The Times

WOMAN AND HER SPHERE.

ST. PAUL, June 23.—Archbishop Ireland, in addressing the graduating class of St. Joseph's College this morning, said:

One of the great evils of the present time is that women in so-called high society are coming to regard with more and more toleration breaches of moral and civic laws committed by members of their own sex. In our hurried modern life, when men are devoting themselves almost entirely to things material, women should preserve the moral and spiritual side of existence. If they do not, the world may well fear.

The great fault of American education, the Archbishop said, was lack of seriousness. There was no depth of thought, no consistency of principles. An intellectual levity pervaded society. America, he thought, was decidedly inferior to other countries in intellectual culture.

"I believe in the intellectual woman," continued the speaker. "While woman's interest should be primarily in the home, yet there is no reason why it should be confined there. It is folly to belittle woman's influence today, for it is widespread and it is a power wherever it extends."

The Archbishop advised the members of the alumnae to read serious books, to keep up the studies of their school girl days, and to take a keen interest in everything that is for the betterment of humanity. He said that Catholic women had often been justly criticised for their apparent lack of interest in any work that takes them outside the home. This is evidently due, he said, to the Catholic woman's innate modesty, but he advised the alumnae to overcome constitutional timidity and take up any philanthropic work that would aid the world.