No: I do not exaggerate. I believe we are all concerned to know in what sort of homes, under what influences, with what helps to health and happiness, these lonely and isolated girls pass the hours when they are not engaged in teaching. It concerns us, in the first place, of course, because theirs are the direct influences which mould our children; but I scorn that argument. It concerns us far more because they are the children of the same Father, engaged in the most trying of human vocations, and entitled as women, especially as unprotected women, to the sympathy of all mothers. Some years ago, a lady not yet out of her teens, and suddenly reduced in fortune, went to Virginia to teach. She had letters from persons of distinction, who had known her in her early home. The letters were delivered; but there the matter ended. But she was one of those persons who make a place for themselves; and, after the neighborhood grew proud of her, she was called down one day to meet the wife of a lieutenant in the navy, to whom one of her letters had been addressed. "I am sorry I have not called before," apologized the visitor; "but there are so many of _these teachers_!" She had no time to say more: the young girl's cheek kindled. "Madam," said she, springing to her feet, "I desire no attention from you which would not under any circumstances be accorded to your daughter's teacher;" and she left the room. It is a matter of small importance, that, in this case, the young teacher was soon placed in a position in which her good-will became important to the lieutenant's wife. "This," you will say, "was at the South. It grew out of that spirit of 'caste' which died with slavery." Is it indeed dead? Is there no spirit of caste in Massachusetts? [3] Un Passo Avanti nella Cultura Femminile Fesi e Progetto di Anna Maria Mozzoni Mitano. 1866. [4] I would gladly expunge the bitter reproof of these lines; but they record a fact which occurred at a medical school, where such an application was made, and must stand as history. [5] The three parts of this book have been made to conform to the census and statistics of the year 1850. To bring them up to the year 1860 would require a repetition of all the labor originally devoted to the question. That would be unwise if it were possible, for it could not alter the bearing of any statements; and it is not possible, because we have now no certain values in America. I had from the first intended to indicate in notes any important changes that had taken place in this decade. I had earnestly hoped to be able to contradict here the statements in the text in regard to medical opportunities for women, and the proper training of sick nurses, in England. But my English correspondents assure me that I have no occasion to change any thing; that the facts remain substantially what they were when my manuscript was written.