more of value than giving from her poverty. The intention with which she performed that act is worthy the consideration of even a graduate of "higher education."

With shallowness and lightness rampant among many who are supposed to be educated, it is not surprising that the social fabric needs a patching. Wealth and enjoyment

are very large gods; unceasing gush about broad views and liberal principles is forever jarring on the, ears of true knowledge; common sense and the stern exigencies of life are, by multitudes, sacrificed on the altar of silly fads and foolish fancies; parental affection is exchanged for the gaudy bubbles of the hour; the love of home, with all its quiet, peaceful joy, with all the tender, precious endearments of family ties, is lost for many in the whirlpool of passing pleasures. And is it not a bold thing to lay a great deal of the blame for all this down' at the door of an education styled "higher"? Yet such is written on this "Leaf." and it will not be altered, because I believe it to be true. You remember the old saying about training a youth up in the way he should go. It is the opinion of eminently superior men that a great deal of our “higher education" is training up young men and women in the way they should not go. Listen to the president of Brown University, Dr. Andrews, one of the leading educators of America. The Cosmopolitan he says:

In

Pupils' minds do not grow as they should under process of education. Even the amount of facts which the average scholar amasses is very small in proportion to his advantages; and this, notwithstanding the circumstances that modern education is to a painful extent_nothing but a heaping together of facts. The poverty of thinking, however, is still more deplorable. Young people end their studies with flabby minds, unable to analyze keenly or to generalize truthfully or far.

Worst of all, the majority of our stu

dents, even at maturity, are distressingly lacking in moral enthusiasm. They unduly prize money, fame and success. They are at peace with the world. Their sense of justice is lax. Great principles and great causes fail to appeal to them strongly. To sum up: They know too little; they think too little, and they care too little about highest things.

Enthusiasm in teaching is not fashionable any more. What is said and read in the class room does not take hold of men, life, the soul, history and society as were to be wished. There is in the teaching little to appeal to the sense of conduct, to the sense of duty, in the pupils. * ** A great many teachers, nowadays, utterly repudiate their calling as creators of manhood, and are anxious solely how they may be faithful to the subjects which they expound. They will compass heaven and earth to excogitate a system, compose a book, or prepare a course of lectures, but do nothing toward the infinitely more needful and precious task of building up in character the human beings who face them each day in class.

Intelligent men who give the matter due attention, and who have no educational axes to grind, will agree with Dr. Andrews. This "Leaf" is in The average graduate of "higher eduthorough accord with his utterances. cation" will undertake to explain anything, from a molecule of matter to the nature of the human soul; but through it all you cannot see beyond the surface. There is no depth, and what would be amusing, were it not pitiable, is that the graduate believes. he knows it all. There is more said nowadays in the course of a single. year about educational progress than was ever uttered in a decade of years during past centuries; and still there is so much of the air-bellows business about it. I am no enemy of higher education, nor am I ignorant that there are institutions of higher learning which are fully equal to the name. I would gladly see every young man and woman in the land educated to the highest point; but I hate systems that establish shallowness and egotism, selfishness and conceit, where

serious thought, sound principles, and elevated ideals should reign supreme. I see so much of the former, so little of the latter, that I long for the universal adoption of a system that will undertake fewer things, and perform them well-a system that will not beget lightness and conceit, or deprive the student of the power to meet the difficulties of life's path with sound judgment and common sense.

It may be argued that there are many successful men and women in every desirable walk of life who owe their ability to "higher education." I have already stated that I believe there are institutions of higher learning which are fully equal to the name; but the fact is still patent that there are far too many who, claiming to be graduates of "higher education," education," seem to possess no other ability than that of idling the precious term of their existence, spending the money of indulgent parents, and concentrating their intellectual faculties on the study of fancy neckwear and fashionable hats.

