THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS. — A PRACTICAL SUGGESTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SFECTITOR:1
Sra,—Many fathers who may be sincerely anxious to give their- daughters a good education may be unable to send them to Hitchin or Girton. These will give a healthy impetus to the spread of sound female education if they will adopt the following course:— If they have girls at school, to urge upon the schoolmistress to send them, when of the proper age, in for the University local examination, or else to have her whole school regularly examined' by the University official examiner.
If they are about to send a girl to school, to select a schoor which is thus regularly examined, and if possible, one where the governesses have passed the University Examination for Women.
In engaging a governess at home, to give the preference to one who has passed a university examination. I ask the fathers to- adopt this course, because men have more sympathy with the sound branches of education tested by the Universities than women ; the mothers have too often a lingering leaning to the flashy accomplishments which form the staple of the routine of the so- called "finishing " school.
It is by an influence exerted widely over schools throughout the country that the general standard of the education of girls is to be raised. This influence the university supplies, in the manner I have indicated, more powerfully than Girton College or Merton Hall.
The course I advocate, however, will not interfere with, but rather promote, these valuable institutions, with which every one- must sympathise who can subscribe himself or herself
A TEACHER OF WOMEN.
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