The College, it would appear from Lord Granville's speech, has
begun modestly with only twenty-eight students,—though it will accommodate nine times as many. Nevertheless, it would have been very difficult to arrange for any large number at the commencement, while the whole organisation is still in its infancy, and the number is likely to increase quite as rapidly as provision can be made for the growing needs. The trustees have succeeded in securing a first-rate Principal, Miss Bishop, formerly at the head of the High School in Oxford, a woman who, both in learning and accomplishments, as well as in womanliness, will certainly maintain the Princess's high ideal ; and a very able staff of teachers,—all of them women as yet,— are seconding her efforts. Lord Granville, in addressing the students, insisted on the great additional grace which culture adds to the mind of a true woman, and said that the only danger,—the danger of the vanity which learning might inspire,—would disappear with the disappearance of all sin- gularity in the possession by women of men's culture and knowledge. Perhaps Lord Granville's reference to the three great women-novelists of our age, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot, was not altogether happy, since neither of the two first was learned at all, while the last, great as she was in fiction, would probably have written even better novels if she had not been quite so learned. If he had referred to a living novelist, and a novelist of the very neighbourhood in which he was speaking,—Mrs. Oliphant,—he would have hit the
mark better, for she is a woman of exceptionally wide culture, and no one can say that the least pedantry has ever been discerned in any novel of here. However, Lord Granville's drift was sound enough, though his illustrations were hardly the happiest part of his very neat and graceful speech. Lord Thring, the Dean of Windsor, and Mr. Christie, to all of whom the College is deeply indebted for the wisdom of the appointments and the prudence of the regulations, all took part in the proceedings.
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