Dr. Smart, the President of Purdue University, and Dr. Jordan, the President of the Indiana State University, men of distinction in their profession, and well acquainted with educational questions, both say that the need of the young women in their respective institutions is that of sufficient incentive. The highest of all incentives, self-development and the possession of culture, appeals as directly to young women as to young men, and not less strongly; but this highest of incentives is sufficient for only the highest order of minds; and in the case of the average young person of either sex, must be reinforced by incentives more immediate and tangible. In this connection the need of improving the normal schools may be legitimately discussed. The normal school has done much to lift the occupation of teaching into the rank of the professions; but teaching can never be accounted one of the learned professions until the learning which is generally considered requisite in the doctor, the lawyer, and the clergyman is demanded in the teacher. It is quite true that the education implied by a full college course is not made a condition of entrance to schools of medicine, law, and theology; but if such preliminary culture is not demanded by these schools, it is expected by them. On the contrary, it is not only not demanded, but not expected, that applicants for admission to a normal school shall present a degree from some reputable college of liberal arts. The professions which a majority of ambitious young men with intellectual tastes expect to enter, offer incentives to do preliminary college work; the one profession into which young women may enter with undisputed propriety not only does not offer incentives for taking a preliminary college course, but by its entrance requirements and its curriculum implies that such a course is not requisite. Now that State universities are the direct continuance of the high schools, it would seem desirable that at least those teachers who expect to engage in high school work should have taken the courses of study implied by a college degree. Could the standard of normal school instruction and of high school preparation be thus lifted, it would act as a powerful incentive to young women. The growth of progressive thought in the West, concerning the social and civil position and the industrial and professional freedom of woman, tends to supply women with incentives to obtain the best education: and the defects in their education hitherto caused by the absence of incentive, promise to be remedied with increasing rapidity.