rivileges attached to these titles. The learned council
discussed, hesitated, tried to decide the question, but finally
left it in a situation which was neither clear nor conclusive.
This hesitancy and vagueness are very significant; a few years
ago a negative decision would have been given promptly and in the
plainest terms.

* * * * *

Portugal is following closely upon the steps of Spain, and, in the
former as in the latter country, it is in the department of
education that the most marked signs of an awakening are to be
found. Rodrigues de Freitas, the well-known publicist and
republican statesman of Porto, says:

There is not a single intermediate school for girls in all
Portugal. In 1883, the Portugese parliament took up the subject
of intermediate instruction, and discussed the question in its
relation to women, and the progress in this direction realized in
France during the last few years. A deputy who opposed the
reform, recalled the words of Jules Simon, pronounced in a recent
sitting of the council of public instruction at Paris. The
philosopher remarked:

We are here a few old men, very fortunate gentlemen, in
being excused from having to marry the girls you propose to
bring up.

Our minister of the interior, who has charge of public
instruction, followed, and declared that he was in favor of the
establishment of girls' colleges. He said:

It is true that M. Jules Simon considers himself fortunate
in not having to marry a girl educated in a French college;
but I think I have discovered the reason for this aversion.
He is getting in his dotage, otherwise he would experience
no repugnance in proposing to such a girl, provided, of
course, that, along with an education, she was at the same
time pretty and virtuous.

The chamber laughed. And such is the situation to-day: the
minister favorable to the better instruction of women, while
neither minister nor deputies make an earnest effort to bring it
about.

This dark picture is relieved, however, by one or two bright
touches. There are many private boarding schools where families
in easy circumstances send their daughters, who learn to speak
several languages, are taught a little elementary mathematics and