Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/997

902 There is not a single intermediate school for girls in all Portugal. In 1883, the Portugese parliament took up the subject of intermediate instruction, and discussed the question in its relation to women, and the progress in this direction realized in France during the last few years. A deputy who opposed the reform, recalled the words of Jules Simon; pronounced in a recent sitting of the council of public instruction at Paris. The philosopher remarked:

Our minister of the interior, who has charge of public instruction, followed, and declared that he was in favor of the establishment of girls' colleges. He said:

The chamber laughed. And such is the situation to-day: the minister favorable to the better instruction of women, while neither minister nor deputies make an earnest effort to bring it about.

This dark picture is relieved, however, by one or two bright touches. There are many private boarding schools where families in easy circumstances send their daughters, who learn to speak several languages, are taught a little elementary mathematics and geography, and acquire a few accomplishments. Some of the pupils of these institutions pass with credit the examinations of the boys' lyceums or colleges. Article 72, of the law of June 14, 1880, on intermediate instruction, reads as follows: "Students of the female sex, who wish to enter the State schools, or pass the examinations of said schools, come within the provisions of this law, except as regards the regulations concerning boarding scholars." That is to say, girls enjoy in the State intermediate schools the same privileges as male day scholars. Many girls have availed themselves of this opportunity and have passed the lyceum examinations.

Crossing the Rhine into the Teutonic countries, we find less progress on the whole, than among the Latin races. Germany, however, if behind France and Italy, is far ahead of Spain and Portugal. The agitation is divided into two currents: the Leipsic and the Berlin movements. The former is the older, the General Association of German Women having been founded in Leipsic in October, 1865. Louise Otto-Peters, the prime mover in the organization of this association, may be considered the originator of the German movement. A novelist of much power, whose stories all teach a lesson in socialism, she established in 1848, the year of the great revolutionary fermentation throughout Europe, the first paper which advocated the interests of women in Germany. The aims of the Leipsic and Berlin re-