holidays, they are best appreciated when they come rarely. How about the war? Why teach geography when present events point to a change of maps? Is not history in the making important? a knowledge of current events useful to make the children take notice of the world in which they live? True-at the right time; say before school, or during the last period of a Friday afternoon. Follow the daily program strictly. Apart from its being a matter of principle based on obedience, it is unconsciously a factor in forming habits of punctuality and exactitude in the pupils, no small matter in the formation of character-a big thing made up of little things.

Lapses of order may occur from the manner of conducting a recitation. Self-mastery will counsel the teacher to prepare his lessons for the day so thoroughly that the text-book will be dispensable. This will leave the eye free to take in the class as a whole while asking a question, and waiting for its reply; remembering that he who governs with the eye governs well; he who prevents disorder does better than he who quells it. Recitation periods should be so arranged as not to follow in succession, and the teacher will thus be able to conduct them with the class on the floor. To expect a child to remain seated from recess to recess without exhibiting signs of restiveness is to expect the impossible. The getting out of his seat and walking to the wall affords a change of position and a consequent change of manner. A lounging position while standing invites disorder. The time for standing should not be too lengthy, as disorder will come from sheer weariness; fifteen, twenty or thirty minutes according the age of the class will be found to answer the purpose. To ask questions in rote is to divert attention; likewise, for the wise not to expect to be called upon until all have had a turn causes the same. Asking promiscuously will keep the inattentive on the watch, and prevent mischief which is resourceful for idle minds.

Frequent threatening, accompanied by infrequent execution of the threats, leads to the violation of rules with impunity; the knowing youth realizing that "he (the teacher) doesn't mean it." "If you do this, I'll do that," or "If you don't do this, I'll do that," has the weightless value of words unless the conviction of the pupil, based on experience, has taught him an intuitive knowledge of the law of cause and effect. Better still: no threats; then no weakness of failing execution. It will not take the pupils long to

find out that infractions of discipline are sure to meet with proper punishment. In conjunction with this, punishment should be in proportion with the gravity of the fault. We would not be likely to disfigure the face of a friend in the kindly act of killing a mosquito lodged thereon. Neither should a thoughtless child— and most are such-be given a rigorous penance, taking much of his time, and incidentally ruining his never-too-perfect penmanship, for slight faults. A little consideration, where no grave principle is at stake, for childish frailties, frailties which we were once guilty of, will tend to gain the good-will of the children; and that gained, the question of order will be peaceably settled, and punishment will be largely subjective to growing minds. The classroom is as the city: the best governed is that in which the jail has few occupants.

Self-mastery has one more point: the most important-the control of temper. Perhaps the teacher never knew that he had a temper until young America discovered it for him. To exhibit temper is to betray weakness; to control it, is to evince strength. Some boys never have more fun than when they succeed in arousing the teacher's ire; which, when easily done, frequently also, the fear of the same is negligible. The saying used to be "get him off his base;" now it is "get his goat." If the "goat" of temper is not securely tied to the stake of self-mastery, "it" will be easily "gotten," and the teacher having lost "it" in losing control of himself, loses at the same time control of the class; for we all are familiar with the truth expressed by Thomas à Kempis: "He who would govern others, must first govern himself." It is true that all outbursts of temper may not have the fun-producing effect; but it is doubtful if that can be termed order which requires a tempest to achieve it. The calm after a summer storm does not necessarily imply fair weather for any length of time; and the farmer, too, prefers the slow rain that sinks into the ground rather than the torrent that easily washes away. Are we not engaged in soul culture?

Some teachers may not be given to angry spurts of temper; but use as a weapon of defense cool sarcasm, always cutting, leaving wounds sometimes difficult to heal. If such is necessary to compel obedience, then order-the ideal of order-no matter how quiet the classroom, is conspicuously absent. Sarcasm tends to make the will rebel; that inward rebellion which deforms char

acter, and makes the soul turn from him who would lead it. Only by gentleness, sympathy, and kindness will the seeds of virtue be sown; by them will minds be made docile; and what is obedience without docility, but the obedience of the slave; the obedience that serves under a watchful eye; not that, which moved by the will, inclines to higher things as the flower turns upward under the influence of the sun, even after the rays have ceases to shine upon it?

