college being more especially a theological college.  The Sydney colleges have not at all fulfilled the expectations which had been formed about them, largely owing to the want of success of the university; but the Melbourne colleges, and especially Trinity College, which is the least richly endowed, and has the smallest buildings, are doing excellent work.  The atmosphere which the students breathe in them is conducive to greater steadiness of work and exertion to achieve university honours than is generally found in the unattached student; besides, they offer some social advantages, and are also morally tonic.  In founding Trinity College, which was the first of these institutions in Victoria, four years ago, the Bishop of Melbourne may be said to have conferred an educational boon upon the colony only second to that which it owes to Sir Redmond Barry.  Every year it is increasing in usefulness, and I can well understand that many parents who before preferred the expense of sending their sons to Oxford or Cambridge, will now see their way to allowing them to complete their education at the Melbourne University.

The provision for the secondary education of girls in Australia is miserably poor.  The only school that really combines the social and intellectual qualifications requisite is to be found at Perth, in Western Australia.  At that school the teaching is admirable and the social tone excellent.  The only other school where girls are well taught is the High School at Adelaide, but being a day-school and a State-school, it cannot be expected to pay much attention to the social side of education.  The private schools for girls attain but a poor standard in instruction, and a worse one still, when socially considered.  There is one in Melbourne considerably superior to the rest; but if I had daughters of my own, I should certainly not send them to any as boarders, and would think twice before I sent them as ‘day-girls’, if the expression be allowable.  But it is only fair to these schools to say that my standard of what a girls’ school should be is very high.  It is, however, satisfied by the Bishop’s Ladies College at Perth.

POLITICS.

The chief interest of Australian politics lies in their relation to those of the Mother Country.  Having imported their whole constitution and law books holus-bolus from England, each colony has been engaged ever since its foundation in fitting them to its circumstances.  The legislative equipment of the young Australias corresponded pretty nearly to the tall hats and patent-leather boots which fond mothers provided for the aspiring colonists.  An exogenous growth has prevented originality of ideas, which for the most part have been supplied by English thinkers, but the adaptability and less complicated social machinery of a young colony have permitted the carrying into execution of many valuable measures long before they emerged from the region of theory in their native land.  It would not be