are impressive and solemn moments
in the life of a large school which remain in the memory as something
beautiful and great. The close of a year, with its retrospect and
anticipation, its restrained emotion from the pathos which attends all
endings and beginnings in life, fills even the younger children with
some transient realization of the meaning of it all, and lifts them
up to a dim sense of the significance of existence, while for the
elder ones such days leave engraven upon the mind thoughts which
can never be effaced. These deep impressions belong especially to
old-established schools, and are bound up with their past, with their
traditional tone, and the aims that are specially theirs. In this they
cannot be rivalled. The school-room at home is always the school-room,
it has no higher moods, no sentiment of its own.

There are diversities of gifts for school and for home education; for
impressiveness a large school has the advantage. It is also, in
general, better off in the quality of its teachers, and it can turn
their rifts to better account. A modern governess would require to be
a host in herself to supply the varied demands of a girl's education,
in the subjects to be taught, in companionship and personal influence,
in the training of character, in watching over physical development,
and even if she should possess in herself all that would be needed,
there is the risk of "incompatibility of temperament" which makes a
_tete-a-tete_ life in the school-room trying on both sides. School has
the advantage of bringing the influence of many minds to bear, so that
it is rare that a child should pass through a school course without
coming in contact with some who awaken and understand and influence
her for good. It offers too the chance of making friends, and though
"sets" and cliques, plagues of school life, may give trouble and
unsettle the weaker minds from time to time, yet if the current of the
school is healthy it will set against them, and on the other hand the
choicest and best friendships often begin and grow to maturity in the
common life of school. The sodalities and congregations in Catholic
schools are training grounds within the general system of training, in
which higher ideals are aimed at, the obligation of using influence
for good is pressed home, and the instincts of leadership turned to
account for the common good. Lastly, among the advantages of school
may be counted a general purpose and plan