Catholics Led the Way.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 2, 8 January 1903, Page 2

Catholics Led the Way.

The following paragraph is going the rounds of the secular press : — • The Ministry of Agriculture, St. Petersburg, his just decided to found an agricultural hi^h school for women, which will be the first institution of the kind in Europe. Tne women who pass through this institution will enjoy the same rights as the successful male students of the existing high schools/ Our secular contemporaries are in error here. The Russian Minister of Agriculture had not to go far afieloSto find ' institutions of the kind' already in full and flourishing operation on the Continent of Europe. He probably caught the idea from the admirable Ecoles Menageres of Belgium, in which all the domestic arts, and even the highest a-id most advanced forms of scientific agriculture, have been for many years pist taught by experts to the budding maidenhood of that rich and prosperous little Catholic kingdom. The work was first suggested by a Catholic priest. It is carried out with great success by various religious orders of women. In our issue of January 21, 1898, we devoted a lengthy editorial article to those admirable Belgian Catholic schools, and in the course of our remarks we said : The Ecoles Mhitig&res are intended to meet the needs of a large class : for the children of farmers and well-to-trados-penple. Children are received into the n at as early an age as five or six ; bat it has been found by experience that the maximum of use'ul work is done by the pupils from their thirteenth or fourteenth to their eighteenth or nineteenth year. There is no place in these schools for mere butterflies —for the ornamental creatures who would fritter away their lives in fa-hionable loafing, elegant idling, or playing at work. Father Temmerma.i acts on the principle that 'it is necessary not only to teach the girls how to work, but to train them in the habit of working.' 'A few rebel at firat,' says Miss Crawford, ' but after some moiiuhs' practice they all enter with zest into their active dutit-s, and find them a pleasant relief from the tedium of class-work.' The largest of tht se iusUrntionH is c mducted by the Sißters of the Sacred Heart, and in pleanarmy situated on miner grou' d close by the old university town of Louvain. The building is of vast size, and well it needs 10 be, for it contains 750 pupils and 60 nuns, besides a Btaff of sturdy Fl. mish servant girls a-.d of working men who look after the extensive farm, gardens and orchards, which provide inobt of the viands used in the four daily meals of over eight hundred busy people. The cour eof inntruction is comprehenfaive to a degree. The ornamental is not excluded, but the useful is set in the very forefront. A good general education is imparted ; but ' miss in her teens' at Haverl6 ia also initiated into the mysteries of dressmaking, washing, ironing, cleaning, mending, cooking and needlework in ail

its branches. If she has a bent for a oommeroial career, she will be amply provided with a due outfit of speoial knowledge for the * desk or working room. But perhaps the most heroio protest made against the ornamentaliam of our school systems is reached when we find the oartifio%ted teaohers of Haverl6 groundi.ig the young womanhood of Belgium in a thorough theoretical and practical knowledge of dairy-work, poultry-rearing, bee-kesping—even the feeding of the prosaic bub profitable pig receives its mead of grave attention. The daughters of the Flemish farmer are, moreover, taught to keep farm accounts, and instructed by experts in every branoh of scientific agrioulture. Verily, this is the glorifioation of the useful. And all this, be ifc noted, with board and lodging thrown in, for the surprisingly small sum of £10 a year ! It is difficult for tis Antipodeane to realise how this can be done. •It indioates, says Miss Crawford, ' a veritable triumph in good management and domestio eoonqmy, whioh should have an admirable effect on the pupils. Nor, indeed, would the feat be possible save for the large number to cater for, and for the important fact that, as regards both farm and garden produce, the establishment is wlfeupporting. But even so, and bearing in mind the Government grant of £120 a year, judging merely from external appearanoes, I should unhesitatingly have placed the school fees at £40 or £50 a year.' # The Belgian Schools of Housewifery are an object lesson in educational methods. In tbe flm place, they have dealt a serious blow to the one-sided 'system which looked merely to the intelleo- ' tual and ornamental side of a girl's education. They fit their pupil, not merely for the drawing-room and the social circle, but for the sterner work of life— for the due performance of the plain domestio duties which aid a charm to the poorest cottage home. But there is another aspect in. this comparatively new departure. The practical curriculum of the Belgian Ecoles Menaghret has opened up a new and vaat field for woman's industry. They are sending back into the farmhouse of that thriving little. State an army of highly-traiaed and economical workers, who must be counted with in the already keen competition for the world's markets.