be a necessary preliminary to a stable and consistent

settlement.

But just at the time when the difficulties of the question "What ought girls to learn?" were first making themselves seriously felt, a partial solution was afforded by our universities, in throwing open to girls those local examinations which had for some time been exercising considerable influence on a large class of boys' schools. Since they have become popular, those examinations have had more power in establishing a system of instruction in girls' schools than they could ever have among boys. For whereas the leading public schools for boys have not required this kind of examination, but left the benefits of it to the lesser public and the private schools, among girls, as a rule it is the public schools of the highest grade that have generally furnished a large proportion of the candidates. And the unsettled, loose state of girls' education made it ready to flow into any mould that was presented by sufficient authority. But though the influence of the local examinations on girls' schools has been powerful both for evil and for good, it did not finally determine the choice of subjects which should form the chief elements in the education of girls, since their object is to test knowledge in the subjects presented for examination, not to prescribe a routine, and considerable latitude is left to those preparing pupils for examination as to the relative stress which may be laid on the different subjects taken, the points which may be made strong, and the additional matter which may be cursorily acquired in the hope of gaining a few more marks or escaping a failure. Let us glance for a moment at the different kinds of curriculum which, even within the limits imposed by the university local examinations, may be, and actually are adopted by teachers of various capacities and tastes.

One plan on behalf of which much might be said is to make no difference, at least during school years, between the instruction of girls and that of boys, to ground them well in the elements of classics and of mathematics, the primary requisites for a literary and for a scientific education

respectively. For after all, the female mind is not essentially different from the male. Some processes of reasoning may generally be easier to one sex or to the other, but there is no way by which women can acquire sound knowledge save by patience and accuracy in apprehending and in retaining truth, qualities which are likely to be promoted in similar ways among boys and among girls. But such a scheme is beset with difficulties. Setting aside one that is entirely temporary, the difficulty at present of finding a sufficient number of mistresses well trained in classics and mathematics, we come to the more serious drawback that there is a great danger at present of putting a severer strain upon girls than their physical strength is able to bear. True, a healthily-trained girl has often a great deal of mental and nervous force, and if only thoroughly sound methods of instruction were adopted, that force might be greatly economised. Still, every one who has had much practical acquaintance with girls knows their tendency to overstrain their powers not so much by work as by worrying themselves over their work when the tasks set them require strenuous exertion. Very few have that power of throwing aside all thought of work during the time of recreation which is observed in the average school boy. True, as the physical culture of girls improves, this difficulty may be partly or wholly removed, but our practical concern is with the state of things at the present day. And when we remember that a number of small demands of a domestic nature are constantly made on the time of a girl, and that public opinion, perhaps rightly, demands of her more acquaintance with music and the other arts than is expected from her brothers, we must acknowledge that it is unreasonable to require girls to learn all that boys learn, plus a good deal which, whether well or ill-taught, has been demanded from the women of previous generations. An intelligent girl's powers of brain and nerves are like an elastic band. They often seem capable of bearing a great strain for some years and then suddenly and unexpectedly collapse. The consideration, likewise, of the rapid changes taking place in the

education of boys, which are tending to alter the old routine in many ways, may make us hesitate to adopt voluntarily a heavy burden, which, when imposed by necessity, may sometimes be found a useful ballast.

A second plan is to make the more important part of a girl's education consist in a training in English language and literature. Those who know how to teach these subjects in a thorough and at the same time a lively manner find in them an excellent means of drawing out the mental powers of pupils, of leading them to observe and to remember and of awakening a power of criticism and original thought. They also yield a much speedier harvest of intellectual wealth than those harder studies which involve years of drudgery before the pupil is able to discern any relation in them to his own daily life of thought and action. For those whose early education has been neglected and who have no time to make up past deficiencies, it is certainly more profitable to learn to appreciate Shakspere and Milton, than to spend an equal amount of time in toiling at Greek and Latin grammar without a hope of being able ever to read Virgil or Homer with ease and pleasure. On the other hand, for the large and continually increasing class of young women who have both leisure and intellectual taste such as to make them capable of receiving a thorough literary or scientific education, such a curriculum is manifestly insufficient. Their whole mental career is hindered by a want of training in those elements which are best acquired in youth, while the verbal memory is most tenacious, and the critical faculty as yet undeveloped. To them it will seem that their school training has been of little value, if it has merely supplied them with the kind of knowledge which they would else have obtained for themselves in the intervals of graver studies, if it has been devoted to stimulating their intellectual desires rather than to supplying their intellectual needs. And again, where such a plan is pursued, where English studies are made all-in-all, and classics, mathematics, and science are only admitted as unnecessary luxuries, as time and occasion serve, the good

to be derived from these latter subjects is reduced to a minimum. For it is quite impossible that even Latin and elementary mathematics should be taught with any real advantage unless a much larger portion of the scholar's time is devoted to them than has hitherto been the case in most girls' schools. A merely superficial study, such as is represented by a weekly lesson requiring an hour's preparation, is most likely to breed either a vain confidence in attainments which are not really possessed or an equally ungrounded belief in the superiority of mental power in boys proportionate to their superior knowledge of the subjects which form the groundwork of their education.

Very similar arguments might be brought both for and against the plan of using modern foreign languages as the principal part of the intellectual training of girls. If these are well taught, they may both help in forming habits of accuracy and furnish the keys to wide fields of literature. But for those who aim high, they can never take the place of classical languages, especially as a really scientific study of any Romance language presupposes an acquaintance with Latin, for want of which the knowledge obtained is often superficial and valued rather on account of its practical than of its educative use.

There is, however, a worse method than any of these three, which teachers, distracted by the arguments of rival theorists and the demands of impatient parents, are sometimes tempted to adopt. This is, not to elevate any subject to the paramount position held by classics and mathematics in the education of boys, but to divide a tolerably equal portion of time to each of the subjects which are commonly contained in the curriculum of a liberal education. The result must be that almost everything is taken in a scrambling and superficial way. Where the pupils are prepared for examinations, those subjects encroach in which the candidates are expected to pass or to obtain distinction. The rest are taken up as soon as one examination is over, and dropped as the time of the next approaches, and so no satisfactory progress in them can be made. The minute

subdivision of time and the continual changes lead to distraction of mind, and are totally preventive of calm and steady work. And if any girls are really able for a time to work vigorously at a multitude of subjects at once, in order to offer them at a local examination, the strain they undergo is probably injurious both to body and mind.

The want of thoroughness, of concentration, and of calm which results from the practice of studying too many subjects at once is very frequently complained of among those interested in the education of girls. The worst dangers might be avoided by adopting a principle which an eminent public schoolmaster has called "stratification of studies.' If the subjects taught-with the exception of some which are hardly capable of such treatment-were alternately during a year or a shorter period of time made the principal or the sole work of a class, the pupils would be enabled to obtain a firmer grasp of them, and the danger of forgetting what had been learned might be met by judiciously arranged recapitulatory work. Such a method seems particularly applicable to the study of modern languages and of history. The minds of children who have to learn several languages at once become hopelessly confused and they often come to the end of their schooldays without having a practically useful acquaintance with any. The history taught in schools often amounts to no more than the amount of English history contained in a dry text-book which is gone through every year, and teachers complain that if there is only time for one lesson per week in the subject they really cannot attempt to secure such a minute and thorough study as could make the pupils feel a genuine and intelligent interest in their work. But if for one term of the three history were made an important subject, and an hour or two daily devoted to it, there would be time to work in detail through a course of books on the history of some country or of some notable period in many countries, and the insight gained would more than compensate for any neglect of the subject during the two remaining terms. Similarly with regard to mathematics :