not learn to do so, we are to be pitied or despised, according to the school in which the lesson is needed." "And so on," said Moritz, turning over the leaves. "The rest can be easily imagined. Here is a special treatise upon the motor nerves,--it seems pretty fair,--and rather a long essay upon nervous excitement, but I think we have done our duty and read enough of the testimony. How shall we decide? Shall we carry out the joke, and admit a student in petticoats to the lectures and the dissecting-room?" "Why not?" said Professor Taun with some humour. "We admit so many stupid lads, why not one woman?" "My dear friend," old Heim began, "I do not think we have ever had many pupils more gifted than Fräulein Hartwich. And is not a talented woman better than a stupid man?" "That is a question," remarked Herbert, riveting his sharp eyes upon Heim's honest face. "I do not believe that the most talented woman can accomplish what is possible, with diligence and perseverance, for a man of common ability. What aid can a woman lend to us, or to science? The aid of her labour only, for no woman possesses creative force. And the feminine capacity for labour is so weak, that it is hardly worth while to commit an absurdity for the sake of making it ours." "An absurdity?" asked Heim. "Yes, I should call it absurd to admit a woman among our students, to degrade science to a mere doll to amuse silly girls withal, until, finally, there would be an Areopagus erected, before which we should be expected to make our most profound bow, in every feminine tea-party. There is competition enough already, without increasing it by the admission among us of the other sex." "That sounds strange," said old Heim; "it looks almost as if you were afraid of the competition which you so thoroughly despise. Why speak of competition in science? Leave that narrow-minded word to trade, which is really confined within certain limits. In such a boundless and abstract domain as science, there is no place for personal envy and arrogance. Can there be any question of competition when we are labouring for a cause which is to benefit the world? Whoever asks for other rewards than are contained in knowledge itself, is no priest of science. The true student exists for science, not science for him,--he rejoices in every fresh advance, no matter by whom it is made, for the honour of the cause that he serves is his own, and we can say truthfully, Each for all, and all for each. If, therefore, we are offered the labour of a pair of hands willing to share our pains, let us not reject them because they are the delicate hands of a woman, but accept them, and offer them a modest place, where they can achieve all that lies in their power." "But," cried Moritz, "let such hands do for us what we cannot do for ourselves,--knit stockings, for instance,--instead of trying to assist in what we can easily accomplish without them."