Examinations for schools were not yet instituted; the education was unguided, and therefore largely misguided. Do not let us imagine for an instant that these evils have been generally cured. The secondary education of the country is still in a deplorable condition; and it behoves us to repeat on all occasions that it is so. The schools I am describing from the report of twenty years ago exist and abound and flourish still, owing to the widespread indifference of parents to the education of their girls, to the qualifications and training of their mistresses, and the efficiency of the schools. Untested, unguided, they exist and even thrive, and will do so until a sounder public opinion and the proved superiority of well-trained mistresses and well-educated girls gradually exterminates the inefficient schools. But we are, I fear, a long way still from this desirable consummation. What were the mistresses? For the most part worthy, even excellent ladies, who had no other means of livelihood, and who had no special education themselves, and no training whatever. Naturally they taught what they could, and laid stress on what was called the _formation of character_, which they usually regarded as somehow alternative with intellectual attainments and stimulus, and progress in which could not be submitted to obvious tests. I suppose most of us think that there is no more valuable assistance in the formation of character than any pursuit that leads the mind away from frivolous pursuits, egotistic or morbid fancies, and fills it with memories of noble words and lives, teaches it to love our great poets and writers, and gives it sympathies with great causes. But this was not the prevailing opinion twenty years ago. The influence of good people, good homes, good example--in a word truly religious influence, as we shall all admit--is the strongest element in the formation of character; but the next strongest is assuredly that education which teaches us to admire "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are of good report;" and this ought to be, and is, one of the results of the literary teaching given by well-educated mistresses.