Be careful with whom your children associate. “None of the things entrusted to you are so precious as your children. Their souls are worth more in God’s eyes than Heaven and Earth, and the whole of the irrational creation; and you do Him a greater service in bringing up your children well than if you possessed the whole world, and gave all away to the poor.” When treating of the relation of the child to his parents, Dominici lays great stress on the observance of those outward forms, which express the reverence due from him to them. In the presence of parents, children shall not sit down unless desired to do so; they must stand in a respectful attitude, humbly bow the head when any command is addressed to them, and uncover when they meet their father or mother. “Twice a day at least shall they kneel and beg your blessing. The child must say: ‘Benedicite,’ and you shall answer: ‘May God bless thee with an everlasting blessing,’ or ‘may the blessing of God be always with thee.’ And let the child, kneeling to ask a blessing from you, remind you to ask a blessing from your Father who is in Heaven—not twice a day only, but as often as you change your occupation.” Very noble are the precepts he gives Madonna Bartolommea, to whom Florence had shown herself, indeed, but an unkind stepmother. “You owe your child to your country. Therefore, teach him the duties of a good citizen, and morning and evening let him pray for the Patria.” Those are precepts we in Ireland might follow with profit. I have lingered a little on the educational theories of the great Dominican, because many of them were put in practice in the school which Vittorino da Feltre founded at Mantua, under the protection of the Gonzagas that it is almost unthinkable that Vittorino and Madonna Paola were not directly influenced by it. We shall now see these theories in practice. PART II.—LA CASA GIOCOSA. On the banks of the Mincio, the Gonzagas, very splendid even in their Condottiere days, had built a stately Pleasure House, which (for reasons on which it pleases certain historians yet to dispute) they called the “Casa Giocosa”—the “Joyous House,” if you care to translate it thus. When Vittorino da Feltre came to Mantua, it would seem that the two elder of the Gonzaga boys were already being educated in this house. The Court School, where the sons of the reigning house and of the gentlemen in their service were educated, was an old European institution. The Palace Schools of Charlemagne are notable examples.