direction when the forces have adjusted themselves. Those who think of the next generation are not quite satisfied with what is being done for our girls or by them.

Catholics have been spurred hotly into the movement by those who are keenly anxious that we should not be left behind, but should show ourselves able to be with the best in all these things. Perhaps at the stage which has been reached we have more reason than others to be dissatisfied with the results of success, since we are more beset than others by the haunting question--_what then_? For those who have to devote themselves to the cause of Catholic education it is often and increasingly necessary to win degrees or their equivalents, not altogether for their own value, but as the key that fits the lock, for the gates to the domain of education are kept locked by the State. And so in other spheres of Catholic usefulness the key may become more and more necessary. But--may it be suggested--in their own education, a degree for a man and a degree for a girl mean very different things, even if the degree is the same. For a girl it is the certificate of a course of studies. For a man an Oxford or Cambridge degree means atmosphere unique in character, immemorial tradition, a.s.sociation, all kinds of interests and subtle influences out of the past, the impressiveness of numbers, among which the individual shows in very modest proportions indeed whatever may be his gifts. The difference is that of two worlds. Bat even at other universities the degree means more to a man if it is anything beyond a mere gate-key. It is his initial effort, after which comes the full stress of his life's work. For a girl, except in the rarest cases, it is either a gate-key or a final effort, either her life's work takes a different turn, or she thinks she has had enough.

The line of common studies is adapted for man's work and programme of life. It has been made to fit woman's professional work, but the fit is not perfect. It has a marked unfitness in its adaptation for women to the real end of higher education, or university education, which is the perfecting of the individual mind, according to its kind, in surroundings favourable to its complete development.

Atmosphere is a most important element at all periods of education, and in the education of girls all-important, and an atmosphere for the higher education of girls has not yet been created in the universities.

The girl students are few, their position is not una.s.sailable, their aims not very well defined, and the thing which is above all required for the intellectual development of girls--quiet of mind--is not a.s.sured.

It is obvious that there can never be great tradition and a past to look back to, unless there is a present, and a beginning, and a long period of growth. But everything for the future consists in having a n.o.ble beginning, however lowly, true foundations and clear aims, and this we have not yet secured. It seems almost as if we had begun at the wrong end, that the foundations of character were not made strong enough, before the intellectual superstructure began to be raised--and that this gives the sense of insecurity. An unusual strength of character would be required to lead the way in living worthily under such difficult circ.u.mstances as have been created, a great self-restraint to walk without swerving or losing the track, without the controlling machinery of university rules and traditions, without experience, at the most adventurous age of life, and except in preparation for professional work without the steadying power of definite duties and obligations. A few could do it, but not many, and those chosen few would have found their way in any case. The past bears witness to this.

But the past as a whole bears other testimony which is worth considering here. Through every vicissitude of women's education there have always been the few who were exceptional in mental and moral strength, and they have held on their way, and achieved a great deal, and left behind them names deserving of honour. Such were Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who was invited by the Pope and the university to lecture in mathematics at Bologna (and declined the invitation to give herself to the service of the poor), and Lucretia Helena Gomaro Piscopia, who taught philosophy and theology! and Laura Ba.s.si who lectured in physics, and Clara von Schur-man who became proficient in Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and Chaldaic in order to study Scripture "with greater independence and judgment,"

and the Pirk-heimer family of Nuremberg, Caritas and Clara and others, whose attainments were conspicuous in their day. But there is something unfamiliar about all these names; they do not belong so much to the history of the world as to the curiosities of literature and learning.

The world has not felt their touch upon it; we should scarcely miss them in the galleries of history if their portraits were taken down.

The women who have been really great, whom we could not spare out of their place in history, have not been the student women or the remarkably learned. The greatest women have taken their place in the life of the world, not in its libraries; their strength has been in their character, their mission civilization in its widest and loftiest sense. They have ruled not with the "Divine right of kings," but with the Divine right of queens, which is quite a different t.i.tle, undisputed and secure to them, if they do not abdicate it of themselves or drag it into the field of controversy to be matched and measured against the Divine or human rights of kings. "The heaven of heavens is the Lord's, but the earth He has given to the children of men," and to woman He seems to have a.s.signed the borderland between the two, to fit the one for the other and weld the links. Hers are the first steps in training the souls of children, the nurseries of the kingdom of heaven (the mothers of saints would fill a portrait gallery of their own); hers the special missions of peace and reconciliation and encouragement, the hidden germs of such great enterprises as the Propagation of the Faith, and the trust of such great devotions as that of the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacred Heart to be brought within the reach of the faithful. The names of Matilda of Tuscany, of St. Catherine of Siena, of Blessed Joan of Arc, of Isabella the Catholic, of St. Theresa are representative, amongst others, of women who have fulfilled public missions for the service of the Church, and of Christian people, and for the realization of religious ideals: true queens of the borderland between both worlds.

