year; the children are well looked after, bright, cheerful, and intelligent.

Educational state. The National school belonging to this institution educates the greater part of the children of the surrounding district. The school consists of two departments, a higher and a lower school- the former for those girls whose conduct and superior manners entitle them to rank as a superior class. In this school are taught the Industrial school children, as well as the daughters of the more respectable inhabitants of Cashel, who freely associate with them; friendships are formed between these girls, and not unfrequently the Industrial school child is received into the houses of the parents of her class-fellows as their equal, to which she is entitled, from her conduct, manners, and tidy habits.

Industrial training. In this school the industrial training of the children is most carefully attended to. In the agricultural classes, the rotation of crops, dairy, and farm-yard husbandry, the cultivation of the finer garden vegetables are taught; and I have seen seakale and cauliflowers grown here by the girls which might compete with success for a prize in an exhibition of agricultural produce. At the same time, some very fine needlework exhibited at the South Kensington Exhibition, London, for 1871-the work of these girls-is evidence that the finer branches of female industry are cultivated by those whose tastes and feelings render them suited for such work. There is an excellent oven on the premises, and baking and cooking, in its various branches, as well as laundrywork, are taught.

Staff-The school is managed by a large class of Sisters of the Presentation Order, whose special duty consists in the conducting of primary schools for the lower and middle classes. Some Sisters are always with the girls and instruct them in the various outdoor works at which they are employed.

Total receipts in 1870, 538l. 148. 6d. Average number maintained, 54. Expenditure, 2,183l. 98. 5d., 1,2167. of which was expended in buildings during the year. Average cost per head, 15l. 1s. 3d., on 933l. 98. 5d, the expenditure for ordinary charges. Although not two years in existence, girls have already been placed on licence in respectable situations, where their knowledge of milking cows, making butter, &c., combined with the knowledge of the work of household servants, makes them peculiarly useful in an agricultural district.1

These extracts might be multiplied five-fold; but such as

1 Report for 1870, p. 70.

are here given afford amply sufficient evidence of the great good resulting from the labours of religious communities of women in the conduct of Reformatory and Industrial schools. Any one glancing over the Irish Report of 1870 will find most interesting details of nine-and-twenty Industrial schools, including the six above given, administered by nuns in Ireland. These are:

The following is a list of the Industrial schools in Great Britain conducted by nuns, all favourably mentioned by the Inspector, including the two of which the reports have been quoted:

Industrial School

Place

Certified

Managers

Saint Anne's Mason Street, Liver- June 13, 1867. Sisters of Charity of Saint

pool.

Girls' Orphanage Falkner

Liverpool.

Street, Oct. 6, 1868.

Saint Elizabeth's Breckfield Road, Dec. 30, 1861.

Vincent de Paul. Sisters of Notre Dame.

Sisters of Mercy.

Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul. House, June 2, 1871. Franciscan Nuns.

All the female Industrial schools, conducted by nuns, in Great Britain and Ireland are favourably reported on by Her Majesty's Inspectors. The greater part of them are in their infancy. Several, in Ireland, are in connexion with numerously attended primary schools for girls conducted by the nuns. With each successive year, we may look for a considerable increase in the number of these schools and of the good effected therein. The labours of nuns are silent and unobtrusive. They look not for worldly rewards, and therefore their works of this kind are not known as extensively as they otherwise might be.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SISTERS OF CHARITY OF SAINT PAUL THE APOSTLE.

"Tis Education forms the common mind,

Even as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.

POPE.

THIS excellent institute, introduced into England in the year 1847, numbers thirty-one communities, who are principally engaged in educating the poor children of the villages and smaller towns of our manufacturing districts. It is productive of much good; and the following account of its origin, progress, and objects will, I have no doubt, prove interesting to my

readers.

The Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Paul the Apostle was founded in 1704, by Monsieur Louis Chauvet, curé of Léoéville-la-Chenard, a village in the department Eure et Loire, in France. Mademoiselle Marie-Anne de Tylly, daughter of the Count Louis de Tylly, lord of Villagat, and Mademoiselle Dutrouchon, daughter of the Count Dutrouchon, lord of Alaines, were the first ladies associated in the pious work. To them were shortly added three farmers' daughters, received without dowry.

Their first school room was the cellar of the good cure's house; their first scholars, the poor children of this poor parish. In a short time, however, they were able to purchase a house, opposite the presbytery. This house had belonged to a sabotier, or wooden-shoe maker, and, hence, for some time, the Sisters were known by the name of Les Sœurs Sabotières. They carried on their work in this house until 1708, when they removed to the city of Chartres. But in the meantime, their

foundress Mademoiselle de Tylly died; so that it was Mademoiselle Dutrouchon who was the first mother superior at Chartres. The removal was effected at the desire of the Bishop of Chartres, who wished to have the congregation established in his episcopal city. They took possession there of the ancient convent of Saint Maurice, which continued to be the mother house until the great Revolution.

The Revolution swept away the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Paul, together with every other pious institution in France. The mother superior was imprisoned; the Sisters were dispersed; their houses and property confiscated, and their archives with all documents regarding their previous history destroyed. The congregation was restored by Napoleon I., for the sake, principally, of his military hospitals. He gave it the ancient monastery of the Jacobins at Chartres, as the convent of Saint Maurice had been sold and converted to other purposes. For this reason, a third name has been given to the Sisters at Chartres, that of Les Sœurs de Saint Jacques. They have had to rebuild the greater portion of the convent, which is now large and commodious; as the immense development of the congregation requires.

At the present time the Sisters of Saint Paul have two hundred and fifty houses in France, and several in the French West Indies. They are also established at Hong-Kong and Shanghai, and at Saigon, in Cochin China.

The English branch of the congregation, which is now an independent one, like that in Alsace, was established in 1847. Two Sisters came from France, arriving at Banbury on June 25 of that year, to make the foundation. The letter inviting them to England was addressed to the Bishop of Chartres by the late Cardinal Wiseman, who was, at the time, coadjutor bishop to Doctor Walsh, Vicar Apostolic of the central district of England.

Like the parent congregation, the English branch began it labours in the presbytery of a country mission; and the first