[Footnote 16: Meehan, "On Fertilization by Insect Agency." _Gardeners' Chronicle_, 11 Sept. 1875.] [Footnote 17: For the whole subject of these most curious flowers, see Mr. Darwin's book "On the Different Forms of Flowers;" Rev. G. Henslow, Tr. Linn. Society, "Botany," 2nd series, vol. i. p. 317; Mr. Bennett, Journal of Linn. Society, "Botany," xiii. p. 147, xvii. p. 269.] [Footnote 18: Bennett, Journal of Linn. Society, "Botany," xiii. p. 147.] [Footnote 19: Meehan, "On Fertilization," _ubi supra_.] [Footnote 20: Mr. Bennett, "On Cleistogamous Flowers," Linn. Society's Journal, "Botany," xvii. p. 278, has shown that the latter is probably the correct view.] [Footnote 21: _Nature_, ix. 461.] [Footnote 22: _Nature_, xx. p. 386.] WHERE ARE WE IN ART? "No doubt education is a fine thing!" said I, meditatively, laying down my thirteenth newspaper. It was a rainy November day, and the reading-room was nearly empty. I had been told the great fact over and over again in some form or other in all the "Dailies" and "Weeklies." It had been repeated in every variety of tone in the little pile of "Monthlies" at my elbow, of which I had skimmed the cream (no one in these days can be expected to go through the labour of a whole article)! The "Quarterlies," in more ponderous fashion, had reiterated the sentiment. We had got hold of the right thing; all that was wanted was more and more of the same. Let everybody be served alike; what is meat for the gander is meat also for the goose, repeated the advocates of women's education, magniloquently (though not exactly in those words). Let everybody learn the same thing that I am learning! How much better and wiser we are than our forefathers! How beautiful for us to be able to say, as in the old story of the French Minister of Instruction when he pulls out his watch, "It is ten o'clock; all the children in the schools in England are doing their sums. It is half-past eleven, they are all writing their copies!" "What everybody says must be true," thought I; "the schoolmaster has got the better of the world, and rules the roast despotically; but then how great is the result!" I repeated, with pride.