WOMEN INSPECTORS.
(TO • THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."
SIR,—More than once the question has been mooted, and again passed by,—why should her Majesty's Inspectorships of Schools remain exclusively in the hands of men ? The question is really one of sufficient importance to the welfare of the next generation to demand at least calm and close scrutiny. Un- questionably, the examination of the elder classes, both in boys' and girls' schools, is best in the hands to which it is at present entrusted. As a rule, men make the best examiners in the higher branches of knowledge, because their own training therein has been marked by the severer accuracy which makes, asking questions to the point, easy ; but if our Board Schools are really to be training-grounds for the young, there is a whole world outside the mere question of historical or arithmetical examinations, which needs, certainly in the infant and girls' schools, a woman's eye. I will not trespass on your space by detailing the instances which have come under my own know- ledge, where the aid of an able woman inspector would have been invaluable, both to schoolmistress and children. I believe it is only necessary to call public attention to the matter, to have a pressing want supplied. There may be a doubt as to the capacity of a thoroughly able woman to become a doctor, a barrister, or a clergyman,—there can be none as to her fit- ness to organise a nursery, and no man would be thought equally fit. An infant school is a nursery on a large scale, and a girls' school is just the very field where a really able, kindly disposed woman would remedy, to the unspeakable gain of mistress and pupils, many, at present, glaring defects.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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