Renowned Sacred Heart educator Janet Erskine Stuart was a woman of great compassion, judgment and intellect. Entering the Society of the Sacred Heart at age 25, she proved a natural and accomplished teacher, eventually outlining her educational philosophy in The Education of Catholic Girls. She served as Superior General from 1911 until her death in 1914. Nearly a century later, Mother Stuart remains a preeminent figure within the Society of the Sacred Heart.
Early Life
Janet Erskine Stuart was born November 11, 1857, in the English village of Cottesmore, where her father was rector of an Anglican parish. The youngest of 13 children, Janet was 14 months old when her mother died, leaving the large family under the care of her eldest sister, Dody.
Janet’s character was shaped in equal measure by her loving family and by the countryside where they made their home. Cottesmore, with its thatched cottage roofs, leafy lanes, flowered hedges, woods, and running brooks, was a child’s paradise. Janet learned to love nature as God’s unspoiled handiwork. She was her father’s constant companion and became well versed in farming and equine matters. She had a natural way with horses and became a superb rider and hunter.
French nurses, German governesses, Dody’s teachings, discussions with her brothers, the rectory library, and walks and talks with her studious father all contributed to Janet’s singular education. What a training in independent thought it provided!
A Challenge
At the age of 13, Janet’s brother Douglas challenged her with a life-altering remark, “Aristotle says every rational being must have a last end. What is yours?” Thus she embarked on a quest for her own last end, seeking to understand the grounds of her faith. She became a self-described agnostic for the next seven years.
Janet was first introduced to Catholic cathecism and writings through a distant cousin, and continued her studies under the tutelage of a Jesuit priest in London, Father Gallwey. When told of Janet’s decision to enter the Church, Canon Stuart exercised all means to dissuade his daughter, even arranging a meeting with revered British statesman William Gladstone.
Ultimately, Janet could not be deterred, and she was received into the Church on March 6, 1879 at age 22. Three years later, at the end of a retreat at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton, “during which she ‘braced herself’ to give up her joy in sport and her delight in nature,” Janet asked to enter the Society.
A Born Educator
Her strong faith and inquisitive mind were soon evident to the community. She was clear and resolute in purpose. Early in her years at Roehampton, Mother Stuart was marked for leadership, serving as submistress and then mistress of novices, a post she held for many years.
She was a born educator. As a teacher, she sought to give personal worth to each child. Her strong common sense and balanced judgment led her to expect of others only what they could give. She felt that careful observation was the key to understanding others, and so endeavored to train the young religious to be observant. She also believed, “it is not so much what we say or do that educates; what really educates is who we are.” Mother Stuart influenced education for future generations with The Education of Catholic Girls, which she wrote in 1911.
Elected Superior of the English houses, she traveled with Mother Mabel Digby, Superior General of the Society, to Paris, to Rome and around the globe. In the fall of 1898 they journeyed to the scenes of the early days of the Society in America, where she wrote from St. Charles: ”I cannot describe to you how [Philippine Duchesne's] presence seems to be constantly here with one, even in the chapel which she never saw, but especially in the old house, and above all in the little cell where she died, and which they have made into an oratory.”
Upon Mother Digby’s death in 1911, Mother Stuart was elected the fifth Superior General of the Society. She determined to visit all the houses of the Society within six years. She had, however, only three more years to live, dying at Roehampton on October 21, 1914.
Excerpts from Life and Letters of Janet Erskine Stuart, by Maud Monahan; and www.sofie.org
The Academy’s North Wing which was built in 1980 was rechristened “Stuart Center” in August 2007, when it became the dedicated space for our single gender Seventh and Eighth Classes. Today, Stuart Center contains eight classrooms (two on each of four levels) and informal gathering spaces for Seventh and Eighth Class students.
