Mrs. Grey’s conclusions were the same as those of the Commissioners, who complained that there was no demand for the education of girls, the cause of the indifference being that low idea which regards only the money value of education, and estimates it solely as a means of getting on. Girls were taught with a view to increasing their attractiveness before marriage, rather than with that of increasing their happiness and usefulness after. This was the general cause of dissatisfaction, but there were many details. One and all complained that, with the exception of quite a few schools, the education of girls in the middle classes was much worse than that existing in the elementary schools of the day. This was of course specially the case in subjects like arithmetic, and arose greatly from the mistaken notion that they were of no use to girls. The Commissioners were unanimous in condemning the prevailing method of instruction by means of such books as _Mangnall’s Questions_ and the like, termed by Mr. Bryce ‘the noxious brood of catechisms.’ Of this, be it said, Miss Mangnall’s famous work, which bears witness to its author’s well-stored mind, and which reached nearly a hundred editions, was the best. The ‘Questions’ demanded indeed the knowledge of such useless facts as the number of houses burned in the Great Fire of London; but there were in use, in the numerous small private schools of the period, cheaper and more stupid books, in which the information was not merely useless, but even defied common sense. A small catechism on ‘Science,’ entitled ‘Why and Because,’ concluded a long list of inept questions with: ‘Why do pensioners and aged cottagers put their teapots on the hob to draw?’ In some books, facts of varying nature—of history, geography, grammar, etc.—were all jumbled together. It is not surprising that girls instructed by the parrot-like, inconsequent methods of such lesson-books, passed from school with no love of reading. The Commissioners complained further, that though French and music were held to be the most important subjects to which a girl should devote herself, they were nearly always very badly taught. They spoke of time wasted at the piano; they calculated the thousands of hours given to music which was not worth hearing at the last. They gave instances of ludicrous mistakes in French, which no effort of visiting masters could improve into anything like a real knowledge of the language, because rudimentary grammar had never been mastered. They spoke of drawing taught with an equal disregard of thoroughness, and with still more disastrous result. ‘The common practice of masters touching up their pupils’ performances for exhibition at home fosters a habit of dishonesty, and that too prevalent tendency running through the whole of female education, the tendency to care more for appearance than reality, to seem rather than to be.’[43]