Education and work with the young was close to the heart of Frances Cabrini. She herself was a teacher. Her first work in New York City was the education of impoverished Italian immigrants and the funding of an orphanage. Education was the centerpiece of Cabrini’s early work. Cabrinian education seeks to enflame hearts with an enthusiasm for life and love for all people. Mother Cabrini based her work on the “education of the heart”: promoting Gospel values, critical thinking and openness towards others. As a teacher, her aim was always the formation of the person and the development of Christian human values.
The legacy continues. Educators consider their work at Cabrini schools more as a way of life than as a place of employment. Alumni carry forward lessons of life-long learning.
Cabrini educational institutions are more than places of academic learning, serving students of diversified populations and teaching them values, faith and service which are characteristic of the Cabrinian education of the heart. Education for justice and the common good is integrated into curricula experientially as well as in theory. Each Cabrinian institution offers a genuine, practical approach to learning, which is prompted by a spirit of action based on gospel values.
Students not only research and discuss theoretical problems of social justice both domestically and of foreign lands, they also reach out in solidarity and service through direct aid, service projects and other means of support. The Cabrinian network of missions and ministries around the world make this kind of education for world citizenship possible.