But I trust that the thoughts set forth upon these pages will not escape either the eyes or the thoughts of those who are the public custodians and arbiters of education in this country. The State is daily becoming more jealous in its control of educational effort in England. Would that its wisdom were equal to its jealousy. We might then be delivered from the repeated attempts to hamper definite religious teaching in secondary schools, by the refusal of public aid where the intention to impart it is publicly announced; and from the discouragement continually arising from regulations evidently inspired by those who have no personal experience of the work to be accomplished, and who decline to seek information from those to whom such work is their very life. It cannot, surely, be for the good of our country that the stored-up experience of educational effort of every type should be disregarded in favour of rigid rules and programmes; or that zeal and devotion in the work of education are to be regarded as valueless unless they be associated with so-called undenominational religion. The Catholic Church in this and in every country has centuries of educational tradition in her keeping. She has no more ardent wish than to place it all most generously at the service of the commonwealth, and to take her place in every movement that will be to the real advantage of the children upon whom the future of the world depends. And we have just ground for complaint when the conditions on which alone our co-operation will be allowed are of such a character as to make it evident that we are not intended to have any real place in the education of our country.
May this treatise so ably written be a source of guidance and encouragement to those who are giving their lives to the education of Catholic children, and at the same time do something to dispel the distrust and to overcome the hostility shown in high quarters towards every Catholic educational endeavour.
FRANCIS CARDINAL BOURNE, ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER.
CONTENTS
PREFACE INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. RELIGION II. CHARACTER. I. III. CHARACTER. II. IV. THE ELEMENTS OF CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY V. THE REALITIES OF LIFE VI. LESSONS AND PLAY VII. MATHEMATICS, NATURAL SCIENCE, AND NATURE STUDY VIII. ENGLISH IX. MODERN LANGUAGES X. HISTORY XI. ART XII. MANNERS XIII. HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN XIV. CONCLUSION APPENDIX I APPENDIX II INDEX
Pair though it be, to watch unclose
The nestling glories of a rose,
Depth on rich depth, soft fold on fold;
Though fairer he it, to behold
Stately and sceptral lilies break
To beauty, and to sweetness wake:
Yet fairer still, to see and sing,
One fair thing is, one matchless thing:
Youth, in its perfect blossoming.
LIONEL JOHNSON.
INTRODUCTION
A book was published in the United States in 1910 with the title, EDUCATION: HOW OLD THE NEW. A companion volume might be written with a similar title, EDUCATION: HOW NEW THE OLD, and it would only exhibit another aspect of the same truth.
This does not pretend to be that possible companion volume, but to present a point of view which owes something both to old and new, and to make an appeal for the education of Catholic girls to have its distinguishing features recognized and freely developed in view of ultimate rather than immediate results.