direction from the college. The method of study is that aptly described as the laboratory method. General directions for work are given in lecture and by means of papyrograph papers and reference lists. With this equipment the student goes to the alcove of the library where the books on her subject are placed, and there gathers the material for class discussion. No textbooks are used, although the best authorities will be most generally read, and the students frequently buy these for their private libraries. It is our purpose to set the student on her own feet intellectually. She is encouraged to follow out lines of special investigation, to read conflicting authorities, and to arrive at an independent judgment. The object of the lecture is not to make the student acquainted with the facts; but to indicate the trend of events, to enable her to grasp the significant results. The continuity of history as the record of the progressive life of mankind is made manifest, and the experience of the past is shown to be vital in every part and full of suggestion for the present and the future of the human race.

The courses are arranged with a view to comparative difficulty. Each course offers a preparation for that which succeeds, and the courses that require a high degree of mental maturity are reserved to the final year of college work. A course in the social and political history of England and the United States is offered as an elective in the Sophomore year. In this first course, the value of events is as carefully indicated as in the later and more philosophical study. In the second semester's work on the United States, the course deals principally with the later and more neglected portion of our national history, the period of the anti-slavery struggle, of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Course II. offers a study of the history of European Civilization. The root elements of that civilization as found in the Roman Empire, are traced in their persistence through medieval barbarism, and studied in detail, as, in their modified forms of monarchy, feudalism, democracy, they become the shaping factors of modern political development. This course includes a study of the Reformation in its national aspects and in its reflex influence on Roman Catholicism. The teacher of history has no more important task to-day than to present the epoch of the Reformation as it actually was and to secure an impartial examination of both Protestant and Romanist authorities. Partisan misrepresentation of the

facts has no place in a broad and sound education. A sectarian version of the Reformation can serve no wise purpose, but must pervert and belittle the grand issue of that general emancipation of human thought.

Course III. is the history of modern Europe. Beginning with the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia, the class studies the power and possibilities of monarchy as illustrated in Louis XIV., Frederick II., and Peter the Great, the weakness and failure of that system as illustrated by the Succession Wars and Louis XV., the revival of democracy in the French Revolution, and the varying fortunes of popular government in the nineteenth century.

A course in Oriental Civilization emphasizes the peculiar features of European civilization, while setting forth the contrasting traits of Eastern life and thought.

The technical study of methods of government in their development, is reserved for the Senior year. To students who have done successful work in Course II., an elective is offered in the constitutional history of England and the United States. In the work on the English constitution, Stubbs, Hallam and May are the authorized reference books. These are illustrated by chronicles, charters and all contemporary records within our reach. Here, as elsewhere, the student's tendency to look upon past events as quite remote from the life of to-day is counteracted by constant reference to events within her own experience. The suffrage legislation of the fifteenth century is contrasted with that of the nineteenth. The study of the history of party culminates in a parliamentary debate on the Irish question, in which English political leaders are personated by members of the class. In discussing the origin and development of the government of the United States, the vexed questions of state rights, negro suffrage and reconstruction policy are treated without partisanship. The students read impartially Webster and Calhoun, James G. Blaine and Jefferson Davis, and Northern and Southern girls debate these mooted questions with great good temper, and gain broader and juster views of national policy.

The course in Political Science offers opportunity for a more theoretical study of methods of government, as illustrated by ancient and modern experiment. This work is offered only to those who have completed the course in constitutional history

above described. The student is made responsible for a large amount of original work, dealing with the materials at first hand, and presenting theses on topics of discussion suggested by the instructor.

