mother, and one
of the great needs of our home life seems to me to be the more intimate
acquaintance and influence of the father.]

FOOTNOTES:

[28] It is a little curious that Shakespeare even in his age has made
these three finest types of women "reading women." Portia was highly
educated, Miranda the companion of her learned father, and Imogen sits
up late at her book.

[29] The well-educated woman physician should be the friend and
counselor of the mother during this anxious period. It seems a strange
fact, but it is one, nevertheless, that the nearest family tie does not
always lead to perfect freedom and confidence, and a wise stranger can
often give the help that even a mother cannot. The physician should here
be, not the _mediciner_ to disease alone, but the guardian of health;
and the wise woman who has her own experience to guide her, as well as
the learning of the schools, can speak with an authority which will be
respected when that of the mother fails. Quite as often, perhaps, she
will have to shield the daughter from the unwise demands which the
ambitious mother makes upon her, as from her own vanity or love of
pleasure.

[30] Dr. Carpenter says in his _Physiology_: "From the moment when an
Indisposition is experienced to keep the mind fixed upon the subject,
and the thoughts wander from it unless coerced by the will, the mental
activity loses its spontaneous or automatic character, and more exertion
is required to maintain it volitionally during a brief period; and more
fatigue is subsequently experienced from such an effort than would be
involved in the continuance of an automatic operation through a period
many times as long. Hence he has found it practically the greatest
economy of mental labor to work vigorously when he is disposed to do so,
and to refrain from exertion, so far as possible, _when it is felt to be
an exertion_."

"Of course, this rule is not applicable to all individuals; for there
are some who would pass their whole time in listless inactivity, if not
actually spurred on by the feeling of necessity; but it holds good for
those who are sufficiently attracted by objects of interest before them,
or who have in their worldly circumstances a sufficiently strong motive
to exertion to make them feel they must work--the question with them
being, _how_ they can attain their desired results with the least
expenditure of mental effort."

[31] There lately died near Boston, a woman of e