Sts,—The article " Women's Minds," by Miss Elizabeth Dunn, in
last week's Spectator is a terrible indictment of our schools. For our schools must be to blame.
Travel by 'bus, or train, with any group of girls from a Secondary School. Listen to their conversation. Is there the slightest indication that they are being taught to read? None whatever—their books are all " text " books—however charmingly disguised—a means to an end, and that end the School " Cert.," or Higher " Cert." There is no time to read anything for its own sake—no time to browse.
And in our Public Boarding Schools, where—with no daily joi”--w-- no home "chores," there should be time to read, what do we find? There lie before me at the moment two letters from girls being educated at well-known schools. One is from a little girl of thirteen, at the end of her first term: " I am afraid I just haven't read one book this term: you see, there is no time. In our House there is a rage for 'Racing and you can't read when everyone is screaming over that." This little girl when at home had been a great reader, from time to time she had brought me her reading lists, and I had been amazed at the width of her reading and her wise criticisms.
The second letter is from an older girl, who was taken away from a smaller, homely school, where she had spent hours in the library reading every available biography. " In my eyes the House system stands con- demned for this alone: here are thirty of us, of all ages. We spend all our spare time in one sitting-room. Apart from `prep.' I never have one quiet moment in which to read ; there is not even five minutes' silence
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