Having long since become clear in my own mind as to the importance of this intellectual development, not merely for women themselves, but even for men, for the whole rising generation; I had inquired in England, as well as in America, what was being done for women? There was only very little to tell me of in England; they had, however, in London, the Asylum for Aged Governesses, (and a more beautiful institution cannot be exhibited in any land,) the Home for Young Governesses, the two Female Colleges, together with “The Government School of Design for Females.” I had already noticed this inscription upon the door-posts of a house in the Strand, directly opposite to where I had my own excellent lodgings. I was very anxious to visit the Female School of Design in this great, magnificent London, the school which bore the grand appellation of “The Government School of Design for Women.” It must be something really great and magnificent, thought I to myself. The entrance did not promise much. It was narrow and rickety. But—that did not matter, the Englishman has sometimes a way of putting a simple outside to that which within is very splendid. I went up into a room, story above story, in the third floor. Ah! now had vanished all hope of and all esteem for the care of Government, as regarded the instruction of women, at least in the art of design. In a close, dark room, sat from sixty to seventy young women, so closely packed together that they took away from each other light, space, and, as it seemed to me, breathing-room. They had not even space in which to place their models, (some plaster of Paris casts stood on the floor in a dark corner of the apartment) they had not room to place any thing in a right light or proper perspective. In order to enable me to move along the room, the girls were obliged to stand aside, both they and their drawings. I saw two of them busy drawing a real—no, a _withered_ plant which stood in a glass. And yet they came hither, and yet they sat here, day after day, industriously, crowded together as they were, the poor young girls! So great was their desire, so great the necessity for them to learn.