living, in the upper middle classes especially, which prevents fathers from leaving behind them provision for their daughters, and the consequent increase in the number of those ladies who are, as it is called, "thrown on to the world," the difficulty of finding situations for governesses is becoming more and more keenly felt.

Anyone who knows anything about occupationhunting will realise how difficult it is for dwellers in country places, small towns, &c., to use the necessary agencies for making their wants known, the principal of which is the registry office. Advertisements are not always a safe medium; and it has often proved a disastrous failure, on one or both sides, when an engagement as resident governess has been offered and accepted without a personal interview.

Now it is to meet this difficulty that a Home has been started, by a benevolent widow lady, who has taken a house in the Alexandra Road, St. John's Wood. It is not intended as a permanent home, residence being limited to two months.

The terms are very moderate, being 2s. 6d. per week for lodging, while the meals required will be charged for according to a fixed tariff, or a charge of 10s. per week, to include everything but beer or wine.

The arrangements are in the hands of a committee of ladies, some of whom are well known in connection with various philanthropic labours.

The smallness of the undertaking will prevent its being self-supporting for some time to come, and in this its infancy it will need to be largely assisted by voluntary contributions. Let it reach, however, the dimensions its committee aspires to, and the scheme will pass out of the range of charity into the more desirable state of a self-supporting institution.

Donations and subscriptions, large or small, will be thankfully received by the hon. sec. pro. tem., Mrs. Newland, 17, Clarence-terrace, Regent's-park, who will kindly give information to those interested in the work. L. ORMISTON CHANT.

Review

ART. V.--THE STANDARDS OF INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION.

It would be difficult to point out among the Legislative Acts of the last decade any which has done more good with the means at its disposal than has the Intermediate Education Act of Ireland. During the four years of its existence it has raised considerably the standard of education for boys and girls alike. It has given a common interest to the teachers of youth of different denominations; it has raised the character of the schools; it has introduced the teaching of additional subjects, and offered the fairest incentives to diligence and thoroughness. The numbers of pupils who have participated in its benefits have increased every year.

But dangers and difficulties of two kinds are now threatening the prosperity of the system. With the first the readers of our review are already aware. When the Intermediate Education system was first established there was no conception that it would become so popular, and the grant of money which was then considered ample has become entirely insufficient for its working purposes. Expenses have had to be reduced in two ways; by diminishing the rewards to the pupils, and by lessening the results fees to the teachers. It is said that as exhibitions and prizes have declined in value, the emulation among the students has decreased. This would be regrettable, but far more injurious will be the lessened value of the results fees to the teachers. In many cases these teachers are the masters and mistresses of poor country schools, and the results fees are very necessary to them. Many have gone to additional expenses in engaging new teachers, and moving into larger houses, and it is not possible for them to clear these increased expenses by extra charges for the extra classes, for their pupils could not afford to pay more. Therefore the dimunition of results fees is a very serious loss to them, and the Board has economised more on the teachers then on the young people, so that they only get the half of what they had at first.

This is a serious difficulty, and unless an additional educational grant can be obtained, one that may mar the usefulness of this most useful institution. There seems to be small hope that any of the Church surplus fund will be left for purposes of education. A temporary relief may be experienced if the bill Lord O'Hagan has passed through the Lords manages to become law this session. During the first year of the Intermediate system, the expenses were not equal to the income, and a small surplus was left to the credit of the Commissioners which, if Parliamentary permission can be obtained by his bill, could be employed to cover the deficit of this year. For permanent relief some other resource must be tried. Mr. O'Shaughnessy and other friends in Parliament will leave no suggestion untried for obtaining a permanent increase of the grant. There are other funds that might be made available. We have been informed that the Lapsed Charities Commission has reported that as much as £7000 in Dublin alone, is now practically of little use and might be taken for education. It seems only right that this and other methods should be adopted before a system which has done such real good throughout Ireland among all classes and all creeds should suffer diminution or injury. But there is another danger which specially affects girls. The Board has come to the resolution of changing the standard of education for them. At the outset there was a slight difference in the mathematical examinations, but now the changes are much greater. In the programme, for 1883, Plane Trigonometry and Elementary Mechanics have been dropped out of the girls' curriculum, and their places are supplied by Botany and that vague and sketchy science, Domestic Economy. Animal Physiology is omitted from the programme for both girls and boys. On what ground, it may be asked, are the boys to be excluded from learning Physiology, Botany, and Domestic Economy, if the latter is, as we suppose hygiene. No naturalist can be well grounded without the first; Botany is necessary to any medical degree, and some acquaintance with Domestic Economy is a valuable acquisition for any man. Equally absurd is the omission of the

