women; or that I wish to see them educated by exactly the same
methods, and in exactly the same subjects, as men. British lads,
on an average, are far too ill-taught still, in spite of all
recent improvements, for me to wish that British girls should be
taught in the same way.

Moreover, whatever defects there may have been--and defects there
must be in all things human--in the past education of British
women, it has been most certainly a splendid moral success. It
has made, by the grace of God, British women the best wives,
mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, that the world, as far as I
can discover, has yet seen.

Let those who will, sneer at the women of England. We who have to
do the work and to fight the battle of life know the inspiration
which we derive from their virtue, their counsel, their
tenderness, and--but too often--from their compassion and their
forgiveness. There is, I doubt not, still left in England many a
man with chivalry and patriotism enough to challenge the world to
show so perfect a specimen of humanity as a cultivated British
woman.

But just because a cultivated British woman is so perfect a
personage; therefore I wish to see all British women cultivated.
Because the womanhood of England is so precious a treasure; I wish
to see none of it wasted. It is an invaluable capital, or
material, out of which the greatest possible profit to the nation
must be made. And that can only be done by Thrift; and that,
again, can only be attained by knowledge.