The Education of Catholic Girls Part 2

These are the means which in her own way, and through various channels of authority, the Church makes use of, and the Church is the great Mother who educates us all. She takes us into her confidence, as we make ourselves worthy of it, and shows us out of her treasures things new and old. She sets the better things always before us, prays for us, prays with us, teaches us to pray, and so "lifts up our minds to heavenly desires." She watches over us with un anxious, but untiring vigilance, setting her Bishops and pastors to keep watch over the flock, collectively and individually, "with that most perfect care"

that St. Francis of Sales describes as "that which approaches the nearest to the care G.o.d has of us, which is a care full of tranquillity and quietness, and which, in its highest activity, has still no emotion, and being only one, yet condescends to make itself all to all things."

Criticism and correction, discipline and obedience--these things are administered by the Church our Mother, gently but without weakness, so careful is she in her warnings, so slow in her punishments, so unswervingly true to what is of principle, and asking so persuasively not for the sullen obedience of slaves, but for the free and loving submission of sons and daughters.

CHAPTER III.

CHARACTER II.

"The Parts and Signes of Goodnesse are many. If a Man be Gracious and Curteous to Strangers, it shewes he is a Citizen of the World, And that his Heart is no Island cut off from other Lands, but a Continent that joynes to them.

If he be Compa.s.sionate towards the Afflictions of others, it shewes that his Heart is like the n.o.ble Tree, that is wounded to selfe when it gives Balme. If he easily Pardons and Remits Offences, it shewes that his minde is planted above Injuries, So that he cannot be shot. If he be Thankfull for small Benefits, it shewes that he weighes Men's Mindes, and not their Trash. But above all, if he have St. Paul's Perfection, that he would wish to be an Anathema from Christ, for the Salvation of his Brethren, it shewes much of a Divine Nature, and a kinde of Conformity with Christ himselfe."--BACON, "Of Goodnesse."

No one who has the good of children at heart, and the training of their characters, can leave the subject without some grave thoughts on the formation of their own character, which is first in order of importance, and in order of time must go before, and accompany their work to the very end.

"What is developed to perfection can make other things like unto itself." So saints develop sanct.i.ty in others, and truth and confidence beget truth and confidence, and the spirit of enterprise calls out the spirit of enterprise, and constancy trains to endurance and perseverance, and wise kindness makes others kind, and courage makes them courageous, and in its degree each good quality tends to reproduce itself in others. Children are very delicately sensitive to these influences, they respond unconsciously to what is expected of them, and instinctively they imitate the models set before them. They catch a tone, a gesture, a trick of manner with a quickness that is startling. The influence of mind and thought on mind and thought cannot be so quickly recognized, but tells with as much certainty, and enters more deeply into the character for life. The consideration of this is a great incentive to the acquirement of self-knowledge and self-discipline by those who have to do with children. The old codes of conventionality in education, which stood for a certain system in their time, are disappearing, and the worth of the individual becomes of greater importance. This is true of those who educate and of those whom they bring up. As the methods of modern warfare call for more individual resourcefulness, so do the methods of the spiritual warfare, now that we are not supported by big battalions, but each one is thrown back on conscience and personal responsibility. Girls as well as boys have to be trained to take care of themselves and be responsible for themselves, and if they are not so trained, no one can now be responsible for them or protect them in spite of themselves.

Therefore, the first duty of those who are bringing up Catholic girls is to be themselves such as Catholic girls must be later on.

This example is a discourse "in the vulgar tongue" which cannot be misunderstood, and example is not resented unless it seems self-conscious and presented of set purpose. The one thing necessary is to be that which we ought to be, and that is to say, in other words, that the fundamental virtue in teaching children is a great and resolute sincerity. Sincerity is a difficult virtue to practise and is too easily taken for granted. It has more enemies than appear at first sight. Inertness of mind, the desire to do things cheaply, dislike of mental effort, the tendency to be satisfied with appearances, the wish to s.h.i.+ne, impatience for results, all foster intellectual insincerity; just as, in conduct, the wish to please, the spirit of accommodation and expediency, the fear of blame, the instinct of concealment, which is inborn in many girls, destroy frankness of character and make people untrue who would not willingly be untruthful. Yet even truthfulness is not such a matter of course as many would be willing to a.s.sume. To be inaccurate through thoughtless laziness in the use of words is extremely common, to exaggerate according to the mood of the moment, to say more than one means and cover one's retreat with "I didn't mean it," to pull facts into shape to suit particular ends, are demoralizing forms of untruthfulness, common, but often unrecognized.

