Public Education in Maryland, A Report to the Maryland Educational Survey Commission, by Abraham Flexner and Frank P. Bachman. New York: The General Education Board, 1916, pp. xiii+176.

The legislature of the State of Maryland passed an act in 1914 which created a commission to examine the public schools in Maryland and State-aided elementary and secondary schools with a view to securing better correlation and higher efficiency among the existing schools. An appropriation of $5,000 was made to cover the expenses of the commission and the commission was instructed to call to its aid any expert help that might be available, either from public or private foundations. The commission, acting on this suggestion, invited the general education board to undertake a survey and to supplement the meager funds at its disposal. The general education board accepted and added $7,500 to the $5,000 appropriated by the State legislature.

The general education board was requested not to draw up a plan for an ideal school system in Maryland which would be beyond the State's resources, but rather to indicate whether or not the State of Maryland was getting the best results from the money now expended, and if not, in what manner the sums could be expended to better advantage. The report presented in this volume does not deal with the schools of Baltimore City nor does it cover the higher educational institutions receiving State aid. It is confined to the survey of the elementary and secondary schools of the counties and it concludes that the present State appropriation, if properly supplemented by the funds of counties, wisely and correctly applied would give Maryland an excellent public school system. The authors state the purpose of the report as an effort to describe the organization of public education in Maryland, to estimate its efficiency, and to suggest such changes as appear at once desirable and feasible.

Experimental Education, Laboratory Manual and Typical Results, by Frank N. Freeman. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1916, pp. x+220.

The experimental study of educational problems is neither new nor revolutionary. Naturally when an educational problem has been studied in its history, in its philosophical aspects and

from the standpoint of speculative psychology, the next step is the final test of experiment. But the problems to be solved in this way are, for the most part psychological problems and belong in the psychological laboratory and should be undertaken by men who have had a thorough training in laboratory methods, particularly in the laboratory methods which have developed in the study of psychological phenomena.

We are not yet in a position to deal with experimental education as a separate and distinct science. Of course, we may after a while accumulate sufficient material, and formulate methods and organize a body of knowledge which will justify the introduction of this branch as a separate branch of study in professional schools for teachers.

The volume before us outlines a definite number of experiments and aims to give a training through their employment which will equip students to advance our knowledge of educational methods through carefully conducted experiments.

Essays on Catholic Life, by Thomas O'Hagan. Baltimore: John Murphy and Co., 1916, pp. 166.

Our Catholic readers who have followed the work of Dr. O'Hagan as it appears from time to time in our Catholic periodicals will be glad to welcome this little volume which contains ten essays, most of which have previously appeared in our current literature. The topics are attractive and the treatment cannot fail to produce salutary results. The Chapter headings are: "The Influence of Religious Home Training," "The Office and Function of Poetry," "A Week in Rome," "The Irish Dramatic Movement," "Catholic Journalist and Journalism," "The Relation of the Catholic Journal to Catholic Literature," "What Is Criticism?", "Relation of the Catholic School to Catholic Literature," "Catholic Intellectual Activities," "The Catholic Element in English Poetry."

Principles of Accounting, by Stephen Gilman, B.S. Chicago: La Salle Extension University, 1916, pp. xii+415.

This volume constitutes a new and thoroughly up-to-date text-book but it is much more than this. It contains a lucid explanation of the principles underlying modern methods of accounting. The scope of the work is thus set forth by the author: "In the following pages the author has endeavored to develop the

fundamental principles of accounting science according to a basic plan. A number of illustrations and problems are given to illuminate the textual discussion. The purpose of the book is not to promulgate a specialized treatment of any particular phase of the subject, but rather to present the basic principles of the science of accounting in a graphic and comprehensible manner. While it is not believed that any texts on accounting principles would prove inappropriate for the laymen, the following pages have been written primarily for those having some training or experience in the art of bookkeeping."

A Short History of the Catholic Church, by Hermann Wedewer and Joseph McSorley. St. Louis: B. Herder & Co., 1916, pp. x+357.

There is a keenly felt need throughout the Catholic schools of this country for a brief text-book on Church History which might be used in our high schools and colleges. The volume here offered to the English speaking public will be examined at once with a view to meeting this need. Father McSorley is a member of the Congregation of St. Paul and is widely known to our Catholic people. The present volume, however, is not an original creation by Father McSorley. He tells us in his preface that it "consists largely of an adaptation of the twelfth edition of Prof. Hermann Wedewer's 'Grundriss der Kirchengeschichte' (Freiburg i B., 1907). With a view to the needs of American schools, however, numerous changes have been made, and a considerable portion of the original text is omitted. The new material includes the chapters on foreign missions and the chapters on the latest period of Church History."

