Ah, you male sycophants! You would prevent us from competing with you; you would separate yourselves on your island of knowledge, and sink the punt which would bear us over to your privileged shore. Of all the twaddle--forgive me, male sycophants!--that the world has ever heard, I think the greatest is that which you have talked about female education. And the best of it is, you are so anxious about our welfare; you are so afraid that we should injure our health by overmuch mental exertion; you profess to think that our brains are not calculated to stand the strain of continued mental exercise; you think that competition is not good for the female mind; that we are too competitive by nature--too ambitious! Yes, we are so ambitious that we would enter the lists with those who are asked in Public Examinations to find the simple interest on £1,000 for 5 years at 6¼ per cent.; so ambitious that we would compete with those who are requested to disclose the first aorist middle of [Greek: tuptô]. Oh, think of the mental strain involved in such questions! How it must ruin your health to find out how many times a wheel of radius 6 feet will turn round between York and London, a distance of 200 miles! It is quite wonderful how your brains, my dear male sycophants, can stand such fearful demands upon your intelligence and industry! But you are so kind to us, so afraid of our health! Really, we are much obliged to you. If you married one of us, or became our guardian, or left us a legacy, we should then recognise your interest in us, and be very grateful to you for your good advice. But as matters stand, we are quite capable of taking care of ourselves. We will promise not to work too hard, if you will promise not to weary us with your paternal jurisdiction. But, male sycophants, I want a word with you. Why do you object to our taking degrees, or going in for examinations in order to qualify ourselves for our duties in life? You need not speak out loud if you would rather not. Are you not just a little afraid that we might eclipse you? And it is not pleasant to be beaten by a woman, is it? And then you profess to think that we ought to be all housewives and cooks, and knitters of stockings, and sewers-on of our husbands' buttons; but what if we have no husbands, no buttons to sew? And is it not a little selfish, my dear male sycophant, to wish to keep us all to yourself? to attend upon the wants of the lords of creation, who often distinguish themselves so much in the domain of science? Now, look me straight in the face (no shirking, sir!). Is it not jealousy--green-eyed, false-tongued jealousy--which saps your generous instincts, and makes you talk rubbish and nonsense about strains, and brains, and ambition, and the like? And if that is not hypocritical, I do not know what is.