As a Catholic giving this "Leaf” to a Catholic publication, my observations may be considered as referring in a special manner to Catholic colleges and their graduates. What is written has reference to every educational institution that substitutes the superficial for the solid; that grows broad at the expense of depth; that stores the brain to the neglect of the heart, and sends forth on the world shallow, conceited egotists, incapable of rising above the level of dear, devoted self, instead of men and women armed to battle successfully with life's stern realities. But I think this cap does not fit our Catholic colleges. These do not jump at the system of every self-constituted wiseacre that hangs reform or progress on his educational shingle. The education imparted in Catholic institutions is based on principles that have stood the crucible of time, because they are

founded on eternal truth. These colleges are ever ready to adopt whatever there is of good in the development and progress of educational systems and teachings; but there is no stuffing the brains of their students with overdoses; no feeding with such mental sweets as injure the intellectual digestion of their minds; no crazy chasing after absurd theories emanating from the hazy mentality of every so-called philosopher and would-be scientist. Catholic schools and colleges are surrounded by the powerful influence of their religion, and students are readily enabled to practise the moral lessons they learn through the influence of the sacraments they receive. There are exceptions to every rule, degenerates in every good society; but my observations have led me to the honest conviction that the average graduate of the Catholic college is competent to take his place creditably in the world's arena, with comparatively little shallowness in his mental make-up.

I would not have said so much of Catholic colleges were it not that my "Leaf" contains a reference to the strange inconsistency of those wellto-do Catholic parents who profess belief in the teaching authority of the Church, and yet neglect her counsels. in matters educational. Placing their sons and daughters in institutions other than Catholic, is, in their estimation, broad and liberal; or I would better say in the estimation of the social set in which they move. It gives Catholics more tone with the "four hundred," and shallowness is nothing. to them when weighed in the balance with what the "circle" thinks and says.

You can pin very little faith to the Catholicity of any man or woman who, favored with greater opportunities, is yet ignorant of what the Church is doing for society through the medium of her educational institutions. There can be very little con

The sun is giving a last drowsy peep over the tops of the hills, and, emboldened by his departure, the shadows are dancing merrily out from under every tree and shrub, and from behind the buildings and fences. There are all kinds, from the big, slow-moving ones down to the tiny baby shadows that skip fantastically from side to side. And they all seem to be fired by the same spirit of mischief, for they bow and pirouette as though with irrepressible merriment; and they chase the kittens and make impudent grimaces at the chickens. moving reluctantly toward the anxious mother hens, who are awaiting them with admonitory clucks and fluffings of warm feathers that are to hover the wee broods.

Most of the birds have already sought their perches among the branches, and are now chirping sleepy good-nights and plans for the morrow across the abysses and alleyways of shadows. Up in the top of the sycamore a mother robin is twittering tender little lullabies to her three babies, and from somewhere off in the distance come the last sweet notes of a vesper sparrow's evening hymn.

As the shadows grow thicker, vigilant fireflies begin to light their lanterns and swing them back and forth above the sleeping plants and flowers, and presently other lanterns begin to gleam down from the wintry alcoves of the sky. Gradually the chirping and twittering grow still, and the vesper-bird's reverie dies away in a low, caressing murmur. Little by little the shadows cease their revelry, and creep into each other's arms, and are presently lost in a universal obscurity.

Around the house and along the path are masses of nasturtiums and marigolds and poppies and asters, and among the grass are daisies and wild roses and buttercups, and an almost innumerable host of familiar friends and acquaintances; but just now they

are

"All a-noddin', nid-nid-noddin'," and are scarcely recognizable in their strange disguise of nightcaps and drowsiness. The poppies are sleeping luxuriously, with bowed heads and closed eyes, and each one having her four silken curtains drawn carefully about her couch. They are the sleepiest flowers in the garden, and nod and dream in the midst of their drowsy companions. But not far behind them are the red clovers, with their young blossom clusters completely night-capped beneath the overlapping pair of upper leaves, and their heads tucked away under their wings. And the white clovers and yellow hopclovers, and the tall bush clovers, rising dreamily above their bed fellows, are equally well brought up; they keep regular hours, and sleep soundly all through the livelong night, every individual leaf below their hoods being bowed, with folded palms, and the bush clovers having each three-foliate leaf raised upon its stem, with the leaflets folded inward, clasping the maternal stalk.

The partridge-peas and asters and balsam have queer nocturnal expressions, and all sorts of whimsical sleeping postures. The daisies and "blue bottles" and marigolds have almost lost their identity, and the blue flower spikes of the lupines are now drooping like closed parasols. And all