Three Centuries of Girls' Education

Three Centuries of Girls' Education," edited by Mary Anne O'Neil, is an examination and English translation of the 1705 Ráeglemens des Religieuses Ursulines de la Congrâegation de Paris, the first pedagogical system explicitly designed for the education of girls in France. O'Neil traces the history of the Regulations from the writings of the Italian foundress of the Ursulines, to the establishment of the religious order in Paris in 1612, to the changes in the organization of Ursuline schools in nineteenth-century France and, finally, to Mother Marie de Saint Jean Martin's spirited defense of the traditional French Ursuline method after World War II. In addition to explaining the schools' organization, curriculum, and teaching methods created by the 1705 Ráeglemens, O'Neil situates Ursuline pedagogy in a historical framework. She discusses the history of the order itself, the history of girls' education in France from the Renaissance to the Counter Reformation, the Catholic Church's stance on education in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the conflicts between church and state over education, and the changes in the curricula offered in Catholic schools for girls in France from the late Renaissance until the end of the nineteenth century. The Regulations is one of the few surviving documents describing the day-to-day operations of schools in early modern France and the most important of such documents for girls' education. Later in the eighteenth century, copies of the Regulations crossed the Atlantic to New France (Quebec) and Louisiana, where the New Orleans Ursulines used them as a guide to establish their schools and teaching methods. O'Neil's translation, the first in English, preserves the expression and style of the anonymous authors who exemplify the clarity of seventeenth-century French Classical writing. Her translation and history of the Regulations is sure to appeal to readers interested in the history of ideas in France, the history of girls' education, and Catholic education in America"--