Saint Marys College - Blue Mantle Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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A Word to parents and guardians Who are seeking an ideal school for their girls There is no longer any question as to the advisability of giv- ing all possible advantages along the lines of higher education to women, the question has shifted to one of ways and means. Now parents do not ask, Shall we send our daughter to col- lege P but, Shall we send' her to a large or to a small college ? Shall we send her to a co-educational institution ? Shall we give her the advantages of an Eastern finishing school ? Shall we exchange her home surroundings for boarding-house life and the democratic, if promiscuous, associations of the state univer- sity, or shall we send her to a convent college ? The idea of the woman's college, when first promulgated, appealed strongly through its novelty to Americans and the pen- dulum of public opinion swung to the extreme arc of agitation. The impulse from the other extreme-ultra-conservative ideas on the education of women-gave a wide sweep to the pendulum, leaving many onlookers in Gath perplexed, if not aghast, over the new conditions. .But reflecting minds counted on the law of gravity in the social order, nor were they mistaken, for the pen- dulum of public opinion is slowly swinging towards the normal in woman's education, a point between the conservatism of the old regime and the radicalism of the new. The embodiment of this ideal is to be found in the high-class convent school. Q The history of woman's education up to comparatively re- cent times is a record of convent training. This is wholly the ease in European countries and partially so in the United States. The days of a Hilda of Whitby and a Hroswitha of Gandersheim witnessed high degrees of culture rather than the culture of high degrees, and the movement towards the higher education of women, which we of to-day designate as new, found its begin- ning within cloister walls of so-called dark ages. Down the cen- turies this intellectual and moral impulse made its Way, holding its own amid the changes of fortune, standing ever for ethical certitude in a world of fluctuating principles. ' i 3

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But the present generation is interested in our :own land and our own time, hence the questions it puts: For what does the convent school stand now? How does it compare with other in- stitutions of learning in its power to fit for life? What about its equipment, its teachers? VVhat is the attitude with regard to the higher education of women? Of course there are degrees in the excellency of convent schools fthough the least of them is a great moral forcejg just as there are colleges and colleges, but the answers herein given to the above important questions are drawn from the fullness of experience and consecrated- love of the work of Catholic education, as carried on for over half a century at St. Mary's, Notre Dame, Indiana, justly claimed to be an ideal Catholic college for women. St. Mary's takes as a working basis Most Reverend john Lancaster Spalding's definition of education, namely, the soul's response to God's appeal to make itself like unto Him-self- active, knowing, wise, strong, loving and fair. It stands for the highest development of rnind and heart, and aims to make its students women of ideas rather than women of mere accomplish- ments, to bring them into personal relations with wider worlds, larger life, by placing before them truth as far as it may be apprehended, truth in its various aspects-literature, history, science and art. In its training of the intellect, St. Mary's distinguishes be- tween the cultural and the vocational in education. Education is to prepare the student for life, but that is to be taken in its largest sense. The years spent at college cannot give both a cultural and professional training. Within limits, election is allowed, and this choice directs the teacher's efforts toward de- veloping skill or inculcating appreciation in the student. Believing that character is higher than intellect, St. Mary's attaches a special value to many things that are not in the curriculum-a sense of honor, self-respect, courtesy, gentle- ness, reverence, right values, recognition of personal duty, in a word, the art of living and the science of conduct. 4