ST. BRIDGET 
asteries made it a point to provide good seeds and 
the best of stock for their tenant farmers so that 
with the least labor and the least risk of loss they 
might cultivate their farms to the best advantage. 
President Goodell of the Massachusetts Agricul- 
tural College at Amherst at the opening of that 
institution called attention to the fact that the mon- 
asteries were the first agricultural schools, training 
their tenantry to the best use of their farm land, 
securing the best stock, teaching them to breed it 
properly, providing the best seed and improving the 
methods of farming. 
Without doubt St. Bridget’s intention when she 
insisted on taking her turn in caring for the monas- 
tery flocks and herds and in devoting herself to 
farm labor was to afford an efficient example in 
making the Irish folk around her agriculturally in- 
clined. It was not then so much for the sake of the 
personal effect on her own spirit as for the sake 
of the tenantry that this humble farm work was her 
favorite occupation. Monasteries and converts were 
what we have come to call in city life in modern times 
“settlements” among the people that accomplished 
sterling work of great humanitarian purpose. 
Around them the peasantry found help in their 
wants, consolation in their distress, education and up- 
lift for their children, direction in their farming, a 
supply of seeds when theirs had failed, and indeed 
a refuge in all their necessities. Bridget's was a 
great pioneer work in this regard begun even before 
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