“Since my arrival in this town, on July 17, I have been studying with the keenest attention the character of its inhabitants, in order to regulate my ecclesiastical government in accordance with the information which I may obtain on this important subject.... Excellent results are obtained from the Convent of the Ursulines, in which a good many young girls are educated. This is the nursery of those future matrons who will inculcate in their children the principles which they here imbibe. The education which they receive in this institution is the cause of their being less vicious than the other sex....”
Up to 1824, that is, for well nigh a century, the Ursulines maintained their orphanage in what is now the old Archbishopric. At this period, New Orleans having spread considerably and become too densely populated to afford the advantages and charms of the country so necessary to a large boarding school, the institution was removed three miles lower down, to the magnificent place which the Ursulines hold to the present day. Owing to the encroachments of the great Father of Waters, they are to transfer again, within a year, to another site.
After 1824, several asylums having been founded for orphans of both sexes, the Ursulines received but thirty or forty poor children. In keeping with their sphere of life and future career, these children are taught English, French, geography, arithmetic, elementary history, and some housekeeping, sewing and laundry work. The nuns endeavor, above all, by religions instruction and careful training, to inculcate in the hearts and minds of their youthful charges principles of duty, so as to form for the future women of confidence, courage, self-sacrifice and devotion.
SOCIAL SERVICE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CANADA
J. G. SHEARER
The Presbyterian church in Canada does social service work through its Department of Social Service and Evangelism. Efforts are directed along several lines.
Social surveys of both urban and rural communities are conducted, considering not only religious and moral, but also social and economic conditions. An expert is employed who gives all his time to the work. He secures the co-operation of a large number of volunteer helpers, many of whom are proficient in various phases of social service work.
The problems of the city are studied and practical solutions sought. This is attempted in the following ways:
By evangelical social settlements, of which there are one in Montreal, one in Toronto and one in Winnipeg. Eight or ten others in the not distant future are planned for various other growing cities in the Dominion, especially where non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants are numerous. Our organizer and supervisor of this work is Sara Libby Carson, founder of Christodora House and various other settlements in New York, St. Christopher House, Toronto, and Chalmers House, Montreal. We also have established a training school for settlement workers, in connection with St. Christopher House, Toronto.
By securing the co-operation of churches and sympathetic organizations in every variety of general social betterment effort.