stamped him or her as worthy of admiration. Let us remember, above all, that there were as many women saints as men, and that these were held up for the admiration and emulation of growing youth. This was ethical training at every turn in life.

Above all, there was constant training in that thoughtfulness for others that means so much in any true system of education. When members of the gilds fell ill, their families nursed them during the day, but members of the gilds chosen for that purpose nursed them at night. It was felt that the family did quite enough not to exhaust itself by night watching. When brother members of the gild died their fellows attended their funeral in a body, and, above all, took part in the Mass for their souls. People who do not understand the Catholic idea of Mass for the dead will not appreciate this in the way that Catholics do, but at least they will understand the brotherliness of the act and the beautiful purpose that prompted so many to gather, in order that even after death they might do whatever they could for this departed brother. Besides the death of a brother gildsman was the signal for the giving of alms because the merit of these alms, it was felt, could be transferred to his account, and so the bond of fraternity continued even in the life beyond. The ethical effect of all this on the minds of people who sincerely believed can scarcely be exaggerated. Here is a training of the will and

of character, and a teaching of the relationship of man to man and of man to the Creator carried out into all the smallest details of life.

Above all, these generations had a training in personal service for one another. Every one exercised charity. It was not a few of the very wealthy who practised philanthropy. They had safeguards which, as far as is possible, prevented abuse of this charity. The alms, for instance, that was given on the occasion of a brother's funeral was not distributed hit or miss and all at one time, but members of the gild bought from the treasurer tokens which might be redeemed in bread and meat or in cast-off clothing or in some other way. These were distributed to the poor as they seemed to need them. If you met a poor man who seemed really in want you could give him one or more of these tokens and then be sure that while he would get whatever was necessary to supply his absolute needs, he would not be able to abuse charity. In our time we constantly have stories of large accumulations on the part of street beggars who own valuable property and have accounts in savings banks and the like. There was no possibility of this under the mediæval system and yet charity was widely exercised, every one took some part in it, and there was that training, not only in effective pity for affliction, but also in helpfulness for others, which means so much more than the exercise of occasional charity, because, for the moment, one is touched by the

sight of suffering or has remorse because one feels that one has been indulging one's self and wants the precious satisfaction that will come from a little making up for luxurious extravagance.

In our time, when we have gradually excluded moral teaching and training almost entirely from our schools and our methods of education, this phase of the ideal education of the masses is particularly interesting. Milton declared that "the main skill and groundwork of education will be to temper the pupils with such lectures and explanations as will draw them into willing obedience, inflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue, stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots." Their great stone-books, the cathedrals, where all who came could read the life of the Lord, the frequent reminders of the lives of the saints, doers among men who forgot themselves and thought of others, the fraternal obligations of the gilds and their intercourse with each other, all these constituted the essence of an education as nearly like that demanded by Milton as can well be imagined. It seems far-fetched to go back five, six, even seven centuries to find such ideals in practice, but the educator who is serious and candid with himself will find it easy to discover the elements of a wonderful intellectual and, above all, moral training of the people, that is the whole people from the lowest to the highest, in these early days.

CYCLES OF FEMININE EDUCATION

AND INFLUENCE

"And if I am right nothing can be more foolish than our modern fashion of training men and women differently, whereby one-half of the power of the city is lost. For reflect-if women are not to have the education of men some other must be found for them, and what other can we propose?"-PLATO, Laws (Jowett), p. 82. Scribner, 1902.