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became head of the diocese in New York, he took the work of education energetically in hand, convinced that "the catechising of the young was a more important matter than preaching to the grown." In the development of the elementary schools he found a powerful aid in the Sisters of Charity, who had begun their work in the growing city some nine years before. "As a matter of fact, the immense impulse given to Catholic education by the development of the Sisters of Charity was nowhere more clearly evidenced than in New York under Bishop Dubois." At this period a strong tide of Catholic emigration had set in, and churches were the first need; then came the urgent demand for Catholic schools. Elizabeth Seton had builded even better than she knew. Just when well-qualified teachers were required for the new schools, although her earthly career was at an end1, daughters, well equipped for the task, took up the good work that has since found a remarkable development in the numerous parochial schools under their charge; in their Academies; and in their latest undertaking, the College of Mount Saint Vincent. Their standard was high, and as time went on, the whole Catholic body, both clergy and laity, recognizing the powerful impetus thus given to Catholic education, showed their appreciation by generous practical support. "The greatest religious fact in the United States today is the Catholic school system, maintained without any aid except from the people who love it.""

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From the opening of the Orphan Asylum in Prince Street, there was established in connection with it a select school. For a time also the classes of St. Patrick's Parish School were held in a wing of the building; but in 1825 a separate parish school-house was erected on Mulberry Street near the Cathedral.

Rev. J. A. Burns, C.S.C., Ph.D.

'Mother Seton died on January 4, 1821. 'Bishop Spalding.

In 1830 the Sisters replaced the lay teachers in charge of the girls' department in St. Peter's School, Barclay Street. In that year also they opened an academy at 261 Mulberry Street, to provide a more advanced grade of instruction for girls than was afforded in the parish schools.

In 1833 St. Mary's Parish School in Grand Street came under their care; also St. Joseph's on Sixth Avenue. The same year marked the opening of an academy in Grand Street that soon had a roll call of seventy pupils. This academy, St. Mary's, transferred later to East Broadway, was for the rest of the century a deservedly well-patronized high-class school. A little later other academies sprang up in various parts of the City, St. Brigid's, Holy Cross and St. Gabriel's. These academies have their best eulogy in the lives of their graduates, women who have been prominent in New York's social circles, in the educational field, and in the work of private and of organized charity.

In 1834 there were altogether about twenty-five Sisters in the City working out in practice theories since become more familiar; namely, that the aim of charity should be, not only to relieve, but also to prevent poverty; that "education" (to quote a leading medical authority" "is the keynote to prophylaxis"; and that Catholic education makes greatest progress when conducted under the fostering care of teachers consecrated to the work. Thus year after year, as the parochial schools, elementary and secondary, have, through the zeal of pastors and the devotion of the people, sprung up in and around New York, and as vocations to the Sisterhood have multiplied, the educational work of the daughters of Elizabeth Seton has extended on every side and gives promise of still better things. In the sixty-four parish schools under their care today, nearly five hundred Sisters are engaged "Doctor J. J. Walsh.

in the work of teaching. This number is of course exclusive of those engaged in academies, and of those conducting approved courses of instruction in many of the homes and asylums under the care of the Sisterhood. Besides the High Schools connected with some half dozen of their academies, the Sisters are also in charge of the Girls' Department in each of New York's two free Catholic High Schools, The Cathedral and St. Gabriel's. In the first of these well-equipped secondary schools there are more than three hundred pupils drawn from forty parochial schools; indeed a central institution of this kind is becoming every day more and more of a necessity.

The training school, systematically organized more than a quarter of a century ago at the Mother House, Mount Saint Vincent-on-Hudson, to fit the young Sisters for their life-work, has been productive of excellent results. It is only an extension of the cherished idea of that far-seeing foundress, Elizabeth Seton, whose desire was that her religious daughters should be teachers and not mere purveyors of information. Normal institutions are held regularly during the long vacation; and when recently, the Catholic University at Washington opened summer-school coures for teaching Sisters, the Superiors quickly availed themselves of the opportunity, realizing the advantages the Sisters would derive from studies pursued at this great Catholic centre of learning.

Academy Mount Vincent-on-Hudson, a leading Catholic Academy in New York City for the last sixty-five years, has had its interesting history charmingly told by two of its own alumnae in "A Famous Convent School," and in "The Life of Elizabeth Seton."'8

In response to the growing demand for the higher education of Catholic young women, the Sisters opened in September, 1910, the College of Mount Saint Vincent.

'Marion J. Brunowe.

Agnes L. Sadlier.

An extract from the Announcement Bulletin reads:

"Already, Colleges for Catholic young women are doing successful work, but it seems that Greater New York had need of an institution of this kind within its own borders. To this fact the attention of the Sisters has been frequently and urgently called, while the undertaking has the full approval and warm encouragement of His Grace, The Most Reverend John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York."

"The aim of the institution is not only to provide able professors and to employ the most improved methods in giving to its students a liberal education, but also to shape that education according to Catholic principles. Thus do the Sisters hope to form women whose culture, far from divorcing them from duty, will inspire them with deep devotion to it, women whose lives will be a force for truth and an uplift to society."

On the Seton prize medal, awarded yearly at Mount Saint Vincent for proficiency in English Literature, the inscriptions read: "Defuncta adhuc fovet Elisabeth"; "Altrix Sapientiae Pietas." They are a biography in brief of Elizabeth Seton, spiritual mother of the five thousand Sisters of Charity forming the devoted Sisterhoods that have issued from beneath the humble rooftree raised by her holy hand in the valley at St. Joseph's, Emmitsburg, and dedicated to the service of God and of humanity.

The New York foundation represents largely the educational genius, as well as the educational views and policy of the noble-minded, sweet-souled woman who, it is hoped, shall one day be invoked as another Saint Elizabeth.

Mt. St. Vincent-on-Hudson.

A SISTER OF CHARITY.

MILITARY TRAINING FOR ADOLESCENTS

Quite a few of the Catholic preparatory schools of this country are military in character, and in them the uncompromising discipline of the battalion blends effectively with the benign influence of religion in producing a finished type of Catholic manhood.

The military feature of education, as applied in modern schools, is of recent development. It can not, however, be said to owe its origin to these latter times, for it is as old as our civilization, dating back to the ancient Greeks and Romans.

The Athenian boy, as well as his Spartan neighbor, received a military training. At the age of sixteen he was sent to the State Academy for what was termed his Ephebic education, and there, till he completed his twentieth year, he was a vertiable cadet in a military school. With the Greeks of antiquity the crown and summit of educational endeavor was the military academy, and that institution had, as its dominant and controlling purpose, character building and the development of efficient citizenship. Such general utilitarian purposes in education did not in the slighest trammel the free action of the Muses, for military Greece attained such eminence in literature, science and art that for two milleniums she has dominated the entire intellectual world.

The modern military school is, none the less, a comparatively new departure in the onward march of education. Little more than half a century ago, when the rumbling of impending civil strife was beginning to be heard from Maine to Louisiana, a school in Peekskill took on the military character, and reorganized its system of administration and education under the name of the Peekskill Military Academy. It was the first school of

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