326 REPORT — 1872. 



stores, may be perfectly satisfied, and be thus lulled into a false security. Tlio 

 author urged the necessity of such accounts being- initiated and supervised by au 

 independent authority outside the Departments, and gave suggestions in detail as 

 to how this might be done, 



On a Pi-Gjyosal for suppVtiing Pare Water to Villages and Country Parislies 

 in Central and Eastern Divisions of England. Bg Professor Hull, F.R.S. 



On the National Union for Improving tlie Education of Women. 



Bg Miss SnuiREFF. 



This Association dates only from November last year, when a public meeting was 

 held to inaugurate it upon a plan previously sketched out bj'- Mrs. William Grey, 

 and to name a central committee for its management. The long list of members 

 now shown by the circulars of the Union, recognition of its work by important 

 public bodies, numerous local committees formed and provincial societies affiliated, 

 mark the progress made during the few months of its existence. Of the work pro- 

 posed it is only possible to say here that the scheme aims at correcting the deep 

 and widespread defects in women's education, by bringing into extensive co- 

 operation all existing efforts at reform, by using all endeavours through as many 

 channels as possible to kindle a deeper interest on the subject, and to combat the 

 indifference of parents and of the public. 



That indifference rests mainly on the absence in the case of girls of those direct 

 motives of interest which prompt the instruction of boys. Those motives might 

 be seen to exist by all who consider the waste of national resources caused by the 

 ignorance of women — half the intellectual force of the nation allowed to do no 

 work for the community. In sanitary questions, in questions of expenditure, of 

 luxury, of the earliest training of children, the loss caused by the ignorance of 

 women is beyond calculation. A very interesting paper in the ' lievue des deux 

 Mondes ' pointed out the loss to the trade and commerce of France caused by the 

 incapacity of women to do any of the higher work ; and this incapacity the writer 

 traced not to want of technical training, but to want of cidtivated 'intelligence. 

 Fathers might feel that, even as a question of domestic economjs they would gain 

 by enabling daughters to earn salaries, and their- own business might gain in points 

 beyond money value if their daughters were taught to take a share in it. 



The evil and the loss are immense, and they are justly charged upon men, 

 because the wealth and power of the country and of each family are in their hands, 

 and they have refused to women the me'ans of purchasing the education they 

 require. The National Union, in its labour for reform, v\'ill eai-nestly press this 

 view. But, besides striving to influence public opinion, it enters zealously into 

 all practical schemes for improving the education and supplementing the very 

 scanty means that exist of obtaining proper instruction for girls, such as classes 

 for ladies and for working women, attendance at examinations, &c. It also gives 

 earnest attention to the work of obtaining a fair share for girls of the rich endow- 

 ments which in many cases were originally intended to benefit them, but which 

 have been monopolized for the use of: boys. 



But its most important work is the spread of good schools. They are wanted 

 everywhere, and for the whole portion of society which separates " those whose 

 ciiildren attend the elementary schools from the wealthy and aristocratic. 



Some good schools exist, more probably than are known : Miss Beale has raised 

 the Ladies' College at Cheltenham to the rank of a great educational institution, 

 and Miss Buss offers us in Loudon the very model we desire to follow ; but a few 

 such schools only point the contrast and make the general want more apparent. 

 The Union has determined on trying the instrumentality of a limited liability 

 company, by means of which, not one school but a whole'system of schools shall 

 in succession be foimded. This plan is now commencing operations. The Girls' 

 Public Day-school Company is about to establish its first school in the S.W. 

 district of London. The fees in such schools cannot be so low as in endowed 



