knowledge of arithmetic, of the English language,
literature and history (with religious knowledge,
if not specially objected to), and of two
languages, or else two sciences, or else
mathematics, or else political economy and logic.

In the present year, also, the University of
London has held the first of the examinations
authorised by a supplemental charter obtained
two years ago—in August 'sixty-seven—to
enable it to hold special examinations of women
who wish for certificates of proficiency. The
candidates for these certificates must be above
the age of seventeen. Having succeeded in this
first examination, they may proceed in the
following year to an examination for certificates
of higher value. The first test or "general
examination," corresponds in severity to that
of the matriculation examination for young
men. A proposal to lower the standard a
little, in consideration of the weaker character
of the preliminary teaching in girls' schools,
was wisely resisted. Without any special
mercy to their sex (which would only have
been special slight to their endeavours) the
ladies who came up for examination were
tested in Latin, including Roman history and
geography; and in two other languages, which
might be Greek, French, German, or Italian;
in the English language, history and geography,
in mathematics, in natural philosophy, and in
chemistry or botany. The successful candidates
were to be arranged in an honours division,
and in a first and second division without
honours. Nine came up, of whom six passed;
and they were all six in the honours division.
Of course, the few who were first to take
advantage of this opportunity were from the
number of those most alive to its value, and
this fact, as well as the small number offered
for comparison with the large number of young
men who come up to matriculate, make it
unfair to lay any stress on the fact that the
greater per-centage of success was on the side of
female candidates. Still there was the success;
and there is reason to expect that the beginning
has been made of a system of successive
examinations by which highly-educated
women, who desire to obtain confidence as
teachers, or for other reasons find it valuable
to have the degree of their attainments tested,
will be enabled to show university certificates
of value corresponding to the recognised degrees
earned by young men. The last act of this
kind is the establishment of a college near
Cambridge for girl students, which is now just
opened. At present it occupies a house at
Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, and it is "designed
to hold, in relation to girls' schools, a position
analogous to that occupied by the universities
towards the public schools for boys." The
desire of its council is to connect this with the
other Cambridge colleges, by obtaining from
the University of Cambridge permission for its
girl students to compete in the examination for
degrees.

Obviously there is not the smallest necessary
connexion between all this recent movement
for improving the education of women and
questions of political rights. A few other
social rights are, at the same time, winning
wider recognition—a woman's right to her own
earnings, for example; but her social right to
opportunities of healthy cultivation of the
mind may now surely be taken as past
question.

How wholesomely the recent movement has
grown out of the daily life of women in our
day, and the steady, quiet endeavour of women
themselves to escape from the stagnation of
thought to which many of them had long
been doomed, is shown by the rapid rise of a
new system of lectures to ladies. In town after
town, during the last two years, wherever
there is a university or staff of college teachers,
these lectures have been springing up, and the
want they meet is so real that they will become
one of the established customs of the country.
The honour of their first establishment is due,
we believe, to Edinburgh: though the
suggestion is said to have been first made in the
north of England. Six ladies of Edinburgh,
about two years ago, succeeded in establishing
the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association,
founded, supported, and managed, by
ladies only. They looked to professors of the
University of Edinburgh for the fulfilment of
their object. Ladies who had passed through
the stages of school training, and needed for
the stern uses of life higher education; or who
sought the healthy occupation of some form of
culture of the mind, while they fulfilled the home
duties for which quickened intelligence would
only make them the more apt, or took their
places in society; might attend many stray
lectures on popular science, or on literary
subjects likely to amuse. But something more was
asked on their behalf, and this was, that
professors and teachers who are entrusted by our
universities and colleges with particular parts
of the higher education of men should also do
something to meet the earnest wish of women
who desired like help. Ladies, entirely by
action of their own, formed themselves into
classes, and asked to be taught as men are
taught when they seek thoroughness of
knowledge: not in lectures planned to entertain
them, but in lectures that would show them
how to work. The beginning was made in the
session 'sixty-seven-eight, at Edinburgh, by the
professor of English literature in the university.
Two hundred and sixty-five ladies
attended his course. Many of these came
only to give support to the new movement, but
at least ninety-four came to do steady work. In
the following year, the number of courses was
advanced from one to three; and courses of
lectures were given in English literature,
experimental physics, and logic with mental
philosophy, each by the professor of its subject in
the university. The number of ladies who
attended was, for the English literature class,
one hundred and thirty; for the physics, one
hundred and forty; for the logic, seventy.
Nearly simultaneous with this action at
Edinburgh was the establishment of a "North of
England Council for promoting the Higher