The Massachusetts Spy, And Worcester County Advertiser

VISIT TO A NUNNERY.
A writer in the Richmond Visitor, gives the following interesting account of the Catholic Monastery in Georgetown, near Washington city, which he recently visited:
The site of this Monastery is in the northwest part of the town. It stands on the borders of "the heights," and overlooks the body of the town below. The enclosure embraces about one acre. On the north side, is the Academy conducted by the Nuns, consisting of a long range of buildings, three stories high.
In the middle of the front or eastern side, stands the chapel. On the left of the chapel is the room of the Father Confessor, and also the private apartments of the nuns, into which no unhallowed tread of the worldly and profane is ever admitted.
The Academy, or High School for Ladies, is the most interesting appendage of the Convent. It contains a boarding school of upwards of one hundred pupils—and a free or charity school of a much larger number of day scholars.
What strikes the visiter with most pleasure, is the perfect system and order with which every thing is done. All is perfect clock-work. The young Misses who compose the school, are regularly and rigidly trained to do every thing on plan and method.
We first entered a long passage. Here were fixtures prepared for the cloaks, bonnets. &c. of the pupils, each numbered from 1 to 150; and each pupil has her particular number. The next room we visited was another long passage, adjoining the dormitories. In this was an extended range of wash-stands reaching through its length. Here the pupils commence their morning toilette. Each stand is furnished with bowl, pitcher, napkin, soap, combs, brushes, &c., and each numbered. The same is true of the beds or couches in the dormitories—of the departments or divisions of their common ward. robe—of their seats in the dining and study halls, and even of the depositories of their shoes, &c. Each pupil has the same number throughout the establishment.
The Seminary is divided into four classes.—The hall of the first class contains an extensive cabinet of minerals, to which many rare and valuable specimens have been presented by the officers of our Navy, and by Catholics of the eastern world. It has also many rich specimens of art—the contributions of wealthy and powerful patrons of the church. The sword, sheath and belt of Iturbide—once a hero of South America—two of whose daughters are now in this convent, was recently presented to the cabinet by Commodore Rogers. It also claims to have many sacred relics, such as shreds or scraps from the garments of numerous saints—fragments from the church and tomb of St. Peter, and of other Saints—pieces of the wood of the Cross, &c., of which the industry and credulity of the Catholics in the east, have collected enough, in the last 1400 years, to build a ship of the line. These relics, so says tradition, have been carefully preserved by a long line of Popes, Bishops, and Priests, and distributed among the churches and their convents, as the memorials of many precious and hallowed associations. The veneration with which they are regarded by Catholics, is well known. The same hall containing the cabinet, has a good chemical laboratory.
After visiting the other rooms, my conductresses led me to the domestic apartment, where the culinary operations of the great family are performed. This is kept with great care; every thing was neat, bright, and clean; and but for the implements of housewifery, carefully arranged about the room, one might have mistaken it for a drawing room.
One feature in the training of these young ladies I was wonderfully pleased with. It is this: two of them are taken every week by rotation, and placed in this parlor kitchen, where, under the instruction of one of the sisterhood, they perform all the operations of housewifery, for the week. They make the bread and bake it—the puddings, tarts, pies, cakes, &c. They roast the beef and fowls, and in short, perform the whole labor of house-keeping, except the drudgery. At the end of the week they return to their study, and two others take their places.
This is as it should be. Domestic education is almost wholly overlooked with us. Young ladies are trained up as if to charm and please and grace the drawing room were to be the sole business of their lives. They are taught to sing, dance, to play the piano and guitar, to read bad French and write worse English, to trifle gracefully, (all of which I acknowledge I like very well, if backed by solid attainments,) and now and then one, to think profoundly; but not one in ten, on arriving at a proper age for taking charge of a family knows how to make a pudding or a pie that would be eatable, unless she were to make it "by book."
The Chapel in this convent will not vie in wealth with those of the older Convents in Catholic countries. Its architecture and furniture are not splendid. It is supplied, of course, with the usual furniture of vases, altars, candlesticks, images, statues and pictures. Every thing is ordered for effect. The imposing forms of worship, heightened by the numerous visible objects of sacred or superstitious regard, backed by the wily influence of the Priests, and the enthusiastic earnestness of the Nuns, are well suited to captivate the imaginations of young and giddy school girls. Of their Seminary, their plan, their broad, rigid and thorough system of education, I think well; but at the same time, I cannot think it safe or at all consistent for true protestants to send their daughters there—as many do.
The number of nuns in this Convent, at present, is about sixty. Among them are descendants of several rich and powerful families. Their employment consists in confessions, vigils, fasts, penances, reading and religious exercises, in teaching, in domestic concerns, and in making fine needle-work for sale. The Charity School embraces about 200 day pupils. For their humanity and benevolence in collecting and teaching these children, the Nuns deserve praise. In these employments they appeared happy; but the happiness of these devotees, if real, must be of the negative kind
In one respect I was much disappointed. Instead of finding in the Convent, a set of rigid, sour, austere female ascetics, I met with cheerfulness approaching to vivacity—with kindness the most engaging, and with politeness the most natural and unaffected.