admirers are, perhaps, too apt to cling to the precise form in which they claim he left it, and to forget that ideas belong to no man and no country, but are good seed that will vary in its blossoms on any favourable soil, and be none the worse for its variation. The Kindergarten idea stands commonly between two dangers; the one that it will be regarded as a German principle to be carried out precisely as Fröbel's surviving disciples maintain he conceived it; the other, that will be seized on as a means for forcing little children to attack school tasks even more prematurely than is usual at present. The first danger means that the Fröbel advocates dislike "school"; the second, that the school party dislike "Kindergarten."

Miss Lord has combined the two factions into one harmonious system in her Kindergarten and preparatory school, bridging over, as far as is practicable, the wide gap existing between a Kindergarten proper and a school. "In a Kindergarten," she says in her report, “reading, writing, and arithmetic, in their school form are not taught; in a school all mental ideas and habits of thought gained in a Kindergarten are ignored, and the child has no occupation for its hands to alternate with the usual school lessons." She has, therefore, established Transition Classes, which are recruited from the Kindergarten pupils, and pass on their pupils usually, though not invariably, to the High School.

As a means to a profession, the Kindergarten training is very useful for young women to learn, for there is an increasing demand for schools of this kind. Miss Lord's present scheme will fit a student not only to teach children up to twelve years of age, but to direct all their later education, and to pass the examination now expected of teachers. The course of training extends over two years; but students whom the examiners certify to be capable teachers, may, during the second year, receive remuneration. The lectures are upon the following subjects:-Fröbel's Principles of Education; Fröbel's Occupations; Science of Education; Physical Training; School Organisation and Sanitary Arrangements; Physiology; Natural Science; English Literature; Arithmetic; Geometry, and Music; besides Model

ling, Drawing, and Painting. The students will at the end of the course find themselves qualified to pass the examination for Kindergarten Teachers, held by the Fröbel Society; the Teacher's Examination, held by the Cambridge Syndicate; the Cambridge Higher Local Examinations; the Science and Art Examinations at South Kensington; and the Trinity College Examinations in Music, and at the end of the two years' course, a certificate will be granted to the students who satisfy the lecturers and examiners of their ability.

MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY BILL. A LONG expected and long delayed act of justice towards women has been accomplished during the last week of the session. The Married Women's Property Bill which passed the House of Lords early in the spring, and has been so long stationary in the House of Commons, passed successfully through Committee on August 11th.

Even at this late stage its opponents were not without the hope of stopping it. On the order of the day for going into Committee Sir G. CAMPBELL amid cries of "Oh, oh," protested against the hurrying through of a Bill that would effect a complete social revolution. Its main object was to give a women all a man's privileges without any of his liabilities.

Mr. H. FOWLER remarked that the Bill had passed through two Select Committees, and had received the most careful and elaborate attention. The Bill proposed to extend to the whole community that which the rich now obtained through settlement and trustees.

Mr. WARTON, amid many signs of impatience, quoted Scripture against the Bill, and urged that the fact of it having come from the Lords was no reason for passing it.

Mr. O. MORGAN pointed out that the Bill was brought forward at a late period because the last speaker and the hon. member for Kirkcaldy had blocked it.

Mr. ROGERS had never heard a more obstructive speech than that of the hon. member for Bridport (Mr. Warton).

The House went into Committee on the Bill.

The clauses were agreed to, and the Bill passed through Committee amid cheers.

All women will feel deeply thankful to their friends in the House for the patience and energy they have shown in bringing to a favourable issue this long vexed question.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

IN the "Life and Times of Frederick Douglas," recently republished in England at the Christian Age office, his arguments in support of extending political equality to women are so clear, and at the same time so temperate, that we need make no apology to our readers for quoting them. They show how inevitably the same reasons which applied to the abolition of slavery, lead on to the abolition of injustice on the ground of sex.

Observing woman's agency, devotion, and efficiency in pleading the cause of the slave, gratitude for this high service early moved me to give favourable attention to the subject of what is called "Woman's Rights," and caused me to be denominated a woman's-rights-man. I am glad to say I have never been ashamed to be thus designated. Recognising not sex, nor physical strength, but moral intelligence, and the ability to discern right from wrong, good from evil, and the power to choose between them, as the true basis of Republican Government, to which all are alike subject, and bound alike to obey, I was not long in reaching the conclusion that there was no foundation in reason or justice for woman's seclusion from the right of choice in the selection of the persons who should frame the laws, and thus shape the destiny of all the people, irrespective of sex.

