It is not contended that psychology and ethics would of themselves cure this tendency, but they would undoubtedly aid in doing so, for the confusion of wanting to do better and yet not knowing what to do is a most pathetic form of helplessness.  A little knowledge of psychology would at least give an idea of the resources which the human soul has at its command when it seeks to take itself in hand.  It would allow of some response to a reasonable appeal from outside.  And all the time the first principles of ethics would refuse to be killed in the mind, and would continue to bear witness against the waste of existence and the diversion of life from its true end.

Rational principles of aesthetics belong very intimately to the education of women.  Their ideas of beauty, their taste in art, influence very powerfully their own lives and those of others, and may transfigure many things which are otherwise liable to fall into the commonplace and the vulgar.  If woman’s taste is trained to choose the best, it upholds a standard which may save a generation from decadence.  This concerns the beautiful and the fitting in all things where the power of art makes itself felt as “the expression of an ideal in a concrete work capable of producing an impression and attaching the beholder to that ideal which it presents for admiration.” [1—­Cardinal Mercier, “General Metaphysics,” Part iv., Ch. iv.] It touches on all questions of taste, not only in the fine arts but in fiction, and furniture, and dress, and all the minor arts of life and adaptation of human skill to the external conditions of living.  The importance of all these in their effect on the happiness and goodness of a whole people is a plea for not leaving out the principles of aesthetics, as well as the practice of some form of art from the education of girls.

The last and most glorious treatise in philosophy of which some knowledge can be given at the end of a school course is that of natural theology.  If it is true, as they say, that St. Thomas Aquinas at the age of five years used to go round to the monks of Monte Cassino pulling them down by the sleeve to whisper his inquiry, “quid est Deus”? it may be hoped that older children are not incapable of appreciating some of the first notions that may be drawn from reason about the Creator, those truths “concerning the existence of God which are the supreme conclusion and crown of the department of physics, and those concerning His nature which apply the truths of general metaphysics to a determinate being, the Absolutely Perfect.” [1—­Cardinal Mercier, “Natural Theology,” Introduction.] It is in the domain of natural theology that they will often find a safeguard against difficulties which may occur later in life, when they meet inquirers whose questions about God are not so ingenuous as that of the infant St. Thomas.  The armour of their faith will not be so easily pierced by chance shots as if they were without preparation, and at the same time they will know enough of the greatness of the subject not to challenge “any unbeliever” to single combat, and undertake to prove against all opponents the existence and perfections of God.