han we do. This is, perhaps, quite as much due to the fact that
they neither hear nor read anything but good English, as to the careful
drill in English composition given in English schools. I am speaking now
of the intellectual attainments of the very large proportion of the
women in this upper class; but among them are women, forming a
considerable class, with whom we have very few to compare, and none to
equal the best. But these highly educated women do not owe their
attainments to the schools and governesses. For the most part, they are
the daughters of learned men, by whom they have been taught, or they
have kept along with their brothers, who were getting "honors" at the
public schools and universities. If women have once studied enough to
create an intellectual appetite, the privacy of English homes,
especially rural homes, furnishes great facilities for fostering it. In
regard to the school habits of girls under eighteen, I quote the
following statements, from the letter of a teacher whose opinion and
practice respecting these matters would be received with as much
authority as that of any person in England:

"1st. We insist upon plenty of sleep. Our oldest pupils go to bed at
nine o'clock, the younger ones at eight or half-past eight; and none
rise before six. We have no work before breakfast. We allow no later
hours, and no omission of out-door exercises when preparing for
examination.

"2d. We do not allow them to work immediately after a meal, and after
dinner we have no lessons (recitations), except music and dancing, and
no heavy study.

"3d. We regularly secure from one to two hours' exercise in the open
air, and we never keep them too long at one occupation; but they must
work vigorously while they are about it.

"4th. We make a great point of warm clothing and careful ventilation of
the rooms.

"5th. The intellectual work is not allowed to exceed six hours per day;
and if more than one hour is given to music, the other work is
diminished.

"6th. Each girl is watched, and little ailments are attended to."

This schedule represents the general practice in the best schools and
under the best governesses, and the poorer schools differ mainly only in
this, that they permit more dawdling work. In a few schools, girls who
are a little older, or are exceptionally strong, are permitted to exceed
the six-hour limit of work; but the general habit and feeling would be
so much against it, that, as a rule,