I have been describing the common type of what used to be called the "seminaries" and "establishments for young ladies" of twenty years ago. And it may give you the impression that there was no good education to be got in those days, and that the ladies of my generation were therefore very ill-educated. Permit me to correct that impression. There were homes in which the girls learned something from father or from mother, or, perhaps, something from a not very talented governess; but in which they educated themselves with a hunger and thirst after knowledge, and an enjoyment of literature that is rare in any school. Do not imagine that any school education under mistresses however skilled, or resulting in certificates however brilliant, is really as effective in the formation of strong intellectual tastes and clear judgment and ability as the self-education which was won by the mothers of some of you, by the women of my generation and those before. Such education was rare, but it was possible, and it is possible still. Under such a system a few are educated and the many fail altogether. The advantage of our day is that education is offered to a much larger number. But I cannot call it better than that which was won by a few in the generation of your mothers. If we would combine the exceptional merits of the old system with the high average merits of the new we must jealously preserve the element of freedom and self-education. To return to the report. The indifference of parents and the public, the inadequacy of school buildings and appliances, the low intellectual ideals of mistresses, were the evils of twenty years ago, prevailing very widely and lowering school education, and we must not expect to have got rid of them altogether. An educational atmosphere is not changed in twenty years. But our High Schools are a very real step in advance. The numbers of your school show that there is a considerable and increasing fraction of residents in Bath who do care for the intellectual quality of the education of their girls; and the report of the examiners is a most satisfactory guarantee that the instruction given here is thoroughly efficient along the whole line. Bath must be congratulated on its High School for Girls, as it must be congratulated on its College for Boys. But are we therefore to rest and be thankful in the complacent belief that we have now at length attained perfection, at least in our High Schools? I am called in to bless High School education, and I do bless it from my heart. I know something of it. My own daughter was at such a school; I have been vice-president of a High School for ten years. I wish there were High Schools in every town in England. They have done and are doing much to lift the standard of girls' education in England. But I will again remind you that High Schools are educating but a fraction of the population, and that the faults of twenty years ago still characterise our girls' education as a whole.