Page:Thirty years' progress in female education.djvu/20

16 even for the highest promise of intellectual improvement; and in many cases, I am ready to admit, there are domestic duties to be discharged which demand the abandonment of regular study. Multitudes of boys are obliged to leave school early in order to earn their living; and there may be other reasons besides this, requiring a girl to leave school at seventeen. I have no thought of contending that every girl who has no need to earn a living ought to study for a University degree; it is enough for me to plead that trivial reasons should not be allowed to stand in the way of so substantial a good as the prolonged and extended study which may make a life much happier and richer in itself and much more useful to other lives. I hope it is not an accidental circumstance, but a good sign for the future, that we have the promise of a larger class for our first senior year, next October, than the College has ever had before.

You know how utterly destitute of endowment our College is; in this respect we are not much less fortunate than most schools and colleges for girls. The stronger sex has appropriated the endowments of education. But the Council have resolved to offer two scholarships of thirty guineas for two years, to students preparing for the B.A. degree. These will be awarded by examination, if we have any qualified candidates, before the beginning of the October term. If they are not taken this year, no doubt the College will renew the offer next year. In time we may have other scholarships, temporary and permanent, given us by the kindness of friends. If we can do such work as we propose, the traditions of Queen's College ought surely to command for it a generous support.

It was always the idea of this College to give collegiate instruction to young women capable of profiting by it. I see that in its earlier years special courses of Lectures were given, not unlike those which we are now endeavouring to organise, "for the convenience of visitors to London during the Easter term." And we cannot do better, I believe, for our younger pupils than in seeking to establish a higher training for their seniors. It is a proved fact in education, that care for the higher and more advanced training draws up and benefits the lower at the same time. I like to think of a happy period of some twelve or more years spent under the fostering tuition of Queen's College. A child may come