these two difficulties are to a great degree obviated in the system now coming into use in this country.

A general lecture is given to the whole class, and a second hour is set apart for especial instruction to those who have not succeeded in getting a complete grasp of the subject from the lecture. This not only supplies the deficiencies of the lecture system, but acts as a great spur to induce pupils to make their utmost exertions to accomplish the whole at the lecture hour, - that is, it cultivates the habit of con

centrated and forcible thinking.

The plan of allowing a choice of studies of itself tends to produce thoroughness, for the things which we least like to do we do with least

care.

The English mind is disposed to thoroughness rather than versatility, and both custom and a belief in its advantages incline them to concentrate their attention and interests upon a few subjects; or perhaps I might say, their slowness in generalizing, in getting at the central idea, precludes a very lively curiosity or quickness in finding interest in a new subject.

English women are more definite and thorough in their knowledge, —that is, what they claim to know they know with greater accuracy than our women do, but, on the other hand, few of them have that general acquaintance with a wide range of subjects that characterizes so many of our best educated women, and which may in part be attributed to the fact that so many of our women have taught, or study with a view to teaching, and that we make the mistake in our schools of requiring our teacher to teach a great variety of subjects. In the same paper I have also pointed out that the higher education of women is moving in a strong and direct line towards the co-education of the sexes; but not so much by falling into the old lines of the education of men, as by founding upon the more modern and approved principles which men are glad to join them in promoting as a means of escape from the old trammels. It cannot be many years before women will be regularly admitted to some of the colleges and universities of the country, and it is not at all improbable that this result may be reached at Queen's College, Belfast, within a year. There is less prejudice against co-education in Ireland than in England, in consequence of the less feudal phase of feeling, and doubtless also from the greater familiarity with and higher esteem for the peculiar phases of American life.

London University has examinations for women which are as extensive and severe as its B.A. examinations for men, and some

women, I believe, have passed them, but have not of course received the degree.

But this manifest injustice cannot long continue, and many of the most influential members of the governing body have long been in favor of opening all the degrees to women. Within the past few months the subject is being especially considered. A petition is now being circulated among all the graduates of the university in favor of the extension of its honors to women, and I believe the matter is to come on for discussion some time in May. It is easier for London University to lead in this than for the other universities, from the fact that, being only an examining body, it does not have to consider the subject of co-education.

A large number of the professors at Cambridge University, and not a few at Oxford, are in favor of university education for women; but doubtless few would think it wise to admit women to reside at those universities as they now are, and to make a just compromise the universities are sending their instruction to the women either by lectures held in the various towns or by a system of correspondence. This allows the women to reside at home and at the same time have the advantages of university instruction, while the especial advantages formerly connected with universities, in the form of libraries, cabinets, and museums, are now found in almost every town. I have explained the system more fully in the paper referred to.

To explain what I mean in giving preference to the English feeling and plans in respect to what I have called consideration for a wellbalanced human development: in many respects the intellectual part of American education is better than that of English education. But in physical education, and in education in the "humanities," we are much behind them.

In the paper previously referred to, and in another to be published in "Scribner's Monthly," I have dwelt more fully than I can here upon the physical education, and I have only time for a word upon the "humanities." In our girls' boarding schools perhaps as a rule time enough is given to teaching the habits and amenities of refined social life, but I do not think this is the case at our public schools, or at our colleges, which have been founded according to the models for our boys' schools and colleges which are in this respect noticeably deficient. In England a university degree is a guarantee for gentle, manly manners and feeling, and so also is a career at the great public schools, and any intellectual training for girls which omitted this would not be satisfactory. Circumstances make this easy in England,

and make it very difficult in America, where children from all grades of wealth and social cultivation meet in the same schools.

I am very glad that public attention is being drawn to the excessive work that our highly educated women do. When a man enters upon an intellectual occupation he gives up his handicraft. If a tailor becomes a lawyer, he does not spend his day puzzling over cases and return to his tailoring at evening, but this is just the sort of thing that most of our educated women do. Women engaged in the ordinary feminine pursuits work in their interrupted and various ways from seven o'clock in the morning till ten o'clock at night, and often without incurring excessive fatigue, but when they do concentrated and severe work in study or teaching, for from six to nine hours in the day, they cannot fill up the rest of the space between seven o'clock and ten with the ordinary feminine occupations without over-fatigue, which is almost certain to induce permanent physical weakness or dangerous mental excitability. With the customs of society as they are in this country, there is not so much danger as among the corresponding classes in our own. Intellectual work is condensed into seven or eight hours at most, and the rest of the time is given to exercise and pleasant pastimes. It would be folly to educate women if education meant self-destruction. But it need not mean this, and will not mean it, when women combine and organize their work and admit machinery and the division of labor principle.

