This event checked for a while the work of the good society which M. de Villeneuve had founded, and of which he was the president and the "animus." This society was composed of enlightened Catholic fathers and mothers, who were fervent in their desires of establishing high Catholic education on a firm and practical basis. It was a committee formed to aid the practice of those precepts delivered by the zealous pastors of the church; to examine the books put into the hands of children, and to have them written, if none suitable were found, on the subjects required; to discuss all points of discipline recommended to them by the teachers, and provide that the financial department should not harass those who had charge of the intellectual department. {49} They were outside co-operators in the good work of education; valuable coadjutors in a matter in which it concerns every good Catholic to interest himself, for society is made up of individuals, and on the good training of those individuals depends the public welfare. Their schools comprised both sexes; I will now speak of the girls only, as it was the matter in which our friend Hester most interested herself, for the reason that she thought that the formation of good women, wives and mothers, is lost sight of in the fashionable circles of our large cities. She had discovered that the fathers and husbands (men of large wealth and of thriving business) were, through the extravagance and non-domesticity of their families (more particularly of their wives and daughters), leading a life of torture under the appearance of prosperity; and that young men, with incomes of from $1,500 to $2,000 a year, shrank from marrying, because of the extravagance and selfishness they daily witnessed among the ladies. "Now," said Hester, with something of her old positiveness, "if this is so, the responsibility of the shame and degradation of so many unfortunate women lies at the door of the rich and honored ladies who turn aside from them in disgust, and the education of true women must be the basis of the renovation of society: for to woman's influence is confided the happiness of the family, as to family influence is committed the guardianship of the state. Where the family is out of joint, the state will be out of joint too. O my dear Edward! I now comprehend the prophecy you think so much of: 'That the worship of the blessed mother of God will be in after times one such as is not dreamed of in the present age of disruption. The blessed Virgin is the example of all womanhood; the family of Nazareth the true type of the Christian family; labor, purity, intelligence, submission, such must be the watchwords of all womanly training; such will form happy households and forward true progress.'" The objects of the educational institutions at Villeneuve were in strict accordance with these views; they comprised several classes, and in each class were several departments.