best in their character, less fit than men for point," and with fewer attempts at fine professional school teaching or public speak-writing." They beat the boys also in their ing, otherwise than by the pen. studies of Shakespeare; surpass them, says one examiner, "in analysis of character and choice of language." In languages, also, they translate generally with greater spirit, and show a livelier interest in the subject matter; express themselves more idiomatically, write and spell better, and are far less frequently guilty of putting down manifest absurdities." One object of the founders of the Ladies' Colleges in Harley-street and Bedford-square was to supply the want of some standard of knowledge to which ladies, by obtaining their certificates, could show they had attained. A like help has been since extended to others by the Working Women's College in Queensquare. And still ladies who wish to prove that they are qualified teachers, often finish their education in France, for the sake of the certificate of fitness to teach obtainable under the French system. But this object has now been attained for Englishwomen more effectually, by the liberal action of the Universities of Cambridge and London. A committee interested in advancement of education among girls, obtained leave from the Cambridge Syndicate to place, at a private examination, before pupils from various girls' schools, the papers given to the candidates sent up from boys' schools to the Cambridge local examinations of the year eighteen 'sixtythree. At six weeks' notice, ninety-one girls were collected as competitors in this private examination; fifty-seven of them failed, and of those who failed ninety per cent were rejected for arithmetic alone. In the year 'sixtyfive, local examinations for girls were officially recognised as part of the Cambridge system. The teachers of the girls had learnt the sharp lesson taught by their first failure, and, at the next trial, of the girls who were rejected, only three failed in arithmetic. One could not desire better proof of the efficacy of a system of strict and impartial test, applied from without, in raising the standard of preliminary education. No doubt the finest and best minds are not necessarily those which come out best from the rough test of a competitive examination. To some senior students, the work for examination, and to some teachers the training for examination, must be absolutely a clog on the best use of their minds. But the wholesome effect upon the great average mass of the teachers and taught, is shown too clearly to be doubtful; while the mind apt for original and independent work can bear easily a short period of constraint, and may be only the more apt afterwards for its appointed uses. The Cambridge local examinations have, since 'sixty-five, been applied every year as tests of the school training of both girls and boys. The girls have slipped back in their arithmetic, and the last report says that, in this subject, "more efficient teaching is urgently required." The boys beat the girls in algebra, but in one year a girl greatly distinguished herself in applied mathematics. In French, boys and girls are about equal; but the girls know the grammar best; the boys trusting too much to analogies drawn from their imperfect knowledge of Latin. In German, the girls always do best, and they write better answers to history questions, 66 more straightforward and to the 66 This vivacity of mind rightly employed, becomes, no doubt, rather alarming to the stolid young man who was a booby at school, and counts for a booby in the world among his male acquaintances, but whose consolation is that he may hope not to be known for a booby in his home. Let him take heart. On this side Millennium, it will never be impossible for that young man to find a wife more stupid than himself; or he may even find a Titania content to take him, Bottom, for better for worse, and worship him as long as he will love her. The true woman is only more a woman for the quickening of her whole nature that culture brings with it. Instead of confounding the difference of mind between women and men, true education gives intensity to the real characters of each, points all the more strongly their differences, quickens their natural action and reaction on each other, doubles at once the delight and usefulness of their companionship. The woman so prepared is all the mother to her children, keen to appreciate their efforts, prompt and wise in sympathy, and by the subtle powers of her love and knowledge arms their souls for conquest in the strife to come. Starvation or insufficiency of diet acts on the mind as on the body. It may die into lunacy by a too complete want of substantial food for thought, or, ill-fed, may fall away into mere sickly feeble ness. The shape and fashion of the plough does not so much concern the farmer, as the fact that there should be ploughing and sowing if the earth is to yield food for man. The best tilled ground must have its seasons of fallow, and the best trained mind needs times of holiday; but steady culture of some kind is essential, if the mind of man or woman is not to become a wilderness of weed and thistle. Women, with active intelligence that is, if anything, even more restless than the wit of men, must suffer in their minds if they are debarred from intellectual employments. No doubt most women are more apt than men for some studies and