both conscious and unconscious, which may easily go too far. Until the stage is passed and another tradition formed, some guidance-not mere repression--is needed. And every year, bringing growth of age and numbers, will help to give weight to the other influence. Again, in the introduction of girls into a boys' school with its traditions of self-government already established, there is another problem that has to be worked out. Amongst boys a large part of authority has to this day remained frankly founded on bodily strength; its rules and penalties are still largely based on this. With the admission of girls into the school-society new conditions are entered upon, and a new foundation of authority is necessary. And a boy is not slow to feel this, though he may be unable to express the feeling otherwise than "Well, you see, you can't lick a girl." And precisely in this feeling that brute force is not everything, that there must be an appeal to something else, is one of the greatest gains of co-education. It is a real problem for boy and girl to work out, and at first by no means an easy one. But with the consciousness of the need to solve it the battle is already half won. Help and guidance are necessary until the new conditions are mastered and shaped into new laws, soon to become as traditional and as well-sanctioned as the old. And when they have so worked it out in common, school becomes a place of far truer training for both.

The results of such an experiment cannot be added up like a row of figures, least of all while it is still young. But already there are some things plain. In work the girls hold their own with the boys in all subjects, and their greater application and readier enthusiasm already tells upon the boys. In games, of course, the positions are reversed, and here it is of great value to the girls to have a boys' standard of excellence constantly set them. Whether cricket will ever be thoroughly established girls' game is perhaps doubtful, but it is certainly well for them to learn to play, if only to get a training which no other game gives in the same degree. In the other school games (football, as before said, excepted) there need be no question as to their taking part with success.

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But success in work and games is not everything, though it in these there is mutual help through the presence of the other sex, this alone is no small argument for co-education. But after all it is in the large field that lies outside the regular routine of work and play that the influence of the one upon the other is most real, if not most felt. Not, of course, that there is any sudden change, but it is none the less real for being chiefly unconscious. The girls, perhaps, feel it most; the freedom and independence of a boy's life, with its large amount of self-government and its ideals of "honour" and "pluck" are to them a new and larger world. To the boys the change is felt, if at all, rather as a limitation, a check on language and behaviour. And it is difficult to say for which the gain is greater, even in the present, while for the future the best promise lies in the "naturalness" of it all, the absence of self-consciousness on the part of one sex

towards the other, to gain which is surely worth the facing of difficulties that prove less formidable the more boldly they are faced. In co-education even more than in other things I am convinced that it is half-heartedness that means failure. The more completely both sexes can be brought together upon an equal and natural footing, the less the difficulties grow. We must know our girls and boys and have their confidence, and show them that they have ours. It is not by separation, by suppression of natural feeling, or by suspicious surveillance that any real and lasting good is to be attained; but by wholesome and natural conditions, by mutual confidence, and, if necessary, by the rejection of the unfit-those for whom the healthy atmosphere of such a life comes too late or works too slowly. And these in childhood, happily, are few.

J. H. BADLEY.

4333.

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NOTES ON A PREPARATORY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.

As it may be interesting to some readers to make a comparison between the education of boys and girls of preparatory school age, the head mistress of a preparatory school for girls has kindly furnished us with particulars of which the following is an abstract. The school in question contains nearly 90 girls, more than half of them boarders, the average age of the girls on entrance being just under 11 years, and on leaving 13 years. The school is divided into 10 classes, the largest number of girls in one class being 12, and the smallest 6. The teaching staff attached exclusively to the school consists of 12 mistresses and four students. There are also two visiting teachers (a riding master and a dancing mistress).

1. CURRICULUM.

The school has nothing to do with outside examinations No girls are allowed to specialise for any scholarship examinations. The class work in the school is all done in the morning, with one interval of 15 minutes for play between 9 a.m. and 12.30, and shorter breaks between the other lessons. In the morning there are four lessons of half an hour and one lesson of three-quarters of an hour,

The hours of work are apportioned as follows:

Each upper form is in three divisions, each division in charge of a mistress. The girls are re-classified in each form for English, French, Latin, and Mathematics. In the lower forms the girls learn all subjects together. Latin is begun at the average age of 10 years. French is taught before Latin, but not as a grammatical study until the principles of grammar have been grasped through Latin. Neither German nor Greek is taught in the school. The head mistress is in favour of post

poning Greek, in all cases, till the public school is reached. Stress is laid on teaching all the girls drawing, carpentering, and singing. Elementary science is taught in the school:-Object lessons in the lowest forms, and botany all through the rest of the school, with very elementary astronomy, which runs over into recreation, as the school has a good telescope. Under the head of English, the proportion of time devoted to spelling and dictation is 15 per cent. (more in lower forms), to original composition and reproduction 30 per cent., to language (grammar, word formation, &c.) 40 per cent. (chiefly analysis, less in lower forms). Four to six lessons a week are given to French, the amount varying according to term and form. Younger children have more as a rule. Preparation for French lessons amounts to about 40 minutes weekly. French is now taught entirely by English teachers. It is taught conversationally in class and to some extent in recreation, a few girls who speak French fluently keeping it up with a mistress, and all boarders learning French songs and plays from time to time. The head mistress thinks that very much more might be done than is usual at present in the way of giving children an interest in French by means of games and stories illustrating French life. In history, as a rule, two half-hour lessons are given in each week, with 10 or 15 minutes preparation for each. Only English history is taught, except in the case of older girls, who read a little Roman history in French. A good deal of general history is taught in geography lessons. The aim is to give an outline of English history which can be filled in at the public school which follows. The head mistress thinks that the learning of historical facts and of some dates is useful for the future memory-work of history, but is of opinion that, for girls of preparatory school age, history is not a very useful subject. It demands too much of the reason and of the judicial faculty; and girls are apt to take up opinions without sufficient grounds. History, in her opinion, should, when taught to such young girls, appeal more to the imagination than to the reason. Geography, on the other hand, the head mistress regards as of the highest educational value. She would like to see it more largely and generously taught. The minimum of geography teaching in the school is two lessons of half-an-hour each with 15 minutes of afternoon preparation for each.

Two hours a week are given in each form to religious knowledge. To arithmetic six hours a week are given in the two lowest forms; four hours a week (with one exception) in the higher ones. In all forms there is one hour of preparation, four days a week, with the assistance of a mistress.

2. HEALTH AND PHYSICAL TRAINING.

The girls get up at 7 a.m. summer and winter, and go to bed between 7 p.m. and 7.40 p.m. There is no school before breakfast. The head mistress considers the best hours for meals for girls of this age to be as follows:-breakfast, 7.45 a.m., slight luncheon, 10.15 a.m., dinner, I p.m., tea, 5 p.m., slight supper