These schools, however, were not reserved for the men, but abundant opportunities were also afforded women for scholarship and for culture of every kind. Only second in importance to St. Patrick's great school at Armagh during the first century in the history of Ireland as a Christian nation was St. Brigid's school at Kildare. We know from Giraldus Cambrensis, now better known as Gerald the Welshman, that, in his travels in Ireland centuries afterwards, but before the destruction of Kildare, he saw many wonderful evidences of the intellectual life of that institution. Above all, he saw a famous copy of the Holy Scripture so beautifully illuminated that he thought it the finest book in the world. His description would show us that if this copy of the Scriptures which Gerald saw was not the book of Kells as some have ventured to suggest, it was at least a copy not unlike that famous illuminated volume which is, perhaps, the most {290} beautiful book that ever came from the hand of man. The arts and the crafts evidently were studied and practised as well as book-learning at Kildare, and Brigid's influence brought to her at her college of Kildare, literally thousands of the daughters of the nobility of Ireland, of England and of portions of the Continent, attracted by her sanctity and her scholarship and the wonderful intellectual and artistic work that was being accomplished there. With these facts in mind it is easy to see that the Church, far from opposing in any way the higher education for women, has not only encouraged but actually patronized it whenever there is a demand for it on the part of any generation in history. Feminine education comes and goes, so though in less markedly cyclical fashion does masculine education. Just what the law behind these cycles is we do not know as yet. One thing is sure, now that another cycle of interest has come to feminine education in the world, the Church is not only willing but anxious to give her children the benefit of it, and the growth of the higher education among Catholics for Catholic young women in America in the last decade is the best evidence of this. Our teaching Sisterhoods in this country have nobly lifted themselves up to the occasion demanded, and we may well be proud of our Catholic colleges for women. Personally I know what is being done at some half a dozen of them, and I have no hesitation {291} in saying that they are giving a better, solider, though perhaps, a less showy education than their secular rivals. Of your work at St. Elizabeth's I have had such personal information as makes me realize how thorough are the efforts to provide every possible opportunity for higher feminine education and how successful they are.