CONVENTICLE
342
CONVENT
much according to circumstances. Some convents,
on account of their poverty, are obliged to insist upon
it, and, generaUy speaking, most expect their members
to bring some contribution to the general fund. A
convent that is rich will often dispense with the dowry
in the case of a highly promising candidate, but it
must always depend upon particular circumstances.
The mintmimi amount of the dowry required is gen-
erally fixed by the rule or constitutions of the convent
or order.
Office. — In most of the older contemplative orders the choir nuns are bound to recite the whole Divine Office in choir. In only a very few of the English convents, e. g. Cistercians, Dominicans, and Poor Clares, do the nuns rise in the night for Matins and Lauds; in the others these Offices are generally said in the evening " by anticipation". In some there are other additional offices recited daily; thus the Cister- cians and Poor Clares say the Office of Our Lady and that of the Dead every day, and the Brigittines say tlie latter thrice in the week, as well as an Office of the Holy Ghost. Almost all the active orders, both enclosed and unenclosed, use the Office of Our Lady, but some, like the Sisters of Charity, are not bound to the recitation of any Office at all.
Lay Sisters. — In most orders the nuns are divided into choir sisters and lay sisters. The latter are usu- ally employed in the household duties and other manual work. They take the usual vows and are as truly religious as the choir nuns, but they are not bound to the choir Office, though they often attend the choir at the time of Office and recite certain prayers in the vernacular. There is always a distinction between their habit and that of the choir nuns, sometimes very slight and sometimes strongly marked. In some orders where the choir sisters are enclosed the lay sisters are not; but in others they are as strictly en- closed as the choir nuns. Several orders have, by their rule, no lay sisters, among them being the Sisters of Notre Dame, the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Bon Secours, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and the Poor Servants of the Mother of God.
Conventual Buildings. — The internal arrange- ment of a properly constituted convent is, for the mo.st part, similar to that of a monastery for men (see Abbey and Monastery), but from poverty and other obvious causes, many convents have had to be established in already-existing ordinary dwelling- houses, which do not always lend themselves to ideal adaptation. (See Cloister ; Dower of Religious; Nun; Office; Schools.)
Helyot, Hist, des orders religieux (Paris, 1792); Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (London, 1817-30); Smith in Diet. Christ. Antiq. (London, 1880), s. v. Nun; Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism (Cambridge, 1896); Bateman, Origin and Early History of Double Monasteries in Transactions of Royal Historical Society (London, 1899), XIII; Graham, St. Gilbert of Scmpringham and the Gilbertines (London, 1901): Steele, The Convents of Great Britain (London, 1902); Gasquet, Eng- lish Monastic Life (London, 1904); Mabillon, Annales O. S. B. (Paris, 1703-39); Dn Cange, Glossarium, ed. Henschel (Lon- don, 1884), s. V. Conventus.
G. Cyprian Alston.
Conventicle Act. See Penal Laws.
Convent Schools (Great Britain). — Convent ed- ucation is treated here not historically but as it is at till! present day, and, by way of introduction, it may be briefly stated that the idea of including the educa- tion of the young amongst the occupations of a re- ligious community is practically as old as that of the religious life for women itself. From the earliest liiiiis it «:!■< fustcimitry in England for children to be (■duc:iliii iti cMinciits, and we know that the nuns who wriit forth fruiii Wimborne in the eighth century to licl|) St. Boniface in his work of evaiigrliziiig Saxony, cstalihshed convent schools wherever they went, in which a very high standard of scholarship was at- tained. Stray remarks in Chaucer and other medie- val writers likewise reveal the fact that the English
convent schools of the Middle Ages compared favour-
ably with schools for the other sex. But all this came
to an end at the Reformation, so far as England was
concerned; and, .save for one notable exception, Eng-
lish convent education had practically to start afresh
m the nineteenth century. The exception referred to
was the Bar Convent at York, belonging to the Insti-
tute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose foundress.
Mary Ward, was the pioneer of religious congregations
devoted to the education of English girls. The Bar
Convent was established in 1686, and in spite of penal
laws, Protestant persecution, no-popery riots, and
even, on more than one occasion, the imprisonment of
the nuns for their faith, the work of the convent has
continued from that day to this, and with its himdred
and eighty houses in different parts of the English-
speaking world, the Institute of the B. V. M. has long
held a foremost place amongst the teaching orders of
the Church.
The opening of numerous convents in England dur- ing the latter half of the nineteenth century has pro- duced correspondingly numerous convent schools, in many of which, be it noted, Protestant as well as Catholic girls (especially in day and elementary schools) have been and are still being educated. The foundation of training colleges for Catholic teachers, the demand for teachers with academic qualifications, the move in favour of Government inspection with the consequent official recognition of convent schools, and the more recent advance in the way of higher education for Catholic women, have all combined to raise the standard of convent education; and the lead- ing teaching orders have proved equal to the demand made upon their capabilities and energy. The con- vents stand foremost in the work they have done for religion and education, and they have turned out hundreds of girls, not only educated in the highest sense of the word but also truly religious.
Although in its widest sense the term "Convent Schools" may be taken to include all those, of what- ever kind, in which the w'ork of education is under- taken by female religious — such as primary or ele- mentarj' schools (whether mixed or for girls only), reformatory and industrial schools — it is only pro- posed in this article to deal with secondary schools, i. e. day or boarding schools for the upper and middle classes, training colleges for Catholic schoolmistresses, and colleges for the higher education of women, these being more closely connected with convent life itself.
Secondary Education. — Almost all convent sec- ondary schools are under Government inspection. This gives them the status of being "recognized" by the Board of Education, regulates their course of studies, and ensures unity of method and efficiency. Some are also in receipt of a State aid-grant, which places certain restrictions upon their methods of man- agement. Where no grant is accepted the nuns are more independent as regards the admission and refusal of pupils. The aim of all religious orders engaged in secondary education for girls is, whilst making every effort to keep abreast of modern require- | ments with regard to scholastic efficiency, to give also the additional advantage of a thorough religious training, so that jiarents may have no reason to fear that by securing the latter for their children they are sacrificing the greater temporal advantages that might be obtained at a Protestant school. The system of Govermiient inspection and recognition by the Board of Education, with or without the State aid-grant, .secures the necessary degree of effi- ciency, whilst the general character and repvitation of the various commimities by which the schools are conducted sufficiently guarantees the religious side of their educational work. Government inspectors and public examiners have fretiuently testified to th excellent moral tone and atmosphere of conven schools and to the cordial relations existing betwe
