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SCIF.NGE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 199 



intended to make teaching their profession, that 

 the supply of women mathematical teachers would 

 exceed the demand, and advise them to take up 

 other branches. The reason was, doubtless, that 

 in mathematics it was easier to make up for the 

 lack of early training than in classics ; and from 

 the same cause many, especially those who went 

 up in later life, took moral science. Now, when 

 the movement is older, and girls are trained for 

 Girton, as boys for Trinity or Balliol, classics has 

 been, since 1882, the favorite subject, as far as 

 numbers are concerned. 



A teacher who has had considerable experience 

 with girls, and some practice in teaching boys and 

 men, may be forgiven, perhaps, for adding a few 

 generalizations drawn from personal knowledge. 

 It is perfectly possible to teach girls Latin and 

 mathematics, and even to create enthusiasm for 

 the study. On the other hand, some girls are 

 careless over Latin, and hate mathematics ; but 

 this is due to the 'old Adam' of laziness, and 

 could be matched, we imagine, in boys' schools. 

 It is almost impossible to teach geometry or alge- 

 bra to some girls ; but there are men and boys 

 with whom the same difficulty occurs. The 

 writer has met with such, and so probably have 

 most teachers ; while history gives us no less 

 eminent an example than Lord Macaulay. We 

 have never come across a girl who absolutely 

 could not do Latin, though we know many who 

 do i^ badly. We also have read classics with a 

 very good mathematical man whose Little-Go was 

 a burden scarcely to be lifted, and have heard 

 college fellows express a similar opinion about 

 their own undergraduate days. Again : we have 

 found that to teach an older man mathematics is 

 very much easier than to teach a woman who 

 begins at the corresponding age ; but this we be- 

 lieve comes from the fact that the life-work of 

 the man had been concerned in commerce, with 

 numbers and measurement, while the woman 

 probably never did any harder thinking than the 

 ordering of a dinner or the planning of a gown. 

 However, in all such cases there is a danger of 

 forming inductions from few data, and individual 

 experience can have only a value when strength- 

 ened by other evidence. Whether women, indeed, 

 will ever do as well as men in the higher subjects 

 of a university course, is a matter on which we 

 have our doubts ; but it is, at any rate, irrelevant 

 to the case in point. Here we feel assured that 

 our experience will coincide with that of most 

 teachers and examiners, to the effect that the 

 teaching, and the results of teaching, classics and 

 mathematics, are — other things, as to time, teach- 

 ing power, etc., being equal — very much the same 

 for boys and for girls, whatever they may be for 



men and women. Having laid down, then, the 

 general principle of identity of subjects, it re- 

 mains to be seen what the subjects should be. 

 And here, when a reform such as that of the 

 scheme of the First-class college of i^receptors' 

 examination is proposed, such a question is of the 

 gravest importance, on general grounds, for boys 

 as well as for girls. 



The key of the whole position is the discussion 

 as to the exclusive advantages of classics as train- 

 ing. And here we should earnestly deprecate the 

 assimilation of the scheme for girls to the present 

 scheme for boys, because we firmly believe that 

 the girls' curriculum in our public and higher- 

 class private schools is nearer the ideal than that 

 for their brothers. To ai'gue the question would 

 be merely to re-write Herbert Spencer's book on 

 education. But the reform of boys' education, 

 and the removal of that incubus of classical study 

 which, as a heritage from earlier days, weighs so 

 heavily on us now, is so important a question, 

 that, like the ' Delenda est Carthago,' it needs 

 naming again and again. When so many studies, 

 far more useful both to men and to women in 

 practical life, all but cry aloud for a fuller share 

 of our limited school-time, we must be very cer- 

 tain of the superiority of classics as training, 

 to keep it in the place of learning which would 

 help our boys to appreciate more fully their own 

 beautiful language and the works of nature 

 around them, and — no unimportant thing nowa- 

 days — to maintain in their manhood that su- 

 premacy in arts, manufactures, and commerce, 

 which our country now sees endangered on every 

 side. And, indeed, as Herbert Spencer shows, 

 the training of reason and observation is fur- 

 nished by those very subjects which are most use- 

 ful, for nature is economical of power. We 

 therefore hail gladly the proposed alteration in 

 the regulations of the First-class examination ; 

 for, while maintaining the identity of subjects 

 and standnrd for boys and girls, it nevertheless 

 allows for that more modei-n education to which 

 the tendency of the age is rapidly bringing us. 

 Not long ago at Cambridge a determined effort 

 was made to oust Greek as a compulsory subject 

 from the Previous examination, or Little-Go ; and 

 in the late revision of the regulations for the 

 Matriculation examination at London university 

 there was an equally earnest attempt to make 

 permissive a choice of languages, and thus not 

 necessitate Latin. For both these, the ancient 

 superstition was too strong ; but the time of suc- 

 cess is, we may hope, not far distant. When 

 Oxford, much to the disgust of some of her older 

 professors, has spent thousands on schools for 

 natural science ; when Cambridge has allowed 



