You can understand, then, that when I say to you graduates of St. Elizabeth's, go out and fulfill your missions, whatever they may be, I mean {295} that you shall be ready to take up any work for which your education and your training fit you, and God grant it may bring you such opportunities for good as have been exemplified in the lives of so many Catholic women all down the ages. There is nothing more than this that I could say to you. Our mother Church, far from wanting to keep women in the background, has always accorded them full and equal rights in their own domains and, above all, has given them absolute independence in the religious organizations as far as that is compatible with effective co-operation in good work. You may be sure, then, that any work that you find to do worthy of you, and that you take up whole-heartedly, will have not only her blessing but you shall find every encouragement. The glorious examples of the Catholic women of the past, educated, intellectual women, some of whom like St. Teresa, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Jane Frances De Chantal and St. Brigid are high among the greatest intellectual women that ever lived, will be your guiding stars, and if you keep them in mind you shall not go wrong. Remember that we expect much and we have a right to expect much of the women graduates of our Catholic Women's Colleges--you have a great mission, you have put your hand to the plow, do not look back,--onward and upward. God's in his world and all's well. Only our co-operation is needed. {296} {297} ORIGINS IN AMERICAN EDUCATION {298} "Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt." --Caesar, _Bell. Gall., iii:8._ [Men believe readily what they want to.] "Great additions have of late been made to our knowledge of the past; the long conspiracy against the revelation of truth has gradually given away .... It has become impossible for the historical writer of the present age to trust without reserve even to the most respected secondary authorities. The honest student finds himself continually deserted, retarded, misled by the classics of historical literature." --_Preface of "Cambridge Modern History."_ {299} ORIGINS IN AMERICAN EDUCATION [Footnote 19] [Footnote 19: The material for this address was collected for a lecture on the History of Education for the Sisters of Charity of Mount St. Vincent's, New York, and the Sacred Heart Academy, Kenwood, Albany, N. Y. Subsequently it was developed for an address to the parochial school teachers of New Orleans and for the summer normal courses of St. Mary's College, South Bend, Ind., and St. Mary's College, Monroe, Mich. Very nearly in its present form the address was delivered in a course at Boston College in the spring of 1910.]