THE WORLD’S DEBT TO THE IRISH 
over 130 feet in height and with its unusually orna- 
mental doorway is a very striking monument of Irish 
feeling toward St. Bridget and her work at Kildare. 
The abbey of Kildare thus founded by Bridget 
came to be known throughout the civilized world. 
With it was associated a school that rivalled those 
of the men throughout Ireland at this time. As a 
result visitors and students came from all over Ire- 
land itself, then its reputation spread beyond the 
seas and women came from England and from Gaul 
and from Iberia, some to stay as members of the re- 
ligious community, but others to take home with 
them the breath of the life of the mind and of the 
spirit which they had breathed in so deeply at Kil- 
dare. Bridget came to be looked upon as a wonder- 
ful counsellor and great ecclesiastics of the time 
came to see and consult the holy abbess whose name 
and fame were now known throughout the land. 
Mrs. Emily James Putnam writing in ‘“The Lady” 
(New York, 1909) a series of chapters on the posi- 
tion and influence that women have achieved down 
the centuries, did not hesitate to say that: 
“No institution of Europe has ever won for the 
lady the freedom and development that she enjoyed 
in the convent in early days. The modern college 
for women only feebly reproduces it, since the col- 
lege for women has arisen at a time when colleges in 
general are under a cloud. The Lady Abbess on 
the other hand, was part of the two great social 
forces of her time, feudalism and the Church. Great 
spiritual rewards and great worldly prizes were alike 
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