The Approaching Festival Of The R.M.I. For Girls.

THE APPROACHING FESTIVAL OF THE R . M . I . FOR GIRLS .

THE Ninety-fourth Anniversary Festival of the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls will take place at Freemasons' Tavern , on the evening of Wednesday , the 10 th May , on which occasion his Royal Highness the Duke of Conuaught , K . G ., Past Grand Senior Warden , will

preside . It will not surprise our readers when we tell them that a Board of Stewards , which can boast of Lord Lei gh , Prov . Grand Master of Warwickshire , as its president , Sir John B . Monckton , President of the Board of General

Purposes , as its acting President , and Brother Joshua Nunu P . G . S . B ., President of the Lodge of Benevolence , as its Honorary Treasurer , is likely to turn out an unusually strong one , and our hopes of a heavy subscription list are , as a matter of course , of a commensurately sanguine hue .

His Royal Highness has already fulfilled the important duties of Chairman at a Festival of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys , and though the circumstances of the year he did so were so unfavourable as to prevent the announcement of a total that was formidable beyond

the average of recent years , yet , nnder his kindly influence , a sum of something like £ 11 , 000 was realised . This year we seem to be , commercially , somewhat better circumstanced than we were in 1878 , and it is most probable , therefore , under the circumstances , that the Duke ' s

advocacy of the claims of this admirable Institution on the support of the Craft will bear more abundant fruit than at his former essay . When his brother , Prince Leopold Duke of Albany , presided at the Festival of this School in 1880 , Bro . Hedges had the good fortune to be in a position to

announce receipts considerably in excess of £ 13 , 000 , and Brother Terry was similarly fortunate when the same member of the Royal Family undertook to preside at the Festival of the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution , though , as ill-luck would have it , His Royal Highness at

the last moment was unable , through indisposition , to carry into effect his kindly intention , and his place was supplied by the late Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot , Prov . Grand Master Staffordshire . Equally marked have been the successes achieved at those of our Charitable Anniversaries at

which our Grand Master has presided , and hence we are justified in auguring from these facts a very satisfactory result on the eventful Wednesday week , when the merits of the Institution at Battersea are set lucidly before the waft b y the most illustrious of the Past Grand Senior hardens of England .

As is our custom , we shall now proceed to lay before p " . Readers a brief summary of the claims which our wis School has on the benevolence of the Craft . Though _ ,. , ! we are desirous of exhibiting the strictest

impartiality in dealing with oar three Institutions ; and ongh we always endeavour to speak of them as being Schl deservin g of support , we cannot but allow that the ma * i * Batfcersea Rise has some slight advantagesa » y will regard them as beim ? imnerinarv . rather than

Wn"Fn at 17 tan ^ value—over its sister Institutions at enco AI Cv ° y - Ifc has been longer in exist' ™ t , w still more to the point , its inmates belong

The Approaching Festival Of The R.M.I. For Girls.

to the fair sex , and most brethren are ready and willing to cry out " way for the ladies . " These are points , however , to which we need not make more than a passing allusion . If its existence had endured for only thirty-four years , instead of ninety-four , the magnificent work it is doing

would secure for it not only our respect , but our active aympfithy and support likewise . An Institution which has a permanent income of greatly less than £ 2 , 000 per annum , and yet is bold enough to undertake the maintenance and education of 235 girls , stands out before the

world as one that righteously demands the substantial aid of the body to which it owes its existence , and which , as regards the female children of its poorer and deceased brethren , it so substantially benefits . We are not of those who think the policy of extending the operations of this

School , which has been pursued of late , is altogether a judicious policy . We would rather see it well furnished with means of its own , and would rather strengthen the

investments than add to the number of the pupils . But once a policy has been accepted , we as loyally uphold it as if we had been its originators . Hence , as there are now 235 scholars at Battersea Rise—all of them nice , and we

hope and believe good , " girls dressed in blue" —it is clearly the duty of the brethren to maintain the School at that strength , and supply out of their private means what , over and above the permanent income , is necessary towards such maintenance . As a correspondent of ours

lately remarked , there has lately been an abnormal expenditure of something like £ 20 , 000 on the purchase and erection of new buildings , and it is not so very long since the School numbered only 150 pupils instead of 235 . All this , however , is now matter of history , and what we have

to do at the present time is to point out that the School , enlarged as it has been to its present dimensions , needs enlarged support in order that it may be maintained at its now normal stafe of efficiency . One sufficient reason why the appeal of the Duke of Connaught on Wednesday must , and we believe will , be responded to with exemplary

liberality . Then , having our School and its youthful inmates , we must not lose sight of the good that is being done . If we take six years as representing the average length of time which each girl , remains an inmate of the Institution , it

follows that some forty girls are annually sent forth into the world to fight the battle of life . Thanks to the excellence of the training , both moral and educational which they have received , they enter on their several careers with

everything in their favour . When they are grown a few years older , and are likely to enter into the married state , they are exactly the kind of women that will make comfortable homes for their husbands . The training they

undergo includes the useful as well as the ornamental , and as was recently noted by a chairman at one of its Festivals , the cleverest cook in the School was a practised and highly intelligent musician . To know that its money is being so

advantageously expended is another sufficient reason for a still more liberal contribution than in past years at the Festival of next Wednesday week , while a third will be found in the fact that the majority of those pupils who submit themselves for examination at the Oxford and Cambridge Middle Class Examinations do so with credit to

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