CONTENTS. PAGE Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke-Margaret More- Mary Granville-Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. INCHBALD.-CHARLOTTE BRONTË.—SARA COLERIDGE. F the old adage be true that "the boy makes the IF man," the converse, I suppose, must also be true, that the girl makes the woman. For my own part, I am inclined to think that there is greater truth in the latter form of the saying than in the former; the girl, as she grows up, being less exposed to those external influences which shape and mould the character than the boy. Her development takes place within the secure shelter of the family circle, and she seldom comes into contact with the world until she has reached womanhood; when she goes out to meet the stress and strain of daily life with her character matured and "set." It is a common remark, that at eighteen a maiden is for the most part a finished woman, with all a woman's readiness of resource, quickness of judgment, and capacity of self-control; whereas, at that age, the majority of lads are very young men indeed, "raw," wayward, and "boyish." I have known many boys whose after careers have wholly falsified the prognostications founded on the experiences of their boyhood: the meek and gentle scholar of Rugby has hardened mysteriously into the brilliant Anglo-Indian trooper, always foremost in the desperate charge; the dull apathetic lad, at the bottom of his "form," constantly suffering the infliction of "repetitions" for carelessly prepared or forgotten lessons, has ripened into the astute special pleader or alert civil engineer. But I have always found the promise of girlhood fulfilled; I have always found the woman what the " girl" foreshadowed she would be—what the influences to which as a girl she was subjected, and the training which as a girl she underwent, very clearly indicated what she would of necessity become. For though there may be differences of opinion as to the range and force of woman's intellect in comparison with that of man, all, I suppose, will agree that it is more plastic, more easily affected by the conditions under which it expands. Most teachers will acknowledge that girls are more easily taught than boys; their receptiveness is greater, and their perceptiveness is quicker. They learn and retain more readily, and therefore they are more readily led in any particular direction. Because |