Even more important than the routine of a school is its curriculum; and here the need of the reformer’s hand is still felt acutely. The subjects included in the Girls’ Public Day School Company prospectuses are the following—Religious Instruction, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Mathematics, Book-keeping, English grammar, composition, and literature, History, Geography, French, German, Latin, the elements of Physical Science, Social Economy, Drawing, Class-singing and Harmony, Gymnastic Exercises, and Needlework. To these Greek must now be added, since it is taught in every school that prepares for college. The prospectus says ‘any or all of these may be taught,’ which means that the head-mistress has, within certain limits, a right of selection. Hence the tendency of schools, even under the same management, to vary greatly. Not only is there as yet no consensus of opinion in England as to the best curriculum for girls’ schools, but even the general aim to be kept in view seems by no means determined. Mrs. Bryant lays down the incontrovertible dictum that ‘the ideal of the curriculum is a balance of subjects so that all normal faculties and interests may be cultivated.’ But there is another side which cannot be neglected, and the claims of the ideal vanish into insignificance before the demands of practical life and outside examination. In spite of the repeated promises that examination is to be servant and not master we must not hope to escape from its dominion as long as it is the ‘open sesame’ of colleges and professions. A rough test, it is still the best hitherto devised, and serves on the whole to separate the sheep from the goats. Since we must, therefore, acknowledge its sovereignty, it behoves us to see that it exercises a wise and benevolent tyranny. However much we may protest, the curriculum of a school will always be largely determined by the nature of its leaving examination, since this regulates the work of the upper forms, and these more or less mould the lower. Some schools reduce this examination work to a minimum, reserving it entirely for the highest form, while others use the machinery of outside examinations to determine the whole of their work. The North London Collegiate belongs to this latter class. The upper part is organised according to two parallel courses. Of these _A._ leads to the London degree examinations, that is to Matriculation or in some cases Intermediate Arts, and Course _B._ to the Cambridge Senior and Higher Locals. All these examinations under certain conditions admit to the Women’s Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, and hence act the double part of a leaving and entrance examination, but this school also makes use of the lower examinations, _e.g._, the Preliminary and Junior Locals. Hence the work of these classes must be directed to the set subjects required for these examinations, and must include the particular periods of history, works