and, this being the case, it is. clearly
fair and right—even necessary—that whatever
women can do well, they should be encouraged
to do.  Accordingly, we are sorry when we
find the men in a rather small manufacturing
town tyrannising over the women, so as to
prevent their undertaking work that can be
pursued at home, while the baby is asleep in
the cradle, and the stew is simmering on the
fire: and we find it a pleasant thing to see,
in a very large manufacturing town, lofty
and well-lighted rooms filled with women,
busy at their work of burnishing, stamping,
and punching, painting, or varnishing, or
making up packets of goods. It is pleasant
to think that of these some may be
supporting aged parents; others earning an
education for their children, or maintenance
for a sick husband; and all, probably, an
honourable subsistence for themselves. We
see that much may be said on both sides of
the question of female factory work.  And the
more we see this, the stronger is our sympathy
with certain other observers—as yet
sadly few—who, accepting female factory
labour as an established fact, are hastening to
remedy as much as they can of the evils
which hang about it.

Four years and a half since the first Evening
School for Women was opened at Birmingham.
It was planned and opened and has been
conducted by ladies, who did not lose time in
arguing whether it was a good or a bad thing
that women should be employed in manufactures
but offered means of improvement
in mind and in ways to such as were so
employed. They offered at once to teach
reading, writing, arithmetic; sewing—
including the cutting out and mending of
clothes; and to give instruction in the
contents of the Bible, and of the other great
book—the world we live in—as far as means
would allow. They hoped, and still hope
and intend, to teach the most important of
the domestic arts of life—and first, Cookery.
In time, vocal music, and other softening
and sweetening arts, may be attempted.
Time will show that.  Meanwhile, time has
shown that good has been done, which ought
to be made known for other reasons than the
pleasure of it;  that such things may be done
elsewhere.

It may not be seen, at a glance, what an
undertaking this was. Everybody may not
know what factory women—some factory
women, at least—are. They are women, and
not children, in the first place. The class
contemplated had grown up in ignorance; they
had not lived among home influences, but in
the rough independence of factory life. Their
prejudices were in proportion to their ignorance;
and their pride was in proportion to
their ignorance, prejudices, age, habits, and
class jealousy, all together.  Some who knew
of the scheme prophesied that no woman
would come: others, that they would be too
disreputable to be kept in order, but by
policemen: others, again, that it would be
impossible to teach them, if they did come,
and that there would be an incessant change
of scholars. These prophecies were so many
warnings to the ladies what to anticipate,
and how to act. They would ask no questions
about character, nor look to see who had
wedding-rings, and who had none. What
they offered was knowledge; and every
woman who came for knowledge should be
welcome to it, as long as she pursued her
object decently and quietly. They would
admit no policeman—no man whatever,
happen what might. They would stand or
fall by their object of making this a woman's
affair altogether. They would be careful,
above everything, to treat every person within
the walls with the respect due to womanhood
under any provocation whatever. They
reminded each other of the vast difference—
now to be first practically experienced—
between the manners in which they had been
reared, and those which were habitual with
their pupils; that offensive things would be
said and done which must pass unnoticed,
while there was a possibility of no offence
being meant. It would be hard to understand
and remember this sometimes; but it
must be understood and remembered.  As to
whether the women would come for instruction
that was a thing to be ascertained by
experiment,—and not otherwise. The
experiment was tried.

The history of the beginning of this enterprise
reminds one of the excellent Wilderspin's
account of the opening of the first Infant
School.  He and his wife, supported by the
promoters of the scheme, agreed, after much
hesitation, to try what they could do with a
schoolful of infants. They dreaded the day;
and they found it truly dreadful. When the
mothers were gone, it was arduous work to
keep the little things entertained and beguiled
at all.  At last, one child cried aloud; two
or three more caught up the lamentation,
which spread, by infection, till every infant of
the whole crowd  (we forget how many there
were) was roaring as loud as it could roar.
After vain attempts to pacify them, in utter
despair about the children, and horror at the
effect upon the whole neighbourhood, the
worthy couple rushed from the school-room
into the next chamber, when the wife sank in
tears upon the bed.  Her husband was no less
wretched: this din of woe was maddening;
something must be done—but what?  In the
freakishness of despair, he seized a pole,
and put on the top of it a cap of his wife's
which was drying from the wash-tub.  He
rushed back into the school-room, waving his
new apparatus of instruction—giving, as he
found, his first lesson on Objects. The effect
which ensued was his lesson.  In a minute
not a child was crying.  All eyes were fixed
upon the cap; all tears stood still and dried
up on all cheeks. The wife now joined
him; and they kept the children amused, and