The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-21 00:00:00

HIGHER FEMALE EDUCATION.

It may be doubted if anyone has done more harm
to the progress of female education than Miss Becker
and her friends. The idea of the women of the
future becoming " Bloomers " and " mothers of the
modern Gracchi" is so exceedingly distasteful that
any and every kind of progress is in danger of being
scouted. And yet a high-class education does not
include female suffrage, female barristers, or even
female doctors. It is not, indeed, necessary that
one should believe in the intellectual equality
of the two sexes to advocate a higher class of female
education than at present prevails. Two " men of
mark " have this week pronounced in favour of such
higher teaching. To take the " man of title " first,
the Earl of Portsmouth, speaking at a middle-class
school at North Tawton, Devonshire, complained of
the absence of schools for the education of girls of
the middle class. There were schools for boys
now being established almost daily, but girls
seemed almost forgotten. He did not see why this was
so, and hoped it would soon be altered. Canon
Girdlestone distributed the prizes at just such a
school as his lordship had wished for—the Ladies'
College, Bristol. In his speech the rev. canon
declared that in his opinion the tales which were
told as to the intellectual inequality of the sexes
were nonsense. He fully believed that women had
minds as intelligent, as strong, as those of his own
sex, and were consequently as thoroughly capable of
receiving the highest measure of education that
could be imparted. And very energetically did he
advocate that a high education should be provided
for the "fair sex." But he was very severe upon
the notion of "women taking the places of men."
lle declared it impossible and impolitic that they
should do so.

FATHER IGNATIUS.

Mr. Lyno has been giving a lecture upon " The
Christianity of the Low Church Party." The purport
of it was that there was no essential difference
between high and Low in the Church, or even
between Roman Catholics and Dissenters : they all
held the cardinal doctrines of the Faith, the belief in
the Unity and Trinity and the Atonement, and they
all accepted the canonical books. He claimed liberty
for all in other matters. He was himself a
free-thinker outside the Scriptures and the
creeds of the Church, but he was not a free-
thinker as to the truth 4‘ once delivered to
the saints." He maintained that the objections
to the High Church practices were through misap-
prehension. He defended some of these, and was
called upon by some gentlemen present for scriptural
proof. The Rev. C. P. M'Carthy challenged some of
Mr. Lyne's views, and proposed to meet him at a
fitting time and place to discuss them. He acknow-
ledged the kindly spirit in which Mr. Lyne had
prayed, and a hymn was
sdleamlgt.wilth tisheam.
pity He
that
tenthis
young monk, with an
earnest desire for Church work, cannot find some way
of drilling himself to march with his brethren
and agree with his bishop. He certainly
t
cannot be called a bigoted High Churchman ;
but if he thinks the crude, half-formed theories of
his youthful mind will settle the difficulties which
have disturbed Christendom from the Apostolic age
till now, and may continue to divide it till the
millennium, he has much mistaken his abilities and
his mission.