less apt for others. But experience has now shown clearly that in average ability and in capacity for steady work, there is no natural difference between boys and girls, and that if there be any between men and women, it is simply due to the fact that men hitherto have received better training in their youth. The University of Cambridge has added to its local examinations an "Examination for Women" who are beyond the age of eighteen years and six months. According to this plan, established in the present year, the obtaining of a certificate depends upon know ledge of arithmetic, of the English language, [Conducted by questions of political rights. A few other social rights are, at the same time, winning wider recognition--a woman's right to her own earnings, for example; but her social right to mind may now surely be taken as past opportunities of healthy cultivation of the question. In the present year, also, the University of London has held the first of the examinations authorised by a supplemental charter obtained two years ago-in August 'sixty-seven-to grown out of the daily life of women in our How wholesomely the recent movement has enable it to hold special examinations of women day, and the steady, quiet endeavour of women who wish for certificates of proficiency. The themselves to escape from the stagnation of candidates for these certificates must be above thought to which many of them had long the age of seventeen. Having succeeded in this been doomed, is shown by the rapid rise of a first examination, they may proceed in the fol- new system of lectures to ladies. In town after lowing year to an examination for certificates town, during the last two years, wherever of higher value. The first test or "general there is a university or staff of college teachers, examination," corresponds in severity to that these lectures have been springing up, and the of the matriculation examination for young want they meet is so real that they will become men. A proposal to lower the standard à little, in consideration of the weaker character The honour of their first establishment is due, one of the established customs of the country. of the preliminary teaching in girls' schools, we believe, to Edinburgh: though the sugwas wisely resisted. Without any special gestion is said to have been first made in the mercy to their sex (which would only have north of England. Six ladies of Edinburgh, been special slight to their endeavours) the about two years ago, succeeded in establishing ladies who came up for examination were tested in Latin, including Roman history and tion, founded, supported, and managed, by the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Associa geography; and in two other languages, which ladies only. They looked to professors of the might be Greek, French, German, or Italian; University of Edinburgh for the fulfilment of in the English language, history and geography, their object. Ladies who had passed through in mathematics, in natural philosophy, and in the stages of school training, and needed for chemistry or botany. The successful candi- the stern uses of life higher education; or who dates were to be arranged in an honours divi- sought the healthy occupation of some form of sion, and in a first and second division without culture of the mind, while they fulfilled the home honours. Nine came up, of whom six passed; duties for which quickened intelligence would and they were all six in the honours division. only make them the more apt, or took their Of course, the few who were first to take ad- places in society; might attend many stray vantage of this opportunity were from the lectures on popular science, or on literary subnumber of those most alive to its value, and jects likely to amuse. this fact, as well as the small number offered asked on their behalf, and this was, that proBut something more was for comparison with the large number of young fessors and teachers who are entrusted by our men who come up to matriculate, make it universities and colleges with particular parts unfair to lay any stress on the fact that the of the higher education of men should also do greater per-centage of success was on the side of something to meet the earnest wish of women female candidates. Still there was the success; who desired like help. Ladies, entirely by and there is reason to expect that the be- action of their own, formed themselves into ginning has been made of a system of suc- classes, and asked to be taught as men are cessive examinations by which highly-educated taught when they seek thoroughness of knowwomen, who desire to obtain confidence as ledge: not in lectures planned to entertain teachers, or for other reasons find it valuable them, but in lectures that would show them to have the degree of their attainments tested, how to work. The beginning was made in the will be enabled to show university certificates session 'sixty-seven-eight, at Edinburgh, by the of value corresponding to the recognised de- professor of English literature in the univer grees earned by young men. The last act of this sity. kind is the establishment of a college near Cam-attended his course. Many of these came Two hundred and sixty-five ladies bridge for girl students, which is now just only to give support to the new movement, but opened. At present it occupies a house at at least ninety-four came to do steady work. In Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, and