The point to be kept before us, in considering the special work of this past half-century, is that for the middle-classes, including professional persons of moderate means, good education was practically out of reach, the cheaper schools which were open to them being, for the most part, of the order condemned by the Commissioners. It follows, therefore, that the opening of the new schools—with the best teaching on moderate terms—was a change of which the importance can scarcely yet be justly estimated, especially when, side by side with this preparatory movement, the advantages of University training were added. Before this time no girls’ schools, however advanced, had gone beyond the subjects considered suitable for women, and any women with knowledge of classics or mathematics were either exceptionally gifted, or had accidentally been taught with their brothers. When we go back to November 30, 1865, the fog outside that committee-room is a true symbol of the gloom that prevailed regarding the higher education of women. Darkness still held rule, even though a few of the topmost peaks had already caught the first rays of the coming dawn. At that date the future was still so veiled that it could by no possibility have occurred to Miss Davies or Miss Buss, standing there before the Commissioners, even to dream of themselves as what we now know them to have been—the representatives, one of University Education for Women, and the other of Public Schools for Girls, that is to say, of the two most powerful agencies in the greatest revolution of modern times. But in those days Miss Buss’ school was still her own private property, and, as yet, no glimpse had crossed her mental vision of its future as the model of the great public girls’ schools now spread throughout the land. So, too, with Miss Davies. Girton was not, and even Hitchin had not come into view, though possibly some vague ideal of a true college for women may have been taking shape in Miss Davies’ mind. But if so, it must still have been as baseless as the poet’s dream, for no “sweet girl-graduate” existed as yet out of the domain of the “Princess Ida.” On this lower earth at that time, and for many a day after, she could serve only as matter for a flying jest. There were indeed three “Colleges” for girls—Queen’s, Bedford, and Cheltenham, as well as the North London Collegiate School for Ladies—all in full work, and even then ready for the rapid expansion which followed the opening of the Universities to women. But, at that date, these could not rank as more than collegiate schools; nor was more desired, for Professor Maurice is very careful, in his inaugural address, to deprecate all intention of emulating the poet’s creation, thus guarding himself:—