§ 10. (6) Among the many changes brought about in the nineteenth century we find little that can compare in importance with the advance in the education of women. In the last century, whenever a woman exercised her mental powers she had to do it by stealth,[53] and her position was degraded indeed when compared not only with her descendants of the nineteenth century, but also with her ancestors of the sixteenth. This I know has been disputed by some authorities, _e.g._, by the late Professor Brewer: but to others, _e.g._, to a man who, as regards honesty and wisdom, has had few equals and no superiors in investigating the course of education, I mean the late Joseph Payne, this educational superiority of the women of Elizabeth’s time has seemed to be entirely beyond question. On this point Mulcaster’s evidence is very valuable, and, to me at least, conclusive. He not only “admits young maidens to learn,” but says that “custom stands for him,” and that “the custom of my country ... hath made the maidens’ train her own approved travail.” (_PP._, p. 167.) § 11. (7) Of all the educational reforms of the nineteenth century by far the most fruitful and most expansive is, in my opinion, the training of teachers. In this, as in most educational matters, the English, though advancing, are in the rear. Far more is made of “training” on the Continent and in the United States than in England. And yet we made a good start. Our early writers on education saw that the teacher has immense influence, and that to turn this influence to good account he must have made a study of his profession and have learnt “the best that has been thought and done” in it. Every occupation in life has a traditional capital of knowledge and experience, and those who intend to follow the business, whatever it may be, are required to go through some kind of training or apprenticeship before they earn wages. To this rule there is but one exception. In English elementary schools children are paid to “teach” children, and in the higher schools the beginner is allowed to blunder at the expense of his first pupils into whatever skill he may in the end manage to pick up. But our English practice received no encouragement from the early English writers, Mulcaster, Brinsley,[54] and Hoole. As far as I am aware the first suggestion of a training college for teachers came from Mulcaster. He schemed seven special colleges at the University; and of these one is for teachers. Some of his suggestions, _e.g._, about “University Readers” have lately been adopted, though without acknowledgment; and as the University of Cambridge has since 1879 acknowledged the existence of teachers, and appointed a “Teachers’ Training Syndicate,” we may perhaps in a few centuries more carry out his scheme, and have training colleges at Oxford and Cambridge.[55] Some of the reasons he gives us have not gone out of date with his English. They are as follows:—