Others have reigned in their own spheres, in families or solitudes, or cloistered enclosures--as the two Saints Elizabeth, Paula and Eustochium and all their group of friends, the great Abbesses Hildegarde, Hilda, Gertrude and others, and the chosen line of foundresses of religious orders--these too have ruled the borderland, and their influence, direct or indirect, has all been in the same direction, for pacification and not for strife, for high aspiration and heavenly-mindedness, for faith and hope and love and self-devotion, and all those things for want of which the world is sick to death.

But the kingdom of woman is on that borderland, and if she comes down to earth to claim its lowland provinces she exposes herself to lose both worlds, not securing real freedom or permanent equality in one, and losing hold of some of the highest prerogatives of the other. These may seem to be cloudy and visionary views, and this does not in any sense pretend to be a controversial defence of them, but only a suggestion that both history and present experience have something to say on this side of the question, a suggestion also that there are two spheres of influence, requiring different qualities for their perfect use, as there are two forces in a planetary system. If these forces attempted to work on one line the result would be the wreck of the whole, but in their balance one against the other, apparently contrary, in reality at one, the equilibrium of the whole is secured. One is for motor force and the other for central control; both working in concert establish the harmony of planetary motion and give permanent conditions of unity. Here, as elsewhere, uniformity tends to ultimate loosening of unity; diversity establishes that balance which combines freedom with stability.

Once more it must be said that only the Catholic Church can give perfect adjustment to the two forces, as she holds up on both sides ideals which make for unity. And when the higher education of women has flowered under Catholic influence, it has had a strong basis of moral worth, of discipline and control to sustain the expansion of intellectual life; and without the Church the higher education of women has tended to one-sidedness, to nonconformity of manners, of character, and of mind, to extremes, to want of balance, and to loss of equilibrium in the social order, by straining after uniformity of rights and aims and occupations.

So with regard to the general question of women's higher education may it be suggested that the moral training, the strengthening of character, is the side which must have precedence and must accompany every step of their education, making them fit to bear heavier responsibilities, to control their own larger independence, to stand against the current of disintegrating influences that will play upon them. To be fit for higher education calls for much acquired self-restraint, and unfortunately it is on the contrary sometimes sought as an opening for speedier emanc.i.p.ation from control. Those who seek it in this spirit are of all others least fitted to receive it, for the aim is false, and it gives a false movement to the whole being. Again, when it is entirely dissociated from the realities of life, it tends to unfit girls for any but a professional career in which they will have--at great cost to their own well-being--to renounce their contact with those primeval teachers of experience.

In some countries they have found means of combining both in a modified form of university life for girls, and in this they are wiser than we.

Buds of the same tree have been introduced into England, but they are nipped by want of appreciation. We have still to look to our foundations, and even to make up our minds as to what we want. Perhaps the next few years will make things clearer. But in the meantime there is a great deal to be done; there is one lesson that every one concerned with girls must teach them, and induce them to learn, that is the lesson of self-command and decision. Our girls are in danger of drifting and floating along the current of the hour, pa.s.sive in critical moments, wanting in perseverance to carry out anything that requires steady effort. They are often forced to walk upon slippery ground; temptations sometimes creep on insensibly, and at others make such sudden attacks that the thing all others to be dreaded for girls is want of courage and decision of character. Those render them the best service who train them early to decide for themselves, to say yes or no definitely, to make up their mind promptly, not because they "feel like it" but for a reason which they know, and to keep in the same mind which they have reasonably made up. Thus they may be fitted by higher moral education to receive higher mental training according to their gifts; but in any case they will be prepared by it to take up whatever responsibilities life may throw upon them.

The future of girls necessarily remains indeterminate, at least until the last years of their education, but the long indeterminate time is not lost if it has been spent in preparatory training of mind, and especially in giving some resistance to their pliant or wayward characters. Thus, whether they devote themselves to the well-being of their own families, or give themselves to volunteer work in any department, social or particular, or advance in the direction of higher studies, or receive any special call from G.o.d to dedicate their gifts to His particular service, they will at least have something to give; their education will have been "higher" in that it has raised them above the dead level of mediocre character and will-power, which is only responsive to the inclination or stimulus of the moment, but has no definite plan of life. It may be that as far as exterior work goes, or anything that has a name to it, no specified life-work will be offered to many, but it is a pity if they regard their lives as a failure on that account.

There are lives whose occupations could not be expressed in a formula, yet they are precious to their surroundings and precious in themselves, requiring more steady self-sacrifice than those which give the stimulus of something definite to do. These need not feel themselves cut off from what is highest in woman's education, if they realize that the mind has a life in itself and makes its own existence there, not selfishly, but indeed in a peculiarly selfless way, because it has nothing to show for itself but some small round of unimpressive occupations; some perpetual call upon its sympathies and devotion, not enough to fill a life, but just enough to prevent it from turning to anything else. Then the higher life has to be almost entirely within itself, and no one is there to see the value of it all, least of all the one who lives it. There is no stimulus, no success, no brilliancy; it is perhaps of all lives the hardest to accept, yet what perfect workmans.h.i.+p it sometimes shows. Its disappearance often reveals a whole tissue of indirect influences which had gone forth from it; and who can tell how far this unregistered, uncertificated higher education of a woman, without a degree and with an exceedingly una.s.suming opinion of itself, may have extended. It is a life hard to accept, difficult to put into words with any due proportion to its worth, but good and beautiful to know, surely "rich in the sight of G.o.d,"

CHAPTER XIV.

