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Stuart, Janet Erskine

"The Education of Catholic Girls"

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.


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