The Education of Catholic Girls

The Education of Catholic Girls

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Janet Erskine Stuart
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Title: The Education of Catholic Girls
Author: Janet Erskine Stuart
Release Date: May 24, 2005 [eBook #15892]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
EDUCATION OF CATHOLIC GIRLS***
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THE EDUCATION OF CATHOLIC GIRLS
* * * *
PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS. A Series of Papers by Nineteen
Headmistresses dealing with the History, Curricula, and Aims of Public
Secondary Schools for Girls. Edited by SARA A. BURSTALL,
Headmistress of the Manchester High School, and M. A. DOUGLAS,
Headmistress of the Godolphin School, Salisbury. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d.
THE DAWN OF CHARACTER. A Study of Child Life. By EDITH E.
READ MUMFORD, M.A., Cloth-workers' Scholar, Girton College,
Cambridge, Lecturer on 'Child Training' at the Princess Christian
Training College for Nurses, Manchester. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d, NOTES
OF LESSONS ON THE HERBARTIAN METHOD (based on
Herbart's Plan). By M. FENNELL and Members of a Teaching Staff.
With a Preface by M. FENNELL, Lecturer on Education. Crown 8vo,

3s. 6d. SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. By T. P. KEATING, B.A., L.C.P.
With an Introduction by Rev. T. A. FINLAY, M.A., National
University, Dublin. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. net. TALKS TO TEACHERS
ON PSYCHOLOGY AND TO STUDENTS ON SOME OF LIFE'S
IDEALS. By WILLIAM JAMES, formerly Professor of Philosophy at
Harvard University. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. EDUCATION AND THE
NEW UTILITARIANISM, and other Educational Addresses. By
ALEXANDER DARROCH, M.A., Professor of Education in the
University of Edinburgh. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. net. EDUCATION AND
PSYCHOLOGY. By MICHAEL WEST, Indian Education Service.
Crown 8vo, 5s. net.
Longmans, Green and Co., London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta, and
Madras.
* * * *
THE EDUCATION OF CATHOLIC GIRLS
by
JANET ERSKINE STUART
With a Preface by Cardinal Bourne Archbishop of Westminster
Longmans, Green and Co. 39 Paternoster Row, London Fourth Avenue
& 30th Street, New York Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras
Fourth Impression 1914

Nihil Obstat: F. THOS. BERGH, O.S.B.
Imprimatur: FRANOISOUS CARD. BOURNE ABCHIEPOS
WESIMONAST,
die 1 Januarii, 1912.
PREFACE
We have had many treatises on education in recent years; many
regulations have been issued by Government Departments; enormous
sums of money are contributed annually from private and public
sources for the improvement and development of education. Are the
results in any degree proportioned to all these repeated and
accumulated efforts? It would not be easy to find one, with practical
experience of education, ready to give an unhesitatingly affirmative
answer. And the explanation of the disappointing result obtained is
very largely to be found in the neglect of the training of the will and
character, which is the foundation of all true education. The

programmes of Government, the grants made if certain conditions are
fulfilled, the recognition accorded to a school if it conforms to a certain
type, these things may have raised the standard of teaching, and forced
attention to subjects of learning which were neglected; they have done
little to promote education in the real sense of the term. Nay, more than
this, the insistence on certain types of instruction which they have
compelled has in too many cases paralysed the efforts of teachers who
in their hearts were striving after a better way.
The effect on some of our Catholic schools of the newer methods has
not been free from harm. Compelled by force of circumstances,
parental or financial, to throw themselves into the current of modern
educational effort, they have at the same time been obliged to abandon
the quieter traditional ways which, while making less display, left a
deeper impress on the character of their pupils. Others have had the
courage to cling closely to hallowed methods built up on the wisdom
and experience of the past, and have united with them all that was not
contradictory in recent educational requirements. They may, thereby,
have seemed to some waiting in sympathy with the present, and
attaching too great value to the past. The test of time will probably
show that they have given to both past and present an equal share in
their consideration.
It will certainly be of singular advantage to those who are engaged in
the education of Catholic girls to have before them a treatise written by
one who has had a long and intimate experience of the work of which
she writes. Loyal in every word to the soundest traditions of Catholic
education, the writer recognizes to the full that the world into