it is "designed the following year, the number of courses was to hold, in relation to girls' schools, a position advanced from one to three; and courses of analogous to that occupied by the universities lectures were given in English literature, expetowards the public schools for boys.' desire of its council is to connect this with the sophy, each by the professor of its subject in The rimental physics, and logic with mental philo other Cambridge colleges, by obtaining from the university. The number of ladies who the University of Cambridge permission for its attended was, for the English literature class, girl students to compete in the examination for one hundred and thirty; for the physics, one degrees. Nearly simultaneous with this action at Edinhundred and forty; for the logic, seventy. burgh was the establishment of a "North of England Council for promoting the Higher Obviously there is not the smallest necessary connexion between all this recent movement for improving the education of women and Education of Women." It has procured courses of lectures, chiefly from Cambridge professors, at Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, and other towns. In the West of England the example has been followed in several towns. In Glasgow the example of Edinburgh was at once followed. The professor of natural history first gave a short course of geology to a class of seventy ladies, and this was followed last session by two courses, one on English literature, and the other on physical geography, to ladies' classes, numbering respectively three hundred and thirty-six and a hundred and forty. At the beginning of this year, the example of the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association led to the formation of a London Ladies' Educational Association, with like objects, which looked for co-operation to the professors of University College, London. With wise promptitude it was resolved to be doing at once, and risk the chance of a poor start rather than spend a whole year in preparation. At very short notice, and with not much public announcement, two courses of lectures to ladies were begun at the Beethoven Rooms, in Harley-street: one by the professor of physics, and one by the professor of English literature at University College. Fifty-seven ladies entered to the class of physics, and a hundred and two to the class of literature. They attended steadily to the end of courses each of two dozen lectures; a considerable proportion of them wrote essays and exercises, and worked problems out. The work done, was as good as that done in an ordinary college class, and the success, as proved by the serious working attention given to both courses, emboldened the ladies' committee to attempt for their next session-beginning on the ninth of November this year-a greater extension of the system of lectures to ladies than has hitherto been ventured on elsewhere. Instead of two or three courses, six courses are now to be given; and the number of lectures in a course is raised, without increase of fee, from two dozen to three dozen: the subjects being, physics and English literature again (different sections of these subjects being taken), with the addition of French literature, Latin, geometry, and chemistry each course being given by the professor of its subject in University College, London. Moreover, the scientific courses are now to be given (for more full use of the appliances necessary to such teaching), in the lecture rooms appropriated to them within the college walls: the ladies having not only an hour to themselves, but also separate entrances provided for them. Of course it remains to be seen whether so quick an advance towards a full scheme of aid to the higher education of Englishwomen, will be met in London by a sufficiently general desire for such education. The ladies who attend these classes, which admit none under seventeen, are chiefly of ages varying between seventeen and four-andthirty. There are also older ladies who come in the faith that a right human desire for knowledge ends only with life-never, if death be not the end of life-or who come that they may take an active helpful interest in the studies of their daughters. The movement has originated chiefly among ladies whose associations in life are with the more intellectual half. of the upper middle class, and from such it has had its chief support; but high fees and fashionable accessories have been studiously avoided; and wherever these lectures have been established, there is absolute exclusion of all petty sense of clique and caste. The striving governess sits by the fashionable lady; as in the college class room the poor student who will hereafter battle hard for bread, sits on equal terms by the inheritor of thousands. Our English ladies-honour to them for it!