t present.
Important changes have been made of late years, and still greater
ones, so the reformers say, are pending. Formerly, if a girl was to be
educated at all she went to a _Hoehere Toechterschule_, or to a private
school conducted on the same lines, and, like the official
establishment, under State supervision. When she had finished with
school she had finished with education, and began to work at the
useful arts of life, more especially at the art of cooking. What she
had learned at school she had learned thoroughly, and it was
considered in those days quite as much as was good for her. The
officials who watched and regulated the education of boys had nothing
to do with girls' schools. These were left to the staff that managed
elementary schools, and kept on much the same level. Girls learned
history, geography, elementary arithmetic, two modern languages, and a
great deal of mythology. The scandalous ignorance of mythology
displayed by Englishwomen still shocks the right-minded German. If a
woman asked for more than this because she was going to earn her
bread, she spent three years in reading for an examination that
qualified her for one of the lower posts in the school. The higher
posts were all in the hands of men. Of late years women have been able
to prepare for a teacher's career at one of the Teachers' Seminaries,
most of which were opened in 1897.

More than forty years ago the English princess in Berlin was not
satisfied with what was done in Germany for the education of women;
and one of the many monuments to her memory is the Victoria Lyceum.
This institution was founded at her suggestion by Miss Archer, an
English lady who had been teaching in Berlin for some years, and who
was greatly liked and respected there. At first it only aimed at
giving some further education to girls who had left school, and it was
not easy to get men of standing to teach them. But as it was the
outcome of a movement with life in it the early difficulties were
surmounted, and its scope and usefulness have grown since its
foundation thirty-eight years ago. It is not a residential college,
and it has no laboratories. During the winter it still holds courses
of lectures for women who are not training for a definite career; but
under its present head, Fraeulein von Cotta, the chief work of the
Victoria Lyceum has become the preparation of women for the _Ober
Lehrerin_ examination. This is a State examination that can only be
p