If a teacher could only excel in one high quality for training girls, probably the best in which she could excel would be a great sincerity, which would train them in frankness, and in the knowledge that to be entirely frank means to lay down a great price for that costly attainment, a perfectly honourable and fearless life. [1--"A woman, if it be once known that she is deficient in truth, has no resource.

Have, by a misuse of language, injured or lost her only means of persuasion, nothing can preserve her from falling into contempt of nonent.i.ty. When she is no longer to be believed no on will take the trouble to listen to her...no one can depend on her, no on rests any hope on her, the words of which she makes use have no meaning."

--Madame Necker de Saussure, "Progressive Education."]

It sometimes happens that the realization of this truth comes comparatively late in life to those who ought to have recognized it years before. Thinking along the surface of things, and in particular repeating catchwords and plat.i.tudes and trite maxims on the subject of sincerity, is apt to make us believe that we possess the quality we talk about, and as it is impossible to have anything to do with the education of children without treating of sincerity and truthfulness, it is comparatively easy to slip into the happy a.s.sumption that one is truthful, because one would not deliberately be otherwise. But it takes far more than this to acquire real sincerity of life in the complexity and artificiality of the conditions in which we live.

"And we have been on many thousand lines, And we have shown, on each, spirit and power; But hardly have we, for one little hour, Been on our own line, have we been ourselves.

"Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true!"

MATTHEW ARNOLD, "The Buried Life."

Sincerity requires the recognition that to be honestly oneself is more impressive for good than to be a very superior person by imitation. It requires the renunciation of some claims to consideration and esteem, and the acceptance of limitations (a different thing from acquiescence in them, for it means the acceptance of a lifelong effort to be what we aspire to be, with a knowledge that we shall never fully attain it). It requires that we should bear the confusion of defeat without desisting from the struggle, that we should accept the progressive illumination of what is still unaccomplished, and keep the habitual lowliness of a beginner with the unconquerable hopefulness which comes of a fixed resolution to win what is worth winning. Let those who have tried say whether this is easy.

But in guiding children along this difficult way it is not wise to call direct attention to it, lest their inexperience and sensitiveness should turn to scrupulosity and their spontaneity be paralysed. It is both more acceptable and healthier to present it as a feat of courage, a habit of fearlessness to be acquired, of hardihood and strength of character. The more subtle forms of self-knowledge belong to a later period in life.

Another quality to be desired in those who have to do with children is what may--for want of a better word--be called vitality, not the fatiguing artificial animation which is sometimes a.s.sumed professionally by teachers, but the keenness which shows forth a settled conviction that life is worth living. The expression of this is not self a.s.serting or controversial, for it is not like a garment put on, but a living grace of soul, coming from within, born of straight thinking and resolution, and so strongly confirmed by faith and hope that nothing can discourage it or make it let go. It is a bulwark against the faults which sink below the normal line of life, dullness, depression, timidity, procrastination, sloth and sadness, moodiness, unsociability--all these it tends to dispel, by its quiet and confident gift of encouragement. And though so contrary to the spirit of childhood, these faults are found in children--often in delicate children who have lost confidence in themselves from being habitually outdone by stronger brothers and sisters, or in slow minds which seem "stupid" to others and to themselves, or in natures too sensitive to risk themselves in the melee. To these, one who brings the gift of encouragement comes as a deliverer and often changes the course of their life, leading them to believe in themselves and their own good endowments, making them taste success which rouses them to better efforts, giving them the strong comfort of knowing that something is expected of them, and that if they will only try, in one way if not in another, they need not be behind the best. At some stage in life, and especially in the years of rapid growth, we all need encouragement, and often characters that seem to require only repression are merely singing out of tune from the effort to hold out against blank discouragement at their failures to "be good," or to divert their mind forcibly from their fits of depression. To be scolded accentuates their trouble and tends to harden them; to grow a sh.e.l.l of hardness seems for the moment their only defence; but if some one will meet their efforts half-way, believing in them with a tranquil conviction that they will live through these difficulties and _find themselves_ in due time, they can be saved from much unhappiness of their own making, though not of their own fault, and their growth will not be arrested behind an unnatural sh.e.l.l of defence.