—have, in fact, without effort, brought into the lecture rooms of their establishing, with other requisites, that fine catholic spirit which should be inseparable from a place of study. THE FISHERS OF LOCH BOISDALE. THE Tern's first anchorage in the Long Island was at Loch Boisdale, and it was there that the dreary landscape of the Uist began to exercise its deep fascination over the Wanderer's mind. We lay at the usual place, close to the pier and inn, in the full enjoyment of the ancient and fish-like smell wafted to us from the curing places ashore. The herring-fishers had nearly all departed, save one or two native crews who were still labouring leisurely; but they had left their débris everywhere-skeletons of huts, piles of peat, fish-bones, scraps of rotten nets, even broken pots and dishes. One or two huts, some entirely of wood, stood empty, awaiting the return of their owners in the following spring. The whole place was deserted, its harvest time was over. When we rowed ashore in the punt, the population, consisting of two old men and some dirty little boys, received us in grim amazement and silence, until the advent of the innkeeper, who, repressing all outward symptoms of wonder, bade us a shy welcome and showed us the way to his establishment. The obvious impression was that we were insane; the tiny craft we had come over in, our wild and haggard appearance, and, above all, the fact that we had actually come to Loch Boisdale for pleasure (a fact unprecedented in the mind of the oldest inhabitant) all contributed to show our quality. The landlord was free and inquisitive, humouring us cunningly as the keepers do mad people, receiving all our statements calmly without contradic* See ALL THE YEAR ROUND, New Series, vol. ii., p. 197. tion, answering all our questions in the showed that the weather was little likely to easy manner found useful in dealing with abate that day, the landlord seemed to idiots and infants, and never thinking it think his credit at stake, and that even worth while to correct us when we were Loch Boisdale was appearing at a disad wrong. As he sat chatting with us over a vantage. To console him, we told him that glass of whisky in a mildewy room of the story of the innkeeper at Arrochar, which inn, the inhabitants dropped in one by one; poor Hugh Macdonald used to retail with first the two old men, then a little boy, such unction over the toddy. An English then a tipsy fisherman, and so on till traveller stayed for some days at Arrochar, the room was full of spectators, all with and there had been nothing but rain from their mouths wide open, and all with- morn to night. The landlord tried to keep out any sign of ordering or drinking up his guest's spirits by repeated prophecies anything, staring at the strangers. This that the weather was "about to break volley of eyes became at last so un-up;" but at last, on the fifth day, the bearable, that it was thought advisable to direct it elsewhere by ordering "glasses round;" a movement which, however grateful to the feelings, was received without enthusiasm, only the mouths and eyes opened still wider in amaze. The advent of the whisky, however, acted like a charm, and the company burst into a torrent of Gaelic, in which the words "Got taven" and "Sassenach" were easily distinguishable at intervals. The result of a long conversation with the populace, which in number and appearance bore about the same relation to a respectable community that a stage "mob" in Julius Cæsar would bear to the real article, was not particularly edifying. The populace was cynical on the merits of Loch Boisdale; its principal beauties, in their opinion, being ague, starvation, and weariness. For any person to remain there, ever so short a time, who could by any possibility get out of it, was a thing not to be credited by common-sense. The innkeeper, however, tried to convey to us his comprehension that we had come there, not for pleasure, but on a discovering manner," by which mystical Celticism he meant to say that we were visitors come to make inquiries, possibly with a view to commerce or statistics. He shook his head over both country and people, and seemed to think our inquiry was a waste of time. 66 For three days after that, it rained as it can rain only in the Long Island; and when at last, tired out of patience, we rushed ashore, our friend the innkeeper received us with a deprecating smile. With keen sarcasm, we demanded if it were always "that sort of weather" in Loch Boisdale, but he replied quite calmly, "Aye, much aboot." But when we sat down over usquebaugh, and the rain still plashing darkly without, with its dull twofold sound, The clash hard by, and the murmur all round! on your stranger could endure it no longer. "I say, As we have noted above, the herring harvest was over. Twice in the year there is good fishing; in the spring and in the autumn; but the autumn fishing is left quite in the hands of a few native boats. The moment the spring fishing ends, Loch Boisdale subsides into torpor. All is desolate and still; only the fishy smell remains, to remind the yawning native of the glory that is departed. A busy sight indeed is Loch Boisdale in the herring season. Smacks, open boats, skiffs, wherries, make the narrow waters shady; not a creek, however small, but holds some boat in shelter. A fleet, indeed! The Lochleven boat from the east coast, with its three masts and three huge lug sails; the Newhaven boat with its two lugsails; the Isle of Man "jigger;" the beauti ful Guernsey runner, handsome as a racing yacht and powerful as a revenue-cutter; besides all the numberless fry of less noticeable vessels, from the fat west-country smack with its comfortable fittings down to the miserable Arran wherry.