Mother Mary Margaret brought the studies up to a high standard; she had St. Mary's chartered as a college and spared no effort to fit her Sisters for the work of higher education.

Key West, Fla., and Oakland, Calif., were a result of Mother Theresa's visit to the West. The many academies and schools in Washington, Oregon, and California are the outcome of her zeal. We are astonished today when we reflect on the magnitude of her plans, but their realization and success convince us that they were inspired by the Holy Ghost. Windsor, Ontario, and Albany, N. Y., also sprang into existence at her word.

With Mother Veronica of the Crucifix to stimulate the young Sisters with her own love of study, and Mother Theresa of Jesus to dare and do all things for Christ's little ones, the Community spread and carried afar its educational ideals. God was surely kind to Mother Mary Rose's daughters. He called the Mother home early, but He ranged strong intellectual women under the banner of the Holy Names who did the work that their Mother had planned.

"Help the clergy in every way you can!" has been a frequent recommendation of the Foundress. Wherever her daughters opened schools in the West, they boarded the Pastor and took care of the sanctuary and the sacristy until the country was developed and the priests' maintenance secured.

With that spirit of progress which has always marked the Community of the Holy Names, Mother Mary of the Rosary at great expense built the new boarding school at Outremont, near Montreal. Recently, in the administration of the present Superior General, Mother Martin of the Ascension, Normal Schools have been opened at Seattle and Spokane in the State of Washington; and at Valleyfield, P. Q. All grades of schools, as well as schools for all classes form the life-work of the Sisters of the

Holy Names. The students of St. Mary's Academy, Winnipeg, have taken public examinations for many years past, and enjoy the advantage of securing degrees under the system of affiliated colleges which constitute the University of Manitoba.

"To educate young ladies according to their station in life," is in the Rules of the Order; and Rome in 1901, gave the final approbation to the Constitutions. Yet, the Sisters twice departed from the prescribed end. They closed their school in Jacksonville, Ore., in 1868, when the black smallpox made a charnel-house of the beautiful town. All the citizens, who could, fled. Husbands abandoned their wives; and mothers, their offspring. But Sister Francis of Assisi and Sister Mary Edward went among the plague-stricken during those six awful weeks of death; day and night they were at the post of danger while strength remained. At last the violence of the disease spent itself through lack of victims, and the Sisters went north to recuperate. Sister Francis of Assisi's health never returned. She lingered for two years before answering the Lord's home-call. She had given her life for her neighbor, what could she have done more? Sister Mary Edward still lives to tell the tale of these terrible days among the dying who were decomposing before life was extinct.

On another occasion also the Sisters abandoned their books, this time to open one of their schools to the nation's defenders. It was during the Spanish-American War when the hungry regiments reached Tampa, Fla., without provisions. The young ladies of Holy Names Convent, Tampa, aided their teachers to brew tea and make coffee, etc., for the famishing men. The Convent of Mary Immaculate, Key West, was turned into a hospital, and handed over to the United States authorities who trained the Sisters in what short time they had to care for the wounded. During a scourge of yellow fever on

the Island, the Sisters had once before sent their pupils home, and devoted themselves to the pest-stricken. There was happiness in soothing the last hour of the dying, or in helping nature in her efforts back to health.

To be the least among the helpers of Holy Church is a great joy; to do work that will reflect her spirit, make known her greatness, and spread her light is almost an apostolic privilege. To have over 1,300 teachers banded under one General Superior-for thank God, during the march of the years, there has never been a branch lopped from the tree is surely the fulfillment of the prayers of the humble yet virile woman, who with a prophet's eye and a prophet's ardor saw what could be done for education and how to do it.

Today there are nine Provinces of the Order, whose respective Provincials lighten the burden of the General Superior and her five Councillors. Silently, slowly, God raised up the citadel. With the Holy Names for watchword, we pray that we may long be able to speak of victories in the hard fought field of modern educational endeavor.

Montreal, Canada.

S. M. G.

LEGES

The main purpose of this paper is to discuss how we may promote the right kind of reading in our high schools, academies and colleges. Along with the belief that reading constitutes an essential part of education runs the conviction in the minds of many if not most educators that our young people read neither wisely nor well. They do not read the right things, or they read them without appreciation, and they read the wrong things. Assuming that we are agreed on the need of reading not only as part of a course in English literature but also as a very essential part of an education that would be liberal and humane, our problem becomes mainly one of ways and means to reach an end. That end indeed should not be forgotten. The aim of a study of literature is not the mere acquaintance with the facts, titles, names, dates of the meanings and genealogies of words, but understanding and appreciation of the life of literature; it is the assimilation, and not the accumulation, of the knowledge to be derived therefrom. The student mind is a living organism, not an apartment house. It must grow and develop by an inner force; it has not to be furnished or decorated from without. To teach the young mind to reflect, to convert to its own uses what it knows, to turn knowledge into power, is the teacher's function whereby he will reduce the number of average men and women in the world. For the average man or woman is the man or woman who does not think. We shall consider reading, then, as a means to this larger end in the study of literature.

Here is the case as we meet it concretely in the class room. The average age of a high school freshman is 15,

of a college freshman, 18, while the age of an academy freshman, we presume discreetly, is somewhere between the two. In the grades, work in English is largely limited to the study of grammar, so that the high school freshman has done little if any formal reading in English. This is not to say he has done no reading. Even if the home does not supply him with books, in this day of readily accessible public libraries he has probably come into close contact with books and done some if not considerable reading. In the cities the juvenile section of the library is, I believe, well patronised. So that at 14 many a boy and girl has formed a taste for reading, at least for a certain kind of reading. But that matter is negiigible for the present. The important thing, from the teacher's standpoint, is that here there is ready for his use a tool, an instrument for him to play upon, a force and power which he has but to direct. The case is the same for the student who comes to college with a formed taste in reading. The professor's task is comparatively light. He has but to mould an existing medium, he has not to create his materials.

But, on the other hand, there is the high school freshman, and, more incredible, the college freshman or high school graduate, who has not acquired a taste for reading. Here the teacher or professor must start from the ground up. First of all, he must himself be a man of wide and deep reading, with a true relish for literature and a true sympathy for human nature, not as an abstraction but as personified in the dull, indolent, or unwilling pupil before him. If the teacher himself is fully convinced of the need and the advantages of reading, if he is on fire with the love of literature, with an enthusiasm in method intelligently controlled, he has made the first long step in the direction of creating the interest lacking in his pupil. For we may as well face the fact, painful as it is: too seldom are we teachers thus equipped in mind or temper, and in