"You are all very intelligent, and you all claim to have broad minds, and yet--confess it now--it worries you a little that a girl like me should have studied at college in the same way as yourselves.
It's a sexual quarrel, a question of rivalry and competition, isn't it ?" They protested the contrary, declaring that they were in favour of girls receiving as complete an education as possible.

She was well aware of this; however, she liked to tease them in return for the manner in which they themselves plagued her.
"But do you know," said she, "you are a great deal behind the times?
I am well aware of the reproaches which are levelled at girls' colleges by so-called right-minded people.

To begin, there is no religious element whatever in the education one receives there, and this alarms many families which consider religious education to be absolutely necessary for girls, if only as a moral weapon of defence.

Then, too, the education at our Lycees is being democratised--girls of all positions come to them.
Thanks to the scholarships which are so liberally offered, the daughter of the lady who rents a first floor flat often finds the daughter of her door-keeper among her school-fellows, and some think this objectionable.
It is said also that the pupils free themselves too much from home influence, and that too much opportunity is left for personal initiative.
As a matter of fact the extensiveness of the many courses of study, all the learning that is required of pupils at the examinations, certainly does tend to their emancipation, to the coming of the future woman and future society, which you young men are all longing for, are you not ?" "Of course we are!" exclaimed Francois; "we all agree on that point." She waved her hand in a pretty way, and then quietly continued: "I'm jesting.

My views are simple enough, as you well know, and I don't ask for nearly as much as you do.