the suffering it entailed on the weakly, they deserve full recognition as almost the only institutions which attempted in the early part of the century to provide a good and cheap education for girls. The tradition of sound study survived, and in 1867 the Casterton institution came in for a word of praise from the Royal Commissioners, amid their almost universal condemnation of existing girls’ schools. The benefits which a woman’s reign always confers on women have been experienced to the full during the long and peaceful reign of our present Queen. The interest taken by her and the Prince Consort in arts and letters, and in the general improvement of the people, set an example that was readily followed. Ladies of the upper and middle classes began to take a keener interest in the lives of the poor, and in dealing with the problems they thus encountered were often brought to realise their own want of education. There was a stir and a movement towards something better. The views of men were gradually changing, as the ideal of womanhood set by a purer Court became more elevated. Sixty years of a woman’s wise and beneficent rule have done much to restore the glories of Elizabeth’s day. Like the revival of letters, which communicated to the whole world the learning which had once belonged to one small people, this other renaissance brought knowledge, not only to the convent pupil and the lady of leisure, but to all the daughters of the nation. This widening has helped to fix the roots more firmly, and we may hope and believe that the gains of this century are not to be lost, but, enriched by all the wealth of the future, to continue for many a generation to come. CHAPTER II THE FIRST COLLEGES The revival of women’s education in England has now a record of fifty years behind it. On the 1st of May this year Queen’s College in Harley Street celebrated its Jubilee with manifold rejoicings, a celebration in which all Englishwomen may claim the right to join. Though Girton and Holloway and other newer institutions have arisen since to throw the glories of Queen’s into the shade, none can deprive it of its proud title—the first women’s college in England. An occasion of this kind provokes reminiscence and the drawing of contrasts between 1848 and 1898; while the question that naturally occurs to us is: How did it all begin? Many answers have been suggested. Some have pressed the significance of 1848 as the year of Revolution, and hinted that the women’s share in revolt was an attempt to throw off the shackles of ignorance. This may not be altogether fanciful. Such social upheavals symbolise the workings of intellectual forces, nor can we doubt that the attempt to win for women privileges from which they had hitherto been jealously excluded is a part of the democratic demand for universal equal opportunity.