them wrote 9 (decimal point nine!). Yet most of these children were very far advanced in the arithmetic book. A clever teacher, with a quick original mind, will turn all lessons to practical account, and finding out what will be the probable future of her pupils, prepare them for it and keep it before their minds. While the essential duties of these future women as mothers, house-keepers, and governors of families must always be kept in view before and beyond every other object, the fact that most of the girls will probably have to work during some years for their own livelihood must not be lost sight of. The advantages and disadvantages of the different employments for women ought to be laid before the elder pupils, and the principles of social and political economy taught to them. They should above all be taught the vast resources of our colonies, and fitted to be emigrants by giving them independent habits, quickness to help themselves in emergencies, and an intimate acquaintance with the countries they may visit. The history of our colonies, their geography, and products, should be familiar to them; then there would be no danger of girls refusing, as I have known many do, to leave England, fearing everything of which they know nothing. I have known numerous instances of brothers and husbands departing alone for Australia, the Cape, and America, because their sisters and wives drew back with horror from daring the utterly unknown. The daughter of a nursery gardener, about thirty years of age, told me tremblingly that she had consented to go with her family to Australia, "but how she was to get through the earth to the other side, where she understood Australia to be, she did not in the least know." This is only to be equalled by a schoolmistress who wrote to me that she actually did pass through three regions to arrive at the Cape of Good Hope-the region of ice, the region of fire, and the region of wind! In these middle class schools for girls, no public exhibitions, or prizes, or displays, should be encouraged. If any public examinations are thought necessary, they should be very cautiously conducted, as such examinations are generally productive of more moral mischief than intellectual good. No schools should be entirely closed to the public. It is a good plan to examine the children by dictated written questions as well as by vocal questions; and these written questions and answers should be kept and compared at stated intervals; in this manner progress in writing, spelling, and general neatness can be tested, as well as the proficiency of the children in special branches of knowledge. A clever teacher will make of these dictations a very useful lesson, and also a thorough test of the general intelligence of the pupils. These questions should cover a wide field of thought and observation, and care should be taken to make the children sometimes answer by means of drawing plans and forms from memory. I will conclude by reiterating the main points of this paper. 1stly. That it is desirable to investigate the education which the girls of the middle class are receiving. 2ndly. That the establishment of schools at 6d. or 1s. a week is much needed, which schools must be assisted by charitable efforts. 3rdly. That schools at a higher rate, say 15s. or £1 a quarter, might be made to pay a profit. 4thly. That the Queen's College, and similar London Societies, should encourage and continue to correspond with such schools. 5thly. That they should be open to inspection. 6thly. That reports of the various exertions and experiments should be published in some periodical. BARBARA SMITH BODICHON. VOL. VI. XXVI. A COMFORTER. WILL she come to me, little Effie- I and Effie will sit together, All alone in this great arm-chair:- No one comforts me like my Effie, Only looks with a wistful wonder, Why grown people should ever cry; While her little soft arms close tighter If you break your plaything yourself, dear, I don't think it is such a comfort, One has only oneself to blame. People say things cannot be helped, dear, For if things could be helped or altered, They say, too, that tears are quite useless, Then my tears only fall the more. All to-day I struggled against it, But that does not make sorrow cease, Though wise people would call that folly, But my comforter knows a lesson, Well-who is my comforter ?-tell me? Is she thinking of talking fishes, The blue bird, or magical tree?— Perhaps I am thinking, my darling, Of something that never can be. You long-don't you, dear?—for the genii Who were slaves of lamps and of rings; But hark! there is Nurse calling Effie! And I must go back, or the others So good night to my darling Effie; Keep happy, sweetheart, and wise:- A. A. P. XXVII.