HIGH-SCHOOL FOR GIRLS IN ENGLAND. 22% 
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remodelled on the same system. In 1883 the Church Schools’ Company 
was started by persons who wished for more distinctive church teaching. 
[t has now twenty-five schools, with two thousand one hundred and eighty 
girls. High-schools on the model of the company’s schools have been 
opened in India, Japan, New Zealand, and most of the Australian capi- 
tals, while nearly every large town in England has its high-school for 
girls. And although these schools vary infinitely in constitution, in man- 
agement, in rate of payment, etc., their principle is the same—low fees, 
»fficient teachers, thorough, systematic work. 
So far as to numerical success. That is uncontested. The important 
point to consider is, What has been the effect of the high-school system 
on the moral, physical, and intellectual welfare of English girls ? 
For this it will be necessary to examine the system of teaching, the 
class of teachers, and the effect on the girls taught. 
Perhaps the most remarkable part of the higher education of English 
girls at the present time is that all prophecies with regard to the move- 
ment have failed. At the outset a storm of adverse criticism arose. For 
‘nstance, among the many defects brought into prominence by the com- 
mission of 1870 was the fact that arithmetic was an almost unknown 
subject. The opponents of the movement assured us that girls’ minds 
were so constituted that it was impossible for them ever to become 
accurate arithmeticians, and that mathematics were out of the question. 
Mathematics may now be considered the most popular and successful 
subject in the large public schools for girls which lead the education of 
the country. And in the report to the council of the Girls’ Public Day 
School Company, by the Oxford and Cambridge Examination Board in 
1887, the examiner says of arithmetic: “I may now say that I was very 
much astonished at the enormous improvement in the arithmetic of girls 
which has taken place in the last ten years. Their arithmetic is now as 
far in advance of the boys as to style and accuracy, I do not say as to 
power, as it was then behind.” 
In literature, again—also in the board report of 1887—¢‘ the examiner 
finds it hard to write, without apparent exaggeration, of the very high 
opinion he formed of the general excellence of the literature work of the 
schools. At least four schools sent up work superior to anything of its 
kind which the examiner has ever seen before, except occasionally in the 
university examination for adults, while quite a dozen schools followed 
close upon the excellence of these four, and in the opinion of some may 
rave equalled them.” 
We see, therefore, that as soon as the opportunity was given of direct 
and exact study, girls have eagerly grasped it, and have quickly worked 
ap to the standard of the large public boys’ schools of England. They 
have been enabled to do this by the gradual removal of the barriers 
setween the education of boys and girls.