A Manual of Stories, by William Byron Forbush. Philadelphia: American Institute of Child Life, 1915, pp. 310.

The publishers of this volume feel compelled to tell the truth rather than to obey the dictates of an over weaning modesty. They claim for this book that "It is the most comprehensive book that has yet been written. It covers all the aspects of the subject: The value of stories; the kinds of stories children like at different ages; devices for making stories effective; picture stories, dramatized stories; the relations of stories to play; the use of stories in building character; stories in the home, the school and church; professional story-telling, etc."

The Catholic Educational Review

DECEMBER, 1916

ST. JEROME ON THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS

In the last quarter of the fourth century, when St. Jerome was secretary to Pope Damasus, Rome was by no means a Christian city. It is true that the persecutions were over, a Christian emperor ruled in the palace of the Caesars, and there was a large number of Christians, some even in the highest ranks of society, but this did not mean complete victory for Christianity, nor the total defeat of paganism. The older order still had its attractive associations, its art, literature and culture, and in many respects offered serious obstacles to the progress of the new faith. The wealthiest and highest social ranks had not yet been leavened; their standards of living were still pagan, and they still regarded Christianity as the religion of the lowly. For one of their number to embrace it meant social obloquy, and this was especially true in the case of women.

In consequence, the devout Christian woman of noble rank stands forth in bold contrast to her sisters in Roman society. Hers was a retired rather than a social life; she had cast aside costly raiment for a simple or even austere dress, and often she was pale from fasting and bodily mortification.

Fashion allowed the Roman ladies to paint their faces and darken their eyelids after the custom of the East; but convention forbade or declared fanatical these new ascetic practices which Christian women had learned from Athanasius and the exiled Egyptian monks then living in Rome. The Christian women, however, who found in asceticism a satisfaction that luxury and indulgence could not give, were well fortified against all attacks made upon them. They had not only admirers but defenders also, and among the latter none more capable or vigorous than St. Jerome. His defense of the noble Blesilla's retirement is typical of his zeal as spiritual director and champion of the Christian matrons of Rome.

He speaks of her as being dead to the world and continues: "He who is a Christian let him rejoice; he who is angry shows that he is not a Christian. The widow's dark robe offends heathen eyes. They offend Christian eyes who paint their cheeks with rouge, and their eyelids with antimony; they whose plastered faces, too white for human features, look like those of idols

to whom years do not bring the gravity of age; who dress their heads with other people's hair, and enamel a bygone youth upon the wrinkles of age." While secretary to Pope Damasus, St. Jerome was counsellor and director of the young widow Blesilla, of her mother, Paula, and of Marcella and a numerous body of Christian women of the city. He was accustomed to preside at their regular spiritual conferences, and he directed their study of the Scriptures. Something of the fruit of this direction may be seen in the saintly lives of Paula, and her other daughter Eustochium, who under St. Jerome's personal guidance retired from Rome to the Holy Land, and spent the rest of their lives as religious in Bethlehem.

St. Jerome's position as spiritual director made him also the adviser of parents on many other matters, as his letters plainly show. In two cases, at least, we have his advice on the education of girls, and in both instances the girls were destined for the ascetic life. The first, a letter to a Christian mother, Laeta, on the education of her daughter, Paula, was written at the mother's request in the year 401; the second, to a Christian father, Gaudentius, on the education of Pacatula, St. Jerome wrote in 413. From the two we can derive a fair idea of St. Jerome's views on the general education of a Christian girl along with his conception of the special training to be given one who was to enter upon the higher paths of Christian endeavor in the cloister. The longer letter to Laeta has been fittingly styled a treatise on the training of the Christian soul.

The predominantly religious and moral character of the training in general may be seen from St. Jerome's opening expression in the letter to Laeta: "Of this kind must be the education of a soul which is intended for a temple of the Holy Ghost." She is not to learn anything but what savors of the fear of God.

St. Jerome regarded education as beginning in infancy and in the home. The mother must be the governess, "the model of 'Epis. XXVIII, ad Marcellam,