| | | | It is now some forty years since the world was | informed that

"the schoolmaster was abroad;" |

and, to all appearance, he has remained all | abroad ever since. If we may venture upon a still | closer description of his travels, we should say that, | now-a-days at least, the schoolmaster was at sea. | There never was a period in which that estimable | personification could have felt more utterly puzzled at | the nature, objects, and method of the task which he | has been summoned

"abroad"

to perform. | Every branch and department of education has | become matter of fierce controversy, and the currents | of feeling are so variable that at the very same | moment they are flowing violently in two opposite | directions with respect to the education of various | classes of society. Our education with regard to the | lower classes used to be wide and comprehensive, and | was thought to produce good results; but its course | has lately been reversed with a sudden and violent | wrench, and its range reduced to the scantiest limits. | On the other hand, the Public Schools are in the | agony of a fierce conflict with a Royal Commission, | because the Commission desires to make the | education that they give as wide and comprehensive | as possible. In the public offices, again, the mania that | used to prevail for examinations has sensibly abated. | The principle has made no progress, and in one or two | instances has received a severe check. It has been | found by experience that the possession of superior | cram does not prove the possession either of | businesslike habits or of talents for administration. | But among the busybodies who compose the Social | Science Association, the Society of Arts, and sundry | other debating clubs of the same kind, the crotchet is | as vigorous as ever. The most curious development of | it is a proposal that has been recently circulated for | submitting young ladies to Local University | Examinations. The idea almost takes one's breath | away. It is such a formidable advance towards that | millennium of universal examination of which Lord | Stanley dreams, that one looks with some | apprehension to the next step. The intrinsic | difficulties of the scheme, though startling, may not | be insuperable. The promoters of it evidently feel that | there may be some difficulty in procuring an unbiased | decision on the part of an Examiner with a susceptible | heart, for one of the speakers implores the Examiners | not to suffer sentiments of gallantry to interfere with | the judicial severity of their office. Of course they | will do everything to steel themselves against such | seductive influences, and, previously to the ordeal, | will confine their reading exclusively to the Stoic | philosophers. Something may be done, too, by | admitting their wives to a commanding position in the | gallery. Still, with all these precautions, it will be next | to impossible to persuade the world that a pretty | first-class woman came by her honours fairly. To a certain | extent, the difficulty might be met by appointing | learned ladies ~~ if any such can be found ~~ to be | examiners. But in reality this measure would only | invert the evil. The pretty candidate will be as badly | off with her own sex as her ugly competitors with the | other. | But, when it is done, what is it to end in? What is it to | lead to? It is not to be supposed that young ladies will | trip up to the examination merely for the pleasure of | flirting across the table. The opportunities will be so | slender, the object probably so unfascinating, that we | must assume some more substantial attraction. What | is to be the use, then, of her testamur when | she has got it? The object for which girls are | supposed to be brought up is that they may be married, | and, as a matter of fact, the majority do come to that | prosaic end. Do Mr. Hastings and his | brother-philanthropists contemplate that their scheme | should help forward that desired consummation? Do | they imagine that the young men of England prefer an | examined to an unexamined wife? Of course we can | understand that, when the competitive system shall | have accomplished its full triumph, its last victory | will be over the marriage market. It is now a complete | scramble. It is a mere system of patronage. The | appointments may be said to be uniformly jobbed. | The position of Countess or Marchioness is in the gift | of an inexperienced young man, who gives it, not to | the young lady who will perform the duties of that | station most to the satisfaction of the public, but | simply to the young lady he likes best. The system is | clearly rotten to the core. Such favouritism ought not | to be allowed to prevail in the appointment of persons | to | | fill one of the most important situations in life. The | proper course of proceeding is quite clear, if only the | prejudices of the age will allow it to be carried out. | When an eldest son wants a wife, let him | communicate with the Civil Service Commissioners, | and the appointment will be put up to competition. He | may be allowed to name the age and ~~ as a | concession to the weaknesses of humanity ~~ the | complexion he prefers. The Local University | Examinations will furnish the machinery; and, as | soon as their verdict is delivered, the happy | bridegroom will lead to the hymeneal altar the young | lady who has proved her fitness for his hand and heart | by her knowledge of geography and Latin prose. It | may be said by cavilers that geography and Latin | prose have very little to do with the qualities which | will make a woman a good wife and mother. But such | an objection shows that the man who makes it is | wholly unfamiliar with the peculiar merits of the | competitive system. Proficiency in geography and | political economy is quite as certain an indication of | the qualities that make a woman a good wife, as an | aptitude for Greek iambics is of those which make an | efficient officer in a marching regiment, or as a | knowledge of mixed mathematics is of the talents that | make a competent Indian ruler. | Until, however, that golden age is reached when the | enlightened guardsman shall ask to see the | testamur of his flame before he pops the | question, the public will probably look with more | wonder than any other feeling at schemes of this kind. | There is certainly no hesitation or reticence in the | plan before us. The examination system is distinctly | proposed

