there is, nevertheless.  The chief alteration, however, is that a girl’s education is increasingly carried on by many agencies other than these.  In the school society rather than in the class-room lesson, at net-ball and hockey rather than in the drill lesson, on the school stage or in the school choir she learns, rather than is taught, her most valuable lessons.  Examinations still exist, it is true; but these come later in a girl’s school life, and are more frequently based on the school curriculum and held in the school than used to be the case.

What does all this new life mean in the work of the teacher and her preparation for it?

Miss Drummond, President of the Incorporated Association of Assistant Mistresses, spoke thus on the subject[2]:—­

“In a lesson in a good school there is most often a happy give and take between the teacher and the class.  The teacher guides, but every girl is called on to take her part and put forward individual effort.  The homework is no longer mere memorizing from some dry little manual, but requires thought and gives scope for originality.  The whole results in a rigorous mental discipline, real stimulus to power of original thought, eager enthusiasm in learning....  It means an enormously increased demand upon the teacher.”  Again, “it must not be thought, however, that the work of the school is limited to lesson hours.  We aim not only at giving a definite intellectual equipment but at producing independence and self-reliance together with that public spirit which enables a girl quite simply and without self-consciousness to take her part in the life of a community.”

Besides games, which may be organised by a special mistress (see p. 59) or by ordinary members of the school staff,

“there are nearly always several societies, run again by the girls as far as possible, but almost always with the inspiration and sympathy of some mistress at the back of them.  Thus there are social guilds of various kinds.  These vary from mere working parties for philanthropic purposes to large organisations which embrace a number of activities....  Of something the same kind are the archaeological and scientific, the literary and debating societies....  These societies are among the most interesting and important parts of the work of a teacher, as they are also among the most exacting.  Games and societies together tend to lengthen the hours of a school day, but even on leaving school, her work is not finished.  There are always corrections to be done....  Still this is not all if lessons are to be kept as alive and stimulating as they should be.  First and foremost, it is absolutely essential that the teacher should not be jaded.  She must get relaxation, she must mix with other people and exchange ideas, she must go about and keep in touch with all kinds of activities.  But at the same time she has to read in her own subject, she has to keep up with