Education of Women." It has procured courses
of lectures, chiefly from Cambridge professors,
at Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, and other
towns. In the West of England the example
has been followed in several towns. In Glasgow
the example of Edinburgh was at once
followed. The professor of natural history first
gave a short course of geology to a class of
seventy ladies, and this was followed last
session by two courses, one on English literature,
and the other on physical geography, to
ladies' classes, numbering respectively three
hundred and thirty-six and a hundred and
forty.

At the beginning of this year, the example
of the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association
led to the formation of a London Ladies'
Educational Association, with like objects,
which looked for co-operation to the professors
of University College, London. With wise
promptitude it was resolved to be doing at
once, and risk the chance of a poor start rather
than spend a whole year in preparation. At
very short notice, and with not much public
announcement, two courses of lectures to
ladies were begun at the Beethoven Rooms, in
Harley-street: one by the professor of physics,
and one by the professor of English literature
at University College. Fifty-seven ladies
entered to the class of physics, and a hundred
and two to the class of literature. They
attended steadily to the end of courses each of
two dozen lectures; a considerable proportion
of them wrote essays and exercises, and worked
problems out. The work done, was as good as
that done in an ordinary college class, and the
success, as proved by the serious working
attention given to both courses, emboldened
the ladies' committee to attempt for their next
session—beginning on the ninth of November
this year—a greater extension of the system of
lectures to ladies than has hitherto been
ventured on elsewhere. Instead of two or three
courses, six courses are now to be given; and
the number of lectures in a course is raised,
without increase of fee, from two dozen to
three dozen: the subjects being, physics and
English literature again (different sections of
these subjects being taken), with the addition
of French literature, Latin, geometry, and
chemistry: each course being given by the
professor of its subject in University College,
London. Moreover, the scientific courses are
now to be given (for more full use of the
appliances necessary to such teaching), in the
lecture rooms appropriated to them within the
college walls: the ladies having not only an
hour to themselves, but also separate entrances
provided for them. Of course it remains to be
seen whether so quick an advance towards a
full scheme of aid to the higher education of
Englishwomen, will be met in London by a
sufficiently general desire for such education.
The ladies who attend these classes, which
admit none under seventeen, are chiefly of
ages varying between seventeen and four-and-
thirty. There are also older ladies who come
in the faith that a right human desire for
knowledge ends only with life—never, if death
be not the end of life—or who come that they
may take an active helpful interest in the studies
of their daughters. The movement has originated
chiefly among ladies whose associations
in life are with the more intellectual half of
the upper middle class, and from such it has
had its chief support; but high fees and
fashionable accessories have been studiously
avoided; and wherever these lectures have been
established, there is absolute exclusion of all
petty sense of clique and caste. The striving
governess sits by the fashionable lady; as in
the college class room the poor student who
will hereafter battle hard for bread, sits on
equal terms by the inheritor of thousands. Our
English ladies—honour to them for it!—have,
in fact, without effort, brought into the
lecture rooms of their establishing, with other
requisites, that fine catholic spirit which should
be inseparable from a place of study.

THE FISHERS OF LOCH BOISDALE.

THE Tern's* first anchorage in the Long
Island was at Loch Boisdale, and it was
there that the dreary landscape of the Uist
began to exercise its deep fascination over
the Wanderer's mind. We lay at the usual
place, close to the pier and inn, in the
full enjoyment of the ancient and fish-like
smell wafted to us from the curing places
ashore. The herring-fishers had nearly all
departed, save one or two native crews who
were still labouring leisurely; but they had
left their débris everywhere—skeletons of
huts, piles of peat, fish-bones, scraps of
rotten nets, even broken pots and dishes.
One or two huts, some entirely of wood,
stood empty, awaiting the return of their
owners in the following spring. The whole
place was deserted, its harvest time was over.
When we rowed ashore in the punt, the
population, consisting of two old men and
some dirty little boys, received us in grim
amazement and silence, until the advent of
the innkeeper, who, repressing all outward
symptoms of wonder, bade us a shy welcome
and showed us the way to his establishment.
The obvious impression was that
we were insane; the tiny craft we had
come over in, our wild and haggard
appearance, and, above all, the fact that we
had actually come to Loch Boisdale for
pleasure (a fact unprecedented in the mind
of the oldest inhabitant) all contributed to
show our quality. The landlord was free
and inquisitive, humouring us cunningly
as the keepers do mad people, receiving all
our statements calmly without contradiction

* See ALL THE YEAR ROUND, New Series, vol. ii.,
p. 197.