The strong vitality and gift of encouragement which can give this help are also of value in saving from the morbid and exaggerated friends.h.i.+ps which sometimes spoil the best years of a girl's education. If the character of those who teach them has force enough not only to inspire admiration but to call out effort, it may rouse the mind and will to a higher plane and make the things of which it disapproves seem worthless. There are moments when the leading mind must have strength enough for two, but this must not last. Its glory is to raise the mind of the learner to equality with itself, not to keep it in leading strings, but to make it grow so that, as the master has often been outstripped by the scholar, the efforts of the younger may even stimulate the achievements of the elder, and thus a n.o.ble friends.h.i.+p be formed in the pursuit of what is best.

Educators of youth are exposed to certain professional dangers, which lie very close to professional excellences of character. There is the danger of remaining young for the sake of children, so that something of mature development will be lacking. If there is not a stimulus from outside, and it is not supplied for by an inward determination to grow, the mental development may be arrested and contented-ness at a low level be mistaken for the limit of capacity. A great many people are mentally lazy, and only too ready to believe that they can do no more.

Many teachers are yoked to an examination programme sufficiently loaded to call for a great deal of pressure along a low level, and they may easily mistake this hara.s.sing activity for real mental work, and either be indeed hindered, or consider themselves absolved from anything more. The penalty of it is a gradual decline of the unused powers, growing difficulty of sustained attention, dislike for what requires effort of mind, loss of wider interests, restlessness and superficiality in reading, and other indications of diminution of power in the years when it ought to be on the increase. Is this the fault of those who so decline in power? It would be hard to say that it is so universally, for some no doubt are pressed through necessity to the very limits of their time and of their endurance. Yet experience goes to prove that if a mental awakening really takes place the most unfavourable circ.u.mstances will not hinder a rapid development of power. Abundance of books and leisure and fostering conditions are helps but not essentials for mental growth. If few books can be had, but these are of the best, they will do more for the mind by continued reading than abundance for those who have not yet learned to use it. If there is little leisure the value of the hardly-spared moments is enhanced; we may convince ourselves of this in the lives of those who have reached eminence in learning, through circ.u.mstances apparently hopeless. If the conditions of life are unfavourable, it is generally possible to find one like-minded friend who will double our power by quickening enthusiasm or by setting the pace at which we must travel, and leading the way. There may be side by side in the same calling in life persons doing similar work in like circ.u.mstances, with like resources, of whom one is contentedly stagnating, feeling satisfied all the time that duty is done and nothing neglected--and this may be true up to a certain point--while the other is haunted by a blessed dissatisfaction, urged from within to seek always something better, and compelling circ.u.mstances to minister to the growth of the mind. One who would meet these two again after the interval of a few months would be astonished at the distance which has been left between them by the stagnation of one and the advance of the other.

Another danger is that of becoming dogmatic and dictatorial from the habit of dealing with less mature intelligences, from the absence of contradiction and friction among equals, and the want of that most perfect discipline of the mind--intercourse with intellectual superiors. Of course it is a mark of ignorance to become oracular and self-a.s.sured, but it needs watchfulness to guard against the tendency if one is always obliged to take the lead. Teaching likewise exposes to faults perhaps less in themselves but far reaching in their effect upon children; a little observation will show how the smallest peculiarities tell upon them, either by affecting their dispositions or being caught by them and reproduced. To take one example among many, the pitch and intonation of the voice often impress more than the words. A nurse with a querulous tone has a restless nursery; she makes the high-spirited contradictory and the delicate fretful. In teaching, a high-pitched voice is exciting and wearing to children; certain cadences that end on a high note rouse opposition, a monotonous intonation wearies, deeper and more ample tones are quieting and rea.s.suring, but if their solemnity becomes exaggerated they provoke a reaction. Most people have a certain cadence which constantly recurs in their speaking and is characteristic of them, and the satisfaction of listening to them depends largely upon this characteristic cadence. It is also a help in the understanding of their characters. Much trouble of mind is saved by recognizing that a certain cadence which sounds indignant is only intended to be convincing, and that another which sounds defiant is only giving to itself the signal for retreat. Again, for the teacher's own sake, it is good to observe that there are tones which dispose towards obedience, and others which provoke remonstrance and, as Mme.

