There should be other paths from elementary and secondary school to the University than that which leads to the teacher's platform.
Moreover, granted that the desire to teach is a real one, and that the girl has aptitude, it ought still to be unnecessary to choose a particular branch of the profession before she has become an under-graduate. A University career means, among other things, the discovery of new powers, new interests, and opportunities; sometimes it brings with it the painful conviction that aspiration has outstripped capacity. The bright girl who has excelled at school, may find that she is unfitted for independent honour work: she is not necessarily worse on that account, but she must substitute some other plan for her ambition to become a "specialist." The slow plodder who could never trust her memory at school, may, at College, discover unsuspected powers of investigation and co-ordination which mark her out for some branch of higher study. The University, the first contact with a more independent and larger life, is the "testing-place for young souls": students should enter its portals as free women, the world all before them where to choose. In many cases not until the first degree is taken, has the proper time come to determine finally the profession which is to be adopted. This is the ideal--for most people admittedly a far away one at present. But even now, the would-be teacher should not be asked to decide earlier than this on the particular branch of the profession which she is to enter. The average pass graduate will do best to fit herself as an all-round form mistress: there should be no reason to determine in what type of school, elementary or secondary. The training required should be the same if the classes were, as they ought to be, of manageable size, and the equipment in both types of institution equally good. Teachers in both kinds of school would benefit if the present absurd division between them ceased to exist. Children under fourteen require similar discipline whatever their social status: even if the subjects taught are to differ somewhat--a matter which is controversial and need not be discussed here--the teachers need similar training and the same kind and amount of academic education. Until these are secured, there can be no real equality of opportunity for the elementary school child: only the very best intellects in the class of 60 can hope to compete with the average individually educated child in the form of 20 or 30--and this is true whatever the merits and enthusiasm of the teacher.