should like to speak with more insistence, and that is the neglect into which the teaching of handwriting has fallen in these latter days. I know that clearness and neatness are aimed at, but what is too frequently forgotten is economy of labour. Girls, and boys too for that matter, are no longer taught to write a clear, round hand with the least possible expenditure of energy; they are not taught to hold their pen properly, to keep the hand in a free uncramped position, and to write from the wrist. Consequently, when they are required to write at great speed for a good many consecutive hours, the muscles are fatigued by unnecessary exertion, and the effect soon shows itself both in the writing and the writer. This is no imaginary danger. Where there is nervous weakness, or any tendency to writer's cramp, no more effective means could be taken to develop this most fatal hindrance to a commercial career than just the way in which the majority of girls are allowed to write.

Could not something be done, say up to the fourth form in High Schools, in the way of definite writing lessons? This would include practically all the girls likely to be intended for business, for the few who entered so late and so far advanced as to be placed at once in higher forms would be too exceptional to call for special treatment. And whilst I am on this subject, may I put in a plea for insistence by arithmetic teachers upon clear and definite figures? It is a small point, but a world of future trouble is avoided by the girl who has learned clearly to indicate the difference between a three and a five, and who has grasped the fact that a seven ought to be something more than a meaningless stroke.

For the lower walks of business, then, the high school system seems tolerably well adapted. I am a

little more doubtful about the higher ones. It turns out girls who are systematic and orderly, but I have yet to learn that it turns out girls who are resourceful. Perhaps this is to ask too much. It may be that life itself is the only teacher of resource, and it is not fair to attribute to a system what is chargeable to human nature. The girl who can think, the girl who is interested in life and in literature, that is the girl who will go furthest, even in the dullest of professions, and who, moreover, will be the least in danger of succumbing to its dullness. And so I return to my original statement, the best education of women for business. is simply the best all-round education to be procured. What the high schools need to convert their system into this ideal preparation it is not for me to say; better material to work upon perhaps, fresher minds amongst their teachers, or possibly a simplified curriculum leaving greater scope for outside reading. But here I become so painfully conscious of my own inconsistencyI, the advocate of lessons in hygiene and handwriting -that I must hastily abdicate from the position of critic and take my seat amongst the ranks of the learners.' JANET HOGARTH.

Indexing: A Profession for Women

I have been asked to tell you something about my work-indexing; and more particularly about indexing as a profession for women. In thinking over how I should best say what I have to say in

Miss
Nancy

Bailey the short space of time set apart for these morning lectures, I have kept in mind a passage in one

In an article in the Fortnightly Review, December 1897, entitled The Monstrous Regiment of Women,' Miss Hogarth deals with the Business Training of Women at greater length.

of Mr. Chamberlain's speeches, in which he says that he had only one ambition in making a speech, and that was to express in the fewest possible words and with the utmost clearness the views he had upon the subject.

First then, lest I should weary you and lead to no useful result, I have decided to deal as briefly as possible with uninteresting details. Not that the uninteresting details in indexing are few-I warn you at once that indexing, like all work when it is analysed, is nothing but details, and most of them are uninteresting. It is only in viewing the finished result that we can delight in it as a whole, and lose sight of the weary hours spent in its accomplishment.

I am often asked how it was that I came to think of indexing as a profession for women-let me tell you how it came about. For some years I had been employed in indexing Hansard.' During that time I had many opportunities of discovering the uselessness of the majority of indexes that were published, and at the same time I saw that the need for good indexes was beginning universally to be recognised, and that the difficulty of getting one made by a person who had studied indexing as an art was insuperable. I made inquiries and found that as a rule indexes to books were made by clerks in the publisher's employment, clerks with no experience or training in indexing, and the results were, as may be imagined, deplorable. To meet the need for reliable indexes I determined to open an office. Upon the Hansard' contract completing its three years' agreement the work fell into other hands, and I was free to carry out my idea. My office has now been in existence about four years, and during that time I have completed something like 300

indexes. As showing the range and importance of subjects dealt with I may enumerate some of the works I have lately indexed: Nansen's Farthest North,' 'Science of International Law,' 'Strand Board of Works Minute Books,' 'Royal Commission on Mining Royalties,' Royal Commission on Land in Wales,' 'Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing Laws,' and 856 vols. of Hansard,' beginning with the reign of William IV., and continuing down to 1890; this last named important piece of work I may say is in progress. A considerable number of lesser indexes have been dealt with, including 'Pearson's Weekly,' 'The Gentlewoman,' 'The Artist,' and other periodicals, papers, and books.

You all know what an index is, but have you ever realised what it should be? The patient public had grown accustomed to that makeshift thing at the beginning or the end of a book, which they had practically to read through before they could ascertain upon what page of the text they would find the particular passage they wanted. And then they might be misled. For instance, there is the well-known case of a book in Ireland, in the index to which appeared the heading 'Snakes in Ireland.' Upon turning to the page of the text to which this referred you found the brief but satisfactory sentence, There are no snakes in Ireland.' A properly constructed index always appeals to me as a perfect skeleton of a book; and as an expert naturalist can tell from the skeleton what fur, or hide, or scales, and what talons, or teeth, or wings an extinct animal had, so should an index give an expert reader full insight into the text.

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But while the expert reader-the literary personmay see thus far, it is not for that person alone that

an index is prepared. One of the greatest objects to attain in index-making is to facilitate research for the ignorant as well as for the learned. To this end subjects must be broadly grouped under certain main headings where the learned will look for them, and must be cross-referenced in their own alphabetical position for the benefit of the ignorant. The whole world must be borne in mind in constructing an index. I have just said that subjects must be broadly grouped-let me add that the question of subject headings is one of the most difficult to deal with; it is one to be observed as far as possible, it is never to be slavishly followed as a fixed rule. As an elementary instance of this let me remind you of that now celebrated index in which appeared as a subject heading 'Mill,' and under it as sub-headings 'John Stuart,' and under that on the Floss.' May I ask you to turn with me for a moment to the consideration of the new sphere of work that is opened up by offering to the public reliable indexes at reasonable rates?

Time is money,' says the proverb, or the copybook (I can never distinguish between the two, but there is some quality of sense in both). In these days the saying is certainly true and the public knows it, and therefore, having realised that there is great saving of time in having minute books, papers, business transactions, newspaper-cuttings and innumerable other things properly indexed, indexing has become necessity in works of any importance. And this must grow, since he who has no index loses time, and cannot compete on equal terms with his wiser rivals.

a

The introduction of a Bill into Parliament was even contemplated to deprive an author of the privilege of copyright, if he published a book without an index.