227. Education in the Convents. ВЂ” It is almost exclu-

sively in convents that young girls then received what

passed for an education. The religious congregations that

devoted themselves to female education were numberless ;

we note, for example, among the most celebrated, the Ursu-

lines, founded in 1537 ; the Association of the Angelics,

established in Italy in 1536 ; and the Order of Saint Eliza-

beth. But, notwithstanding the diversity of names, all the

convents for girls resemble one another. In all of them

woman was educated for heaven, or for a life of devotion.

Spiritual exercises formed the only occupation of the pupils,

and study was scarcely taken into account.

228. Port Royal and the Regulations of Jacqueline

Pascal. — The best means of penetrating into the inner life

1 Truite du choix et de la me'thode des etudes, Chap, xxxvm.

EDUCATION OF WOMEN". 215

of the convents of the seventeenth century is to read the

Regulations for Children, written towards 1657 by Jacqueline

Pascal, Sister Saint Euphemia. The education of girls

interested the Jansenists not less than the education of

men ; but in this respect, Tort Royal is far from deserving

the same encomiums in both cases.

229. General Impression. — There is nothing so sombre

and sad as the interior of their institution for girls, and

nothing so austere as the rules of Jacqueline Pascal.

"A strange emotion, even at the distance of centuries,

is caused by the sight of those children keeping silent or

speaking in a whisper from rising till retiring, never walking

except between two nuns, one in front and the other behind,

in order to make it impossible, by slackening their pace on

the pretext of some indisposition, for them to hold any com-

munication ; working in such a way as never to be in com-

panies of two or three ; passing from meditation to prayer,

and from prayer to instruction ; learning, besides the cate-

chism, nothing but reading and writing ; and, on Sunday,

' a little arithmetic, the older from one to two o'clock, and

the younger from two to half past two ' ; the hands alwa3's

busy to prevent the mind from wandering ; but without

being able to become attached to their work, which would

please God as much the more as it pleased themselves the

less ; opposing all their natural inclinations, and despising

the attentions due the body ' destined to serve as food for

worms'; doing nothing, in a word, except in the spirit of

mortification. Imagine those days of fourteen and sixteen

hours, slowly succeeding one another, and weighing down

on the heads of those poor little sisters, for six or eight

years in that dreary solitude, where there was nothing to

bring in the stir of life, save the sound of the bell announc-

216 THE HISTOEY OF PEDAGOGY.

ing a change of exercise or of penance, and you will com-

prehend F6nelon's feeling of sadness when he speaks of the

shadows of that deep cavern in which was imprisoned and,

as it were, buried the youth of girls." *

230. Severity and Love. — The severity of the Regula-

tions is such that the editor, M. de Pontchartrain, also a

Jansenist, allows that it will be impossible to obtain from

all children "so complete a silence and so formal a life";

and requires that the mistresses shall try to gain their affec-

tions. Love must be united with severity. Jacqueline

Pascal does not seem to be entirely of this opinion, since

she declares that only God must be loved. However, not-

withstanding her habitual severity, human tenderness some-

times asserts its rights in the rules which she established.

We feel that she loves more than she confesses, those young

girls whom she calls "little doves." On the one hand,

the Regulations incite the pupils to eat of what is placed

before them indifferently, and to begin with what the}' like

the least, through a spirit of penitence ; but, on the other

hand, Jacqueline writes: "They must be exhorted to take

sufficient nourishment so as not to allow themselves to

become weakened, and this is why care is taken that they

have eaten enough." And so there is a touching solicitude

that is almost maternal in this remark: "As soon as they

have retired, each particular bed must be visited, to see

whether all proprieties have been observed, and whether the

children are well covered in winter." The mystic sister of

the ascetic Pascal has moments of tenderness. "Never-

theless, we must not cease to feel pity for them, and to

accommodate ourselves to them in every way that we can,

but without letting them know that we have thus conde-