Attempt to Raise a Scholarship to Help Women Through Harvard.

The New York Local Committee on Harvard Examinations for Women desires to raise a scholarship of $6,000, the interest of which shall be applied toward defraying the college expenses of whatever candidate the authorities at Harvard College shall find to have passed the best examination among the women who presented themselves in that year in New York.

These examinations for women are identical with the Harvard entrance examinations for men, are held in New York at the same time with the latter, and both are presided over by the same professor from Harvard. To the private schools of New York they are of great value as forming a standard by which the quality of the teaching may be teased, for, even when candidates fail, the failure gives them and the instructors a clearer idea of the meaning of "accurate" work, and already more than one school has acknowledged its indebtedness to them as having been the means of improvising the character of the school. This renders the examinations of especial interest to the people of New York and very valuable to the parents whose daughters are educated in the private schools, for in order that candidates may be successfully prepared the principals of the schools are compelled to employ capable teachers, and thus the examinations benefit not only the candidates themselves, but also all the pupils attending the schools in which the candidates are prepared. They test the character of the school, and are a guarantee to the public of the quality of the instruction which the school provides.

Although a large number of schools profess themselves ready to prepare candidates for these examinations, practically very few are in a condition to do so, and in many cases the principal, aware of the school's deficiencies, discourages preparation for them. Thus the New York private school girl, in too many instances, passes her school years in acquiring an ill-regulated and superficial mass of knowledge instead of in being trained to those habits of thoroughness which are so necessary to women when called upon to take part in the practical affairs of life, whether as managers of households or as earners of bread. Therefore the committee begs that all who are interested in the education of girls will contribute toward the desired scholarship as a practical encouragement of the examinations.

Such a scholarship would also be of great service to candidates of small means who are desiring to enter college. A candidate who will complete her examination in the coming June, and whose average for the first half of her examination, passed in June last, was over 70 per cent., having fitted herself while teaching for support at a country district school, is now making an effort to obtain sufficient means to enable her to spend some time in collegiate study, in order that she may increase her value as a teacher. Such candidates should be encouraged, and the committee thinks that the best form of encouragement is a scholarship, which may be legitimately earned in a competitive examination.