Page:Life and life-work of Mother Theodore Guerin Foundress.djvu/34

22 necessarily suffered frequent interruptions from the more urgent demands on the clergy in the exercise of their ministry; in fact, it may be said that during this period there was nothing in the educational line beyond that of private tutorship.

Madame Guérin, a person of good education and refined attainments, was well fitted to discharge the duties of instructress to her children, and from her they received their earliest lessons. She taught them, besides the elements of religion, the rudiments of the language and of mathematics; history, too, was a part of their daily study. They were familiar with the Bible stories, and were surprisingly conversant with the history of their times in all its details, particularly of the crisis just passed, the immediate results of which were making themselves so severely felt.

But at nine years of age Therese Guérin was confided to the care of a young woman who undertook to conduct a school in her own dwelling. Here the child at once manifested her superior talents; but being so much in advance of the other pupils she derived comparatively little benefit from this arrangement. While her attendance contributed very little to her intellectual improvement, it discovered that she was a leader among the children. They gathered around her and obeyed her every dictation without demur or objection, so completely were they under her sway. She herself was well aware of her prestige, and it was natural that she should be flattered by it. This consciousness of ascendency might have proved a rock of peril to her, as the thirst for power unsatisfied with a small measure soon leads to despotism and tyranny,