“I am extremely obliged to you for your kindness in thinking of my paper, and sending me such a helpful letter about it. I will get the _Illustrated News_. I will also venture to write to Miss Cobbe, and I will look at your letter in _Public Opinion_. I think I have advocated just the same view in my paper. The difficulty seems to be to constitute the central authority. Any Middle-class scheme ought to be very superior to our Elementary Education, which has grave defects. And then, where are our suitable teachers to be found? From my experience of the world there are few people like Miss Buss. It will never do to have the teachers of Elementary schools. But of course all these difficulties must be met with spirit. “I have been so much interested in your arguments in favour of public schools, of many of which I had not thought, but I agree with all. I should have liked to copy it into my paper, and have acknowledged your kind help, but had not room; so I have stolen some of your ideas, which I hope you will pardon, and have woven them in with a curious German report from Frankfurt. Your thoughts in favour of a ‘mixture of classes’ and ‘true independence’ have long been favourite hobbies of mine; but your idea of an _esprit de corps_ was quite new to me, and I think it most valuable.” In the _Echo_ of October 10, 1871, there is a report of the Social Science Meeting at Leeds, saying— “The time of the Education Department to-day was wasted for a long time by two factious men. They spoiled the discussion of the papers by Mrs. Grey and Miss Gurney on the special requirements for the improvement of the education of girls, by two childish speeches, the one in disparagement, the other in eulogy of woman. Mr. Baines (the president) had the greatest difficulty in shutting them up.” In the same day’s issue of the _Echo_ there is a somewhat sarcastic letter from Miss Cobbe, commenting on Mr. Rogers’ happy visions of help for girls’ education, and demanding the practical realization so long deferred, and especially advocating the claims of the Camden School to a fraction of the help so liberally bestowed on the brothers of these girls. The outcome of Mrs. Grey’s papers—read before the Society of Arts and the Social Science Congress at Leeds—was a large and enthusiastic meeting in London, in November, 1871, when the Women’s National Education Union was formally inaugurated, with Mrs. Grey as president for the first year. In the year following H.R.H. the Princess Louise (Marchioness of Lorne) became president, with a goodly array of well-known names as vice-presidents, and an acting committee of Educationalists, professional and amateur. Of this committee, Mr. Joseph Payne, Chairman of the College of Preceptors, became the chairman till his death in 1875.