JOHN BULL'S OTHER ISLAND. 203 



for tlie economic emancipation of women, 

 curiously enough is carried on in remote 

 places islanded by bogs, where the teachers 

 are nuns, presided over by a Mother Superior. 

 Truly, the old order changeth, giving place to 

 the new. 



I visited a large mansion once owned by an 

 Irish peer and now occupied at night by nuns, 

 and by day by peasant girls who tramp several 

 miles across the bogs to learn pig-keeping, 

 gardening, bee-keeping, dairying ; and in-doors, 

 washing and ironing, cooking, cleaning, and 

 the decoration of the home. Every day these 

 good and gracious ladies, these high priestesses 

 of Demeter, are teaching girls from fourteen 

 years of age upwards not to spend their lives 

 merely in making Irish lace, or in parasitic 

 labour, but to become efficient housewives and 

 mothers. 



The importance of educating Irish lasses 

 in domestic economy can liardly be over- 

 estimated, for Irish cooking has become a 

 byword. But apart from the education of 

 the Irish peasant girl as a housewife, her 

 education as a gardener and a decorative artist 

 is one which is likely to produce tidier, if not 

 happier, homesteads. The Irish farmer is a 



