whole effect of music in education is indefinitely raised.  It has scarcely had time to tell yet, but as it extends more widely and makes its way through the whole of our educational system it may be hoped that the old complaints, too well founded, against the indifference and carelessness of English audiences, will be heard no more.  We shall never attain to the kind of religious awe which falls upon a German audience, or to its moods of emotion, but we may reach some means of expression which the national character does not forbid, showing at least that we understand, even though we must not admit that we feel.

It is impossible to suggest what may be attained by girls of exceptional talent, but in practice if the average child-students, with fair musical ability, can at the end of their school course read and sing at sight fairly easy music, and have a good beginning of intelligent playing on one or two instruments, they will have brought their foundations in musical practice up to the level of their general education.  If with some help they can understand the structure of a great musical work, and perhaps by themselves analyse an easy sonata, they will be in a position to appreciate the best of what they will hear afterwards, and if they have learnt something of the history of music and of the works of the great composers, their musical education will have gone as far as proportion allows before they are grown up.  Some notions of harmony, enough to harmonize by the most elementary methods a simple melody, will be of the greatest service to those whose music has any future in it.

Catholic girls have a right and even a duty to learn something of the Church’s own music; and in this also there are two things to be learnt—­appreciation and execution.  And amongst the practical applications of the art of music to life there is nothing more honourable than the acquired knowledge of ecclesiastical music to be used in the service of the Church.  When the love and understanding of its spirit are acquired the diffusion of a right tone in Church music is a means of doing good, as true and as much within the reach of many girls as the spread of good literature; and in a small and indirect way it allows them the privilege of ministering to the beauty of Catholic worship and devotion.

The scope of drawing and painting in early education has been most ably treated of in many general and special works, and does not concern us here except in so far as it is connected with the training of taste in art which is of more importance to Catholics than to others, as has been considered above, in its relation to the springs of spiritual life, to faith and devotion, and also in so far as taste in art serves to strengthen or to undermine the principles on which conduct is based.  We have to brace our children’s wills to face restraint, to know that they cannot cast themselves at random and adrift in the pursuit of art, that their ideals must be more severe than