best in their character, less fit than men for
professional school teaching or public speaking,
otherwise than by the pen.

One object of the founders of the Ladies'
Colleges in Harley-street and Bedford-square
was to supply the want of some standard of
knowledge to which ladies, by obtaining their
certificates, could show they had attained. A
like help has been since extended to others by
the Working Women's College in Queen-
square. And still ladies who wish to prove
that they are qualified teachers, often finish
their education in France, for the sake of the
certificate of fitness to teach obtainable under
the French system.

But this object has now been attained for
Englishwomen more effectually, by the liberal
action of the Universities of Cambridge and
London. A committee interested in advancement
of education among girls, obtained leave
from the Cambridge Syndicate to place, at a
private examination, before pupils from various
girls' schools, the papers given to the candidates
sent up from boys' schools to the Cambridge
local examinations of the year eighteen 'sixty-
three. At six weeks' notice, ninety-one girls
were collected as competitors in this private
examination; fifty-seven of them failed, and
of those who failed ninety per cent were
rejected for arithmetic alone. In the year 'sixty-
five, local examinations for girls were officially
recognised as part of the Cambridge system.
The teachers of the girls had learnt the sharp
lesson taught by their first failure, and, at
the next trial, of the girls who were rejected,
only three failed in arithmetic. One could
not desire better proof of the efficacy of a
system of strict and impartial test, applied
from without, in raising the standard of
preliminary education. No doubt the finest and
best minds are not necessarily those which
come out best from the rough test of a
competitive examination. To some senior students,
the work for examination, and to some teachers
the training for examination, must be
absolutely a clog on the best use of their minds.
But the wholesome effect upon the great
average mass of the teachers and taught,
is shown too clearly to be doubtful; while
the mind apt for original and independent
work can bear easily a short period of
constraint, and may be only the more apt
afterwards for its appointed uses. The Cambridge
local examinations have, since 'sixty-five, been
applied every year as tests of the school
training of both girls and boys. The girls
have slipped back in their arithmetic, and the
last report says that, in this subject, "more
efficient teaching is urgently required." The
boys beat the girls in algebra, but in one year
a girl greatly distinguished herself in applied
mathematics. In French, boys and girls are
about equal; but the girls know the grammar
best; the boys trusting too much to analogies
drawn from their imperfect knowledge of
Latin. In German, the girls always do best,
and they write better answers to history
questions, "more straightforward and to the
point," and with "fewer attempts at fine
writing." They beat the boys also in their
studies of Shakespeare; surpass them, says
one examiner, "in analysis of character and
choice of language." In languages, also, they
translate generally with greater spirit, and
show a livelier interest in the subject matter;
"express themselves more idiomatically, write
and spell better, and are far less frequently
guilty of putting down manifest absurdities."

This vivacity of mind rightly employed,
becomes, no doubt, rather alarming to the stolid
young man who was a booby at school, and
counts for a booby in the world among his
male acquaintances, but whose consolation
is that he may hope not to be known for a
booby in his home. Let him take heart. On
this side Millennium, it will never be impossible
for that young man to find a wife more
stupid than himself; or he may even find a
Titania content to take him, Bottom, for better
for worse, and worship him as long as he will
love her. The true woman is only more a
woman for the quickening of her whole nature
that culture brings with it. Instead of
confounding the difference of mind between
women and men, true education gives intensity
to the real characters of each, points all the
more strongly their differences, quickens their
natural action and reaction on each other,
doubles at once the delight and usefulness of
their companionship. The woman so prepared
is all the mother to her children, keen to
appreciate their efforts, prompt and wise in
sympathy, and by the subtle powers of her
love and knowledge arms their souls for
conquest in the strife to come. Starvation or
insufficiency of diet acts on the mind as on the
body. It may die into lunacy by a too complete
want of substantial food for thought, or,
ill-fed, may fall away into mere sickly feebleness.
The shape and fashion of the plough does
not so much concern the farmer, as the fact that
there should be ploughing and sowing if the
earth is to yield food for man. The best tilled
ground must have its seasons of fallow, and
the best trained mind needs times of holiday;
but steady culture of some kind is essential, if
the mind of man or woman is not to become a
wilderness of weed and thistle. Women, with
active intelligence that is, if anything, even
more restless than the wit of men, must suffer
in their minds if they are debarred from
intellectual employments. No doubt most women
are more apt than men for some studies and
less apt for others. But experience has now
shown clearly that in average ability and
in capacity for steady work, there is no
natural difference between boys and girls,
and that if there be any between men and
women, it is simply due to the fact that men
hitherto have received better training in their
youth. The University of Cambridge has
added to its local examinations an "Examination
for Women" who are beyond the age of
eighteen years and six months. According to
this plan, established in the present year, the
obtaining of a certificate depends upon