The Education of Catholic Girls

by Janet Erskine Stuart

"What they fought each other for,
I could not well make out.
But everybody said" quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory."

What about Mentana or Castel-Fidardo?
"What good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why that I cannot tell," said he,
"But 'twas a famous victory."

The difficulty is tacitly acknowledged by the rare appearance of European history in the curriculum for non-Catholic girls' schools. But in any school where the studies are set to meet the requirements of examinations, the teaching of history is of necessity dethroned from the place which belongs to it by right. History deserves a position that is central and commanding, a scheme that is impressive when seen as a whole in retrospect, it deserves to be taught from a point of view which has not to be reconsidered in later years, and this is to be found with all the stability possible, and with every facility for later extension in the natural arrangement of all modern history round the history of the Church.

During the great development which has taken place in the study of history within the last century, and especially within the last fifty years, the mass of materials has grown so enormous and the list of authors of eminence so imposing that one might almost despair of adapting the subject in any way to a child's world if it were not for this central point of view, in which the Incarnation and the Church are the controlling facts dominating all others and giving them their due place and proportion. On this commanding point of observation the child and the historian may stand side by side, each seeing truth according to their capacity, and if the child should grow into a historian it would be with an unbroken development—there would not be anything to unlearn. The method of "concentric" teaching against which there is so much to be said when applied to national history or to other branches of teaching is entirely appropriate here, because no wider vision of the world can be attained than from the point whence the Church views it, in her warfare to make the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of God and His Christ that He may reign for ever and ever. The Church beholds the rational not the sensible horizon of history, and standing at her point of view, the great ones and the little ones of the earth, historians and children, can look at the same heavens, one with the scientific instruments of his observatory, the other with the naked eye of a child's faith and understanding.

But the teaching of history as it has been carried on for some years, would have to travel a long way to arrive at this central point of view. As an educational subject a great deal has been done to destroy its value, by what was intended to give it assistance and stimulus. The history syllabus and requirements for University Local and other examinations have produced specially adapted text-books, in which facts and summaries have been arranged in order with wonderful care and forethought, to "meet all requirements"; but the kind intention with which every possible need has been foreseen between the covers of one text-book has defeated its own purpose, the living thing is no longer there—its skeleton remains, and after handling the dry bones and putting them in order and giving an account of them to the examining body, the children escape with relief to something more real, to the people of fiction who, however impossible to believe in, are at least flesh and blood, and have some points of contact with their own lives. "Of course as we go up for examinations here," wrote a child from a new school, "we only learn the summaries and genealogies of history and other subjects." A sidelight on the fruit of such a plan is often cast in the appreciations of its pupils. "Did you like history?" "No I hated it, I can't bear names and dates." "What did you think of so and so?" "He wasn't in my period." So history has become names and dates, genealogies and summaries, hard pebbles instead of bread. It is unfair to children thus to prejudice them against a subject which thrills with human interest, and touches human life at every turn, it is unfair to history to present it thus, it is misleading to give development to a particular period without any general scheme against which it may show in due proportion, as misleading as the old picture-books for children in which the bat on one page and the man on the other were of the same size.

There must necessarily be a principle of selection, but one of the elements to be considered in making choice ought always to be that of proportion and of fitness in adaptation to a general scheme. It was pointed out by Sir Joshua Fitch in his "Lessons on Teaching" (an old-fashioned book now, since it was published before the deluge of "Pedagogics," but still valuable) that an ideal plan of teaching history to children might be found in the historical books of Holy Scripture, and in practice the idea is useful, suggesting that one aim should be kept in view, that at times the guiding line should contract to a mere clue of direction, and at others expand into very full and vivid narrative chiefly in biographical form. The principle may be applied in the teaching of any history that may be given to children, that is to say, in general, to Sacred history which has its own place in connexion with religious teaching, to ancient history within very small limits, to Greek and Roman history in such proportion as the years of education may allow, and to the two most prominent and most necessary for children, the history of their own country and that of modern Europe directed along the lines of the history of the Church.

There are periods and degrees of development in the minds of children to which correspond different manners of teaching and even different objects, as we make appeal to one or other of the growing faculties. The first stage is imaginative, the second calls not only upon the imagination and memory but upon the understanding, and the third, which is the beginning of a period of fruition, begins to exercise the judgment, and to give some ideas concerning principles of research and criticism.

The first is the period of romance, when by means of the best myths of many nations, from their heroic legends and later stories, the minds of children are turned to what is high and beautiful in the traditions of the past, and they learn those truths concerning human life and destiny which transcend the more limited truths of literal records of fact. In the beginning they are, to children, only stories, but we know ourselves that we can never exhaust the value of what came to us through the story of the wanderings of Ulysses, or the mysterious beauty of the Northern and Western myths, as the story of Balder or the children of Lir. The art of telling stories is beginning to be taught with wonderful power and beauty, the storyteller is turning into the pioneer of the historian, coming in advance to occupy the land, so that history may have "staked out a claim" before the examining bodies can arrive, in the dry season, to tread down the young growth.

The second period makes appeal to the intelligence, as well as to the imagination, and to this stage belongs particularly the study of the national history, the history of their own race and country; for English girls the history of England, not yet constitutional history, but the history of the Constitution with that of the kings and people, and further the history of the Empire. To this period of education belong the great lessons of loyalty and patriotism, that piety towards our own country which is so much on the decline as the home tie grows feebler. We do not want to teach the narrow patriotism which only finds expression in antagonism to and disparagement of other countries, but that which is shown by self-denial and self-sacrifice for the good of our own. The time to teach it is in that unsettled "middle age" of childhood when its exuberant feeling is in search of an ideal, when large moral effects can be appreciated, when there is some opening understanding of the value of character.

If the first period of childhood delights in what is strange, this second period gives its allegiance to what is strong, by preference to primitive and simple strength, to uncomplex aims and marked characters; it appreciates courage and endurance, and can bear to hear of sufferings which daunt the fastidiousness of those who are a few years older; perhaps it can endure so much because it realizes so little, but the fact remains true. This age exults in the sufferings of the martyrs and cannot bear the suggestion that plain duties may be heroic before God. There is a great deal that may be done for minds in this period of development by the teaching of history if it is not crippled in its programme. To make concrete their ideals of greatness in the right personalities—a work which is as easily spoiled by a word out of season as a fine porcelain vase is cracked in a furnace—to direct their ideas of the aims of life towards worthy and unselfish ends, to foster true loyalty because of God from whom all authority comes—and this lesson has its pathetic poignancy for us in the history of our English martyrs—to show the claims that our country has upon the devotion of its sons and daughters, and to inspire some feeling of responsibility for its honour, especially to show the supreme worth of character and self-sacrifice, all these things may and must be taught in this middle period of children's education if they are to have any strong hold upon them in after life. It is a stubborn age in which teaching has to be on strong lines and deep ones; when the evolution of character is in the critical period that is to make or mar its future, it needs a strong hand over it, with power both to control and to support, a strong mind to command its respect, strong convictions to impress it, and strong principles on which to test its own young strength; and all those who have the privilege of teaching history to children of this age have an incomparable opportunity of training mind and character. The strength of our own convictions, the brightness of our own ideals, the fibre of our patriotism and loyalty will tell in the measure of two endowments, our own spirit of self-sacrifice and our tact. Children will detect the least false note if self-sacrifice is preached without experimental knowledge; and as it is the most contradictory of all ages, it takes every resource of tact to pilot it through channels for which there is no chart. The masterpieces of educators are wrought in this difficult but most interesting material.