The Education of Catholic Girls

by Janet Erskine Stuart

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 may occur. It is well to observe without seeming to do so, for as shy wild creatures fly off before a too observant eye, but may be studied by a naturalist who does not appear to look at them, so the real child takes to flight if it is too narrowly watched, and leaves a self conscious little person to take its place, making off with its true self into the backwoods of some dreamland, and growing more and more reticent about its real thoughts as it gets accustomed to talk to an appreciative audience. With weighing and measuring, inspecting and reporting, exercising and rapid forcing, and comparing, applauding and tabulating results, it is difficult to see how children can escape self-consciousness and artificiality, and the enthusiasts for "child study" are in danger of making the specimen of the real child more and more rare and difficult to find, as destructive sportsmen in a new country exterminate the choice species of wild animals.

Too many questions put children on their guard or make them unreal; they cannot give an account of what they think and what they mean and how far they have understood, and the greater the anxiety shown to get at their real mind the less are they either able or willing to make it known; so it is the quieter and less active observers who see the most, and those who observe most are best aware how little can be known.

Yet there are some things which may serve as points of the compass, especially in the transitional years when the features both of face and character begin to accentuate themselves. One of these is the level of friendships. There are some who look by instinct for the friendship of those above them, and others habitually seek a lower level, where there is no call to self-restraint. Boys who hang about the stables, girls who like the conversation of servants; boys and girls who make friends in sets at school, among the less desirable, generally do so from a love of ease and dislike of that restraint and effort which every higher friendship calls for; they can be somebody at a very cheap cost where the standard of talk is not exacting, whereas to be with those who are striving for the best in any station makes demands which call for exertion, and the taste for this higher level, the willingness to respond to its claims, give good promise that those who have it will in their turn draw others to the things that are best.

The attitude of a child towards books is also indicative of the whole background of a mind; the very way in which a book is handled is often a sign in itself of whether a child is a citizen born, or an alien, in the world for which books stand. Taste in reading, both as to quality and quantity, is so obviously a guiding line that it need scarcely be mentioned.

Play is another line in which character shows itself, and reveals another background against which the scenes of life in the future will stand out, and in school life the keenest and best spirits will generally divide into these two groups, the readers and the players, with a few, rarely gifted, who seem to excel in both. From the readers will come those who are to influence the minds of others here, if they do not let themselves be carried out too far to keep in touch with real life. From the players will come those whose gift is readiness and decision in action, if they on their side do not remain mere players when life calls for something more.

There are other groups, the born artists with their responsive minds, the "home children" for whom everything centres in their own home-world, and who have in them the making of another one in the future; the critics, standing aloof, a little peevish and very self-conscious, hardly capable of deep friendship and fastidiously dissatisfied with people and things in general; the cheerful and helpful souls who have no interests of their own but can devote themselves to help anyone; the opposite class whose life is in their own moods and feelings. Many others might be added, each observer's experience can supply them, and will probably close the list with the same little group, the very few, that stand a little apart, but not aloof, children of privilege, with heaven in their eyes and a little air of mystery about them, meditative and quiet, friends of God, friends of all, loved and loving, and asking very little from the outer world, because they have more than enough within. They are classed as the dreamers, but they are really the seers. They do not ask much and they do not need much beyond a reverent guardianship, and to be let alone and allowed to grow; they will find their way for they are "taught of God."

It is impossible to do more than to throw out suggestions which any child-naturalist might multiply or improve upon. The next consideration for all concerned is what to do with the acquired knowledge, and how to "bring up" in the later stages of childhood and early youth.

What do we want to bring up? Not good nonentities, who are merely good because they are not bad. There are too many of them already, no trouble to anyone, only disappointing, so good that they ought to be so much better, if only they would. But who can make them will to be something more, to become, as Montalembert said, "a fact, instead of remaining but a shadow, an echo, or a ruin?" Those who have to educate them to something higher must themselves have an idea of what they want; they must believe in the possibility of every mind and character to be lifted up to something better than it has already attained; they must themselves be striving for some higher excellence, and must believe and care deeply for the things they teach. For no one can be educated by maxim and precept; it is the life lived, and the things loved and the ideals believed in, by which we tell, one upon another. If we care for energy we call it out; if we believe in possibilities of development we almost seem to create them. If we want integrity of character, steadiness, reliability, courage, thoroughness, all the harder qualities that serve as a backbone, we, at least, make others want them also, and strive for them by the power of example that is not set as deliberate good example, for that is as tame as a precept, but the example of the life that is lived, and the truths that are honestly believed in.