Page:The Higher Education of Women.djvu/146

 yet need an occasionally recurring stage within sight, as an allurement to draw them on, and to help them in their struggle with the temptations to indolence which lie thick about their path. The fact of having an examination to work for, would not only be a stimulus to themselves, it would also serve as a defence against idle companions, whose solicitations it is hard to refuse on the mere ground of an abstract love of learning.

The want of examinations for women is not a new discovery. So long ago as 1841, Dr Arnold wrote to Mr Justice Coleridge:—'I feel quite as strongly as you do the extreme difficulty of giving to girls what really deserves the name of