Christ's Folk in the Apennine Author:Francesca Alexander Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE MOTHER OF THE ORPHANS. I THINK we are beginning, Francesca and I, perhaps a little too grandly with our Polissenas, and Catinas, and Superioras, all at... more » once. Here are two letters just come, one from Francesca herself, one from her mother, which describe another order of folk of the Apennine,—they also very sweet, and dear, and wonderful ; and to be kept reverent record of, among the servants of heaven. So we will let the story of the Superiora wait a little, and have some talk of these ; only first, here is what Francesca says in answer to the envoi of " Pensatevi" and its questions :— " But now I must thank you for the beautiful words that you have written at the end of ' Pensatevi voi!' especially for what you said about schools. I have a perfect horror, myself, of all ' institutions' which separate children from their families ; and I, too, have known young people who have learnt infidelity, and much else that is bad, in those places. But one lesson they never fail to learn, whatever else is wanting,—that they can do very well without papa and mamma; and this lesson, once learnt, is never again forgotten, as papa and mamma, after they grow old, usually find out. And I do think that parents must be very bad indeed, not to be better, for their children, than any one else. " Then I wonder what most people mean by education. Awhile ago, I heard somebody lamenting sadly about a dearlittle girl whom I know, that her education was interrupted by her care of a sick mother! The poor mother wrote me, about the same time, that she could never be thankful enough for the blessing that she had in her little daughter, who never forgot anything that could be a comfort to her. I wonder if she would have been taught that, or anything else as good, in a boarding- school ? " But...« less