The work in Economics is offered to students of the Junior and Senior year. The first semester is devoted to the study of economic theory, mainly in its presentation by John Stuart Mill, but no one author is relied upon as an exclusive authority - Fawcett, Sedgewick, Walker, etc., are freely used. Malthus, Ricardo and Bastiat are referred to, each in his turn, as the best exponent of his own peculiar theory. The history of economic science in its development, and the conflict of the schools form subjects of special investigation at the close of the first semester's work. In the second semester, the class undertakes the study of practical problems. Certain commercial and financial questions such as the tariff, currency and coinage, the function of the state in relation to labor, are discussed as live issues in American politics; but the problems to which most time is given are those that affect the moral and social as well as the economic well-being of mankind. Believing that women are to exercise a large influence in the direction of social and industrial betterment, we purpose to enable our students to discover the causes of vice and misery and to estimate the wisdom of the various schemes for reform. To this end we discuss the nature of competition and its power for good and evil, the causes of pauperism and methods of relief, the uses and abuses of public and private charity. Various forms of philanthropic work are investigated, the students being detailed to visit and report upon accessible institutions. The vicinity of Boston is rich in opportunity for personal observation and the students enter into the work with keen interest. Among the topics of investigation assigned last year were the Associated Charities, Industrial Schools, the Working Girls of Boston, and various coöperative and profit-sharing establishments. The mid-year examination of 1889-90 was upon the results of personal examination of different factories made by the class during the holidays. We discuss the theory of profit-sharing and coöperation, and their practicability as tested by experience. The various Utopian schemes of social reconstruction, so amply illustrated in the United States, are examined and the reasons for their failure determined. Christian socialism, scientific socialism, nationalism and anarchism are

studied with a view to determining the inherent strength and weakness of each. Such a treatment of economic problems carries us so far beyond the confines of the so-called science of wealth that the work of the second semester approaches the field of social science. Indeed it might well be termed a course in social economics.

The work in History and Economics is frequently supplemented by courses of lectures from men of repute in these departments. In the present year, provision is made for four lectures from Dr. John Bascom on the Relation between Social Science and Economics, and for twelve lectures on the French Revolution by Dr. Andrew D. White.

Whether women are to exercise political power is still an open question. That they are to be entrusted with a larger share of responsibility for social and economic well-being is evident to all who read the signs of the times. To fit women for active service to educate them to take broad and dispassionate views of the issues in which their influence is to be effective — to enable them to be tolerant and just in their action on the temperance question or the textbook question, or the servant question - this is the end and aim of preparation for citizenship at Wellesley College.

THE NORTH LONDON COLLEGIATE AND CAMDEN SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.

A

BY MRS. H. E. MONROE.

IV.

MONG my cards of introduction was one to Miss Frances M. Buss, Superintendent of a Girls' Collegiate School, which prepares students for the London University and for Girton. Miss Buss kindly invited us to see the annual distribution of prizes, to be given out this time by the Princess Christian, the third daughter of the Queen. Accordingly, on June 13th, we went to the school, which is situated at the crossing of Sandell and Camden Roads.

It is always a pleasing sight to see young girls, with their pretty dresses and bright ribbons, flitting about, but the scene was made quite picturesque by the young school mistresses" who had taken

degrees, wearing the robes which their scholarly attainments have so nobly won. Mrs. Bryant wore the scarlet gown with lemon colored facings, denoting a Doctor of Science of London, while several quite young women wore the black gown with brown facings, denoting that they had taken the degree of B. A., given by the London University. One wore the black robe with cream colored facing, the B. Sc. degree of London. One robe with white fur facings, marked a B. A. of the Royal University of Ireland. Inasmuch as the gentlemen who have distinguished themselves in scholarship are entitled to wear these gowns, it was very pleasant to see these scholarly young women wearing them.

Before the Princess entered, a handsome crimson carpet was spread along the hall. It was a fitting emblem of her path in life compared with the hard road trodden by the earnest teachers, whose faithful work she had come to honor.

The Princess entered fifteen minutes late, ascended the platform, accompanied by a lady-in-waiting, and Miss Butts, and a large concourse of gentlemen. She was immediately welcomed by a young gentleman who was almost overcome by the honor thrust upon him of speaking to a live princess, and the words, "Your Royal Highness," seemed to begin, continue, and end the address, through which he stammered frightfully. I was afterward informed that he was Head Master of one of the finest schools in the kingdom, and is a scholar of great renown, but his speaking was far from pleasant.

The Princess gave out the prizes as Miss Buss designated; the girls who were to receive them passing rapidly in front of her, each one courtesying low, so that the right knee seemed to nearly or quite touch the floor. They looked happy, and were plainly dressed. The exercises did not last over twenty minutes.

The young gentleman again thanked the Princess in the name of the school and teachers, to which she bowed her acknowledg ment, but made no audible remark. As she passed out, the school sung spiritedly, "God save the Queen."

The Princess is a middle-aged, plain woman, with dark complexion and hair, and gray eyes. She looked about forty years old, and was dressed in a plain walking dress, with a little bonnet to match.

To my American ideas she should have said a pleasant word, so that all could hear, to the teachers and students. But the