Necker de Saussure remarks: "It is of great consequence to prevent remonstrances and not allow girls to form a habit of contradicting and cavilling, or to prolong useless opposition which annoys others and disturbs their own peace of mind."

There are "teacher's manners" in many varieties, often spoiling admirable gifts and qualities, for the professional touch in this is not a grace but puts both children and "grown-ups" on the defensive.

There is the head mistress's manner which is a signal to proceed with caution, the modern "form mistress's" or cla.s.s mistress's manner, with an off-hand tone destined to rea.s.sure by showing that there is nothing to be afraid of, the science mistress's manner with a studied quietness and determination that the knife-edge of the balance shall be the standard of truthfulness, the professionally encouraging manner, the "stimulating" manner, the manner of those whose ambition is to be "an earnest teacher," the strained tone of one whose ideal is to to be overworked, the kindergarten manner, scientifically "awakening," giving the call of the decoy-duck, confidentially inviting co operation and revealing secrets--these are types, but there are many others.

Such mannerisms would seem to be developed by reliance on books of method, by professional training imparted to those who have not enough originality to break through the mould, and instead of following out principles as lines for personal experiment and discovery, deaden them into rules and abide by them. The teacher's manner is much more noticeable among those who have been trained than among the now vanis.h.i.+ng cla.s.s of those who have had to stand or fall by their own merits, and find out their own methods. The advantage is not always with the trained teacher even now, and the question of manner is not one of minor importance. The true instinct of children and the sensitiveness of youth detect very quickly and resent a professional tone; a child looks for freedom and simplicity, and feels cramped if it meets with something even a little artificial. Children like to find _real people_, not anxiously careful to improve them, but able to take life with a certain spontaneity as they like to take it themselves. They are frightened by those who take themselves too seriously, who are too acute, too convincing or too brilliant; they do not like people who appear to be always on the alert, nor those of extreme temperatures, very ardent or very frigid. The people whom they like and trust are usually quiet, simple people, who have not startling ways, and do not manifest those strenuous ideals which destroy all sense of leisure in life.

Not only little children but those who are growing up resent these mannerisms and professional ways. They, too, ask for a certain spontaneity and like to find a _real person_ whom they can understand.

Abstract principles do not appeal to them, but they can understand and appreciate character, not in one type and pattern alone, for every character that has life and truth commands their respect and is acceptable in one way if not in another. It is not the bright colours of character alone which attract them, they often keep a lifelong remembrance of those whose qualities are anything but showy. They look for fairness in those who govern them, but if they find this they can accept a good measure of severity. They respect unflinching uprightness and are quick to detect the least deviation from it. They prefer to be taken seriously on their own ground; things in general are so incomprehensible that it only makes matters worse to be approached with playful methods and facetious invitations into the unknown, for who can tell what educational ambush for their improvement may be concealed behind these demonstrations. They give their confidence more readily to grave and quiet people who do not show too rapturous delight in their performances, or surprise at their opinions, or--especially--distress at their ignorance. They admire with lasting admiration those who are hard on themselves and take their troubles without comment or complaint. They admire courage, and they can appreciate patience if it does not seem to be conscious of itself. But they do not look up to a character in which mildness so predominates that it cannot be roused to indignation and even anger in a good cause. A power of being roused is felt as a force in reserve, and the knowledge that it is there is often enough to maintain peace and order without any need for interference or remonstrance. They are offended by a patience which looks like weariness, determined if it were at the last gasp to "improve the occasion" and say something of educational profit. To "improve the occasion" really destroys the opportunity; it is like a too expansive invitation to birds to come and feed, which drives them off in a nutter. Birds come most willingly when crumbs are thrown as it were by accident while the benefactor looks another way; and young minds pick up gratefully a suggestion which seems to fall by the way, a mere hint that things are understood and cared about, that there is safety beyond the thin ice if one trusts and believes, that "all shall be well" if people will be true to their best thoughts. They can understand these a.s.surances and accept them when something more explicit would drive them back to bar the door against intruders. All these are truisms to those who have observed children. The misfortune is that in spite of the prominence given to training of teachers, of the new name of "Child Study" and its manuals, there are many who teach children without reaching their real selves. If the children could combine the result of their observations and bring out a manual of "Teacher Study" we should have strange revelations as to how it looks from the other side. We should be astonished at the shrewdness of the small juries that deliberate, and the insight of the judges that p.r.o.nounce sentence upon us, and we should be convinced that to obtain a favourable verdict we needed very little subtlety, and not too much theory, but as much as possible of the very things we look for as the result and crown of our work. We labour to produce character, we must have it. We look for courage and uprightness, we must bring them with us. We want honest work, we have to give proof of it ourselves. And so with the Christian qualities which we hope to build on these foundations. We care for the faith of the children, it must abound in us. We care for the innocence of their life, we must ourselves be heavenly minded, we want them to be unworldly and ready to make sacrifices for their religion, they must understand that it is more than all the world to us. We want to secure them as they grow up against the spirit of pessimism, our own imperturbable hope in G.o.d and confidence in the Church will be more convincing than our arguments. We want them to grow into the fulness of charity, we must make charity the most lovable and lovely thing in the world to them.

