en still earlier. The unfortunate child in the elementary school
used to be compelled to make her choice at the age of twelve
or thirteen, often to find later on, when the first barriers of
pupil-teaching and King's Scholarship were surmounted, that she
was not really suited to her profession or that continued study
was uncongenial. Even now, when the system is different and better,
children are bound too early by a contract they find it hard to break.
It cannot be too often insisted that every intelligent child who
is worthy of a junior or senior scholarship, is not therefore of
necessity predestined to the profession of teaching--a profession so
arduous, so full of drudgery and of disappointment that it should be
entered by those only who are sure of their mission, and full of the
spirit that makes learning and teaching a lasting joy.

There should be other paths from elementary and secondary school to
the University than that which leads to the teacher's platform.

Moreover, granted that the desire to teach is a real one, and that
the girl has aptitude, it ought still to be unnecessary to choose
a particular branch of the profession before she has become an
under-graduate. A University career means, among other things, the
discovery of new powers, new interests, and opportunities; sometimes
it brings with it the painful conviction that aspiration has
outstripped capacity. The bright girl who has excelled at school,
may find that she is unfitted for independent honour work: she is not
necessarily worse on that account, but she must substitute some other
plan for her ambition to become a "specialist." The slow plodder who
could never trust her memory at school, may, at College, discover
unsuspected powers of investigation and co-ordination which mark her
out for some branch of higher study. The University, the first contact
with a more independent and larger life, is the "testing-place for
young souls": students should enter its portals as free women, the
world all before them where to choose. In many cases not until the
first degree is taken, has the proper time come to determine finally
the profession which is to be adopted. This is the ideal--for most
people admittedly a far away one at present. But even now, the
would-be teacher should not be asked to decide earlier than this on
the particular branch of the profession which she is to enter. The
average pass graduate will do best to fit herself as an all-round
for