what has been achieved so far.  There are at all events not many who are cordially pleased with the results.  Some dissatisfaction is felt as to the position of the girl students in residence at the universities.  They cannot share in any true sense in the life of the universities, but only exist on their outskirts, outside the tradition of the past, a modern growth tolerated rather than fostered or valued by the authorities.  This creates a position scarcely enviable in itself, or likely to communicate that particular tone which is the gift of the oldest English universities to their sons.  Some girl students have undoubtedly distinguished themselves, especially at Cambridge; in the line of studies they attained what they sought, but that particular gift of the university they could not attain.  It is lamented that the number of really disinterested students attending Girton and Newnham is small; the same complaint is heard from the Halls for women at Oxford; there is a certain want of confidence as to the future and what it is all leading to.  To women with a professional career before them the degree certificates are of value, but the course of studies itself and its mental effect is conceded by many to be disappointing.  One reason may be that the characteristics of girls’ work affect in a way the whole movement.  They are very eager and impetuous students, but in general the staying power is short; an excessive energy is put out in one direction, then it flags, and a new beginning is made towards another quarter.  So in this general movement there have been successive stages of activity.

The higher education movement has gone on its own course.  The first pioneers had clear and noble ideals; Bedford College, the growth of Cheltenham, the beginnings of Newnham and Girton Colleges, the North of England Ladies’ “Council of Education” represented them.  Now that the movement has left the port and gone beyond what they foresaw, it has met the difficulties of the open sea.

Nursing was another sphere opened about the same time, to meet the urgent needs felt during the Crimean War; it was admirably planned out by Florence Nightingale, again a pioneer with loftiest ideals.  There followed a rush for that opening; it has continued, and now the same complaint is made that it is an outlet for those whose lives are not to their liking at home, rather than those who are conscious of a special fitness for it or recognized as having the particular qualities which it calls for.  And then came the development of a new variety among the unemployed of the wealthier classes, the “athletic girl.”  Not every one could aspire to be an athletic girl, it requires some means, and much time; but it is there, and it is part of the emancipation movement.  The latest in the field are the movements towards organization of effort, association on the lines of the German Frauenbund, and the French Mouvement Feministe, and beside them, around them, with or without them, the Women’s Suffrage Movement, militant or non-militant.  These are of the rising tide, and each tide makes a difference to our coast-line, in some places the sea gains, in others the land, and so the thinkers, for and against, register their victories and defeats, and the face of things continues to change more and more rapidly.