In a conversation with Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, when she was yet a young lady, and an earnest abolitionist, she was at the pains to set before me, in a very strong light, the wrong and injustice of this exclusion. I could not meet her arguments except with the shallow plea of "custom," "natural division of duties,' indelicacy of woman's taking part in politics," "the common talk of woman's sphere," and the like, all of which that able woman, who was then

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no less logical than now, brushed away by those arguments which she has so often and effectively used since, and which no man has yet successfully refuted. If intelligence is the only true and rational basis of government, it follows that that is the best government which draws its life and power from the largest sources of wisdom, energy, and goodness at its command. The force of this reasoning would be easily comprehended and readily assented to in any case involving the employment of physical strength. We should all see the madness of attempting to accomplish with a part what could only be done with the united strength of the whole. Though this folly may be less apparent, it is just as real when one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the world is excluded from any voice or vote in civil government. In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power for the government of the world. Thus far all human governments have been failures, for none have secured, except in a partial degree, the ends for which governments have been instituted.

War, slavery, injustice, and oppression, and the idea that might makes right, have been uppermost in all such governments, and the weak, for whose protection governments are ostensibly created, have had practically no rights which the strong have felt bound to respect. The slayers of thousands have been exalted into heroes, and the worship of mere physical force has been considered glorious. Nations have been, and still are, but armed camps, expending their wealth and strength and ingenuity in forging weapons of destruction against each other, and while it may not be contended that the introduction of the feminine element in government would entirely cure this tendency to exalt might over right, many reasons can be given to show that woman's influence would greatly tend to check and modify this barbarous and destructive tendency. At any rate, seeing that the male governments of the world have failed, it can do no harm to try the experiment of a government by man and woman united. But it is not my purpose to argue the question here, but simply to state in a brief way the ground of my espousal of the cause of woman's suffrage. I believed that the exclusion of any race from participation in government was not only a wrong, but a great mistake, because it took from that race motives for high thought and endeavour, and degraded them in the eyes of the world around them. Man derives a sense of his consequence in the world not merely subjectively but objectively. If from the cradle through life the outside world brands a class as unfit for this or that work, the character of that class will come to resemble and conform to the character described. To find valuable qualities in our fellows, such qualities must be presumed and expected. I would give woman a vote; give a motive to qualify herself to vote, precisely as I insisted upon giving the coloured man the right to vote, in order that he should have the same motives for making himself a useful citizen as those in force in the case of other citizens. In a word, I have never yet been able to find one consideration, one argument or suggestion in favour of man's right to partici

womans Review

15th, 1882

pate in civil government which did not equally apply to the right of

woman.

It is interesting to see the manner in which the increased participation of women in public affairs is being canvassed in foreign countries. Edward Brandes, a wellknown Danish author, has lately published a play entitled "Gyngende Grund," in which the hero, Aalov, the editor of a liberal newspaper, thus declares his conviction that politics ought to form a part of the daily interests of women. The Conservative aspirant for office, Kalk, has just said:

"I would only ask if it is your opinion that politics ought to enter into our homes. That I entirely object to. I have hitherto believed that at home there ought to be peace and quietness. If the fight penetrates there, and questions of strife be discussed there, our parlours will become a House of Parliament where the lady will preside. Heaven keep me from seeing this."

Aalov. "First, I think you forget how much I comprehend in the word Politics; and, secondly, your words confirm just what I was reproaching your generation. You are fencing round desert places; you are afraid of life. Certainly you must have politics in your homes in such a form as suits them. Why should not your wife be interested in the same things as yourself? Why not share your hopes and troubles? And I ask you, a politician by profession, and occupied for your country's welfare, why should she not be penetrated by the same feelings as yourself? Of what in the world can you talk with your wife if you dare not name what moves you deepest,—which lies at everybody's heart? Why not enlighten women upon the few simple thoughts and ideas upon which the whole turns?

Kalk. "I repeat that the consequences would be that women would become electors, and be themselves elected for Parliament." Aalov. "Oh, I will not lose myself in such visions of the future, which, moreover, do not frighten me much. I maintain only that if politics mean the interests of all, all ought to be interested in them, including the fair sex. It seems to me, also, that those who think as you do, rob themselves of all that is best in life. I think I know what a home may mean; what delight it is to raise it up stone by stone on firm ground, to build it safe from storms. It should be a shelter, but not to lie asleep there. I will speak and hear spoken the same things within as without, only otherwise, I will be understood, be questioned with a smile, amuse myself with another over the follies of men, and grow angry over their vices. If I cannot have such a home, I will have none, It is a home only where one dares to be quite oneself; otherwise it is a dwelling, a convenience, perhaps a drawingroom, but nothing more."

* * *

Gabrielle. "Forgive me, I am unwilling that the gentlemen should leave what they were talking about first. Does Mr. Aalov mean that we ladies ought to interest ourselves in everything that goes on in