of neatness, order, and laborious activity compared with some workhouses I have seen; but are our prisons to be made less humane, or our workhouses more so?

Englishwomen think that they are not presuming beyond the "Woman's Sphere," when they ask for some enquiry into the "machinery" (not unfitly so called) by which the physical, moral, and spiritual condition of more than 100,000 women and children is controlled, and from what class of men those who constitute this machinery are selected or elected? Whether it would be found on examination that their education, habits of thought, and habits of life, have prepared them for the deep responsibilities of such a power as is here entrusted to them? and why the guardianship of the poor is left in general to the lowest order of tradesmen? I know there are sensible, honest, and humane men among them, who abhor the present state of things, but they form a small section of the whole, and are always outvoted; for in all cases where numbers rule, the finer element must be in the minority. The higher order of tradesmen, and the gentlemen of the parish, dislike the trouble, and particularly dislike being brought into conflict with the vulgar and more ignorant; hence we hear daily of such acts of stupidity and cruelty as could not by any possibility emanate from, individual folly, but only from collective mediocrity. There are many instances of men of gentlemanly feeling withdrawing themselves in despair of effecting any good. Perhaps this would not be the case if the management of the female departments of the workhouse, and the supervision of the infirmaries, were in some degree modified and elevated by the influence-always under authority of good and able women.

I know it is argued that women will do mischief, because that is always taken for granted; and it seems universally agreed that in these and similar institutions, the intervention of women must necessarily embarrass men. I

suppose it would at first. They are not accustomed to work together, nor discuss grave subjects on equal terms; they have not been trained to understand each other's ways, nor to respect each other's independence. Then there is the greatest difficulty in finding women who are in any way prepared for such a vocation; and it is most certain that untrained, narrow-minded, impulsive women, are no more fit to undertake certain duties, than narrow-minded, vulgar shop-keepers. But some enquiry might be made as to the good that has been effected by the ladies who have been admitted as visitors, who have had to gain their own experience, and make their own way, in the face of ridicule, opposition, and every difficulty; and whether, as women are to be found who can be entrusted with the discipline and management of prisons, they might not also be made available in the management of workhouses. For, since it is agreed on all sides, that in these workhouses and other public institutions evils of great magnitude do exist; that they baffle all the means that the intelligence and the munificence of the ruling classes have brought to bear on them; that money, time, thought, and power have been lavished in vain; it might be as well to try whether the interfusion of the feminine element of society might not heal these sufferings, and harmonise these discrepancies and inconsistencies; but then it must be well trained, have a fair trial, and be surrounded by all the prestige of authority and experience.

is

The woman who is to be entrusted with these higher social duties should have the means of preparing herself for them; as yet such means do not exist. The cry now for industrial schools for girls-much needed, heaven knows! They will be extended I hope, and wherever established will do infinite good. It is said that the National girls' schools are to be also, in some measure, industrial schools. May I suggest that if there had been some few

lady-inspectors associated with the gentlemen-inspectors for our female National schools some years ago, such absurd mistakes would not have been made in regard to the intellectual culture in these schools. The preference would not have been given to those studies in which proficiency is understood and encouraged by men in boys' schools, to the exclusion or, at least, neglect of those which can be only taught by women, and where women best understand the proficiency and the deficiency. The young women trained in the Normal schools become, under excellent schoolmasters, excellent teachers of grammar, geography, and history, and astonish the inspectors by their acquirements; but suppose that with these bachelor lawyers and these collegians "with philological tastes" there had been associated, some years ago, a few clever rational women and one or two sensible medical men, would not the staff of school-inspectors have been more efficient in regard to the practical requirements in a girl's training? - and if this system of joint-inspection could be extended to those boarding-school" establishments" and seminaries for young ladies, in which the daughters of our farmers and tradesmen are educated, it would be a great public boon. There might be a prejudice against gentlemen-inspectors only, but lady-inspectors united with them, and duly authorised, might raise the standard of female education all over the country. I do not understand why the same kind of authorised interest might not be taken in the larger and higher colleges for girls, which we find extended by the Universities to the large academies and colleges for boys. The schoolmasters do not deem it an interference but an honour and a boon, and the schoolmistresses would have the same feeling. It is obvious that where large educational and charitable institutions, comprising the two sexes, have been entirely in the hands of men, as is generally the case, their pity may be for the girls, but their sympathy is for

the boys, whose wants, difficulties, and motives of action they understand; the girls are therefore, unintentionally perhaps, but comparatively neglected.

*

There is another point of great importance which Englishwomen desire to see taken into account in the comparisons so frequently drawn between the state of education and the criminal statistics, and that is, the comparative moral results of education in the two sexes. To illustrate what is meant, here is the computation (omitting the fractions) set down by the chaplain of one of our largest prisons. Of criminals utterly ignorant, the males are 31 per cent.; the females 50 per cent. Of those imperfectly instructed, the males are 32 per cent., and the females 28 per cent. Of those tolerably instructed, the males are 23, and the females 13 per cent. Of the intelligent, the males are 10, and the females 8 per cent. Of the well-educated, the males are 2, and the females none. I cannot go farther into details, but I believe that the proportion would be found the same in other prisons; and I infer from these numbers that education, even an imperfect education, has more effect in keeping girls out of crime and sin than can be said of boys, May we ask of you, my Lord, who have so long taken an enlightened interest in schemes of national education, whether it might not be worth while to enquire into these things? to ask how it is that there is still so large a proportion of uneducated girls in our community, compared with the opportunities afforded to boys?† and how it happens that in the great number of excellent papers on education, contributed to the society over which your Lordship presides, the education of the female population should be almost wholly ignored? No mention is made of the industrial training of the lower classes of women, nor of the schools which may exist for the middle and pro"The Crime of Liverpool," by the Rev. Thomas Carter. + See p. 127.

fessional classes, and the principles on which they are managed; and this takes place with the facts and numbers of the educational census and the prison reports before you in the midst of complaints of the inefficiency and frivolity of women generally, and the acknowledgment, repeated over and over again, that on their better education must depend the happiness and comfort of your homes, and the moral training of your boys.

I merely suggest these considerations to our Education Committees, and to the Society for the Promotion of Social Science. But in regard to education, we Englishwomen require something more. We wish to have some higher kinds of industrial, and professional, and artistic training more freely accessible to women. We wish to have some share, however small, in the advantages which most of our large well-endowed public institutions extend to men only. When the National School of Design was opened to female students, it met with the strongest opposition, and, strange to say, the principal objection was on the score of morality; -one would have thought that all London was to be demoralised, because a certain number of ladies and a certain number of gentlemen had met under the same roof for the study of art. True, the two schools were in distinct, in far-separated apartments, but it was argued the pupils might perhaps meet on the stairs, and then, when going home, who was to protect the young ladies from the young gentlemen? You, my Lord, may have forgotten some of the disgraceful absurdities which gentlemen and artists were not ashamed to utter publicly and privately on that occasion; I blush to recall them; I trust we have done with them; and as I am sure men have no reason to fear women as their rivals, so I hope women will, in all noble studies, be allowed henceforth to be their associates and companions.

In relation to this subject, the question now before the