I have recently been assured by one of the best students that have ever graduated from our University, and by another who graduated from Hillsdale College in this State, from precisely the same course as the gentlemen students, that to girls of average capacity, the college course, all that is required of the young men--and all that _they_ are accustomed to perform--is not by any means difficult, and will not over-tax any girl of average health and abilities, who is properly prepared when she enters. But the trouble is that while girls like the studies in the regular course, and study with a real relish, they want more. They are not satisfied with the French and German of a course, they want to speak and write these languages, and add extra private lessons to those of the regular classes. The few lessons of the course in perspective drawing have, in some, awakened an artistic taste, and they want to pursue drawing farther. There are better teachers to be found in the vicinity of a University than they will find at home, and they are constantly tempted to do too much. A number of girls in the literary course of the University attend the medical lectures in certain departments, some teach students who are "conditioned" in certain branches. From all the colleges, the report in this respect is the same--girls can easily do all that is required of the young men, but they will do more. And yet the report from every college is--_more young men break down during a course, and are obliged, from ill health, to abandon their studies, than young women_. This certainly does not threaten danger to girls who attempt only the same that the young men do. The tendency in our colleges towards elective courses of study is in the right direction to remove the dangerous temptation into which girls are liable to fall--of taking studies outside the course. I hope to see even greater freedom of choice. From a woman, a mother, and lover of little children, a few words about school buildings and school methods may not be out of place. Americans are proverbially giving to boasting. People of the older world tell us that this is an expression of our undeveloped youth--a kind of _Sophomorism_ denoting that we are yet not very far advanced. Be that as it may, I have observed that there is no more common subject for boasting than our schools and our school system.