Dr. Lyon Playfair presided yesterday at Willis's Rooms at the
annual meeting of the Women's Education Union, of which her Royal Highness the Princess Louise was again re-elected pre- sident. It was stated that about 1,600 women were avail- ing themselves of the means provided by the Union for obtaining for women a higher education. This may be a fair beginning ; but it is but a drop in the ocean to what is wanted, for what is really wanted is that women of the educated -class should be at least as well educated as the men with whom as wives and sisters they must live, and whom as mothers they must help to form. Dr. Playfair was, however, perhaps hardly wise in connecting with this movement so emphatically as he did the demand for erecting "the vocation of qualified teachers into a profession, by refusing in endowed schools to accept teachers" without a teacher's diploma. It is as yet by no means a settled thing how far there is, or can be, a definite and teachable art of teaching, as distinct from a thorough knowledge of the subjects to be taught, or whether that art is or is not little more than thorough knowledge,with a little experience in teaching, and a little of that unteachable quality, personal tact,' superadded. There is considerable danger of obtaining a too pragmatic and pedantic class,—an especially terrible prospect for women,—if you insist to much on mere pedagogic technicalities.
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