It is certainly open to argument whether, in such a game as hockey, it is not better, on the whole, that girls shall play by themselves, but, as has been urged elsewhere, there is a good deal to be said for the meeting of the sexes elsewhere than in the artificial conditions of the ball-room, since these mixed games widen the field of choice for marriage and provide far more natural and desirable conditions under which the choice may be made. There can be no question that an epoch has been created by the freedom of the modern girl to play games, and to enjoy the movements of a ball, as her brother does. The very fact of her pleasure in games indicates, to those who do not believe that the body is constructed on essentially vicious principles, that they must be good for her. The mere exercise is the least of the good they do. The open air counts for more, as does the development of skill, and the girl's opportunity of sharing in that moral education which all good games involve and which there is no need to insist upon here. Amongst the many things alleged against woman as natural defects by those who have never for a moment troubled to distinguish between nature and nurture, are an incapacity to combine with her sisters, petty dishonour in small things, a blindness to the meaning of "playing the game." It is similarly alleged by such persons against the lower classes that they also do not know how to "play the game," and do not understand the spirit of true sportsmanship, preferring to win anyhow rather than not at all. But those who conduct the Children's Vacation Schools in London--that remarkable arrangement by which children are damaged in school time and educated in holidays--are aware that in a short time children of any class can be taught to "play the game," if only they can be made to see it from that point of view. So also women can learn to combine, to be unselfish, to avoid petty deceits even in games, to obey a captain and to accept the umpire's decision, when they are taught, as we all have to be taught, that that is playing the game. These immense virtues of the new departure must by no means be forgotten in the course of the reaction which is bound to occur, and is indeed necessary, against the contemporary practice of trying to demonstrate that boys and girls are substantially identical. He who pleads for the golden mean is always abused by extremists of both parties, but is always justified in the long run, and this is a case where the golden mean is eminently desirable, being indeed vital, which is much more than golden. Safety is to be found in our recognition of elementary physiological principles, assuming from the first that though it is not difficult to turn a girl into something like a boy, it is not desirable; and especially in attending carefully, in the case of each individual, to the indications furnished by that characteristic physiological function, interference with which necessarily imperils womanhood.