The Church possesses the secrets of these things; she is the great teacher of all nations and brings out of her treasury things new and old for the training of her children. A succession of teaching orders of religious, representing different patterns of education, has gone forth with her blessing to supply the needs of succeeding generations in each cla.s.s of the Christian community. When children cannot be brought up in their own homes, religious seem to be designated as their natural guardians, independent as they are by their profession from the claims of personal interest and self-advancement, and therefore free to give their full sympathy and devotion to the children under their charge. They have also the independence of their corporate life, a great power behind the service of the schoolroom in which they find mutual support, an "Upper Boom" to which they can withdraw and build up again in prayer and intercourse with one another their ideals of life and duty in an atmosphere which gives a more spiritual re-renewal of energy than a holiday of entire forgetfulness.

It is striking to observe that while the so-called Catholic countries are banis.h.i.+ng religious from their schools, there is more and more inclination among non-Catholic parents who have had experience of other systems to place their children under the care of religious. And it was strange to hear one of His Majesty's Inspectors express his conviction that "it would be ideal if all England could be taught by nuns!" Thus indirect testimony comes from friendly or hostile sources to the fact that the Church holds the secret of education, and every Catholic teacher may gain courage from the knowledge of having that which is beyond all price in the education of children, that which all the world is seeking for, and which the Church alone knows that she possesses in its fulness.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ELEMENTS OF CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY.

"E quosto ti sia sempre piombo ai piedi, Per farti mover lento, com' uom la.s.so, Ed al si ed al no, che tu non vedi; Che quegli e tra gli stolti bene abba.s.so, Che senza disfcinzion afferma o nega, Nell' un cosi come nell' altro pa.s.so; Perch' egl' incontra che piu volte piega L' opinion corrente in falsa parte, E poi l' affetto lo intelletto lega.

Vie piu che indarno da riva si parte, Perche non toma tal qual ei si move, Chi pesca per lo vero e noil ha l' arte."

DANTE, "Paradiso," Canto XIII.

The elements of Catholic philosophy may no longer be looked upon as out of place in the education of our girls, or as being reserved for the use of learned women and girlish oddities. They belong to every well-grounded Catholic education, and the need for them will be felt more and more. They are wanted to balance on the one hand the unthinking impulse of living for the day, which asks no questions so long as the "fun" holds out, and on the other to meet the urgency of problems which press upon the minds of the more thoughtful as they grow up. When this teaching has been long established as part of an educational plan it has been found to give steadiness and unity to the whole; something to aim at from the beginning, and in the later years of a girl's education something which will serve as foundation for all branches of future study, so that each will find its place among the first principles, not isolated from the others but as part of a whole.

The value of these elements for the practical guidance of life is likewise very great. A hold is given in the mind to the teaching of religion and conduct which welds into one defence the best wisdom of this world and of the next. For instance, the connexion between reason and faith being once established, the fear of permanent disagreement between the two, which causes so much panic and disturbance of mind, is set at rest.

