Wealthy Childhoods

The publication of a recent survey of the background of convent education gives rise to an interesting train of thought regarding those diverse generations of the Catholic circles of privilege whose daughters receive their formation in convents of a socially exclusive character. Mother O'Leary in her authoritative study, whose scope is very much wider than that by-path which we are now considering, writes with knowledge and calm and has provided us with a most sympathetic but also objective impression. The first section of her book contains an examination of that background of convent education which had given such religious moulding as the polite world of pre-revolutionary France was willing to accept. As a preparation the author devotes some space to an account of the various curricula in use in the colleges, but it is manifestly impossible to touch on more than the fringe of the intricate subject of the mental background of the privileged boys of the Ancien Régime.In regard to convent education Madame de Genlis has left us a description of the methods of the abbey of Origny-Sainte-Benoîte, where the abbess was ready to entertain a small proportion of the community in her private apartments, and where the social intercourse afforded to the girls trained them early to take their place in that section of French society which was accessible to mild religious ideals when presented palatably

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