For the elder girls it is not so simple, and the nearer they come to our own times the more necessary is it to put before them that good is not always unaccompanied by evil nor evil by good.
In the last two or three years of a girl's education all the time that can be spared may be most profitably spent on the study of modern history, since it is there that the more complex problems are found, and there also that they will understand how contemporary questions have their springs in the past, and see the rise of the forces which are at work now, disintegrating the nations of Europe and shaking the foundations of every government.

There are grave lessons to be learnt, not in gloomy or threatening forecasts but in showing the direction of cause and effect and the renewal of the same struggle which has been from the beginning, in ever fresh phases.

The outcome of historical teaching to Catholics can never be discouragement or depression, whatever the forecast.

The past gives confidence, and, when the glories of bygone ages are weighed against their troubles, and the Church's troubles now against her inward strength and her new horizons of hope, there is great reason for gratitude that we live in our own much-abused time.

In every age the Church has, with her roots in the past, some buds and blossoms in the present and some fruit coming on for the future.
Hailstorms may cut off both blossoms and fruit, but all will not be lost.