ortunities of leisure for reading, the social demands for
acquaintance with standard and recent works, and the incitement to
reading given through the newspapers, magazines, book reviews, and
lectures of the times, furnish unlimited opportunities for gifted
women to exercise their talents in writing.

It was not until 1861 that women were admitted to all the privileges
and opportunities of art education which centred in the Royal Academy
schools. In that year these were opened to women students. It
is interesting to notice how in almost an accidental manner the
limitations placed upon women were removed. At the annual dinner of
the Academy in 1859, Lord Lyndhurst felicitated those present on the
benefits which were conferred upon all her majesty's subjects by
the Academy schools. Miss Laura Herford, an artist, wrote to Lord
Lyndhurst and pointed out the fact that half of her majesty's subjects
were excluded. This made the discussion of the propriety of admitting
women a kindly one, and a memorial was prepared and signed by
thirty-eight women artists, copies of which were sent to every member
of the Academy, praying the admission of women and pointing out the
benefit it would be to them to study, under qualified teachers, from
the antique and from life. It was regarded as impracticable that
women and men should study life subjects together, and the request was
refused. There was nothing in the constitution of the Academy either
for or against the admission of women. A drawing with the signature
"L. Herford" was then sent in by Miss Herford, and it was admitted
by a letter addressed to "L. Herford, Esq." The question then arose
whether a woman who had been accepted as a man should be allowed to
enter. Miss Herford had her way.

No women had been admitted into the Academy since the days of Angelica
Kaufmann and Mary Moser. The reason for their non-reception, as
assigned by Sanby in his _History of the Royal Academy of Arts_,
and quoted by Georgiana Hill in her _Women in English Life_, is as
follows: "One or two ladies, if elected members, could scarcely be
expected to take part in the government or in the work of the society;
and as the practice even of giving votes by proxy has long since been
abolished, the effect of their election as Royal Academicians would
be, virtually, to reduce the number of those who manage the affairs of
the institution and the schools in proportion as ladies were admitted
to that rank: and as