CONVENT EDUCATION.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 367, 19 September 1874, Page 2

CONVENT EDUCATION.

The system of convent education is a benefit to the population which exists nowhere at till outside the Catholic Church. We are mistaken if even those indefatigable plagiarists of everything Catholic, the Puseyites and Ritualists, have to any appreciable degree attempted to enter upon this particular field. The Protestants and Anglicans have still to choose between home education for their girls and the young ladies' schools of various kinds conducted by persons who have no religious vocation to ennoble their arduous task. Catholics, on the other hand, have hardly any " establishment for young ladies," conducted by any but religious women, and to this we may add, without any fear of contradiction, that Catholic girls are sent to convent schools in far greater numbers than Protestant girls are to other schools. We have not a word to say against these last-named schools in there place, nor have we any wish to speak against the system of home education, which, indeed, when circumstances do not forbid it, seems to be the natural mode of education for Catholics and Protestants alike. As a matter of fact, however, the number of cases in which this home education becomes impracticable, not only for boys, but for girls, is very large, and the result has been the nourishing system of the convent schools which has been attacked in an article in Frazo 's Magazine. It is a system of which we may well be pioud. There are in England and Ireland a number of ladies devoted to the good work who, in intelligence, refinement and literary cultivation, in the gift of imparting knowledge and training character, as well as in the power of winning confidence and affection, and loading on the young soul to the highest things both in the natural and supernatural order, equal if they do not far surpass, any teachers that can be found elsewhere within the shores of the two islands. The fruit of their labours is that we have a large class of well educated Christian women, more numerous in proportion to oui own numbers than any similar class among Anglicans and Protestants, who become in their turn house-wives jmd mothei-s, or the teachers of another generation either as governess or as religious teachers. The writer before us has remarked, not without a sneer, upon the übiquity which appears to belong to Irish religious women. He might lme said the same, in a degree, of English women, and in both cases the fact is no matter for a sneer. That such is the case is in no slight measure owing to the universality of convent education : but it is only half of the result for which tlj.it education has to be credited. The other half is, that our Catholic families have in so many cases a vh-tuous well instructed Christian lady at their head, among whose most cherished reminiscences are the memories of her years of education within convent Avails, where some of her best friendships have been formed, and who would laugh heartily at tho idea that she could not carry out the practical lessons which she received as a girl, just as well in the position of a happy wife and mother as if she had been called to dedicate her life to God alone as nn inmate of the cloister. And we doubt whether there ai>e any institutions in the land which are legarded generally with moro loving gratitude by those who have passed through them than these convent schools. — The Month.