By this means the names of the more abstruse branches are kept out of sight, and it is emphasized that the barest elements alone are within reach at present, so that the permanent impression may be--not "how much I have learned," but "how little I know and how much there is to learn." This secures at least a fitting attitude of mind in those who will never go further, and increases the thirst of those who really want more.
The most valuable parts of philosophy in the education of girls are:-- 1.

Those which belong to the practical side--logic, for thought; ethics, for conduct; aesthetics, for the study of the arts.
2.

In speculative philosophy the "disciplines" which are most accessible and most necessary are psychology, and natural theology which is the very crown of all that they are able to learn.
General metaphysics and cosmology, and in pyschology the subordinate treatises of criteriology and idealogy are beyond their scope.
Logic, as a science, is not a suitable introduction, though some general notions on the subject are necessary as preliminary instructions.

Cardinal Mercier presents these under "propaedeutics," even for his grown-up scholars, placing logic properly so called in its own rank as the complement of the other treatises of speculative philosophy, seen in retrospect, a science of rational order amongst sciences.
The "notions of logic" with which he introduces the other branches are, says the Cardinal, so plain that it is almost superfluous to enumerate them, "_tant elles sont de simple bon sens_," [1--"Traite Elfementaire de Philosophie," Vol.

I, Introduction.] and he disposes of them in two pages of his textbook.