There is a certain risk at the outset of these studies that girls will take the pose of philosophical students, and talk logic and metaphysics, to the confusion of their friends and of their own feelings later on, when they come to years of discretion and realize the absurdity of these "lively sallies," as they would have been called in early Victorian times--the name alone might serve as a warning to the incautious! They may perhaps go through an argumentative period and trample severely upon the opinions of those who are not ready to have their majors "distinguished" and their minors "conceded," and, especially, their conclusions denied. But these phases will be outlived and the hot-and-cold remembrance of them will be sufficient expiation, with the realization that they did not know much when they had taken in the "beggarly elements" which dazzled them for a moment. The more thoughtful minds will escape the painful phase altogether.

There are three special cla.s.ses among girls whose difficulties of mind call for attention. There are those who frisk playfully along, taking the good things of life as they come--"the more the better"--whom, as children, it is hard to call to account. They are lightly impressed and only for a moment by the things they feel, and scarcely moved at all by the things they understand. The only side which seems troublesome in their early life is that there is so little hold upon it. They are unembarra.s.sed and quite candid about their choice; it is the enjoyable good, life on its pleasantest side. And this disposition is in the mind as well as in the will; they cannot see it in any other way. Restraint galls them, and their inclination is not to resist but to evade it. These are kitten-like children in the beginning, and they appear charming. But when the kitten in them is overgrown, its playful evasiveness takes an ugly contour and shows itself as want of principle. The tendency to s.n.a.t.c.h at enjoyment hardens into a grasping sense of market values, and conscience, instead of growing inexorable, learns to be pliant to circ.u.mstances. Debts weigh lightly, and duties scarcely weigh at all. Concealment and un-truthfulness come in very easily to save the situation in a difficulty, and once the conduct of life is on the down-grade it slides quickly and far, for the sense of responsibility is lacking and these natures own no bond of obligation.

They have their touch of piety in childhood, but it soon wears off, and in its best days cannot stand the demands made upon it by duty; it fails of its hold upon the soul, like a religion without a sacrifice.

In these minds some notions of ethics leave a barbed arrow of remorse which penetrates further than piety. They may soothe themselves with the thought that G.o.d will easily forgive, later on, but they cannot quite lose consciousness of the law which does not forgive, of the responsibility of human acts and the inevitable punishment of wrong-doing which works itself out, till it calls for payment of the last farthing. And by this rough way of remorse they may come back to G.o.d. Pope Leo XIII spoke of it as their best hope, an almost certain means of return. The beautiful also may make its appeal to these natures on their best side, and save them preventively from themselves, but only if the time of study is prolonged enough for the laws of order and beauty to be made comprehensible to them, so that if they admire the best, remorse may have another hold and reproach them with a lowered ideal.

In opposition to these are the minds to which, as soon as they become able to think for themselves, all life is a puzzle, and on every side, wherever they turn, they are baffled by unanswerable questions. These questions are often more insistent and more troublesome because they cannot be asked, they have not even taken shape in the mind. But they haunt and perplex it. Are they the only ones who do not know? Is it clear to every one else? This doubt makes it difficult even to hint at the perplexity. These are often naturally religious minds, and outside the guidance of the Catholic Church, in search of truth, they easily fall under the influence of different schools of thought which take them out of their depth, and lead them further and further from the reasonable certainty about first principles which they are in search of. Within the Church, of course, they can never stray so far, and the truths of faith supply their deepest needs. But if they want to know more, to know something of themselves, and to have at least some rational knowledge of the universe, then to give them a hold on the elements of philosophical knowledge is indeed a mental if not a spiritual work of mercy, for it enables them to set their ideas in order by the light of a few first principles, it shows them on what plane their questions lie, it enables them to see how all knowledge and new experience have connexions with what has gone before, and belong to a whole with a certain fitness and proportion. They learn also thus to take themselves in hand in a reasonable way; they gain some power of attributing effects to their true causes, so as neither to be unduly alarmed nor elated at the various experiences through which they will pa.s.s.

Between these two divisions lies a large group, that of the "average person," not specially flighty and not particularly thoughtful. But the average person is of very great importance. The greatest share in the work of the world is probably done by "average" people, not only for the obvious reason that there are more of them, but also because they are more accessible, more reliable, and more available for all kinds of responsibility than those who have made themselves useless by want of principle, or those whose genius carries them away from the ordinary line. They are accessible because their fellow-creatures are not afraid of them; they are not too fine for ordinary wear, nor too original to be able to follow a line laid down for them, and if they take a line of their own it is usually intelligible to others.