-CHANCE ENCOUNTERS. Do you ever speculate on the character and position of the people with whom you come daily and hourly into contact, for a minute only, and then part from, never perhaps to meet again in life, or, if meeting, certainly never to recognise them? The railway passengers; the people in steamers, omnibuses, waiting at shops to be served, &c. If you go about much alone, you will find an endless interest in the little traits which sometimes reveal so much; the chance words, or sometimes only looks, which would pass unobserved by ninety-nine people out of a hundred. I am the hundredth; and I will tell you why. will tell you why. Matters of deeper personal interest absorb me too much to be able to think about them when I must of necessity keep a watch upon exterior things. If I opened the great volume of my own autobiography, the probability is very great that, carried away by the subject, I might walk straight past the place of my appointment, or find myself drawn up at Islington when I had meant to be on the alert, and alight at Tottenham Court Road. My life would not be worth a day's purchase if I once allowed myself the (truly) dangerous luxury of thinking very deeply when crossings had to be passed and mail carts to be avoided. No; the other plan suits me best. The little chance stories that I read, or fancy I read, endless in variety, and flitting by of themselves, so that I have not even to turn the page, but fresh characters appear uncalled for, and pass away in their turn, one effacing another, and then all swept utterly away when my walk or journey concludes, and I become an actor again instead of a mere spectator. Many hours have I passed in a succession of these harmless speculations; and scarcely one do I remember five minutes after! But I will tell you of a few which chance, more than any special interest above others, seems to have fixed on my mind. I was in an omnibus the other day going from Islington into the City, at about mid-day, when the rush of "bankers' clerks" and "commercial gentlemen” is over, and when it is too late for parties going to London Bridge to take the rail for a day in the country. Business is begun; the tide will set back at five or so; and the holiday people will return still later, with sleepy children and large bunches of sweetbrier and wall-flowers. The omnibus therefore was nearly empty when it stopped to take up two passengers. First, a little, shrivelled old woman, very feeble and very tottering, scarcely able to mount the step but for her companion's help. The other, her daughter apparently, followed more briskly, and after placing the old woman in one corner, seated herself opposite. I saw what it must be: the old woman-evidently the inhabitant of an almshouse or some charitable institution—was brought out for the day by her daughter. Poor old creature! it was pitiable to see the look of childish pleasure, amounting almost to imbecility, and something scared and startled about her which told to me, and I think to her daughter, that charity might feed and lodge her, even provide her coals and candles, and yet not afford her other than harsh treatment. She shrunk back as a passenger got out, as if she was accustomed to be afraid of people. Her dress-a uniform of some kind-was coarse and very worn; yet, from the way she smoothed it down with her trembling hand, it must have been her best or "Sunday suit." Very thin were her hands, very sickly her face; and the bright black eyes, that now seemed dancing with delight, served to make it look more thin and wan. The daughter was comfortably dressed; in tawdry bad taste, but still good material. She must be, I thought, the wife of a shopkeeper tolerably well to do. He will not let her have her mother to live with her, though! But what struck me was the expression of the woman's face; a very commonplace, plain face it was, and yet it interested me from showing so very clearly what passed in her mind. While the old woman gazed eagerly from one window to another, attracted by the noise and show, the daughter looked at her fixedly; at her miserable clothes; at her shaking hands; at her sickly appearance, till the tears rose in her eyes, her lips quivered, and I could not tell if it were self-reproach at having allowed it, or only indignation at the unkind treatment which she perhaps more than suspected. She changed her countenance, however, instantly to smile and nod at the old woman whenever she caught her eye, and to point out now and then any fine carriage or showy shop we passed; and then the smile went off into the wistful, pained, sorrowful expression. Now and then the old woman would hold out her hand, and she would take and shake it, and echo her cracked silly laugh, and most tenderly she relieved her of a bag she held, and folded her shawl better round her. Will you smile, and say it is only a contributor to this Journal who would have seen in these two faces anything to remind them of the " woman question"? You may smile if you will; but I confess that I went on to think how hard a position it was, and yet how common, for a woman to be herself surrounded by comfort, and yet not to have the right or the power, either through her own exertions or her own self-denial, to give help to those who had even as strong and as dear a claim on her as in this case. No; I doubt if she would even be considered justified in economizing on her own dress so as to help her mother, unless with the express permission of her husband. It would be her " duty" to live in ease and plenty, and she must not rob her family or her home of one hour of labor or one shilling of money. Neither belong to her. She is only a woman! Railway stations, places of embarkation, and such points of departure, ought to be very favorite places of mine, for there one may study human nature at one's ease, and guess at adventures by the dozen: there lookers on are forgotten, and the most steady and impertinent of starers has no power to unclasp the clinging hands |