h. We have received so
much, we have so much to give, we know so well what we want to obtain.
We have the Church, the great teacher of the world, as our prototype,
and by some instinct a certain unconscious imitation of her finds its
way into the mind and heart of Catholic teachers, so that, though often
out of poorer material, we can produce teachers who excel in personal
hold over children, and influence for good by their great affection and
the value which they set on souls. Their power of obtaining work is
proportioned to their own love of knowledge, and here--let it be owned--we
more often fail. Various theories are offered in explanation of this;
people take one or other according to their personal point of view. Some
say we feel so sure of the other world that our hold on this is slack.
Some that in these countries we have not yet made up for the check of
three centuries when education was made almost impossible for us. And
others say it is not true at all. Perhaps they know best.

Next to the personal power of the teacher to influence children in
learning lessons comes an essential condition to make it possible, and
that is a simple life with quiet regular hours and unexciting pleasures.
Amid a round of amusements lessons must go to the wall, no child can
stand the demands of both at a time. All that can be asked of them is
that they should live through the excitement without too much weariness
or serious damage. The place to consider this is in London at the
children's hour for riding in the park, contrasting the prime condition
of the ponies with the "illustrious pallor" of so many of their riders.
They have courage enough left to sit up straight in their saddles, but
it would take a heart of stone to think of lesson books. This extreme of
artificial life is of course the portion of the few. Those few, however,
are very important people, influential in the future for good or evil,
but a protest from a distance would not reach their schoolrooms, any
more than legislation for the protection of children; they may be
protected from work, but not from amusement. The conditions of simple
living which are favourable for children have been so often enumerated
that it is unnecessary to go over them again; they may even be procured
in tabular form or graphical representation for those to whom these
figures and curves carry conviction.

But a point that is of more practical interest to children and teachers,
struggling