To these valuable "average" persons the importance of some study of the elements of philosophy is very great. They can hardly go through an elementary course of mental science without wis.h.i.+ng to learn more, and being lifted to a higher plane. The weak point in the average person is a tendency to sink into the commonplace, because the consciousness of not being brilliant induces timidity, and timidity leads to giving up effort and accepting a fancied impossibility of development which from being supposed, a.s.sumed, and not disturbed, becomes in the end real.

On the other hand the strong point of the average person is very often common sense, that singular, priceless gift which gives a touch of likeness among those who possess it in all cla.s.ses, high or low--in the sovereign, the judge, the ploughman, or the washerwoman, a likeness that is somewhat like a common language among them and makes them almost like a cla.s.s apart. Minds endowed with common sense are an aristocracy among the "average," and if this quality of theirs is lifted above the ordinary round of business and trained in the domain of thought it becomes a sound and wide practical judgment. It will observe a great sobriety in its dealings with the abstract; the concrete is its kingdom, but it will rule the better for having its ideas systematized, and its critical power developed. Self-diffidence tends to check this unduly, and it has to be strengthened in reasonably supporting its own opinion which is often instinctively true, but fails to find utterance. It is a help to such persons if they can learn to follow the workings of their own mind and gain confidence in their power to understand, and find some intellectual interest in the drudgery which in every order of things, high or low, is so willingly handed over to their good management. These results may not be showy, but it is a great thing to strengthen an "average"

person, and the reward of doing so is sometimes the satisfaction of seeing that average mind rise in later years quite above the average and become a tower of steady reflection; while to itself it is a new life to gain a view of things as a whole, to find that nothing stands alone, but that the details which it grasps in so masterly a manner have their place and meaning in the scheme of the universe.

It is evident that even this elementary knowledge cannot be given in the earliest years of the education of girls, and that it is only possible to attempt it in schools and school-rooms where they can be kept on for a longer time of study. Every year that can be added to the usual course is of better value, and more appreciated, except by those who are restless to come out as soon as possible. No reference is made here to those exceptional cases in which girls are allowed to begin a course of study at a time when the majority have been obliged to finish their school life.

As the elements of philosophy are not ordinarily found in the curriculum of girls' schools or schoolroom plans, it may not be out of place to say a few words on the method of bringing the subject within their reach.

In the first place it should be kept in view from the beginning, and some preparation be made for it even in teaching the elements of subjects which are most elementary. Thus the study of any grammar may serve remotely as an introduction to logic, even English grammar which, beyond a few rudiments, is a most disinterested study, valuable for its by-products more than for its actual worth. But the practice of grammatical a.n.a.lysis is certainly a preparation for logic, as logic is a preparation for the various branches of philosophy. Again some preliminary exercises in definition, and any work of the like kind which gives precision in the use of language, or clear ideas of the meanings of words, is preparatory work which trains the mind in the right direction. In the same way the elements of natural science may at least set the thoughts and inquiries of children on the right track for what will later on be shown to them as the "disciplines" of cosmology and pyschology.

To make preparatory subjects serve such a purpose it is obviously required that the teachers of even young children should have been themselves trained in these studies, so far at least as to know what they are aiming at, to be able to lay foundations which will not require to be reconstructed. It is not the matter so much as the habits of mind and work that are remotely prepared in the early stages, but without some knowledge of what is coming afterwards this preparation cannot be made. In order of arrangement it is not possible for the different branches to be taught to girls according to their normal sequence; they have to be adapted to the capacity of the minds and their degree of development. Some branches cannot even be attempted during the school-room years, except so far as to prepare the mind incidentally during the study of other branches. The explanation of certain terms and fundamental notions will serve as points of departure when opportunities for development are accessible later on, as architects set "toothings" at the angles of buildings that they may be bonded into later constructions. By this means the names of the more abstruse branches are kept out of sight, and it is emphasized that the barest elements alone are within reach at present, so that the permanent impression may be--not "how much I have learned," but "how little I know and how much there is to learn." This secures at least a fitting att.i.tude of mind in those who will never go further, and increases the thirst of those who really want more.

The most valuable parts of philosophy in the education of girls are:--

1. Those which belong to the practical side--logic, for thought; ethics, for conduct; aesthetics, for the study of the arts.