"for girls of the upper and middle | classes."

There is some difference among the | promoters of it as to the subjects to be taught. One | comparatively sober speaker proposes that there shall | be a different curriculum in the case of girls and the | case of boys; and that the former, in consideration of | their weakness, shall be exempted from Greek and the | higher mathematics. Some speakers are also doubtful | of the necessity of examining young ladies in political | economy. But these unworthy compromises are | sternly rejected by the real authors of the scheme. Mr. | Hastings, speaking in their name insists upon

| "the same examination for girls as for the boys,"

| and expatiates upon the eminence which women may | attain in political economy. If these proposals were | simply confined to governesses, there would be a | certain amount of reason in them; though, even in | choosing a governess, a knowledge of her attainment | only gives you one half, and that the least important | half, of her qualification. But it is not professed that | the scheme is to be only, or even chiefly, for the | benefit of governesses. In the speech of the Secretary, | Miss Martineau, who is not a governess, is set up as | the ideal of female attainment. With every respect for | Miss Martineau's name, we venture to express a doubt | whether the nation would be the gainer by an attempt | to force the whole race of English matrons up to her | level of acquirement. The physiological results of | over-developed brains must not be lost sight of; but, | passing to points more capable of public discussion, | do these benevolent gentlemen really believe that | Paterfamilias would be a happier man in his mind if | he were mated with a

"being"

who, instead | of mending his clothes and getting his dinner cooked, | had a taste for a literary career upon the subject of | political economy? The integral calculus is all very | well in its way; but a lady who was very familiar with | it, and naturally, proud of her knowledge, might | disdain the humbler branches of mathematical science | that are brought into play in testing the accuracy of | the butcher's bill. We are constantly assured that there | is no essential antagonism between a high intellectual | culture and the humblest domestic duties; and in | theory this is perfectly true. The ideal woman of the | Social Science Association is able to construe a | chorus of Aeschylus, or to calculate the lunar distance, | if necessary, but, as a matter of preference, she had | rather employ herself in darning her husband's | stockings. But this admirable union of qualities is | rarely found; and the classical or mathematical | heroine of actual life is never happy unless she is | flirting with a professor, or putting on her best bonnet | to go and hear a lecture. There is a strong, an | ineradicable male instinct, that a learned, or even an | over-accomplished, young woman is one of the most | intolerable monsters in creation. What a trial to her | friends is the great musician, who never will perform | except to a large party, and who spends her whole | time in practicing with equivocal-looking foreigners! | What a nuisance to society is the accomplished | linguist, whose conversation is a long string of | polyglottic anecdotes! The imagination can hardly | conceive the horrors of a society in which everything | that wore wreath and crinoline was either a great | Grecian or had got a high class in trigonometry. How | the conversation would run upon corrupt passages and | compensation chains! A strong-minded woman is like | a pretty man; the merit is unnatural to both, and both | are certain to be ridiculously vain of it. In the case of | most women, the time spent upon the higher branches | of knowledge should be spent on training that would | fit them for the duties of their lives. If Mr. Hastings | and his friends should be successful in bringing a | more ambitious system of education into fashion, the | only result they will achieve will be to make marriage | more difficult than it is now to their unhappy victims. | An accomplished young lady is a terror to the young | men as things are; if erudition be added to the | accomplishments, the terror will become a simple | panic.