themselves
society must inevitably run to ruin. In 1843 there was established a
certain Governesses' Benevolent Institution. This was in its inception a
society to afford relief to governesses, i.e., women engaged in
tutoring, who might be temporarily in straits, and to raise annuities
for those who were past doing work. Obviously this would suggest the
question of what a competent governess was; and this in turn led to the
demand for a diploma as a warrant of efficiency. That called attention
to the extreme ignorance of the members of the profession; and it was
soon felt that classes of instruction were needed. A sum of money was
accordingly collected in 1846 and given the Institution for that
purpose. Some eminent professors of King's College volunteered to
lecture; and so, on a small scale to be sure, began what is now Queen's
College, the first college for women in England, incorporated by Royal
Charter in 1853. In 1849 Bedford College for women had been founded in
London through the unselfish labours of Mrs. Reid; but it did not
receive its charter until 1869. Within a decade Cheltenham, Girton,
Newnham, and other colleges for women had arisen. Eight of the ten men's
universities of Great Britain now allow examinations and degrees to
women also; Oxford and Cambridge do not.

[Sidenote: Women in the professions.]

Since then women's right to any higher education which they may wish to
embrace has been permanently assured. As early as 1868 Edinburgh opened
its courses in pharmacy to women. In 1895 there were already 264 duly
qualified female physicians in Great Britain. In many schools they are
allowed to study with men, as at the College of Physicians and Surgeons
at Edinburgh; there are four medical schools for women only. We find
women now actively engaged in agriculture, apiculture, poultry-keeping,
horticulture; in library work and indexing; in stenography; in all
trades and professions. The year 1893 witnessed the first appointment of
women as factory inspectors, two being chosen that year in London and in
Glasgow. Nottingham had chosen women as sanitary inspectors in 1892.
Thus in about two decades woman has advanced farther than in the
combined ages which preceded. Before these very modern movements we may
say that the stage was the only profession which had offered them any
opportunity of earning their living in a dignified way. It seems that a
Mrs. Coleman, in 1656, was the first female to act on the stag