tual satisfaction and self-development.
Therefore, surely, by far the most satisfactory function of higher
education for women is that which it discharges in reference to these
women. Their destiny being determined by their nature, and irrevocable
by nurture, it is well that, though we cannot regard it as the highest,
we should make the utmost of it by means of the appropriate education.

Only because sometimes we must put up with second bests can we approve
of higher education for women other than those of the anomalous
semi-feminine type to which we have referred. At present we must accept
it as an unfortunate necessity imposed upon us by economic conditions.
So long as society is based economically, or rather uneconomically, upon
the disastrous principles which so constantly mean the sacrifice of the
future to the present, so long, I suppose, will it be impossible that
every fully feminine woman shall find a livelihood without some
sacrifice of her womanhood. This is a subject to which we must return in
a later chapter. Meanwhile it is referred to only because its
consideration shows us some sort of excuse, if not warrant, for the
higher education of woman, even though in the process of thus endowing
her with economic independence, we disendow her of her distinctive
womanhood, or at the very least imperil it; even though, more serious
still, we deprive the race of her services as physical and psychical
mother.

We have seen that there is just afoot a new tendency in the higher
education of women, and it is indeed a privilege to be able to do
anything in the way of directing public attention to this new trend. In
reference thereto, it was hinted that though this newer form of higher
education for woman is a great advance upon the old, and is so just
because it implies some recognition of woman's place in the world, yet
for one reason or another it falls short of what this present student of
womanhood, at any rate, demands. As has been hinted further, probably
those responsible for the new trend are by no means unaware that, though
their line is nearer to the right one, the direct line to the "happy
isles" has not quite been taken. But great is Mrs. Grundy of the
English, and those who devised the new scheme--one is willing to hazard
the guess--had to be content with an approximation to what they knew to
be the ideal. That is why we devoted the last chapter to the question of
prudery, inserting that between a discussi