* Swarms of scagulls float everywhere, and the loch is *The Arran wherry, now nearly extinct, is a wretchedlooking thing without a bowsprit, but with two strong masts. Across the foremast is a small bulkhead, and there is a small locker for blankets and bread. In the open space between bulkhead and locker birch tops are huge woollen waterproof blanket ready to be stretched thickly strewn for a bed, and for covering there is a out on spars. Close to the mast lies a huge stone, and thereon a stove. The cable is of heather rope, the anchor wooden, and the stock a stone. Rude and ill-found as these boats are, they face weather before which any ordinary yachtsman would quail. so oily with the fishy deposit that it requires a strong wind to ruffle its surface. Everywhere on the shore and hill sides, and on the numberless islands, rises the smoke of camps. Busy swarms surround the curing-houses and the inn, while the beach is strewn with fishermen stretched at length, and dreaming till night time. In the afternoon, the fleet slowly begins to disappear, melting away out into the ocean, not to reappear till long after the grey of the next dawn. Did you ever go out for a night with the herring fishers? If you can stand cold and wet, you would enjoy the thing hugely, especially if you have a boating mind. Imagine yourself on board a west-country smack, running out of Boisdale harbour with the rest of the fleet. It is afternoon, and there is a nice fresh breeze from the south-west. You crouch in the stern by the side of the helmsman, and survey all around you with the interest of a novice. Six splendid fellows, in various picturesque attitudes, lounge about the great, broad, open hold, and another is down in the forecastle boiling coffee. If you were not there, half of these would be taking their sleep down below. It seems a lazy business, so far; but wait! By sunset the smack has run fifteen miles up the coast, and is going seven or eight miles east of Ru Hamish lighthouse; many of the fleet still keep her company, steering thick as shadows in the summer twilight. How thick the gulls gather yonder! That dull plash ahead of the boat was the plunge of a solan goose. That the herrings are hereabout, and in no small numbers, you might be sure, even without that bright phosphorescent light which travels in patches in the water to leeward. Now is the time to see the lounging crew dart into sudden activity. The boat's head is brought up to the wind, and the sails are lowered in an instant.* One man grips the helm, another lugs out the back rope of the net, a third the "skunk," or body, a fourth is placed to see the buoys clear and heave them out, the rest attend forward, keeping a sharp look-out for other nets, ready, in case the boat should run too fast, to steady her by dropping the anchor a few fathoms into the sea. When all the nets are out, the boat is brought bow on to the net, the "swing" (as they call the rope attached to the net) secured to the sinack's "bits," and all hands then lower the mast *There is fashion everywhere. An east-country boat always shoots across the wind, of course carrying some sail, while a west-country boat shoots before the wind with bare poles. as quickly as possible. The mast lowered, secured, and made all clear for hoisting at a moment's notice, and the candle lantern set up in the iron stand made for the purpose of holding it, the crew leave one lookout on deck, with instructions to call them up at a fixed hour, and turn in below for a nap in their clothes: unless it so happens that your brilliant conversation, seasoned with a few bottles of whisky, should tempt them to steal a few more hours from the summer night. Day breaks, and every man is on deck. All hands are busy at work, taking the net in over the bow, two supporting the body, the rest hauling the back rope, save one, who takes the net into the hold, and another who arranges it from side to side in the hold to keep the vessel even. Tweet! tweet! that thin cheeping sound, not unlike the razor-like call of the bat, is made by the dying herrings at the bottom of the boat. The sea to leeward, the smack's hold, the hands and arms of the men, are gleaming like silver. As many of the fish as possible are shaken loose during the process of hauling in, but the rest are left in the net until the smack gets to shore. Three or four hours pass away in this wet and tiresome work. At last, however, the nets are all drawn in, the mast is hoisted, the sail set, and while the cook (there being always one man having this branch of work in his department) plunges below to make breakfast, the boat makes for Loch Boisdale. Everywhere on the water, see the fishing-boats making for the same bourne, blessing their luck or cursing their misfortune, just as the fortune of the night may have been. All sail is set if possible, and it is a wild race to the market. Even when the anchorage is reached, the work is not quite finished; for the fish has to be measured out in "cran" baskets,* and delivered at the curing station. By the time that the crew have got their morning dram, have arranged the nets snugly in the stern, and have had some herrings for dinner, it is time to be off again to the harvest field. Half the crew turn in for sleep, while the other half hoist sail and conduct the vessel out to sea. Huge, indeed, are the swarms that inhabit Boisdale, afloat or ashore, during this harvest; but, partly because each man has business on hand, and partly because there is plenty of sea room, there are few breaches of the peace. On Saturday night * A cran holds rather more than a herring barrel, and the average value of a cran measure of herrings is about one pound sterling. |