566 



The Review of Reviews. 



between the parallels of 1828 and 1829 and the 

 case of the Manhood Suffrage Bill. Another 

 vital point of difference is that the Catholics had 

 two weapons which women lack. Mr. Brails- 

 ford notes that they had votes and that they 

 stood behind the bayonets of the Irish regiments, 

 as Wellington had good reason to remember. 



Mr. Brailsford omits to recall Wellington's 

 fate a year later owing to his refusal to bring in 

 a Reform Bill. 



OUR NATIONAL EDUCATION. 



More Women Wanted. 



" The modern woman has at last found her- 

 self." This is the opening phrase of an article 

 on Women in Modern Education contributed by 

 Mr. W. R. Lawson to the Parents' Review for 

 October. 



results of masculine methods. 



In less than a lifetime, he writes, woman has 

 raised herself from the position of a cipher in 

 national affairs to that of a new and original 

 force. She not only represents the greatest and 

 most important change that the past forty years 

 have produced in our social and political 

 organisation, but she is one of our highest and 

 best hopes for the future. The modern woman's 

 rapid rush to the front is having some awkward 

 consequences for the modern man. It has laid 

 him open to criticism of his methods and preten- 

 sions more searching than he ever encountered 

 before. Hitherto he has only had male criticism 

 to endure, and men are not given to outspoken, 

 stimulating criticism of each other. The prac- 

 tical results of this irresponsible habit of the 

 masculine mind are flabbiness and indecision, 

 which reach their climax in our legislation. It 

 is in education that this paralysis of masculine 

 effort is most obvious. Equally obvious is one 

 possible source of outside help to get the male 

 out of the rut he has got into. The modern 

 woman has brought with her into public life a 

 variety of personal qualities and resources, and 

 the present day is badly in need of them. She is 

 in downright earnest as few men are on the 

 great social questions of the day ; she retains the 

 sense of religion, and she has more of the 

 essence of humanity. 



WHAT WOMEN MIGHT HAVE DONE. 



The modern woman is a crusader, and the 

 crusade which makes the most urgent call upon 

 her to-day is education — education in the 

 broadest and most national sense. Mr. Law- 

 son, who is the author of John Bull and His 

 Schools, believes that the most successful 

 teacher is the one who can stimulate and excite 



the largest amount of subjective effort on the 

 part of the pupil and his observations in this 

 respect are in favour of the women teachers. 

 Women are more in their element among 

 children than men are. How does it happen 

 then that so httle use has been made by our 

 official educators of the splendid materials at 

 their disposal? The only answer which the 

 writer can think of is that the educational work 

 of women is too human, too personal, to fit into 

 a scheme of codes and circulars. Had there 

 been more female control over our national 

 education millions less would have been wasted 

 on palatial school buildings, which are often 

 unsuitable and insanitary, and School Boards 

 and Education Committees would not have been 

 so flooded with codes and circulars from White- 

 hall. 



THE BEST CHARACTER-FORMERS. 



It has indeed been a double misfortune for 

 women and for popular education that it had not 

 the benefit of complete female co-operation from 

 the first. One of the latest catchwords of our 

 professional educators is " home-making." In 

 this art there can be no competition between the 

 men and the women teachers. So far home- 

 making has not been very prominent in the 

 educational policy of W^hitehall. Moral or 

 character-forming education is badly needed 

 to-day, and in a special degree it is women's 

 work. Given the opportunity, women, con- 

 cludes Mr. Lawson, will prove themselves the 

 best character-formers. 



WANTED— MORE WOMEN 

 FACTORY INSPECTORS. 

 For twenty years the inspection of factories and 

 workshops by women has been part of the indus- 

 trial machinery of the country, but how inade- 

 quate is the number of women inspectors is set 

 forth by a writer in the Women's Industrial 

 News for October. 



EIGHTEEN INSPECTORS TO TWO MILLION 

 EMPLOYEES. 



Year after year, says the writer, the report 

 of the Principal Lady Inspector of Factories, 

 Miss Adelaide M. Anderson, is hidden away in 

 that of the Chief Inspector. Last year a staff 

 of eighteen women travelled 122,443 miles in the 

 vain attempt to attain their object — namely, the 

 inspection of the conditions under which nearly 

 2,000,000 women and girls work in the United 

 Kingdom. Only one district enjoys continuous, 

 systematic, and concentrated inspection — the 

 West London Special District, containing 3,351 

 registered workplaces and 31,513 employed 



