However, I must not trespass longer on your time and kind patience, and with repeated thanks, I remain,
Yours very gratefully,
S. Jex-Blake.”
This subject of the education of girls had been brought prominently before her mind by the breakdown of a rarely gifted young friend. S. J.-B. had some great talks on the subject with Miss Buss and others, and she wrote to various papers about the danger of over-pressure. “The headmistresses have a difficult problem before them,” she says, “but it has got to be faced.”
As a matter of fact the problem was destined to be solved abundantly in due course by the development of games and physical culture generally,—all that side of life for the lack of which she herself had suffered so terribly.
She was specially interested, of course, in the daughters of her old friends, and, of these, Hermione Unwin and Katie Ballantyne held a special place in her regard. To the former she writes:
“July 29th. 1884.
My dear Hermie,
Thank you for sending me your examination papers. I am very glad that you passed so successfully. What now interests me most is to know to what use all this work is to be turned, for after all knowledge is noblest when it becomes an instrument of work beyond itself. Have you any tastes or wishes, or any thought of any special kind of work?
I daresay that after all this study the best thing you can do is to rest on your oars for six months or a year, but during that time I hope you will be thinking in what way you can turn yourself to best account. There is so much that needs doing in the world, and it is such a privilege to help in the doing of it. I hope you will write and tell me when you have any definite thoughts on the subject.