mistresses are not by any means their own
masters or mistresses therein. They are
subject to the visits, control, and interference
of troublesome persons, called Government
Inspectors of Schools. The inspectors can
come at any time; can (and do) penetrate
into the dormitories at ten o'clock at night,
to see that all is right, and that the usher
on duty is in his proper place, instead of
abroad in the town. They can examine
the kitchen, question the pupils, inquire
into the medical attendance, and moreover
can summarily close the establishment,
if things do not go on, or at least promise
to go on, in a way they can approve. The
inspectors enter into little matters which
many people might think they would hardly
notice. Thus, Our Boys and Girls have
occasionally got up and acted, in their respective
schools, little dramas, mostly in French,
as a harmless application of private theatricals.
The girls' comedies were played and
witnessed only by themselves; but when the
lads performed their dramas, they were glad
to have a girls' school (comprising sisters
and cousins), as audience on the benches
before them; and they also themselves
personated the female characters, appearing on
their stage in female costume. No public,
or anything approaching to it, was admitted.
Well, the inspectors forbade the visits of
the young ladies, disapproving any general
meeting of the kind between a boys' school
and a girls'; they also prohibited any future
assumption of feminine attire by boys, under
whatsoever theatrical pretence it might be
made. The French inspectors would thus
stop the Westminster play, had they the
power, and would extinguish the representations
of Terence, which have so often
received the approving smile of nobility and
even of royalty.

I don't agree with the inspectors (any
more than I do with anybody else) in
everything. We used to have nice little half-
yearly balls, before breaking up, or to open
a new school-campaign. Basketfuls of evergreens
were brought in from the wood; with
these the girls and their governesses dressed
up the school-room in tasty fashion, with
wreaths and garlands, converting it into an
elegant ball-room. It was an excellent lesson
in domestic decoration. On the happy
evening, there was a grand muster of muslin
robes, satin ribbons, and smiling young faces.
The males honoured with an invitation were
staid masters and professors of accomplishments,
sober members of our bourgeoisie,
and a selection from the lads' academy, mostly
brothers or relatives of the lady-pupils. And
then there was a cheerful dance, with proper
forms, training young people to drawing-room
ease and the habitudes of society; and then
there was an excellent substantial supper,
with all that reasonable boys and girls, or
their elders, can require. There was much
good, and, I think, no harm, in those meetings
of the respective establishments for opposite
sexes. But, the inspectors have forbidden
them. The girls may have dances among
themselves, and that is all. Still, pupil-
concerts may be given, and masculine hearers
allowed admission; also, boys who have
sisters among our girls, are allowed to visit
them, under proper superintendence, once a
week—oftener, in case of illness or emergency.
But, I wish that the inspectors,
instead of forbidding such balls, had put their
veto on the reception, by ladies' schools, of
parlour-boarders: that is, of ladies of any age
from fifteen to fifty, coming with any
indefinable object not actually reprehensible.
A girls' school ought not to be a lady's
lodging-house to any extent, not even to the
least. Many a parlour-boarder, who may
not personally deserve a word of reproach,
has still experienced too much, knows too
much, perhaps suffers too much, to make her
a desirable companion for school-girls, whose
thoughts should be otherwise occupied than
by an inquisitive striving after stolen peeps
at the external world of good and evil. Let
the girls have their school friendships, their
school excitements, their school sorrows; but,
it is not convenient that their sympathies
should be excited by Mrs. Lackaday, whose
husband is gone to Australia; by Miss
Tantarum Flasheye, whose friends don't know
how to employ her time at home; or by
poor pitiable Mrs. Pincher, of limited income.
For those ladies, and their like, there should
undoubtedly be a refuge somewhere, but
certainly not in the same household with Our
Girls. Let me add that in the apparently
harsh injunction of forbidding the boys' and
the girls' schools to meet in private balls at
their own homes, the inspectors assuredly
deserve credit for no more than an honourable
anxiety to do their duty; they take the
prudential and precautionary course; they
avoid the possible abuse of a harmless
indulgence; they feel bound to prevent the formation
of all dangerous attachments, or even of
such acquaintances as parents might consider
undesirable. In this they do but carry out
the social and educational etiquette of France;
and for the English friends of children, it is
a great guarantee to know that such jealous
supervision is exercised. The chances of
culpable neglect, of harshness, or of
continued ill-treatment in a foreign country, are
much less in pensionnats like those of Our
Boys and Girls, than is the case with pupils
intrusted by twos and threes to private tutors
and governesses. It would be impossible for
any of our schoolmistresses to become a
Céléstine Doudet; I beg their pardon for
putting such a hypothesis, even as a
suppositious case.

For, in respect to punishment, if we err,
it is on what I must consider the right side
—the side of forbearance. So far am I from
holding with the dictum, "Spare the rod
and spoil the child," that I believe there are