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Of the obvious advantages to girls as well as boys of playing games in which their bodies are exercised, and through which their characters grow stronger, I say nothing here. Every High School of to-day has its playground, and nearly all have playfields as well. Games are organised through Game Clubs or by Games Mistresses and are played by mistresses and girls; Hockey, Cricket, Basket ball, La Crosse, Lawn Tennis and Rounders. Sports are arranged and carried through with not less seriousness and enthusiasm, though for less costly prizes, than in the case of boys. Swimming is taught and encouraged.

In this connection I will again quote, for the justification---if any be needed—of those of us who may seem unduly to encourage the playing of games, what Professor MacCunn has to say:

"If we are apt to have misgivings about the long hours and days given in youth to the strenuous idleness of sports and games we must not think too exclusively of the immediate results. We must think of the heavy drafts which arduous vocations make in after years on bodily vigour and endurance, of the habit of cheerfulness that follows health, and not least of that sense of insurance against whatever the future can bring which comes of the consciousness of calculable physical fitness. Plato startles us in his educational ideals by assigning 24 of the most precious years of life to the exclusive pursuit of 'gymnastics.' If it seems too costly a tribute to the body it is to be borne in mind that it is prompted by the principle, Body for the sake of soul,' and finds its justification in the strenuous service to be exacted by the state of its citizens in later years.”

I know of course that the author whom I have quoted is speaking of boys. I know too in the case of girls additional care has to be taken to guard against over-exertion and too great exhaustion. But I know also that nothing tends to better health and better work than games regularly and strenuously played. The body claims all that we can do for it. With bodily health comes vigour and sanity of mind, and things take and keep their right proportions-the strain and worry of mental exercises is lessened.

"Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness."

I fear I may have seemed too laudatory of the work and influence of High School education--but in a paper not to exceed an hour in length it is impossible to say everything, and on such an occasion as this, while freely acknowledging that much remains to be done, I naturally choose to play the optimist.

I do not forget the many brilliant, highly cultured women whose names stand, and will always stand, in the front ranks of the educated women of England and who never went to a High School. Among those who leave our schools there are none who surpass them, and few who equal them, but they were and are the exceptions. But I compare the many women of 50 years ago who, longing perhaps for the opportunities of learning, and ambitious of sharing in the privileges so freely bestowed upon boys, had to be content with the husks of learning only, and to live out sombre, uninterested, self-centred lives without having had a single opportunity of realizing the advantages and pleasures of work honestly prepared for and well done with the scores of happy contented High School girls and University students of to-day.

The exception may be no higher than before; but the average of serviceableness and happiness resulting from High School education is incalculably greater.

Briefly the influence direct and indirect of the better education of girls and women has added to the sum of their usefulness and happiness individually and collectively.

When the first High Schools were opened the women trained to work and capable of working on special lines were few and far between.

The want was recognised and deplored by all who needed their assistance. Miss Beale, Miss Buss, Mrs Grey put in the front of their programme the training and teaching of women and the testing of their powers and capacity. Thirty years ago the notion that a well-born woman should belong voluntarily to a profession was repugnant to parents and relations. That a woman should teach, or be obliged to earn her living, meant

that she became an object of commiseration to all who knew of her misfortune.

Well might the "National Union" speak of "raising the social status of female teachers." Women there were then who by force of character and nobility of aim rose above all prejudices and carried on bravely and successfully the work which they were inspired to do. Even for them the difficulties were great; for the mass idleness was the only genteel occupation. The new schools have changed all that. The need for teachers created and encouraged the supply, and the modern spirit is all in favour of women undertaking not only teaching but any occupation, and adopting any profession for which by nature, capacity and training they are best fitted. Honour to work and to workers is the rule, and it is bøginning to be fully realised that through her work, and because of her work, the modern woman claims and holds a position among those who are honoured in the land.

The High Schools and Colleges are sending out their pupils to be trained as Doctors and Nurses, Factory Inspectors, Poor Law Guardians, Sanitary Officers, Teachers, Lecturers, Examiners. In business and in professions and in the performance of their home duties, where these call them, they are justifying the confidence of those who have so nobly and strenuously advocated the right of every woman to receive the education best suited to her power and capacities, and who have borne the heat and burden of the day in putting this within her grasp.

Not the least of the peaceful revolutions of the 19th Century is that which has made English Schools places of real education and training, which has raised the ideal of woman's vocation, and which has brought home to thousands the conception of what is due from them to their homes and to their country and placed it within their power to realize their ideal.

It is to be remembered that there are High Schools of all kinds-good, bad, and indifferent. A school is not good

I do not claim that even
But I do assert that they

because it is called a High School. our best High Schools are perfect. are alive; that in them there is a constant reaching after improvement, a constant study of new principles and methods with a view to their adoption if proved better than the old. If the schools of to-morrow-they too offer a most fascinating subject for discussion but they do not come within the scope of this paper-if the schools of to-morrow are consequently as great an improvement on those of to-day as these are on those of yesterday I for one shall be fully satisfied. I know that our best High Schools are better than any that have gone before, and that their influence on girls and women is for good. We live for our children,-to teach them and train them to be worthy citizens of a great country,

CHAPTER VI.

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY

IN ENGLAND

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

BY

PROFESSOR WITHERS.

Analysis. (1) Connexion of the subject of the Lecture with the central topic of the Summer Meeting, "Life and Thought in England in the Nineteenth Century" (2) The 'historical method' and the 'historical sense' distinguish this century from the ‘à priori' philosophy and the unsympathetic treatment of the past which marked the Eighteenth-Examples of this tendency in the Theory of Government, in Theology, and in Literature and Art-The idea of development the central idea in the thought of this century-(3) At the opening of the century the striking feature of the studies of our Universities and Public Schools was, with certain exceptions, the supremacy of the single classical curriculum, as instituted at the Revival of Learning-This contained 'implicit History,' although History was not taught as a separate 'subject'—(4) The Nineteenth Century is marked by the break-up of the single curriculum-History emerges as a substantive subject-attempt of Thomas Arnold to preserve unity in the scheme of a liberal education-History the central subject in his system of practice, as it was in Herbart's system of theory-(5) The last third of the century sees 'specialisation' dominate our studies—The treatment of History in every grade of our schools is unsatisfactory-(6) The great requisite for the progress of our education in the Twentieth Century is a simpler and clearer idea of a liberal education-Place of History in this idea.

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