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 which Catholic girls pass nowadays on leaving school is not the world of a hundred, or of fifty, or of even thirty years ago. But this recognition brings out, more clearly than anything else could do, the great and unchanging fact that the formation of heart and will and character is, and must be always, the very root of the education of a child; and it also shows forth the new fact that at no time has that formation been more needed than at the present day.The pages of this book are well worthy of careful pondering and consideration, and they will be of special value both to parents and to teachers, for it is in their hands and in their united, and not opposing action, that the educational fate of the children lies.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.PREFACE4INTRODUCTION7CHAPTER I. RELIGION8CHAPTER II. CHARACTER I21CHAPTER III. CHARACTER II36CHAPTER IV. THE ELEMENTS OF CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY46CHAPTER V. THE REALITIES OF LIFE56CHAPTER VI. LESSONS AND PLAY69CHAPTER VII. MATHEMATICS, NATURAL SCIENCE, AND NATURE STUDY 81CHAPTER VIII. ENGLISH90CHAPTER IX. MODERN LANGUAGES105CHAPTER X. HISTORY114CHAPTER XI. ART126CHAPTER XII. MANNERS136CHAPTER XIII. HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN146CHAPTER XIV. CONCLUSION156APPENDIX I.159APPENDIX II.163