Closely connected with regard for healthful conditions is the endeavour to avoid overstrain, and this has led to a not unnatural reaction against the excessive burden of outside examination. We find such sentences as ‘particular care is taken to prevent over-pressure.’ ‘For the younger or weaker of the party we provide extra half hours of rest or recreation in the garden.’ ‘There is no cramming for examinations, and the object set before each girl is to do her daily work as well as she possibly can from an honourable sense of duty,’ etc. It is often stated that pupils can be prepared for university or other examinations if desired, but although some few private schools of this type distinctly aim at the certificate of the Joint Board, the majority work on more general lines, while ensuring a high standard of efficiency by submitting the school annually to inspection by university examiners. The fees in schools of this grade vary from about £90 to £135 per annum, with so-called ‘extras.’ These are reduced in the more modern institutions to such subjects as piano, violin, and dancing, which require individual instruction, while the more old-fashioned include languages, even French, under this heading. But both terms and curricula in private schools are adapted to special cases, and it is impossible to generalise on them. For girls, as for boys, the statement made by the Secondary Commission is probably correct, that ‘the large private schools, usually with boarders, are the private schools which do most for secondary education. They are often conducted on lines similar to those of public schools; but they are less bound by heredity, and the larger scope for experiment which they afford has, there is reason to believe, contributed to noteworthy improvements of methods.’ Probably this class of school is in greater demand than ever before; but though there are not a few who can enjoy its benefits, it must always be a luxury for the rich, while there has been no corresponding improvement in the cheaper type of boarding-school. To provide board, lodging, and tuition, at fees ranging from £30 to £50, is a difficult problem, and can hardly be solved without the infliction of some suffering or injustice. Yet even these fees are beyond the reach of many whose homes are far away from towns. There is urgent need for some scheme of boarding-houses (not self-supporting) in connection with the cheaper endowed schools, and the application of some public money to the establishment of a few large boarding-schools in different parts of the country. Private effort cannot meet these cases.