Neither temper nor sarcasm denote self-control, the power of educated will, which alone stands for character. The teacher must be the child's exemplar; and if words of exhortation on habit formation are to have any effect, they must ring true with the worth of the man who sounds them.

With confidence and self-mastery, the young teacher must invoke the aid of enthusiasm to keep the work aglow. Not he who begins well; but ends well, wins in the race, admonishes St. Paul. Enthusiasm is necessary to keep in the race of educational activities, as the endurance of wind is to the athletic runner. The young all have it. The ardor of youth-what does it not aim to accomplish! What would not age give to be able to turn back the hand of time and profit by the experience of the years? But we live our life but once, and must make the best use possible of the present to live it well. Enthusiasm enables us to accomplish all that is expected of us. Enthusiasm is the test of devotion; and devotion is love. Love accomplishes everything; it knows no difficulties, no relaxation from duty; it never deserts, and always exalts. No great and worthy cause meets with defeat, in its proper sense, while love lends its glow and instills its warmth. Let the young teacher love his work for its own intrinsic worth; for the God who gave it birth, and who alone can adequately recompense the wealth of youthful ardor, brain tissue, and, above all, virtue, expended upon it for His sake. Let him not let his enthusiasm cool; coolness is the forerunner of death, and when it dies he dies with it, no matter how long he may live, for to labor without heart is to labor without life. The phonograph can do that.

As long as enthusiasm glows brightly in the breast of the teacher, he will never, properly speaking, grow old. Years may pass over his head; they should make him wiser and worthier, but cannot of themselves dull his work, as time dims all things material, unless he with the years turns aside from the lesson of the years.

Discouragements may come, and will. A crisis there must be in every life. But the soul that has kept its enthusiasm aglow will rise above petty discouragements. Those who have made themselves weak-the unworthy-succumb; but the strong, strengthened by grace, fear not; in the darkness of their soul, they cry out: "What of the night?" The reply comes from their faithful talismen-Confidence, Self-mastery, and Enthusiasm— "All's well! God is on the watch!"

Louisville, Ky.

BROTHER JULIAN, C.F.X.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN DURING THE

RENAISSANCE*
(Continued)

Not to go back for representatives of Iberian culture beyond the Dark Ages to the great heroines of early Christian Spain, nor yet to the Gothic period of darkness itself with its examples of bravery, sanctity, and wisdom, there were the shining lights of the later Middle Ages; Blanche of Castile, mother of St. Louis of France; Beatriz, the gifted daughter of Alfonzo el Sabio, and queen of Portugal; that other queen of Portugal, the Aragonese princess, and canonized saint, Isabel, or Elizabeth, niece of St. Elizabeth of Hungary; and the Portuguese princesses and queens of Castile, Constantia, daughter of the saint, and Maria, queen of Alfonso XI., with Isabel, mother of Isabel the Catholic. From the atmosphere of power and goodness which surrounded the venerated memories of such heroines as these, the Peninsula Renaissance drew inspiration, and guided by Italian tradition, it placed upon the brow of womanhood a lasting crown of knowledge, of wisdom and of honor. 203

The spirit of the Spanish nation in rejecting the erroneous philosophy and the false religion imported with Eastern emigration, while accepting and appropriating the useful knowledge thus imported, had shielded the Christian maiden from unwholesome influences, and at the same time had given her a share in the advantages to be derived from Arabic culture on the objective side. Her right to participation in scientific studies, however, cannot be attributed to the influence of Arabian custom, 204 but rather to Hebrew and Gospel tradition, reinforced by the direct influences of classical Greece and Rome.

In the library inherited by Isabel of Castile, from her father, Juan II, we are furnished with a very comprehensive history of the traditional form and spirit of literary activity in Christian

A dissertation submitted to the Catholic Sisters College of the Catholic University of America in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy.

203 Cf. Rada y Delgado, op. cit., Vol. II, lib. 2.

204 Cf. Prescott, Hist. of the Reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, II, 185. Philadelphia, 1882.