The comparative failure of Girton andNewn ham to compete successfully in th* university examinations should by no means be taken t# be * proof of inferiority on the part »f women Wo can only fairly infer that women are not the equals of men when dealing; with subjects for which men's minds are especially fitted, or when undergoing examinations which have been specially adapted to male students, pro bably a man in a female university, if such a being could be conceived, would labor und«r at least as great disadvantages as women now suffer at Cambridge. In truth, to employ competition *s an instrument to discover whether men are the intellectual superiors of women is as absurd as to attempt to gauge the comparative superiority of Newton and Shake speare by competitive examination. Such a system as that desired by the advocates of the admission of women to the universities can only lead to unpleasant recriminations, and the results which may be expected from its adoption can be seen in the absurd boasts often put forward by over-zealous partisans, who are continually holding up, as proofs of the capability of women for education, achievements which would hardly be reckoned as success in a school of the second rank. The fact that women are capable of considerable mental effort is sufficiently established by the examples of George Eliot, Mrs Browning, Mary Somervilie, and the like ; and the authority of these names does not require to be supplemented by the fact that women can take places in the third class of a Tripos. But the cause of those who advocate competition be tween the sexes is not much assisted by the fact that two ladies' colleges 'have, in seven years, obtained two places in the first class of the principal examinations of the university, while one male college no larger than Girton has had no less than thirty-five firsts during the same period. It should be clearly under stood that the objection to the com petition of women in the universities has nothing to do with, the question as to whether or not women are to be educated. The morbid desire on. the part of some few. wemen for competition with men should not be confounded with the perfectly legitimate aim of raising women's position by education, and increasing their power of benefiting them selves and the world. 