Like an arrow through the mist came
the quick bark of a terrier, followed by a cry
of "Papa!" It was my little daughter's
voice. She and Snap had gone down to the
beach to look for me, had found my overall,
and were quietly waiting beside it. The
sound of her voice was like that of an angel
calling through the dark. With a glad heart
I dropped off the beacon, and, after swimming
a few strokes, found my feet on firm
land once again.

A very commonplace incident; but it
has given me something to think about
this Sunday morning; and I am rather
afraid that I may be but an inattentive
auditor of our good parson's sermon on
the perils of dissent, which I am to hear in
the church by-and-bye.

LECTURES FOR LADIES.

WE don't concern ourselves with the high
philosophical question, whether women have or
have not a right to be field-marshals and
members of parliament, or to receive delicate
attentions from the Man in the Moon at election
time. It is not yet a heresy to think that they
have their own particular part, and that a
noble one, assigned to them in the great drama
of life, and that although they may roar gently
as a sucking dove, they will hardly find it worth
while to play lion too. Quite apart from the
contest for a new settlement of woman's rights,
is the ground taken by those who have of late
been acting on the general opinion that
ignorance is not one of the gifts and graces of life,
and that women, being as quick witted as men,
were not born to be dunces.

The character of boys' schools has been
raised by open examinations for certificates or
degrees from the universities, and by the
establishment in other ways of a standard of good
education, which must be attained in every
school that hopes to stand well with the public.
But there never has been any test of the
efficiency of girls' schools. The master of a
boys' school usually has gone through a course
of training which has enabled him to show
distinct credentials, in evidence that he has
himself learnt what he undertakes to teach.
The most accomplished lady who should
undertake to teach girls has been, in this respect,
pretty much on a level with the veriest little
goose, who shows her ignorance in nothing so
much as in the belief that she is qualified to
keep a school. The highly-educated woman
could produce no evidence of thorough training,
and, indeed, could have obtained such
training only by quiet persistence in almost
unaided exertion: while the higher education
of men is assisted lavishly by money and
endowments, by the energies of picked
instructors, by social influence, the prompting of
ambition, and the whole strength of a public
opinion which at one time was even half
disposed to find bliss in the ignorance of women.
Dr. Parr said in his Discourse on Education,
little more than eighty years ago, that "as to
the acquisitions of reading and writing, they
are eminently serviceable to boys; but in
regard to females I do not conceive them to
be of equal use, unless they be accompanied
by other attainments of a more domestic
nature." And although the founder of Christ's
Hospital designed that institution for both
boys and girls, the strength of the old prejudice
has resulted in the establishment of first-
class educational training for more than a
thousand boys, and provision for about two
dozen girls of the instruction suitable for a
maid-servant. The time is gone by, that bred
men to speak and act in this fashion, and the
natural demands of society have produced in
many quarters sensible improvement of the
character of girls' schools. Many a girl who can
sketch, and sing, and not only read, but speak
easily and well, one or two modern languages,
is better educated than her brother, who has
murdered Latin verse at Eton: at Eton as it
used to be; for tradition there also has yielded
of late to the vigorous life of the time, and
modern languages have taken their place as an
essential part of the training.

But in the best girls' schools, main reliance
has usually to be placed on "masters." To
men who have given public evidence of their
knowledge of a subject, or who have passed
honourably through their university career,
schoolmistresses entrust the main part of
the higher education of girls. About sixteen
years ago, ladies' colleges were established,
which still flourish in Harley-street and
Bedford-square, London. Their aim was to do
for girls what is done for boys when they
have gone through their school course. In
these institutions, ladies are active in giving
subordinate or additional instruction, but they
take no part in the main business of teaching,
if we may judge from the last list, now before
us, of "Subjects and Teachers," at Queen's
College, Harley-street, in which every teacher
is a Mr., and there is not one Mrs. or Miss.
Given a man and a woman equally well
acquainted with some subject, the man is likely
to be found, for pupils of either sex, the more
efficient teacher. The more retiring character
and the more sensitive nature, while they
quicken home delight, unfit, to some extent,
for the work of public teaching. The man
with bolder front and blunter sensibilities can
bear the fret and fatigue of teaching, with less
strain upon his patience, and can get from his
work all the intellectual enjoyment it brings,
while he goes through it patiently, calmly. Wind
and rain are not the only sort of elements with
which his hardier nature has made him more
fit than a woman to contend. Women lay the
foundations of all teaching, in girl and boy.
They teach men daily by their influence; in
the highest sense, no doubt, they are the best
teachers in the world. But they are, to some
degree, through qualities allied to all that is