s possible.

She even helped to teach the children herself, as she found great
difficulty in finding good assistants. She wished to convince the
Government that her methods were right, and so persuade them to set
up schools of a similar kind throughout the country.

The great Lord Shaftesbury was her chief supporter, but it was not
until the year 1854 that Mary Carpenter succeeded in her desire, when
a Bill was passed establishing reformatory schools. From this time
her influence rapidly increased, and it is mainly owing to her
efforts that at the present day such precautions are taken to reform
young criminals on the sound principle of "prevention is better than
cure."

Mary Carpenter also visited India no fewer than four times in order
to arouse public opinion there to the need for the better education
of women, and at a later date she went to America, where she had many
warm friends and admirers. She had, as was only natural, been keenly
interested in the abolition of negro slavery.

One of the most distinguished women in literature during the
Victorian Age was Harriet Martineau. At an early age it was evident
that she was gifted beyond the ordinary, and at seven years old she
had read Milton's "Paradise Lost" and learnt long portions of it by
heart.

Her health was extremely poor; she suffered as a child from imaginary
terrors which she describes in her Autobiography, and she gradually
became deaf. She bore this affliction with the greatest courage and
cheerfulness, but misfortunes followed one another in rapid
succession. Her elder brother died of consumption, her father lost
large sums of money in business, and the grief and anxiety so preyed
upon his mind that he died, leaving his family very badly off.

This, and the loss later on of the little money they had left, only
served to strengthen Miss Martineau's purpose. She studied and wrote
until late in the night, and after her first success in literature,
when she won all three prizes offered by the Unitarian body for an
essay, she set to work on a series of stories which were to illustrate
such subjects as the effect of machinery upon wages, free trade, etc.

After the manuscript had been refused by numerous publishers, she
succeeded in getting it accepted, and the book proved an
extraordinary success.

She moved to London, and her house soon became the centre where the
best of literature and politics could always be discussed. She was
consulted even