This letter began at the moment I had finished reading yours, and consequently without any plan, and has, I am aware, grown very rambling, still I want to refer to another educational matter still more wide of the mark, — and that is, the advisability of opening Harvard University to women. I do it with hesitation, and yet all the more eagerly because, so far as I know, no one has represented my view. I need not say that I believe in the best possible education for women, and in the duty of society to provide them with the best possible appliances for securing it; on the other hand, my acquaintance with the education of this country has pointed out to me a danger in the future of our education. The great uniformity of our plans has much to be said in its favor; on the other hand, it is the source of defects. We have too little opportunity of comparing the results of different sysNow, I have no doubt that there are some advantages in schools exclusively for boys, and again in schools exclusively for girls, that is, that some things will be better done in boys' schools than they can be done in mixed schools, and other things better done

tems.

in girls' schools than they can be done in mixed schools; and now, as as a means to set a high standard in these specialties, I hope the best girls' schools will keep their place as exclusively girls' schools, and for the same reason I cannot help hoping Harvard will continue to be a university exclusively for men,- that is, I do not think the loss sustained by keeping women out of Harvard will be equal to the loss sustained by giving up the very high standard of masculine education which Harvard will be forced to maintain if it keeps its place against the popular tide; and if President Eliot had taken this ground, I think he would have carried more sympathy with him than he did. I anticipate excellent results from the competition that is likely to exist between the students at Harvard and the students at the Boston University, differing not only in the matter of the co-education of the sexes, but also in following the English university system and the continental university system.

MARY E. Beedy.

LETTER FROM ITALY.

In the May number of "The Review" we published a letter in regard to a very interesting attempt to preach liberal Christianity in Italy, and we hardly need call attention to the following, which tells of the results thus far, and also gives a more complete understanding of the theological position of Prof. Filopanti. The address presented to him, written by Prof. Sbarbaro, one of the most distinguished lecturers in Italy, is perhaps even more significant, as indicating the prevalence among thinking Italians of essentially Unitarian views. We desire that as much as possible may be done to cultivate a sentiment of fellowship between these men and ourselves. Unless we are much deceived from our own observations in Italy, and from such indications as Prof. Bracciforti communicates, there is in that country a great opportunity for liberal Christian effort. At some time we propose to give some reasons for such an opinion. Meantime we shall watch with great interest the progress of Prof. Filopanti, as affording a good test of its validity. The secular papers of Italy speak of him as by no means an eloquent orator, so that whatever success he may have will all the more prove the readiness to receive the truths he offers.

MILAN, April 28, 1874.

Dear Sir, and Brother, My fond hopes of Filopanti's preaching in Rome were disappointed only in this particular, that he was not permitted to speak from the Capitol. The direct or indirect influence of the priests is still so strong, especially in Rome and Naples, that in both cities such a man of science, as Filopanti is, was not only prevented from speaking to the public in the open air, but even denied the use of the great University Hall for his conferences. Then he hired, in Rome, the ampitheatre called "Corea," formerly the Mausoleum of Augustus, and on Easter Sunday preached there, at about half-past four in the afternoon, to a very considerable audience, on the subject of "Duty." In the introductory part of his discourse the eminent astronomer spoke of the will of God as revealed in the immensity of space, and made modern science declare his glory and the heavens proclaim his handiwork. Passing then from the physical to the moral universe, he dwelt forcibly on the duty of free obedience to his will, as it is revealed to man's conscience, above all through the teaching and selfdevotion of Christ. After showing that true liberty rests on the foundation of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, he spoke of the duties of the citizens of a free country, and finally of those of the different members of a family, concluding by an impassioned appeal to fathers, mothers, husbands, children, to walk in the path of Christ, - obedience to God.

The Roman newspaper "La Riforma," which is the organ of our liberal party, or of what would be called in England " His Majesty's Opposition," commenting on this discourse, says, among the rest, "Filopanti, without making Christ dwindle into a graceful moralist, after the manner of Renan, or evaporate into a myth, after the manner of Strauss, does not understand his divinity in the popular orthodox sense of the Symbol of Nice, nor exalts him to identity with the Supreme Being. He assigns to the Founder of Christianity one primary place in the universe, sees in him the highest and most august personification of humanity, and like Channing hails in him the brighest image of God in creation."

The same newspaper reported also an address which was presented to Prof. Filopanti in Rome, as soon as he had finished his conference on "Duty." The address was written by Prof. Sbarbaro, of the University of Modena. The following extracts will perhaps be interesting to your readers :

"In the strength of her religious sentiment the land of Washington recognizes her first and most solid bulwark against the dangers of des