showing it, shall be a prize pupil, shall be
considered perfect in this department of the
institution, and shall pass on to the higher branches
of the Mangy-Gossip-Suppression Class, and the
Dress-Resignation Class.

If the different departments already
enlarged upon are important, in what words shall
I speak of the necessity there is for the prompt
organisation of my establishment, in order that
the Mangy-Gossip-Suppression Class may be
instantly brought into action? Its working should
be of this sort. Talking of the freest kind
should be promoted among the pupils for a
certain length of time, after which they should go
through an examination in connexion with it,
and the students who were swiftest to detect
at what particular points the recent conversation
had degenerated into gossip should be promoted
to high places in the establishment, and should
be exonerated for a certain number of days from
attendance in the Household-Bill-auditing and
Shirt-button-Supervision Classes—a reward
which should likewise be conferred upon all
pupils who had declined to listen to stories
seasoned with that most piquante of all sauces,
the disparagement of a dear and intimate friend.
The students in this department should also go
through a course of instruction, in which they
should be taught to look with suspicion upon
all such members of the Institution as should
come into the room in a hurried, breathless, and
fussy state of importance, saying, " I've come,
at great personal inconvenience, to tell you
something which I think you ought to know;" or,
"I have just heard a report about Miss Lamb,
in connexion with last week's bill-auditing,
and as to the truth of which Miss Wolf, who is
well-informed on the subject, is ready to pledge
herself at any moment."

Great pains should be taken with the Mangy-
Gossip-Suppression Class. The elder pupils
should be instructed to enter into plots with each
other for the concoction of some very intricate
story, and the junior members of the class should
be lured in all conceivable ways to listen to
accounts of the same, furnished by all sorts of
persons, who should be especially qualified for
purveying the exact truth of the matter by
knowing nothing whatever about it. Then, in
reference to this very question of the rights
and the wrongs of the dispute between Mesdemoiselles
Wolf and Lamb, who is there who could
approach the new pupil, little Credula Swallow,
with such certain information as to all the
particulars of the question in dispute as Miss
Chink, who had it from Miss Keyhole, who, in
her turn, heard all about it from the next-door-
but-five neighbours of the Peep-o'-day-boys,
whose estates in Ireland are in immediate
contact with the bog-country, which belongs to the
Irish branch (non-resident) of the Fox family,
who are related, as everybody knows, by the
mother's side, to this very Miss Wolf herself,
about whom the story is circulated! Of course,
the new pupil falls into the trap, and listens to
all this, and being punished by a week's auditing
of the most intricate (and greasy) butchers' bills
procurable from the London shambles, never
listens to any such narratives any more.

The instances of departments quoted above
will be sufficient to furnish some idea of the
establishment which I propose should be started
with as little delay as possible. Many more
examples might be given, as, for instance, the
Dress-Resignation Class, in which young ladies
should be induced to set their hearts on some new-
fashioned garment, and should resign it at the
request of other pupils, who should be
supposed to personate husbands unconvinced of the
beauty, and quite convinced, of the expense,
of the article of costume in question. A
consideration of this branch of my subject suggests to
me at once the inquiry: Whom do my girls
dress for? Do my eldest girl, for instance, who
is engaged to young Mr. Judex, the barrister,
dress to please that discriminating personage?
Is it to please him that she wears a bonnet with
a great, hard, empty crown sticking out behind,
which is (or was five minutes ago) the fashion
in Paris, and with a blazing ribbon and rosette
appended to it? Is it to gratify his taste that she
puts on a red petticoat with a steel cage
underneath it, which renders it impossible for that
young man to give her his arm when they walk
out, and which swept the cloth and the lamp clean
off my work-table only last night? Is it to
please Mr. Judex that she does all this? Not a
bit of it. I think I have heard that gentleman
express, more than once, views on all these
matters diametrically opposed to the adoption
of the fashions just spoken of. The young
ladies dress for themselves, and at each other.

The details of my Institution grow under my
hands, and I find it difficult to abstain from a
still more lengthened development of its
intention and the manner of its working, than
even this into which I have entered. The
combination of public nurseries with the
establishment, for instance, is a thing that suggests
itself at once as desirable. All young girls are
fond of nursing, and the advantages that would
accrue to my pupils from an occasional
superintendence of temporary homes for children whose
mothers are employed at work, would be very
great indeed.

But whither, some one asks, is all this tending?
You are training up these young ladies to
be upper-nurses and upper-housekeepers. Not
so. I am training them up to be wives and
mothers. It must not be forgotten for a
moment that my Institution is only supposed to be
supplementary to those establishments where
the accomplishments and studies of which an
ordinary education consists are done ample
justice to. What I ask is this: is equal justice
done to those accomplishments the importance
of which I am venturing to urge?

At my time of life I seldom or never go to
parties, but last summer I was persuaded, when
at Cheltenham, to attend one of these festivities
at the house of a very old and dear friend. At
the conclusion of the party, as I was coming
away, I happened to look into a back-drawing-
room which I thought was empty, and there I