CHAPTER XIV 
St. Bridget 
NOR our modern time very probably the most 
K surprising contribution to civilization made by 
the Irish in the enthusiastic early days of their 
Christianity, is that which they made to feminine 
education. Most people in our time are so accus- 
tomed to think that any hint of provision of educa- 
tion for women, that is of higher education, is 
entirely modern in origin that it can scarcely fail to 
be a matter of profound astonishment for them to 
learn that well above 1200 years ago in the fifth and 
sixth centuries of our era there was a distinguished 
feminine educator who laid the foundations of a 
great new development of education for women. 
Perhaps it would be even a greater source of sur- 
prise for them to learn that a very large number of 
women took advantage of the opportunities for edu- 
cation provided for them through her influence. 
It is all the more astounding to discover that this 
should have occurred in Ireland in a century at the 
beginning of the Middle Ages, that early part of 
them which is usually called the Dark Ages, and yet 
if there is one historical fact that has become very 
clear as the result of recent developments in our 
knowledge of the history of Christian civilization, it 
is that there was a great Irish woman educator of 
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