would be utterly vain to build up the family, the groundwork of all organized communities, without the aid of the Christian woman. She it is who, in the deep and silent recesses of the household, puts together those primitive and enduring materials, each in its place and order, on which will rest and grow, to full beauty and development, the fair proportion of every well-ordained State. This foundation is laid in the care and rearing of good and dutiful children. The task of the Christian mother may indeed be slow, and unobserved; but God makes use of the weak to confound the strong, and this is beautifully illustrated in the Christian woman, who is strong because she is weak, most influential when she is most retired, and most happy, honored, cherished and respected when she is doing the work assigned her by Divine Providence, in the bosom of her household.

It will be admitted, then, that the education of girls demands a special culture. Generally upon mothers the domestic instruction of the children, in their infancy, mainly depends. They ought, therefore, to be well instructed in the motives of religion, articles of faith, and all the practical duties and maxims of piety. Then history, geography, and some tincture of works of genius and spirit, may be joined with suitable arts and other accomplishments of their sex and condition, provided they be guided by and referred to religion, and provided books of piety and exercises of devotion always have the first place, both in their hearts and in their time.

They should, then, from their earliest years, if possible, be separated in their studies, their plays, and their going and returning from school, from children of the opposite sex. They should be placed under the surveillance and instruction of mature and pious women. Every possible occasion and influence should be used to instil into their young and plastic minds, by lesson and example, principles of religion and morality. Their studies should be grave and practical. Their nervous organization is naturally acute, and should be strengthened, but not stimulated, as it too often is, thereby laying the foundation for that terrible and tormenting train of neuralgic affections of after-life, debilitating mind and body.

A thorough Christian education, then, is the basis of all happiness and peace, for the family as well as for the State itself; for every State is but the union of several families. It is for this reason that we find good parents so willing to make every sacrifice for the Christian education of their children, and that all true statesmen, and all true lovers of their country, have always encouraged and advocated that kind of education which is based upon Christian principles.

Good, dutiful children are the greatest blessing for parents and for the State, whilst children without religion are the greatest misfortune, the greatest curse that can come upon parents and upon the State.

History informs us that Dion the philosopher gave a sharp reproof to Dionysius the tyrant, on account of his cruelty. Dionysius felt highly offended, and resolved to avenge himself on Dion; so he took the son of Dion prisoner, not, indeed, for the purpose of killing him, but of giving him up into the hands of a godless teacher. After the young man had been long enough under this teacher to learn from him everything that was bad and impious, Dionysius sent him back to his father. Now what object had the tyrant in acting thus? He foresaw that this corrupted son, by his impious conduct during his whole lifetime, would cause his father constant grief and sorrow, so much so that he would be for him a lifelong affliction and curse. This, the tyrant thought, was the longest and greatest revenge he could take on Dion for having censured his conduct.

Plato, a heathen philosopher, relates that when the sons of the Persian kings had reached the age of fourteen, they were given to four teachers. The first of these teachers had to instruct them in their duties towards God; the second, to be truthful under all circumstances; the third, to overcome their passions; and the fourth teacher taught them how to be valiant and intrepid men.

This truth, that good children are the greatest blessing and that bad children are the greatest affliction that can befall parents and the State, needs no further illustration. There is no father, there is no mother, there is no statesman, who is not thoroughly convinced of this truth. Can we, then, wonder that the Catholic Church has always encouraged a truly Christian education?

There is nothing in history better established than the fact that the Catholic Church has been at all times, and under the most trying circumstances, the generous fostering-mother of education. She has labored especially, with untiring care, to educate the poor, who are her favorite children. It was the Catholic Church that founded, and endowed liberally, almost all the great universities of Europe. Protestants and infidels are very apt to overlook the incalculable benefits which the Church has conferred on mankind, and yet without her agency civilization would have been simply impossible.

The Catholic Church was, moreover, the first to establish common schools for the free education of the people. As early as a.d. 529, we find the Council of Vaison recommending the establishment of public schools. In 800, a synod at Mentz ordered that the parochial priests should have schools in the towns and villages, that "the little children of all the faithful should learn letters from them. Let them receive and teach these with the utmost charity, that they themselves may shine as the stars forever. Let them receive no remuneration from their scholars, unless what the parents, through charity, may voluntarily offer." A Council at Rome, in 836, ordained that there should be three kinds of schools throughout Christendom: episcopal, parochial in towns and villages, and others wherever there could be found place and opportunity. The Council of Lateran, in 1179, ordained the establishment of a grammar school in every cathedral for the gratuitous instruction of the poor. This ordinance was enlarged and enforced by the Council of Lyons, in 1245. In a word, from the days of Charlemagne, in the ninth century, down to those of Leo X., in the sixteenth century, free schools sprang up in rapid succession over the greater part of Europe; and, mark well, it was almost always under the shadow of her churches and her monasteries! Throughout the entire period, called, by ignorant bigotry, the "dark ages," Roman Pontiffs and Catholic Bishops assembled in council and enacted laws requiring the establishment of free schools in connection with all the cathedral and parochial churches. This is a fact so clearly proven by Catholic and Protestant historians, that to deny it would be to betray a gross ignorance of history. Even at the present day, the Papal States, with a population of only about 2,000,000, contain seven universities, with an average attendance of 660 students, whilst Prussia, with a population of 14,000,000, and so renowned for her education, has only seven! Again, in every street in Rome there are, at short distances, public primary schools for the education of the children of the middle and lower classes. Rome, with a population of only about 158,000 souls, has 372 public primary schools, with 482 teachers, and over 14,000 children attending them, whilst Berlin, with a population more than double that of Rome, has only 264 schools. Thus originated the popular or common schools, or the free education of the people, as an outgrowth of the Catholic Church.