woman's Review

15th, 1882

higher branches of Mathematics, and of Mechanics from the girls' education. The change is unnecessary, mischievous, and even expensive. Unnecessary, because the Royal Irish University makes no distinction between its requirements for masculine and feminine candidates; mischievous, because English universities and colleges conduct their examinations on the same standards for both sexes, and to make a distinction in the education of Irish girls is to put them on a lower stand point, and lessen their educational qualifications, as compared with English girls. It is expensive, because in many parts of Ireland the schools which have begun to send up their pupils for examination are mixed schools. By adopting a different standard of education for girls and boys, different teachers must be engaged, different class books procured; this means expense, and although the alteration only embraces a few subjects at present, it is likely that a change having once begun, it may increase unless steadily opposed, till the education of girls becomes altogether of a different and less solid quality than the education of the boys. The reason for these changes is probably, like so much of the paternal interference of Parliamentary authorities, a mistaken idea of tenderness for girls. The study of Mathematics is tough, and supposed to be unsuited to growing girls; and Botany is dainty and feminine, and conducive to water-colour sketching and country walks. History repeats itself in small as in great things. The proposal to substitute Botany for other scientific studies in girls' education was carried out by the Senate of the London University, when it instituted general examinations for women. Geography in this case was substituted for Geometry, and Botany for Chemistry. But this special tenderness for the weakness of feminine minds and bodies was defeated; the girls did not come to the Botany classes in any number, and after a time the special examinations were swept away, and Matriculation became the same for girls as for boys.

We hope that the Intermediate Educational Board may soon see fit to remedy this error, and imitate thereby the wise conduct of the English University. Next to being infallible the power of acknowledging

July 15th, 1882.

and retracing a wrong step is the most valuable quality in corporate bodies as in individuals. The cause of education is now taken up by a large body of intelligent and cultured ladies in Ireland. They are forming associations, and strengthening and encouraging each other, and their influence is extending so rapidly for good that we may leave the future of their young countrywomen safely in their hands.

REVIEW.

The Revolt of Man.-Blackwood.

NOVELS which essay to give a forecast into the future have been so frequent of late years, that it would be perhaps unreasonable to demand either fancy or humour in this last production. We may, however, be tempted to wish that the next specimen of the story of the future shall be a little wittier and perhaps, also a little more delicate. The story runs on the condition of England two or three hundred years hence when what John Knox called "the monstrous regiment of women. shall have held undisputed sway for generations, and men be reduced to rustic and inferior work, while women occupy all the high political and professional places; railways and manufactories are no more because 66 women cannot understand mechanics." Manchester is reduced to 20,000 inhabitants, and its streets are models of cleanliness and regularity; Liverpool possesses the largest convict prison in England, that where wife-beaters are confined for life. Oxford has forgotten its learning, astronomy, medicine, mathematics, classics and physical science, "because women who can receive cannot create, and because at no time has any woman enriched the world with a new idea, a new truth, a new discovery, or a new invention; " the House of Commons is abolished, and there is only a House of Peeresses; and the national religion (oddly enough as women are now reported its most fervent supporters) is subverted.