In the house on the opposite side of the street, in “Somerset House,” was “The Government School of Design for Young Men,” and they had every advantage which large rooms, models, teachers could give. And, nevertheless, and in spite of there being every unfavorable circumstance on the side of the girls, yet, in the two years, when public examination had been made of the productions of the two schools, the prises had been awarded to the girls. So unquestionable was the superiority of their talent for decorative art, so nobly just the decision of the male judges. I heard much praise bestowed upon the head mistress of the Female School of Design, as being herself a distinguished artist. I cannot but deplore for her that she has not a better opportunity of developing her own talent and the talent of her young pupils than that which is afforded her by the Government School of Design for Women. My thoughts involuntarily sped back across the sea to the country, to the people who preëminently among all the nations of the earth govern themselves, and to one of the Schools of Design for Women, which have lately begun to spring up there, with that fresh, vigorous growth, which all great, public, useful undertakings have in the soil of the New World. I saw the school which had been commenced in the first instance in the shade of private life, by Mrs. Sarah Peter, an English lady, with a warm feeling of fellow-citizenship; which had been taken up by the government, and incorporated with the Franklin Institution, at Philadelphia, with an annual endowment of three thousand dollars. I saw once more the large, light halls there; saw the kind, cheerful mistress happy in her vocation, happy in the progress of her pupils, and in the flourishing condition of the school. I saw the young girls’ beaming countenances, saw how a happy consciousness had arisen within them, as if they would say, “We also have now obtained work in God’s beautiful vineyard!” I saw them drawing vine-shoots and palms, as decoration for walls and floors; saw genius here unfold its youthful wings in joyful amazement at its own powers; and patient industry gladly take her place in the service of her more ardent sister; saw in the practical direction which the spirit of the New World gives to all work, an infinite future and sphere of operation opened for women in the employment of that talent which Mother Nature has given to them for the beautifying of life—the sense of the beautiful, a feeling for the tasteful and the ornamental—a talent which has hitherto been employed merely in a circumscribed manner.