anxious for the development of their sex,
yearning for careers, in fact the vanguard of a new womanhood.
Unfortunately her material was not altogether promising. A few earnest
spirits, such as Maudie Heywood, responded to her appeals, but the
generality were slow to move. They listened to her impassioned
addresses on women's suffrage without a spark of animation, and sat
stolidly while she descanted upon the bad conditions of labour among
munition girls, and the need for lady welfare workers. The fact was
that her pupils did not care an atom about the position of their sex,
a half-holiday was far more to them than the vote, and their own
grievances loomed larger than those of factory hands. They considered
that they had a very decided grievance at present.

Miss Gibbs, acting on the advice of a book entitled _Education out of
School Hours_, was determined that every moment of the day should be
filled with some occupation that led to culture. She carefully
explained that the word "recreation" meant "re-creation"--a creating
again, not a mere period of frivolity or lotus-eating, and advocated
that all intervals of leisure should be devoted to intellectual
interests. She frowned on girls who sauntered arm-in-arm round the
garden, or sat giggling in the summer-house, and suggested suitable
employments for their idle hands and brains. "Never waste a precious
minute" was her motto, and the girls groaned under it. Healthy hobbies
were all very well, but to be urged to ride them in season and out of
season was distinctly trying. One well-meant effort on Miss Gibbs's
part met with particular disapproval. She had decided to take the
girls on Saturday afternoons to visit various old castles, Roman
camps, and other objects of historical and archaeological interest in
the neighbourhood. On former similar occasions she had been in the
habit of delivering a short lecture when on the spot; but, noticing
that many of the girls were so distracted with gazing at the
surroundings that they were not really listening, she determined that
they should absorb the knowledge before visiting the place. She wrote
careful notes, therefore, upon the subject of their next ramble, and
giving them out in class, ordered each girl to copy them and to commit
them to memory.

The result of her injunction was an outburst of almost mutinous
indignation in Form V.

"When does she expect us to do it, I should like to know?" raged
Morvyth. "There's not a mo