days of King Ahasuerus, so thirty years ago it was felt that humility in women should be cultivated at all costs, and if they became aware that all men were not necessarily their intellectual superiors they would break out into open revolt. Women had been told that they should obey their husbands because the latter knew best. If that were denied, the claim to obedience would have to rest on the possession of might instead of right. This reiterated assertion of their inferiority has rankled in women’s hearts. For the last forty years it has been the source of most of the bitterness expressed openly on the platform, and the cause of invidious comparisons leading to mutual and undignified recriminations. It has affected the direction towards which the efforts of educational enthusiasts have been turned. Their one aim and object has been to show that capacities supposed to be essentially masculine are possessed by women also; to make it possible for women to compete on equal terms with men and to prove that they are not always the last in the race. That the question of equality or inferiority was a wholly irrelevant one was not their fault; they had to answer the arguments of those who held the keys, and they were not to blame if these arguments were foolish. We owe much to the women who, at the risk of great unpopularity and much social loss, fought the battles by which the doors were opened, through which others passed without one effort of their own. It is because their work has been successful, not from any depreciation of its value, that I maintain that it is time to review the outcome of the last ten or twelve years, during which women have been free to compete with men in the College and the University, and to take a new departure. London and Cambridge have admitted them to examinations on equal terms, although the latter still refuses them the hall-mark of the degree. Newnham and Girton have had to extend their premises; Lady Margaret and Somerville have been established and have obtained some concessions from Oxford; University College, London, Mason’s College, Birmingham, the Welsh Colleges, and other men’s colleges, admit women to their class rooms on equal terms with men. London, Ireland, and Edinburgh admit them to their medical degrees; the Women’s School of Medicine is prosperous, and they have admission to a few hospitals. At London and Cambridge they have done themselves credit in every branch. So far as receptive power is concerned, it is now at least admitted that the rather-above-the-average woman is quite on a level with the average man. So far, so good. But although our self-respect may be considerably increased, what is our economic position? There are not yet 800 women graduates of London and Cambridge. Of these the majority are assistant mistresses in public or private schools, visiting teachers, lecturers, or head mistresses. There were in 1881, according to the census of that year, 123,000 women