other than merely domestic relations. I take the commonly received theory that except as wives, mothers, daughters or sisters, women have no raison d'être at all; and on this neutral ground I urge the impolicy of neglecting female education. For now, more than ever before, the mutual influence of the sexes makes it impossible to serve one without the other. Of this fact, often enough asserted in theory though little regarded in practice, the revelations of the Royal Commission have furnished a new and striking demonstration. In one of the recent debates, it was pointed out by Mr. Gladstone that the idleness and ignorance of public school boys are largely attributable to the over-indulgent atmosphere of the homes in which they are brought up, and the Commissioners' Report contains repeated testimonies to the same effect. Mr. Matthew Arnold says of our highest class that its culture has declined. Young men at the universities exhibit "a slackness," "a sleep of the mind," which he traces to "a torpor of intellectual life, a dearth of ideas, an indifference to fine culture or disbelief in its necessity, spreading through the bulk of our highest class and influencing its rising generation. * * * * Never," he says, "in all its history, has our whole highest class shown such zeal for enjoying life, for amusing itself." Is this surprising? Is it not precisely what might have been expected in a society which, for at least one generation, has been content to bring up its girls to be more elegant triflers? Is it not true that to amuse themselves and other people is the great object in life of women of the non-working classes, and is it possible that their sedulous devotion to this one object can fail to react upon the men with whom they associate? Who gives the tone to the lax and luxurious homes of the wealthy? Who teaches the boys that hard work is foolish self-torture, that an easy life is more to be desired than the fine gold of intellectual attainment? Not their fathers, for though they too may be led away by the prevailing passion for play, they have had a nobler ideal set before them. What is the ideal presented to a young girl? Is it anything higher than to be amiable, inoffensive, always ready to give pleasure and to be pleased? Could anything be more stupefying than such a conception of the purposes of existence? And is it likely that, constituted as society now is, young men will escape the snare which has been spread for their sisters?
In a lower social grade, the temptations assume a more sordid character. We get the trifling without the elegance. Mr. Arnold has told us in the most eloquent and convincing language, what the middle class wants. Its virtues and its defects, what it has and what it needs, have been held up to view, and those whose knowledge of that great class is most intimate will most promptly recognise the admirable faithfulness of the portrait. We are told that it is "traversed by a strong intellectual ferment,"—that it has "real mental ardour, real curiosity." Whether it will attain to "a high commanding pitch of culture and intelligence," depends on "the sensibility which it has for perfection, on its power to transform itself." And "in its public action this class has hitherto shown only the