CONCLUSION.

"Far out the strange s.h.i.+ps go: Their broad sails flas.h.i.+ng red As flame, or white as snow: The s.h.i.+ps, as David said.

'Winds rush and waters roll: Their strength, their beauty, brings Into mine heart the whole Magnificence of things.'"

LIONEL JOHNSON.

The conclusion is only an opportunity for repeating how much there is still to be said, and even more to be thought of and to be done, in the great problem and work of educating girls. Every generation has to face the same problem, and deals with it in a characteristic way. For us it presents particular features of interest, of hope and likewise of anxious concern. The interest of education never flags; year after year the material is new, the children come up from the nursery to the school-room, with their life before them, their unbounded possibilities for good, their confidence and expectant hopefulness as to what the future will bring them. We have our splendid opportunity and are greatly responsible for its use. Each precious result of education when the girl has grown up and leaves our hands is thrown into the furnace to be tried--fired--like gla.s.s or fine porcelain. Those who educate have, at a given moment, to let go of their control, and however solicitously they may have foreseen and prepared for it by gradually obliging children to act without coercion and be responsible for themselves, yet the critical moment must come at last and "every man's work shall be manifest," "the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is" (1 Cor. III).

Life tries the work of education, "of what sort it is." If it stands the test it is more beautiful than before, its colours are fixed. If it breaks, and some will inevitably break in the trial, a Catholic education has left in the soul a way to recovery. Nothing, with us, is hopelessly shattered, we always know how to make things right again. But if we can we must secure the character against breaking, our effort in education must be to make something that will last, and for this we must often sacrifice present success in consideration of the future, we must not want to see results. A small finished building is a more sightly object than one which is only beginning to rise above its foundations, yet we should choose that our educational work should be like the second rather than the first, even though it has reached "the ugly stage,"

though it has its disappointments and troubles before it, with its daily risks and the uncertainty of ultimate success. But it is a truer work, and a better introduction to the realities of life.

A "finished education" is an illusion or else a lasting disappointment; the very word implies a condition of mind which is opposed to any further development, a condition of self-satisfaction. What then shall we call a well-educated girl, whom we consider ready for the opportunities and responsibilities of her new life? An equal degree of fitness cannot be expected from all, the difference between those who have ten talents and those who have only two will always be felt. Those who have less will be well educated if they have acquired spirit enough not to be discontented or disheartened at feeling that their resources are small; if we have been able to inspire them with hope and plodding patience it will be a great thing, for this unconquerable spirit of perseverance does not fail in the end, it attains to something worthy of all honour, it gives us people of trust whose character is equal to their responsibilities, and that is no little thing in any position of life; and, if to this steadiness of will is added a contented mind, it will always be superior to its circ.u.mstances and will not cease to develop in the line of its best qualities.

It is not these who disappoint--in fact they often give more than was expected of them. It is those of great promise who are more often disappointing in failing to realize what they might do with their richer endowments; they fail in strength of will.

Now if we want a girl to grow to the best that a woman ought to be it is in two things that we must establish her fundamentally--quiet of mind and firmness of will. Quiet of mind equally removed from stagnation and from excitement. In stagnation her mind is open to the seven evil spirits who came into the house that was empty and swept; under excitement it is carried to extremes in any direction which occupies its attention at the time. The best minds of women are quiet, intuitive, and full of intellectual sympathies. They are not in general made for initiation and creation, but initiation and creation lean upon them for understanding and support. And their support must be moral as well as mental, for this they need firmness of will. Support cannot be given to others without an inward support which does not fail towards itself in critical moments.

The great victories of women have been won by this inward support, this firmness and perseverance of will based upon faith. The will of a woman is strong, not in the measure of what it manifests without, as of what it reserves within, that is to say in the moderation of its own impulsiveness and emotional tendency, in the self-discipline of perseverance, the subordination of personal interest to the good of whatever depends upon it for support. It is great in self-devotion, and in this is found its only lasting independence.

To give much and ask little in personal return is independence of the highest kind. But faith alone can make it possible. The Catholic Faith gives that particular orientation of mind which is independent of this world, knowing the account which it must give to G.o.d. To some it is duty and the reign of conscience, to others it is detachment and the reign of the love of G.o.d, the joyful flight of the soul towards heavenly things.

The particular name matters little, it has a centre of gravity. "As everlasting foundations upon a solid rock, so the commandments of G.o.d in the heart of a holy woman." [1--Ecclus. XXVI. 24.]